Brittany "Thespis" Frederick
Summary: When two college students become two CIA spies, what's more dangerous – the line being crossed, the people crossing it, or the fact that neither is that easy to figure out?
Genre: Action/Humor/a tad of Drama
Rating: PG for a little language
Dedication: To Tisha. Heh. You knew I would.
Author's Note: This is a mega-crossover, done entirely for the fun of myself and my best friend. It's going to involve most hugely 24 and Alias, but also a little of The Agency, Ultraviolet and God knows what else. All that stuff doesn't belong to us, but obviously the characters of us belong to us … the sense, however, will probably go out the window. And if any of the IRL people in this should read it, it's all in fun, I swear. ;)
"Is it over yet?" I said, covering my eyes with my hand and groaning not too audibly, as the target of my discomfort was right in front of me. Finally I moved my hand just slightly so I could look at my best friend sitting next to me with that same 'please shoot me right here, right now' look on her face.
Leticia covertly checked her cell phone. "I think so. It's like 2:10."
"Thank God," I muttered carefully under my breath.
At the front of the classroom Professor Berghof, our humanities instructor, was continuing to discuss the court of Louis XIV, which he preferred to dissect through movies involving Nigel Hawthorne (I didn't complain) and Gerard Depardieu (I did complain). The ninety-six words he'd written covering both sides of the white board were still all over it in no order whatsoever, and the "German guy," as we called him because, well, that's what he was, finally wrapped up his lecture with one more monotone sentence: "Remember to read Fiero chapter 20 and I will see you Tuesday."
The sound of everybody getting up and bolting for the door – he may as well have said 'free bars of gold in the quad' – was near deafening. The two of us collected our binders and textbooks, quickly shoved them into our backpacks, and exited as quickly as we could from our first-row seats out the door and into the University Hall first-floor walkabout area of Cal State San Marcos. As we did usually, we paused because we had fifteen minutes to make next class and really very little to do until then.
"So, I'll see you after class?" I said needlessly. She was my ride home.
"Yeah."
"Have fun." I rolled my eyes. "I'm off to visit… well, you know."
"Yeah. See you later."
She turned and walked one way and I went the other. We had different last classes and mine was upstairs with a very intimidating speech instructor named Professor Erbe who actually didn't want to flog me for being horrible, which surprised me to death. I was still scared of him though a lot of the fear had worn off with the more classes I went to. I crossed the walkabout, punched the button for the elevator, and it popped right open. I hit the button for the second floor and waited until the doors opened again. Just as I headed down the corridor to class, my cell phone rang. Damn theme from The X-Files.
"Go ahead. And quickly, I have … eight minutes."
"We need you for a meeting later."
"Define 'later' Tony."
"Six. It'll only be an hour."
"Do you know where I am? To get from here to L.A. will be…"
"… We'll send someone for you. Listen, it's because of the whole changes thing."
"I don't think you know what you're asking."
"Please don't make me beg."
I waited just long enough to make him squirm even though I really had nothing on him.
"Right. Six. You'll pick me up in the usual place?"
"Yeah, down the street."
"Fine." I sighed, opening the door to my classroom. "Don't call me again unless you want my head in a salad bowl." And before he could say anything else I clicked off my phone and slid into my seat next to my friend Eric. I was much more afraid of Professor Erbe than I was of missing another phone call. That man is intimidating, let me say. I only hoped Leticia was having an easier time in her math class than I was here.
At that same moment, her cell phone beeped twice. Text message.
She grabbed it from her purse – thankfully no one had heard it go off – and read the screen.
Immediately thereafter she almost stabbed herself in the hand with her pencil.
Maybe not.
Class came and went. Professor Erbe had been pretty okay this day. Just two videos, thankfully a minimum on the scary stuff. I said goodbye to Eric and slipped out the front door of University Hall into the Palm Court where Leticia and I always met at the end of each day to make the walk back to her car and the drive back home. As I walked over to her I arched an eyebrow.
"Things go okay?"
"Yeah."
"You look a little distracted."
"The homework set this week is huge."
"Okay."
"How was your teacher?"
"Thankfully not out for blood." I shrugged as we began to walk. "You never know until you try, right? Let's go. My group just decided it's meeting at six and I've got to catch a ride up."
"Your group? The juvenile delinquents?" She echoed my terminology for my speech group.
I nodded. "They're more diligent than you think."
After she drove me home I dropped off my school belongings at my house and told my mom that Leticia and I were going to see a movie and hang out at the mall and we would be home late. I took my house key just in case and made sure that my friend's car had disappeared round the corner before I walked down the street as if I were going to the mailbox, then covertly turned the corner and almost walked right into the dark sedan.
"Want to park that any closer?" I quipped, stowing my key.
Tony slipped his sunglasses into his jacket pocket. "Don't complain."
"I'm not," I said as I got into his car. "You don't normally do this for me."
"You know Jack would kill someone if something happened to you. He wants the best."
"And you're the best," I said, because in truth after all that had happened he was.
Tony just shrugged, taken by the compliment, and pulled away from my little suburban street. We were on our way to Los Angeles where the group was meeting.
"So what is this all about?" I asked him as the car exited my development. "What's going on? Why now?"
"Don't ask me," he said. "The new girl, Michelle, it's all her idea. Double- and triple-check everything." He put special emphasis and special sarcasm on the last word.
"And Jack's bought into it?"
Tony nodded. "Can't really blame him, can you?"
"No," I admitted, turning on the car radio and tuning it to the Wave 94.7 smooth jazz station which always calmed my nerves before a big night. "But I can't just keep disappearing like this. It doesn't work for me."
"You work for CTU," Tony said, looking back at me. "You disappear whenever you need to."
Central Intelligence Agency Los Angeles"You're sure I can't get you anything?" the veteran agent said as he walked his charge into the conference room and closed the door behind the both of them. Eric Weiss was certain it was going to be one of 'those' days and frankly, he could do without it, but he just did his job anyway.
The female agent took a seat at the deserted table, managing to stay reasonably cool in the process. "You've asked me that five times, Weiss. No, I'm fine, I swear."
"Just checking," the older agent put up his hands in surrender as he took a seat two chairs down from her.
She favored him with a smile. "Where's Vaughn?"
"On his way. This is big. It's taking a while," he admitted uneasily, not wanting to get her scared. A scared operations officer was a nervous one, and they screwed up, and that was of course the last thing you wanted at the CIA, not in a world like this. He could hear the rants from upstairs now.
"How big?" she said, freezing in her tracks. Too late. She was scared. Doing a good job of not showing it too much but Weiss was well-trained and could pick it out instantly. "Like Sydney big?"
"I don't know."
"Well, how would we know?" Leticia asked him, getting a little uncomfortable and having ideas about exploding red water balls and viruses and dead people in bathtubs again.
The CIA handler looked a little edgy himself. "You're supposed to find out for us."
Counter Terrorist Unit Los AngelesThe man at the head of the conference table was Special Agent Jack Bauer. He was my boss and the boss of everyone else in the room and he gave the best briefings this side of D.C. I sat on Jack's left side, two seats down between Agent Tony Almeida, acting deputy to Jack, and Agent Lex Richards, our new computer specialist following the murder of Jamey Farrell by Nina Myers. Also in the room were District Director George Mason, whom nobody liked, new security chief Agent Michelle Dessler, that I didn't like, and a few others I knew vaguely. We all looked to Jack as he cleared his throat and started talking.
"What I'm about to tell you doesn't leave this room."
Not a good sign.
"What happened this morning at District is something we've probably all imagined doing for ourselves. Everyone here, everyone at CTU, probably has motive and opportunity for the crime. But it's our job to close it and therefore I trust you to keep quiet and conduct what's going to be a bloody internal investigation."
"Just tell them what happened, Jack." This from Mason. I kept making excuses for him in my head.
Jack shot a glare in Mason's direction, then continued.
"Ryan Chappelle was murdered. His body was found in his office this morning."
Everybody kind of looked at each other with various expressions somewhere between love and hate. Ryan Chappelle was Mason's boss, making him Jack's boss's boss, and Jack was right, we all hated him. At least everyone at CTU L.A. wanted him gone or worse. His death could blow CTU apart and anyone could have done it. Before we could start dropping names Jack cut us all off.
"George will coordinate us with District. Tony will be running the floor with me. Michelle, get security up to wherever it is you want it by the end of tomorrow, today preferably. Lex, start running anything you can get before Alberta Green can close our back channels down. Brittany will join you on that shortly."
He fixed us all with one last glance as if to will us not to screw this up, then dismissed us. Lex put his hand on my shoulder as he stood and the two of us said a few words to each other. Since he had come over from Langley, Lex and I had been working together and I told him I'd meet him at our workstations in a second. Jack was gathering his paperwork and when everyone had gone I walked over to the man that had recruited me into CTU.
"What do you want me on, Jack?"
Jack blinked. "You're running data with Lex. Let me know what you get."
"You said I'd join him shortly. That means I've got another docket. What's up?"
My SAC checked to make sure the door was closed and everyone was gone, then stopped entirely and turned to me. "This is only between you and me."
I tensed. "All right."
"Two rumors are going around, unconfirmed. One is that this may involve as far as England. In that case, we have sources set up." He handed me a file folder. "That goes in your locker and leave it there until you're getting on the plane."
"What's the second?"
The last words I ever wanted to hear were the next ones he said.
"The second is that it may involve Nina Myers."