Desiree peered out her window, only to see her sister drive away in a furry. Screeching tires, clouds of smoke, and a roaring engine. Something had happened, Desiree had no idea what though.

She slipped on a pair of black jeans and a tight fitting slightly see through red shirt, some sneakers and headed down stairs. She walked into the kitchen and opened up the fridge, and began to look for the breakfast that she asked Gwen to pick up for her. She probably hid it in the very back of the fridge.

~~~~~~~~~

Xander strolled into the kitchen, to see Desiree raiding the fridge, he smiled slightly. He couldn't keep his eyes off her ass. She had on these tight black jeans. He tilted his head to the side and looked at her longer. Her shirt rose up to reveal a very small red black tattoo of a rose bud on her lower back. She found what she was looking for and came out with two bare claws and a peach Sobe. She jumped slightly when she spun around and almost bumped right into him. He raided that same refrigerator yesterday and he didn't find anything like that.

"How long have you been standing there?" She asked looking up at him, with her emerald green eyes. They were stunning, she had her sunglasses on all of yesterday, and he hadn't seen then until just now. He smirked, as she moved around him, her chest brushing over his bare arm. "Long enough to be hungry." He growled quietly into her ear. Ruffling her hair. She looked up at him, and smiled.

"Well if I would have known that I would have stood there longer. Then you would be starving." She said softly, stepping away from him, and walking around to the other side of the marble island. She walked to the glass doors. He didn't follow her. "Oh Xander?" She teased breathless voice. Sending a small chill down his spine, and going to the nether parts of his body.

He slowly turned around on his heel. And raised his eyes to her. "Think fast." She said. Suddenly throwing another Sobe at him. He caught it, the condensation making it slip in his hands, he almost dropped it, but didn't. "Good one. Try this." She threw her second bare claw at him. Which this time he caught with ease. "Something sweet to ease your appetite." She said winking, and closing the door behind her, her hips swaying nicely.

Xander shook his head, she was that something. He could tell that China hated her, but that didn't mean that he had to. He opened the Sobe, and peeled away the saran wrap from the bare claw and dug in. A moment later Donavan came in, and looked at him. "Where did you get that?" He asked, eyeing the pastry. "I got connections." Xander said with a smirk. "Yeah I'll bet." Donavan said with a snort. "Why don't you get that little French maid of yours to cook something for you?" He asked Donavan. Who was looking through the refrigerator. "She don't cook. I came in here to tell you that the Boss wants you to meet him out front, your going to the lab today." He said distractedly. Xander didn't exactly know what the Lab was but, he guessed that it was as good a time as any.

He threw his breakfast away, and walked outside where he found a waiting black Navigator. Porously dropping his sunglasses near the right rear tire he slipped a thumb tack looking tracer in the tire. He climbed in and noticed that Desiree was also coming along. He sat next to her on the opposite side of the bench seat. She looked at him "Still hungry?" She teased, "Always." He answered with a small smirk. She shook her head, then turned and gazed back out of the window. She knew something he didn't.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Desiree knew about the Lab. Her father had spoken to her about it yesterday. It was a rolling illegal organization, that was housed in four semis. Each produced very high quality counterfeit money. Mostly hundreds, some fifties, and on occasion twenties. But she knew her father, and she knew that he was producing the money to acquire something greater.

It wasn't wealth, he practically owned that. It wasn't respect, he had that. And it wasn't fear or power, he was born with that. No it was something bigger, something more deadly. She could feel it. And she didn't know what to do. If this thing back fired she would go to prison.

Then her life would really be shitty. And that was the last thing that could happen right now. She had finally gotten her life straight and rid of them and look what happens. The worst part was that she knew she had walked right into it. Just because of her damn curiosity.

Her father told her he was bored with this non-productive life of his. He said he found someone to help him make his life more worth while, but wouldn't tell her who, or what or how. All he said was it had to with an attempt that failed last year and they were resurrecting it. Resurrecting what? She wondered. All the while she was riding out into an old industrial district on an deserted highway.

The road narrowed to a two lane road. Mostly country side, wild windmills, and golden dead grass. The road was like Swiss chess, except the holes were the craters in the road, where patches of concrete had been.

She felt her stomach flip as the tire she was sitting above hit a particularly big hole. If it wasn't for her seat belt she probably would have hit her head on the roof a couple of times by now. Cursing lightly under her breath she sank back into her chair as the road seemed to smoothen out enough that she stopped hopping up and down. Her cheeks flushed slightly when she saw Xander smirking out of the side of her eye. If she would have known it was going to be this bad she would have worn her sports bra.

They came up on a interchange for another old high way. They turned onto it, she was relieved to find that this road was newer. The road wove and twisted. About a half an hour later the scenery changed into a forestry surrounding. With lots of trees and other greenery. They drove a while longer and came up on a road that had a sign put up to the left of it that read, service trucks only, lot # 461, written in electric orange spray paint. When he turned onto it, Desiree started to wonder where he was actually taking them.

A few minutes later they came up upon an under-construction rest stop, called a Vista Point, that had a five foot long 'no public entry' sign drilled across it's gate. The driver picked up the car cell phone and pushed 1. After a few seconds who ever it was picked up and the driver spoke. "1999. Were here out side the gate." He hung up the phone. She noticed he said 1999, must have been some type of password. She noted that, as a man from her father's estate came up to the gate and unlocked it. They sped forwards, into the road. Then abruptly stopped, as the gate closed behind them, and was relocked by another man that had suddenly appeared.

The driver rolled the windows down, and the two men looked at her and Xander in detail. "Window shopping?" Xander asked. The two guys paid no attention to him. And nodded to a third man that appeared at the driver's side of the SUV. The third man, who was obviously the leader looked at the driver, "Pass." He said flatly. Immediately he rolled up all the windows, and kept driving. They came up upon two semi trucks with their trailers parked end to end.

The SUV stopped and parked in front of the spot where the two trailers joined. He killed the engine. The two men from the gate showed up on either side of the vehicle and opened up their doors. Desiree got out, "Follow me." He said, motioning for her to walk in front him. She did as she was told and walked towards the semi's. A creeping feeling spreading across her skin.

They walked up to the trucks, a light was leaking out from the inside of both trailers. It was the type of light that was so white it was uncomfortable. She stopped in front of the them and waited. What next?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Xander took a long look at the trailers before them. They were both semi's and both had a light coming out of them. He saw Desiree biting her lip. The taller of the three men motioned for them to walk forwards. Xander met Desiree's eyes and held them for a moment, she tore them away.

They were lead up the ramp that belonged to the semi on their left. "Ladies first." The second tallest guard said, stiffly she walked up the ramp with the rest of the men behind her. Xander looked around and took in what was cramped into this space.

The whole left wall was lined with flat screen computer monitors. Their screens black except for one at the very end of the line. At the head of the trailer was a very expensive looking printer. Beside it was a plastic container that held some sort of cartridges.

"I see you are showing them around my lab." A mans voice said behind them. Xander turned around and saw a man in a white lab coat, slacks, thick black glasses, and pantent leather shoes. "Thanks John, but let me show them around." He said snootily. The guy was a geek. He reminded Xander of the type of kid that used to get stuffed into lockers when he was in high school. Or have his gym shorts ran up the flag pole. Xander smirked to himself at the thought.

"First, these little computers is where everything gets created. Using high tech drawing programs and precise imagery we can create every detail identically down to the last fiber in the bill."

"Why do we need to know this?" Desiree asked casually. Looking him straight in the eyes. "Well, we need your help there are some serial codes that need to be gotten from the government databases. Mr. Thorn seems to think you are capable of, getting them for us." The lab rat said slowly. Desiree looked at him, unmoving, an expression of sheer stubbornness on her face.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Desiree just nodded. And looked at the computer next to her. The only one that was on, and running. The screen had flickered to life to reveal a blue printed version and layout of a one hundred dollar bill.

It had gridlines dividing the bill into sections showing the certain things that were crucial to a authentic bill. The portrait, the seals: Federal Reserve, and Treasury, the borders, serial numbers, and finally the paper.

Each had their own caption under the outlined features. For the portrait it said it should stand out from the back ground and not have unnecessary shading. It went on to say the same about the seals, and the borders. The serial numbers should be evenly spaced, and the same color of solid green as the Treasury Seal. Then the paper, had to have randomly placed red and blue fibers throughout out, no dots or obscure marks.

She turned her attention back on the white coated man, who had silently moved into the center of the group. And stood next to the printer and the case of ink. "Here we have the monochromatic toner. Which to put in normal terms, is known as single color ink. Treasury seals and serial numbers are printed in solid green, the borders, portrait are printed in a mixture of green and black ink. So ask you can see everything is very planned out." He said dryly.

She was uneasy about this. Why would her father show all this to her. It wasn't like she was the heir to his estate. He wouldn't trust her like this, unless there was a reason.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later that night Xander made his way down to the headquarters in San Jose. He usually had the after nightfall shift, but today was Friday and it was his time off. On these nights he would usually go to a club and pick up a woman to take back to his apartment or work out. But tonight he had some business to take care of.

He rounded the corner of the government building. His red motorcycle growling from his low speed. It was a racing bike that was on loan. He didn't want to drive his GTO because it almost got stolen last time he was in this area. Parking the motorcycle under the trees and covering it with a black cover, he sat on the curb next to it and waited. A black old clapped out 70's Cadillac sat parked at the edge of the parking lot.

A moment later the janitor came out through a backdoor labeled Maintenance, and trudged over to the rust bucket. He was maybe a good ten years younger then Xander, firing it up the car stereo blasted a familiar haunting tune. He never learned the artist or the name of the song. But it was playing on the radio in the GTO the night he and Yelena first arrived in Bora Bora. Everything was perfect, and he was free again, they spent a coupe of weeks there together, he ended up falling for her. But once they returned to the states she broke it off with him. Told him that she was going to live in Florida, and stay with her sister. Try for a better life. He belonged in California, all his friends and family were there. His life was here, and he wanted her to be apart of it. He asked her to come stay with him, but she refused. It ended, and he was once again, left alone.

He had to admit most of the time he couldn't stand the stillness. It gave him time to think about things. He didn't like to think. That's why he liked pulling those stunts. The rush, the thrill of knowing you can and you did. It felt like really living, but when he stopped and things were still, and he was alone. He felt empty. Like he was just floating. Everything was pointless.

He stopped and looked around him. There was a gentle hot breeze blowing, the sun was gone, and so were the clouds, making the stars come out. There was very little traffic, and no other people walking on this street.

A moment later the unmoving scene was disturbed by a rumbling of a engine. To his left a black Escalade pulled up. The window rolled down, and Harlem's smiling face showed in the window.

Harlem was an older black man, maybe in his late forties. Xander and Harlem came to a strange friendship a couple of months ago when Harlem drove Xander back from the air port to headquarters. Harlem told Gibbons to shut up over the car phone, from then on they kind of had an understanding. Both of them were rebels in the system, so they would both rebel against the system (or just Gibbons) together.

"Well are you gonna get in, I'm not gonna get out." He said. Xander got into the back of the SUV. They sped off onto the freeway. A half an hour later they pulled up to a warehouse just outside of town. It was new and looked normal from the outside.

He entered the building and walked over to Gibbons. "So, what've you got for me X?" Gibbons asked casually, looking at the screen in front of him. "Today I was taken to one of Thorn's labs. Counterfeit labs. It wasn't really a lab either it was two semi's parked end to end. It looked mobile." At this last sentence Gibbons looked up, "Follow me." He wove in and out of people and machinery to the other end of the warehouse, and up the stairs to the main office.

Once they were inside he hit a key on his computer and a map appeared on the wall. It was a road map of the state of California. The red line was their route that they had taken this morning. Sent by the tracer. Gibbons studied it for a moment. "So this is were they had their semi rigs, these rigs housed the lab." He repeated.

Xander nodded. "Yeah. They had flat screen monitors, blue prints, paper weight and density equations," Xander paused as the words tripped on his tong, "A really high tech printer, with this special ink. Monchromatotoe, something like that. Counterfeit production alright." Gibbons sat down in his chair. "Monochromatic ink, blue printing. Very high tech stuff, black market probably. Was there anyone else with you?"

Xander sank into the leather chair in front of Gibbons desk, and put his right ankle on his left knee, and pressed his back into the chair, making himself comfortable. "Yeah. Thorn's having me keep an eye on his youngest daughter Desiree. Last night Thorn talked to her in his office. Then she went along with me today and they told her everything about the operation. Even let her look at their monitors." Xander said. Gibbons nodded.

"Anything else?" Gibbons asked. "The picture you gave me of Desiree was out of date. She looks different and dropped about seventy five pounds." Xander said, letting the image of her in the kitchen this morning come back to him. "What, this one?" Gibbons pulled up a current picture of her, it looked as recent as today almost. "No." Xander grunted. How long had he had this picture of her, and why did Gibbons give him the out of date one. "We'll, we just got this one in today. If that's all X, you can go." He said simply, motioning to the door.

Xander nodded and left. He decided to hit the club, he needed to get his mind off things.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As soon as Xander left Gibbons picked up the phone and called his friend Darnel Ross, who usually brought in the new recruits. "Ross, Gibbons I need a civilian who's a potential rookie brought to me sometime tomorrow mourning concerning the Thorn case." He said into the phone, while pulling up her profile. "Yeah, I can do that. What's the name?" Ross asked.

"Desiree Antonia Thorn." Gibbons replied.

"But Gibbons you know that we have a rule against bringing in family members into the picture." Ross protested. "Yeah, but she's not quite the usual family member. She's the black sheep. Bring her in, I think Xander could use a second pair of eyes."