.:CHAPTER SIX:.

~Emmett's POV~

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was located on a busy street corner where yellow cabs dominated roads, pedestrians scurried along wide sidewalks, No Parking signs kept curbs clear, and, every few feet, deep-rooted trees kept the area shady. That was good for us. Rosalie, Renesmee, and I gravitated to the shade like moths to light. Across the street from the FBI building was a coffee shop bustling with business. The three of us found a table in the back corner. Ness immediately set up her laptop, her back against the wall so nobody could be nosy. Rose and I already had our earpieces in – tiny little speakers that clung, nearly invisible, to the inside of our ears. When Ness slipped hers in, inconspicuously pretending to sweep her hair back, she smiled at us.

"Ready?" she asked.

"Remember what you have to do." Rosalie was evidently worried. Involving our niece in our illegal activities was not something my wife was comfortable with. "Once Emmett and I find what we need, you—"

"Set the countdown. Delete all traces of my hacking. Destroy the computer. And then walk to the high school where you'll pick me up." Renesmee gave us a smile, big and confident, and a little more excited than she should be considering we were breaking and entering into a government building. Taking after her uncle it seemed.

Rosalie frowned at her tone but left it alone.

"Let's do this, babe," I murmured. Then louder, to Ness, I said, "Have fun. Study hard. Don't talk to strangers. Be home before dark." She shooed me away when I ruffled her curls.

Rosalie and I set off. Our hands entwined, we waited at the stoplight until we were able to cross. I studied the five-story building in front of us one last time. Five rows of thirty windows wrapped entirely around the gray stone exterior, the pattern breaking only for the large windowpanes and revolving door at the front entrance. According to the layout of the building that Renesmee was able to acquire, there was a door to the left of the first hallway at the east wing intended for staff only. That was our first destination, and where we headed the moment we entered the revolving doors.

The interior was cool and crowded with busy agents and civilians alike. Papers rustled. Drawers slammed. Hurrying rubber soles clicked on the faux marble throughout the lobby. I allowed Rosalie to lead me right as I scanned for cameras.

I noted twelve all across the room. But it was the FBI – they'd have more discreet locations for some, too. As I tailed Rose, my eyes glued to a particular camera that moved as we did, sensing our motions and trailing us as we traveled down a particular empty corridor. Nobody actually human paid us any attention; when you looked like you knew where you were going and what you were doing, people rarely bothered to question you.

Until we came across our Staff Only door and a man who rivaled my own build stepped out, dressed in dark officer clothing. This hallway wasn't going to allow us to pass without acknowledging each other. I nodded to him, stepping to the side.

His eyes, however, were on my wife.

Figured.

"You two finding everything alright?" he asked. By the way he stared with big eyes at Rose, I was surprised he had noticed my existence at all. I had to bite my tongue to keep from chuckling.

Rose, for her part, knew all too well how to manipulate the men into getting what she wanted. Boy, did I know that! She easily steered the man, quick to please the gorgeous blonde, off our trail. It was lucky, I thought, that there were restrooms at the end of the hall that we could pretend we were going to. It wasn't until the agent decided he wanted to continue flirting with my wife that I stepped in.

I threw a heavy arm around Rose's shoulders. Squeezed her closer to me as I said, "Well, you have a good day, man! I'm sure you have loads of work. We'll leave you to it."

Rose and I trekked to the end of the hall for show, my hand moving to guide Rosalie by the small of her back, and Rose gave me a look the whole way. I just shrugged at her. The guy obviously needed a clue. I was helping him out. No big deal, I thought with a grin that my wife didn't miss.

We backtracked back to the Staff Only door once the agent had successfully made his way to the lobby without any more distractions.

This entry, we knew from our pre-mission research, was one of the few in this building – and the only one we would have to encounter – that could be opened by computer rather than key. As we idled by the doorway – the tiny red light on its frame solid and unwelcoming – I wasn't the only one glancing up at the cameras.

Rose met my eyes again. If there was any uncertainty she felt, there was no way to tell.

"So," I started, a bit of doubt creeping in the longer we stood. Rose fidgeted, leaning her weight on one foot. "Now we just wait for our newly recruited, six-year-old hacker to type her way into the system and—"

"I'm in," came a light, crackling response in my ear.

I grinned at my wife. "Never doubted her for a moment."

Rosalie rolled her eyes, but I saw the slight tension in her shoulders ease. The restricted doors buzzed green and we slid in quickly. Unlike the bright, bustling lobby and its branched-out hallways, this one opted for a duller personality. Darker. Sinister. Filled with gray concrete and stone walls. Spying cameras hooked on every ceiling corner. It was empty, at least, and Rose and I wasted no more time doubting Renesmee's ability to hack FBI equipment.

"Now what?" Rose asked our listening niece. The maps we looked over beforehand only contributed to civilian access areas.

"At the end of the hall there should be a set of elevators." Rose and I were already sprinting, full speed, as she spoke. We followed her instructions as she told them. "Take the stairwell to the right of them. Go down two stories. There are three doors; go through the far left."

Two stories below the main lobby of the FBI building was a carpeted hallway of glass-cased offices filled with desks decorated with family portraits and potted plants, and seats so cushioned I could probably sink into one. Pretty weird place to work, but perhaps comfort and privacy were both the aim here. Luckily, no one was luxuriously working in these offices today.

The walkway split into two directions, wrapping around an expanse of wall with a ten-foot width and coming together again just behind it, opening up into a large room. I spotted the door we needed before Ness directed us to it.

"There's a black door – do you see it?" Renesmee asked.

Rose confirmed. The black door was obviously built thick, secure, and read Federal Government Documents in the classic impact label font. I pointed to the key-swipe by the door's handle, blinking red and uninviting.

"I can probably hack…" Ness began to mutter, but Rosalie interfered with a quick 'no need' and a whoosh from the back pocket of her jeans. Suddenly, she was holding a small lanyard clipped to a plastic card with silver numbers and a name that definitely wasn't hers.

"Swiped this from the agent too busy ogling to do his job properly," she said, holding her stolen keycard like an Academy Award. I already knew I was married to a fox, but her cleverness never failed to impress me. I smiled at her beautiful, devious smirk.

Ness giggled on her end.

"Alright," I said, focusing back on the target and bending my fingers together and outward in a way humans did to crack their knuckles. "Let's do this."

"Okay," Ness said. "Now you just need to—Wait…hold on…"

Rose and I hovered, uncertain of what we were hearing in our niece's tone. We shared a discomforting look of confusion.

"Ness…?" my wife wondered out loud after a static silence proceeded for more than ten seconds.

"I messed up," was the frantic whisper that responded.

Rose pressed a hand to her earpiece. "What, Ness?"

Unease simmered within me. Started rising.

"Oh, I messed up. I messed up," Renesmee was saying, frenzied, more to herself.

My eyes darted to every camera-covered corner I could spot. Forget what Alice had said – I would smash every lens in this room if I had to.

"Renesmee!" Rosalie growled, barely louder than a human whisper. "Are the cameras—"

"Not the cameras," Renesmee clarified hurriedly. The tension in my muscles relaxed slightly. "There's someone in there – in the room. A guard. I didn't see her before, and… well, of course there'd be a guard wouldn't there! Oh, no…"

Rosalie sighed, brushing my arm just above my elbow with her fingertips in a way she sometimes did when she was relieved I wasn't in trouble.

"Ness, breathe and listen to me," I said. And I chuckled when I heard a deep inhale-exhale from the other end of the speaker. "This is an easy fix," I continued, a little softer now as I thought, brain reeling. What did they do in the movies? "All we need is a distraction."

I caught Rosalie's dubious expression – pointedly aimed at me, I was sure – but I carried on scanning the room. Then I saw it – firetruck-red and metal and perfect. I reached for the fire alarm without a second thought.

"Don't!" Ness cried. I cringed as my earpiece whined at the earsplitting pitch. My hand hovered, just grazing the cold handle of the alarm. One swift pull and– "Their technology pinpoints which alarm is triggered. If you pull it, an army of agents will be headed straight for you guys the minute they realize there is no fire. And firefighters will come before them, probably."

"We need to get in," I reminded her. We needed to get in without interacting with anybody, without being seen. The files kept locked away in there were a key to protecting our family, and so was staying inconspicuous. I was reckless, sure, but I wasn't an idiot. Rose and I couldn't have our faces framed in WANTED databases for all eternity. And maybe, as the professional criminals we Cullens were, we could erase highly-secured computer data from the government interconnection networks, but it was also possible we couldn't, and it just wasn't a risk we could take right now without absolute certainty. But if we could get in… "We need to get in – even if that means we can't get out."

Rosalie tilted her head at me, blonde strands of her ponytail waterfalling across one shoulder. "You mean hide?"

"We can stay hidden just fine," I said. At least until this all blew over.

"We'll be trapped," Rose replied, clearly unaccepting of this. Not that I liked the idea much myself.

"Maybe, but we can relay the information we find to Ness, Alice, and Edward, and—"

"Emmett," Rosalie interrupted me with a swift shake of her head. "I get it. But what if they black out? What if we black out? We would be sitting ducks in there, unconscious and unhidden and, quite frankly, unsafe. If the government is allowing experimenting to happen on our kind, imagine what they would do to us, finding us laying on the floor of a restricted area with classified documents regarding that exact experimenting!"

"They would think we were dead humans," I countered. Pretty sure I mumbled. Quite pathetically, actually.

"Or maybe they wouldn't," Rose said.

She stared at me, pleading with those gold eyes of hers that I couldn't resist. And I didn't like it, but I knew she had a point. The FBI was part of the U.S. government. A government who had been hiding its knowledge of supernatural creatures, and although it was sketchy, we could not disregard the knowledge they possessed. They knew what to look for in us. And with everything Rose just pointed out, plus no footage of how we managed to get inside…

No risks without absolute certainty of tolerable consequences.

Right.

"If you two are done giving me nightmares," came Renesmee's voice, a lot calmer now than earlier, "I can digitally set off an alarm in another part of the building. They're connected to the mainframe, you know?"

Rosalie and I continued to stare each other down for a moment. Then, with a hand on her hip and eyes closed, Rose sighed, "Okay, a distraction it is then."

We found a spot among the glass offices in the previous hallway to hide as we waited for Ness to sound the alarm.

"Remember," Rosalie said, the last words before our final act. "We are in and out of there faster than any human can comprehend. Find the files. Plant them in our memory. Take pictures with our phones. Flee, untraced. Understand?"

Ness and I responded in unison. "Yes, Ma'am."

Appeased, Rosalie adjusted her position, ready for action. I followed suit.

Within seconds, sirens were blaring. They started as a faint ringing, distant echoes beyond our walls, across the entirety of the building, until – suddenly – our floor was vibrating with the wail of bells and pulse of red lights. It took a few minutes – 3.4 to be exact – for the guard to come scurrying down the hall. Once she was out of the emergency exit, Rosalie gave me a nod. We moved fast. The stolen keycard was already out of Rosalie's pocket before we reached the door, and then it was swiped through its designated slot and the light blinked fast and green.

Finally, we were inside where we needed to be.

A jungle of file cabinets awaited us.

Now the fun begins.

OoOoOoO

~Edward's POV~

Silent flickers emanated from my iPad screen – a flashing white dot. I followed my own movement through the icon of a red arrow. It drew closer and closer to its target.

It had taken only a few minutes for me to track the location of the computer that had sent Carlisle that e-mail message, and one click later I was latched onto it. I had been worried the sender would pack up and leave their location before I had the chance to get there but, as I pulled into the rubbled parking lot of Nashua Public Library the white dot had remained unmoved.

The library was a simple brick building in a neatly paved plaza. Around it, the trees were beginning their fade into autumn. It would still be a month or so before the leaves were orange enough to fall, and a couple of weeks before that when the human range of vision would be able to pick up on the oncoming change. Inside, was cool and quiet and smelled of ink-pressed paper. I made a note of every face inhabiting it, though there were few and none were by a computer.

Glancing down at the iPad for direction, I then headed for the back of the library. My steps were slow; my thoughts cautious. The scent of a freshly vacuumed carpet filled my nose as I walked, each absorbed footfall emitting the smell. It was late afternoon and hardly anyone had been here. Each aisle of shelves was dusted and untouched. Not a very busy place in New Hampshire.

I moved my attention back to the screen in my hand. I watched it as it guided me, until I came to the end of the short hall of books and my red arrow fell atop the white dot of my target. I held my breath and scanned the back wall in front of me. A long line of tables and cushioned seats stared back at me, all empty; except the one with a single laptop, its screen facing the windows, away from me. I stared grudgingly at the sleek black piece as my mind reached for thoughts belonging to its owner, whoever they were. All I could hear, though, was the stories of opened books, and none of that helped me. None of their readers were distracted or nervous. They were all complacent in their own fantastical moment of reality.

But this computer sat two tables away from where I stood, humming and used, seemingly mocking.

The owner of it wouldn't just leave it behind, would they? Perhaps they were taking a break – wandered off for a moment to grab a book?

Without fully thinking it, my cell phone was in my hand. But just as quickly I was sliding it back in my pocket. I had tried texting Alice for support earlier, and she never answered back. Which was odd in itself and I had to forcefully refrain from thinking the worst. Calling her was off limits anyway. We were on a strict no-phone-calls-unless-there-was-absolutely-no-other-way rule. Seeing as how I had set the rule myself, I wasn't keen on breaking it. And, of course, the last thing I needed was to black out, let alone black out in a public place.

Exhaling my held breath, I tucked my iPad under my arm and moved toward the abandoned laptop. Its user's scent – hints of apple and clean linen and floral perfume (female?) – had long faded. They'd been gone for a while, and I doubted they were coming back. My stomach sank, uneasy and on edge, as something told me that this whole set up was meant for me; or rather, for Carlisle.

I couldn't help but think it was a bit risky. How could they have known 'Carlisle' was going to track the messenger? How could they have known he would travel to his or her location for further investigation?

What did they know about him?

My attention went back to the abandoned computer. I was eager for far more information than I originally set out for.

Knowing a regular laptop wouldn't be able to sense my finger's movement on its mousepad, I pressed the space bar, freeing it from its ocean view screensaver. The screen flashed to life. A pure white background greeted me with a bolded typeface placed prominently in the center.

4s3rE26

What?

I glared at the sequence of letters and numbers with frustration. I was not here to play games.

With a few clicks of the keyboard, I exited the cryptic page. A landscape picture of a couple on old railroad tracks popped up, a background to the only two things available on the desktop – the Recycle Bin and Office Note. There had to be more, though. I continued clicking keyboard shortcuts to access panels and side panels and branches of those panels. And the more I opened, the less program icons I saw. There were no saved documents. No search history. No application history. No social network connection. Nothing.

Nothing, except that single note.

I thought of my family collapsing into darkness. I pictured Bella – my Bella – lying motionless on our bed, completely silent and still, and it was an image too close to what I have experienced before. And I imagined it happening again and again. To Emmett and Rosalie. To my daughter; or for her to watch it happen to me.

And here I was playing Riddle Me This? with a computer!

The room grew hot with my anger. We didn't have time for this. There was a growl, low, clearly mine, and I slammed the laptop shut, too hard – it splintered, broke. My chest rumbled again, and I took a step back and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to relax. I couldn't get worked up. Not now; not here. There was no time and my energy was needed to figure this out whether this was the way I wanted it to happen or not. However frustrating this situation was, my temper was not going to help.

As I calmed, I wondered what Carlisle would do.

Something better than this, a voice in the back of my head decided.

Perhaps it was right, but I didn't want to hear it right now. I grabbed the laptop and tucked it under my arm with my iPad. I was certain I had killed it, but it would be a waste to toss it without trying to get more information out of it once I was home with better equipment. Maybe Ness could look at it.

The thought made me chuckle. How fast our children grow…

I was making my way back toward the front of the library, quite ready to leave this place far behind, when something caught my eye in passing. I paused, mid-step. The glare of outdoor light glimmered off the piece of plastic covering a sliver of paper reading "B86". It was taped to the spine of a book; a number.

4s3rE26.

E26.

Was it that easy? A book?

They chose to lead you to a library for goodness sake!

My mind reeled, scrutinizing the first part of the message. Arranging. Rearranging. Interpreting them in ways that couldn't possibly be right, because what sense did they make?

I moved from aisle to aisle as I considered solutions. Where each literary section began, their numbering started over. A loop of A-Z and corresponding numbers. Each E26 I encountered just didn't seem right. I flipped through their pages, uncertain of what I was looking for, yet knowing I wasn't finding it. I stopped to clear my head after a particularly strange selection about sex in the afterlife. I contemplated the sections I had yet to search. Each section had rows of books, and I was beginning to draw suspicion from the librarian with my sprinting from one section to another that hardly – if at all – related to the previous one. That was when I noticed the sections were numbered. Thick cords hung from the ceiling above each one, holding numbered signs and subject topics. My eyes lingered on section four. 4s. 3r. E26.

Fourth section.

My legs were already moving.

Third row.

I made a sharp left, eyes scanning labels.

E26.

I snatched the book from its home, dust mites sailing upward in soft waves.

Immediately, the book fell open to a page holding a plain envelope barely the size of my palm. There was caution in my movements as I inspected it. Something smooth and ridged and heavy, sunk at the bottom of the envelope, small and undeniable: a key. I opened the flap and let the cold metal drop into my hand. There was an engraving on the head. 243, it read.

I sighed, the heaviness of defeat making its presence known. More numbers; more clues; more games. The e-mail's threatening tone was beginning to lose its menace. If it wasn't for the timing, I might have given up on it by now. I was definitely tempted.

But, imaging my family, I knew I had to see this through to the end, no matter how ridiculous of an impression it was beginning to create.

Surely, someone had gone through a lot of trouble for this to be pointless.

Beyond the envelope, I glimpsed the pages it was tucked into. The book itself was about the history of the railroad in New England; the pages were of a specific station. I knew that station. I passed it on the road once, coming home from Boston with Bella and Renesmee. From here, I guessed it would be about thirty minutes south-east.

My fingers ran across the worn surface of the 243 key. It was an old-fashioned locker key, ones they used mainly at post offices and—

Train stations.

I guessed I had no choice. I was going to Lowell, MA. I was going to the train station.

First, however, I needed to speak with Alice.

OoOoOoO

"Alice is gone."

That was the first thing out of Emmett's mouth when I finally made it back to the house and put my car in park. I wasn't even out of it yet before Emmett came bounding down the porch steps with his words.

"What?" I asked, already reading the answer to my question through my brother's thoughts. He, Rosalie, and Renesmee had arrived home only twenty minutes before me. The first thing they had noticed was the absence of our psychic. They had assumed the worst, of course; I was thinking it now.

"We've been looking all over," Emmett said, running his fingers through his curls. He came running back to the house when he heard my Volvo on the road. "Where the hell did she wander off to?"

"It's not like Alice to leave her post," I said. She was a wanderer, certainly; but never when she had a job to do.

Unless…

"Unless she saw something," I finished aloud. "If she had blacked out, we'd have found her body by now." The words were quite disturbing to think, let alone say out loud. Like we were searching for a corpse. It made the hairs on Emmett's arms stand up.

This is so messed up, he thought.

"You're not wrong," I muttered, heading for the house. There had to be something. And, at the moment, I needed to see my daughter, safe, face-to-face to feel some kind of ease in this tension. I found her by the radio in the living room, on her knees, face inches from the speakers and her brown eyes – deep and beautiful and just like her mother's – were distant, far away in her thoughts that were in-line with the sullen pop song playing. I was next to her in an instant, an arm around her. She immediately leaned into my hug.

"I'm going back out there with Rose," Emmett said.

It was unnecessary. Rosalie's mind entered my range and her thoughts knowingly hit me.

Edward, I have a trail!

I was on my feet and speeding out the back door before Emmett, who cursed at me. I told him Rosalie found something. Renesmee quickly joined us.

When we reached Rosalie, she led us a few feet from the main road, and then we ran parallel from it for a mile before we came across a Porsche off the side of the road so yellow it made your eyes ache. That was where Alice's scent started. We hastily followed the trail. I could have surpassed Rosalie, but I let her lead. We went farther north half a mile, then north-west. Five more miles and then we saw her.

Alice was sprawled face-down in the dirt. One of her arms extended in front of her as if she had been holding something when she fell. I noticed her cell phone – a silver glint – a few yards away with a trail of uplifted soil, as if it had slid from her grip. She was running, I realized. In a hurry. On the phone. I checked her most recent call as the others went to roll Alice over; it was almost thirty minutes ago, but it wasn't a number I recognized. In fact, it wasn't a U.S. phone number at all. The area code wasn't one I was familiar with. European, maybe.

"We weren't supposed to make any calls," Renesmee muttered, staring at her aunt's phone in my hand.

"Alice follows her own set of rules," Rosalie responded quietly. She brushed the dirt off Alice's face, and Emmett lifted her limp body into his arms. She looked even smaller than usual. Un-animated. Un-Alice. The four of us stood there for a beat longer in silence, their thoughts reverberating their anxiety. This thing wasn't stopping.

"Did you guys retrieve the files from the FBI?" I asked, finally breaking the silence.

All three of their thoughts painted a complete scene from a movie for me. My daughter's hacking abilities surprised me, but I supposed I had a habit of underestimating the women in my life. I met her eyes and knew she registered the obvious pride I felt. Her thin smile was as good a response as I could ask for in our time of crisis.

"We haven't read through the files yet," Renesmee told me. "We just got home, and then Alice was missing…"

"Emmett," I said. "Take Alice home. Renesmee, go with him. Read through those files. Rosalie and I will follow Alice's trail – see where she was coming from before she…blacked out."

Renesmee started to protest, but I gave her a stern look. This wasn't up for debate. She sighed in defeat.

"Giving orders now," Rosalie muttered, glaringly accusing.

Ignoring her, I began following Alice's northern trail on my own. We didn't have time for questioning my decisions. Rosalie eventually came after me, and Emmett and Nessie went back for the Porsche. My blonde sister made it clear exactly what she thought about me taking charge – as she never was timid to do. I had always compared Rosalie and her thoughts to a shallow pool; well, as shallow as that pool was, the water was crystal clear and there was a mirror laid out on the bottom. Rosalie's thoughts weren't difficult to read, simply because she'd tell you exactly what she thought.

It hardly meant I had to like it, I supposed.

Alice's trail led us deeper into the woods for a little less than half a mile before the land began to take an odd shape, almost like it was collapsing in on itself. Rosalie and I jogged to a stop at the edge of the land where it suddenly cut off into air, a mini 7-foot cliff in the middle of the forest. It wasn't all rock and dirt, though, was it? I angled my feet precariously on the edge and rubbed my sole across it. Dirt slipped away to reveal something else entirely. I spread more of the dirt clear with the sole of my shoe. There was something hard and unnatural buried beneath the shrubs. One-by-one, I pulled plants from their rooted homes until the picture we were seeing made sense. A sharp edge of dark gray steel sprouted out of the ground, continuing with the semi-circle of the "cliff". A 12'8"-in-length cliff, by my estimation.

"What is that?" Rosalie wondered.

I moved on top of the hidden steel, and then walked across it. Hidden behind leaves and branches, the other side of the metal sheet stuck out more prominently. I walked to the edge, where the ground suddenly dipped down at a sixty-degree angle. And even through all the overgrowth from years of abandonment, I could tell what it was.

"It's a 1940s fallout shelter."

And Alice had broken in.