Smoke & Mirrors by Star24

Disclaimer: Dark Angel and its characters are property of Twentieth Century Fox and James Cameron and Charles Eglee. This original story is property and copyright 2003 Star24.

Chapter Three

Fogle Towers

Logan slid the disk his informant had passed to him into his computer drive. After carefully checking it for viruses or trojans and finding it clean, he scrolled through the list of files to the one he was most interested in.  Typing in a command he watched with suppressed excitement as a program began to execute.

SEARCHING FOR SERVER…SERVER FOUND…WAITING FOR CONNECTION…CONNECTED TO SERVER…VERIFYING PASSWORD…WELCOME DR. GILLEN…

"Bingo," he exclaimed to himself in quiet triumph. "Now let's see exactly what dirty little secrets you've been hiding from all of us, Manticore."  Within moments he was intent on his screen as the Manticore database lay open in front of him.

Manticore Operations Center

The bored technician on duty in the computer operations center of Manticore, yawned and stretched as he ran his eyes across the display screens that were his responsibility.

"Hey Joe, whats 'a matter? That hot little wife of yours keepin' you up too late?" His partner caught the yawn and teased.

"You're just jealous 'cause you ain't got a girlfriend, let alone someone like my Maryanne," the tech threw back.  The two bantered back and forth for a few moments and then the second tech rose from his chair.

"You want a soda? I'm gonna run out to the machine."

"Sure." Joe reached into his pocket and tossed some coins at his partner. Then he settled in to watch the monitors, daydreaming of his new wife and the previous night.

Beeeeeep…the shrill beeping of an alarm got his attention. Leaning forward he punched in a command, and then drew in a breath. His partner returned with the sodas and some bags of chips, and started to speak, but Joe motioned him to silence.

"We got us a bogey. Look at this." He pointed to the screen in front of him.

The second tech leaned in to study the monitors. "Whoa, man. This guy's good. He got all the way in to the mainframe without tripping any alarms. How long's he been in and what's he seen?"

"Dunno.  He didn't trip anything until he went into the Delta database. Could have been in for a while. Hang on, I'm trying a trace." There was silence for a moment as the two techs concentrated on the screens in front of them. A window headed Trace in Progress opened and a moving green bar displayed the progress of the trace. Suddenly the bar stopped moving and the window blinked repetitiously at them… Connection broken…Connection broken…

"Damn! Lost him."

"Did you get anything at all?"

Joe looked at the trace results and shook his head. "Seattle. That's it. He must have picked up on the trace and cut out before it could complete. He's good. Damn good."  He reached over and pulled a disk from a drive. "Hold down the fort. I better get this to Director Renfro right away."

"Oh yeah. Don't want the Ice Queen pissed because you delayed on getting her any info."

"All I know is that I wouldn't want to be this guy when she locates him. Hope he's got himself a good funeral plan set up."

Joe turned and hurried from the operations center as his partner settled in with his snack.

September 26  Woods outside of Seattle

Max fought her way through the dense forest.  Her hands were covered with lacerations from the barbed wire fencing at Manticore and her clothing was ripped.  She moved cautiously, stopping periodically to look and listen for signs of pursuit.  She had been moving through the woods for days, and it seemed she had finally lost any pursuit there might have been.

All at once she came to the end of the woods.  From behind a tree she gazed out over the cityscape of Seattle,  which was dominated by the Space Needle.  She smiled and plunged ahead. It was already late in the day and darkness would be arriving in just a few hours. It was time for speed now, not stealth.

Jam Pony

Original Cindy pushed her bike into Jam Pony and lifted it over her head with the ease of long practice, hooking it onto one of the overhead racks.

"Hey, hey, hey Missy. Knocking off a bit early are we?" Normal caught her action, even though he had appeared to be engrossed in some kind of paperwork.

"It's 4:56 PM and this girl ain't headin' out on no more runs today."

"Work day goes until 5 PM. Unless you want to get docked I better see you doing something work related for the next four minutes."

"Yeah, yeah," she responded. "Don't get your panties in a twist."

"I heard that Miss Thang." Normal responded sarcastically.

Original Cindy looked at him innocently, "What? Heard me say that I was gonna go give the ladies a shot of Lysol mist? Ain't that work related enough for you? It's not like your cleaning service actually cleans in there."

Normal snorted and turned back to his paperwork after pointedly placing a can of disinfectant spray on the counter.  Cindy strolled over and was about to pick it up when she caught sight of a figure standing in the doorway. The clang of the can on the floor caught Normal's attention and he looked up to see Original Cindy hugging another girl.

"Hey, none of that here. This is a decent and respectable place of business. Keep your personal perversions out of it," he called out in a huff.

The two girls ignored him and he dropped his paperwork and headed out of the cage, only to stop short when he reached the pair, and Original Cindy stepped back to reveal her partner.

"For the love of Mike. What in Sam hill are you doing back here?" Normal sputtered in shock.

"Nice to see you too, Normal. Its good to know you missed me," Max tossed out sarcastically.  She was filthy and her clothes were torn, but it was definitely Max.

"Your reprobate pals said you were dead. I should have known it was just an excuse for an unauthorized vacation. Don't think you can just waltz back in here and have your job back. You left me in the lurch while you were off shacking up with some guy, or whatever it is you were doing."

Max opened her mouth to answer, but was forestalled by Original Cindy.

"Yeah right, whatever, Normal. C'mon girl let's get you home. You look like you need a bath and some rest. We'll deal with Mr. High and Mighty tomorrow." Original Cindy wrapped her arm around Max's shoulders and pushed her out the door without a backward glance at the still sputtering Normal.

"That's four minutes off of your pay, Missy." he called after them, managing to get in the last word.

End of Chapter Three.