*4*
The solid thud of ... something followed by voluble cursing emanating from the office pulled Bobby from the kitchen where'd he'd been listening to the morning news and drinking a cup of coffee. Poking his head in he checked to make sure nothing was currently flying about before stepping in. "Kid, why're you beating up the inanimate objects again?"
She sighed heavily. "Sorry, Bobby. I'm just a bit irritated. Someone has to have pulled the information on these guys out of the system."
"What do you mean, kid?" Hobbes set a hand on her shoulder, surprised by the suppressed anger that he could pick up off her.
"Like this," She pressed a few keys and pointed to the screen. "This is part of what we downloaded overnight, but when I go to access the file itself..." More keys were tapped only to have the screen proclaim it was a non-existent file. "I get this bullshit. Someone is hiding something and it's pissing me off."
Hobbes pulled her away from the computers. "Calm down, kid. We got hits for the target, right?"
"Yes, about a dozen."
"Then we run a crosscheck search with Keller and see what pops up. Or what doesn't." Hobbes waited for the look of understanding to brighten her features.
"Damn, I need to start using this overpriced brain of mine. If they yanked intel on both, there should be a big gaping hole that matches." Alyx relaxed in his hold, feeling more than a bit foolish.
Hobbes nodded. "Exactly, kid. Based on what we do have, we know both Keller and the target were in the CIA at the same time. Maybe they were partners or something. Who knows, maybe they were lovers and the bosses found out. Weirder things have happened."
Alyx stifled a snicker. "Understatement, Bobby. All right, let me set this up, but I have the feeling its not going to go anywhere. Maybe we can eliminate a person or two. Just tracking them down is going to be fun. All have secured files that I can't get access to from here. So far I can only get some basic background data. I might be able to find out if they are still working, things like that."
"Good enough. We ain't going anywhere fast. The city is socked in. They're saying tomorrow at the earliest." He noticed the way she tensed. "Kid, is this gonna be a problem. Us here?"
"I... I'm not sure. You and Gray are getting along okay, right?" Alyx completed programming the new searches and turned about to face him, leaning back against the desk.
"Yeah, but I bet you knew we would." He tipped his head to the side thinking. "It's Fawkes you're worried about, or Gray. Maybe both?"
Alyx didn't know what to say. She was pretty sure Darien believed her proclamation of loyalty, since it was the truth. She had never looked at Gray as more than a partner and friend and had never really picked up on anything beyond that from him, and they had been in a few tight situations that very easily could have led to something, but hadn't. She hadn't asked Darien why he'd thought she'd been sleeping Gray, but she was beginning to think she'd been completely blind to something and it was annoying.
"Kid, its damn obvious Gray cares about you as more than a partner. I'm guessing you never noticed." Hobbes figured honesty would be the best way to go. He was a little disconcerted when she sank into the chair and pinched the bridge of her nose, like when she was getting a headache.
"Damn it, no I never noticed. I mean, I know he cares about me. Can't help but know that. Hell, I care about him, but as a friend." She paused irritated at herself. "It's amazing exactly how blind I can be even with my little talents." Alyx hated crap like this. Hated how complicated even simple things had become in her life. Once again, she found herself wishing she was home, snuggled up before the fireplace with the kids and a good book. Or maybe outdoors, going sledding with them, romping in the snow without a care in the world and no memory of this facet of her life. With a sigh, her headache returned and she began rubbing her temples to try to ease it even though she knew it wouldn't help.
Bobby didn't smile at her comment, knowing that things had just gotten far more complicated for her. "Kid... Alyx, try not to worry about this now, we have a job to do; deal with it later."
"I wish it was that god damned simple, Bobby. Maybe you and Darien should go your own way on this one. Once we get you free of here, that is." Alyx got to her feet and began organizing some of the data she had printed out. She wanted to go through the basic profiles of the 12 potential targets on hard copy, see if she could eliminate some on her own.
"If that's the way you want to play it, sure, but I'd rather not. You and your hunches are rarely wrong. 'Sides how often are we going to get to work together. Lets make the most of it." Hobbes grinned and added in an eyebrow wiggle, that finally got the serious expression to break, a lopsided grin appearing on her face.
"Thanks, Bobby." She gave him a swift hug and then, papers in hand, left the room to head to the kitchen, where she found a sleepy Darien who was trying to figure out how to make her carafe give up its contents. She removed it from his hands and poured him a cup, adding the Sweet-n-Low and cream that he preferred.
He grabbed her about the waist and mumbled, "Thank you," into her hair before turning her loose and stumbling over to the small table in the kitchen.
She couldn't stop the smile, he was always amusing in the morning and, with jet lag added in, he was doing his version of Day of the Dead. "You could have slept in, you know. The city is still closed." She waved at the TV that was on, but kept the sound off. It was showing idiot reporters standing in the snow and telling everyone what they already knew -- that it was snowing and that the city was currently a haven for ski mobiles and kids who were thrilled at a day out of school.
He gulped down a mouthful of coffee. "Cold. No warm body to snuggle with any more." He gave her the puppy eyes, trying for a little guilt on her part, but she simply snorted.
"Lousy excuse there, bub." Still she gave him a kiss on the cheek, sat next to him, and began going through the profiles before her. They'd set the parameters to look back as far as 25 years, since they didn't even have an age for the target. She was surprised there were only 12 viable candidates. She set them on the table, staggered atop one another so she could see the pictures provided -- none of which were current -- and hoped one would jump out at her, but on this occasion none did.
"What're you doin'?" Darien asked around a yawn.
"These are the hits for the target, I was hoping one would ... feel right, but none do." She sighed and pulled out the first one to go over the basic statistics.
"What are we looking for?" He pulled over a couple of the sheets and perused the information as he began to wake up. "We don't even know age right? Just think there's a connection to Keller?"
"Right. Keller is in his 40s, wife, kids. The usual crap." Alyx turned her head to look at his profile, "Though it is kind of weird that there's no details, no pics. In politics your family is often your showpiece, whether or not the marriage is real or just convenient. I'm not sure they even live in the area."
"And you're saying there's no info?" Darien asked. Alyx nodded and moved onto the next candidate. "So what does that mean?"
Alyx shrugged. "It means someone doesn't want us to know."
"The ole need to know," Bobby said in a singsong voice as he entered the room. "Morning, Fawkes. Did you get any sleep?" he teased.
"He got plenty, thank you very much, as did I. Now, be good, or I'll make you walk to your hotel." Alyx was smiling. She had missed the teasing. Her relationship with her new friends wasn't quite the same. Bobby, Claire, and Darien had helped take an angry, scared woman and given her a reason to care, to live again, and they would always hold a very special place in her life.
"Cruel. Guess you don't want the info your fancy computer spit out then," Bobby commented casually as he poured himself another cup of coffee. When he caught her closing her eyes, obviously intent on getting the information for herself he interrupted, "Hey, no cheating there. Let me have my moment in the sun." He glanced out the window at the dim light coming through the heavy cloud cover. "Well, in the snow anyway."
Alyx cracked open one eye and grinned. "Please let it be good news."
"The new search narrowed it down to two." He handed over the printouts for her to look at. "But we can't get any more info from here. We have to get to the database on site, maybe even the hard copies in the archives."
"Well, that ain't going to happen any time soon," Darien remarked as he looked over the pages as well, one of which was the one he'd picked out of the group.
"Not true," Gray rumbled from behind them. He was fresh from the shower, his hair hanging loose down his back, and dampening his T-shirt. "It's in the garage, right?"
"Yeah, but I was hoping... Never mind." She glanced over at the clock. "Give it another hour and we'll get moving."
Gray nodded in agreement and took his turn at the coffee and then began preparing breakfast for all of them.
"Kid?" Hobbes was curious as hell.
"We're gonna plow the road, Hobbesy," Alyx answered, then turned back to the pages, trying to squeeze some more insight out of the information before her. To no avail.
The snow was falling even more heavily than overnight, it seemed, but it was just snow. No more ice balls or sleet. The wind had died down to only the occasional breeze, but there were still drifts -- some taller than Alyx -- that they waded around, heading for the garages of the apartment complex. Once they arrived, Darien groaned, as the doors were buried under a drift nearly as tall as he was and looked to be fairly solid. But Alyx simply waved them back out of the way and, with a reasonably controlled blast of her mind, scattered the drift in to the air, distributing the snow fairly evenly about the area, and leaving the door completely accessible. She punched in her access code and the door creakily lifted up, not enjoying the cold any more than the rest of them.
Bobby gaped, recognizing the vehicle from their visit to her house in Newport the previous summer. "Kid..."
"You have a Hummer stashed in the garage and drive around a Expedition. You must be getting paid damn well," Darien commented, impressed, and wondering how he could get in on the deal.
Alyx waved them into the garage itself. "The Expedition is a company car. The Hummer is mine. I commute, remember? And driving leaves far fewer records than flying." Walking around to the front end she sighed. "Forgot I took the damn thing off. Now, where did I put it..." She looked about the dimly lit room until she found what she was looking for. "Watch your heads, guys."
That was all the warning she provided before a plow blade was lowered from a storage shelf along one wall and to the front of the vehicle. She trailed along until it was lined up correctly and Hobbes, who was the nearest, made the connections, and tightened down the bolts.
"Kid, do you think of everything?" Hobbes asked, shaking his head.
"It took exactly one snowstorm for me to decide a plow would be worth the money. I had the winch added as well." She shrugged and opened the driver's door and started the beast with a roar that nearly deafened Darien.
"Just so long as the thing has heat," Darien complained, as he blew on his hands while Gray set the laptop case on the floor in back and then climbed in behind the wheel. He tested the controls for the plow and Alyx gave a thumbs up when everything worked like it should. Darien and Hobbes climbed in back; getting the doors shut just before Gray backed the Hummer out of the garage. He spent a minute adjusting the plow so that it was moving the snow out of their way. Alyx joined Gray up front after shutting and locking the garage door.
"Ready?" Gray waited for Alyx's nod and started moving. The visibility was low, only about a quarter mile at best, and the roads were practically invisible under the layers of snow and ice. That was why Gray was driving, Alyx could find the roads under the snow and keep them on track while Gray could manhandle the vehicle. They weren't overly concerned about being on the correct side of the road, as there was very few others out. A few emergency and police vehicles, as well as the occasional plow trying to keep at least the main roads open, with little success. There were a few snowmobiles and the rare skier, who were either out just enjoying the weather or, much like themselves, had to be someplace.
When they came upon drifts that were more than the plow could handle Alyx dealt with them, punching her way through with blasts of her mind. One way or another they plowed the road. The drive to the Langley CIA headquarters took about three times as long as normal, but they had been expecting that. The guard at the gate was only slightly surprised when they pulled up and flashed their badges, since there was a scattering of cars in the employee parking lot, mostly higher ranks who felt they had to come in. About half of those vehicles also had plows and were trucks or SUVs, mostly personal vehicles, so hers would not really look out of place. They ignored the assigned parking and joined the crowd huddled near the side entrance to the building; just one more employee who had work, which could not wait and needed to be here snowstorm or no.
Someone had shoveled a pathway from the parking lot to the door, but it had since partially filled back in and Alyx decided her toes were cold enough and cleared the path right down to the concrete sidewalk, within minutes they were indoors. Alyx spent a few moments chatting with guard stationed inside to get an idea of who was in the building and get Bobby and Darien signed in as guests. They had the clearance because they were assigned to the special task force, so it was just the filling out of the standard government paperwork that needed to be done. In short order, they had their visitor passes, and were following Gray deeper into the building.
"Office?" Gray slowed to come alongside Alyx.
"No, head right down to the archives we can try the comps there and if worse comes to worse the hard copies." She turned to Bobby. "You keep up with the filing schtick?"
"Don't make me hurt you," Hobbes growled and wagged his finger at her.
"Aw, Hobbesy, too much bonding with Ebes?" Darien ribbed, doing his damnedest to keep the smile off his face. "The 'Fish still punishes him with filing," he whispered conspiratorially to Alyx.
"Ebes ain't that bad and his filing system is pretty damn straightforward compared to this place." Alyx dug out a key for the elevator they had stopped before. "You know for all that I complained about the lack of decent security at the Agency, at least I could find things there."
"Sil, just key the floor would you." Gray gave her a gentle push to get her moving, and she gave him a mock glare even as she slid the key into place to access the lower levels of the building.
In no time at all they were in the research room, where seemingly acres of computers were set up for agents, and others with special clearance, to come to access a variety of information stored in the database buried in a sub-basement. Alyx had spent quite a bit of time in this room as well as in the stacks of files and storage cabinets in the room beyond the security locked double doors.
Choosing a terminal at random, she turned on the monitor and pulled her laptop out and set it up as well. Once everything was ready she made herself comfortable, keyed in her access number, and began the search.
"How you want to do this, kid?" Bobby was looking about the far too quiet room. They appeared to be the only ones in here at the moment, which wasn't all that surprising given the weather that was screaming away outside. They all knew there were others in various parts of the building -- just because the weather was bad here didn't mean there weren't missions being run in dozens of locations around the globe. In fact, the few cars outside probably represented only a fraction of the people actually in the building at this time. Only nonessential personnel had the snow day off. Though it may seem to an outsider that the US government only ran Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., it was far from the reality. Much like NY City, D.C. and its nearby relations never truly shut down.
Alyx was typing away on the CIA computer, trying to convince it that she did indeed have the clearance to access the files on the two targets her system had narrowed it down to. All the others that the original search had turned up were either still working for the government, had retired and were at known locations, or were dead. Only these last two fit both the timeframe and were unaccounted for.
"Ummm, gimme a minute," she answered, sounding distracted as the computer tried to tell her things she didn't want to hear. "No more data available, my Aunt Brigid," she growled at it.
Darien dragged over a chair and plopped himself down next to her at the workstation. "Let me guess, you do have an Aunt Brigid."
"Great Aunt actually." She grinned and half-turned to look at him. "My dad's side of the family bush." Then she frowned. "Stupid, gosh durn... Looks like I'm gonna have to cheat."
"Sil, get me a section number and I'll start the hard copy search," Gray said as he set a hand on her shoulder.
"Err... yeah. Okay, I should be able to do that." Her focus switched to the computer before her. Bypassing the security, she accessed the less than informative 'Top Secret' files on their targets that were in the system. As she pretty much expected, aside from the bare bones out-of-date info they already had, there wasn't much more. Though it did list the current status for both men as "unknown" along with the locations of their complete files in the archives.
Pulling herself back out of the system, she dug out a pen and a scrap of paper and wrote the locations down. Hobbes grabbed it from her hand before Gray had a chance to. "Fawkes, you stay here. Me and Gray will find the hard copies. Kid, see what else you can dig up on Keller." He began to walk away, but stopped when Gray hadn't moved a single step and was apparently trying to glare a hole into the top of Fawkes' head. Darien was doing the two-fingered typist routine on Alyx's laptop to call up the info they did have on Keller for comparison and appeared to be blissfully unaware that he was the focus of the taller agent's ire. "Problem? Fawkes knows how to work with the kid and you know your way around in there."
The glare snapped about to focus on Hobbes, but he didn't even twitch in reaction, just met the anger filled gaze with a totally bland look that decried the fact that he'd noticed the possessive way the larger man's hand still rested on Alyx's shoulder. Her hand came up -- once again wearing the thin gray gloves -- and absentmindedly patted her partner's hand, completely obliviously to his actions.
"That'll work. I'll handle communications so no one has to be bellowing to be heard. Just tell me who you want to talk to and I'll relay." She poked at a few more keys one handed, but turned when Graywolf still hadn't moved. "Gray?"
"All right." He slipped his hand from beneath hers and moved away. "Well, Agent Hobbes?" he queried, when Bobby didn't moved instantly.
Bobby sighed and shook his head as Gray marched to the doors. "No necking you two. Work."
Alyx snorted and Darien grinned. "I think we can manage to focus for a few minutes, partner."
Alyx kept a very light link on the two men as Gray swiped his access card in the slot and keyed his code before the doors would open and allow them to enter. Clearing the screen she began a more detailed search on Keller with the CIA system. Hopefully, it would turn up something a bit more useful. Being the paranoid agency that the CIA was, she was pretty sure they had a rather complete dossier on Keller, especially since he had once worked for them.
She turned to look at Darien while waiting for the computer to complete its search. "Sorry about Gray. He's usually not this overprotective of me."
Darien leaned back in the chair and shook his head, not all that surprised at her partner's reaction. He'd known the guy was glaring daggers at him, but had ignored it. What was there he could do? Work was work. Play was play. And, though there was some inevitable overlap, he and Alyx were both perfectly capable of restraining themselves. They, or at least he, was not some teenager with far more raging hormones then brain cells. Alyx wasn't quite as lucky. With the hormones, that is. Not the brain cells, or lack thereof.
"That's his job, to protect you. Somehow, I doubt he thinks I'm good enough for you. Ex-con that I am."
Alyx stuck out her tongue at him. "That was never an issue with me and you know it. Givin' me a dang headache all of ya grumbling mentally at each other 'cause ya think t'others can't hear ya." She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. "Y'all keep forgettin' I can." She had slipped into the drawl she'd picked up from years of living in the southeast and that she occasionally fell back into when tired or upset.
"Hey, go back a few screens." He sat up straighter and waved at the screen that was stacking pages of text and images as it downloaded the search data onto her terminal.
"Okay, hold on." Opening her eyes, she paused the search program and flipped back quite a few frames until Darien told her to stop.
He tapped the screen with one finger. "He look familiar?"
"Hot shit. He sure does." On the screen before her was a picture of Keller and target two. Both with their arms wrapped about a leggy blonde. Her mental link to Bobby suddenly awoke and she focused on him. *What you got, Bobby?*
*How about target two and Keller having the same hometown, kid. If that ain't a connection, I'll work with Jones for a month,* Hobbes told her, with more than enough confidence that he would never have to suffer through that torture again.
*How about a pic of them together in what looks like High School?* Darien offered up as well.
*It appears that target two would be the one we are interested in. Agent Brinkman is believed to have died in a plane crash ten years ago according to this file,* Gray sent to Alyx, and she relayed it to everyone else. Confirming that their choice of target appeared to be correct.
*So now what?* Darien asked of all of them.
*A field trip, my friends. What isn't here might very well be back home in ...* Bobby glanced at the file. *Lincoln, Nebraska.* Bobby shut and replaced the file amongst its brethren. *Time to see how little William Lee grew up to become a traitor.*
*Hold up. Lets check out Keller's file while we're here. Section C, Row 5, Partition 3-B.* Alyx relayed, curious as to what the man had done while in the CIA. It took a few minutes, but she was patient. She knew how big that room was and how difficult finding things could be.
*Kid, you sure that's correct?* Hobbes asked, radiating both confusion and irritation.
*Let me double check.* The computer's search had come up with that location, but she double checked by going into the system herself and came up with the same information. *That's the location listed here, Bobby.*
*The file has been removed,* Gray explained, he even did his best to send a visual image and Alyx took the time to focus on him a bit more to receive it. The location appeared to have been recently rearranged and the various boxes, and files shifted about to fill in the gaps. There looked to be quite a bit of information missing.
*And I can get everything but his CIA files out of the computer system. Someone is hiding something,* Alyx told them. *All right. Lets blow this pop stand and see if we can get a flight to Nebraska sometime before summer.*
That earned a laugh from everyone, but when she met Darien's eyes she could see the worry there. They had obviously stumbled onto something that wasn't supposed to be found. "Maybe we should leave this alone and join Morris playing overpriced baby-sitter to Keller?"
Alyx shut down the computer before her and then went to work on her laptop. "Maybe. Do you think that's how we should play it?"
Darien shook his head. "No, but I have the feeling we're getting deep into something here." He took the laptop and slipped it back into its bag for her
"Hey, that's why we get paid the big bucks." Alyx got to her feet with a small smile on her lips. Darien didn't respond in kind. "I'd rather find the right answer, the truth, than just assume the little info we've been given was written in stone. If this Lee really does plan on killing Keller there must be a reason and if we know the reason we may be able to defuse the situation without a shot fired or anyone hurt."
"I know," Darien responded as he got to his feet. Bobby and Gray were just exiting the archive room and heading for their location. "But what if whoever is hiding the truth decides we're in the way?"
Alyx nodded slowly, knowing he was right. "We deal with it."
By the time they were back in the Hummer and following the pathway they had previously cleared. Alyx was already on her phone trying to arrange some sort of flying transportation out of the district, but it was obvious by the time they had reached the hotel Darien and Bobby was staying at, that it would be several hours before they would be able to. Even military flights were currently grounded until the worst of the storm had passed. According to forecasters the weather was supposed to break late in the afternoon, which meant flights might be moving again around midnight, if things went well.
When they were dropped off, Alyx told them to pack up and be prepared to check out on short notice. She was going to take the first flight out and warned them it would probably be a military troop or cargo plane heading west, that could drop them off without too many complications to its schedule.
Bobby tried suggesting that they simply wait till the commercial airports reopened and booked seats like normal people, until Gray pointed out that there were stranded passengers all up and down the east coast that would probably get seats before them. Bobby could only sigh and nod in agreement.
They did indeed manage to snag seats on a military cargo plane, along with some Army grunts who were heading the same direction, but the first half of the flight was miserable, the weather borderline, turbulence awful. It was so bad that one of the poor newbie recruits spent most of his time in the head trying to convince his stomach not to crawl up his esophagus. About the time they hit Indiana they passed the front-line of the storm, the skies cleared, and the plane's lovely imitation of the infamous Vomit Comet ended, allowing those who could to fall asleep for the remainder of the flight.
Alyx had been one of those who couldn't. Flying was still an uncomfortable experience for her, and she spent as much of the first half of the flight as she could working on her laptop, the fingers of one had near constantly rubbing the heart pendant Darien had given her like some sort of personal worry stone.
Darien sat across from her, watching her quietly, occasionally joining in on one of the conversations going on. He'd almost forgotten how she reacted to flying. He knew it wasn't fear, hate, or even a phobia. Just a weird side effect of her gifts that left her feeling uncomfortable and out-of-sorts when in the air. He wondered how she managed all the travel she'd been doing in the last five months. He knew she'd been to Europe at least twice since joining the CIA and was unable to comprehend how she'd endured the flight over the Pond to get there.
Once the plane's flight had smoothed out she closed up the laptop, gave him a wan smile, and told him to sleep. They spent some time chatting mind to mind, before he yawned, realizing that he was damn tired. Even with a catnap after packing, the events of the last few days were catching up with him. Getting old, he admitted a bit ruefully to himself, he couldn't go for 24-plus hours straight just for the hell of it any more. After talking with Alyx a few more minutes, he shifted a bit to get comfortable -- one advantage of this seat arrangement with the back of the seats to the walls of the plane; he had plenty of leg room -- and drifted off into a light doze. Unbeknownst to him, Alyx encouraged into a deeper sleep so that at least one of their group would get the rest needed.
Alyx closed her eyes in an attempt to relax and meditate, but in the end did nothing more than simply endure the rest of the flight.
They ended up at a halfway decent hotel near the airport in Lincoln that didn't care they were checking in a 4:30 in the morning and had the two things Alyx wanted -- high speed internet access and rooms with a connecting door. They walked the halls to their adjoining rooms, the guys chatting amiably about where to find breakfast -- Darien's stomach had begun voicing its need for sustenance at the rental car counter. Alyx dragged herself and her trio of bags along, trying to not rub her forehead to ease the headache. She knew she was going to have to talk to Mikey, but wanted to wait until this mission was over. If things went their way they should have all the pieces they needed by the end of the day and be able to go to back to D. C. with the answers to resolve the situation.
They had chosen to room based on partners so Bobby and Darien took one room while Alyx and Gray the other. The first thing Alyx did was set up her laptop and check her inbox. There were no less than a baker's dozen e-mails from Franklin, ordering her to not follow through on this area of research into the Keller situation, which she both ignored and deleted, just as she had done with all the others before. She'd already blocked Franklin's number from her and Gray's cell phones and his pager -- just another little trick she learned she could pull with her talents. It was strangely amusing to see exactly how many times he'd try to contact her over this.
Then, out of sheer obstreperousness, she uploaded the data they had found to the database again, even though she knew it would be removed. Just like the last three times she'd tried. If nothing else it made her curious as hell as to why they didn't want them to follow the target, this William Lee, and his apparent connection to Keller back home in Lincoln.
They would find out later in the morning as they hit City and County Record offices, local libraries, and newspapers. She's done some preliminary work via the Internet. It was amazing how much data she had found through from which she had been able to access everything from birth records to information on local high schools, even all the local sex offenders were listed through the site. Since the records they were looking for were years out of date, much of the information was not available. She was able to narrow some things down, like the fact that the high school picture they had stumbled across had to be Lincoln High and not one of the private or parochial schools in the area. It would just take some more legwork on their part -- as well as staring at, hopefully, computer screens, as opposed to crappy microfilm readers.
Once they were reasonably settled and she had finished the work on her computer all three men ordered her to take a nap. They couldn't do much until the buildings opened, probably around 9:00 AM, and as they had all slept on the flight while she hadn't; they could handle things for a while, including more research on the computer.
Alyx grumbled and tried to argue, but they eventually convinced her, though it did take the threat, by Graywolf, of tying her down -- no matter how useless that would really be -- to get her to grudgingly agree. With the computer set up in her and Gray's room Darien steered her to his and saw to it she actually fell asleep before joining the other two men. They were perusing the listings for the nearest all night eateries for a place to get breakfast, which, of course, caused Darien's stomach to wake with a rumble that sounded oddly reminiscent of a plane landing on one of the nearby runways. Even Gray was impressed. With only slight reluctance about leaving Alyx alone, they made their way out into the still dark and cold air. The sky clear, though the stars were washed out do to the ambient lights of the city, to hit the nearest IHOP clone for as much food as they could handle.
