In the Still of the Night

Chapter Four: I'll Be Seeing You

Right after she left Steve in the main atrium of the museum, Vera headed back to her office to hand in that file she was supposed to give to her boss. Back to the old grind, I suppose, she thought, but her mind couldn't help but keep drifting back to Steve and the conversation they had just had. He was going to come back...soon this time, hopefully...And Vera was excited about seeing him again. It was about time for her to start going out again, after what had happened with...

No, she told herself firmly, I'm not going to think about that now. It's time for me to move on.

So she ploughed through the rest of her day with much more confidence and optimism than she had at the start of the day, her mind occasionally drifting off and imagining what will happen when she sees Steve again. By the end of the day she was a little tired, and found herself sitting at her desk yet again poring over a yellowing document that dated back to World War II. She yawned, thinking about her soft, warm bed, wishing for the day to be over so that she could be another day closer to seeing Steve again...

"Um...Miss- Vera?"

Was the intern ever going to give her a moment's peace?

"What is it, Michael?" she asked, dipping her head forward and rubbing her temples.

"It's just...well..."

Vera looked up from her desk. Michael was standing in the doorway, looking a little frazzled. He had no clipboard in his hand, his dark hair was unkempt, and he had a distracted look in his eye. That's odd, Vera thought. Usually he's a little more put-together than he is now...

"Um...I was assigned by Mrs. Greer - I-I mean, Alice - to find a historical record for her using the computer archives, and I, um, found something."

Vera was a little confused. "Found something?"

"Yes, um...I think...I think someone tried hacking the archives."

Vera blinked. "Wait...someone tried hacking the archives? The Smithsonian archives?" she asked incredulously.

"I think so, but I'm not sure," said Michael nervously, playing with his shirt sleeve.

"Did you tell Alice about this?"

Michael gave a nervous sideways glance. "Well...no. I thought you should know about this first since archives are your main department, pretty much."

"Yeah...I guess that was the right call," she reasoned. She realized this could just be nothing, probably a mistake that Michael made and he was overreacting about it. But she might as well be absolutely sure that there's no issue before she assumed everything was fine. "Alright, take me down to the archives and show me what you found."

"Okay."

Michael led her downstairs to the archive computer lab, which at this hour was nearly empty, thankfully. Vera had a feeling that the less people knew about this alleged hacker, the better. Michael guided her over to the main archival computer and sat her down in front of it. He leaned over the keyboard and started typing a few things, bringing up some files and documents, and then settled on one, unnamed file.

"I stumbled upon this file because I was searching for files in the archives that were recently accessed," Michael explained. "This one came up and I didn't know what it was since it's unnamed, so I clicked on it and all that came up was this."

He tried opening the file and a dialog box popped up, demanding a password.

"I tried using my staff password but it wouldn't go through," continued Michael. "I thought that was odd, so I started looking into its properties..."

He brought up another dialog box, this one displaying the properties of the file.

"It was accessed within the past twenty-four hours. By someone with a valid staff ID and password."

"Wait," interjected Vera, "so someone who works here at the Smithsonian accessed it?"

"That's what I thought, and I didn't think that was suspicious at first, but I looked at who that staff person was. Dennis Crichton."

"Dennis Crichton..." Vera repeated under her breath. "Don't think I've heard of him."

"That's because he doesn't exist."

Michael brought up a search box for museum staff and searched the name. It came up with no results.

"But..." stammered Vera, staring at the search results (or lack thereof). She tore her eyes away from the screen to look at Michael. "If...If this person didn't exist then how is their ID and password valid?"

"They must be good at tricking the system," Michael said. "That's my guess. But there's no reason for a staff member to create a fake username and password unless they're trying to access information that's beyond their department."

"Or they don't work for us," Vera added softly, and Michael nodded.

"So you agree there's something fishy about this?" implored Michael.

"Yeah, I really do," said Vera carefully as she looked at the information on the screen. "Don't worry Michael, you did the right thing by coming to me."

Michael breathed a sigh of relief. "Good, because I was afraid I was just overreacting."

That's what I thought at first too, thought Vera, and I wish I was wrong.

"Michael...I think it would be best if we kept this under wraps," said Vera quietly, looking around at the few other staff members who were working at the other computers. "Now I'm no expert on computer stuff like this so I don't know what more I can do here, but if you find anything else out - anything - let me know, okay?"

"Okay," agreed Michael. "Don't worry, I'll keep it between us."

"Good," said Vera, glad she could trust Michael. "Do you think you could look into this a little more? I mean tomorrow, of course. It's nearly closing."

"Yeah sure," Michael said confidently. "I was going to look into it more anyway but I wanted to get another person's opinion before I continued investigating it."

Investigating...It sounds like we're a couple of detectives, Vera thought dryly to herself. "Okay good. But do not let this interfere with your intern duties, alright? If your performance starts to slip then your superiors are going to start asking questions, mostly questions directed toward me since you're in my department..."

"I won't let it be a problem," said Michael hastily. "I promise."

"Good. I'll see you tomorrow morning then." Vera stood up and started heading to the door, but another question was bugging her. She went back over to Michael and softly asked, "By the way, do you have any idea what that protected file was? Or where it came from?"

Michael shook his head. "All I know is that it comes from somewhere within the Smithsonian archives. I'll look into that more, too."

Vera exhaled, internally wishing this whole thing wasn't shrouded in secrecy. "Alright. Thanks, Michael."

As she left the computer room, Vera had a million more questions in her mind that she knew neither she nor Michael would be able to answer. But her mind kept asking them anyway. Why would someone try to hack into a museum's archives? Vera could understand someone hacking into their bank accounts or financial records, but why the historical archives? And who was the person that did this? Were they by themselves, or did they work for some organization? Was it a rival museum, maybe? Or a government agency? With each step she took home, Vera had a distinct feeling in the pit of her stomach that this wasn't going to be some little issue that will be solved in a day or two. Something about this situation didn't sit well with her and she hoped they would get it all figured out soon.

Natasha had no idea what time of night it was, but she knew that she was close to finding out the identity of the person who had hacked the SHIELD archives. This must be what Stark feels like when he's working on a new project, she thought bitterly as she downed yet another mug of coffee, blinking profusely to keep her eyes focused on the dim screen.

Since calling Coulson earlier that day, she had found out pretty much only one thing: that this hacker was good at what they did. They made it practically impossible for them to be traced, but the "practically" part of that statement was where Natasha came in. After many hours of trying to get information about the hacker, Natasha finally accessed some important information about the hacker: their location.

"Let's see where you work your magic," Natasha mumbled to herself as she brought up the data. It was an American address (Thank God, Natasha thought, someone local for once) and Natasha saw that the city listed was Washington, D.C. And when she looked up the address, it wasn't some home or business: it was a museum. The Smithsonian Museum, as a matter of fact. How interesting.

Natasha reclined back in her chair. Well, she thought as she memorized the address and then closed her laptop, looks like I'm going to be paying the good ol' Capitol of America another visit.