Blackheart Syaoran- Hmm... Still need to figure out if there's a way to work
Frank Bishop into this story. If not this one, than the next one for sure.
^^ Yes, I know. Stingray ^^;. He sucks. How could such a supposed brilliant
bad guy actually be an idiot like Derek Minna? Only God knows. As for
Ingrid and Augie, I was going to have them be 'friends' but then Ingrid's
character kind of took over. It'd be hard to make them close when she's as
cold a person as I'm writing her. Besides, as you'll probably see later on,
she likes him anyway, no matter how she acts. You can probably pick up on
it a little in this chapter too. As for Ingrid being caught or not... No
comment!
Soulful-sin- Try again! I'm not British! ^_^ And hidden agendas are so much fun... The only problem is that half the time I forget what they were and have to sit down and think about where it was I was going with whatever. v_v;
Toast- fanfiction.net was messing with EVERYBODY! It was CRAZY! I was like UPDATE! And it was like NO! 0_o... But it's fixed now... ^^; Again, no comment on how it turns out! If I told you then you'd have no reason to read the rest of it... ^^
Comickook- I'm glad you like the fic! Wow, everyone seems to want to have a say in the ending... Well, say whatever you want, but I've already decided what's going to happen! ^_^
Alixi- 'Bravo'. XD! Reminds of this time I went to the ballet, and at the end when we were applauding, this big guy sitting behind me was actually shouting BRAVO! at the top of his lungs. X_x
Chris- Glad you like! ^^
________
Fillmore sat at his desk with his hands templed in front of his face. His brow was furrowed in concentration as he stared out across Safety Patrol HQ. It was early on Friday morning, and the office was empty but for him thus far. A copy of Neil's report was sitting on the desk between his elbows. Some of the pages were dog-eared, and it looked worse for wear. Fillmore had been pouring over it all, and had come in to the office early. He guessed he was hoping that walking in to X would suddenly reveal to him a new angle that he hadn't considered before. It didn't.
Fillmore leaned back in his chair and sighed resignedly. Thelonius was swimming happily around in his fish bowl. Fillmore cracked a small smile for his tiny friend and pulled out a bottle of fish food from his desk. 'Hey man. Haven't had much of a chance to talk to you lately, huh? It's just you and me now, since Wayne left.'
The smile on Fillmore's face faded again. He was still smarting a little from his partner leaving. The pain had been buried for a while there, covered up by mountains of paperwork and leads and beats. 'But I still have you, don't I?' Fillmore smiled weakly, looking back at his fish. 'You're not going anywhere.'
He turned back to the report and flipped through the pages aimlessly. He needed something, anything. Sitting here in limbo was driving him mad. There were no leads, no clues. How could anybody be as clever as this Stingray was making himself (or herself) out to be? No one was. Every criminal slipped up in one way or another. That's how they were caught. And they were always caught. It was his job to make sure of that.
But this... This was one giant mess. An invisible one. This was like a spider's web. He knew it was there, but he just couldn't see it. Every time the light started to catch on the threads, a breath of wind would cause them to shudder and disappear from his sight once again. All he needed was one clear ray of light, one look straight to the heart of this tangled design.
Fillmore forced his attention back to the words on the page. Neil had written pages and pages of nothing. No matter how many times he went over it... The last day of his undercover assignment was supposed to be the day that Stingray would make some kind of move. Whatever the deal was, it was planned to take place in an empty storage room. Of course, if this was a deal of some kind, then Stingray was obviously dealing with someone. Who? There was a question worth investigating.
Fillmore's mind immediately drifted to Third. His common sense told him that she too new to have broken into the organized crime ring this quickly, and yet he had seen her with Sonny just yesterday. And Neil had said that something had occurred to push up the date that the deal was supposed to take place on. Could that something have been the arrival of Third? If only he had been able to hear what she and Sonny were talking about yesterday!
Just this suspicion wasn't enough for Fillmore, though. He didn't know enough about her to determine what kind of a role she would play in all of this. Sure, she was smart. But how did she choose to put those smarts to use in the field? Spray-painting was probably not a skill that Stingray cared too much about.
Her pristine record came to mind. Somehow he doubted that he bad streak had just magically manifested itself when she walked into X. There had to have been other incidents, other crimes that had gotten her kicked out of all the schools she had attended before. And just maybe Third's criminal history could help shed some light on what kind of a role she was playing in all of this.
The problem was finding out that criminal history. Her permanent record was clean, obviously because the powers that be had decided not to taint such a gifted student. That wouldn't help him in the least, then. What he needed was to get at the records that were locked away. He needed...
'Yo, Jeff. You in?'
A thin boy with thick rimmed glasses glanced up from his computer at the sound of knocking and the mention of his name. When he saw who was there, he broke into a toothy grin. 'Officer Fillmore! You're at school early this morning. What can I do for you?'
'I need a little help with something, off the record.'
'Anything! After what you did to help the Computer Club out of that jam, we owe you big time!'
Fillmore dragged a chair over to the computer where Jeff was working and sat down on it backwards. 'I need to get into some student records. The locked kind.'
Jeff looked slightly confused for a moment. 'Locked? You mean you need me to hack?'
Fillmore frowned. 'If that's what it takes.'
Jeff dropped his eyes to the keyboard in front of him. 'Normally I wouldn't engage in such a thing. But in this case,' he looked up again with a friendly smile, 'I'm sure it's in the best interests of everyone involved.'
'You're right in that guess.'
'So, who am I researching for you?'
'Ingrid Third.'
Jeff's fingers immediately flew into a frenzy as he typed frantically away. 'Let's just have a look-see at her record here so we know what school databases to search...' he said quietly, more to himself than Fillmore. 'Wow, that quite a list.' A long page off names popped up on the screen.
'Maybe we should just start with the first four?' Fillmore suggested.
'Good idea,' Jeff responded as he began to type away again. Fillmore watched as small boxes appeared and disappeared again, at a complete loss as to what was going on. After a few minutes Jeff sat back in his chair. 'Third, you say her name is?' Fillmore nodded, his eyes bent on the computer screen. 'She sure has quite the history...' Jeff trailed off.
And he wasn't exaggerating. Stink bombs, breaking and entering. After a little more digging they found out the school in Nepal was actually a reform school. Fillmore's suspicions were confirmed. Third was bad news. But she was his problem now.
He walked slowly back to his office, with a printout of everything he'd found in hand. Third had been in a lot of trouble, but the clincher would be figuring out exactly how she fit into the picture here at X. She was obviously capable of a lot. She wasn't someone he could take the chance of underestimating. The only solution would be to keep an eye on her for now.
________
Ingrid found herself once again seated at the computer in the archive room. Alone, this time. Augie, it seemed, was no where to be found. Just as well, she'd rather be alone right now. Or at least not in his company. If there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was being manipulated, and that was the exact game Augie was trying to play.
She'd play with him for now. There was nothing to lose by helping him out- she just didn't like being on the receiving end of orders. The power to choose for herself was something she valued. Augie would know that now, after the little lecture she'd given him yesterday. Besides, that guy, Sonny, probably would've put him in the hospital if she hadn't agreed to help. Augie wasn't exactly built for taking on the kinds of goons that Sonny more than likely had connections with.
The guy she'd been asked to look up was named Simon Langley. An initial search of the school's database immediately turned up articles from the Examiner about his involvement in the Chemistry.
Ingrid flew through them, meaning to go over them later. From what she could quickly gather, he was one of the leading members of the Chemistry club. The articles talked about some of the projects that they worked on: firework shows and the like. This kind of information probably wouldn't impress Sonny, though. It didn't really impress her either.
The small room filled with the rhythmic pounding of the computer keys. Ingrid quickly dug her way into the office files, and located Langley's with some ease. Without bothering to read it, she clicked 'print'.
Only after did she stop to wonder where the printer was. 'Snap,' she said under her breath, realizing that it was probably in the main library. If the librarian had seen what was printed off, he would probably get suspicious. After all, how on earth could a student legally get access to closed files?
Her fears were immediately relieved when she peered cautiously around a bookshelf. The librarian was completely lost in the book he was reading. Actually, the printer wasn't anywhere near where he was sitting behind his desk anyway. It was over by the line of computers down the right wall.
Ingrid rounded the corner and strode purposefully towards the printer. Picking up the sheets she glanced to her left. There was a guy working on the computer, seemingly ignoring her. She walked around him and picked up a stapler that was lying on the desk. Stapling the two sheets together, she tucked them into her bag. Ingrid was about to leave, when she realized that the computer in the archives was still on, with the windows open for all to see.
Heaving a sigh at the neglectfulness that seemed to be hounding her today, she made her way back to the archives. She moved the mouse to click the little 'x'. The arrow passed over a number, and she stopped. It was the number of people logged on to the system. 2. That was rather curious, since it was still so early in the morning. School hadn't even started yet. Perhaps one of the secretaries in the office was working on the system, but still... Something was strange about this.
Ingrid moved her fingers comfortably over the keyboard, tracing the path of whoever else was on the system. She wanted to know, despite her better judgment on curiosity, what the other person was doing.
A window popped up. It was a student record. It was hers.
Ingrid's eyes narrowed into slits. Someone was reading up on her, and she had a strong suspicion that it wasn't a secretary in the office. Augie couldn't hack, Sonny couldn't hack or he would've done it himself, but then, maybe it was someone else...
Fillmore.
He had shown an interest in her past offences. Ingrid frowned coldly. He had had a copy of her transcript with him in the interview room. Why would he have to hack? The answer came when another small window popped up. A list of past attended schools. Then the user logged off.
Well, that made sense then. The record had been clean, so he wanted to search each of her past schools databases to find out if she had committed any crimes while attending them.
This sneaking around actually surprised her a little. He seemed more like the kind of guy who would get right in your face about it. Hacking was, after all, illegal. But then, he had a criminal history of his own.
Ingrid logged out of the database and headed out of the library. Augie's locker was #347. He said she could just slide the info in through the slats in the door. Ingrid dropped her bag on the ground and took out the papers. Without any glances over her shoulders or careful looks around, she slipped them into his locker like it was the most normal thing to be doing in the world. Someone walked past her, whistling. Now //that// was conspicuous.
Ingrid snuck a look at the guy as she picked her bag back up off the floor. It was the same guy from the library. He turned left into the washroom. Ingrid kept moving down the hallway. It was time to pay a little visit to Fillmore.
________
Next Chapter: Someone's got their eye on Ingrid and Augie's every move. Meanwhile, Ingrid and Fillmore get to know one another a little better.
Soulful-sin- Try again! I'm not British! ^_^ And hidden agendas are so much fun... The only problem is that half the time I forget what they were and have to sit down and think about where it was I was going with whatever. v_v;
Toast- fanfiction.net was messing with EVERYBODY! It was CRAZY! I was like UPDATE! And it was like NO! 0_o... But it's fixed now... ^^; Again, no comment on how it turns out! If I told you then you'd have no reason to read the rest of it... ^^
Comickook- I'm glad you like the fic! Wow, everyone seems to want to have a say in the ending... Well, say whatever you want, but I've already decided what's going to happen! ^_^
Alixi- 'Bravo'. XD! Reminds of this time I went to the ballet, and at the end when we were applauding, this big guy sitting behind me was actually shouting BRAVO! at the top of his lungs. X_x
Chris- Glad you like! ^^
________
Fillmore sat at his desk with his hands templed in front of his face. His brow was furrowed in concentration as he stared out across Safety Patrol HQ. It was early on Friday morning, and the office was empty but for him thus far. A copy of Neil's report was sitting on the desk between his elbows. Some of the pages were dog-eared, and it looked worse for wear. Fillmore had been pouring over it all, and had come in to the office early. He guessed he was hoping that walking in to X would suddenly reveal to him a new angle that he hadn't considered before. It didn't.
Fillmore leaned back in his chair and sighed resignedly. Thelonius was swimming happily around in his fish bowl. Fillmore cracked a small smile for his tiny friend and pulled out a bottle of fish food from his desk. 'Hey man. Haven't had much of a chance to talk to you lately, huh? It's just you and me now, since Wayne left.'
The smile on Fillmore's face faded again. He was still smarting a little from his partner leaving. The pain had been buried for a while there, covered up by mountains of paperwork and leads and beats. 'But I still have you, don't I?' Fillmore smiled weakly, looking back at his fish. 'You're not going anywhere.'
He turned back to the report and flipped through the pages aimlessly. He needed something, anything. Sitting here in limbo was driving him mad. There were no leads, no clues. How could anybody be as clever as this Stingray was making himself (or herself) out to be? No one was. Every criminal slipped up in one way or another. That's how they were caught. And they were always caught. It was his job to make sure of that.
But this... This was one giant mess. An invisible one. This was like a spider's web. He knew it was there, but he just couldn't see it. Every time the light started to catch on the threads, a breath of wind would cause them to shudder and disappear from his sight once again. All he needed was one clear ray of light, one look straight to the heart of this tangled design.
Fillmore forced his attention back to the words on the page. Neil had written pages and pages of nothing. No matter how many times he went over it... The last day of his undercover assignment was supposed to be the day that Stingray would make some kind of move. Whatever the deal was, it was planned to take place in an empty storage room. Of course, if this was a deal of some kind, then Stingray was obviously dealing with someone. Who? There was a question worth investigating.
Fillmore's mind immediately drifted to Third. His common sense told him that she too new to have broken into the organized crime ring this quickly, and yet he had seen her with Sonny just yesterday. And Neil had said that something had occurred to push up the date that the deal was supposed to take place on. Could that something have been the arrival of Third? If only he had been able to hear what she and Sonny were talking about yesterday!
Just this suspicion wasn't enough for Fillmore, though. He didn't know enough about her to determine what kind of a role she would play in all of this. Sure, she was smart. But how did she choose to put those smarts to use in the field? Spray-painting was probably not a skill that Stingray cared too much about.
Her pristine record came to mind. Somehow he doubted that he bad streak had just magically manifested itself when she walked into X. There had to have been other incidents, other crimes that had gotten her kicked out of all the schools she had attended before. And just maybe Third's criminal history could help shed some light on what kind of a role she was playing in all of this.
The problem was finding out that criminal history. Her permanent record was clean, obviously because the powers that be had decided not to taint such a gifted student. That wouldn't help him in the least, then. What he needed was to get at the records that were locked away. He needed...
'Yo, Jeff. You in?'
A thin boy with thick rimmed glasses glanced up from his computer at the sound of knocking and the mention of his name. When he saw who was there, he broke into a toothy grin. 'Officer Fillmore! You're at school early this morning. What can I do for you?'
'I need a little help with something, off the record.'
'Anything! After what you did to help the Computer Club out of that jam, we owe you big time!'
Fillmore dragged a chair over to the computer where Jeff was working and sat down on it backwards. 'I need to get into some student records. The locked kind.'
Jeff looked slightly confused for a moment. 'Locked? You mean you need me to hack?'
Fillmore frowned. 'If that's what it takes.'
Jeff dropped his eyes to the keyboard in front of him. 'Normally I wouldn't engage in such a thing. But in this case,' he looked up again with a friendly smile, 'I'm sure it's in the best interests of everyone involved.'
'You're right in that guess.'
'So, who am I researching for you?'
'Ingrid Third.'
Jeff's fingers immediately flew into a frenzy as he typed frantically away. 'Let's just have a look-see at her record here so we know what school databases to search...' he said quietly, more to himself than Fillmore. 'Wow, that quite a list.' A long page off names popped up on the screen.
'Maybe we should just start with the first four?' Fillmore suggested.
'Good idea,' Jeff responded as he began to type away again. Fillmore watched as small boxes appeared and disappeared again, at a complete loss as to what was going on. After a few minutes Jeff sat back in his chair. 'Third, you say her name is?' Fillmore nodded, his eyes bent on the computer screen. 'She sure has quite the history...' Jeff trailed off.
And he wasn't exaggerating. Stink bombs, breaking and entering. After a little more digging they found out the school in Nepal was actually a reform school. Fillmore's suspicions were confirmed. Third was bad news. But she was his problem now.
He walked slowly back to his office, with a printout of everything he'd found in hand. Third had been in a lot of trouble, but the clincher would be figuring out exactly how she fit into the picture here at X. She was obviously capable of a lot. She wasn't someone he could take the chance of underestimating. The only solution would be to keep an eye on her for now.
________
Ingrid found herself once again seated at the computer in the archive room. Alone, this time. Augie, it seemed, was no where to be found. Just as well, she'd rather be alone right now. Or at least not in his company. If there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was being manipulated, and that was the exact game Augie was trying to play.
She'd play with him for now. There was nothing to lose by helping him out- she just didn't like being on the receiving end of orders. The power to choose for herself was something she valued. Augie would know that now, after the little lecture she'd given him yesterday. Besides, that guy, Sonny, probably would've put him in the hospital if she hadn't agreed to help. Augie wasn't exactly built for taking on the kinds of goons that Sonny more than likely had connections with.
The guy she'd been asked to look up was named Simon Langley. An initial search of the school's database immediately turned up articles from the Examiner about his involvement in the Chemistry.
Ingrid flew through them, meaning to go over them later. From what she could quickly gather, he was one of the leading members of the Chemistry club. The articles talked about some of the projects that they worked on: firework shows and the like. This kind of information probably wouldn't impress Sonny, though. It didn't really impress her either.
The small room filled with the rhythmic pounding of the computer keys. Ingrid quickly dug her way into the office files, and located Langley's with some ease. Without bothering to read it, she clicked 'print'.
Only after did she stop to wonder where the printer was. 'Snap,' she said under her breath, realizing that it was probably in the main library. If the librarian had seen what was printed off, he would probably get suspicious. After all, how on earth could a student legally get access to closed files?
Her fears were immediately relieved when she peered cautiously around a bookshelf. The librarian was completely lost in the book he was reading. Actually, the printer wasn't anywhere near where he was sitting behind his desk anyway. It was over by the line of computers down the right wall.
Ingrid rounded the corner and strode purposefully towards the printer. Picking up the sheets she glanced to her left. There was a guy working on the computer, seemingly ignoring her. She walked around him and picked up a stapler that was lying on the desk. Stapling the two sheets together, she tucked them into her bag. Ingrid was about to leave, when she realized that the computer in the archives was still on, with the windows open for all to see.
Heaving a sigh at the neglectfulness that seemed to be hounding her today, she made her way back to the archives. She moved the mouse to click the little 'x'. The arrow passed over a number, and she stopped. It was the number of people logged on to the system. 2. That was rather curious, since it was still so early in the morning. School hadn't even started yet. Perhaps one of the secretaries in the office was working on the system, but still... Something was strange about this.
Ingrid moved her fingers comfortably over the keyboard, tracing the path of whoever else was on the system. She wanted to know, despite her better judgment on curiosity, what the other person was doing.
A window popped up. It was a student record. It was hers.
Ingrid's eyes narrowed into slits. Someone was reading up on her, and she had a strong suspicion that it wasn't a secretary in the office. Augie couldn't hack, Sonny couldn't hack or he would've done it himself, but then, maybe it was someone else...
Fillmore.
He had shown an interest in her past offences. Ingrid frowned coldly. He had had a copy of her transcript with him in the interview room. Why would he have to hack? The answer came when another small window popped up. A list of past attended schools. Then the user logged off.
Well, that made sense then. The record had been clean, so he wanted to search each of her past schools databases to find out if she had committed any crimes while attending them.
This sneaking around actually surprised her a little. He seemed more like the kind of guy who would get right in your face about it. Hacking was, after all, illegal. But then, he had a criminal history of his own.
Ingrid logged out of the database and headed out of the library. Augie's locker was #347. He said she could just slide the info in through the slats in the door. Ingrid dropped her bag on the ground and took out the papers. Without any glances over her shoulders or careful looks around, she slipped them into his locker like it was the most normal thing to be doing in the world. Someone walked past her, whistling. Now //that// was conspicuous.
Ingrid snuck a look at the guy as she picked her bag back up off the floor. It was the same guy from the library. He turned left into the washroom. Ingrid kept moving down the hallway. It was time to pay a little visit to Fillmore.
________
Next Chapter: Someone's got their eye on Ingrid and Augie's every move. Meanwhile, Ingrid and Fillmore get to know one another a little better.