Part VII

Bobby had actually chosen a surprisingly decent place to eat. It was a hole-in-the-wall, mom-and-pop place whose menu changed daily depending on what they'd bought that day. Seafood was, of course, a staple around here, and that was the majority of the menu. They'd placed their order, and then snagged a table that overlooked the harbor and the naval base across the way. They were within walking distance of the Maritime Museum and cruise ship dock -- in fact one of the boats was docked there now -- which explained why Bobby had mentioned getting some work done as well.

Darien wasn't looking all that thrilled to be back near the location where he'd been hurt, but made no mention of it. When their orders were brought over, Darien shook his head in dismay at Bobby. "Hobbes, you drag us to this place, ninety percent of the menu is fish in one form or another, and you order a burger?"

Bobby shrugged. "They do good burgers."

Darien turned back to his fish and chips, that fish being a decent cut of tuna, and tried to recapture the desire to eat. His appetite had fled thanks to the location, as well as his 'talk' with Alyx. Picking up a fry, he dunked it into the ketchup he'd poured in one corner of the basket. Claire had nagged him about eating, saying he had to keep his strength up to get better. So he stuck the fry in his mouth and looked out over the water as he chewed.

Alyx had ordered a huge bucket of mussels and steamed clams. She was methodically tearing the poor creatures open, ripping out their bodies, dunking them in butter, and then swallowing them down. She looked like she was enjoying the whole thing. She paused and took a long drink of her soda. "Great place, Bobby. I'll have to come back here when the geoducks are in season."

Both guys stared at her.

"What?" she asked as she dunked another victim before it followed the rest of its brethren. "Tell me you guys have heard of geoducks?"

"Umm, yeah kid, we have. We're just surprised you have." Bobby shook his head. "Settling right in, ain't you?"

"About time, don't you think, Hobbes? It's been almost two years since she joined us." That sudden realization sank in after a moment. "Wow, doesn't seem that long, does it?"

"That's 'cause I'm gone half the time, and the other half we're too busy trying not to get killed to think about it." She gestured with her fork. "We don't get much free time to think about stuff like that. And it's not really something I want to remember. When there's a good reason to celebrate, I do."

Bobby nodded. The only reason he remembered the date he was hired was because of that damn annual review he had to suffer through, only to be told that there were, once again, not enough funds to give him more than a bare minimum raise that didn't even cover the cost of living adjustments. Birthdays and holidays were usually celebrated quietly and privately. Quite often there wasn't time for more. And of course they all had dates that they wished they could avoid and forget. "Hurry up, you two. We still have work to do."

A little while later, they were standing in front of the Jack in the Box that had captured the first in the series of shots of the Humvee they suspected was driven by their shooter. Bobby was mumbling to himself and staring off into the distance, while Alyx paced slowly down the street away from the two men, heading towards the area where they knew the shooting had to have happened.

"Kid, about another ten yards," Bobby called out to her. He'd approximated how far the guy could have traveled between making the shot and being in the picture at the fast food place. They'd had to approximate the time for the shooting, as well. Neither Bobby nor Darien had thought to look at their watches when it happened; there had been far more pressing concerns on their minds at the time.

*It's a parking lot Bobby.* Alyx suddenly said in their heads -- not wanting to yell to be heard, at a guess.

*On our way.* Bobby gave Darien a pat on the shoulder, and the two of them moved off to join Alyx. He was hoping for one of the better parking lots that had some security measures, but was disappointed. The thing was abandoned, the chain link fence ripped apart in places, even though the chain holding the gate shut was brand new. A good bet he knew when it had gotten replaced. It also was sloped up about three feet higher than the road. "Check it out, kid."

Moving to the gate, she looked at the lock and then simply shoved one side of the gate and eeled her way inside. Darien shook his head; he'd expected her to break either the lock or the chain and just open the gate, even if it was a bit unnecessary. She wandered around, looking back towards where the boat could easily be seen between two buildings on the land dividing the two roads. It took her a couple minutes, but she found what had to be at least close to the spot the shooter sat at. Focusing on the ground, she began to search for anything that might give them a clue as to who had done this, though she knew success wasn't likely. It had been nearly a week since it had happened and the likelihood that she was the first person to walk through here since then was slim to none.

"Kid, any luck?" Bobby wasn't very hopeful, either. The ground was cracked concrete, with a scattering of sand, glass and other debris. Nothing to hold tire tracks, and the hope that maybe the shell casing was still sitting there was faint at best.

"Define luck. Name your cigarette or condom brand and I think I've found it." She turned back to them. "It's a forensic nightmare in here. Candy, gum, garbage from every fast food place in town. Nothing useful like a shell casing." She headed back to them and slithered back through the gate. She sat on the low wall that separated the lot from the sidewalk.

"Didn't really expect to." Bobby had been hoping for some sort of security, either here or nearby, that might have gotten a picture for them, but unless one of the skyscrapers happened to get a shot out of one of the windows, it wasn't likely.

"Then why are we here?" Darien failed to keep the discomfort out of his voice. He understood the need to find the shooter, to find who had done this, but being here was the last thing he wanted, and the lunch he had forced himself to eat was now debating making a return appearance.

"Hoping for a break, Fawkes, but apparently we've used up our quota for the day." Bobby kicked a stray rock and watched it bounce down the sidewalk till it fetched up against the grassy edge.

"We collected videos six hours before and after, right?" Alyx asked, and Bobby nodded. "If necessary, we could go back further, maybe get a shot of him arriving."

"Nah. No point right now. I'm thinking we should head back to the office and check out that other angle you came up with. I haven't had a chance to look at the info you sent me yet." He shrugged. "Maybe there will be something there, 'cause we're at a dead end right now."

"Part of me really wants that stray thought to be wrong." Alyx got to her feet and walked towards the corner so that they could cross the street.

Darien ran into the back of her legs, gently, to get her attention while they waited for the light to change. When she turned to look at him, he asked, "What stray thought would that be?"

"Oh, that they set you up to get at me." She gave him a wry smile and moved to stand beside him.

"And where did that come from?" Darien asked as he got the chair rolling across the street.

"She had one of her hunches, and I thought we should check it out," Bobby filled in. Both of them knew her hunches had this unholy tendency to be accurate.

"Well, in that case I hope she's wrong as well," Darien said as he manhandled his way up the next sidewalk.

"You and me both, my friend," Bobby agreed, as the person in question smiled and shook her head at them.

"Me, wrong?" She tipped her head as if listening to something. "Wait... is that hell freezing over I hear?"

"Not unless the Fat Man reassigned the walking glacier there," Darien muttered, causing both Alyx and Bobby to start laughing.

"Oh, Fawkes, that was perfect," Bobby got out as he got control back. "Have to remember that one."

The three of them sat Alyx's desk as she accessed the search information she'd downloaded when she'd stopped by her apartment two nights ago. As the computer began displaying the information, she explained. "Okay, what I did was have the search look for any agencies that had been turned down more than twice in the last six months. Then I ran a secondary sequence to narrow the field by having it look for repeat requests. Once that was done, I had it compare the results to the list of those who have access Dubrimium." She turned to look at Darien. "Hopefully, it will narrow the list."

It was only a few seconds later when the computer displayed the final results. There weren't many. Just four who fit the profile. The DOD was one -- not a big surprise, considering the report Alyx had turned up. Second was the CIA, who had their fingers in lots of pies and who got turned down unless it was Duke Montgomery asking for Alyx's help. She refused to work for anyone else after the stunts they had pulled in the past. The NSA, for whom she'd just completed a job that was a near total waste of time and definitely didn't need her talents, was the third possibility. The last one she didn't recognize.

"What is the SWRB?"

"The who?" Bobby asked, hoping he hadn't heard her correctly.

"The SWRB," Darien answered. The acronym sounded familiar for some reason. "What did they want you for?"

"Let's find out, shall we?" Alyx typed a few keys, and a long list of requests scrolled up. They were all identical. "It goes back about five months. They want me for 'intelligence gathering', but they provided no details, even when asked."

"Who's been turning them down?" Bobby was not liking where this was going. If these guys were who he thought they were, then this was damn serious, especially if the Chief had been turning them down.

Alyx typed a few more keys, while Darien eyed Bobby. He knew that tone of voice; Bobby was onto something, and it wasn't anything even vaguely resembling good.

"Ummm, the 'Fish, but with backing from above more recently." Alyx looked at Bobby. "The guys upstairs don't want me anywhere near them for some reason."

"Kid, you want no part of these guys," Bobby said in a low voice. The boss was not going to like the fact that she even knew about them.

"SWRB, why the hell does that sound so familiar?" Darien asked aloud.

Alyx closed her eyes for a few minutes, obviously thinking. "Oh yeah, Secret Weapons Research Branch. Kevin worked for them when he was just starting out. They worked on the quicksilver research back in the early nineties. He worked there a few years, and then left to work for the Agency."

"What?" both men said at once.

"It's not really news; it's right there in both Kevin's file and in the background info on the Quicksilver Project. I'm not sure why he left, but I do believe that the trials at the SWRB were all failures. A different direction of research, I think," Alyx said as she skimmed through the information she had, limited as it was.

Bobby could understand Darien's surprise; he hadn't known much about Kevin's life once they went their separate ways. Darien had just begun to get to know him -- and like him -- when he'd been killed protecting Darien at the Lab. He still had trouble dealing with Kevin's loss, and Bobby could still find him sitting at Kevin's grave when he'd had a bad day, or week. "Kid..."

"Guess that explains their interest in Darien, but not what they need me for." Alyx pulled up another window, made sure her Internet connection was active, and began searching.

"Kid, what are you doing?" Bobby kept his voice steady, hoping like hell she wasn't doing what he thought she was.

"Hmmm? Oh, going to the source, of course. I want some more info on these guys." Alyx was already focusing on the work she planned on doing and was obviously not getting the subtle hints he was dropping her. She was even having some success, using her clearance to go into a government database that actually listed them. From there she was somehow able to get access to a local office of theirs.

"Kid, maybe you shouldn't be doing this," Bobby warned, but she ignored him, too intent on her goal to listen. He looked over at Fawkes, who was looking right back. He'd figured out that this might be bad, but both of them knew Alyx could be very tenacious when she was on to something, and she was twice as stubborn as Fawkes was at times.

"Oooh, good security, but it can't beat me." Darien wanted to stop her, but moved too slow. She closed her eyes and was gone, obviously dealing with the security on a more direct level. They were able to watch the screen flicker and change as she managed to gain access further and further into the system.

She'd been in about five minutes when the Official barreled into the room, took one look at the situation and proceeded to yank the Internet cable out of the wall. Bobby had seen the look of black anger on the Official's face and set a hand on Alyx's left shoulder. He wasn't quite fast enough; Alyx's entire body jerked backwards into her chair at the shock of coming back to herself so fast.

"Ah, hell. You okay kid?" Bobby glared at the Official even as he tried to help her sit up. "What the hell was that for? You want to kill her?"

"Hobbes, now is not the time." The Official sounded both angry and frightened, which got both Bobby and Darien's attention.

Alyx moaned. "Ah, gods I think I'm gonna be sick." She slouched down in the chair, one of her hands to her forehead, gulping in air.

"Miss Silver, I'm not sure what you were doing, but stay away from the SWRB." The Official didn't yell, but the force was there.

"Boss, you might want to chew her out later." Darien had moved closer to her and set a hand over her arm. He knew how awful these headaches could be, and this one was looking to be a doozie.

"Damn it. They might be the ones who shot Darien and you want me to back off?" Alyx somehow managed to sound angry instead of miserable.

"Yes. I'm on a fraying rope with these people and want no part of it breaking." He paused to calm down. "I'm ordering you to leave the SWRB alone. You can follow other leads on the shooter, but leave this one alone."

Alyx glared up at him.

"Miss Silver, I mean this: stay away from them." The Official's look didn't change; he was very serious.

"She -- we -- will, Chief. We have other leads we can work on." Bobby didn't like the fact that there was someone out there who scared the Official. He was going to have to do a little digging into this group, beyond the rumors he'd heard over the years.

"I'm going to hold you to that, Hobbes. It'll be your ass I go after she does anything else to draw their attention." With one last warning look at Alyx, he turned and left the office.

"Bobby, get Claire up here, now," Darien said quietly. Alyx had practically collapsed as soon as the door shut.

"On it." Bobby picked up the phone, and moments later were filling Claire in on the situation.

"Alyx, how bad?" Darien tried to help her sit up a bit more in the chair, but wasn't very successful.

"Ummm, bad enough?" She shook her head and blinked in discomfort. "Uh, why'd he do that?"

Bobby set the handset back in the cradle. "Kid, I tried to warn you. These guys, the SWRB, have a rep for being ruthless and above most of the rules. You may think the Fat Man gets away with a lot, but these guys wrote the book." He moved around her desk and sat in one of the chairs. "They have funding and power. No one, and I mean no one, messes with them. Usually."

"Wait a minute, if they have that much pull, fear, whatever, how is it they haven't gotten hold of Alyx?" Darien was gently massaging the palm of Alyx's hand. He'd picked up a book on reflexology, and they'd found that it sometimes helped to ease her nastier headaches.

Bobby shook his head. "No idea, but like the kid said, someone higher up on the food chain doesn't want her near them. I'm thinking we should maybe keep it that way."

Given the reaction of the Official, Darien had to agree, in principle anyway. "Bobby, if they set this up..." He trailed off, knowing Bobby could fill in the rest.

"Yeah, but these aren't the type you try and get even with. Arnaud, Stark, Lawson -- those are the get-even-with types. These guys..." Bobby leaned forward. "These guys are dangerous, and that's Bobby Hobbes making that statement."

"And we all know Bobby Hobbes is God," Alyx said, her voice slightly slurred.

"Don't you forget it, kid." He got to his feet and stuck his head out the door, looking for Claire. "You gonna survive?"

"If he does that again, shoot one of us, please?" Alyx moaned as she leaned forward to hang her head between her knees. "Me, by preference." Her voice was muffled, but Bobby still heard her.

"Here's the Keep, kid." Bobby moved out of the way as Claire bustled in, her hands full of anything she might need. She began giving directions even as she set the items on the desk.

"Bobby, set up the bed." Claire circled around the desk and turned the chair Alyx was in, to gain better access to her. "Up you go," she said as she helped Alyx get upright. With a few quick questions and a quick exam, Claire got the information she needed.

"Keepy?" Bobby didn't want the kid hurt; they still had work to do.

"She'll be okay. I'll give her a painkiller, and she needs to rest for a few hours, but she'll be fine." Claire urged Alyx to her feet and over to the bed. Bobby had gotten everything ready, including the pillows and the blanket she kept in the storage beneath the oversized futon. Once she was horizontal, Claire slid up her sleeve, disinfected the area with an alcohol wipe, and injected the painkiller.

"Bobby, trace who sent the orders through F&G for that mission, and do the same for my NSA job." Alyx looked up at him, her eyes glassy with pain and medication.

"Kid?" Bobby wasn't sure of the point. Orders from F&G were from F&G.

"Setup, Bobby. F&G might have been.... persuaded to send you guys there." The drug was definitely kicking in, and she was swiftly losing the fight to stay conscious.

"Good point, I'll check it out. You get some rest. I expect you to be up and moving by dinner, you hear me?" Bobby kept his tone light, and was rewarded with a drug-fuzzed smile from her.

"As you wish, boss." Her eyes drifted shut, and Claire checked her pulse just to be sure. Sometimes, even with the medications they knew worked, she reacted oddly.

"I'm going to have to explain to the Official, again, why he can't do things like that, whatever the provocation." Claire was pretty irritated, from the looks of it, but better her chewing out the Official than one of them. He might listen to her.

"I'll stay with her for a bit, okay?" Darien looked at Claire, her hands once again full.

"Sure, just make sure she rests." She made her way out the door and presumably back to the Keep before heading to chew off a piece of the Official's ass.

"Fawkes, I'll be in my office." He glanced from one to the other. The kid looked completely out of it, but he could still see the pain lines etched around her mouth and eyes. "Don't start blaming yourself or nothing."

Darien shook his head with a grim look. "Bobby, what if they are after her and want me out of the way? Kevin worked for them...." He stopped, shaking his head, not quite sure where he was going with this.

"Fawkes, the two might not even be connected. We'll work what we have and go from there." Bobby tried to sound hopeful and confident, but he had the bad feeling that there was a connection. When they found out exactly what, he was sure no one was going to be very happy about it. Darien shrugged, his enthusiasm obvious, and Bobby closed the door quietly and headed for his office. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up. Damn if he wasn't sure someone was watching him right now. What really bothered him was, given what he did know about the SWRB, there might very well be.

By the time he got to his office, he was fighting the urge to shudder. After debating for a moment, he pulled out his bottle of pills and dry-swallowed one. Now was not the time for his paranoia to run rampant; now he needed to follow up on the kid's suggestion. Turning on his computer, he thanked the silicon gods for making it almost mandatory that every scrap of information be put into the belly of the electronic beast, as well as getting filed on paper in triplicate and buried either in the row of file cabinets in the Official's office, or down in the Archives.

He began with the F&G orders that started this whole mess. He and Fawkes been called in late Saturday afternoon and told where to be, when, and what they were supposed to do. It seemed simple enough -- it should have been simple enough -- but instead they'd walked dead-on into a trap. It happened on occasion, but not usually with F&G jobs. Bobby punched keys and clicked the mouse, only to find... nothing. No orders from F&G. No messages back and forth from the Official to his counterpart at F&G. Even the report he'd written up on the incident with shaking hands was gone. Like it had never existed.

Okay, something weird was going on. Getting up, he walked to his lone filing cabinet, unlocked it, and slid open the drawer. Past the files that contained assorted versions of his resignation and his copies of complaints and requests, there was the one from the cruise ship dock incident. Or there should have been. The file was gone.

He slid the drawer shut and took a moment to think. Something was rotten in Denmark, and it wasn't the food -- or not just the food -- this time. Returning to his desk, he accessed the NSA request for Alyx. He had to use one of her passwords to do it, but he got in. She'd told him a little about the job, and he had to agree with her assessment that she'd been completely unnecessary. She had been used to meet a NSA operative that was deep undercover and retrieve a vital bit of information. Or so she'd been told. After waiting around for nearly a week, with constant delays on both ends, she finally met the guy in a park in Vancouver, pulled the five word sentence that was so desperately needed from his mind, and then walked away to turn over the information to his superiors. Alyx said she hadn't even needed to go invisible, just sat in the park drinking coffee till he showed. She'd flown home the next day, wondering why the hell she'd gone.

Well, at least the records still existed for this one, but sending her on such a stupid mission just screamed suspicious to him. Picking up his phone, he dialed one of his many contacts. It took six phone calls and thirty minutes before he really got anything, and what he did get didn't help much or make him feel any more confident about the situation. A 'friend' over at the Pentagon had told him,, to 'leave it alone.'

Well there was no way that was going to happen, not when it concerned both Fawkes and the kid. Getting to his feet, he decided maybe it was time to confront the Official.

He was rather surprised not to see Ms. Pritchard anywhere. There was an agent in the room shuffling paper. He'd seen the guy around, but didn't immediately recognize him.

"Hobbes, what do you want now?" The Official sounded pissed off.

"What happened to my report about the shooting? It's not in the computer, and the copy in my personal file is gone. I'm betting that if I checked the Archives, it would be missing from there as well." Bobby didn't bother beating around the bush. He wanted to know what was going on, and now.

The Official glanced at the agent and then back at Hobbes. "Smith, go see if those enhancements Agent Hobbes requested are ready."

The man set down the papers he was holding, said, "Yes, sir," and left the room.

"Hobbes, the matter is to be forgotten. Completely." He removed his glasses and rubbed his forehead.

"So F&G was ordered to set us up." Bobby sank into a chair with a feeling of disbelief.

"Encouraged would be a better choice, but yes. And no, I did not know about it until after." That hint of fear was back in the Official's voice.

"They tried to kill Fawkes," Bobby nearly snarled. "We know about the connection to Kevin, we know they want the kid for some job, we know the kid's NSA job was to get her out of the way while Fawkes was taken out of the game. The question is, why?"

"Hobbes, drop it. Fawkes is fine, or will be with some work. Miss Silver is safe for now." The Official reasserted himself, nearly barking out the words.

"For now? What the hell does that mean?" Bobby asked, his voice rising along with the Official's.

"Hobbes, drop it." When Bobby opened his mouth to say something, the Official interrupted. "One word and I'll suspend you without pay for two weeks." He stood and leaned forward, his hands on the desk. "Try me."

Bobby shut his mouth and got to his feet as well. "I'm not going to let you play fast and loose with my partners' lives, Fat Man."

"Hobbes, drop this, or more than just their lives will be in danger." He lowered his voice. "Miss Silver has children, remember?"

That made Bobby's blood run cold. "Shit."

"Exactly. So far, they're safe, but between the group her husband worked for, the CIA, and now the SWRB, it is getting more difficult to keep them out of the game. Follow the leads to the shooter. Leave the SWRB alone." The Official sat back down a bit heavily. He was a bit out of practice with juggling such volatile elements, and it might yet get worse before this situation resolved itself.

"Chief, they may be one and the same," Hobbes reiterated, but could see the Official was adamant that they forget the SWRB angle.

"Hobbes..." he warned.

"I want it on the record that I'm doing this under protest.," Bobby snapped, not entirely sure what else to do. It was a good bet that if he continued, he would receive more than an unexpected unpaid vacation, and he didn't want to be tailed all over town just to verify he was behaving. Being followed made him nervous.

Smith came back in then with a file folder. "Agent Hobbes, here are the hard copies of the enhancements. They are also in the computer system if you wish to try and tweak them on your own." The man handed the file to Hobbes and then moved back to the stack of papers he'd been shuffling before.

"Where's Ms. Pritchard?" Bobby asked out of curiosity as he moved to the door.

"Reassigned. Smith is her temporary replacement. Try to get along with him." The Official was hard-pressed to hide a smile.

Bobby failed completely. He was glad Ms. Permafrost was gone. "Thanks, Smith," Bobby said as he walked out of the room. Instead of his office, he headed back to Alyx's, figuring Fawkes might want to help out with this. He found Alyx still sound asleep and Fawkes sitting at her desk, working on her laptop.

Darien was reading over the files Alyx had mentioned, about Kevin's involvement with the SWRB and some guy named Augustin Gaither. Kevin had worked for them for years, through all the preliminary testing and development stages. Yet when the final gland work began, he was working for the Agency instead. What the hell had happened?

"Fawkes, everything okay?" Bobby asked, setting a hand on Fawkes back.

"Hmmm? Oh, yeah. Just learning more about my family that I didn't know. Not sure I want to know, either." He watched as Bobby sat down in Alyx's chair and leaned back, making himself comfortable. "You find anything?"

"Both more and less than we wanted to know." He opened the file and thumbed through the pictures. They were astonishingly clear, given the crappy video they'd had to begin with and the inevitable loss of resolution when blowing them up. They had at least two views of the license plate number and, much to his surprise, a pic of the driver. He shook his head. That wasn't possible. To get a shot of the driver the camera would have to have been across the street, or from somewhere else entirely. And this shot was almost directly from the front.

Looking over at the piles of videotapes, he saw one buried at the bottom of the pile he was sure he didn't recognize. It was marked as coming from the DOT. Sliding it into one of the machines, he watched the tape play out in real time. It was one of those highway surveillance cameras used to catch red-light runners and monitor some of the worse intersections in the city. This one was up the street from the shooting location, at the cross street -- Laurel Street, he thought it was -- that led over to Lindbergh Field.

They hadn't collected this tape.

"Hobbes, what's going on?" Darien had rolled over beside him, glad he'd missed the joys of watching hours of traffic drive by.

"We're being tossed a bone." Hobbes stopped the video when the black Humvee they suspected as belonging to the shooter came into camera view, with a perfectly clear shot of the driver. "They're trying to buy us off."

"Hobbes, could you translate?" Darien didn't want to sound like a fool, but he did want to know what was going on.

"Look, we're pretty sure the SWRB was involved with this, up to their necks, so they're giving us a scapegoat so that we'll back off." He ejected the tape and set it down with the file. "I'm willing to bet this wasn't even recorded that morning, and they just played with the time code to make it look legit."

"So they screwed up, we caught on, and they're sacrificing a pawn, who might not even be the real shooter, just to get us to back off? Are they nuts?" Darien didn't like being used by the Official; he sure as hell wasn't going to put up with it from someone else. "What do we do?"

"There isn't much we can do. The Official has told us to leave the SWRB alone. My contacts have said to stay out of it. And I know they are not very nice people. They tend to eliminate their 'problems' by reducing them to their component parts." Bobby sounded angry more than anything else. He didn't like being told to back off, no matter what, or who, the reason. "I'll work this. It might even be worth the effort." He got to his feet and headed for the door. "Give me holler if you need anything. Oh, by the way, she's gone."

"Huh? Who?" Darien spun the chair to see Bobby grinning.

"Ms. Freeze has been reassigned. Some mook named Smith is her stand-in for now." Bobby was pleased to see the smile on Darien's face. They were so very rare these days.

"Well, at least one thing has gone right today." Darien rolled over to the bed and set a hand on Alyx's shoulder.

"Fawkes..." Bobby shook his head. "Never mind. I'll check back in later."

"Sure, Bobby." Darien turned his focus to Alyx.