15.
Sam's mind was running at a pace that was several multiples of the speed of light as she thought through the implications of all she'd just learned.
After the initial revelation, she'd taken the next logical step and traced the money.
Her instincts proved sound as she discovered that the money being laundered through Elias Clark had come from Mia's accounts. More troubling was clear evidence that the money had come from a series of large deposits originating from the Genovian Treasury.
Sam knew that Mia cared deeply for the Genovian people so it was unthinkable that she'd do what she was being framed for. On the other hand, the Viscount and his skank niece had every reason to steal billions while implicating Mia in the process.
The clinical part of her mind had to admit a certain kind of brilliance behind the devious plan.
Framing Mia, forcing her to abdicate, while installing Nichole on the Genovian throne was fucking evil but also quite efficient.
As her mind turned towards solving Mia's problems, something about Nichole's relationship with Gregg kept sticking in her brain.
She rolled the thought around in her head until she finally figured out what was bugging her.
"Was Miranda playing up to Andy the same way Nichole was doing with Gregg?"
Sam could feel Emily's eyes studying her intently, but she could not spare a moment to explain her thoughts, nor was she sure she should.
She didn't want to believe Miranda capable of such deception, but she could not dismiss the idea out of hand. She took a moment to review all she knew about Andy's new paramour.
Two years of slumming it.
The loss of her wealth, her reputation, and her girls.
She could not reconcile the woman she'd met with someone who'd willingly be separated from her children.
Then there was how Miranda and Andy met. Miranda had come incredibly close to dying that night.
She used the combination of her eidetic memory and exceptional visualization skills to recreate Andy's description of the events of that night in stunning detail. In her mind, she positioned Miranda, Andy's Bentley at the location where the incident occurred.
She paused the scene just as Miranda began to step off the curb. She looked around easily recognizing this section of road. Andy had left work late, as usual, so she dimmed the light level by several lumens.
There was another detail she was missing; she thought to herself. Then it came to her; it had rained almost immediately after the near-miss. She added storm clouds to the scene which dropped the light level close to nighttime levels. She looked around the scene again and it was clear to her that only the combination of Andy's extraordinary visual acuity and her preternatural sixth sense could have prevented a far worse outcome.
"Miranda had every intention of dying when she stepped off that curb," Sam concluded.
Further, she knew that not even the best actress in the world could fool Andy's strong intuition.
She ran the scene forward seeing Andy's command to Jimmy, the big sedan's Brembo brakes engaging, the sound of the Perrelli tires as they tried to gain purchase on dry pavement.
She could find no fault with her conclusions as she watched Miranda collapse to the ground in front of the large sedan. Miranda had been damn lucky to have avoided death or serious injury.
She came to the only possible conclusion; Miranda was not deceiving her best friend.
She opened her eyes and was faced with Emily's blue eyes locked on hers.
" Where did you go?" the older woman asked.
" I was trying to figure something out," Sam answered.
"If you could trust my mother," Emily speculated.
The surprised look on Sam's face all but confirmed Emily's guess.
"If I hadn't been there for every agonizing second of that farce of a custody hearing and if I didn't know Miranda the way that I do; then I might be asking the same questions you are."
Sam's opinion of the other woman ticked up several levels, as few people could follow the workings of her mind.
"I don't believe your mom is working against us. She explained her reasoning, revealing much about how her mind worked than she did with most people she knew. There was something about Emily that made Sam trust her.
She knew that behind her layers of armor Emily wore, lay a kind heart. She smiled to herself feeling more certain than ever that she knew the perfect person for her new friend.
"What's next?" Emily asked.
Sam looked at her watch and winced at how late it was. She thought through what needed to be done and how long it would take. She concluded that they needed help, luckily she knew exactly who to ask.
She just hoped they would be willing.
"We go see a friend," Sam responded.
The young woman took a few moments to pull the hard from the laptop she'd been using.
Sam gathered her things stowing everything but the laptop in her messenger bag.
Let's go," Sam prompted heading for the door pulling along in her wake.
Once outside, Instead of heading toward her motorcycle, Sam veered towards the water. Emily caught up just in time to see the hacker toss several thousand dollars worth of computer hardware into the Hudson.
Emily gave Sam a curious look, causing the hacker to roll her eyes before she said, "Come on, rookie."
Emily frowned, feeling vaguely insulted.
As the walked back Sam explained the reasons for over the top security precautions. Emily wasn't sure she understood completely but felt less bothered by Sam's previous comment.
"So where's this friend of your live?" Emily wanted to know.
Sam pointed to the nearby Brooklyn Bridge, prompting Emily to respond, "Brooklyn at this time of night."
Sam's melodic laughter filled the late-night Mahnahttan streets until they make it back to her Harley.
Twenty minutes later, they pulled to the curb in front of the type of building that passed for posh in gentrified Brooklyn. The burrow was now the "it" place for Millennials with money. Particularly to ones who did not want to appear as if they were filthy rich.
Emily rolled her eyes at the pretentiousness of wanting to appear unpretentious. Besides she was a Manhattan Girl all the way.
"I should warn you, they are not going to be happy we are showing up on their doorstep," Sam warned.
"They, how many of them are there?"
Sam laughed again, "The person we are going to see presents as a man. I'm not sure if it's because they are non-binary, trans or just trying to hide their identity but, given that you and I are about to trespass on their territory the last thing I want to do is piss them off by using the wrong pronoun."
Emily could not disagree with the wisdom of that statement.
Sam locked down her bike, and the pair headed towards the building's front door. Sam entered into a brief conversation with the building's doorman, then palmed the man a hundred dollar bill.
Emily shook her head as he turned to them, greeting them like they'd lived in the building for years.
They stepped into the elevator; then Sam pushed the button for the 12th floor. She one again questioning the wisdom of showing up unannounced, but Invictus was one of only a handful of hackers with the talent that could match her own. She also happened to know that the hacker had built a fully anonymized gigabit network that would be highly valuable for tonight's activities. Sam rang the bell then crossed her fingers, hoping that the next few moments would not become a complete disaster.
Invictus opened the door and glared at Sam.
"What the fuck are you doing on my doorstep, Athena."
"Nice to see you too Vic," Sam said, pushing past her fellow hacker.
Emily moved quickly afraid that she would find herself on the wrong side of a slammed door.
The red-head smirked to herself, finding it amusing that the living space before her was so similar to Sam's own industrial chic.
"Find something funny," They said, turning their glare towards Emily.
"Let's play nice," Sam said, trying to de-escalate things a touch.
"You show up at my place uninvited with a civilian, and you are telling me to play nice," Vic spat back.
Emily frowned knowing for certain this time that she'd just been insulted.
"I think the fact that I showed up on your doorstep at all would tell you how serious the situation is," Sam said soberly.
"You got cops chasing you?" Vic asked while pulling up security cams showing the outside of her building, the lobby, and the hallway.
Sam nodded her head, appreciating their cautious nature. She held up her hand, assuring the other hacker that she would never do something so reckless.
Vic was only marginally mollified, but they still wanted to know, "What are you doing here, Sam?"
"Touche," Sam thought as Vic revealed that she too had done her homework.
"The civilian is Emily Charleton. She and I are trying to stop some people who are willing to commit murder to get what they want."
"Who are they trying to murder?" They asked.
"My Mother," Emily answered.
When Vic gave Sam a questioning look, Sam took the story from the top.
Vic stayed silent as Sam with Emily's assistance gave her the full backstory then began explaining what had happened over the past week.
When Sam relayed tracing the black box in Miranda's apartment to Cosima Niehaus and Delphine Cormier's lab, Vic let out a gasp.
Vic reached up and ran her hands through her short hair, dislodging her hoodie in the process.
This time it was Sam's turn to pull in a sharp breath seeing Vic's face clearly for the first time.
"Is Cosima your sister?" Sam asked before she could stop herself.
Vic gave her a no shit look but chose not to elaborate.
Emily looked between the two hackers, quickly losing patience with whatever subtext was happening here.
"Look these people tried to kill my mother, and now we think they've turned their attention towards Sam's girlfriend," Emily said.
"Girlfriend?" Vic asked.
"That's another long story," Sam said.
"So will you help us or not?" Emily asked.
Vic gave Emily withering glare pulling a joyless laugh from Miranda Priestly's former first assistant.
"Save that glare for someone who never worked for the Bitch in Heels," Emily said, giving them back as good as she got.
Vic shrugged their shoulders then said, "What do you need me to do."
Their eyes lit up as Sam explained her plan to undo Mia's supposed embezzlement.
"Let me get this straight; we're going to reverse every fraudulent transaction and make it look like it never happened," Vic summarized.
"How long do we have to do it," Vic added.
When Sam didn't immediately answer, Vic shook their head.
"Tonight," they said, answering their own question.
"Before the sun comes up," Sam confirmed.
Emily lost track of the conversation as the two hackers dropped into "hacker-speak" discussing each step in the process in detail.
"We'll need to simultaneously hack twelve different corporations and five financial institutions including three in the Cayman Islands," Vic said outlining the scope of the task at hand.
"And the treasury of one European county," Sam added for good measure.
Sam was happy to see that instead of being discouraged, Vic's eyes lit up with the impending challenge.
Vic went to their rig and pulled up their own hacking program and began typing furiously. Sam stood over their shoulder, reviewing Vic's code line by line. She smiled, liking the direction they were headed. She retrieved the second of her one-time use laptops. She did her normal preparation then set up next to Vic typing just as fast as her fellow hacker.
For her part, Emily made her way into the kitchen and started coffee brewing. After giving both hackers a dose of caffeine, she sat on Vic's couch. The enormity of the day finally caught up with the PR wizard, and she was soon asleep.
Hours later, Invictus and Athena traded places then began reviewing each other's code. They both knew that they would only get one chance at this, so it had to be perfect. They both looked at each other with increased admiration as neither programmer could find fault with each other's code.
Sam typed," Execute," on her screen, prompting Vic to do the same.
"On the count of three," Sam said, hovering a finger over the enter key.
Athena counted off the numbers with both hackers pressing enter at the same moment.
"Now, what?" They asked.
Sam started to answer when she remembered her original mission. She explained to Vic what she and Emily, outlined her plan, then went to search for her missing companion.
She found the petty red-head sleeping on a nearby sofa.
When a look of consternation passed across Emily's face, Sam wondered if she was having a nightmare.
"Oh God, Sam," slipped from the other woman's lips as her face transitioned from distressed into sheer bliss.
Sam could feel a blush creep up her cheeks knowing she just witnessed Emily having a dream induced orgasm. Her blush deepened further as she realized the older woman had been thinking about her at the time.
Sam stood and headed for the kitchen, not wanting to embarrass the other woman. She started a new pot of coffee, making sure to make enough noise to draw Emily from her stimulating slumber. Sam handed the sleepy woman a cup of coffee as she strolled into Vic's kitchen.
"We could use your help," Sam said then retreated to give the other woman some time to come fully awake.
Emily joined Athena and Invictus in the latter's work area. All three of Vic's screens flashed lines after line of what she could only guess was computer code. Sam's laptop was doing the same thing, making her assume that things were going to plan.
"So, what are we doing now?" Emily inquired.
Sam explained that they were changing focus back to their original problem then explained the timeline that she and Emily had developed for Vic's benefit.
"So we need to build a bulletproof story for what Miranda has been doing for the past two years," Sam explained.
"I've had some experience making someone disappear, but they were not as famous as Miranda Priestly, Vic said.
Sam wanted to hear that story but respected the other hacker enough not to ask.
"My point is that Miranda's fame will be a complicating factor in explaining her disappearance," Vic said.
Emily spoke, feeling more on solid ground for this discussion.
"There are two easy ways for a celebrity to disappear. One is distance from the gutter press.
They are notoriously lazy and won't travel long distances just to get a story when there are so many stories in New York or Los Angeles.
Two is when a celebrity is no longer a celebrity. When they press loses interest in you that's pretty much it.
I've seen it happen, when an actor stars on one too many shitty movies or when an actress reaches some arbitrary age where she is no longer considered fuckable.
The problem as you so accurately pointed out is that Miranda's fame will only increase as she re-emerges, so our story has to be airtight."
"There is a third alternative," Sam said, drawing Emily and Vic's full attention.
It was close to dawn as Vic escorted Sam and Emily to her front door. They thanked the hacker for all of their help then made their way out onto an empty street.
Sam dropped Emily off at her place, watching to make sure the older woman made it safely into her building. The red-head looked back at her and gave her a small wave before walking away.
The look on Emily's face was so heartbreakingly vulnerable that Sam's heart went out to the other woman. She climbed back on her bike and pulled into traffic, hoping to get a few hours of sleep before going to see Andy.
She was too tired to see the black SUV as it merged into traffic moments later.
Fortunately, the rear-facing camera that fed a heads up display inside of her helmet showed Sam that she'd picked up a tail. She reviewed her memory but could not recall seeing the vehicle before now. She took a right, a left, then another right but the menacing vehicle was still on her trail. She smiled to herself as she activated a carefully concealed radar jammer. Next, she flipped a switch putting the bike into race mode. As she made the next turn onto the FDR highway, she dumped the clutch pushing her bike forward at an alarming rate. She hunkered down as her bike went from 20 to 80 mph in a little under three seconds.
She backed off slightly once her speedometer crossed 100. She let an eye drift towards the rear camera view and found nothing but the empty road behind her. She kept her speed up around a long bend in the road then slowed just enough to take the next ramp. Back on surface streets, she quickly spotted what she was looking for then maneuvered her bike into a nearby parking garage.
She parked the bike then used her phone to purchase a month's worth of storage time. She ditched her leather jacket then reached into her saddlebag to pull out her favorite Red Sox hoodie. She folded her jacket and pushed it and her helmet into the left saddlebag. Next, she pulled the hoodie over her head, making sure to leave the hood up. She put her bike into hibernation, disabling all of its systems for now.
She did not like abandoning one of her prized possessions, but there were bigger issues at play right now. She hit the street, looked both ways but saw no evidence that she was still being followed.
She turned uptown and began walking casually as if she had no cares in the world. Her feigned casualness disappeared as three black SUV's sped past.
"Dammit," she said as the last of the three braked hard.
She moved fast, turning into a nearby alley hoping to disappear into the night. Once she was fully out of view from the street, she began to run. As she picked up speed, she thanked her dad for gracing her with long legs and her mom for providing her with the ass necessary to move said legs faster than most.
She heard a squeal of tires indicating the large SUV had reached the mouth of the alley. She redoubled her efforts reaching the other end of the alley a few moments later. She was about to break out into the street when she spotted a mirror hanging from the side of one of the buildings. She checked the mirror and found no SUVs or men in black waiting ahead for an ambush. What she did see was a large dumpster sitting just outside of the ally.
She moved behind the large rolling dumpster as an idea began to form in her mind. She pushed her shoulder against the hulking block of steel and felt it move a few inches. She looked up to check the mirror and found her pursuers about three-quarters of the way down the alley. She took one last look to judge speed then began a countdown in her head.
As she reached zero, she pushed the dumpster as hard as she could. Her timing proved perfect, as the SUV smashed into the metal dustbin. Sam was off and running, not even bothering to check the results of her handy work. When she did not hear squealing tires, she assumed that her gambit had been at least partially successful.
She took the next ally, then a left onto the next street. Two more alleyways led her to the stairs of the Bowery Street Station. Down in the subway, she jumped on the first train, not really caring where it was headed.
She let out a sigh of relief as the doors to her train began to shut. Her relief was short-lived as a burly arm appeared between the closing doors. Sam backed away from the entrance as four large men came into her train.
She moved back into the aisle, wanting to cut off their ability to get behind her. As the first man entered into the narrowed space, she mentally calculated her options as she waited for the one she'd just dubbed taserface to make the first move. He came for her, so she reached into her pocket, pulled out her taser, and shot him in the face.
She dropped the taser as the one she'd just labeled brokedick lept over his fallen compatriot. When he landed with his feet shoulder-width apart, Sam reared back and kicking him square in the balls. Instead of falling to his knees so she could kick him in the head, the man grimaced in pain but stayed on his feet.
She took another step back working on her plan b to deal with the man who she now thought of as eunuch. She feinted left, causing eunuch to move to his right. As soon as she saw the majority of his weight was balanced on his right leg, she kicked out hard, forcing his knee to move in ways it was not designed to go. Eunuch's howl of pain as he went down, signaled that he was now out of the fight.
Next, she turned her attention to two-broke-wrist, who was currently hopping from seat to seat in an attempt to outflank her. As he lept past, she reached out a hand, caught hold of a pant leg and yanked, causing him to topple. Both wrists snapped as he predictably used his outstretched arms to protect his face.
She turned her focus to the last of her would-be attackers. The one that she now thought of as the-smart-one had hung back unwilling to move into her version of the Thermopylae pass.
Unfortunately for him, she'd been taught long ago that when in doubt you go on the attack.
Sam lowered her head and charged right at the-smart-one. As she drew near the man readied himself to absorb her blow so that he could pull her into a bear hug and end the fight quickly. Instead of doing the predictable, at the last moment, Sam threw herself to the left, grabbing a nearby pole, then using her momentum to slingshot around kicking not-so-fucking-smart-after-all square in the head. As he dropped to his knees, Sam finished him off with a roundhouse kick to the jaw.
A quick check of the closest window revealed the train was pulling into the next station. She went and retrieved her dropped taser then moved to leave the slowing train.
Before the doors to the train opened, Sam had a thought. She moved back towards not-so-fucking-smart-after-all then rolled him onto his back. She turned out his pockets and came out with a passport. She flipped it open then swore to herself.
" Genovian diplomatic passport, what the fuck," Sam thought to herself.
She slipped the passport into a pocket then pulled out her phone and opened WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging app. She sent a message to the only other person in Genovia she knew she could trust.
AN: Back from a mini-vacation and I'm ready to write. Thermopylae pass is a real place where a small number of Greek Spartans held off a superior force of Persian's by forcing them through the narrow pass.
A little more Emily/Sam sexual tension in this chapter. Although nothing will happen between the two, I still like the dynamic between them. Further, I am setting up something nice for our favorite red-head ex Runway employee in the near future. So don't expect Emily to be alone for long.
This was my first attempt to write a non-binary character, so I'm sure I got some things less than perfect, so feel free to point out how I could do it better in the future.
I guess if you didn't know Sam was a badass before then you know it now. Quick on her feet but with the brawn to take on whatever comes her way. Of all the characters I've imagined into life, She's my favorite.
Overall, I'd say we are approaching the halfway mark. I know where this is going from here, to be honest, I've known this part of the story better than I knew the beginning. There is quite a bit of action to come, but I will try to drop in a little mindless fluff or a funny line or two to try to break up the tension.
What do we think so far?
Any guesses on where we are going from here?
Thank you all for hanging with me so far. I am really looking forward to continuing this story and bringing it to a satisfying conclusion.