Before I begin this chapter I just want to take a moment to tell you all how much I appreciate that you've taken the time to keep up with this story. I sincerely hope you'll continue to enjoy how it plays out. As always, I own nothing and am not profiting from this fic in anyway. Enjoy!

Chapter 8:

Even as Shaw and Reese were hard at work pursuing leads and Harold was busy trying to dig up new leads that could lead them to her, Root sat in her captivity squaring off with the boy who believed himself to be the brains of the operation; the child prodigy known as Gabriel Hayward. The only other time they'd met, they'd been acting as the interfaces of their mutual machine gods. Root really couldn't glean anything about the boy from that experience; they had not been themselves in that classroom. This would be their first real meeting face to face. No machines, no interfaces.

Just Root and Gabriel. Each of them exposed for the other to see.

Gabriel gave Root an appraising look and pulled up a chair from nearby. "It's been a while, Root. I'm sure you're wondering why you're here."

It was an absurd statement really. If her reasoning skills were a bit less sharp, of course she would be wondering! As it was, Root could hazard a few guesses as to why she'd been abducted. The fact that she was still alive could only mean that they had a use for her. Nevertheless, she allowed him that bit of small talk.

"You know…now that you mention it, there is something I've been meaning to address." She smiled sweetly at the boy, "The hospitality around here really does need some work."

"Now," She spoke, looking at him with eyes as innocent as her tone as she played the part of the ignorant woman, "since you brought it up; maybe you wouldn't mind telling me why I am here. I mean, what could you possibly want from a simple girl like me?"

An eerie expression passed over Gabriel's face; one that said he knew everyone's secrets. It was the kind of expression that usually eluded children of his age, but came with the territory of being a genius in the body of a child. "It's simple, really. I want what's in your head." He punctuated the remark with a tap of his small index finger to Root's left temple.

She continued to play ignorant, frowning slightly at his gesture. "There's a lot in my head. I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific."

"The code. I want the machine's code." That was something that Root knew she absolutely could not allow. The machine's code in the hands of a ten year old sociopath and his ex-government/Decima handlers would spell disasters. There was also curiosity in her mind. Why her? Harold knew the code as well, and he would've made a less risky target. Why not take him?

"Why do you need me for that?" She asked with a raised eyebrow, "I'm sure you realize you could've put Harold in this chair."

"Yes," Gabriel assented, "that option was considered, but…asking Mr. Finch for the machine's code would mean an extra gun to contend with and you're ability to speak with the it should it manage to recover from my little attack."

"How clever of you."

The boy smiled confidently at her in acknowledgment, as if to silently agree with her sarcasm. "I am a genius."

Root almost felt sorry for the kid. He was so full of himself and confident in his abilities that he couldn't see the obvious. He was merely the means for powers greater than him to get their hands on the technology of Harold's machine. He would be every bit as expendable as she should he accomplish the task of retrieving that information. Feeling a twinge of compassion that was uncharacteristic considering her predicament, Root felt compelled to say something.

"Kid, you have no idea how far in over your head you are." She warned with a slight shake of her head.

He just looked at her with amusement. "Maybe not, but you will give me the code."

"No. I don't think I will."

Root's reply was instant. He could ask all he wanted. She didn't care how he begged, cajoled, pleaded or manipulated. They could do all they wanted to her; she would not give up the code. She wouldn't betray Her like that; she wouldn't betray the team. For a moment, they stared each other down like two fighters sizing each other up before a match. Gabriel's hand moved behind his back.

"I thought you might say that." He took a step forward wearing the same creepy expression he had earlier in their conversation and pulled a tazer from behind his back. Root was tossed back to a time in the past when she had been in a similar situation with Sameen. Only now, she was the one who found herself zip tied to a chair. She smiled fondly at the memory as she stared Gabriel down.

"Before you do that…I really have to warn you that I enjoy this kind of thing."

The boy shrugged in response, inching the tazer closer to Root's neck. "Then I guess we're going to have a lot of fun."

Had she been a woman of more stable mental faculties, Root might've seen how twisted her situation really was; zip tied to a chair and being subjected to torture at the hands of a genius who clearly wasn't meant for fighting. A child genius, at that. But, as the stun gun made contact with her neck, Root couldn't muster up enough humanity to be concerned about the dark path Gabriel was stepping down.

The electricity blazed an all too familiar searing trail through her body. It pumped through her veins like a river of fire. Any other time and place, Root would've welcomed the sweet agony of electricity caressing her body accompanied by heart palpations and shortness of breath. Now, even as the lightning coiled itself around her muscles, squeezed, and lapped at the synapses of every neuron in her body, she could only focus on the precarious situation Team Machine was in. What did these guys have to do to convince a ten year old to torture?

Root heaved a gasp that was like surfacing for air after coming up from the depths of some unknown lake. If the waters were torment then the tide was her captivity. The sweat that had formed at her hairline began to roll down her forehead and she rolled her eyes up to meet Gabriel's, that all knowing smugness of his still present in them.

"It's funny…" she panted slightly "You don't strike me as the violent type."

"You don't know me." The statement was forceful, and even a bit waspish. It was a slight crack in the boy's well composed demeanor and he probably hadn't meant to be quite as sharp with her as he had been, but it had been enough for Root to take note. The words were true enough; she didn't know him. There were a few bits of information The Machine had fed her just prior to the meeting of the AIs that she could still recall. The present moment excepted, the boy wasn't by any means the violent type. He already had quite the history of hacking accomplishments and technological saavy under his belt at his young age, but there was nothing in his record to suggest violent sociopathic behavior. The Machine had pegged him as more of a narcissist. That led Root to wonder again why? Why now?

She didn't have the time to dwell.

The tazer met her shoulder this time. It could've been her imagination, but it seemed a bit less intense than the first time. Her muscles contracted in rapid succession against the currents of electricity travelling through her body and she couldn't quite be sure, but she was either hearing things, or that was her own voice making strangled sounds.

Shit!

There was the shortness of breath again once the tazer was pulled away. The gasps came in short bursts and she coughed a little bit this time, giving a half glare, half smirk to Gabriel. The boy stared unhappily in return.

"The code. Please."

Root looked deep into his eyes for a moment, searching. She didn't know what exactly she was looking to find, but she figured she would recognize it. A slight trace of anger? Impatience? That lingering look of confidence? No.

There was, however, something else. Beyond all that, she saw the faintest glimpse of humanity…or maybe vulnerability. She sensed something else she couldn't quite put her finger on, but she knew where to strike at the moment.

A cocky grin covered Root's face as she stared him down. "Was that supposed to hurt? You know, if you were really meant for this kind of thing, you'd know how to make it hurt."

"Shut up." He went to taze her again, but stopped short when she continued to speak.

Root looked at him, curious at the strange sadness she felt for him. He might be her punisher at the moment, but in the grand scheme, he was yet another pawn to be used and discarded by Decima. Maybe it was The Machine's influence. Maybe it was conscience. Either way, Root felt she had to do something about that.

"You may be a genius, Gabriel, but you are just a boy. Boys your age shouldn't be killing and torturing."

He hovered over her with the tazer for several moments, thinking about her words. There was a conflict in his eyes and Root thought for a second that he might put the tazer away, but in a sudden movement, he prodded her a third time. She barely had time to recover before he descended on her a fourth time with the weapon…and then a fifth.

The frustration and ambivalence were written all over his face at this point and all semblance of the confidence he had was gone. Breathing almost as heavily as she was, he looked at Root with a gaze that seemed to beg for something; either confirmation of his prowess with torture or a way out of his role in all of this. Root couldn't be sure which. She doubted he knew himself what he was asking of her with that look. She just stared right back as her breathing slowed back to normal and smirked. Sure, a tazer would hurt like a bitch in anyone's hands, but he couldn't be allowed to believe he had any place among the likes of experienced killers such as herself, Shaw, Reese or Lambert…let alone that he could have any control over two factions of such people. Root could use the doubt that she'd planted in his mind to her advantage.

"I told you…you aren't made for this, kid."

"Hey, Finch. We're here." John grunted.

The two assassins were in Brighton Beach, parked in a quiet alley way near the back entrance of Hotel Moscow. Shaw had reluctantly agreed after much persuasion that they needed to go about this task quietly. Finch was still fretting back in the subway even as he prepared for his part of this operation.

"Alright, wait just a moment. I need to get into their security system to make sure you aren't detected."

Shaw huffed with a confident smirk on her face as the anticipation welled up inside her and she gripped her gun tightly. "It'd save time if we were a little less cloak and dagger about all this." The comment was mumbled more to herself than John or Finch, but both had heard.

Harold heaved a worried breath as his fingers danced across the keyboard, typing complex commands to breach his way into the system. "That may be so, Miss Shaw, but we're trying to get Root back. I, for one, am not willing to make avoidable sacrifices to accomplish that."

That was the end of the conversation. Furious as she still was, Shaw had calmed enough to be reasoned with to an extent. She wanted nothing more than to paint the town red, but they were down one of their number and swimming in a sea surrounded by sharks. As much as she wanted to barge into that building and gun down every one of those Russian mafia assholes to find a lead on Root, her logical and reason knew that the real fight should be saved for what was left of Samaritan's operatives and their Anarchy Council cohorts.

"It's done."

As soon as Finch spoke, Shaw and Reese exited the vehicle and quietly made their way to the front of the hotel after Shaw checked to make sure that the back exit was unlocked.

"You two should know: I recovered some interesting footage from the surveillance when I shut it down."

"What is it, Finch?" Shaw groused, sounding the faintest bit hopeful. She made her way with Reese to the check-in counter pretending to be a couple in order not to draw attention to themselves for the next part of the plan.

"The footage from the camera feed in the back hallway appears to show Ms. Groves being dragged from the hotel by a man in a ski mask."

"That doesn't exactly rule out Russian involvement." Reese answered, turning away from the counter.

"No, but it does suggest that she wasn't returned to the hotel at any point."

The two made their way to the back of the lobby, closer to their objective. Shaw considered that information for a moment; at this point she was sure the Russians were involved some way in all of this. She just didn't know how. Maybe she was sure because it was the only lead the machine had to offer, and despite the lingering vestiges of her distrust, she had been more than willing to accept the bone when it was thrown to her. Whatever the case, Mr. Denisov had a lot to answer for.

"Thanks, Finch." Shaw spoke gruffly.

"You're welcome." Finch returned to the task of sifting through mafia e-mails in an attempt to distract himself from his growing concern. "I suppose any further protest would be a waste of breath, I really must tell you I don't care for this. You'll be making a lot of enemies if things don't go according to plan."

The last thing they needed was a large portion of Brighton Beach out for their blood while they tried to deal with the bigger threat.

"Relax, Harold." John spoke up and Shaw was quick to comment herself. "Yeah, Finch. You wouldn't want the hair you have left to start falling out."

Finch huffed out an ever so slight chuckle before responding indignantly, "Oh, I assure you. If and when that happens, I have no doubt in my mind that the three of you will be responsible."

Reese and Shaw both smirked devilishly at the comment as they rounded the corner onto the back hallway and took separate sides. The search took less than two minutes. They went room by room, knocking out the incidental members of the mafia that they happened upon until Reese ended up outside of Denisov's office. He was seated behind the desk by himself.

The pair made quick work of him, knocking him unconscious and binding his hands and feet before dragging him out the back door and tossing him into the trunk. Several minutes later, they arrived at the old abandoned library. The three of them had decided prior to Reese and Shaw's arrival to Brighton Beach that the library would be the best neutral location to question the man. Of course, what Shaw had in mind for him could only be considered "questioning" in the loosest sense.

A good while later, Denisov was roused from sedation with a hard blow to the chin that sent him reeling over in the chair he was tied to. He looked around, startled. He was disoriented, surprised, and above all, angry. He realized that he seemed to be in some sort of makeshift cage with an unfamiliar woman standing over him…and she looked pissed.

"Well," He spat, blood flying from his split lip as Reese set his chair upright again. "That's a hell of a hello." He fixed Shaw with that same dangerous gaze that had made Root take note of him, only now it was much less subdued.

John addressed him from his place to the side, speaking more harshly than his usual calm tone. "We have a few questions for you. Consider that a preview of what you'll get if you don't cooperate."

Denisov laughed openly, "Go fuck yourselves. You think you're tough abducting a leader of the bratva? I've taken shits scarier than the two of you."

Shaw was pissed at his attitude. He had answers and he would tell them what they needed to know. He needed a little attitude adjustment. By the time she was through with him, he'd know real fear. She went to strike him again, but John grabbed her hand at the last second and waved her away.

"Trust me; we're a lot scarier than we look. My friend here is the last person you want to piss off, and she's already very angry. So here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna give you one more chance to answer my questions, or I'll just let her do the asking." Reese looked darkly at the Russian in front of him, boring into him with a burning gaze that conveyed his own suppressed anger and frustration. He gave the man one final warning. "I promise, that won't go well for you."

"And how are you so sure that things will go well for you? Even now, I could have armed men on their way here." He looked smugly at Reese, who returned the same look while Shaw fidgeted impatiently in the background.

"That seems unlikely. I mean…considering the latest news on the street is that there's a coupe brewing inside your organization. Besides, they'd have no way to track us here even if we hadn't tossed your cell phone." Reese looked around at the cage they were seated in while Denisov seethed with quiet rage. "You see this cage? It's a Faraday cage. It stops all kinds of signals, including GPS tracking signals. It was originally constructed for a different purpose, but it'll do just fine for our needs."

"Now," John reached into his pocket and pulled out a photo of Root and pushed it across the table. "Tell me. Have you seen this woman?"

Vlad gave the photo a cursory look before casually shrugging his shoulders. "Maybe I have. What concern is it of yours?" He was hiding something, but what Reese couldn't exactly say; not without a little more prodding. He decided to try the gentle approach just a little bit longer before turning things over to Shaw. "Security footage from your building shows her being dragged out by a masked male. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

The Russian was stubborn, holding his ground as he looked defiantly up at Reese with an expression that said he knew plenty. Reese entertained the idea that he may know who was responsible and where to find them without actually having knowledge of the incident himself. He'd seen just a brief flash of surprise in the man's eyes when he mentioned Root's abduction.

"I know everything that happens in my organization."

"Right, just like you knew you were about to be overthrown."

Shaw was getting even more restless, pacing in the cage behind John like an anxious tiger. None of this was getting them anywhere and they needed to get to the point. Reese sensed her agitation and opened his mouth to steer the conversation, but Denisov spoke first.

"You seem to know a lot about me, but I know nothing of you. I don't like that." John smirked grimly, he'd know plenty by the time this was over.

"We're just a couple of concerned citizens looking to help out a friend."

"There's a saying about that, no?" Vlad smirked crookedly "Curiosity killed the cat."

"Hmm." John nodded, standing from his seat. It was clear he wasn't going to be getting anything of value from the man. He was through playing games. It was time for a less tactful approach. "That's true, but in this case, our curiosity just might kill you."

Shaw was in John's vacated space in an instant, looming over the Russian boss. She looked at him rather like a predator sizing up her prey before the kill for just a few moments before pulling out her folding knife, cutting his binds, and swiftly running the knife into the table through his right hand.

Vlad steeled himself against the sudden pain. He kept a white knuckled grip on the table with his left hand and fought to keep his breathing normal while he hunched over just slightly.

"Bitch…" He spoke through his gritted teeth, Shaw paid him know attention. She'd stabbed him just to show that she wouldn't take any bullshit like Reese had. She was not to be fucked with.

"Alright, Vlad, here's how this is gonna go: You tell me what I need to know and you'll be fine…mostly, you don't cooperate and I'll show you what fear really is." She leaned down close to his face, locking eyes with his own mismatched pair as she spoke in a low, threatening tone. "One. Finger. At a time." Shaw pulled a pair of plyers from her pocket and slapped them forcefully onto the table. She was about to start her own line of questioning when she was interrupted by Harold's voice in her ear, addressing both of his field agents.

"Mr. Reese…Ms. Shaw, have I missed anything?" Shaw groaned inwardly at the interruption, but took a seat, keeping a close eye on Denisov.

"Actually, Finch, we were just getting started." Even Reese sounded slightly miffed at the interjection into their interrogation. Finch was unintentionally giving the Russian time to build his wall back up.

"Oh, good! I'm not too late. I found something of interest in those e-mails I retrieved. It seems that the missing money Mr. Rezniczek mentioned was being paid to an account belonging to a Mr. John Hancock. It seemed familiar, so I researched a little further and realized that I'd come across his file before. He's a former FBI agent with major connections to various factions on both sides of the law. Care to take a guess who he supplied with hardware over the past two years?"

Reese didn't even have to think about it. A man named John Hancock who was high up in an organization seeking to dismantle the government; that sounded very familiar. It didn't come as a surprise that he would provide aid to a group like Vigilance-which had similarly aligned goals.

"Peter Collier."

"Indeed, Mr. Reese." Payment to the Anarchy Council would explain the unusually hi-tech setup at Hotel Moscow that the entire team had taken note of, but what was the purpose of the Mafia in all of this? To what end was the Anarchy Council aligning itself with Hotel Moscow? Shaw didn't particularly care unless the answer would help her find Root.

"Thanks for the update, Finch." Shaw spoke, "Now, if you don't mind, I'll be getting back to business."

He did mind. He minded a lot. It eased his mind only slightly that Shaw was about to do horrible things to a horrible person, but he resigned himself to the fact that it would be futile to resist. Still, there was one more thing left to say.

"Actually, Ms. Shaw, I do hope you won't take too long. I'm afraid—" He was cut off by two clicks as both of his agents turned their comms off, not interested in hearing any more of his protests. Unfortunately, he wasn't protesting at all.

The machine's monitoring and tracking functions had come back online to a limited extent and he had just picked up an unknown group of vehicles heading for the library. It certainly wouldn't be the mafia. With the Faraday cage, they wouldn't have the means to track Denisov to the library; neither would anyone else unless they knew where to look.

"Who are you?"

Not having to worry about any further interference from Finch, Shaw turned back to the smirking mob boss. He chuckled smugly at her. "You're white, but there's something…exotic…about you. You're half middle-eastern?"

Her curiosity momentarily trumping her anger, Shaw decided to play along. "Persian. What's it to you?"

He laughed, "I can't stand the fucking Afghans, and the Iranians are no different." Shaw's face fell at the comment under the weight of her irritation. She hadn't been around this man for very long, but it was long enough to know that she didn't like him, and now he was indirectly insulting her and her mother.

"Do I need to put a hole in your other hand, Vlad?" She growled lowly, brandishing her firearm. "I don't give a rat's ass about your racism. Even if I did, I don't have the time for it." She plucked the picture of Root up from the table and shoved it in his face. "This is what I care about."

"We know that a group called Decima is responsible for abducting this woman, and we know that they're working with another faction called Anarchy Council. We also know that Hotel Moscow has paid the Anarchy Council. You know something. What?"

You of all people should know that torture produces unreliable leads.

As soon as the thought popped into Shaw's head it was banished. She didn't care; she just wanted to hurt anyone who might be slightly connected to Root's abduction. Besides, she could ask for a lead from the machine if she really had to.

For now, she just wanted to wipe the cocky smirk off this bastard's face.

"Maybe I do."

Shaw was quick to grab his hand that wasn't pinned to the table and twist it painfully back in a submissive hold. "What…do you…know? She asked again through gritted teeth, reaching for the plyers that sat in front of his pinned right hand. "Think carefully."

"Okay…okay." Vlad wheezed through the pain of Shaw's iron grip on his hand. "There is a building. A warehouse. In SoHo." The words weren't entirely out of his mouth yet before Shaw slammed his hand onto the table and then brought the plyers down onto his pinky finger. He would never have use of the finger again once it healed…if he lived.

"Shut up." Shaw demanded harshly in response to his pained screams. She grabbed his head and forced him to look at her, "You lie to me again and I'll just rip the finger off instead of breaking it. We already checked the warehouse."

Shaw let go of his head and pointed sharply at the photo on the table to punctuate her words.

"Where is she?"

That's it for this chapter! Thank you for reading. I'm sorry it took me a bit longer to update. I just got a new computer and it took me a bit to get everything set up. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the read!