Sydney:
"As I'm sure you've all heard by now, the weapons robbery was a diversion to allow another team of Covenant operatives to gain access to their satellite communications equipment," Dixon explained standing at the head of the conference table, "Agents Bristow and Vaughn brought back the operatives captured in the robbery but, unfortunately, all of the others were killed trying to escape. The Covenant wiped record of the transmission but echelon systems managed to pick it up. Tech ops are working on it right now."
With that Dixon took his seat and nodded to Marshall. "Right...umm well... good morning everyone. Nice day I suppose...at least...all things considered-...but umm anyway, as Dixon said echelon did recover the transmission, however it was in code...and not just any code either...this is actually pretty clever...they encoded it in factions with each faction recorded in a completely different code."
"Will you be able to decipher the codes?" Dixon asked.
"Well...hey..." Marshall laughed with an amused shrug, "...of course, but...I mean...we've counted almost 150 different factions so far, so to decode them all-...it could take...a while."
Marshall returned to his seat as Dixon sighed and spoke up again, "I have a meeting with the interrogation team later today to discuss what they've recovered from the captives but from what I hear it hasn't been going very well."
I shook my head in exasperation, "So we have nothing basically? Yet another dead-end!"
"We can't assume that yet. I want everyone working 'round the clock on this. If there's anything to be found I want to find it before the trail gets cold again," Dixon said, signaling the end of the meeting.
After the meeting everyone dispersed to different areas of the office to help out. I ended up in one of the labs with an analyst named Joyce and tech named Kennedy. We'd been studying documents with the information from echelon for hours. All the time I'd been glancing toward the hall where the conference room was waiting for when Dixon would get out of his meeting with the interrogation guys. They'd been in there for nearly two hours and it seemed like every minute dragged on forever.
Joyce sighed loudly and rubbed her eyes, "I am getting absolutely no where on this! You?"
"About as far as you are," Kennedy responded, "What about you. Sydney?"
I turned my attention back to the papers in front of me, "No, nothing."
The two groaned in sympathy. As I glanced out the door again I noticed people leaving the conference room. Dixon came out last and headed strait toward his office.
"Excuse me," I said hurrying out the door.
"Dixon!" I called to him, "What happened?"
"Come on in," he said leading me into his office. I he sat down behind his desk and I took one of the chairs in front of it. His expression told me that it was not good news.
"They've found out nothing. They're even contemplating the possibility that the agents involved in the robbery were kept ignorant of the secondary operation," he explained.
I looked away toward the wall defeated, "I can't believe this."
"I know, Syd," Dixon said, "is there anything else you can think of that might help?"
"No...I really can't," I explained wishing more than anything there was something I could think of.
He nodded, "Alright, well we'll keep working on it and I'll keep everyone posted if anything new comes in."
I gave him a weak smile as I stood up to leave, "Thanks."
I curled my fingers around the hair near my scalp as I sat hunched over the papers spread on the lab room table. I was alone at the present moment but people had been coming in and out all day.
I door opened suddenly sending a blast of cool air into the room. I jumped in surprise.
"Sorry," Kennedy said as he shut the door behind him.
I groaned slightly, "No, no. It was my fault."
"You look like hell," he remarked, "How long have you been in here?"
I shook my head as I tried to rub some of the kinks out of my neck, "God only knows."
I started to say something but my stomach growling loudly permeated through the silence first. "Hungry?" he asked amusedly.
"Evidently," I shrugged turning back to the table.
"It's almost eight thirty," Kennedy observed, "Don't you want some dinner?"
"Why? Got some on you?" I joked.
"No," he laughed, "but I do know of a good nouveau place a few blocks from here. Want to go?"
"No thanks," I declined.
"Oh come on, don't be like that. You know you're intrigued," he said.
I rolled my eyes. Obviously he didn't occur to him that tactics like that didn't always impress people. I looked back at the paper and noticed that the words seemed to blur before my eyes. That couldn't be good.
I shook my head and turned to him, "Alright, fine. I'll go."
"Great," he said holding the door open with a wide smile. I slid off the chair and headed out the door. No big deal, just two colleagues going to dinner together. Nothing wrong with that, right?
I sat about an hour and a half later I sat using the tines of my fork to make little patterns in the remains of my almond chicken with greens. I will admit my head felt more clear and able to focus after I'd eaten but I wasn't quite sure that accepting the invitation was such a good idea, even if I told myself that I was only going because I needed the food.
He'd paid the check for both dinners while I was in the bathroom. I figured it out when I got back and that wasn't exactly the message I intended to send. He chatted about something but was interrupted when the waitress brought back his credit card. As he was putting it away I yanked some bills out of my purse and laid them on the table for the tip then stood up.
"Oh, you don't have to do that-" he started.
"No it's fine. Lets go," I interjected, walking towards the door before he could argue any more.
"So you feel like going to get some coffee now?" he asked as we stepped outside.
"No, I think we'd better just get back to work," I said.
Once we got back to the office, I went strait to the lab hoping he wouldn't follow me. He did though. Joyce was already inside working on the papers I left behind.
"Oh, hey, Sydney! There you are," she said, "Marshall came by looking for you earlier."
"He did?" I asked.
"Yeah, said he had something he wanted to talk to you about," Joyce answered.
"Okay, thank you," I said and walked past Kennedy back out the door. He didn't try to follow me that time. I breathed a sigh of relief once I was sure he was staying in the lab.
I made my way to Marshall's office and found him sitting over a table of wires.
"Syd, hey," he said as I came in.
"Hey, Marshall, what's up?" I asked as I walked across the room and slouched tiredly into one of his high round chairs.
"We managed to decode 20 of the echelon data," he answered.
"That's great!"
"Yeah,...I, I know," he said, "I would have told you earlier but they said you left."
"Yeah, yeah, " I said, "I went to get some dinner."
Marshall looked at me like I'd just admitted committing a heinous crime, "You went out to dinner?"
"Yeah," I responded raising my eyebrows questioningly.
He game a pinioned stare "You managed to get out out here...while the entire office is on all night duty...and you didn't bring anything back with you?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, Marshall. I was kind of distracted by everything and Kennedy went with me so it didn't even occur to me," I apologized smiling. He continued to stare at me, "What?"
"You went on a date with Kennedy? Kennedy from the lab?" he asked.
"Well yeah but-" I started.
"That narcissistic troll? Are you crazy?" he exclaimed.
"Marshall!"
"No, no seriously what were you thinking?" he asked seeming almost on the verge of laughing at me.
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"The guy is a loser!" He said, "And...look at who you're talking to...I know all about that!"
I simply laughed for a while and then slid out of the chair, "I got to go, keep me posted."
"Alright," he said smirking, "But keep in mind...your children would have hooves."
I let door drift shut behind me as I wandered down the laughing to myself. That was certainly an amusing situation. Marshall giving me advice about my love life!
Of course when you consider it...of the two of us who was the one in the successful relationship, happy, with the most beautiful baby boy in the world? Certainly wasn't me. I hadn't been in a real relationship in, well, years. Happy? Happier I suppose. Life was livable at least. As for the baby I still wasn't sure if that would ever be an option for me.
I talked to a doctor after finding out that the Covenant had taken my ova. She said that the long term results would depend on how well the surgery was performed. If they did everything properly it shouldn't cause any problems, but if they scarred up my other organs or I had gotten a secondary infection it might be another story. She offered to do an exam right away to find out but I choose not to. I wasn't planning on starting a family anytime soon and I had enough to worry about already without adding my fertility to the list. I figured I'd simply deal with it when and if it ever became a real issue.
I made it to my desk as was just sitting down when I saw Weiss come rushing
through.
"What's the matter?" I asked him.
"Emergency briefing. Right away!" he explained.
I muttered a few curses to myself and then stood up and followed him to the conference room. Dixon let everyone in and then shut the door behind us.
"The decoded echelon data revealed plans to rebuild some of the Rambaldi weapons, including the one Sloane built a few years ago when he was working with Sark. They also mentioned this man," Dixon said bringing up a picture of a heavy set man with short dark hair onto the screen behind him, "He goes by the name Mr. Ibane
"Who is he?" I asked.
"He's a profiteer basically," Dixon said, "His agents steal things that crime and intelligence organizations are interested in and he then sells them off to the highest bidder."
"So Mr. Ibane has something that the Covenant wants," I decided out loud.
"That's what the circumstances would suggest," Dixon nodded.
"Alright," Weiss said nodding, "so how do we get to Mr. Ibane here?"
Dixon turned to my father.
"Mr. Ibane spends a lot of is time in the Caribbean yachting. Sources managed to track down his next stop to be Cayenne in French Guiana. If we can get can a team onto his boat when they stop in Cayenne, we can try persuade him to turn around on any deal he's made with the Covenant," my dad explained.
"Mr. Ibane always travels with a number of guests so it should not be difficult to slip in undetected," Dixon added.
I turned back to study the picture of Mr. Ibane on the screen. Apparently French Guiana was our next destination.
