DISCLAIMER:
Neither Bart Collins nor AIRFIX are mine either; they belong to the beloved Dr. Suess from his wonderful story "The 5000 fingers of Dr.T". Rent the video.
A/N: As always, THANKS goes out to my betas Phoe-chan and Silv-chan, and, of course, all who reviewed.
Kagome breezed into the office dripping wet and carrying a briefcase. "Rain everywhere I go," she muttered darkly as she tried to shake off the excess droplets. The only thing worse than getting caught in the rain (which, by the way, was not romantic no matter WHAT her paperbacks claimed), Kagome decided, was having to come to the office after getting caught in the rain. Especially if one hated one's job.
The office was little more than a carpeted warehouse with its industrial lighting, and depressing shades of off white for the walls that resembled tracing paper. The dirt washed denim burbur that stretched out like an ocean only to be interrupted by boring grey cubicles that sat like lonely islands. The air conditioner unit was broken; stuck on full blast the entire time so the entire place stayed at 54° F year-round. A jacket and a pair of gloves were normal accessories to nearly every employee's outfit.
Kagome quickly made her way to her own little cubicle and set down her things to take off her rain coat. 'I feel like Mister Roger,' she thought not for the first time as she pulled on a sweater and tied a kerchief over her damp hair. She picked up the briefcase and headed over to Shippo's cubicle.
The sandy haired teen swiveled in his chair and raised a hand in salutation. "Greets. You look like you've been having a good time."
"Yeah, yeah. What've you got?" Kagome indicated to the computer behind Shippo with her chin.
Shippo nodded. "Right." He swiveled back around to turn on the monitor. The screen shuddered to life as the teen typed in a pass code. A map of the United States came into view as two points appeared on the map—one in California and one in New York. Shippo double-clicked on the pinpoint in California. "At eighteen-oh-nine, Pacific time, a Suit tails the end of the shipment you tipped us about. This was in San Fran."
A few keystrokes later a digital photo of the twins walking past the café with the suitcase popped up. "This is the transmition we got from the lapel pin."
"Kanna did a really good job on that pin," Kagome noted as she leaned forward to study the picture.
Shippo entered another code and the entire picture excluding the twins went greyscale. "Kohaku showed me," he explained at Kagome's impressed expression. "Some new program in digital imagining. Anywho, these are the culprits and that's the luggage. Say...you sure you don't know what's in that suitca-"
"I'm positive, Shippo."
The young man raised his hands in defense. "Just...yanno...double checking..." They reverted their attention back to the screen. "Anyways, we've lost a Suit, but he managed to turn the dynamic duo into the-not-so-invincible-uno before he croaked."
"And They've still got the suitcase?"
"Righto."
"Hmmmmm...what about the East Coast?"
The teenager shrugged. "Could be something, could be random."
"It's always something," Kagome insisted.
"A café or something exploded downtown New York 'round quarter 'til midnight on Eastern Standard," Shippo began. "I got some footage from a continuing traffic cam on the corner."
It was like watching a really old and choppy home-video with the date and timestamp in the bottom right corner and the cute little bistro exploding in less than two minutes. Kagome made note of the blur that exited the top of the screen but said nothing.
"And just in case you didn't get enough the first go-round..."
Several black and white stills flashed across the screen in slideshow format. There were pictures of the bistro from a different angle. The building was still in one piece in the first shot; in the process of combusting in shots two, three and four. The last few stills were of the thick, black smoke billowing out.
"Thought those were kinda neat," Shippo admitted, gesturing to the stills. "Maybe I should pin 'em up. Right next to my STAR WARS poster. Or I could do a panoramic view..." He spread his hands in front of the wall behind the computer. "Like a time-line or something."
"You're a freak," Kagome concluded.
Shippo chuckled and leaned back in his seat. "This coming from the girl who has a hula doll on top of her monitor and makes friends with the resident weirdo who makes shrines to hating her co-workers."
"Everyone has their neuroses, Shippo," Kagome said. "So, what's this one got that has our attention?"
Shippo looked up seriously. "Three of our guys were there. That's four tonight."
Kagome nodded as the boy looked up at her.
"When do you think this stupid war will be over?" he asked.
Kagome struggled for something, anything, to say. He was too young to be dealing with death like this. He wasn't even old enough to enlist in army; a war shouldn't have even been an issue for him. Faeries were supposed to be harmless; elements for silly fictitious stories to these kids; not a real threat to their future. Not for the first time did Kagome wonder what had happened that had kids like Shippo and Sango's younger brother, Kohaku, to be put in jobs and positions like these.
"Probably when somebody important enough dies or when Naraku runs out of funding," she answered finally.
Shippo snorted and nodded.
"I've gotta go, the boss wants to see me," she said.
"Off to face the dragon then," Shippo joked weakly.
Kagome smiled. "Might I find her guarding the cave?"
"Or yelling at Sango," Shippo offered speculatively.
Even as she snorted in a most undignified manner, Kagome knew that option was probably most likely to be the right one. It usually was. "Okay then...oh! Did you-"
"Yes, I fed Buyo and watered your plants." The teen gave Kagome an overly dramatic eye-roll before turning back to his screen. "And yes, you owe me thirty bucks, cash only. By the way, your cat could stand to go on a diet."
"He just likes his food," the young woman protested.
"And everyone else's..."
Kagome merely shook her head and left to head for Naraku's office.
"Oh, Kagome?" Shippo called.
She backpedaled far enough to stick her head around the cubicle corner. "Eh?"
Shippo raised a hand to solemnly salute her. "Good luck."
Kagura was busy typing away at the keyboard when Kagome approached her desk. "You're back," she noted, her crimson gaze never leaving the monitor in front of her.
"Yeah," Kagome agreed in a tired kind of way.
"You've been suspiciously absent a lot," the older woman commented without missing a stroke.
Kagome bit back her 'I have a life' retort. There was no need to rile Kagura anymore than Sango did; she wasn't up to being openly hated. Instead she responded, "I know."
"Makes one wonder what you've been up to during your time away. Perhaps you should explain."
'Not to you.' Kagome thought but let the last comment slide. "Is Naraku in?"
"Of course he's in," Kagura snapped.
"Is he busy?" Kagome pressed in an annoyed tone. This game was getting old, fast.
The clicking of the keyboard stopped and belatedly Kagome realized her mistake as Kagura gave her the flattest glare she had ever received in her life. She had not consciously meant to let her anger slip into her speech, but Kagura had that amazing effect on people.
"Never mind," Kagome amended as she walked past the older woman to Naraku's office.
The 'cave' wasn't called so without reason. In stark contrast to the rest of the building, Naraku's office was dim to the point of near darkness, though it was a tad bit warmer in the room than anywhere else, despite the large oscillating floor fan. The room was quiet as well. So much so, that while nothing in the building was loud, the constant whirring of the broken A/C unit and clicking of mice and keyboards seemed to be deafening after being in Naraku's office for any amount of time. It was as if Bart Collins' noise version of AIR FIX had been opened, sucking into it all the outside noise until there was nothing left save for the hum of the fan and the computer on the boss' desk.
"Higurashi," Naraku all but purred as he leaned back in his swivel chair.
Kagome wondered more than once if Naraku realized what an excellent villain he could make, just by sitting in his chair like slime. She came to the same conclusion she always reached: he probably went home every night to practice sitting that way so as best to subtly intimidate his employees.
"I trust you've been briefed?"
"I just came from Shippo's cubicle for the reports, Sir," Kagome answered. "Four agents died this evening alone?"
Naraku nodded. "A regrettable loss. Especially since these were unprovoked attacks. What do you think about that?"
"Sir?" Kagome questioned.
"Four of my men have died in the field and one is directly related to the chase of the briefcase we are after from your 'tip'. Don't you feel responsible for this?"
Loss for words was not something that often happened to Kagome, but Naraku had a nasty habit of bringing such unfortunaties about. While it was true that the luggage they were so focused on was because Kagome had brought it to their attention, it was not she who sent the agents out to follow; track the trail of anyone on it. They were grown men, much older than she, and able to make their own decisions. Kagome sincerely doubted that the first attack was unprovoked. More likely than not, the agent following the youkai twins with the baggage had been caught following them and had come to a confrontation. Still, the idea that not only one, but four men had died for the cause in one night was a sad thought.
"Responsibility lies on all of us," Kagome answered as emotionless as she could. No tears. Don't be weak. Mottos drilled into her head. Naraku had insisted on it.
He inclined his head. "So it does."
There was a tense sort of quietness as a reflective moment pervaded the room. "That will be all. I expect a full report of the café explosion before you leave...and Kagome..." His darker tone stopped the girl from leaving as she had turned to do. "I want that briefcase. And I want those youkai dead."
Kagome merely nodded in acquiescence and let herself out quietly. She ignored Kagura's blatant stare and forced herself to walk at a normal pace to her own cubicle. There, and only there did she allow herself a long deep sigh and blink back the stinging in her eyes. Crying wasn't an option at work, not even out of sight of Naraku's office. She channeled her feelings into a constructive activity: digging for information.
Hacking into the local authorities' network was a piece of cake with the decoding software Shippo had given her. From there the files were relatively easy to access. From the reports in New York, an eyewitness had seen a man in old fashioned European style purple clothes leave a few minutes before, but discarded the thought of him having anything to do with it and guessed he was on his way to a performance. When asked to describe the man, all the witness could say that he was a "young-ish looking" Caucasian male under six feet with dark hair. No one else had seen this man and they couldn't get a clear shot of him on camera. There would be a follow up in less than a week when things calmed down and an electrician made an evaluation of the burnt remains of the cafe. Kagome made a mental note to ask Shippo to see if he could clean up and sharpen the resolution on the choppy video, but she already had a pretty good idea of who she would find if it was possible. This was all put in her report and saved.
The files of the four agents and all their paperwork would have to be reviewed for any information before they were destroyed. The collected information would then be composited into a few new files and then given to new agents. It was Kagome's job to collect and composite information to give to the agents. Why Naraku insisted on being the only one to have a complete copy was a puzzle to Kagome, she assumed it would be a smarter move to have agents get a complete file so they could understand the situation. Naraku apparently didn't feel the same.
So, she cheated.
It was a big risk to take, knowing that Naraku had access to the program that tracked every keystroke to every computer in his network. That knowledge alone discouraged anything that was not conductive to progress from ever being typed. And Kagome never gave him the opportunity to truly suspect her, even though she was guilty of adding speculation and hunches from the old files to the new ones right under her boss' nose. They were hidden among the words, to be sure, with subtle notations to hint what to look at in the files. She hoped the recipients would pick up on her clues and not her boss.
It was work like this that kept her busy until her stomach rumbled for a solid half hour to remind her that she hadn't eaten in over 27 hours. Lunch time.
"That bitch!"
"Hello, Sango," Kagome dutifully intoned as she continued through her paperback romance novel.
Lunches usually went like this. Sango would spend the first few minutes complaining about Kagura and the latest spat, then she would move on to work and the incompetence of her field partner on paperwork. After that, she would switch her attention to Kagome and trying to get the other girl to disclose the details of her latest "field trip".
"I hope those stupid faeries hurry up and kill her!" Sango ranted as she slammed her Tupperware on the break table, ignoring Kagome's greeting and missing her companion's rolling eyes.
For as long as Kagome had known both women, there had been open hostility between the two. No one was quite sure how it started, but rumour had it that there was the involvement of a bottle of fire-engine-red nail polish and a hairbrush.
The brunette took a deep breath and opened her container to reveal a salad. She had long since stopped offering the details of the latest feud, and Kagome didn't bother asking. Instead she settled for the next topic. "So!" she chirped brightly. "How was your latest escapade? Did it rain there too?"
Kagome bit into her peanut butter and pickle sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. "It DID rain there," she answered absent-mindedly. "But I think it was just seasonal."
Taking advantage of Kagome's rare case of "loose lips" and eager for more details while they seemed to be momentarily forthcoming, Sango pressed on. "Any cute guys?"
Kagome nodded. "Yeah, there were—Sango!" Kagome had snapped out of her daze and stopped answering. She stared in exasperation at her co-worker. "Sango, you know I can't talk about my trips like that," she sighed.
Sango grinned as way of conveying her lack of shame then pouted. "Well, you can't talk about your trips, I can't talk about my fieldwork, we all know the weather here sucks and none of us really HAVE a life; so, what are we supposed to talk about?" She slumped back in her seat and pulled her container closer to her, cradling it against herself and stabbing at the salad.
Kagome took another bite before answering. "I went to the lavatory this morning," she offered helpfully. "You can guess what I did there."
Sango just threw her a dirty look.
Kagomehad just finished looking through the second agent's entire stack of paperwork when a small envelope icon blinked from the left corner of her screen: a new message.
The email in her inbox came as it normally did: unsigned and untraceable. To anyone else it would have looked like spam. But since the system was highly monitored and only Naraku's employees and himself were supposed to have access to the network, there was no way this was spam. Kagome did a very thorough but discreet check of the location around her cubicle before printing the supposed letter out. After spending the next fifteen minutes deciphering the message she noted the time and decided that she could afford to be a few minutes late to her next destination, she needed to finish that report.
It was still wet when she stepped away from the office building to head for her destination. But this time she had the foresight to borrow Sango's bright yellow umbrella, and the trip to the car didn't have her doing impressions of a drowned rat this go round.
Twenty minutes away from the area was a cute little coffee house where Kagome had been known to stop in from time to time to have a cup or two of joe before heading on to work. She wasn't surprised to see a flamboyantly dressed gentleman occupying her favourite corner of the shop and went directly to him.
"Lady Kagome, a pleasure as always," the gentleman greeted as he kissed her hand. "How was your trip?"
Kagome ignored the last question. "Four agents dead, Miroku," she deadpanned as she removed her hand. "Four. And in one night." She sat in the offered chair and crossed her arms, ready to hear his excuse.
The well-dressed youkai reseated himself across the small table and shrugged apologetically. "What can I say? We must level the playing field. We have lost one of our own as well."
"So the bombing on the East coast was retaliation," Kagome noted. "I figured as much." She sighed. "Miroku, do you realize that you...youkai are an entire race against one organization. AND you've got magic, how can you call that fair?" the young woman demanded.
"True," Miroku agreed, sounding thoughtful. "But we are a dying race and our very existence is being threatened. Surely you can not expect us to NOT fight back whole-heartedly." He lifted his cup to emphasize his point before partaking in its contents.
Kagome leaned back in her chair to a more comfortable position and let her gaze wander around the room and back to her conspicuously dressed companion. "I wasn't aware youkai had hearts." She couldn't help the small smile that came across her face at the sight of said youkai nearly choking on his tea.
"Lady Kagome, you wound me," Miroku sputtered, but he was grinning as well. "And just when I was about to-"
"Ask me to bear your offspring?" Kagome cut him off. "I told you, I'm not interested."
Miroku chuckled. "What a tongue. I had almost fooled myself into thinking how mild mannered you were. I haven't heard wit like that since..." He caught himself and cleared his throat, the smiles gone now. He reached into his vest pocket and produced a floppy disk. "I come bearing a gift. This is yours."
Kagome eyed it warily. "What is it?"
"Just a little 'hello' for Naraku's network."
The raven haired young woman stared back at the youkai like he was stupid. "It isn't enough you ask me to spy for you, but you want me to sabotage my own job as well. Well, sure, it's not like I don't have anywhere else to go or that I might get killed, no..." She glanced back down at the disk in the middle of the table now. "And just how do you suppose I'm going to get that into the system to begin with?"
The humourous twinkle returned to the youkai's eye. "Very carefully."
Kagome's eyes swept the entire office as she entered through the automatic doors for the second time that day. Everyone was working at their desk, but she just knew that any second now, someone was going to stand up and accuse her of being a traitor. She tried not to look so guilty, but she was positive Sango could hear her pounding heartbeat as she went passed her desk and could guess something was up. However, Sango was too busy with her own paperwork to do anything more than give Kagome a friendly nod of the head as she passed by.
The disk was easily concealed and she had no problem getting in the system after almost anally checking to see if anyone was paying attention to her. The most hazardous point in the entire process was the digital chibi Miroku that danced across her screen before waving and disappearing all together.
Mission accomplished.
She expelled the breath she had been holding with relief and reached down to eject the disk but the drive was empty. With rising panic, Kagome poked the floppy flap in an attempt to retrieve the item, but the only thing she got for her troubles was a small amount of sparkling ashes that spilled onto the floor--the only proof the disk had ever existed.
A few cubicles away, someone started cursing loudly.
'That was fast,' Kagome thought as the chaos spread to other cubicles. She hurriedly ground the ashes into the carpet and performed a cold shut down of her own computer. "Damnit!" she cried, her voice joining the others in the office.
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