I've Been Byrned
"Where have you been?" Kendra asked as Max came into Jam Pony. Max stopped her bike in front of her locker and shrugged.
"Why?" Max asked, noticing Kendra's slightly more tense posture. That, and she rarely showed up at Jam Pony.
Kendra looked around for a minute before her eyes went back to Max. "There were some people that came by."
Max's eyes grew dim. "Who?" She asked.
Kendra shook her head. "I don't know. But they had suits on and they didn't look like they were selling pots."
Max nodded. "What did they say?"
Kendra shook her head and some of her hair fell from its place. "Nothing, really. I mean, they were really quiet. Just asked me if I had seen anyone suspicious."
"Weird." Max said, closing her locker.
"Do you think you can hide forever?" He said, grimacing. The blood from the gash on his forehead had dried, but talking still made it hurt. "They're gonna find me. And you."
He said it to no benefit. But he said it anyways.
"You can run all the time. Sooner or later….you'll get tired." His voice got silent towards the end.
"Shut your trap." She said, walking through the shadows. "You're here because I need a few answers. Otherwise, you're useless to me and to your department. Trust me when I say that they don't give a damn about you."
Robinson shook his head. Somehow, he knew she was right, but he didn't want to believe it.
"I know what you're thinking. You're trying to delude yourself into thinking that the department and the whole FBI care about who you are and what you're doing for them…truth is, you're just a fly on the wall full of flies. Why do you think that all your investigations have either come to a dead end or have been shut down? It's them. It's all them. If you can't stop on your own, they'll stop for you."
"What are you talking about?" He asked.
"The Mendoza trial. Did he or did he not kill eight innocent children in 2016?" She asked.
Robinson looked down…he didn't talk about the trial. He didn't even write up field notes. And the ones that were submitted to his superiors were drab and unmoving. They reflected nothing of what he usually though, no trace of the intelligence that he usually exerted into his reports.
"He killed eight innocent lives….and he walked." She said, crossing the room to sit in front of Robinson in the dark and empty room.
"Who do you think let the door open?" She asked, shaking her head.
"It wasn't because there was insufficient evidence and you know it. They kicked the door open and let him out because he was valuable to them. You know where he is now?"
Robinson glared at her, his shiny eyes not knowing where to look. He didn't know what she looked like. Lydecker never gave any of them a picture. Just a description.
"He's in a military lab, testing humans for biological diseases that they've created." She said, getting up. "And if he didn't have a degree in chemistry, he'd be locked up by now."
She sighed and sat back down again, this time in a chair.
"Don't think it's your fault. Come on, I see the eyes. That's a lot of regret you're carrying. It's not your fault, really. Everyone makes a mistake once in a while. You made the mistake of thinking that you were somebody in a room full of somebody's."
"Leave me alone." He said, closing his eyes.
"Can't really do that Aaron." She said. "Now…you know something that I need to know and I know something that you need to know."
"What could I possibly want to know from you?" He practically spat out.
"Tons. You never know how small you are until you realize that someone half as old as you are knows three times as much as you do and can learn in an infinitely faster amount of time than you can." She said, with a small smile.
"So how small am I?" He asked, looking up.
She decided to do something at this point. She would stop running.
She walked to the center of the room. Or what Robinson determined to be the center, from the slivers of light coming from the roof.
He saw a shadow block one of the slivers and before he knew it, his eyes were shut and he thought he could never open them again.
When he finally did, he was seeing something he thought he'd never see.
"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to stare?" She said, looking down.
He kept staring at her eyes. "I never had a mother."
"Funny. Neither did I."
Logan sat in front of his computer, his hands on the keyboard. They didn't move, though. To tell the truth, he had no idea where to start. It was as if he was suddenly paralyzed from the waist up also. His first train of thought would be to get into Manticore files and look around there. But he did and couldn't find anything. Which was odd, to say the least. Or else it was something that was extremely important. Lydecker wouldn't take any chances after the X5 group escaped. Things would be reshuffled. Countermeasures would be taken. People would be transferred.
Then he frowned. He went back to his last thought. People would be transferred. He suddenly started to type, his energy back and invigorating.
He started to think out loud as he made his way to his destination.
"Where would you put files if you had to stash them quickly and efficiently…and make them pass as employee transfers?" He mumbled.
On his screen, in big bold letters, HUMAN RESOURCES filled the screen.
"Bingo." He said, smiling. Then he set to work.
~*~
Sketchy was on his bicycle, making his way through the streets, and trying to avoid newspapers blowing through. He hated them. If they got stuck to his wheels, he'd have to get off and pull them off his bike.
He was avoiding a section of the classifieds when a girl walked out right in front of him. His foot shot off the bike to stop himself and he tumbled off.
She briefly looked at him before continuing to walk.
Sketchy got up and yanked his bike upright.
"Hey!" He shouted. She kept walking, her hands hugging her body. The cold was harsh this time of year.
Sketchy jumped on his bike and rode up to her. "I almost hit you, you know that?" He said.
She didn't do anything, not even a shrug. It was like she was blind or deaf.
Sketchy stopped in front of her.
She finally looked up at him. "Sorry I got in the way." She walked around his bike.
Sketchy shook his head and rode up to her again. This time, her eyes fiercely glared at him.
"Is there a reason you're following me?" She asked.
"Well, one, I just wanted to make sure you're okay. And two, I mean, you can't just keep walking. It's cold and there's a lot more people with bikes here than the little house on the prairie, you know?"
She shook her head absently. "I can take care of myself." She said.
As she walked away, the wind picked up and her hair fell into her face. She lifted her left arm to brush it away and Sketchy noticed something.
She had a tattoo on her left wrist, palm side. It was small, but definitely noticeable. It was circular and it was an intricate pattern, reminding Sketchy of an old Celtic patch his grandmother used to have.
She suddenly stopped. He head swiveled around and her eyes froze.
Sketchy frowned.
She then abruptly darted into a nearby alleyway.
"Hey, where you going?" Sketchy shouted after her as she ran off. He looked behind him and saw a large military issue vehicle roll down the street. Newspapers held onto it's wheels too. But Sketchy was sincerely thankful that none of the guys in the truck got out to pick them off the wheels.
"Psst. Hey!" A voice called out softly. Sketchy looked back towards the alleyway and the girl he was following waved him to her.
He took one look back at the vechicle, which was now stopping dangerously close to where he was standing and with one swift move he'd like to think Max could pride him on, Sketchy went into the alley, disappearing into the building's colliding shadows.
"You're lucky they didn't see you talking to me." She said.
"Who are you?" He asked, shaking his head. She reminded him of Max, always quiet, always looking around her. And she had the same cat-like quiet about her. Stealthy, but you could always count on her to be there.
"Later."
Somehow he doubted that that was her name.
"Your turn. What's-" His pager went off. He quickly tried to silence it.
"I'm Sketchy." He said, looking back up. He might as well say it. For conversation's sake.
"Well, Sketchy, if you're smart, you're going to leave the alleyway quietly and say that you just got to this street and if they ask you anything, just say you didn't."
Sketchy looked out and saw a few guys in fatigues talk to people.
"Well, what-" He turned back around and saw no one. He shook his head.
"Definitely like Max."
~*~
"Where have you been?" Normal asked as Sketchy rode in.
The usually calm, collected, and generally confused Sketchy looked around him before turning back to Normal. "Nowhere."
"I had you deliver that package three hours ago. Where have you been? These boxes don't deliver themselves." Normal said.
"Normal, chill man. You're gonna have a heart attack before you even have a heart." Sketchy rode past his window.
Normal got out of the cubicle. "What did you say?"
"Hey." A voice said.
Both Sketchy and Normal turned around.
"it wasn't his fault."
Sketchy couldn't believe his eyes. It was her again.
"He was spreading some businesslike cheer." She smiled. And Sketchy noticed how nice it was. It wasn't wide, but it was whimsical. Truthful. Like she wouldn't smile anymore than was necessary because the truth was, she wasn't that happy. Somehow, it was valued. Others would've said it was rude.
"Here." She said, smiling at Normal. He melted a bit, once her eyes went into puppy-dog mode.
"What's this?" Normal asked, holding the package that she had given him.
"Compensation." She said, and then walked to Sketchy.
"And a thank you for making sure I was okay." She said to Sketchy.
Normal unwrapped the plainly wrapped package and his eyes bulged. It was money. As far as he could tell, there was at least three hundred dollars there.
"Uh-uh" was all he could mumble.
Sketchy stared after her as she walked past him and walked towards the door.
"Who is that girl?" Normal asked Sketchy.
"I don't know." He muttered, still staring. She looked back at him and smiled.
There was a clattering from beyond as one of the Jam Pony riders took a spill. Sketchy looked at the direction of the noise.
"hey, what's your name-" She was gone.
"Who is that girl?" He said.
Max almost ran into her. She was wheeling her bike into Jam Pony when she almost hit a girl coming out. She wasn't an employee, Max observed. But as she left, Max caught sight of something.
A tattoo.