I was furious. I felt completely violated. This was exactly what IT Security had told me simply wasn't possible. I had to once again suppress my anger when the woman walked into my office. I had half expected her not to turn up. Perhaps it would have been better if she had not. I could barely look at the woman whose eyes had seen an unknown amount of my private correspondence. "Miss Bell," I said.
"Mr Eckhart," she said.
"You work in auditing, is that right?"
"Yes sir." There was not even a hint of guilt on her face.
"Well, I have to say, you're quite the little go-getter," I said, wondering how long it would be before she broke down.
"Well, if you look at my employee progress reports you'll see very high marks for initiative."
I saw that dropping hints was not going to work. "Yes, I'm not surprised, seeing as how you accessed my private email."
"I felt that what I uncovered warranted the risk of bypassing my immediate superiors," Miss Bell said, seeming like she had rehearsed this little speech.
"And what exactly did you uncover?"
"During an internal audit I stumbled across several anomalies. Inconsistent equipment appropriations, unlogged mainframe time, altered supply requisitions. All pointing to one conclusion."
"Unauthorised research in Genomex labs," I said.
Miss Bell smiled smugly. "Indeed."
"That's a very serious charge."
"So, you understand why I had to bring it immediately to your attention."
"Absolutely. And do we know who's involved and what they're doing?"
"I'm following several leads, sir. Rest assured, I will find the culprit."
"Your diligence will not go unnoticed."
"Thank you, sir."
As she walked out of the room, I realised I still had no solid answer as to why she had hacked my email account. But if the consequences were that we would oust a dangerous renegade from our number, perhaps this would be a small price to pay. If not, Miss Bell was going to face severe consequences herself.
"Mr Eckhart," Miss Bell said when she returned to my office. She immediately took a seat, uninvited. "I believe I have tracked down the source of the unauthorised research. But I still don't have irrefutable evidence."
"You're new to the inner workings of our organisation, Karen. The GSA's criteria for determining guilt is rather less stringent than you'll find out there." We shared a smile for a moment. "When can I expect some results?"
"Well now that I've narrowed the field, I'm monitoring computer activity. When the suspect opens incriminating files, I'll gain full access and establish culpability. At that point, I'll inform you, and you can initiate seizure," Miss Bell said, clearly quite pleased with her little plan.
As she spoke, I circled around her chair and then paused to stare at her. It was just a matter of moments before she'd get unnerved. It was one of those moments where another boss might have been accused of harassment. But I would never use my power in that way. Although, admittedly, something about Miss Bell's reckless optimism made it impossible not to be drawn to her. She did glance away, but the self-confident smile never left her face. "Or you can initiate seizure," I suggested.
"Me, sir?" Miss Bell said, surprised.
"I assume your ambitions lie beyond the auditing department."
"Well, yes," she said, standing up.
"I'll arrange for a couple of GS Agents for you," I said, turning away from her. And impulsively, I added, "Good luck."
"Yeah," she said softly as she left my office.
I was already irritated by other matters, so when Miss Bell returned only to tell me of her failure, I had little patience. So her reckless optimism had slapped her in the face, big surprise. "That was sloppy, Karen. He should never have gotten away," I said.
"I had no idea they were new mutants, sir," she shot back with equal venom.
"If you want to work in the big leagues, you have to do your homework and know who you're dealing with," I said, keeping my back to her.
"Mr Eckhart, obviously you were not aware that Richard Saunders was a new mutant either."
I turned around to see that she was still hovering in the doorway. "I have information from his files," she continued.
"Are you trying to win me over again, Miss Bell?"
She smiled and took a step into my office. "Richard Saunders was working on a process to reverse new mutancy."
I stepped towards her but folded my arms, cautiously optimistic. "Do we have a formula?" I asked. This could turn the tide of our battle. Imagine, if I could reverse the mutations of all the new mutants, I'd be branded a national hero. Okay, perhaps not publicly, but certainly within the secret service.
"He only kept half on his work computer," she said, smiling.
Miss Bell was not stupid, she knew what I was going to say next. "Well locate him. Bring me the other half."
She nodded. I wondered if it was overly pessimistic of me to assume she'd fail.
"Mr Eckhart."
"Miss Bell."
She had dared to walk into my office and join me in staring out of the window. This was a perfect display of her absurd level of audacity.
"I've got something interesting."
"Mm hm?" I said, doing my best not to show that she had rattled me. She clearly still thought she could charm me.
"A friend of mine works at the medical examiner's office. During a Jane Doe autopsy they found DNA they couldn't identify."
"A new mutant?"
"Definitely."
"The examiner's opinion is that her DNA was recently altered."
Our eyes finally met. "I want that body transferred to my laboratory as soon as possible."
I was impressed by how swiftly Miss Bell worked. The body was transferred to Genomex in a matter of hours. Oh how useful it was to have friends in convenient places.
"I'm always impressed with how comforting death looks," I said as I and Miss Bell stood over the corpse. Death was a possibility that I contemplated often. With my state of health, it was less of a possibility and more of a looming probability.
I was also rather impressed by the way Miss Bell flinched at neither my comment nor being in close proximity to a dead body.
"Do we know the cause?" I asked.
"The coroner's report attributes it to an unexplained shutdown in her central nervous system."
"Somehow connected to the genetic alteration."
"I cross-referenced her DNA with other strands in the Genomex system."
"Tell me."
"It matches the code Richard was working on."
We were silent as we both looked down at the dead body, which was exactly the jigsaw piece that we were seeking.
"Then all that remains is to retrieve Dr Saunders," I said.
Miss Bell smiled at me, again with the reckless optimism. "Well, sir, I could-"
"After what happened last time? I think not." With that, I turned and stalked out of the room.
"I'm certain I can do it Mr Eckhart, if you just give me the chance," Miss Bell was virtually chasing me as I walked past the stasis pods.
"You're a bureaucrat Karen, not a GS Agent."
"I think I have proven to you that I'm a lot more than an auditor, sir."
"Leading a GSA raid is much more complex than chasing down some wayward data on a computer," I said, finally stopping and turning to face her.
"It's about strategy, determination, and a cold hearted will to succeed. All of which I possess."
I rolled my eyes. I simply couldn't argue with such unbridled enthusiasm. "Oh all right, Miss Bell, take your best shot."
"You won't regret this, sir," she said, flashing me another winning smile.
"I just hope you don't," I said after she was out of earshot.
Sometimes I think I could give precognitive new mutants a run for their money. Miss Bell and her team of GS Agents returned all too quickly from their mission.
She had already gotten on my bad side for circling around to my side of my desk in the vain hope that getting closer to me would make me consider her less harshly. If she thought this was the case, clearly she had learned nothing from reading my emails.
"Mr Eckhart, I want to apologise for failing to capture those new mutants," she said, her tightly clasped hands the only sign of uneasiness.
"And, um, how do you plan to make up for that?"
"Actually, I think you were right in your assessment of me," she said.
"That you're just a bureaucrat at heart?"
"I'd like to go back to my station, sir."
I regarded her for a moment. "Unfortunately at the GSA, there is no going back. Say goodbye, Karen."
"W-W-where am I going?" she demanded, and my whole body flashed hot with terror as she grabbed my arm.
It took all of my reserves of strength to calmly remove her hand from my arm and turn to look deliberately over my shoulder at the people in their pods below. The security staff were already approaching her as I said, "To your rightful station."
"What? You've gotta be kidding!" she cried, pressing her hands to my window and smearing it with the grease and dirt from her hands in exactly the way I abhorred. "No!"
I would have security throw her in a cell and keep her waiting for an extended amount of time. Perhaps send a medical technician to do a basic examination of her physical condition. But whether I would actually follow through with my threat, I had yet to decide. What use was there in keeping an unremarkable human in an extremely expensive state of stasis for an interminable amount of time? Besides, after such an experience, a member of staff would likely drop their ambitions of climbing the ladder and loyally toil away in the same position until they either die of old age or lose the will to live. I smiled to myself and weighed up the options.
This was a much easier dilemma than how I would deal with Richard Saunders still being on the loose. I still wanted for a second in command who was capable of taking care of such matters. I would do it myself if it was not for my state of health. But thanks to Adam, I was forced to rely on other people. I glanced at the fingerprints Miss Bell had left on my window. Other people were inherently infuriating.
It was brought to my attention at a later date that Richard Saunders had died. Karen Bell was able to exonerate herself somewhat by gaining information on his cause of death from the coroner's office. Unexplained shut down of the central nervous system. The same as the other new mutant who had received his treatment. I immediately shut down the project studying the half of Dr Saunders's formula that we had in our possession. I had no need for something else that would kill new mutants in an overly suspicious way. We had enough of those already.