Katharine (from the Y! Group): We gotta stop sharing these psychic brainwaves!

Melindotty: I think they make drugs for that sort of thing nowadays ;-)

Michaela: Major thanks for helping me get started with this chapter, and for the great suggestions you're always willing to provide!

*****

Grissom dropped his head into his hands and peeked through his fingers at the pack of cigarettes buried in his open desk drawer. "NO," he told himself silently. "Cigarettes are bad. You will not have one. Sara will be angry. An angry Sara is bad. You have learned that from experience."

"Yeah," whispered the devil that he could swear was perched on his left shoulder, "but Sara's not going to know if you do it in private. Go into one of the casinos or something, just have a quick smoke." His hand crept an inch closer to the pack, then stilled again.

"Don't you dare," spat the angel on his other shoulder, in a voice that sounded altogether too much like Sara's. "You're quitting for your own good as much as for Sara's approval. Even if she doesn't find out, you'll still know about it, and you'll feel just as bad having done it as you're feeling now, trying not to do it."

"Bull!" shouted the devil, causing Grissom to wince, even though he knew the voice was only in his head. "One cigarette is NOT going to bring about the end of the world, and you know it. You can have this one, then resume quitting; you've got enough willpower to do that, don't you, you wuss?"

"Why don't you call her?" the angel suggested. "It worked last time; she can talk you through it again."

The devil snickered. "Right, just call her in the middle of her shift again, take her away from a scene, make sure her coworkers think their new boss is a slacker. What a great way to show you care! I'm telling you, don't call her; this is your own problem!"

Grissom pressed his hands into his forehead and noticed that they were shaking ever so slightly. This wasn't working. Quitting was too hard; there was just no way he could do this. Honestly, it didn't matter that much. As long as he was vigilant, it wasn't like he was suddenly going to drop dead from lung cancer or anything!

His willpower finally gave up the ghost, and his hand shot toward the cigarettes, grabbing the pack with such force that he nearly crushed its valuable contents. Slipping them into his pocket, he glanced around to make sure no one was looking through the office windows at him. All clear.

Continuing to eye the corridor as he moved, he sidled out of his office and toward the back exit. He'd just slip outside the door and stand a few feet to the side; no one would see him.

The first mouthful of smoke felt rough, as though it was scratching at his throat, but he took another puff, then another, and the feeling soon evened out into the normal, smooth sensation. Ahhhh, it felt good. He didn't know why he felt like it was so necessary to quit, anyway, he thought, taking another drag.

No! Wait! He did know why he wanted to quit. He didn't want to die, and he didn't doubt that Sara would do him serious damage if he failed to quit. She might even track him down in the afterlife to exact her punishment.

God, what was he doing? He looked at the cigarette in his hand in near-horror. This was BAD!

With a jerky movement, Grissom stabbed the cigarette into the brick wall and rubbed it a few times. When he was sure it was out, he sighed and took stock of his body. His mouth tasted terrible, his clothes probably smelled like smoke, and with his luck, he'd burned a hole in his shirt somewhere. Hmm, he could chew some gum to fix the first problem . . .

The door suddenly jumped toward him as someone pushed it from the inside. "Grissom?" Greg's voice said tentatively.

Grissom took a moment to wipe a hand across his mouth (as though that would take the taste away, hah), then stepped toward the door and leaned his shoulder against the wall. "Yes, Greg?"

"Oh! Hey, I didn't think you were actually gonna be out here."

Grissom was recovering quickly from the adrenaline rush that almost being discovered had given him, and he said in a tone that was a good approximation of his normal one, "Well, I am. It's a beautiful night out here. Did you need me for something, or were you just checking on the whereabouts of everyone working?"

"No," Greg said hurriedly, "I was looking for you. Archie's got something to show you. It's kinda important. Well, it might be, at least."

Grissom stood up from his position against the wall and raised his eyebrows. "Something that 'might be' important?"

"Oh, just come inside, Grissom!" Greg said in exasperation. To his surprise, Grissom obeyed, and Greg lead him to Archie's lab.

Grissom crossed his arms and surveyed the room, seeing nothing that jumped out as critical to him or anyone else. "I hear you have something to show me, Archie?"

Archie glanced over his shoulder from his position hunched over the keyboard of his computer. "Hi, Grissom. Yeah, I was going through some of the lab's firewall logs 'cause I was bored, and I found some interesting stuff having to do with you." He waved a hand vaguely in Grissom's direction. "C'mere."

Grissom approached and bent over to read the screen Archie seemed so captivated by. "Um . . . what am I looking for?"

"You haven't been looking for another job or a new mortgage or anything lately, have you?" Archie asked, scrolling down slightly.

Ok, Grissom was intrigued now. Why was a tech asking him about this stuff? "No. Uh, not that I know of, at least. Why?"

"Because someone's been querying your records. That doesn't usually happen unless someone's doing a background check on you."

"Someone's doing a background check on me? Like they had to do for my firearms permit?"

"Kind of," Archie replied. "A basic check, at least. Here, look." He pointed to a line of text on his screen.

Grissom looked. All he saw was a series of numbers and letters. "Aug 10 14:51:57 ARG kernel: Packet log: input REDIRECT . . ." he began to read, trailing off as the line got even more cryptic. "Am I supposed to know what that means?" he asked. "Because I have absolutely no clue."

"Yeah, it's a little complicated," Archie agreed. "I'll put it in plain English: someone's trying to get into our system and get a remote command line. I noticed it in here," he said, nodding toward the log on his screen, "and got suspicious, so I checked out the keystroke log from the server. Whoever it was, was trying to access your records. I haven't been able to tell yet whether they got what they were looking for."

"Someone tried to hack into our computers so they could find out about me?" Grissom asked, blinking. When Archie nodded, he asked, "Well, can you find out who it was?"

"Probably," Archie admitted, "though I'm not supposed to be able to see all this stuff to begin with, since I'm not the sysadmin. You guys promise not to give me up?"

Grissom and Greg both nodded eagerly. "You won't get any trouble from me," Grissom promised. "Now do it!"

Archie sighed. "Ok. Well, I haven't attempted to trace it yet, so let's try it the easy way first." He opened an internet browser window and typed in a URL. "Ok, we're on an 'nslookup' page. I'm going to give it the source IP from the log and see if it's got a registered name."

The two other men exchanged confused looks, then shrugged. "Sure," Greg said, trying to sound like he understood. "IP log. Yeah."

Archie laughed. "Not quite, but hey, at least you're trying. Ok, here we go," he said, clicking the website's "submit" button. A few seconds later, his eyes widened as he read the response. "This is weird."

"What?" Grissom said, unable to see the small type from his standing position behind Archie's shoulder.

"The IP's registered, all right. It's registered to another lab, but that makes no sense. Legitimate lab queries go through the regular channels, they don't try to hack in."

"Which lab?" Greg asked, cocking his head to the side.

Archie narrowed his eyes, reading the information on his screen, and smiled slightly. "Hey Gris, is there something going on that you want to tell us?"

Grissom looked at him blankly, so Archie continued. "The IP traces back to the Bergen County, NJ lab. Isn't that where Sara is?"

******

"Well?" Sophie asked, her lips only millimeters away from Will's ear.

Will, who had been concentrating hard on the computer monitor in front of him, jerked his head up, missing Sophie's by a hair's breadth. "Jesus, Soph, is it necessary to sneak up on me like that? If I die of a heart attack, you're never getting your answer."

Sophie assumed a pleading expression. "Oh, no, Will; you're just such a god, I would never try to scare you to death. I'll do anything, please just do this for me . . ." She let her voice trail off and grinned, aware that the sound had carried out into the corridor and that people out there must have heard what she said. Will would be getting a lot of ribbing about it later, she figured.

"Hmmph." Swiftly switching among a black screen with a command line, an FTP program, and his browser, Will worked for a few more seconds. "Ok, done. So," he began, leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head, "I got everything you asked for. It's in your home directory; I'll show you how to get to it in a minute. I don't think anyone caught us, but I'm not sure."

"What do you mean 'no one caught us'?" Sophie said with wide eyes.

"Well, I didn't exactly go knocking on their front door and asking if I could please see a supervisor's personnel file, you know," he said, feeling a vague sense of amusement at her statement. "I had to get in through a back door, so to speak – one that they didn't know was there. There's a chance that they have someone who actually knows how to read a firewall log and interpret what I did, but it's pretty unlikely."

"Whoooaaa, there," she replied, holding up a hand as if stopping traffic. "You mean you, like, 'hacked' into their system? Illegally?"

"Yes, Sophie," Will said, getting exasperated. "I 'hacked' into their system. You asked me to find you the information, you must have known that you couldn't just call them up and ask for it. You have what you wanted, so don't complain."

"I wasn't complaining," Sophie said indignantly. "I was just . . . trying to get it straight. So I know what I have to deny if anyone asks."

"Does Jack know you asked me to do this?"

"Well, I sort of mentioned it to him in passing. Kinda. In a shortened form."

"In other words, 'no.' He doesn't know."

"He'll be cool with it, Will, I promise. Now come on and show me the records!"

"Ah, ah, ah," Will said, shaking a finger at her. "First you have to give me the reward you promised."

"Oh, no way," Sophie snorted. "I was joking about that; I'm not setting you up on a date with Sara, no matter how much you beg." When Will made to protest, she put a hand over his mouth, ignoring his attempts to bite her. "No, Will. Pick another prize."

He pried her hand off his mouth and sighed theatrically. "Oh, fine, let me think." He paused for only a second, then said, "Ok. If you won't hook me up with Sara, then you have to go on a date with me."

Sophie blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Me William. You Sophie. William take Sophie on date," Will said in his best attempt at a Tarzan voice. "Come on, Soph, it's not like I'm asking you to have my baby or anything. I just want to go out with a pretty girl, is that too much to ask?"

Sophie was silent for a minute, weighing the pros and cons of accepting his invitation. True, she didn't get out much, and it would be nice to hang out with a friend outside of work . . . but on the other hand, there was just no way that she was going to ever feel like 'that' about Will Hennessy. And it might give Jack the wrong impression; might make him think she wasn't interested. But . . . it wasn't like Jack was rushing to her door to ask for a date; why not give him a subtle hint that he had been wrong about the 'no one on our shift wants to date each other' thing?

She smiled in defeat. "Ok, you win, Willy-boy. But take note: this is an outing between friends, not a date where you're going to get laid, or kissed, or anything else like that."

"Aw, man," Will whined jokingly, then shrugged. "Agreed. I won't try to get you into bed or anything . . . although I can't guarantee that after a day with me, you won't be trying to get me into bed," he added with a roguish grin.

Sophie laughed and punched his shoulder. "You just keep telling yourself that, dude. Ok, so now show me the information you found on whoever 'Grissom' is!"