Sydney strutted into CIA headquarters with a particularly pleasant swagger. She felt great knowing that her sister was probably being cursed at by Sark and mopping about the loss of the Rambaldi artifact disc to her sister. "She deserves it," Sydney thought with a swagger. "No spy should ever assume they are better than their opponent. It could get them killed."
"Hey, Syd," called a voice from behind one of the desks she passed.
"Weiss!" Sydney called. She hadn't really talked to her friend since she had found out the news about the appearance of her little sister. She took a seat on the only clean corner of his desk. "How are you?"
"That's not the question. I think the question is how are you? Everything go okay in Brighton?" he asked.
"Everything went perfectly. Kaylee Derevko was there just like our intel said she would be. I got to talk to her a little about it before..."
"Before what?" Weiss asked.
"Before she kicked my ass, actually. It seems like my mother hasn't neglected her education in terms of fighting. She was definitely more advanced than I am."
"That explains the bruises," Weiss said. "You obviously are slipping on your cover-up skills."
"Maybe you can give me a refresher course," Sydney said with a laugh. She stood up and began to leave Weiss's work are. "I'll see you later. Briefing in one hour, right?"
"Right," Weiss replied. He turned his attention back to his computer screen and the e-mail he had received from Kendall. He didn't have it in his heart to tell Sydney that new intel had come in confirming that the artifact in the Royal Pavilion was never really a legitimate Rambaldi. It seemed that surveillance cameras had picked up one of Irina Derevko's associates planting the artifact a few weeks prior to Sydney's trip. Sydney wouldn't have been too happy to find out that Derevko had ulterior motives to setting up a meeting between her two daughters.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Sydney walked into the mission debriefing with a smile on her face, though it didn't last very long. Once again she was greeted with the familiar sight of no one wanting to make eye contact with her.
"All right. Let's not draw this out. What has gone wrong now?" Sydney said. No matter what they told her had happened, she was still amused by the fact she had beaten her sister at the spy game.
"Well, it turns out that the Rambaldi artifact you collected for us in England is a fake," Jack Bristow bluntly supplied.
"Really?" Sydney asked. She immediately became defensive. "I'm positive that there was no way Kaylee could have gotten the disc I removed from the fireplace mantel. The one I took to CIA had to be the right one."
"It was," Marshall jumped into the conversation. "You see, the disc was never an official artifact of Milo Rambaldi. Rambaldi never spoke of an artifact hidden in Brighton."
"Then why was I sent there?" Sydney muttered to herself. It was frustrating when she wasted time and energy to retrieve something that never really had a purpose. Surprisingly, it happened frequently with the CIA.
"Though the disc is useful to make a very nice dinner table centerpiece if you wanted." Marshall smiled nervously.
"Thank you, Marshall," Director Kendall said. "Sydney, one of your mother's associate broke into the Pavilion a few weeks before your mission and planted this false artifact. It appears like the true goal of Kaylee's mission was just to meet you and have a confrontation. The problem is we haven't figured out what purpose your meeting would have on Derevko's operations."
"What's the next step?" Vaughn asked. He was concerned about the fact the CIA was sending Sydney on missions that they didn't really know the true purpose of.
"To be honest," Kendall said, "the CIA hasn't come up with anything. We're hoping to gain more information on the situation before we throw Sydney back out into the field. Derevko could have set up the meeting between her two daughters for any number of reasons; none of which have been confirmed. I'll call another meeting when we have information you need to know or if we gather enough information to continue this operation with."
Kendall nodded to his employees and made a quick exit.
"Obviously, he had much more important things to do than help me figure out what is going on with my family," Sydney said since she was a trifle annoyed with the CIA's tactics and Kendall's authority. "Maybe I have a couple more siblings out there running around."
Weiss bit back a laugh and motioned for Marshall and Dixon. "I want to go over your upcoming mission Dixon. We'll see you later, Syd."
Sydney sent a small wave their way as she was left alone with her boyfriend and her father. "Now what?" she asked.
Vaughn turned to Sydney. "Honestly, I think you and Jack need to spend a little time together figuring out what exactly happened. You've both had the wool pulled over your eyes for twenty-four years, and the whole shift is going to take you some time to get used to." Vaughn pushed a folder across the table to where Sydney was sitting next to her father. "These are tickets to a CIA safe house in Miami, Florida. I figured you two might want to get away for a week or so to figure things out."
"What about Kendall?" Sydney asked.
"He approved the leave of absence," Jack stated. "I talked with him earlier, Agent Vaughn. He wanted to run the idea by me before officially approving it."
"Makes sense," Vaughn said.
"So, are we going?" Sydney said looking expectantly at her father.
"I don't see why not. Number one, we've pretty much earned a couple years worth of vacation time, and number two, the CIA doesn't have anything for us to do until they gather more information on Kaylee and how she fits into Irina's operation."
"Miami, here we come!" Sydney said with a smile.