Author's Note: I realize Sydney arrived at the hotel in a cab after saying she'd rent a car. My mistake.

"Oh, good, you're here," said Vaughn; looking up from the computer he was working on. "We can start then."

"Start what?" I asked, confused.

"Work," answered Vaughn, giving me a strange look. Okay, I should have been able to understand that. I was tired. Yeah, good excuse Syd, stick with that one. Vaughn stood up from where he was working and walked over to me. I stood there, still looking around at all the equipment. I wondered if anyone would notice if I took some home with me. Probably. Damn.

"You've met Agent Weiss," said Vaughn, gesturing to the familiar looking man sitting in the corner talking in one of those phone-headset things. He waved absently at me. I smiled back.

"And this is Agent Vermicelli," Vaughn continued, gesturing to the dark-haired man that he'd been working with before I arrived. I smiled at him too. Well, that was the introductions over. Knowing Vaughn, we'd be getting straight to work.

"How's it going?" Vaughn asked Weiss and he pulled the headset off. Weiss shrugged lamely. I guessed he was trying to get information on the location by calling people. Vermicelli looked like he was hacking into secured files. I looked away- didn't want to see him doing anything illegal, plausible deniability and all that. Vaughn turned back to me.

"Think maybe I should get you familiar with the gadgets we'll be using," he said quietly. I love this part- the gadgets are sweet. I don't know which is better- CIA or SD-6. I mean, CIA has better bits to work with, but Marshall is some kind of genius. All I know is that both produce some pretty cool stuff, and that's all I need to know. Vaughn led me over to a table with a large black bag sitting on it. He pulled it open, revealing a trove of handy little…things.

"How did you get that through customs?" I asked, bewildered. Half the time I have trouble just getting my computer through, and this was way more than a computer. Vaughn gave a look that said "what are you, an idiot?" I decided that I could probably guess how they got it through. Those handy little badges. I was becoming more convinced- just HAD to have one. Stuff the consequences. I reached into the bag and picked up what looked like a corsage. I peered closely. Nope, couldn't figure out what the hell it was for. I looked up at Vaughn questioningly.

"It's a biorhythms monitor," Vaughn explained. "It'll tell Weiss how anxious whoever's wearing it is. The plan is for one of us to get it onto whoever's in charge so we can tell whether they're lying to us, or getting suspicious about something." That's pretty cool. A portable lie detector. I wonder if we can put these on politicians…maybe not.

I put the "corsage" down and reached for the next thing. A bottle of what looked like expensive perfume. That was probably for me, unless Vaughn…I giggled. Vaughn frowned at me and I shut up. I don't know if he realized what I was thinking, and didn't really want to know.

"It's not really perfume," Vaughn said. No shit Sherlock, couldn't have figured that out myself. Good thing he's here to tell me that.

"It's a powerful tranquilizer. It'll knock someone out for about 2 hours. But you can only use it in emergencies, there's only about three doses of it there." I nodded. Always good to have a fallback plan.

"What else is there?" I asked. Vaughn smiled.

"The usual suspects- portable microphone so we can talk to Weiss, code de-scrambler in case the papers are in a code locked safe, lock pick kit in case it's in a normal safe, guns with silencers- strictly a last resort Sydney- a fingerprint kit and some mouldable contacts in case of retinal scans. Oh, and we have several sets of costumes, depending on where we're going. The most likely location is another party though."

"Is that it?" I asked. Vaughn nodded. "Good, so I can get some sleep," I finished. Vaughn started to nod then looked like he'd just remembered something. He grabbed one of the phone headset things and handed it to me.

"We'll call you once we have the location," he said as he handed it to me. I took it from him and managed to make it to my room without falling on my face. Jet lag's a bitch.

*

I was sleeping soundly when the phone rang. I woke up with a start, glaring around wildly for the offending noise. My eyes settled on the phone. If looks could kill, the phone would be just a sizzling pile of dust. Unfortunately, looks cant kill and the phone continued to ring away merrily. I sat up and rubbed the gunk away from my eyes. Or attempted to anyway. What really happened was I just smeared the gunk around and changed my vision from spots of blindness and spots of clarity to just all around blurriness. Grrr. I fumbled around blindly for the phone thingy and pulled it on.

"What?" I answered fuzzily.

"We have the location," said a voice and then hung up. Great. That sounded like a "get over here" hint if I'd ever heard one. Dammit. I swung my bare feet over the edge of the bed and looked around through the haze to find some clothes. Oh yeah, I hadn't unpacked yet. I pulled open my bag and grabbed the first outfit I could find. I had counted on not getting much sleep; so all my clothes were interchangeable. Don't have to worry about not matching then. I pulled on the clothes, grabbed the key from the table and opened the door to the next room.

Vaughn was waiting for me, still wearing what he had been before. Didn't he ever sleep? Maybe that's why he works for the CIA- he's a robot that doesn't require rest or food. Riiiight Sydney, don't say that one out loud. He looked up as I entered the room. Vermicelli and Weiss were gone. I wondered where they were.

"We have the location. It's a big old mansion on the outskirts, and the party is tomorrow night. Vermicelli's seeing about getting us on the guest list…" Yeah, maybe he'll have more luck than Dixon, I thought darkly.

"…and Weiss is checking the house out," Vaughn finished. He looked at me expectantly, as if expecting me to ask a question. That means he left something out…what could it be…Oh, I'm an idiot.

"When is it?" I asked after a seconds pause. Okay, more than a second. I'm not my best after next to no sleep. Vaughn grinned at me like I'd demonstrated some amazing academic prowess. Patronizing wanker. See, told you I'm not my best.

"The party is tonight. We have about 4 hours to get ready," Vaughn said. Great, I thought. The man knows nothing about women. 4 hours to get ready for a big party? I don't think so. Try 14 hours. That's a bit closer. While I thought that Vaughn opened the closet and pulled something out. He turned to show it to me. It was a dress. I use the term dress lightly. Ever heard of strapless evening gowns? Well, this was more like a gown-less evening strap. I stared at it in utter horror. Vaughn struggled to keep a straight face but ended up sniggering at me.

"Fooled ya," he said. I glared at him. I'm fond of jokes…but only if I'm not the butt of them. I was still glaring at him when he pulled out another dress. This one was much more like it. Expensive. Just the way I like it. I smiled in spite of myself. Vaughn smiled back.

"I thought you'd like it," he said as he handed it to me. It was stunning- dark blue silk, floor length, velvet bodice and, to make things better, it came with a white jacket! I wasn't going to freeze my ass off! Perfect! I took it from Vaughn and draped it over my arm. It felt expensive, looked expensive and I wanted to keep it. I mean, no one else was ever going to use it, so why couldn't I have it? Made sense to me. Vaughn reached deep into the closet and pulled out some more stuff.

"Hair dye, matching bag and matching shoes," he said, handing them to me. I took them from him, glancing briefly at the shoes and bag before dropping them on the bed. I gave the hair dye closer inspection. Looks like I was going for darker hair this time. Thank god it was a natural colour, I am sick of connecter pen hair. Urgh. I looked up at Vaughn.

"Is that it?" I asked, not really expecting anything else. Vaughn shook his head and pulled out a make up case. I grinned. Free make-up! This was getting too good to be true. He opened it and grimaced.

"Some of this stuff looks painful," he said, pulling out an eyelash curler and frowning at it dubiously. "Are you sure this isn't torture equipment?" he asked plaintively. I sneered at him and grabbed it.

"A woman will go to any means to make herself beautiful," I deadpanned. Vaughn's face twisted, and I had to laugh. I picked up the stuff, balanced it carefully in my arms and walked back through the door to my room.

*

About 2 and half hours later I was finished. My hair was about 2 shades darker and pulled up away from my face. My make-up was done and I was wearing the dress. It normally wouldn't have taken me that long to get ready- after all, I do this kind of stuff for a living- but I normally don't dye my hair. If I want to change my hair colour I just wear a wig, and dying takes time. I thought I did a pretty good job though. I was just admiring my reflection in the mirror when the little phone rang. I grabbed it and put it on.

"You ready?" asked the voice. I told them I was. "Good, come on in," the voice said then hung up. Not one for pleasantries. I grabbed the bag, shoved my feet in the shoes and walked into the other room.

Weiss was helping Vaughn do something (I don't know what, his back was to me) when I walked in. Obviously I looked good, because Weiss' mouth nearly hit the floor. I smiled at him. Vaughn turned around. I was expecting much of the same from him, but his reaction was more understated. Only his eyes gave him away. I suppose I should have expected that, he's seen me dressed up before. Now that he'd turned around I could see what Weiss was helping him with- the tie for his suit. It was half done up and half just hanging there. I frowned. It looked ridiculous, so I walked over and finished tying it. Vaughn stood dead still, and Weiss went a shade of red. I turned to him.

"Who tied that? What was it meant to be, macramé?" I asked. Weiss turned a deeper shade of red and Vaughn snickered. Weiss glared at him and he shut up. Then Weiss turned to me.

"You look good Sydney," he said. "Now let's get you equipped."

He went over to the bag of goodies and began pulling stuff out of it. He threw Vaughn and me a "corsage" each. Vaughn attached his to his pocket; I attached mine to the strap of my dress. Hey, they matched. Cool. He also pulled out two pairs of glasses and threw them more carefully to us both. I looked at it, puzzled.

"Hidden cameras," Vaughn explained under his breath. I nodded and put them on. Oh good, they'd put clear lenses in. Last time I got actual prescription glasses and couldn't see a thing all night. Over the next couple of minutes an assortment of little gadgets were given to us and we put them in appropriate places. (The hidden microphone was a bit of a problem- I had to put it in my bra and I think Weiss and Vaughn watched a bit more than necessary.)

Finally we were all ready. Except for…

"Okay, the pair of you are a married couple. Sydney, you're a British psychologist and Vaughn, you're a French commercial shipping tycoon," Weiss started. "Before you ask Mike, you're French because you're British accent is atrocious. Anyway, once the pair of you are inside I'll direct you through the microphones. Don't worry about telling me what you see; I can see everything you can. Got it?" We nodded.

"Good. Let's get going," finished Weiss. We took the elevator down to the bottom floor and walked outside. Weiss disappeared for a minute and I wondered where he went. I also wondered how we were getting there. My questions were answered pretty quickly. A limo pulled up, with Weiss driving. Vaughn extended his arm.

"Shall we?" he asked. I climbed into the car and we were off. The mission had begun.

To be continued…