Title: Deleri
Author: BethCarielle
See Chapter One for Disclaimer and Details.
Chapter Seven
"The nanobots are in place?"
"Yes, sir."
"And reports on information obtained?"
"Being compiled, sir."
Jason Redlin nodded and waved his assistant away. He sat back in his black leather chair, hands folded comfortably across his abdomen. Doctor Serrano may have betrayed him, and Adrian Harper may have avoided his notice and released Doctor Ashbury and his daughter, but he still had a few more tricks up his sleeve.
"What do you mean 'she's a risk'?"
"Exactly that Agent Harper. She needs to be removed from this facility immediately."
"But you know The Keeper won't let her go."
"Doctor Keeply has no say in the matter. Assemble your team and prepare to act. You have three hours," finished The Official with a wave of dismissal.
Harper released a weary sigh, nodding as he stood up from the wooden chair in front of The Official's desk. He crossed the office in silence and let himself out. Closing the door behind him, he leaned against the edge of the jamb. Three weeks had passed since he had 'completed' his assignment within Stratagen, completed in the sense that his cover had been blown. Matt was one of three people he was originally responsible for freeing from Stratagen, Dana had become an unexpected fourth. Doctor Arwyn Noël was still trapped at Stratagen and the third had not been revealed to him at the time of his discovery.
Doctor Noël was a doctorate in biotechnology and biophysics. She, like Matthew Ashbury, had been blackmailed into Stratagen with threats against her children. Her sons, six and eight, where in The Agency's Chrysalis Program; her husband, Agent Ryan Larke, was employed by The Agency, while Noël had remained employed by a private company. Thirteen months ago, Arwyn Noël was abducted in the parking garage that served the building where her labs were located. When her location was discovered, she had been added to Harper's assignment.
Harper had been able to make contact with Noël shortly before Redlin's abduction of Dana Ashbury. Dana's abduction forced Harper's hand and he had to make the decision to leave Noël uninformed and inside Stratagen. The one piece of information he had been able to leave her was his source number inside The Agency. He had hoped that she would be able to make contact to Hobbes safely and that her eventual release could be orchestrated.
Harper had been shocked to learn that Noël had in fact been able to contact Hobbes about a week ago. The information she imparted was grave. During her time within Stratagen she had been assigned to work on nanobot technology given to Stratagen by Jared Stark. She informed Hobbes that at the time of Dana's abduction she was not only infected with the virus designed by her father, but she had also been infected with the new nanobots she had designed, nanobots that Claire wouldn't be able to neutralize.
Her call confirmed two things: one, Dana was a risk and needed to be removed; two, Stratagen had communication and cooperation with Jared Stark's Chrysalis. Suspicions of the latter had been voiced when Dana's whereabouts had been so easily found by Redlin's people.
Chrysalis operations were frozen immediately after Dana's abduction and two low-level aides had been ferreted out as Stark's people. They had been funneling information about children back to Redlin via an easily hacked file system linked to Chrysalis' computers. This system was responsible for the information gained on Dana Ashbury, and Jeff and Scott Larke. The Chrysalis Program was still under scrutiny with the computer systems offline and limited communication in the higher power levels only.
Harper pulled out of his slump and glanced at his watch, he had two hours and 45 minutes to assemble his team of agents to remove Dana Ashbury from the building by all means necessary. Dana would then be taken to a secure location where hopefully, with Noël's help, the nanobots could be deactivated. Right now, The Official was trying to institute damage control, tracking and tracing Dana's whereabouts in the last three weeks, trying to determine who and what may have been exposed to the living transmitter. Insofar, the Quicksilver Project appeared to still be unexposed. Walking down the hall, Harper paused outside an office. Raising his hand, he rapped his knuckles against the wood in quick succession.
"Come in!" called a muffled voice through the door. Harper turned the handle and let himself into Bobby Hobbes' sparsely furnished office. The older agent looked up expectantly at Harper's entrance.
"Now?" asked Bobby, reading the expression on Harper's face.
"Now," replied Harper with a sigh.
"Where are they?" asked Bobby, meaning Claire, Matt, and Dana.
"Dana is with her mother at Claire's town house. Ashbury has been placed in an Agency safe house. Both are guarded."
"Does Claire know?"
"No. That's part of our assignment," said Harper quietly.
"And Fawkes?"
"He's not to be part of the team. The Official has him on another assignment."
"He what? Where is he? He can't go off alone because of the madness," said Bobby worried.
Harper had only seen a brief glimpse of the success of The Invisible Man. "He's not alone, Agent Carreras is with him, and we're to join him after this assignment."
Bobby sighed resting his head in his hands, elbows propped on his desk; the day would not end well.
"Dana! Dana, no! Don't take her, please don't take her! Dana!" Claire's voice shattered the silence of the neighborhood as a nurse, Prudence MacKay, carried Dana from the house. Harper and Hobbes, both grim in their intent, restrained The Keeper as her daughter was led away.
"Mommy!" Dana's shrill wail pierced Claire's cries and she struggled to free herself from her co-workers' grasp.
"Claire! No. It's for her own good," Harper pleaded, tightening his grip on her upper arm.
"I will not lose her again," growled Claire, wrenching free from Bobby's grasp. With one arm released, Claire leveraged herself from Harper's grip as well and ran down the sidewalk after the nurse. Another figure appeared in Claire's vision and she saw Matt coming up the driveway, confusion evident on his face.
"What's going on? Where are you taking her?" asked Matt in panic. He saw Claire's grief stricken face and watched as Harper and Hobbes restrained her once more.
"They're taking her away again. They can't, I won't let them!" shouted Claire, still struggling.
"Taking her where? Why!" demanded Matt.
"She's a security risk. It's the nanobots. We can't help her here," explained Bobby tersely.
Matt looked from Claire to where the nurse was trying to coax Dana into the back of a black sedan without a fight. He looked back at Claire; he knew she was bound by the contract she had inadvertently agreed to 14 years ago. Dana had been safe, but that safety had been threatened, and now she was being forced to leave her child once more.
Matt thought of the sheaf of papers sitting back at the safe house where he was being guarded by Agency agents around the clock. The papers were a contract and employment agreement being offered him by The Agency. It was a good arrangement. He would be within a better organization and he would know that both Claire and Dana were safe. He'd been on his way to Claire's town house to discuss the contract when he walked into the middle of Dana's removal. He hadn't signed anything yet, he was still a free citizen.
Running from where Claire stood, Matt reached the nurse's side.
"You will release her to me," he commanded. Surprised, the nurse lost her grip on the struggling child and Matt took her. Holding her, he tried to calm her hysterical tears when The Official appeared from a second dark vehicle.
"Don't do this, Ashbury. You could have so much more," intoned the large man.
"I have all I need," replied Matt with contempt.
The Official nodded and made a small gesture with his hand. "Take them both," he muttered as other agents moved in around Matt.
Matt, realizing what was happening, held Dana tighter. "I love you, sweetheart," he murmured and turned to face Claire, who was still half-way down the sidewalk with Harper and Hobbes at her sides. "I love you, Claire. I've got her now," he called, giving what he hoped was a reassuring smile. The agents ushered Matt into the car and closed the door with a thump. One of the agents climbed into the front passenger seat and the car pulled away from the curb.
Claire stood in shock, emotions warring within her. She realized Bobby and Adrian still held her and she roughly shook off their grasp. "Get your bloody hands off me," she spat, moving away from them.
"Claire, she wasn't safe, we had to," began Bobby.
"I don't care what you had to do. She's my daughter, and you've taken her from me twice now! Haven't you done enough already?" she screamed, turning to The Official. "I'm yours; I'm your bloody fucking slave. You own my life, what more do you want from me?" demanded Claire. The Official stood non-plussed, his face impassive to the verbal assault.
"We have what we need, Doctor." And with that he turned and climbed into the second car, which pulled away and disappeared down the street.
Charles Borden sat silently in the car as it sped down familiar San Diego streets. He had done what he was instructed when he told his supervisor about the risk Dana presented. If only The Keeper knew how much they shared in common.
The sedan slowed to a stop outside the Rothe Building and Borden climbed from his seat. He entered and made his way to his office, waving the attentions of his assistant away. The picture of himself and John F. Kennedy glared harshly under the fluorescent light of his office. Had that really been almost 35 years ago? When that photo had been taken Logan Bradbury had been a young bureaucrat, quickly rising through the ranks. In the photo he was being commended for his achievements in national security, right before he had been transferred to an area of government he hadn't known to exist.
The Secret Weapons Research Branch was known to a select few, and fewer still were directly connected to the organization. The government had to keep its plausible deniability in-tact.
He remembered the excitement and nervous energy of the day when he was officially and secretly awarded his top most level security clearance and service weapon. All members of the SWRB were to be armed, if not to dispatch those who threatened security, than to take their own lives as not be responsible for divulging information if captured.
His first eight years in the SWRB were everything a young man of the Cold War era could want; intrigue, clandestine meetings and drop sites, tension and suspense abound; Bradbury loved it, thrived on it, until the QS Project was announced. He hated what the QS Project had done to him. With the development of the theories and new science, the QS Project came into conflict within the SWRB.
The SWRB had been divided into two main sectors: one dealing with the mechanical weapons and the other developing biological and chemical weaponry. Logan Bradbury was an upper level administrator, his field days behind him, when the QS Project was dropped into his hands. He was instructed to head the project and appease the warring sides, both of whom thought that Quicksilver technology should be under their jurisdiction.
Bradbury tried to separate areas of the project, satisfying each side, but failed. He handed it to the mechanical team, citing his beliefs that the technology could be used to create invisible assassins, who were in a sense, weapons. Ann Rolbin, in her fury at being denied the project, left the SWRB, taking most of the biological sector with her. She had gone on to form Stratagen. With her government contacts and secrets she was able to keep her organization under the radar, eventually escaping all government support and inquiry.
The mechanical team with their lack of knowledge about the detailed biological ramifications of the QS Project, failed in creating invisible assassins and instead racked up a body count of human subjects, each being someone who's death needed explanation. Bradbury had lost count of how many wives, mothers, sons and daughters he had to explain to that their family member wasn't coming back, leaving them with an unlikely story that the decedent had been killed in action in service of the CIA, NSA, or other organization.
As he suspected it would happen, one family chose not to take the cover story, opening a law suit against the government. With high powered attorneys and rabid media coverage on the impending government scandal and cover up, the SWRB was forced to give up its secrets, including Logan Bradbury and all the files on the QS Project. Bradbury was the SWRB's fall guy. Being in charge of the project, he was the first person to be arrested in the investigation.
Having his government status stripped from him Bradbury was carted off to a federal prison where he was intercepted upon his arrival. Another little known organization within the United States government had taken an interest in him and the project he was taking the fall for. In the summer of 1978, Logan Bradbury was forcibly recruited by The Agency to become Charles Borden, The Official in charge of developing QS technology.
The scientists working under The Official were however not capable of performing the necessary procedures to advance the QS Project and The Agency began its search for up and coming minds to head the project. Twelve years had passed before academics with the proper education began flowing through the higher education system of America. Ellen Parker, a British born and raised immigrant, was making spectacular progress in genetic and biochemical studies. With their sights set on making an offer to the young British woman they lost their opportunity when she joined a private company.
The opportunity represented itself when the company, the almost forgotten about Stratagen, was raided by the federal government for selling biological weapons to countries for use against the US. Ellen Parker was arrested in the mass of scientists and administrators responsible for the development of the weapons. The Agency stepped in and made an offer she couldn't refuse and effectively erased Ellen Parker, leaving Claire in her place.
After almost losing Ellen, The Agency started assigning clandestine Keepers to its future employees, placing Claire with Kevin Fawkes, a brilliant bioengineer and geneticist. Charles Borden was pleased to have such talented minds at his disposal and soon after Kevin Fawkes' recruitment the QS Project began to take shape, becoming a definitive possibility. Claire had then been placed in other Keeper positions, not all as successful as Kevin Fawkes, much to The Official's ire.
And now she was the only successful Invisible Man's Keeper, an assignment that wasn't supposed to last beyond 12 months. Prior to Kevin's death, there were plans for Claire's release from her contract and an offer of a much coveted position on one of The Agency's research teams where Claire could lead a more normal nine to five existence. When Kevin had been killed another scientist was needed immediately and Claire was The Agency's only option.
The Official saw the Rothe Building come into view and he considered his next move. He needed to extract Doctor Noël from Stratagen. She would be able to reverse engineer the nanobots infecting Dana. He had already sent Agents Fawkes and Carreras ahead to Odessa where they were awaiting Hobbes and Harper's arrival. The four agents had orders to retrieve doctor Noël and neutralize any Stratagen targets they may come in contact with.
Settling in his office, The Official opened a file folder and sorted through the papers within. Suffering from some twisted version of empty nest syndrome, The Official sighed and carefully signed the orders sending Harper to act as Keeper for Matt and Dana, and hopefully, eventually, Claire.
Picking up a second sheet, he signed Bobby over to the Stratagen investigative team. The team had been created after Stratagen had made themselves known again, 14 years ago. It was the team Bobby originally had been trained for.
A third set papers was sending Agent Larke to The Agency office in Denver where Doctor Noël would be free to join him. The second page detailed the release and transfer for Larke and Noël's sons from the Chrysalis program to be with their parents.
Looking from the file folder, The Official picked up the receiver of his phone and dialed the strike team leader. Hearing the confirmation of their position, he gave the signal.
"Sir? The nanobot reports, sir," said Redlin's assistant as he handed the sheaf of papers to his boss.
Redlin took the papers and began to leaf through them, waving his assistant away. Flipping past the first pages detailing Dana's incarceration in his facility before Ashbury knew of her presence, Redlin read the reports on what had been gathered from the doctor. He had a suspicion that Doctor Ashbury had been playing him for the last six years and that Harper probably had something to do with it. Instead of calling them on it, he watched them carefully. There was no one else with Ashbury's viral skill, and he wanted his virus.
Now, he knew that shortly after the virus had been hybridized successfully, Ashbury had also created an anti-viral against it. An ineffective one, improved upon by Doctor Parker. This improvement had been successful in combating the virus as seen in Dana Ashbury, Harper, Robert Hobbes, and Doctor Ashbury himself.
Moving a couple of pages forward, he came to a highlighted area concerning what had been called the Quicksilver Project. Jason Redlin had seen the reports and read the documents concerning biological invisibility. From what he knew, it was a myth of the Vietnam era, the government's quest to create invisible soldiers. It had failed and the government's blame rested on one Logan Bradbury. Further reports indicated that Bradbury had been "removed" and the project scrapped.
Now the information gained from the implanted nanobots indicated a different story. Although there had been no visual confirmation of the Quicksilver Project, there had been a few audio transmissions referring to it. So The Agency was indeed successful in creating an Invisible Man.
"Are you sure this is the way?" asked Darien as he followed the other team members through the labyrinth of maintenance tunnels.
"Positive, Fawkes," echoed a new voice through the tinny earpiece.
"Hobbes?"
"On your six, my friend."
"I thought
you weren't in on this."
"I had another…assignment."
"Assignment? Hobbes, what happened?"
"Nothing, Darien. Focus on this first," replied the elder Agent sternly.
Darien buried the spike of adrenaline, and continued on the path into the Stratagen complex. They were taking a risk trying to access the compound this way since their cover had been blown by the nanobots, but they had been given an order to use all force necessary to accomplish their objective. They reached a stair access and Darien was called to the front.
Checking his hip he felt the familiar pre-loaded syringe of Counteragent. He was on his own now, he had 30 minutes to extract Doctor Noël and another 30 minutes if he used the second dose of Counteragent.
He slipped into the stairwell as Quicksilver flowed over his body and quietly moved down a flight of stairs, placing him at the S1 sublevel. Moving silently down the hall past observation rooms and other unmarked doors, Darien made his way to the end of the hall and to another stairwell that unobtrusively took him up into the heart of the Stratagen complex.
"At the S1 N0 junction," he radioed back.
"Good," replied Hobbes fainter voice. "Up one more flight of stairs, and first turn on your right."
Darien followed the instructions and found himself at an airlock. "Hobbes, where am I?"
"Static free technological development department. Through the doors, you'll have to wait for the airlock to cycle and then all the way down the hall and to the left."
"Isn't the airlock cycling on empty going to alert someone?"
"Negative. It runs continuously at any hint of pressure change. They're rather picky about their electronics."
Darien stepped through the double doors and felt the pressure change as the airlock cycled. The inner doors clicked open and he continued down the hall reading the sign that pointed left through his altered Quicksilver vision. 'Division of Microbiological Technology.' Nanobots. "Now where, Hobbes?"
"Third door on the right. Remember, she's not expecting you. Try not to frighten her."
"Cameras in her lab?"
"Negative. The wireless transmissions are too dangerous to have around the nanos. You're running at 17 minutes Quicksilver time Fawkes."
"Affirmative. I'll see you in 15 more," and with that Darien removed the earpiece and pushed open the door to Arwyn's lab. Unlike the medical labs he had grown accustom to, this room was stark in its lack of supplies. Everything carefully packed away and only a high-powered microscope and a tray of microtools at its side gave away the hint of any activity that occurred in this room.
A mid-height, curly haired woman was bent over a lab notebook carefully printing figures in neat rows. Darien took a step and let the Quicksilver flake from his body with a familiar tinkle of glass shards. The doctor turned her head slightly at the noise but apparently chose to ignore it as she returned to her notebook.
Softly as he could Darien cleared his throat. This time Arwyn turned, fear on her features. "My name is Darien Fawkes. Harper sent me," said Darien, trying to appease her.
"How…how did you get in here?"
"Long story. However, now we have to get out of here. Grab the data you have on your nanobots."
"Who are you?"
"Darien Fawkes. Believe me, I'm with the good guys, The Agency. Agent Harper contacted you four weeks ago and gave you a contact number inside The Agency. Now I'm here to extract you."
Arwyn found herself nodding, remembering the events. She gathered up the notebook she had been writing in, a couple others like it and a case of CDs. She looked around her spartan lab and with a nod to Darien, signaled she had what she needed.
Darien nodded in return and checked his wrist. "Something else," he said as he removed the syringe from its case, pausing when he saw the horror on the doctor's face. "No, no, you're safe, I promise you. This is for me, I might need it before we get out of here. If I tell you to inject it, do it immediately," said Darien, taking a leap of faith that the engineer would be able to act in case he neared Quicksilver Madness.
Watching Arwyn tuck the syringe away with her notes, Darien took her hand a led her to the door. "I'm not going to be able to explain it now. They can't see us, but they can still hear us. Be as quiet as you can," said Darien and he let the Quicksilver flow over his body and onto Arwyn's. A small gasp was the only reaction from the doctor.
Leading Arwyn from the lab, Darien directed her through the halls, back to the stairwell where he had entered this wing of the building. A small pinging sensation began to intrude on Darien's consciousness. He knew the last 10 minutes of his Quicksilver ability was approaching.
He quickened their pace as the pinging became pain pressing at his skull, trying to force its way out through bone and tissue. He saw the sign directing him into the stairwell and he pushed Arwyn through the door ahead of him. Glancing around, he noted the cameras and tucked himself and Arwyn into a corner out of the scanners' paths.
Darien cut the Quicksilver flow with a small tinkle and saw the shocked look on the doctor's face. With a grim smile he turned his wrist up and saw the last two green segments. "The syringe," he managed as a spike of pain shot through his consciousness.
Arwyn paled and fumbled for the hypodermic. Darien concentrated on her actions, knowing the Madness could be halted. Arwyn pulled the cap off the needle and with a shaking hand reached for Darien's arm.
"Where?" she whispered.
Darien turned the inside of his elbow up and indicated the bulging vein beneath the skin. Arwyn nodded and carefully slid the needle in with untrained hands. Darien hissed at the pain and Arwyn startled.
"Inject it," said Darien through gritted teeth with a nod of his head.
Arwyn began depressing the plunger and Darien slumped against the wall as the Counteragent hit his system. He felt hands on his shoulders trying to keep him upright and watched as the world around him swam as the Counteragent worked its magic through his vessels.
"Agent Fawkes? Darien? Wake up," a voice implored him through the fog in his brain. Darien's eyes snapped open and he saw the worried face of the doctor before him.
"Are you alright? What was that stuff?"
"Counteragent."
"Counteragent. Something to do with the Quicksilver?"
"You know?"
"I have no idea. I only assumed that what you used to get us out of there. I've only seen the old reports and heard the "myths" in various tech circles," explained Arwyn.
Darien nodded and pushed himself away from the wall. He looked around and listened carefully. So far it seemed they hadn't been discovered. Rolling his neck, Darien shook out his arms. "Ready to get out of here?" he asked with a smile.
"Yes. You're ok?"
Darien looked at his wrist and was greeted by ten green segments. "I'm fine. Let's go."
Once again Darien let the Quicksilver flow and covered both himself and the doctor. They slipped out of their sheltered corner and padded down the stairs into the S1N0 junction. He placed the ear piece back into his ear to hear his aggravated partner.
"Fawkes! Fawkes, can you hear me! Damn it, Fawkes, answer me!"
"Something you needed, Hobbes?" he asked innocently.
"Damn it, Fawkes, where were you?"
"Retrieving the doctor. We just past the S1N0 junction. We're on our way out."
"That explains the guards going ape shit down here. They know she's gone, Fawkes. Get your butt out here pronto."
Darien ignored Bobby's continuing diatribe and turned to the doctor. "They know you're gone. Things could get nasty. Do what I tell you, ok?"
Arwyn nodded and allowed herself to be lead further into the bowels of the Stratagen building. They arrived at a door which opened to a tunnel. The breath of fresh air startled Arwyn. They were outdoors, or close to it.
"Hobbes? What's our situation?" ask Darien, noting the other agents were no longer in the tunnel.
"Your exit is still clear. We'll lay down cover fire if need be. Be careful, Fawkes."
"Always."
Darien shed the Quicksilver now that they were in the tunnel and blinked to adjust his vision to the darker interior. He felt Arwyn stumble and looked over his shoulder to see her trying to do the same thing.
"Almost there." The square of light that announced the end of the tunnel approached and Darien hurried towards it. Stopping near the mouth, Darien gestured for Arwyn to stay hidden and he let the Quicksilver flow over his body. He reconnoitered the immediate area and called softly to Arwyn. He sent a tendril of Quicksilver on to the doctor and watched it swiftly cover her.
"It's a bit of a walk, but it looks clear."
Quietly they made their way across the sand, their footprints the only clue to their presence. In the murky distance Darien could see the speck that was the Agency vehicle. He quickened their pace slightly, 20 yards.
"We're incoming, Hobbes, heads up," said Darien.
"Hit the deck, Fawkes!" was the only warning Darien received before the first shots rang out across the otherwise silent landscape.
Pulling Arwyn to the ground the Quicksilver flaked off of them and Darien saw Bobby running towards them. "Get her to the truck! Go! Go! Go!" commanded Hobbes as he returned fire.
Darien pulled Arwyn to her feet and half dragged her along with his longer strides. The door of the SUV was thrown open as they neared and Arwyn scrambled into the back seat, Darien following. She found herself sitting facing another bench seat, Darien next to her and Adrian Harper across from her.
"Doctor," said Harper as the engine roared to life and the SUV lurched into motion. The opposite door was thrown open and Hobbes came tumbling in, landing next to Agent Harper.
"Welcome to The Agency, ma'am," said Hobbes with a smile for Arwyn as he then returned fire from the open window. The gun spent its last round and Hobbes dropped the clip, slamming a new one home as they sped away.
"We'll be in Odessa in about 30 minutes. Is there anything you need?" asked Hobbes. Arwyn looked at him with disbelief and shook her head. "Your expertise is needed for Doctors Keeply and Ashbury's daughter. She was, as you know, infected with your new nanobots. Unfortunately, before we realized this, sensitive information was transmitted back to Jason Redlin. Dana Ashbury has been removed and sequestered. Her father is with her. You will be transferred to them," reported Bobby in his briefing.
"What about my sons? What about Ryan?" asked Arwyn as Darien listened as well. That must have been the assignment Bobby wouldn't tell him about.
"That information has not been released to me, ma'am."
Arwyn took a deep breath and nodded. At least she was away from that monster Redlin.
***
"Doctor Noël's extraction was successful. She's currently on her way to the holding facility where Dana is being kept. Doctor Noël reassured us she has a fully functional reversal protocol for her nanobots. Dana will be treated and released to her father within 48 hours."
Claire stood unmoving, listening to The Official's report. "I would like to thank Doctor Noël," replied Claire softly.
"I'm sure your thanks can be passed on, Doctor," said The Official, nodding to Eberts to make a note of it. "That's all, Doctor," continued The Official in dismissal.
Claire turned and left the office.
"Eberts."
"Yes, sir?"
"Please call in Agent Larke."
"Yes, sir," replied Eberts picking up the phone. A few moments later there was a knock at the door.
"Enter!"
Agent Larke opened the door and slipped inside. "Sir?"
"Agent Larke. As of last evening your wife has been successfully removed from the Stratagen compound. She is now at a secure location," said The Official, trying to keep the warmth from his voice as he saw the relief on his Agent's face.
"She's ok?"
"She was reported to be in good condition. A little shaken perhaps, but physically uninjured."
"Thank god."
"Now, you are being transferred to Denver. You're expected at our offices there in 36 hours. You will be detoured to San Luis Obispo first to collect your sons," said The Official, pausing as Agent Larke nearly collapsed into the chair behind him. Sitting hunched over with his elbows on his knees and head in his hands, Agent Larke shook with a mixture of laugher and tears.
"Thank you, sir, thank you. You have no idea what it means to me to get my family back. Ever since Arwyn was kidnapped I've been dreaming of this," replied Ryan through his emotions.
"My pleasure, Agent. You have five hours until your plane leaves. I suggest you pack."
"Here are your copies of the release papers and transfer documents, Agent Larke," said Eberts, handing the agent a file folder.
"Thank you, sir," repeated Ryan as he stood and shook The Official's hand.
The Official nodded and dismissed the agent. Watching him leave, The Official realized it had been seven years since he had reunited a family. He had spent most of his time constantly breaking them up for safety.
Jason Redlin paced in his office. Pausing near his desk he picked up the tumbler with its two fingers of scotch and he hurled it at the wall, glaring with satisfaction as the glass shattered and the amber liquid slid down the wall and into the carpet.
He was going to kill the next person who mentioned The Agency. Not only had they managed to steal another of his doctors, they had successfully perpetuated the Quicksilver Project. All the things he wanted, all the things Ann Rolbin had left him were disintegrating.
A timid knock at his door caught his attention. "What?" he roared.
"Sir? The new Chrysalis reports, sir. Jared Stark has some new information from his embedded people, sir," spoke the aid hesitantly.
Redlin took the files and slapped them onto his desk as the aid slipped back into the hall. He paced the length of his office twice more before throwing himself into this high backed leather desk chair and opening the first file. Progress report on the genetic tinkering Jared's people were experimenting with. The second file was the more interesting of the two. A new list of the children inside The Agency's Chrysalis Program. Locations of the sequestered children and where their parents worked.
After having discovered Ellen Parker's daughter in the Chrysalis Program Redlin had requested Stark infiltrate the Program and return to him information on other Agency employee's children. Using this information he was able to convince necessary people to stay at his research facility. It was how he had acquired Doctor Noël. Two of Stark's people had been discovered but others still remained.
Looking over the rows of child-sized desks she carefully threaded her way through the room, placing a handout on every desk. Glancing at the wall clock she noted that she had three hours until she was off duty. She had never thought of herself as a teacher, but found herself fitting into the position rather naturally. She didn't agree with Stark's program, but it accomplished his goal.
Hearing shouts and running footsteps in the hall she returned to the front of the room and wrote an assignment on the whiteboard with bright blue marker. She turned and watched 15 second graders filter into her room from recess, cheeks flushed and adrenaline levels still high.
A little girl's voice broke her thoughts, "What are we reading today, Miss Monroe?"