Chapter Five

Sark and Julia arrived at the warehouse fashionably late, ignoring the irritated glares of the Covenant agents they were supposed to meet.

Julia took in her surroundings warily. The large room was sinisterly dark – which wasn't surprising considering it was the early hours of the morning – but it nevertheless increased the growing sense of foreboding that had been building up inside of her since they'd left Sark's house. A single chair with restraints was placed in front of a screen.

They grabbed Julia roughly by the arms and forced her to sit in the chair. She knew better than to fight them. They slapped the restraints around her wrists and ankles despite the fact that she was being completely submissive.

"Look at the screen!" the TAC leader barked at her.

This time she didn't comply. She knew what they were going to do to her.

"LOOK!"

"Screw you," she spat out contemptuously.

He slapped her sharply across the face. She let no pain register; she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Instead she stared back at him with cold eyes, daring him to hit her again.

The TAC leader violently wrenched her head back, putting his face dangerously close to hers. "X5-475, look at the screen, or I will make you."

Still she refused. "I'm so scared," she said mockingly.

The TAC leader was almightily pissed. He muttered something to one of the guards, who disappeared, and a few minutes later returned with a vial of liquid. A mild sting in the inside of her elbow told Julia that he was injecting her with this liquid.

Moments later she couldn't move.

A neuro-toxin.

"Don't worry, it'll wear off soon enough," the TAC leader informed her smugly. "You brought this on yourself, remember. And don't think you won't be punished."

Now she had no choice but to look at the screen. She was paralysed – she couldn't even shut her eyes to block out the images that were going to bombard her mind.

A picture of Zack appeared.

Traitor, said the caption underneath.

Then a picture of Max.

Coward, it said.

Jondy.

Snake.

Syl.

Rogue.

She stared straight ahead and tried to ignore it.

These things may have been true. But Manticore wanted her to hate them because they had been disobedient. They wanted her to believe that Manticore was the only place they'd belong, that they were no good for anything except killing. That the escapees would come back, ashamed, after realising what a mistake they'd made by escaping.

But of course, the escapees never came back.

Julia didn't hate them because they had been disobedient. She didn't give a rat's ass about that. She hated them because they'd betrayed her.

Julia wanted to make up her own mind about her brothers and sisters. Her own mind. And Manticore wasn't going to take that away from her.

"You can leave now, Mr. Sark," one of the Covenant agents said, interrupting her reverie.

Julia blinked in surprise, realising that she hadn't been paying attention. She snuck a look at Sark, who looked remotely annoyed, but complied. Now she knew what he'd meant during their brief conversation over breakfast.

She felt more afraid now that Sark had left. It would have been easier to have a familiar face there, even if he was a little indifferent. She knew that the Covenant was brutal and merciless, and she wondered what they were going to subject her to.

The unsmiling Covenant agents turned towards her. "Julia Thorne," one of them addressed her with a heavy Russian accent. "We are meeting you at last. I am Nicolas Kipic and this is Alexei Banichev."

She nodded at them in acknowledgment, inwardly wincing at his use of her alias. She didn't like it when people called her that, but she'd learnt to deal with it, because, well, it had been her choice to use it.

"Sit down," Banichev told her gruffly, sounding and looking more like a caveman than anything else.

Julia sat down abruptly at a table; the Covenant agents took their place opposite her.

"The Covenant has something we'd like you to do. It's very important," Kipic started solemnly.

"I call tell," Julia murmured sardonically, prompting a glare from the man. The pair seemed to take their jobs so seriously it was almost comical. At first their cloak-and-dagger act had seemed intimidating, but suddenly Julia felt her fear dissipate. Why should she be afraid? She was an X5; she could break their necks in a second. "Right. Go on," she pressed, putting on a serious face.

"We want you to get access to the CIA Operations Centre and kill these agents for us," Kipic pushed some photos in front of her, of what she assumed were the agents she was to kill.

Julia flipped through them, reading out their names. "Marcus Dixon. Eric Weiss. Marshall Flinkman. Jack Bristow. Michael Vaughn -" she stopped. She recognised this man – the crazy guy from Manticore who kept calling her 'Sydney'. Rolling her eyes at the memory, she said, "Sounds easy enough. But there's one problem. How exactly am I going to get into the CIA?"

"We have a solution to that problem. You will pretend to be one of the CIA agents. One that has high level clearance and is trusted by the agents you will kill. You will assume her life and make everyone believe that you are her. No one will suspect you."

"What?" Julia scoffed. "I can't just waltz in into the CIA, pretending to be one of their agents. The very fact that I look nothing like her will blow my cover. They can't be that stupid."

"You will change your mind when you see the agent you will be impersonating." He handed her another photo, in which she found her own face staring back at her.

"This is her?" she questioned doubtfully.

"Yes," Banichev confirmed.

Julia looked at the Covenant agents, to the photo and then at Covenant agents again. "But it's me," she said, hardly convinced.

"No, it's not you."

"Oh, give me a break. She looks exactly like me."

"Precisely. How else did you think you were going to pull this off?"

She watched his face carefully, expecting him to laugh and say 'hey, just kidding!' at any moment. But he didn't. He was being serious. She considered that the Covenant might have simply gotten a picture of her and were just telling her it was someone else, to trick her. But would the Covenant make up something like this, when such an important and dangerous mission was at stake?

"Wow," Julia said softly. Identical to the very last freckle, this woman and her. Completely bizarre. "So who is she?"

"Agent Sydney Bristow," Kipic told her, and added as an afterthought – "Feisty little bitch."

Julia's head snapped up. "Sydney?" That was all the proof she needed – a name.

Syd!

Sydney, let's go.

What the hell is up with you, Syd? We have to go before they get us!

Michael Vaughn had been truly convinced that she was Sydney. It made sense now. Perhaps this would work after all.

"So, what are you going to do with Sydney when I'm......pretending to be her?"

"She won't be a problem. We will take her into our custody. Do I take it that you're going to co-operate with us?" Kipic asked.

Julia raised her eyebrows and straightened slightly. "I have a choice?" she said almost hopefully.

"No."

She sighed, deflated. Of course. Why did she even bother? She never had a choice. But she wondered briefly if she did have a choice, would she do it? It wasn't as if she owed the Covenant anything. But.......she was curious about this woman, this Sydney Bristow.

"When do I start then?"

Kipic looked pleased. "Very good. You make my job easier. We don't need to use that, then," he said, motioning to the chair with the restraints. "You will start soon, but right now you will need to learn everything there is to learn about Sydney Bristow."

And for the next few hours, that was exactly what she did. Kipic and Banichev lectured her on Sydney's whole life story, showed her pictures, identified all the people Sydney had ever loved.

........Sydney's mother died when she was six years old........

........when Sydney was four she got her first goldfish, called Carrot.........

........Will Tippin, Sydney's best friend, now in Witness Protection........

........double agent for the CIA inside SD-6........

........no memory of the last two years.........

As much as Julia didn't like the Covenant – it was because of them that she was created and had to endure life at Manticore – she had to admit that their plan was clever. Sydney had a close relationship with each of the agents she was supposed to kill. There was no way anyone would suspect her of plotting to murder them. So all she had to do, really, was pretend to cry and mourn for her dead 'friends', and she would get away with it.

But the CIA wouldn't take the killing of five CIA agents lightly. So she either made sure that this mission was successful or she was destined for the top spot on the CIA's Most Wanted List.

Sark knew there was an intruder in his house before he even set foot in the door. The security system had been completely shut down, and as far as he was aware, the only person with the knowledge to do that was him. Finding said intruder though, proved to be difficult with such a large house. Usually the security system would alert him to where the person was, but its absence was now a hindrance.

His problem was solved when the intruder found him first.

Sark felt someone seize the back of his head, which was promptly smashed into a wall. There was going to be an extremely large and painful bruise there tomorrow. He turned to throw a punch at his attacker, and, judging by their strength, expected to see a man.

Instead he came face to face with none other than Julia Thorne.

Julia leapt back in surprise, barely dodging his punch, and yelped, "Sark!"

Sark, somewhat relieved, tentatively touched his head to figure out the extent of the damage. "Good grief, woman. I let you stay in my house and this is how you treat me?"

"I am so sorry. I thought you were – I don't know – an assassin or something -" She looked completely mortified.

"It didn't occur to you that it might have been the person who happens to live here, coming back home?"

Julia shrugged sheepishly. "Can't be too careful, especially since the security in your house isn't exactly at it's best right now.........."

It suddenly dawned on him. "It was you!"

"Look, before you kill me, the Covenant told me to come back here, but you weren't inside the house," she said hastily. "So I figured you were probably off killing or kidnapping someone for the Covenant as usual, and I didn't know when you'd be back, so I decided to put those skills we learnt at Manticore into good use and break in. But I couldn't do that without setting off the alarm and I didn't want to meet those snipers you were talking about yesterday, not to mention the fact that I was very bored.........so I just shut down the security completely."

Sark was stunned. No one could have possibly hacked into that security system. No one. And with the amount he paid for it, he had certainly been convinced that was the case. Unfortunately not. One thing was for sure – Julia was bloody good at what she did.

He shook his head, clearing it before she saw the awe on his face.

"If you're that pissed, I'll fix it for you, if you want, ok?" she sighed, mistaking his silence for something else.

"No. No, that won't be necessary."

"At least let me fix up your face, alright? Man, look at you. You look horrible," she grinned wickedly after a pause.

Sark made a face at her. "Very funny."

"Come on. Show me where you keep all the First Aid stuff," Julia insisted. "I bet you have an entire pharmacy hidden in here somewhere."

She was right, of course. Sark led her to a room that could only be opened by a security code. He hand hovered over the key pad, waiting for Julia to look away.

Julia rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. What exactly do you think I'm going to do, ambush you with antiseptic?"

"Can't be too careful," Sark shot back, mimicking her in a similar fashion to the way she did him a few days ago.

She gave him a glare that rivaled the evil looks Sydney Bristow reserved only for him, and turned around huffily. He punched in the numbers and the door opened with a hiss, revealing a room filled with everything you'd find in a hospital, minus the doctors and nurses.

"Nice."

Julia walked in and whistled, impressed. "Now, sit," she ordered, pointing to a chair.

Sark sat down, amused at her sudden transformation into Mother Hen. So now he was obeying her orders. And being bossed around by her didn't bother him in the slightest. Whatever was happening to him? What had happened to the bad ass, no-one-ever-tells-me-what-to-do, I-make-my-own-rules Mr. Sark?

Very few women had that effect on him. There was Irina, but he thought that it was more the fact the he was afraid of her that compelled him to do whatever he was told, rather than anything else. There was Lauren, who never put up with any of his crap.

And then there was Julia.

She was now silently cleaning up a cut on his forehead. He hadn't realised that it was bleeding until now.

The gap in conversation let him remember the nagging curiosity he had been feeling since he'd left Julia with the Covenant agents. Unable to keep this curiosity in check, he said, "So what did the Covenant want with you?"

Julia was quiet. He had a feeling she was going to start giving him the silent treatment again.

But she never ceased to surprise him.

"Do you know Sydney Bristow?" she asked him casually.

So they'd told her about Sydney. He wondered briefly how she'd reacted. "Oh, you mean that uptight, overly patriotic CIA agent who wouldn't spare me the time of day even if I was the last person left on this earth? Yes, we've crossed paths a few times."

Julia looked like she wanted to laugh, but refrained. Instead, she settled for, "That bad, is she?"

"She's horrible. She was never very nice to me," Sark complained, sounding more like a wounded puppy than anything else.

"That's because you're an asshole," Julia told him, the corners of her mouth curving upwards slightly.

Seeing this only made Sark want to make her smile even more. "Oh, you always find a way to boost my ego. Or damage it, more like." He found that she was watching him curiously, even suspiciously, as if she could read him perfectly.

It made him slightly uneasy. "What?"

"You hit on her, didn't you." Not a question, just a statement. Like she knew the answer already.

"What?" Sark repeated stupidly.

"You hit on Sydney, and she rejected you."

"What? No!" Sark protested. He had a reputation for being able to get any girl he wanted. And he intended to keep it.

"Mr. Sark got rejected by Sydney Bristow!" Julia exclaimed, now completely convinced. "I've decided that I like her now."

"I did not hit on her."

"Yes you did."

"I didn't."

"Don't deny it!"

Sark sighed. She wasn't going to give up. Julia Thorne had won her first victory over him. "OK, fine. But she didn't even realise that I was hitting on her, so technically, she didn't reject me. OK?"

Julia nodded, a deliciously mischievous smile on her face. "Suuure."

Sark offered her a crooked grin in return, discovering that he didn't mind that she'd embarrassed him. Usually, under no circumstances would he let that happen. But he felt oddly comfortable around her.

And that, in turn, made him feel uncomfortable.