A/N: So, this is it! I am finally doing a multi-chapter fic. I'm not sure how the continuity and stuff is gonna go but I'll try and update it pretty regularly, unless everyone hates it haha. Anyway, sorry if it starts off a little slow but it'll get more interesting, promise. Enjoy x
"Damn." An exasperated Piper tossed her head back and groaned as her computer yet again failed to provide her with any further information on Alex Vause, rather it simply mirrored what the papers in the case file said:
Age: Believed to be 23+
DOB: Unknown
Gender: Female
Appearance: Unknown
Criminal Activity: Drug ring involvement {precise role unknown}
Piper frowned. This was hopeless; she'd never seen a case file with such bare bones of information, and even then, her strenuous searches of the FBI's mainframe database were throwing up nothing to help her either, and that was practically unheard of. Something felt so wrong here. Defeated for the time being, Piper got up and trudged down the hall to the coffee machine, where, thank goodness, there was only one other person. Hallelujah indeed.
"Hey, Piper," her coworker, Lucy, greeted the blonde, who nodded hello as she began to fill her mug with coffee whilst noticing that Lucy's eyes were a little bit wide. "Uh, could you just um, come with me for a second? It'll be real quick, promise." Before Piper could retaliate and stress the importance of her current workload, Lucy had dragged her into the adjacent toilets and was darting around to check that they were alone, which they were. Lucy let out a deep breath and steadied herself. "Okay, I'm gonna tell you this once, and only once. You didn't hear anything from me." Piper nodded dumbly, baffled by the sudden intensity. "I know we're not meant to discuss any of this stuff outside of general meetings, but you need to hear this." Piper felt queasy. "Richard has blocked access to loads of files in the database, ones that relate to your new case, apparently." She whispered quickly. "No employees can see anything relating to the person you're investigating, apart from some of the head guys down in tech and Richard himself, obviously. He said that if he can't have you how he wants you, he'll have you fired instead, and soon, Piper."
Piper's jaw was practically on the floor and it took her a further twenty seconds to try and process the information that had just spewed uncontrollably out of Lucy's mouth. "How…. How the hell do you know this?" She eventually managed in a weak voice. Lucy rolled her eyes and reminded Piper how much of a gossip Richard's PA was, before asking her timidly what she planned to do. "I'll tell you what I'm going to fucking do, Lucy." Piper's face was absolutely thunderous. "I'm going to crack this fucking case, and shut the whole fucking thing down like it's the easiest fucking thing I have ever done." And with that, Piper stormed out of the toilets, angrily swiping up her lukewarm coffee cup as she powerfully strode down the corridor and into the elevator. "Basement." She flatly instructed the voice operation system.
The FBI basement was one of the most exciting rooms in the world. Piper always imagined that this was what the real world thought that being a spy was all about, but unfortunately, she didn't descend into the basement very often. In fact, it was like Christmas: the most exciting thing ever and bursting at the seams with shiny new toys, but only occurring once a year, (well, maybe a little bit more frequently than that, but not regularly enough for her liking.) The basement housed the weaponry, gadgets, and also, the most intelligent people in the FBI, in Piper's opinion. There were scatterings of scientists and technicians wearing labcoats and thick glasses, their hands tirelessly mending, creating, and adjusting. There were sounds of gadgets undergoing testing, scientists observing and keyboards furiously tapping. Then, at the far end of the basement resided the FBI's supercomputer, rarely to be seen without its proud owner and creator, Sam.
Piper's heels clicked unwaveringly on the floor and she approached Sam's chair, wrenching it round when she reached it. "Sammy." She greeted him, nodding politely.
"Hey bitch." Sam's casual reply was comical because it was the last thing you would expect from an adorable, short, half Chinese guy wearing huge, boxy glasses. Typically, Sam was a nerd, but Piper was a bit of a dork deep down, so actually they got along ridiculously well both in and out of work. It was safe to say that Sam was probably one of Piper's best friends; impossibly intelligent, hilarious, and, unsurprisingly, the head of tech at the FBI. And it was due to these facts that Piper had no qualms over enlisting his help with her current 'technical issues.'
"I have a problem." She said bluntly. "You need to fix it."
Sam raised an eyebrow and smiled curiously. Piper chuckled because she knew exactly what Sam was going to say, it was the same question every single time. He looked up at her and smiled sweetly. "If I do it, can I-"
"No, Sammy." Piper immediately interjected. "You are not allowed to tag along next time I go undercover and you know that. Sorry." Piper always felt a little pang of remorse when she had to reject poor Sam, but undercover situations were for trained agents, and in the same way that her prospects of fixing a computer were crappy, Sam wouldn't stand a chance undercover. Anyway, even if Piper had wanted to bring her little techie along on her next excursion, it was otally against about a million policies and organisational agreements, and it wasn't as if she was in any shit with Richard already. No, none at all. But here was Sam, giving her puppy dog eyes, and so Piper's heart wrenched and she softened a fraction, (her self control skills were lacking), and she told Sam that he could be her getaway driver should she ever need one. Thus far, she hadn't needed on, but this glimmer of hope would fuel his happiness until the next time she asked for a favour, at least.
"I'm listening…" Sam linked his hands together and titled his head upwards, and Piper chuckled because he looked like a low-budget Hollywood villain, but her mind instantaneously snapped back to the task at hand.
"Can Richard see which records, files, profiles and shit I've viewed on my employee computer account?" Sam nodded in response to her question, and proceeded to blurt out some technical explanation involving jargon that Piper could not, and would not ever understand, so eventually she raised a hand to cease his rambling. "Fine. In that case, I need you to find me a way to view all everything in the database that relates to my current case, because that dick Richard has blocked me from all of it. He wants me to bomb on this operation so that he can fire me for refusing to have sex with him, so if you could sort something out for me, that would be fucking brilliant thanks." Piper's lack of pauses served only to convey her anger and desperation further, and Sam was simply staring at her in pure shock.
He scratched his head and exhaled. "That man is a class A douchebag." He shook his head before swiveling his chair back round so that he was facing the ridiculously large supercomputer, aka his baby. Piper looked on as her friend got to work, fingers avidly tapping and clicking, and occasionally pausing for thought as the cogs in his unparalleled mind turned. The job was actually done within about five minutes, and Sam then explained to Piper, (in simplistic terms, as she had put it), that he had set her up a maintenance account that could be easily used to view any file she wanted at any time without Richard knowing who the owner was; it would just look like a computer-operated random database sweep.
"Genius…" Piper slowly spoke what was on her mind.
"I know I am." Sam jokingly fired back as he stretched his arms out above his head and yawned lazily before handing Piper a scrappy bit of Paper. "Username and password. Write them down elsewhere and then shred that." He tapped his nose.
"I owe you a drink for this, Sammy, thanks." Piper fist bumped him.
"Obviously not anytime soon though," Sam mockingly chided, "because it looks like you'll be spending alllllll your spare time stalking your new criminal." Piper scrunched up her features and told him that she actually had much better things to be doing in her spare time, thank you very much, to which Sam snorted.
"Oh please." He waved his hand dismissively, "It's not like you're having any sex to keep you busy, so I can't see what else you'd have on your agenda to occupy yourself." Piper gritted her teeth and shook her head at him, so fucking cheeky. She clucked her tongue and punched his arm before turning once again to walk away, but then sighed gloomily in the elevator as she moped over how Sam had, annoyingly, been totally right. But who could blame her after having to periodically dodge so many of Richard's disgusting advances? Piper wasn't even mildly interested in romance right now; she did not have time for men and their and their attitudes and their dicks.
The only person that Piper was interested in right now was Alex Vause, whoever the hell she was.