MIRROR IMAGE

Rating: R.
Timeline: Mid-season 3, after "Blowback."

Part IV, Act 5

Sydney found her way to the northern wing more easily than she had anticipated. It was a good thing, too, because once there she found her way blocked by a metal grate, its grid too tight to admit her hand but loose enough to let the air through. Only a few feet further and she could have been safely inside the correct hallway, directly across from the vault. There was a reason spies didn't, as a rule, infiltrate facilities run by other spies, and she was looking right at it.

She took a brief moment to rethink her approach. No way through the grate; she didn't have the tools to cut or melt it away, though she did feel safe in assuming Sark would have disabled any noise or heat detection apparatus in the vicinity. She'd have to go in the old fashioned way—through the front door.

Silently, she moved backwards through the conduit until she had a view of the door guard—or the top of his head, at least—through the slatted vent mounted in the wall. Her unconditional entrance had let her bypass the external door, she recalled from the blueprints. It was supposed to have let her bypass both doors. There was only one guard here at the inner checkpoint; either they felt secure enough in their perimeter security that more seemed redundant, or there was more to the system than met the eye. Either way, she had to make a decision, and quickly.

"Seven and a half minutes," Sark had told her that morning, handing her the earrings and a loaded glock. "That's all I'll be able to arrange."

"I work fast," she'd assured him grimly.

He'd smiled, faintly. "I'm well aware." She hadn't known how to take that.

Now she inhaled deeply and, with the expulsion of her breath, brought her feet up and kicked out the vent.

The clatter mingled with the surprised cry from the guard and Sydney fell to the ground bare moments after, jarring her feet through the thin leather soles. Shifting her weight, she brought her right leg up and across in a smooth arc that knocked the gun off-aim, diverting the fire into an empty corner. She delivered a snap-kick to the man's head, which took him down, and dove for the weapon.

Whirling, she aimed the rifle at the door, chest heaving, breath echoing painfully in her ears. Nothing. There was nothing.

Then the door cracked.

She had the trigger halfway depressed before she realized it was Sark.

He looked . . . irritated. "Aren't you supposed to be there already?"

As if she wasn't standing there—well, crouching there—pointing a gun at him. As if he hadn't been a slightly slower reflex away from getting killed. She had half a mind to shoot him anyway.

She picked herself off the floor and tossed him the gun. "Change of plans," she said shortly. "Lock picks?"

He raised his eyebrows.

Impatiently, she added, "Unless you want to do it?"

"Front left pocket," he told her, amusement playing at the corners of his mouth. Eyes still on her, he lifted the gun and aimed it at the door. "Well, Sydney? You're wasting time."

Bastard, she thought, but it didn't have the sting it usually did.

She slid her left hand into his pocket, fingers brushing unavoidably against his hipbone as she worked her way down to the bottom. She glanced up at him as she closed her hand around the tools; it was a mistake. His eyes were lidded as he watched her, lips slightly parted.

She swallowed. Hard. "You're not watching the door," she said, and was distantly horrified at how husky her voice sounded.

"No," he murmured. "I'm not."

He was going to kiss her. She had to do something.

Just then: "Robert, what's—"

The rifle fired. Hand still in Sark's pocket, Sydney jerked her head to the side in time to see a second guard fall to his knees, shock on his face, dark spot blooming across his stomach. She looked back to Sark, who held the gun calmly in his grip.

"Quickly," he recommended, and she snatched her hand back and went to work on the lock.

Twenty seconds later she was tucking the metal picks into her waistband and turning the knob. The door opened easily. "Let's go," she said.

The doorway opened up on a high-ceilinged hallway dominated by large, inset metal doors. Sydney caught sight of the vent she had intended to enter through, high on the wall on the right.

Sark stopped at the third door on the left, and it was her turn to man the gun as he clamped the electronic decoder onto the door, over the keypad. This was how it had been arranged: in such a way that neither of them would be able to complete the mission on their own. Or rather, so that Sydney couldn't. While her presence made Sark's work easier, she doubted it was essential. She could have performed the whole operation herself, had she been familiarized with the device he was using to disengage the lock. But she hadn't been, probably for precisely that reason. Her mother, she'd learned, left as little as possible to change. Sark was obviously the same way. Sydney wondered if he'd learned that from her.

"It can't access the signal," he murmured, studying the readout, hitting several numbers in sequence. "We'll have to drill."

He wasn't looking at her; he was focused on the device, and the small steel drill now burrowing almost silently into the surface of the door. One hole completed, he deftly swung it around and began drilling on the pad's other side.

"Are you always this chatty on missions?" Sydney asked. She adjusted her grip on the rifle and glanced over at his progress.

"Must be the company," he returned equitably, plugging an attachment into each of the freshly-made holes.

She decided her focus was better kept on the hallway.

After a few moments she heard the sound of the lock snapping back, and then the release of pressure as the door was opened.

"Ladies first."

Sydney left the gun on the center table and approached the properly numbered box. Taking the small container Sark handed her, she sprayed the lock, then withdrew one of the lock picks from her waistband and inserted it into the keyhole. A quick jerk of her wrist and the lock came out in her hands, and it was easy work to pull the metal façade open and reveal the box inside.

Sark slid it out, opened the top, and Sydney lifted the disk. This time she was careful to wrap it completely, and tuck it securely into the bag around her waist. She deposited her gloves into the bag Sark provided.

"Wouldn't want to wake up as you tomorrow morning," she muttered to herself as he sealed them in.

"At least you'd still recognize the bed."

There was nothing helpful she could say to that.

"We have three minutes," Sark said as they reached the point at which they'd entered. The gun was strapped over his shoulder and she was unencumbered once more. "I suggest you take the opportunity to download the files you agreed to this whole charade for in the first place, and meet me outside."

She stared at him, sucked in her cheeks. "How did you—?"

"Please, Sydney." His tone was withering. He offered his hands; she stepped into them and he boosted her up to the vent.

Inside, she turned to look down at him. "What are you going to do?"

A smile flashed over his face. She read the satisfaction—the delight—in it like an open book. "I'm going after my inheritance."

She lowered herself back onto the table in Cole's room with a minute thirty to spare. Hefting Cole up by his armpits, she dragged him over to the desk and pressed his palm to the reader. Immediately the screen began to scroll, and she let his body slump.

Nearly a minute later she pulled the office door shut behind her, smiled carelessly at the guards as she bent to slide her second shoe onto her foot.

"He doesn't wish to be disturbed," she instructed, hair falling over her shoulders, files encoded on the second silver disk swinging from her ear.

They only watched her go.

Sark was waiting for her at the front of the building. She opened the car door and stepped inside.

"Well?" he asked as he drove off, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. The chauffeur's cap nearly obscured his eyes.

"Got it." She unlatched the silver disk from the earring's hook and tucked it into the case inside her purse. She took the matching one out of her other ear. "You?"

His smile was mirthless now, bleak. "Oh yes."

She didn't understand—his words, or the change in his tone—but the window came up between them before she could ask. Obviously he wasn't in the mood to talk.

Instead, she folded her hands in her lap. Her fingers were trembling slightly. Finally. Finally she had the answers she'd been looking for. What she'd done. Who she'd killed. Who she'd been. . . or at least pretended to be. She wanted to know. As afraid as she was of the answers—because every new layer she scratched the surface of, every time she went deeper, the story just became more horrible, and more horrifying—she still needed desperately to know. But she'd wait for her father before she accessed the files. He deserved to be there. She needed him to be there.

And by tomorrow, he would be. She'd be back in her own body, and she and her father would be on their way back to LA. If Irina was telling the truth. And she had no reason not to be. She'd have what she wanted.

Sydney touched the bag still strapped securely to her waist, reassured by its weight. She'd fulfilled her part of the bargain. Now it was up to Irina to fulfill hers.

-

A/N: So much plot, so little emotional interaction!

alllieee: My apologies for being tricky, but I'm very very glad you liked it. Hope you'll stick around for the end—it . . . well, okay, I'm over-excited about the whole plot thing and I'm in danger of giving my Exciting Ending Twist away, so I'll stop now. If I ever write S/V (it could happen, I'm not against it), I'll certainly let you know.

Adalon Ithilriel: The next chapter should bring back Lauren, AND the anti-climactic body re-swap. . . .