SD-9
Disclaimer:
I do not own Alias; ABC, Bad Robot Productions and JJ Abrams do, and I give
full acknowledgement of that (good work guys). I do not own and am not affiliated
in any way, with the brands mentioned in this piece (such as Ford, BWM or Colt),
more than likely I've used them because they're known, or because they're very
nice bits of kit that I hope to have one day. Finally, I'm a student, don't
sue me, I've got nothing worth taking.
Authors note:
Here's where it starts to get interesting folkes, or at least I think so anyway
After this chapter, I might not update for a day or two, but stay tuned, I've got a few more pieces to add to this little saga of mine.
Anyway, hope you enjoy ;)
Spyder
Time frame:
None - Just generally set after Sydney becomes a double agent.
Rappelling down the elevator shaft to get into headquarters of SD-9, despite her best attempts to control them, Sydney was still feeling the pre-mission jitters, and although she didn't want to admit it, she'd had them since she had sat down with Eric and Michael to plan the mission, only managing to get a few hours of sleep here and there, over the day.
Before leaving, Weiss had suggested she put it off, but Sydney refused to even consider putting it off for another day, replying that the longer she was here with them, the longer she'd potentially be a target for whoever was out there, including SD-6.
Grunting with relief, Sydney's toes finally touched the elevator, and she was able to let some of the pressure off her hands. Standing on top of the lift, looking up, she remarked how far 60 foot was, or at least seemed, when in a pitch-dark, confined space of an elevator shaft.
Throwing off the rappelling belt, Sydney tapped the earpiece in her left ear, rewarded by a sudden burst of feedback, indicating it was on. "Can you hear me?" she said, in a half whisper.
"Reading you loud and clear Mountaineer, what's your position?" Weiss answered, completely focused on the layout of SD-9 Sloane had provided them when he briefed Sydney back in LA.
Booting in the grill on top of the lift with her heel, she was surprised at the level of noise it made, falling barely eight feet, onto a hard floor. The clang of metal against tile reverberated all the way up, and down the elevator shaft. "I'm at position one, going in"
"Copy that" he said, speaking off mic to Vaughn, who's voice came over the radio. "Mountaineer, remember, we need you back in one piece, so get out if its too risky, or if we call abort, clear?"
"Clear" Sydney replied, slightly annoyed at the fact that Vaughn had suggested for her to abort, but she knew if she did, then she would have failed, and Sydney Bristow did not like failing.
Dropping onto the tiled floor, Sydney was surprised to find that the elevators doors had been jammed open by some sort of bar, showing a dully lit scanning room, almost identical to that in the LA office of SD-6, however, this time, the metal security door that was designed to keep people out, was lying against the wall, with burn marks on its hinges, and around the wall where it should have stood.
In the background, she could hear Vaughn and Weiss chatter away at what the offices looked like making written, visual and audio notes of the facility, care of the minicam in the lapel of her body armour.
Taking out a flashlight from her pack, Sydney didn't bother removing her protective goggles, as she didn't know what was down here, waiting for her.
Stepping forward, Sydney found herself in what must have been the reception area of SD-9, with white on the walls and blue for the carpet. She panned her flashlight over the desk in front of the two main doors into the offices, noticing the bloodstain on the wall. When the assault happened, whoever was behind that desk was the first to go.
Creeping through the darkness that was the SD-9 office, Sydney tried desperately to find a light switch, or something else that would make her work a bit easier. Her hopes were dashed, as the lights didn't seem to work when she flicked the switch, with only a slight electrical buzz in the background, before a crackle and the office returned to its former level of noise.
Walking around the office, Sydney noticed that there wasn't a single scratch, bloodstain, or broken object in sight; it looked like no-one had ever worked there. Searching the desks provided no answers either, as the workstations were empty, par a computer on each desk.
She stopped, for a second, realising that this could very well be SD-6 when she returned - an empty office, with little to no signs of any sort of fight, that seemed almost surreal to her, given the sheer amount of people usually at SD-6 at any one given time.
Pushing it out of her mind, Sydney resumes her search for anything that could possibly be useful to the CIA, giving up after searching three totally different desks in the same office, realising that they were all the same - one grey desk, one computer, one swivel chair, and one paper bin.
There were no papers in the draws, or shavings in the bin - it was just empty.
"Mountaineer, copy" she heard crackle over the earpiece.
"Mountaineer copies home base" replying quickly, forcing herself not to think about SD-6, and how she could be returning to this very scene.
"Schematics show that there is a main office just round the corner to the left" she peered in that general direction with the flashlight. "Search it; there might be something useful in there"
Silently approaching the office door, Sydney noticed two bullet holes where the door lock was supposed to be - tapping it open with her free hand, before bursting in herself, waiting, and almost wanting for something to happen.
After nearly half an hour of searching, she'd still turned up nothing in the completely empty and totally impersonalised office that was before her. Giving up, she just walked out, not really caring if there was someone there.
Time passed slowly for Sydney down in the basement that was SD-9, but took even longer because she was going over and over the same procedure again and again. Enter an office; check the lights, search the office, and move on to the next.
Completing her search of the seventh office she'd come across, Sydney was about to just give up and leave, but as she turned to the door, Weiss came over the intercom, informing her of what he'd just picked up from inside the building.
It was a cell phone signal, coming from a room near her position.
Shutting her eyes, Sydney could barely hear the beeping tones of a mobile phone above the eerie deafness that made up SD-9.
Walking swiftly towards the sound, she found herself in what could have probably once passed as the SD-9 vault.
This, she thought to herself, looked more like the scenes she'd seen back in LA.
Burn marks scorched the walls, and bits of plaster, broken tiles and metal from the air conditioning ducts were now scattered in a million pieces on the floor.
The vault door, she noticed, looked as if it had not moved an inch for a long while, but she couldn't help but gape at the human sized hole in the massive metal breach, that was at best guess, at least a foot thick.
Peeking inside, it looked like it had been ransacked.
Locks had been burned or cut off, draws were open and scattered on the floor; there wasn't a single piece of the room left completely intact.
Piecing the puzzle together, Sydney realised that whoever had assaulted the building, bought along some very heavy duty equipment, knowing exactly what they were dealing with.
A clang in another corridor got her attention, and Sydney ran towards the noise, ending up in the photocopy room, noticing nothing amiss, which only sparked her interests even more.
Standing around for a minute, observing the scene, Sydney thought she could hear the mechanical whirr of a computer, heading in that direction, flashlight up.
Looking down the stretch of corridor that joined the offices together, Sydney walked down, past one office, and onto the other, not really looking to see what was in them. She was transfixed by the noise coming from what she thought was a computer.
Office after office went by, and Sydney thought she could see a glow in the end block, quickening her pace with every step towards her destination, almost in a sprint as she reached the final few rows of offices.
Turning her head, Sydney tried to make a mental map of where she was in the facility, just in case a quick exit was needed.
As she walked into the office, she saw what she was after, and yes, it was a computer, and yes, it was on, showing a single bit of text, in big black on white letters.
Sydney's eyes went wide, visibly shaking at the message as every one of her fears took over; the combination of being alone, in a dark, potentially hostile, place finally taking over.
At first, she didn't know how to react, and stood there in shock, her body willing her to move, but she didn't - she couldn't.
Staring at the message for what seemed as an age, her subconscious finally took control, and Sydney found herself running faster than she'd ever done before, still too much in shock to think properly, let alone say anything.
Somewhere in London
They were back in the elderly gentleman's office, eyes transfixed on the plasma screen fixed to the wall behind his desk showing, in full colour, a sensor feed from the office of SD-9.
The pair sat in silence, as they watched one Ms Sydney Bristow, Operative of SD-6 and Double Agent for the CIA, rappel slowly down the elevator shaft, entering the SD-9 reception area.
Commander Huntingdon looked at his watch. "5 minutes, 15 seconds." He looked up towards the monitor "Given the way she entered, that's not too shabby".
The elderly gentleman remained silent for a moment, rubbing his chin, eyes not leaving the screen. "Yes, but you have to remember, she's been doing this sort of thing for nearly 7 years, so one would expect her to be of a fair level of ability"
"True" he paused for a moment, thinking over his next few words "How is Mr Williams doing?"
"Let's see shall we?" The elderly gentleman pressed a button on the screens remote, and instantly, the picture split into two - one side showing the feed of Ms Bristow, while one showed a picture of a very indistinguishable figure, moving in a slow crouch, following her.
"Hmmmm... he's not too bad" the commander said, noting the fact that even with the security camera's image enhancer, they could only just make out Mr Williams.
"Yes, he scored highly in the stealth training - very agile, good in hand to hand, but not so good with weapons handling."
"This his confirmation op?" Commander Huntingdon asked, taking a sip from his coffee.
"Yes - I've already had Lieutenant Matthews, Echo's CO; request him to be assigned there once this op is over"
Huntingdon wasn't surprised - if he recalled, Matthews was a former recon officer with the parachute regiment, and so was Williams.
The conversation ended abruptly, as they watched Ms Bristow creep into the vault room.
Mr Williams took out a small PDA with a light wand attached to the bottom, and poked the end around the corner, not wanting to risk getting caught.
Through the darkness, they could see Mr Williams raise his hand to his ear, and nod twice, before moving off down the corridor.
Neither man spoke, as the elderly gentleman pushed another button on the remote, and the room was filled with the sounds from the radio.
"Copy that Grey Pawn, proceed to secondary objective, will advise when target is moving again"
"Roger"
Both men watched, as Mr Williams silently entered one of the offices deep in the heart of SD-9, noticing that Ms Bristow had finally plucked up the courage to enter what was left of the vault they had ransacked a few days before.
"Command, Grey Pawn, beginning upload procedure"
"Copy Grey Pawn, Target is still in the vault, you're clear for at least 4 minutes"
"Roger, beginning now"
Time seemed to stretch, as everything became still in the most crucial moment of the operation. If something went wrong here, they'd have to fall back to their secondary plan, which would potentially set them back at least a day, possibly longer, and the longer they were operating like this, the longer they would be exposed.
Suddenly, a clang was heard, emphasised because of the echo in the building.
"What was that?" Someone asked quickly
"I dunno, but it wasn't me"
Both men frowned, and everything suddenly went into overdrive.
"Sir, target is moving quickly towards the office"
"Grey Pawn, stand firm, complete the upload"
"Expected time to contact 40 seconds"
"Confirmed"
"Come on baby, hurry up, hurry up for god sakes" Williams was nervous, and it could be heard in his voice "It's done, I'm moving"
"Target is turning left, towards your location"
"Grey Pawn, hide"
Without question or hesitation, Mr Williams did a diving roll into one of the private offices, crawling prone under the desk, hoping that he wasn't discovered.
"Target has held at Photocopy room"
"Hold position Grey Pawn"
A single beep was the only response given - vocal communications might have been heard.
Waiting anxiously, everyone watched as Ms Bristow just stood in the photocopy room, looking to find what had made the noise, but not finding it, only hearing a mechanical whirr in the background, that was not there a few minutes ago.
"Target is moving off towards the objective - grey pawn, hold position, repeat, hold until we have confirmation"
Under the desk, Mr Williams noticed the light coming from Ms Bristow's torch highlighting the window as she passed, moving quickly. Over the comm unit, he could hear the support team list off the offices as they watched her pass them.
"Office one, office two, she's past office three - you're clear Grey Pawn"
Mr Williams didn't move, he knew that if he moved now, then there was a chance he'd be spotted, waiting patiently. He'd rather wait and walk out of his own accord, than race out and be caught.
Time seemed to stretch once more, and after about 30 seconds, his patience was rewarded with the sound of fast moving footsteps - she was running, fast.
"Target is cleared the area, and heading towards the lift, you're clear Grey Pawn"
With that, everyone was finally able to let out a sigh of relief.
The mission was a success.