Los Angeles Hilton Hotel Parking Garage

Los Angeles

            The pavement crunched as I walked, a sound not akin to bone breaking. I tried not to think about that.

          Instead, I shot a glance over at Michael as we continued toward the spot where his confrontation with the Code Five had gone down. It was cold outside and I'd thrown on my windbreaker, but he seemed indifferent to the weather. In fact, he seemed to be in a kind of stasis, both mortified that his homeland battle had followed me home and determined to do his vampire hunter duty and put an end to it. I knew he'd never forgive himself if anything happened that remotely involved Code Fives on my home soil.

          "What did Pearse say?" I asked.

          "He's looking into it." His voice was edgy, and I didn't blame him.

          We finally reached the other side of the parking garage – Michael had insisted on parking on the opposite end, for reasons I didn't quite know but I assumed were procedural – and I could see the scorch marks on the graying asphalt. Michael had taken care of the ashes and stored them in a CIB regulation container as soon as the hit had gone down. Thankfully for him and for us, Vaughan Rice, his co-worker who had helped us in London, had insisted that Michael travel with a CIB safety kit, including vampire storage containers, carbon-tipped bullets, and other special weapons. Nothing in CTU's vast arsenal was going to do anything for us now.

          "I parked the car and I was heading in when I saw him," he said, recounting the story slowly as if he were giving a witness statement, which indeed he was in a sense, "feeding off somebody in another vehicle. Called him out and blasted him. That's all there was to it." He looked up at me as if to wait for my interpretation of this very simple chronology, but I just shook my head.

          I knew this was needling Michael to no end, this rapidly complicated adventure we were now both on, by his choice and my obligation, and I wasn't surprised to hear his next sentences charged with bitter conviction. "This isn't a coincidence, Brittany," he said firmly, "a computer virus luring me out here to you at the same Code Fives appear, there is a reason why someone wanted me out here."

I accepted the point. "Or a reason why someone wanted you away from London. You told me CIB needed you on their side. Well, you're a hell of a lot easier to kill on your own and mixed up emotionally in Los Angeles than you are with Vaughan as backup and on the job in England." Michael looked at me like he hadn't considered that, but I kept going. "We're not ready for this fight, Michael. We don't have the right weapons, we don't have the knowledge. You can teach us, but who's going to be ready for the war?"

"I don't know. But we don't have much of a choice, do we?"

I didn't argue with him there.

"Come on," he said after a moment, "I want to get you equipped for this."

Together the two of us turned away from the inconspicuous circle on the asphalt and began walking toward the hotel's elevators. If you didn't know what you were looking for, you would never know that the invasion had begun.

Upstairs in his hotel room, I watched Michael open his second suitcase and start moving things around. I did not know you can fit two guns, two viewfinders, a whole box of ammunition, a half-dozen grenades and a medical emergency kit in one medium-sized suitcase. Talk about knowing how to pack. Loading the clip and attaching the viewfinder, he handed me the second firearm. "Take that and keep it with you," he said, and I put my gun in the interior pocket of my jacket and holstered his.

"What about everybody else?" I said.

"I'm not prepared for that," he said. "We'll have to make do until Vaughn can send additional supplies."

"We may not have that long."

"I know." Closing the suitcase and holstering his own weapon, he glanced at me. "But what else can we do, yeah?"

"Yeah, I know."

"You, uh … want to get a drink or something?"

Now I was able to smirk just a little. "Mike, the conversation we have to have is going to take a lot longer than one drink."

To my surprise, unlike most men on the planet, Michael took this in stride. "Everything's got a first part, right?"

Counter Terrorist Unit Los Angeles

            "He's almost like a whole other third person in the situation. Only not saying much."

          Lex looked over at Weiss. "He is a whole other third person, and he really isn't saying much, maybe because you want to kill him."

          "Yeah, well … I'm just saying, you know, when you consider your relationship with somebody, it's usually just the two of you. Like, look, with you and Brittany, it's just the dynamic between you and Brittany. You don't consider what Tony thinks or Jack. But with this whole thing, it's like I'm forced to involve Michael in any three words I say to her. He wasn't even ever her boyfriend, so it seems kind of … anal-retentive."

          "Anal-retentive?" Lex quirked an eyebrow. "Um … these things just take time. You want my opinion, he'll be out of here in a week and we'll be on this whole vicious circle all over again."

          "Despite the fact that that would drastically improve my chances, that really sucks." Weiss went back to typing.

          Lex was already going, then stopped, then nearly jumped. "God, I think we've just found it." He looked over at Weiss. "Get Jack. This is insane."

Los Angeles Hilton Hotel

Hotel Bar

Los Angeles

            "… and George actually wants me to write a proposal to Division on improving our internal network."

          "Well, are you going to do it?" Michael asked me, taking a long drink. I shrugged. "I'm going to do it. I just don't know if I'll be any good. But since he's Chappelle's interim replacement at least I've got him on my side."

          He laughed. "You'll be fine."

          "I'll believe it when I see it." I exhaled, ending on a chuckle. "Enough about me, though. What about you?"

          "The usual. Fighting the invasion, fighting Pearse, trying not to drink too much. That didn't work so much after you left." He looked in my direction as if to see how I might react, then continued, "I didn't know how alone I was feeling until being with you pointed it out to me."

          I met and held his gaze. "I'm used to that feeling. Even before you," I added quickly.

          "Both of us have got our problems," he admitted. "That's what holds us together."

          I started to say something, then was interrupted by the familiar whistling notes of my cell phone. I jumped. It was like being jostled out of one of those post-London daydreams back into reality. "Go ahead," I said quickly. "What's going on?"

          "We've figured it out."

          "On my way." Michael and I grabbed our jackets and ran for the exit, not even bothering to stay for a moment more in the land of might-have-been. It was time for the land of really-is-and-isn't-going-to-stop-unless-you-make-it-so-what-are-you-waiting-on.

Counter Terrorist Unit

Los Angeles

            "Follow the chain of events: we have a virus put here to trap Michael, Michelle leaves with a data spider, we can't find the virus." Lex was pacing the floor as Jack, Tony, Michael, Weiss, Steve and I looked on. The others were being called in immediately, but he wanted to explain it to us all right now, while it was still bubbling in his brain. "A spider can either put in or take out data. So: Michelle has removed the virus from the systems onto the spider and disappeared."

          "Why would she do that?" Steve said. "That's an admirable thing, not a crime."

          "That's what I don't understand."

          "The computer virus that broke your systems to get into Brittany's operating system was put there by people trying to lure me out of London to have me killed," Michael explained, continuing this train of thought, "so now, your missing woman and my death threat are connected, whether she knows it or not."

          "I don't think she does," I said.

          "Michelle's not the threat anymore," Chris said, getting to his feet. "She needs our help."