Downtown Buffalo was beautiful at night. Even here, in the slums, the lights of the building were like fires lighting the snow around them. Xander's breath condensed then dissipated in front of him as he trudged up the ice covered walkway.

He was there to search the apartment of Chet. His suspicions about the kid led him to do this tonight. Even to himself he admitted that he should have waited a few more nights, but his anger at Yelena drove to do something. That same anger coured through his veins right now, causing his fingers to twitch slightly.

Opening the door silently as possible was hard, considering that it was broken and rusted. He figured he might as well get it over with and charged the door. It opened grumpily, protesting at him in the form of a short but loud squeak. Carefully he slipped in and made his way up the stairs, which seemed ten times creakier then they had that morning. When he finally reached Chet's door, he pulled out a simple hair pin and began picking the lock the way he learned way back in the day. Gibbons didn't really care that he used such kindergarten methods, in fact, it was quite the opposite. Xander quietly came in to find the room was completely dark but for the lights of dozens of machines. X's ears perked up to hear any sound that wasn't beeping. He heard the faint drone of a radio and the electric waves of a T.V.

Xander knew he would have to search for people first; just to be sure he was alone. He followed the sound of the waves into a very small room. The TV was on a plastic cabinets to his left and there wasn't anything on it except the blank 'no service' blue screen. X turned to his right and a jolt lit through his stomach. There was someone in the bed. They were sleeping and their face was turned toward him.

X moved carefully, his tight black outfit allowing him to move quietly. The person in the bed was Chet. What blew X's mind was that Chet had really long hair. Really long WAVY hair of a golden colour. He looked down and realized what Chet was wearing. From what he could see, it was a white tank and boxer shorts. But Xander could see, by looking at Chet's chest, that he was a she.

Why didn't I notice that before? Xander thought, wondering how some girl managed to pull this off.

She turned in her sleep and exposed a black cat collar on her neck. Xander leaned over and looked at what was written on the silver tag. "Nikolai" it read. "You belong to Nikolai?" Xander said softly, getting up and going back to the main room. He inspected the computers for awhile, finding nothing out of the ordinary. There was a bulletin board with his list tacked to it, some of the items were already checked off.

Xander dug through some papers on a desk, finding a few multiplication and division problems hurriedly scratched out. The figures were large, Like money. X turned over a few more, also finding extensive notes on something. Reading into it, he saw they were complicated configurations about mainframes. Below were a few names and amounts underneath them. He folded and pocketed it. This is definitely Nikolai's place, X thought, getting up again and finding other papers to search.

Suddenly a glint to his right made him turn. The shine came from the green light of a computer and it was reflected on silver. Silver attached to a knife. A knife gripped in someone's hand. Chet's hand. Xander hurriedly whipped out a magnum, pointing it directly between Chet's eyes.

"You didn't think I felt you touching me, did you?" X didn't answer. "What are you doing here?"

"I got a better question. What are you doing here?"

"This is my apartment bastard, get the hells out!"

"Let's talk first."

"We are prepared to defend ourselves to the grave, Mr. Cage, don't trifle with us."

"How do you know my name?" Xander asked apprehensively.

"Shut the hells up!" Chet cried, her voice taking on an uncharacteristic drop. "Leave us!"

"Why do you keep sayin 'us' and 'we'?!" Asked X as though she were insane. "There's only...one of you, right?" The last statement was meant to be sarcastic and mocking.

"Of course not," she snapped back, her voice now sounding slightly British. "Looks may be deceiving, Xander; just because a person appears as one doesn't mean they are one."

Great. He spat to himself. The bitch has MPD.

"Now, Mr. Cage, we bid you farewell. If you don't accept our goodbyes, we will have to take drastic measures."

"You punk of a kid, put the knife down!" The muscled agent was getting sick and tired of the shit he was hearing.

"Why should we?" Chet's voice became higher pitched. "You should put the gun down." Her pale lips parted and Xander noticed an odd placement in her teeth that made it look as though she had bottom fangs.

"Look, I just wasn't sure if I cold really trust you to do my list," Xander answered, reverting back to his 'innocent' act. He lowered the magnum but still kept it at ready. Chet's cloudy blue eyes glared at him as if daring him to come any closer. Xander put up a hand in slight surrender.

"You can trust me with anything, Xander; you didn't have to break into my apartment at three in the morning. And now you know my secret. I guess I'll have to kill you." She gripped the knife tighter and raised it. Instantaneously, X raised his gun and a serious look flew across his face, clouding his eyes. Suddenly, low, dangerous laughter filled his ears and one thought rang through his head. What...?

Chet was laughing. She tucked the knife into the band of her boxer shorts. "Kidding, Xander, kidding." Xander lowered his magnum again, now feeling a little, well actually a lot, pissed off. Chet moved forward and into better light. Now Xander felt foolish for not noticing he was a she. Her legs were long and feminine, as were her arms. The long, golden brown strands of her hair must have must pulled under the hat she was wearing. The contour of her face was very long and oval, and her lips formed a forlorn pout only a woman could achieve. When her sizeable chest was added on top of all that, Xander felt pretty stupid.

"How could I not have noticed?"

"You notice anything, right?"

"Anything and everything." He said with a small smirk.

"Xander, when you put on your little black cat suit, doesn't it make you feel different from being in, oh say, a business suit? It's a form of glamouring; making yourself adjust in attitude to what's going on around you. When I'm not wearing my jeans, hat, and shirt, I can be as girly as I want. When I'm in those jeans though, I'm a dude. A dude who doesn't shave, wears Old Spice, eats crap, doesn't exercise and will do anything besides work."

"Glamouring, huh?"

"Yeah." Chet answered simply, heading towards the kitchen. Xander followed her in and glanced around the dark room.

"Don't you have any lights in this place?"

"One, but it's broken. I don't really like bright light, and you can see." She gestured to the thick blankets she had thrown over the window. Xander could barely see them, but suddenly a bright light shone in his eyes. Chet had a flashlight in her hand. X put his own hand over his face and the beam lowered.

"You want something to eat?"

"What you got?"

"Not much. Ramen noodles, marshmallows, apples, instant breakfast, watermelon and frosting."

"Frosting?"

"Strait from the can my friend. I dunno about you but I'm having some instant breakfast."

"I'll pass." Chet shrugged and pulled a packet out of the box. A faint puff came from the powder as she poured it into a glass. "Hey, you wanna get some milk outta the fridge for me?" Xander opened the fridge and saw some random bottles of juice and at least half a dozen frosting cans. At the bottom were a few bottles of Bacardi.

"Are you old enough to drink?" he asked.

"What? Oh, the Bacardi. Yeah. Well, actually, no. But seriously, it's not like I have a car to crash and I hardly leave this place."

"Does Nikolai make you stay?" asked Xander in a low voice. She kept her composure.

"You could say that. Milk?"

"Oh, sorry." He handed her the carton. She poured it into the glass and stirred.

"You're welcome to the Bacardi." She said out of the blue.

"No, that's....aiight. So you work on your free time or you got a real job?"

"This is my job. I get stuff for people when Nikolai can't. Nikolai...I don't really know what he does but he comes back with money so I don't complain."

"He your boyfriend?" Chet snorted.
"Hardly. Even if he was, I still would ask about the money."

"You don't care?" She shook her head no and impatiently brushed her hair out of her face. "So what is you're relationship with him?"

"Employee. He treats me with respect but I'm still not as good as him."

"Does he live here?"

"If he's got nowhere else to...why am I answering all these questions?"

"Because I'm asking you them."

"Why do you want to know so much?"

"Because I've got you doing errands for me and I don't know much about you."

"That's why you broke in in the first place, eh? I really gotta get a new lock on that damn door."

"Yeah, you might wanna do that."

"So, Xander, tell me about yourself. What do you do besides stunts and revenge?" Xander grinned.

"Ah, you know about that?"

"How did you think I knew you're name?" He shrugged. "I'm a video game junkie, so I get exposure to that kind of stuff. I've heard of you through other game obsessed people."

"I never knew I was that famous." X said, feigning surprise. Chet grinned wolfishly.

"Ask any respectable business man and he'll despise you. Ask someone like me or Niko and we'll fall down and shine your shoes."

"Maybe it's good that I don't come in contact with those classy stiffs."

"Maybe. So, you didn't answer my question...."

"What do I do? You know, sell shit, buy shit..."

"Drugs?" asked Chet with a raised eyebrow.

"Naw, that stuff is crap. I put stuff together, like those parts I asked for. I'm building some high quality equipment for a friend."

"Don't waste those parts Xander, most of them are freakin hard to find." She took a long sip of her drink and looked away.

"Hey, I just realized something. Before, you changing personalities. But now you're not." He said, dropping into his 'interrogating suspects' voice. Chet laughed.

"Yeah, that happens when I get too angry to keep myself together. But they keep me company and help me with internal conflicts. I'm not complaining. Hey, I got some of your stuff here already."

"Give it to me later, with the rest." She nodded.

"I'm gonna go now." Xander stated, and she followed him to the door.

"Oh, by the way, my name's Laila Halliday. My real name, that is." They shook hands.

"Aiight, cool. You know how to reach me if you need me." Laila nodded. "Good. Hey, uh, before I go, I got one more question. I'm dyin to meet Nikolai, do you know where he is?"

"Can't tell you, Xander. I know two ways to successfully preserve a sneaky business. Number one; never tell them all you know." And she shut the door behind him.

Laila sank to the ground and started to shake violently. Why did he do that? What if we hadn't woken up?

I don't know but we have to be more careful!

Do we believe him...?

I don't know...he seems natural enough.

Maybe so but he seemed pretty interested in Niko.

Well who wouldn't be? We know full well that Nikolai is an interesting person.

He is, after all, a part of the underground. It's no wonder that Xander knows who Niko is.

But...

But what? He's heard of Niko and knew he could get some pretty sweet stuff.

He is pretty popular and I'm sure he doesn't need Nikolai to...

That's just it! He has too much else to do so he got someone to do it for him.

He's come a long way.

That he has. It says he really, truly wants to meet Nikolai.

Then we'll just have to introduce them.

Man, I am such a procrastinator. How long has it been, over a month maybe, since I updated? I have written up to chapter seven, so I hope this goes much faster from now on. Sorry about the wait. Let me know if it wasn't worth it or if this story needs to stop. Hell, if it does, it's just one less thing I have to worry about.