Chronic Vertigo
Chapter Six: Circe [Part D]

Author: Kira [kira at sd-1 dot com]
Genre: Romance/Action/Adventure
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: We all know the drill. I don't own Alias, so please don't sue me. I'm already in debt. And even if you did sue me, it would come off my credit card and I'd still be in debt. So, right. You're better off leaving me be.
Author's Note: Feedback = updates. I swear, that's a real math equation. As always, thanks to Carmen_Sandiego and Jen for their awesome beta'ing, and Michele for her awesome help.

He ran up the stairs, heart pounding as he checked his watch. How long had he been gone? Was Apple going to launch into a barrage of questions as soon as he reappeared on deck, her narrow almond eyes analyzing him as he sputtered out a half-practiced response?

4 minutes. Acceptable if he put in a line about getting lost on the way, or meeting up with someone and having an impromptu conversation. No, the second choice required manufacturing the content of said false conversation, something Weiss, who spent most of his time in a cubicle, seating at a desk thick with paperwork, had little experience with. Spinned tales as a kid, yes, but those weren't attached to the possibility of death if told incorrectly.

He burst from the sublevel as a whale breaks to the surface – loud and quickly, his eyes widening as he came face to face with Apple Cho.

"Eric?" she asked, cocking her head to the side. "What were you doing down there?"

"Bathroom. You know I can't read anything that isn't English. Thought this thing would be bilingual," he complained, the whine entering his voice. Apple pondered this for a moment, testing its validity. Weiss attempted to appear relaxed as his stomach rode a Ferris wheel spinning within.

She made a sound – Chinese, if he had to guess - and smiled at him.

"That's the car level."

"I figured."

"Smart-ass, c'mon, I was just heading there myself."

Weiss smiled and fell into step at her side, the duplicate key tucked away in his pants pocket. As a harsh cross-wind blew against his cheeks, he sighed, wishing for a jacket despite the heat on the mainland. His eyes drifted.

And that's when he noticed something was missing.

Apple had left her bag in Vaughn's care.

Spies didn't regularly carry purses. Almost an unspoken rule in the world of international espionage – or even, to go broader, the world of secrets of national security – was that pertaining to the habitual carrying of bags of any kind. This was commonly overlooked as several employees carried briefcases to and from the workplace, and now, as technology grew smaller and smaller, carried laptops, palms, and numerous other devices in black inconspicuous bags, worn from constant use.

This presented a serious quandary for security; the information now digital, easily accessible and twice as easy to fall into enemy hands.

One of the first solutions was the simplest – to stop the usage of bags, of taking equipment out of the building. Already lacking in disk drives and the use of the internet filtered behind an indestructible firewall, this presented an easy, cost effective solution but a working nightmare. But what about agents in the field? Without this ability to see materials outside the confines of a stationary building, the security team had to go back to the drawing board of sorts to figure out a new solution.

It was this rule, that of not carrying a bag of any kind, that continued into practical use today, and the only items found within one that was carried were simply smaller tools needed for the current mission, no mark or proof of a separate identity, as if they didn't even exist.

Which is why Vaughn found it odd that Apple's bag contained more personal items than not.

Vaughn was not the kind of man prone to shifting through others belongings, nor would he find anything inside a woman's 'purse' as it may be interesting. While most men would find the contents as items from some unknown land; spending his teenaged years as a child in a home run by a solitary woman had desensitized him to the mysteries. He waded through them carefully, making sure not to disturb them as he did so.

"Vaughn, quick, key switch!" And a pair of keys came flying at his head. He caught them, naturally, the metallic clang of the set ringing through the air giving him enough warning time to make sure they weren't lost because of his incompetence. A rushed and out of breath Weiss came to meet him at his side, snatching Apple's set of plain keys from the bag and shoving them in his pocket as Vaughn replaced them. Without the need to ask any questions, he closed the bag's flap and threw it over his shoulder, turning to Weiss.

"So, all set?" he inquired, discretely looking out the side of his eye for Apple's reappearance.

"Yeah, met the guy downstairs, we're good."

"She's in the bathroom?"

"Thank God men take less time than women."

"For once," Vaughn smirked. Weiss laughed.

"There's so a story behind that look," he remarked, grinning like the chestier cat. Vaughn sighed. Why was he friends with Weiss again?

"Okay, okay," he sighed, the smirk still on his face. "I had – "

"Hey, guys?"

Weiss simpered. She didn't suspect a thing.

Tai Sin wasn't that far off the main road. It didn't seem as if a lost tourist would been completely out of the ordinary, even if they did order a drink before wading back out into the sea of those like themselves. The second one stepped off the ferry in Kowloon, they were launched into a shoulder to shoulder swarm of people, gold circled wrists above heads as they pointed out shops along the main route. Parents tied to children with new child leashes as to not lose them. It seemed like every vacationer's dream as they moved down towards the shops like a heard of cattle being corralled.

The heat was overwhelming as the ferry emptied, drips of sweat already forming on once cold bodies. The air seemed to stick to the tongue, a dry mouth remedied only by water, something the locals had picked up on as several of the earlier shops advertised, in English, ice cold bottles of water for a cheap and reasonable price (though this was not in American currency, and so, it only [i] seemed[/i] as if it were a good price). The air smelled of sweat and dirt, clogging nostrils, ignored in pursuit of material pleasures.

Eric Weiss was glad he'd discarded his suit coat back on the island, draped over the back of a chair in Apple's posh hotel as evidence of occupancy. If the ferry left at 8 am, Vaughn and Weiss had returned to the hotel at 6 am, small bags of belongings in tow, staying there only long enough to convince onlookers and snoops that they had spent the night there. His coat was last minute abandonment, decided only after he spied Vaughn's casual attire more able to supply coolness in the extreme Asian heat than his more conservative outfit. And while the boat had chilled him, the new heat warmed him right up, a hand moving up to brush sweat off his brow two steps off the ferry.

"How can you stand living here?" he asked of Apple, walking tall and proud in the sea of Caucasians. She frowned, annoyed by Weiss' insulting questions, and gave a beat before replying.

"You just get used to it," she shrugged nonchalantly.

Weiss stayed quiet after that.

The threesome blended well in the moving crowd, surprising even the skeptic in Vaughn who doubted the logistics of Apple's plan. They mingled so well he lost sight of the others at a few points, only catching up with them because of their common destination. Weaving in and out, finding pockets of space where they could, the three spies snaked their way off through side streets before finally freeing themselves of the stifling crowd. It was by no means devoid of any others back in the smaller, less profitable shops. A few adventurous couples stood here and there, looking in through open doors and yellow-tinted windows at exotic trinkets to bring home as a reminder of that 'time we went off the map!' or other such exclamations of little real importance.

"Okay, so we'll approach just as Apple planned earlier. I'll go in with her, slipping off to check the status. You come in after. I don't know what blueprints she was working from, but there is a service corridor behind the stage that connects the back door with the basement," Vaughn explained the night before, a cup of coffee running through his veins the only fuel keeping his tired body awake anymore. Four days of nothing but globetrotting, an emotional roller coaster even the most iron clad of stomachs would find nauseating; he was amazed at his own resilience.

He was also wondering when the other shoe was going to drop.

Cynicism was becoming second nature, optimism nauseating, pessimism appealing. Unvoiced. Compartmentalized. Detached.

He sighed and gave Weiss a small nod as Apple led him towards a small, dark brown building at the end of a road, watching as Weiss disappeared as he climbed stone steps to the door, open yet giving the appearance of being closed, the darkness inside inviting. The pair disappeared inside.

The lights were muted, white with filters to give all the occupants appearances more flattering than those given by nature. Women moved to serve, yet it all seemed clean. He'd half-expected a sleazy, dirty club like the one he had frequented all those years ago, with half-dressed dancers and drunk men leaning over tables made from industrial cord spools. Instead, the tables were tall and strong, like the men seated at them. Perhaps it was too early in the day for the shadier of figures to come out.

Or, this was a trap.

The sour feeling in the pit of his stomach increased, almost to the point of giving him a reason to find the bathrooms. Apple moved like nothing was wrong, as if she had done nothing to the contrary. As if she were the truth.

There was no way he could move with Sydney's grace; he tried, slithering through shadows as Apple caught the attention of the men, distracting them as he made his way to the door. Once through it, he heard the disappointed mummers of men as she left, a crackling in his ear affirming her relocation to the van trusted to be driven there by an unseen associate.

"Here," she said in plain view of her new CIA friends. "You know where to go." The keys were handed off, and the van trusted to be where it was needed in a timley mannor.

"You in?" she laughed, a laugh in her voice that never seemed to dissipate.

"Yes." Short and to the point. No sense in giving her more information then necessary, he decided, as he descended the stairwell. This was too easy, he thought, turning the handle.

The hallway beyond gave only two options before dead-ending at the far back wall. Left, to where he knew stood the private meeting room, and farther down, right, to the locked room. A light buzzed overhead, casting a jaundice tone over Vaughn's skin as he slinkered through the hall, careful not to arouse the attention of the loud, boisterous men seated a wall away in the private room.

"This is really cool," Marshall gushed at op tech a day and a world ago. In his hand he held a small, narrow rectangle of white with a small LCD display at the top. "Now, the lock for the safe room shouldn't be that hard. I mean, not that hard for someone who knows what they're doing – like if I went up to it and tried to open it, I'd be lost and might – well, talk to it. 'Hey there Mr. Door' and stuff like – "

"Marshall?"

"Right. Press this against the door handle, just under the keypad and make sure this here points up," he said, snapping back to the task at hand. "Then, just push this here button, and voila, door is opened."

Looking both ways, Vaughn settled in before the door. "It's clear?"

"As ever. Hurry up down there. Weiss should be making the delivery soon."

The decoder started cycling through numbers. He could hear the commotion in the room down the hall, the variation in volume. He hoped business had started and not the other possibility; that at any moment they could come filtering out into the hallway. Vaughn turned back to the decoder, hoping for Weiss' arrival.

"As soon as I attach the decoder, use the back hallway to meet me down there and stay out of Apple's sight. We're going to need both of us to get that thing out of there if it's as large as I think," Vaughn explained, rubbing the base of his neck as the coffee's magic started to wear out. Weiss nodded and took the file from his partner to give it a once over.

"Why don't you get some sleep?"

"I'm fine," he replied. Weiss shook his head.

"You're going to screw up during the mission and I'm going to have to save your ass. Me."

Vaughn wished he'd gotten more sleep the previous night as the numbers decoding started to blur before him. A door handle moved down the hall, the squeak of poorly kept metal twisting at the hallway's serene silence. Adrenaline started pumping now, the handle turning another inch. Another. A voice besides the door shouted something, his mind turning it to an instruction to leave. Another inch. The door hinges squeaked, Vaughn's eyes widened, body ridged, ready to do battle if it came to that. Light from the door struck the hall, an odd triangle shadow reaching to Vaughn's feet. He straightened as an arm appeared.

The decoder beeped.

Within a second, he was inside, the door closed behind him as the man stepped into the hall. His look was short, but something struck him as familiar. Leaning against the door, Vaughn closed his eyes and regained his composure, chest heaving with pent-up anxiety. He took only a moment, the footfalls fading. Where was Weiss?

He opened his eyes to the room.

"Oh my God."