Sweat dripped down her face, as Quinn dropped to the ground, inhaling sharply she twists her body as a specter of sorts appears behind her and she pulls the trigger immediately when her mind registers the threat. There's a loud ding and she drops down to a squat wiping away the sweat with her sleeve, taking a moment to rest.
It's in that moment another specter appears, from behind her once more and without even looking up she spins her pistol so it's pointing at the correct angle and pulls the trigger, opening her eyes, as the training exercise ended. Anything less than a perfect score was a failure as far as she was concerned, and she turns her attention to the door to the training room that opens, and Sue comes strolling in, wearing a red and white tracksuit.
"Fabray."
Quinn caught the water bottle that Sue threw at her and took a healthy sip as she looked at Sue who also tossed her a towel and she began to towel off. "How did I do?"
"You failed. You missed a specter, while many of our male colleagues would still count that as a win, you can't afford to think like that. You must be better, and smarter than they are and considerably more careful." Sue said looking up at the observation deck for a moment before turning to Quinn, "I was certain that I trained you better than this."
"Let me go over the footage—"
"I'm not talking about this exercise, many of the others fail it as well. I know what you've been doing in your spare time Fabray, sneaking off to find our missing asset. Your fiancé was unaware that you were grounded. Sloppy. If you're going to attempt to go behind my back and your father's do better."
Quinn licked her lips and nodded, it was sloppy, but Finn probably wouldn't have helped her if he had known. "I can handle it, I know it's been a week but I'm certain—"
"I agree with your father on this one, not about being late. I was aware that you weren't working that day, but that you are to stay away from this case. As you've said it's been a week and there are assignments piling up. I found the perfect assignment for you."
Quinn frowned slightly, Sue rarely ever agreed with her father. He outranked her, and she knew better than to say anything to him directly, but she usually did whatever she wanted behind his back. It was another reason she had admired her so much. "There's something you're not telling me."
"There's plenty of things that I'm not telling you because it's on a need to know basis and right you really don't need to know," Sue replied firmly. "And since I know you well enough to know that you're not going to leave this alone unless I report this up the chain of command, I'm sending you to Argentina, that branch has requested aid. Someone has been making human sacrifices, blood magic more than likely, and they've had trouble locating the magic-touched. So, I'm sending you. Hopefully this cures you of your investigative bug that you seem to have caught."
Quinn blinked, "Argentina but—"
"You'll find a file on your desk Fabray, and it's about time you showed some leadership skills, especially to the young women who are coming up through the ranks, but we can worry about that when you get back. This shouldn't be a problem for you should it?"
"No Sue," Quinn says keeping her voice as neutral as she could possibly make it as she watches Sue turn around and leave. She licks her lips, "When do I leave?"
"Tomorrow," Sue called over her shoulder.
Russell turned to look at Sue as she walked into the observation deck, "It's been a week, how have we still not found her?"
Sue didn't say anything immediately, instead moving to watch as the next Templar started to practice. She lets Russell's frustration build for a moment before turning to look at him. "Well, I took Quinn out of the picture for approximately two weeks. However, if we do not find her—Quinn's not going to drop this. She's dead set on trying to win your affection."
"Then we close the case," Russell said calmly. "She knows that an asset is missing, get rid of one of the more useless assets."
"To be sure we're on the same page you believe we should—kill an asset to cover it up?"
"A useless one, we continue to have select people look for her, but we must give Quinn something, or she'll continue to look into it and she will find out."
Sue turns her attention back to the Templar who is running through the same exercise as Quinn, with middling results. "A waste."
"What?"
"DCXXVI—"
"Charlie," Russell corrected. "Her name is Charlie."
Sue studied him for a moment, "Our organization needs to modernize Russell, we're losing out to the corporations and the government in this war. There's a magical cold war going on, the times are changing, and we must not get left behind. All that power—she should have been a Templar. All of our assets should have been Templars, not lab experiments and the equivalent of suicide nuclear bombs. Given Quinn's obsession with making you proud, she could have been Quinn capable of dealing with threats that cost us the lives of our brethren."
"Presenting as a magic-touched happens around puberty, perhaps if that was the case then the powers that be would have agreed with you, but she was two, and she was a danger to Quinn, she was a danger to all of us. You think I didn't fight? Judy still hates me for what had to be done. They convinced me that she would be safer with them then she would be with us, and we needed to know why one twin presented as magic-touched and the other didn't. Quinn isn't magic touched she would have presented by now."
"Well they were wrong, Russell she's powerful, you saw the building and that was an accident. We need to find her before she has another accident or worse."
"Charlie was raised to believe—"
"She's been gone for a week; the best-case scenario is that she died and is in a freezer somewhere. As terrible as it is to lose a daughter, at last she didn't hurt any innocents. The worst case is that she gets scared, because she doesn't have any actual life skills Russell, she has no money, she can't fend for herself except to fight, that will be bad. We can only pray that she remembers that civilians are not to be hurt. But there are some sick individuals out there and if she does hurt someone her life is forfeit." Sue takes a breath, "Or the most likely situation is that she was taken."
"Taken? By who? No one knows she exists. The government wouldn't dare attack a Templar transport van, and most corporations give us wide berth."
"Her tracker was disabled Russell. Why are we pretending like there isn't some magic-touched rebellion brewing, or magic -touched criminals? Again, she has no life skills and we kept her in a bubble feeding her nutrient paste for years, starving her of information. The first person who gives her a sandwich or ice cream will probably have her undying loyalty. We were not kind to her, you read the reports, shock treatments for every mistake she made, treating her like a lab rat. Keeping her alone for days on end."
"What are you getting at Sue?" Russell said coldly.
"The longer she's out there in the world, having her entire belief system questioned, eating good food and meeting new people—she might not want to come back Russell in which case—there will be deaths and once again her life is forfeit."
"We will find her, as you said it's a waste and it's not as if we do not have methods of wiping memories, at this point a week or two will not be dangerous to her, double the forces out looking for her, check every single building and place of business."
"We need to keep this discreet Russell, if the government or any corporation found out—"
Russell frowned, the powers that be were watching this carefully and he needed to make sure that he handled this correctly. "We'll give it one more week after which we bury this, for Quinn's sake, and pray that it doesn't come back and bite us in the ass." Everything he had ever done had been for this.
Quinn shivered as she zippered up her hoodie, she had thought that it would be nice in Argentina this time of year, and maybe she could hit a beach or something once she was done. But as far as she was concerned it was way to freakishly cold for that. "So much for seeing the bright side," Quinn muttered under her breath. Rachel had been wrong this was awful.
Sue was clearly punishing her for stepping out of bounds, she hadn't even packed for this weather. And what was the cherry on top of this bullshit sandwich was that if she looked weak, she knew her father would hear about it. This mission was already off to a shitty start, but she had an hour before she had to meet with the Argentinian Branch, it was plenty of time to go shopping for some weather appropriate clothes. She's about to head downstairs to talk to her driver for the week, when she hears Skype ringing on her laptop and she immediately heads to it pausing for a moment when she spots a picture of Finn, he might have more information on the case. She immediately switches the call on and smiles at him, "Hey Finn—"
"Your dad had me removed from the case," Finn snapped at her. "You didn't tell me you were benched off this one! I got chewed out by Seneschal Schuester."
Quinn stared at his face on the video for a moment, "I was trying to make you look good," It's a lie but Finn's face softens immediately, and she almost feels bad for lying to him. "But I'm in Argentina and before you can say that I should go to a beach, it's freezing here Finn."
A goofy smile crosses his face, "Well I can come down and keep you warm, it's not like I have anything to do right now. I don't think Sue likes me like she likes you, but all I've got is paperwork."
Quinn hesitated, for a moment Finn having her back would be nice, but she didn't want to spend a week with him as a couple, "Sure you can come down as long as you ask my father."
Finn blanched at the idea, he'd tried once. It hadn't gone well for him and he didn't really want to try again. "I was in Oymyakon for the two coldest weeks in winter. I love you Quinn, but I like having all my fingers and toes and you know other stuff."
"Yeah, we're already in enough trouble Finn best stay away," Quinn said keeping the relief off her face as she sits back. "Look I'll talk to you later tonight alright? I need to shop for some warmer clothes. Before I freeze to death."
"Love you," Finn said as he stretched.
"Love you too," Quinn said ending the call. She runs a hand through her hair, she needed to start this mission quickly, so she could return home. If Finn was off the case it meant it would be harder to get the information she needed. She pushes the thought away for a moment, right now she needed to focus, she needed to be ready for what lay ahead. They didn't get many demons in the states, but she was certain that was what she was dealing with. The magic-touched that had probably summoned it was already dead which made the situation more precarious. So right now, she'd focus on it and then focus on the mission at home.
