Chapter One: Operation Game Change

Birkhoff's house, present day

Despite all Birkhoff's initial ramblings about how she was only to stay for one night, it didn't take much more than being able to fix things around his house to get him to let her stay indefinitely.

She made him curious, intrigued him. Though he'd never tell her, he wanted her close. Not in any romantic or sexual way. She was just a kid, barely legal at present. It was like having a little sister.

It was more an attraction to her mind. She was wily, sarcastic, mysterious, street smart and something of a genius. The wheels of her mind never stopped turning.

Though she looked almost exactly like the woman he had lost so long ago, her presence made the loss somehow less painful.

In exchange for her handy work and her domestic skills, he taught her everything he could about technology and hacking, and used her to help monitor the whereabouts of the Black Box Nikita and Michael had in their possession.

To say she was a quick learner would be an understatement. She got everything the first time he said or showed it to her. She even built a working, portable prototype of what would be known as ShadowBot all on her own.

It was clear Silver Logan was an asset to him.

She jogged downstairs, dressed for the day, after checking for any communication from John.

There was nothing.

She swore if she didn't hear from her boyfriend soon, she was gonna lose it. Thankfully, Birkhoff was fun to look at, even if he wasn't always fun to be around. Dude could get cranky.

As she got to the bottom of the stairs, she noticed Birkhoff was at his computer, lost in thought.

She sighed, shaking her head, and quietly walked into the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

For a long time bachelor, one would think he'd have learned to cook at some point, but apparently not. He was terrible at it.

Luckily for the both of them, Silver's life on the run had forced her to pick up some pretty sweet culinary skills.

She walked back into the living area and set a plate of French toast, eggs and sausage, along with a fresh mug of coffee on the table for him. He was still staring at his computer screen.

"Yo, Birkhoff!"

"Hm?" He shook his head as if to clear away cobwebs.

She rolled her eyes. "Breakfast is ready, boss."

"Oh, yeah. Thanks."

"Sure." She watched him carefully, wondering what he was thinking about. "Any updates on the dynamic duo?"

"Yeah, the Black Box has been online a lot lately. God, I hope they aren't planning to do anything heroic with that information."

She snorted.

"I know, I know. Hopefully it doesn't end with us having to save their asses."

"Hell, if it does, maybe they can stay with us. We never get any excitement around here."

He raised a brow. "Stay? Here? No. Not happening. Trouble follows them wherever they go. Next thing you know, my house will have exploded."

"Dude, don't talk with your mouth full." She sat down at his desk as a notification sounded. The Black Box was back online. "Hey, the new location the Black Box just pinged us? That's not far from here."

Birkhoff sighed. "What the hell are they up to now?"

"Relax, Tony. We're not gonna hurt you."

The man looked back and forth between the pair that had abducted him from the prison.

"Sorry about your jaw."

"Who the hell are you?" Anthony Merrick was getting agitated.

The woman answered. "Listen carefully. Right now you are an escaped convict and we are accomplices in your breakout."

Merrick simply stared.

"The problem is a secret unit of the government is gonna suppress who we are, but you are still going to be the focus of a nationwide manhunt."

"This is a setup." Tony looked near to losing it.

"Well, according to the information we have, you were already set up. But back in that prison you told me you were guilty. Why?"

"If you know I'm not guilty, then why break me out?"

Silver stood behind a very irritated Birkhoff, suppressing a smirk of amusement.

"So, Birkhoff... When you said 'heroic' earlier, I have to say I didn't expect them to go this big so quick. Military prison-break… Awesome."

He sighed loudly. "We're gonna have to go save them at some point, aren't we?"

"Yup."

"Remind me why I keep you around again?"

She kissed his cheek as he rolled his eyes at her. "Please, you'd be lost without me. Now let's go save your old friends."

Nikita and Michael continued to explain the situation to Tony and assure him they would protect his son.

Out of nowhere, Nikita's phone rang.

Confused, she picked it up and held her breath.

Nikita?

She let go of that breath in a mixture of surprise and relief.

"Alex?"

"Hang up." Michael's suspicions were instantly raised. Alex had gone rogue, from both Division and Nikita, and his instincts told him she couldn't be trusted.

"Where are you?"

Michael tried again. "Think. How does she have this number?"

Nikita merely shook her head. "It was our emergency backup, it can't be traced. It's a wiped number." She went back to addressing her former friend, partner, and protégé. "Are you alright?"

No, Nikita you were right. The younger woman sounded distressed. I'm pretty bad. I tried to do it on my own and now I'm somewhere I don't wanna be and it hurts.

Alexandra Udinov sat in her car, using a heat vision monocular to watch Nikita's movements in the hotel room.

You're not using again are you? Because it sounds like—

"Well it was—it was just a little bit. You know, something to get me by."

Despite the fact that she sounded bad to Nikita, she wasn't in any sort of distress at all. Her intentions were to lure the woman out and grab the Black Box.

Where are you?

"Brighton Beach. I was looking into the Russian Mafia to get a lead on Semak."

Alex smirked. She could tell her ruse was working.

Michael reluctantly made a decision. "I'll take Tony, we'll get his son."

"She sounds bad, Michael." Nikita took the phone away from her ear and whispered. She hated to abandon the mission but Alex was in a bad way and needed her help.

"I looked him up. He's in Manhattan. We won't lose any time."

She mouthed a silent thank you to her lover and assured Alex she'd be on her way immediately.

Nikita jogged out to her motorcycle as, unbeknownst to her, Alex watched from her car and prepared to move in on Michael and whoever the other guy was in the hotel room. The older woman hoped she could talk her friend out of her habits and back onto her side. She missed her.

Tires screeched loudly as several SUVs rounded the corner and sped to approach the hotel.

Nikita whipped around to see what was going on just as Alex scrambled out of her car in anger and confusion.

Someone had screwed up her plan.

As the women's eyes locked, Nikita knew she'd been set up. Betrayal and sadness swept through her, along with her survival instincts.

Men with guns got out of the cars and aimed at Nikita. Division.

She crouched behind a car as they fired and Michael exited the hotel room with an automatic as Tony followed silently.

Michael handed his lover a gun and she quickly fired back at the Division agents.

"How much ammo you got?"

"Not enough." Michael would have to have a serious talk with Nikita about Alex if they made it out of this.

"There's no way out!"

Much to everyone's surprise, two white attack drones swooped in from the sky and fired on the Division agents, killing a good number of them.

After blowing two propane tanks, the drones flipped back around and dropped canisters of knock-out gas at the feet of Nikita and Michael.

The two, along with Tony, fell to the ground unconscious.

With Division gone, the few surviving agents having scrambled back into their cars and sped off, two figures in gas masks emerged from somewhere beyond the smoke.

They carefully lifted and carried each of the unconscious heroes to an inconspicuous minivan.

When the smoke cleared and they were done loading their cargo, they took off the masks and cleaned any trace of themselves from the scene and wiped down Nikita and Michael's hotel room.

"See, this is why I hate rescue missions. We have to clean up after them, never mind that this is entirely their fault. At least they're unconscious, even if they are heavy."

"Look at us, getting out and about, stealing away to exotic locales. This is the high life and we are livin' it, boss."

The man shook his head and sighed. They walked back to the van and readied to leave.

"Where to next? Rome? Paris? The belly of a whale?"

"Your sass is unappreciated."

His partner cocked her hip and held out her hand. "Hi pot, I'm kettle. Nice to meet you."

"Get in the damn car."

"My mom warned me about getting into cars with strange men..."

"In!"

She ducked her head to hide her obvious amusement and slid into the front seat.

"Not a word until we get home. Got it?"

As promised, she had kept silent the entire ride. Unfortunately, that hadn't stemmed the flow of sass coming from her side of the car. It emanated from her entire body.

He'd had to take several deep breaths and focus on the road to keep from pushing her out of the car while they were still moving.

When they arrived home, she'd helped him unload and ditch the van, all while giving him looks with varying degrees of impudence.

"Go to your room. Now."

"But—"

"Now. You can come back out when they've woken up. Until then, I need a break from you."

"Fine." Suppressing a smirk, she turned on her heel and went upstairs. "Call me when they're up!"

He sighed. She was going to drive him completely insane one of these days.

Alex had left the scene in a hurry. No way was she going to stick around and deal with those drones.

Dammit, Division had ruined her one shot at the Black Box.

She could already tell Sean Pierce, the man who'd led the assault, was going to be a huge pain in the ass. How dare he interfere with her mission.

Nikita was hard enough to get at on the best of days, and now she'd be on high alert knowing Alex had betrayed her.

As she sped back to Division's compound, she never noticed that several items in her mission bag had been replaced by nearly identical ones. The only difference was the new ones had untraceable tracking chips and listening devices installed in all of them.

They had been swapped out in the chaos caused by the drones. No one had spotted a young, blond haired teen approach her car and make the switch.

John had done just as he'd been instructed so that his boss could keep tabs on Amanda's new pet.

Thanks to listening devices already in place back at Division, his boss had heard Amanda bargain with Alex; the Black Box for a shot at the man who'd ordered the hit on Alex's family.

He thought the young woman was foolish to trust someone so clearly deceitful and manipulative as Amanda, but it mattered little to him in the grand scheme of things. He just wanted things to be over already so he could get back to Silver and go home.

This place sucked. Everyone here lied about everything and there were all these secrets and missions. While the whole spy thing had seemed cool once, the reality was so frustrating. Covert was not his style.

Iz had sent Silver off to befriend Birkhoff and keep Nikita out of her way, while she'd forced him to stay and help her out. He did everything he was told—though not without his trademark amount of snark—because it meant he was one step closer to getting his girlfriend back.

For all Iz was her doppelgänger, she was nothing like her. The older woman was angry, cold, and vengeful. She was driven completely by her hatred of Amanda.

Not that he could blame her. He understood perfectly what it felt like to have the one person you love torn away from you. It was something he'd never entirely gotten over, even though Silver had found her way back to him.

He pushed those memories back as he entered the Manhattan safe house. He'd been stationed here to intercept Sean Pierce for when Amanda inevitably sent out Division squads to try and capture the escaped soldier's son.

All he had to do now was wait.

Michael shot upright, panting.

His head cleared as he took in his surroundings. Instinct set in and he quickly backed up, seeing Tony still knocked out on the floor and Nikita on the bed.

He pulled himself up to her and woke her as silently as he could.

"Hey. Hey."

She jolted awake. "Division! Michael, Alex is with Division."

He beckoned for her to lower her voice. "We're not in Division." They both surveyed the room. "I don't know where we are, but how do you feel? Can you move?"

"Yeah." If they weren't in Division, where could they be? Who took them then? Nikita's mind raced as she struggled off the bed.

"Good. Cuz whoever captured us didn't take my knife."

Footsteps sounded as a man appeared in front of them. He had shoulder length brown hair, something between a beard and scruff, and wore large sunglasses, a suit jacket over a t shirt, jeans and converse. He was eating chips as he came into view.

"It wasn't a capture, dingleberry, it was a rescue."

Michael lunged at him, putting him in a choke hold.

"Hey! I just saved your life, man!"

"What is this, a safe house?"

"It's my house." He grunted as Michael dragged him around. "Look around you. Does this look like Division? You said it yourself, I left, I'm out."

Nikita peered suspiciously at him, wanting to believe he wasn't still Division. She'd always had a soft spot for him. "Michael, check his tracker."

Birkhoff flailed out of Michael's grasp before he could. "Get off me, man!" He lifted his shirt and pointed to the linear scar on his abdomen. "Removed! Duh!"

His two old friends looked significantly less suspicious of him now, though that did nothing to temper his annoyance with them.

"Did you seriously think I was gonna stay down on the farm after I decrypted Percy's Black Box?" He removed his sunglasses in a huff. "Amanda would have had my ass."

Nikita was alarmed. "What do you mean, Amanda?"

God, those two were so in the dark. "She's queen bee now. They're keeping Percy on ice."

Michael's face showed clear displeasure as Nikita still stared in shock.

Birkhoff rolled his eyes. "God, you know, I forgot how dense you guys can be. You're gonna make me regret doing this." He poured himself a drink in sheer annoyance.

He silently cursed Silver for talking him into this rescue. They'd been awake all of a few seconds and they were already on his last nerve.

"Why are you helping us anyway?" Michael was confused. He could clearly tell his old friend's patience was already wearing thin. Was it sentiment, or did Birkhoff have something else in mind? "And how? Those attack drones were—"

"Advanced? Next level? Illegal? Expensive?" He looked over at them. "Um, yeah. But see, that's ok, because I have money. Lots and lots of money. Money that I would like to keep. A dream currently being threatened by you."

"Listen, Birkhoff, we don't—"

He wasn't finished. "See you guys just always thought I was the little computer geek." He mimicked keyboard tapping. "'I'm in!' You never realized that I was the balls. Before Division got their claws into me, I was siphoning bank accounts from all over the world."

It hit Michael then how Birkhoff had found them and he rolled his eyes. "You planted a tracker in the Black Box and that's how you found us."

Although slightly offended at the thought of him doing something so base, Birkhoff chuckled. "It wasn't a tracker. It was a line of code I wrote in when I was decrypting the box. It's supposed to ping me with its location whenever it went online..."

Tony silently walked into the room, even more confused than he was back at the hotel.

That's when Birkhoff's annoyance really peaked. He pointed at the escaped soldier. "... and lately it's been online a lot."

"What in the hell is going on?"

Nikita felt bad for him. "We're working on it."

"You guys wanna bring heat down on yourselves, that's fine. I can't afford it. I got lots to lose." The thought of losing all that money, and his newly found freedom, made Birkhoff shudder. "So you are gonna make it clear to Division that we are not working together. And that I'm not into these Black Box shenanigans."

Both Michael and Nikita instantly thought the same thing and had to suppress their amusement.

"So you seriously rescued us so that we could tell Division that you're not working with us?"

He was slightly put off by Michael's tone. "They don't know who rescued you, ok?"

Nikita smiled. "Oh Nerd, you're lonely."

"What?"

"You're lonely, and you have no friends. And you missed us, so you saved us. Thank you." She hugged her old friend, glad to know he was on their side.

He did not return the hug. "Hate to break it to you guys but there is like no one misses you less than me. Ok?"

"Oh my god, Birkhoff!" An exasperated voice came from the top of the stairs.

Everyone turned, surprised to see a young girl headed their way.

"Dude, I thought I told you to call me when they woke up!" She shot him a dirty look before turning to their guests and smiling. "You must be Michael and Nikita, I have heard so much about you. I hope Birkhoff wasn't too abrasive, but he's like that on the best of days so..."

She grabbed their hands as both stared in shock. This young woman was the spitting image of Percy's daughter. But she was dead. So who was this girl?

As if she'd heard that last bit, she introduced herself. "I'm Silver. So glad you could stay with us, I can't wait to get to see you two in action!"

"What—no, they are not staying with us."

"Oh my god, Birkhoff, shut up. We never get any guests. You are going to let me enjoy this."

Michael did a double take. "Us? We?"

"Are you two...?"

Silver looked at the couple in momentary confusion. Then she chuckled. "Oh, no. We're not..." She shook her head. "Not that he's not attractive, but I've got a boyfriend. I mean if I was single, I'd totally tap that, but alas, I am not."

The sound of Birkhoff choking on his energy drink rang through the house. "What is wrong with you?!"

Nikita and Michael exchanged looks and tried desperately to hold in their laughter.

"Oh now, don't get all worked up. It's bad for your health."

He shot her a look as he cleaned up his spilled drink. "You're bad for my health."

"In more ways than you could ever possibly understand." A shadow passed over her face before she smirked. "But don't worry, I still love you."

"Whatever." He shook his head and pretended he hadn't seen her mood change. The young girl was like that sometimes. He didn't know what haunted her and part of him didn't want to. He had grown too attached to the girl as it was. He didn't need her tragic backstory causing them to grow any closer. It was safer that way.

For both of them.