True North: Magnetic Declination_
Disclaimer: see previous. In short, not mine.
A/N: Finals end, and anything remotely resembling creativity goes out the window with them. So I did some research, and as far as I know there is no compass in existence to measure true north, as opposed to magnetic north. So now, armed with my new extensive knowledge of, um, magnetic fields, I can now tell you that magnetic declination is the difference between true and magnetic north. Or something to that effect.
***
She never felt comfortable wearing heels. The perfect height in stocking feet, she was positively gargantuan in two-inch heels and towered over her date at the senior prom. She didn't have a problem with it, but apparently he did---something about wounded male pride. He was a nice guy, though. She danced barefoot. And when school started the following Monday and she'd seen her friends limping around campus, she swore off heels for the time being.
The straps of the red stilettos bit into the back of her ankles, and she winced, pasting on a smile when another ridiculously rich former geek glanced her way. She'd reconciled herself to doing missions in high-heeled utilitarian boots and had gotten to the point where they were comfortable to run in than sneakers, but these death traps were an atrocity to footwear everywhere. She made a mental note to mention it to Sloane when they got back.
"Good food," said Dixon into her earpiece from his place at the buffet table. "Can't say as much for the conversation, though. I don't speak computer."
She laughed softly as she scoped out the rest of the room. She was used to these functions by now, the glittering people and the rich and polished entrepreneur, old or slimy or both. J.M. Anderson was standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by socialites and business moguls alike, tall and thin and dressed in a ratty MIT sweatshirt and ancient jeans. He had a glass of champagne in one hand, a busty blonde on the other. She thought he looked bored out of his mind and not as happy as a millionaire should be; when he caught her eye she hazarded a raised eyebrow and a quirk of the lips, and he smiled a small secret smile.
And then she remembered that she was going to be robbing him in less than ten minutes, and turned away with a trace of regret. "Anna's here," Dixon's voice hummed in her ear, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the K-Directorate agent, sultry and low-key. She caught Sydney's eye and blew her a kiss.
"Bitch," she muttered.
Dixon passed her, chewing on something intently. "They're serving beef jerky," he said in amazement, under his breath. "Ten minutes, starting now."
She turned, casually, toward the staircase leading toward the lower level and then the laboratory. There were no guards; the appearance of low security belied an intensely high-tech alarm system for the lab that had taken Marshall close to three days to decipher, and even then for a mere ten minutes.
She walked through the labyrinth-like corridors hurriedly, absently noting how oak-paneled walls made a gradual transition to a sterile white material as she wound gradually lower. The door, while pass-protected, was nothing she hadn't encountered, and she pushed it open to find a small, cluttered room, wires and parts of machines scattered everywhere. Moonlight streamed in through a small window over the desk, and the compass itself was lying carelessly on a pile of looseleaf, serving as a paperweight.
It was almost too easy.
"Five minutes," said Dixon, voice calm.
She moved quickly, picking it up and slipping it into her handbag, and was almost out the door when the window shattered and an alarm blared over the sound of breaking glass. Anna Espinosa crawled through the window and checked for the compass, and barked a short curse when she discovered it was gone, dropping something on the desk and retreating as quickly as she came. Sydney started running, startled out of her frozen state, the panic of the alarm drowning out any thoughts of finding out what the other agent had left.
She was hoping that she'd be able to slip out of the house unnoticed in the panic, but she heard another set of footsteps in addition to the click of her heels in the suddenly silent corridors, and risked a look over her shoulder.
"Hey. Hey!" called J.M. Anderson, and she increased her pace, silently thankful for all the laps she'd put in at the track. If she remembered correctly there were two more turns before she was back on the main level, and she had a head start and the element of surprise. She didn't particularly want to knock him out, but if it came to that---
And there was a man lying in the middle of the hallway, out cold with blood trickling down his face and dripping in a little puddle by his head. There was a certain resemblance to the agent she was supposed to be meeting, and she bent down hurriedly, aware that she was risking---everything, and relaxed slightly when she noticed his nose was broken and not, say, his neck. Anna wasn't usually this sloppy, but perhaps this had been an exception. And suddenly, she knew with a feeling of dread that she wouldn't find the fake compass on the prostrate agent, remembering a glint of silver and a strangely satisfied smile on Anna's face.
The pounding footsteps were getting louder, now, and she straightened up quickly, whispering a silent apology to the man on the ground. Started running again, and the second before she rounded the final corner she felt something give, and had time to register the sharp pain in her ankle before she hit the ground.
She was definitely going to talk to Sloane about the footwear. If she ever got back and didn't end up dead in a river somewhere, the way things were going.
J.M. Anderson's face loomed close to hers as he knelt down, and she felt the cold chill of gunmetal against her neck. "Are you okay?" he asked in concern, and she fought an insane urge to dissolve into giggles.
"Oh, Mr. Anderson," she started, and paused, trying to keep her breathing even and her voice steady. "I got---"
He had dirty blonde hair, and a thin sardonic face, and up close he looked barely twenty-five, a baby really. He helped her to a sitting position, the gun still cool and insistent in its pressure. "Jimmy, and don't bother," he said, calmly taking her handbag and extracting the compass, slipping it into his pocket. He leaned toward her, and she could feel his breath tickling her ear. He might have been holding back laughter. "Better you than her, but. Maybe next time." He stood up, offered her a hand. In a particularly chivalric move, he strapped his gun back to his boot.
She took it and pulled herself up, biting her lip as her ankle protested, and let him put an arm around her waist and lead her limping around the final corner and back to the party. "Everything's fine, nothing's missing," he said casually to an inquiring glance. "We've taken care of the intruder." He laughed. "These damn shoes of her are more dangerous than anything out there."
Sydney nodded, trying to look ingenuous. "Jimmy," she whispered without moving her lips. "I have to go." She could have gotten the compass from his pocket, maybe, but it would go straight into the hands of SD-6. Not worth the risk.
"Can anyone take her to the hospital?" said J.M. Anderson without missing a beat, and delivered her safely to Dixon, who'd volunteered. None of them missed Anna Espinosa detaching herself from the crowd and leaving, fuming visibly.
"It's. I'm. Sorry," said Sydney in the heavy silence as they got into the van.
Even through the dark, she could see Dixon's strained smile, touching in its effort. "Next time, then," he said.
***
"You don't have to do all of this, y'know," she said, sitting in Will's living room, her foot propped up on a pile of cushions, a bowl of chicken soup cooling on the coffee table. "It's not like I'm sick." All she'd done was twist her ankle, and the swelling was coming down already.
The smell of the soup wafted toward her invitingly, and she took a cautious sip and started coughing. She didn't want to know how he could ruin canned soup. The boy meant well, but he was probably the worst mother hen. Ever.
"See," said Will, coming around the corner. "You're coughing. Don't tell me you're not sick. I swear, they overwork you. Don't they have any other workers in that bank?"
Sydney, trying to get the taste out of her mouth, nodded. "Could I have some water?"
"Sure," he said, disappearing into the kitchen, and she briefly debated the pros and cons of dumping the entire bowl into his potted plant. She didn't want to kill the plant, but she didn't see that she had much choice. She'd just emptied the last drop when he came back.
"I mean," he continued. "I don't want to get all. Intrusive, and overprotective and stuff, but. Injury on the job, which is like, the last straw. And you're working in a bank. It's not like you're, I dunno. James Bond or a track star or anything." He grinned, to show he was kidding, but his eyes were worried.
She laughed, weakly. "Right. James Bond."
"Yeah, well," he said. "Hey, we can finally get to the Star Wars trilogy. Or play Scrabble or something. Yoda gets a little annoying when you're sick."
"Scrabble," she said quickly, knowing something about boys and an obsession with memorizing the entire dialogue of all three movies. Which might be endearing when you were drunk, but generally a pain in the ass otherwise
"Sure," he said, standing up. "Just let me go get it. It's upstairs." She listened to his footsteps for a while, and got up and limped around the room absently. Will was a notorious packrat, famous for trailing little bits and pieces of paper after him wherever he went, and his house was like the main nest. Yesterday's newspaper was on his desk, under a sheaf of papers and a folder with---
"Oh my God," she whispered. It was a plain-looking thing, manila and a little scruffy around the edges, and it had two familiar numbers and a letter block-printed in his writing darkly over the label. She stood stock-still as he pounded down the stairs, breathless and triumphant, wielding the Scrabble box.
"Found it. In the bathroom. Don't know how it got there, but---hey, what's wrong?"
She'd never been so scared before, so sure that the next time she saw him would be at his funeral, or before that in a bathtub somewhere, face bloodied and body limp and---"I asked you," she choked out accusingly, her heart pounding in her ears. "And you said you'd stop."
His normally ruddy face paled as he saw the folder. "What---what do you. Stop what?"
"Danny's dead, Will! It's over, and it's done, and I just want to forget about it. Why can't you just let it go?" She heard her voice getting high and strained, and saw him start in surprise. "It's. I can't believe you'd."
"Syd," he said, and his voice was very far away. "Calm down. How did you---how did you know that---"
"I have to go," she said abruptly, pushing past him, ignoring the pain in her ankle as she ran until she got to her car and slammed the door shut, her breathing loud and uneven in ragged gasps.
She'd just seen his death warrant.
***
_02102002 (jen@velvet-star.com)
Disclaimer: see previous. In short, not mine.
A/N: Finals end, and anything remotely resembling creativity goes out the window with them. So I did some research, and as far as I know there is no compass in existence to measure true north, as opposed to magnetic north. So now, armed with my new extensive knowledge of, um, magnetic fields, I can now tell you that magnetic declination is the difference between true and magnetic north. Or something to that effect.
***
She never felt comfortable wearing heels. The perfect height in stocking feet, she was positively gargantuan in two-inch heels and towered over her date at the senior prom. She didn't have a problem with it, but apparently he did---something about wounded male pride. He was a nice guy, though. She danced barefoot. And when school started the following Monday and she'd seen her friends limping around campus, she swore off heels for the time being.
The straps of the red stilettos bit into the back of her ankles, and she winced, pasting on a smile when another ridiculously rich former geek glanced her way. She'd reconciled herself to doing missions in high-heeled utilitarian boots and had gotten to the point where they were comfortable to run in than sneakers, but these death traps were an atrocity to footwear everywhere. She made a mental note to mention it to Sloane when they got back.
"Good food," said Dixon into her earpiece from his place at the buffet table. "Can't say as much for the conversation, though. I don't speak computer."
She laughed softly as she scoped out the rest of the room. She was used to these functions by now, the glittering people and the rich and polished entrepreneur, old or slimy or both. J.M. Anderson was standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by socialites and business moguls alike, tall and thin and dressed in a ratty MIT sweatshirt and ancient jeans. He had a glass of champagne in one hand, a busty blonde on the other. She thought he looked bored out of his mind and not as happy as a millionaire should be; when he caught her eye she hazarded a raised eyebrow and a quirk of the lips, and he smiled a small secret smile.
And then she remembered that she was going to be robbing him in less than ten minutes, and turned away with a trace of regret. "Anna's here," Dixon's voice hummed in her ear, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the K-Directorate agent, sultry and low-key. She caught Sydney's eye and blew her a kiss.
"Bitch," she muttered.
Dixon passed her, chewing on something intently. "They're serving beef jerky," he said in amazement, under his breath. "Ten minutes, starting now."
She turned, casually, toward the staircase leading toward the lower level and then the laboratory. There were no guards; the appearance of low security belied an intensely high-tech alarm system for the lab that had taken Marshall close to three days to decipher, and even then for a mere ten minutes.
She walked through the labyrinth-like corridors hurriedly, absently noting how oak-paneled walls made a gradual transition to a sterile white material as she wound gradually lower. The door, while pass-protected, was nothing she hadn't encountered, and she pushed it open to find a small, cluttered room, wires and parts of machines scattered everywhere. Moonlight streamed in through a small window over the desk, and the compass itself was lying carelessly on a pile of looseleaf, serving as a paperweight.
It was almost too easy.
"Five minutes," said Dixon, voice calm.
She moved quickly, picking it up and slipping it into her handbag, and was almost out the door when the window shattered and an alarm blared over the sound of breaking glass. Anna Espinosa crawled through the window and checked for the compass, and barked a short curse when she discovered it was gone, dropping something on the desk and retreating as quickly as she came. Sydney started running, startled out of her frozen state, the panic of the alarm drowning out any thoughts of finding out what the other agent had left.
She was hoping that she'd be able to slip out of the house unnoticed in the panic, but she heard another set of footsteps in addition to the click of her heels in the suddenly silent corridors, and risked a look over her shoulder.
"Hey. Hey!" called J.M. Anderson, and she increased her pace, silently thankful for all the laps she'd put in at the track. If she remembered correctly there were two more turns before she was back on the main level, and she had a head start and the element of surprise. She didn't particularly want to knock him out, but if it came to that---
And there was a man lying in the middle of the hallway, out cold with blood trickling down his face and dripping in a little puddle by his head. There was a certain resemblance to the agent she was supposed to be meeting, and she bent down hurriedly, aware that she was risking---everything, and relaxed slightly when she noticed his nose was broken and not, say, his neck. Anna wasn't usually this sloppy, but perhaps this had been an exception. And suddenly, she knew with a feeling of dread that she wouldn't find the fake compass on the prostrate agent, remembering a glint of silver and a strangely satisfied smile on Anna's face.
The pounding footsteps were getting louder, now, and she straightened up quickly, whispering a silent apology to the man on the ground. Started running again, and the second before she rounded the final corner she felt something give, and had time to register the sharp pain in her ankle before she hit the ground.
She was definitely going to talk to Sloane about the footwear. If she ever got back and didn't end up dead in a river somewhere, the way things were going.
J.M. Anderson's face loomed close to hers as he knelt down, and she felt the cold chill of gunmetal against her neck. "Are you okay?" he asked in concern, and she fought an insane urge to dissolve into giggles.
"Oh, Mr. Anderson," she started, and paused, trying to keep her breathing even and her voice steady. "I got---"
He had dirty blonde hair, and a thin sardonic face, and up close he looked barely twenty-five, a baby really. He helped her to a sitting position, the gun still cool and insistent in its pressure. "Jimmy, and don't bother," he said, calmly taking her handbag and extracting the compass, slipping it into his pocket. He leaned toward her, and she could feel his breath tickling her ear. He might have been holding back laughter. "Better you than her, but. Maybe next time." He stood up, offered her a hand. In a particularly chivalric move, he strapped his gun back to his boot.
She took it and pulled herself up, biting her lip as her ankle protested, and let him put an arm around her waist and lead her limping around the final corner and back to the party. "Everything's fine, nothing's missing," he said casually to an inquiring glance. "We've taken care of the intruder." He laughed. "These damn shoes of her are more dangerous than anything out there."
Sydney nodded, trying to look ingenuous. "Jimmy," she whispered without moving her lips. "I have to go." She could have gotten the compass from his pocket, maybe, but it would go straight into the hands of SD-6. Not worth the risk.
"Can anyone take her to the hospital?" said J.M. Anderson without missing a beat, and delivered her safely to Dixon, who'd volunteered. None of them missed Anna Espinosa detaching herself from the crowd and leaving, fuming visibly.
"It's. I'm. Sorry," said Sydney in the heavy silence as they got into the van.
Even through the dark, she could see Dixon's strained smile, touching in its effort. "Next time, then," he said.
***
"You don't have to do all of this, y'know," she said, sitting in Will's living room, her foot propped up on a pile of cushions, a bowl of chicken soup cooling on the coffee table. "It's not like I'm sick." All she'd done was twist her ankle, and the swelling was coming down already.
The smell of the soup wafted toward her invitingly, and she took a cautious sip and started coughing. She didn't want to know how he could ruin canned soup. The boy meant well, but he was probably the worst mother hen. Ever.
"See," said Will, coming around the corner. "You're coughing. Don't tell me you're not sick. I swear, they overwork you. Don't they have any other workers in that bank?"
Sydney, trying to get the taste out of her mouth, nodded. "Could I have some water?"
"Sure," he said, disappearing into the kitchen, and she briefly debated the pros and cons of dumping the entire bowl into his potted plant. She didn't want to kill the plant, but she didn't see that she had much choice. She'd just emptied the last drop when he came back.
"I mean," he continued. "I don't want to get all. Intrusive, and overprotective and stuff, but. Injury on the job, which is like, the last straw. And you're working in a bank. It's not like you're, I dunno. James Bond or a track star or anything." He grinned, to show he was kidding, but his eyes were worried.
She laughed, weakly. "Right. James Bond."
"Yeah, well," he said. "Hey, we can finally get to the Star Wars trilogy. Or play Scrabble or something. Yoda gets a little annoying when you're sick."
"Scrabble," she said quickly, knowing something about boys and an obsession with memorizing the entire dialogue of all three movies. Which might be endearing when you were drunk, but generally a pain in the ass otherwise
"Sure," he said, standing up. "Just let me go get it. It's upstairs." She listened to his footsteps for a while, and got up and limped around the room absently. Will was a notorious packrat, famous for trailing little bits and pieces of paper after him wherever he went, and his house was like the main nest. Yesterday's newspaper was on his desk, under a sheaf of papers and a folder with---
"Oh my God," she whispered. It was a plain-looking thing, manila and a little scruffy around the edges, and it had two familiar numbers and a letter block-printed in his writing darkly over the label. She stood stock-still as he pounded down the stairs, breathless and triumphant, wielding the Scrabble box.
"Found it. In the bathroom. Don't know how it got there, but---hey, what's wrong?"
She'd never been so scared before, so sure that the next time she saw him would be at his funeral, or before that in a bathtub somewhere, face bloodied and body limp and---"I asked you," she choked out accusingly, her heart pounding in her ears. "And you said you'd stop."
His normally ruddy face paled as he saw the folder. "What---what do you. Stop what?"
"Danny's dead, Will! It's over, and it's done, and I just want to forget about it. Why can't you just let it go?" She heard her voice getting high and strained, and saw him start in surprise. "It's. I can't believe you'd."
"Syd," he said, and his voice was very far away. "Calm down. How did you---how did you know that---"
"I have to go," she said abruptly, pushing past him, ignoring the pain in her ankle as she ran until she got to her car and slammed the door shut, her breathing loud and uneven in ragged gasps.
She'd just seen his death warrant.
***
_02102002 (jen@velvet-star.com)