Chapter 27

Dean had illegally borrowed a 1973 Plymouth Barracuda for the trip. I sat in the cramped rear seat, looking at the map. Fifteen hundred miles. Even going over the speed limit, which I was pretty darned sure we'd be doing, it was going to take nearly twenty hours to get to Chicago.

"Two days," Dean was saying to Sam as they got into the car from opposite sides. "We'll check the building out the night we get into Chicago."

"Doesn't leave us a lot of time," Sam said, glancing over the back of the leather-upholstered seat at me. "What's about halfway?"

"Bismarck," I told him, looking back at the map. "North Dakota."

"No outstandings there?" Dean quipped and Sam scowled at him. "C'mon, Sammy, lighten up."

He pushed a tape into the deck and reversed out to the ominous chimes of 'Hell's Bells', making Sam's scowl deeper and darker.

Spread over the back seat beside me, I had the contents of my two folders, plus a bunch of hastily photocopied and reduced pages from a book Monty had given Lauren the previous evening. They were barely legible and it was just as well I don't get car-sick when reading because by the time we'd gotten through Glacier National Park on the US-2 and hit some relatively straight stretches of road, my eyes were watering. Beautiful, awe-inspiring country but so many bends.

The book was from Rufus' collection. It was a personal account of a man's trip through northern Turkey and what had gotten Lauren really, really excited was the publisher, of all things. The front cover had been stamped with a weird-looking star, the same one we'd seen before, and under it was the name, Men of Letters. That was it, no subsidiary of any other company, nothing other than those three words. I'd looked a question at her, and she'd shaken her head, pushing the copies of the pages at me and telling me that she'd explain it all when we got back. In the words of Peppy La Pew, intriguing, non? Non. Annoying.

In any case, the account was pretty straightforward, a travelogue without much flowery description and of course, no pictures, until the guy got to a valley in what seemed to the southern edge of the Pontides Mountains. Then it got kind of hinky.

"Listen to this," I said to Sam, shifting to the middle of the seat and shoving the rest of the papers to one side. I started to read.

"The valley was very deep, the cliffs rising possibly eight or nine hundred feet and allowing only a small portion of sunlight to reach the flat valley floor, yet every kind of herb and flower and tree grew here, in great abundance. As I walked through the veritable garden, I saw a man, tending the plants and I stopped and hailed him."

"Putting me to sleep here," Dean commented, looking at the stereo. Sam had turned the volume down. I could see that Dean was itching to put it back up again and I read faster.

"He was very tall, and had long hair, reaching below his hips. His face was smooth and unlined, like that of a youth, but there was a vast and terrible knowledge in his eyes."

"What is this?" Dean interrupted again.

"Shut up," Sam said, half-turned, his arm resting on the back of the seat. "Keep going."

"He told me that I had found the Garden – oooh, capital 'g' – and that his name was Sariel. He was the Keeper of the Word."

I paused, almost unconsciously, waiting for Dean to interject again but this time he didn't.

"The man told me he was an angel of the Lord, and that he guarded the Word. When I asked what the Word was, he replied that the Word was the key to mankind's release from the powers of Heaven and Hell."

"Angel and Demon tablets?" Sam looked at his brother. I couldn't see Dean's expression but the shrug of one shoulder was eloquent enough.

"He led me to a stream where a great tree bowed its branches over the water. In the centre of the tree, there were three stones, each carved with symbols that hurt my eyes to look at," I continued. "Each stone glowed faintly with a different light and I backed away in awe and fear. The angel told me that no mortal or immortal could read the Word, save the chosen prophet."

"Okay, so?"

"There's a lot of waffling about the Garden and the angel, but at the end, there's another section by a different writer," I told him. "This account was delivered to the order's stronghold in Jerusalem, in the year of our Lord, 924."

"The order?"

"Men of Letters?" I asked, turning back to the front cover. "Have you heard of them?"

Dean shook his head and Sam did the same after a moment's thought. "This is what Lauren was so excited about?"

"She mentioned them before, remember? When Bobby found the file that gave the map of the door out of Purgatory."

Sam's forehead creased up. "Give me the laptop," he said and I looked around, passing it to him. He opened it and Dean glanced at him.

"You think there's gonna be some kind of mention of some hinky ancient society on that?"

"Never know," Sam said distractedly. Dean's eyes met mine in the rear-view mirror.

"That book have anything to say about what happened to the Word of God tablets?"

"No," I told him, a little regretfully. "And I don't think the writers knew about them, at least not of all of them when they were writing the episodes," I added, thinking about the way everything had been planned. Or rather, not planned. "The one thing everyone seems clear on, though, is that only a prophet can read them."

I caught a glimpse of his brows drawing together.

"We've looked for Chuck for three years now," he half-growled. "No one's seen or heard from him."

Thinking about what happened to Chuck at the end of season five, I wondered if that had been accurate. Had he been God, guiding the Winchesters in that befuddled and gentle way of his? He hadn't been that much help. Or had he been something else entirely? I got the feeling we weren't going to see him again. Unfortunately. I really had liked Chuck.

"Alright, look," Sam said, interrupting my thoughts of the diffident prophet. "I got two hits. One refers to the publishing company by the same name, specialising in esoteric knowledge books from 1919 to 1950. The other is a footnote reference to a secret order of scholars that were rumoured to have collected information on the occult and mythology – for the last nine hundred years."

"This getting us anywhere?" Dean asked, shooting a sideways look at his brother. "I mean, wow, so interesting, but any payoff here?"

"No." Sam clicked the keys a bit more, reading as he typed. Then he shook his head. "This isn't even sure if it's real, not some fantasised version of the more popular secret societies."

"Well, we got another six hundred miles to Bismarck," Dean said, as a sign flashed by on the highway. "And tomorrow another seven hundred miles to Chicago where we have to convince some chick to break into her boss' office and find out what the hell Dick is doing. How 'bout we concentrate on getting that sorted out?"

Nodding, Sam closed the laptop and passed it back to me. I could understand Dean's worries. The one thing I was pretty sure about, now that I was here and back and all that, was that Charlie Bradbury, the real Charlie Bradbury, was not going to be a bubble-headed, endlessly cheerful Felicia Day.

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

The motel was about the usual standard for the Winchesters but Dean got us a family room because it had a couple of small (tiny) bedrooms as well as the usual living area, bath and kitchenette. Sam looked around, his worried look disappearing as he realised that someone had been smart enough to put the bath between the bedrooms, thus ensuring a certain level of aural privacy for both parties. I don't know what he was worried about, it wasn't like either of us were screamers.

"So," Dean said, dumping the gear bag on the floor with a clanking thump and taking his duffle to the bedroom closest to the front door. "What do we know about this chick?"

"Um," I said, waving a hand vaguely around. "She's a hacker, pretty elite. She's working for Roman in his IT department and he asks her to crack Frank's drive."

Sam pulled out the laptop and set it on the table, opening it up. He typed in a search query. "There's a million Charlie Bradbury's out there," he said with a frown. "Got anything to narrow it down?"

I shook my head. "That's an alias anyway."

"And she gets into Frank's drive and sees his monster files?" Dean came out of the bedroom and grabbed the two six packs he'd put on the counter, taking them to the fridge.

"Yeah, she doesn't believe it, at first," I told him. "But she sees her manager being eaten by a levi and that convinces her."

"So she runs."

"And you guys find her apartment," I confirmed. Sam looked at me.

"If she's under an alias, and all we had to go on was a web-cam capture, how'd we find her apartment?"

"I don't know," I muttered crossly. "The writer didn't give those details."

"Lauren's got the company's HR files," Dean said, pulling out three beers and passing one to Sam and one to me. "The address'll be there."

"Alright," Sam said, opening his beer. "What else?"

"Well, in the episode, she was a total fandom geek," I said, sitting down at the table and trying to remember. "Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Trek…I don't know if that's going to be true here, it was…kind of cutesy for a hacker."

Dean made a face. "Kind of?"

"Yeah."

"Not exactly a help whether it's true or not," Sam pointed out.

"An' she's a lesbian?" Dean leaned back against the protruding end of the l-shaped kitchenette counter and looked at me. "That's for sure?"

"No," I admitted. "Nothing's for sure, but that was in the script. She said the security guard she had to get past wasn't her type."

"Well, that doesn't mean –"

"Not her gender type," I clarified. "In the episode, you and Sam are on comms with her and you walk her through chatting him up."

Sam's beer sprayed out of his nose and he started coughing violently. Dean looked at him sourly without making a move to pat him on the back or help him get the beer out of his airways.

"Hilarious." He looked back at me, brows drawing down. "We sent this chick into the building on her own?"

I gave him an impatient look. "They know what you and Sam look like. They've been you. And the security in that building will certainly have facial recognition software, one thing that's been consistent between the show and this world is Roman's love of technology."

"So where'd we come by this surveillance van, anyway?" he asked, his gaze shifting to one side.

"Another detail that no one mentioned." I sighed. The writer had some good ideas, but wasn't big on detail. "Don't you know anyone who might be able to help?"

"Everyone we knew is dead, pretty much," Sam wheezed, wiping his eyes and his nose on his sleeve. "We'll have to steal something," he added, looking at his brother.

"Mmm," Dean said, finishing the beer and tossing the bottle in the trash can behind him. "Any ideas of where we could lift something like that?"

Sam turned back to the laptop and started typing. A moment later, he smiled. "We got four big security companies in the greater Chicago area," he said. "All of them contract services on a daily, weekly or annual basis."

Dean nodded. "I'm gonna grab us something to eat," he said, sweeping his hand over the counter and collecting the car and room keys. "See if you can get some detail on the easiest one to hit."

"No burgers," Sam warned him, looking over the top of the laptop screen. "Nothing pre-packaged."

Turning around, Dean snapped. "Burgers aren't pre-packaged."

"Make sure you watch them cook them then," Sam retorted. "And get some fruit. And salad."

The door to the motel room slammed shut and Sam grinned to himself as he started to look at the companies in more detail.

"Maybe Lauren should've come along, instead of me," I said, after a moment of contemplating how much use I was really likely to be on this trip. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't wringing my hands and feeling like the token girl on the ride-along, but it did occur to me that I didn't have any special skills, knowledge or experience to add on this particular trip.

"What? Why?" Sam looked up in surprise.

"Oh, well, you know, she's going to be anyone's type, no matter what gender," I said vaguely. "And she's more use in a fight."

"Not going to be fighting," Sam said firmly.

"You know what I mean."

"No," he said, pushing the laptop aside and leaning on the table. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," I said, getting up and taking my empty bottle and his to the trash can. I turned around and looked at him. "How're you and Lauren going?"

Sam grinned, unconsciously, I think, looking away. "Good."

They were both private people, I thought, not in the same way that Dean was, lock and key and chain private, but neither would just blurt out their feelings. They had to be asked. And coaxed. And cajoled into talking.

"Did you tell Lauren about…you know, everything?"

The grin vanished and his gaze dropped to the table. "No. Not really. Not yet."

"Why?"

You know, at the time, I didn't even know why I was pressing him on it. Something I'd heard or read, sometime in the last week. Something that was bubbling away in my subconscious. I don't know. All I knew was that under Sam's easy-going smiles and his obvious delight in being with Lauren, and his readiness to take on the Leviathan, there was something else…waiting for him. And I didn't want that something else to take him by surprise. Or tear him apart from the inside when he wasn't looking.

Catching the corner of his lower lip in between his teeth, he shrugged. "It's a long story."

"And you don't want her to think there's –"

He looked up. "Anything wrong with me? Yeah, that too."

"She won't," I said. "I mean, the usual things, like you snore and –"

"Ha ha," he snorted, turning to look at me, the half-smile on his mouth only. "Terry, don't tell her –"

"I wouldn't," I assured him. "But you have to. Sometime."

"Sometime," he repeated. "What I did, the things I've done –"

I got a flood of images then, memories, his and mine, from the show, from his mind. Ruby. The demons, tied to a chair in a basement. Samhain and Alastair. Dean. Lilith.

I nodded. "You have to tell her, Sam," I said slowly, not sure why that seemed so important. "You have to tell someone, out loud, admit to it and accept it and forgive yourself."

"I can't." He sounded angry and I turned around and looked at him.

"Yeah, you can," I told him. "Some of those things were forced onto you, some of them you chose to do. You're the only one who can go through those memories and get an understanding of which was which."

"What difference does it make – now?!"

"It makes a difference to who you are, inside," I told him. My throat and chest tightened unbearably for a second, as if I was going to burst into tears, and I couldn't think why it felt so incredibly urgent – or so unbelievably important. "You're not the same guy who loved Jess, are you, Sam?"

He pushed his chair back and got to his feet, his expression thunderous. "No, but I mean, who is the same, five years later, ten years later, even in a normal life?"

"That sounds like an excuse."

"Maybe it is," he said. "I could lose her by telling her the truth."

"You'll certainly lose her if you don't," I said, not sure where the conviction for that came from, but as sure of it as I'd been of anything in my life. "You hated that you didn't tell Jess the truth."

"That was –" he stopped himself and looked away. It wasn't different, and he knew it.

"I think she can forgive anything, Sam, if you can find a way to do that too," I said. "It's done, you can't go back and change it or make it different, but understanding it, knowing it's a part of you and not letting it fester and become infected…"

"A part of me," he said bleakly, slumping down onto the chair.

"Look, I think the capacity is there in everyone," I said, sitting down across from him. "Most people get through their lives with no temptation and no glory, but that doesn't mean they've lived well or even lived at all. You made choices based on your emotions – rage, fear, wanting revenge – that's all."

"I gave in to the Dark Side of the Force, you mean," he said, not smiling.

"I guess, but it doesn't mean that's all you are or all you'll be," I said, not wanting to get involved in Star Wars metaphors right now. "You could be like Schindler."

I don't know what it is about movie references. Is it just that they're easier? Provide an instant snapshot of a concept and that's why they fall out of the mouth so quickly? Sam ran his hands through his hair, eyes half-closed as he let that one work its way through. At least it was a good bet he'd seen the darned movie.

"You're talking about atonement."

"I suppose I am," I said. "We talked about this before."

"Yeah, but –"

"You know that bumper sticker, Sam? This is the first day of the rest of your life?"

His nose wrinkled up at me. "Yeah."

"Until you're clear on everything that happened right to this moment, that first day never comes."

"Are you moonlighting as Dr Phil or something, Terry?"

I made a face at him. "I don't even know where this is coming from."

But that wasn't true anymore. I suddenly did know where it was coming from. It was coming from watching the episodes of the show I'd missed while I was here that had carried the characters around and around and around in circles because they'd never dealt with the god-awful mess their lives had become. I didn't think he really wanted to hear that.

We both turned when we heard the V8 engine coming up the street.

"Sam, just – please – think about it, okay?" I said, looking back at him. "I wouldn't be pushing you so hard on this if I didn't think it was vital."

He gave me a sceptical look. "Or if you weren't so nervous about nailing Dean with this stuff too."

I huffed at him then shrugged. "Well, yeah, there's that too."

That was going to be a whole new level of scary, I thought. I had absolutely zero ideas on how to raise it even.

The engine got louder and stopped and then the key was turning in the door and I got up to help bring in the bags that seemed to be festooned from Dean as he pulled the key from the door.

"What'd you buy?"

"Everything," he said, throwing a glare at his brother.

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

Chicago was windy when we arrived. Not what you'd call a big surprise.

"Alright, apartment 3C," Dean said, pulling into the kerb. "We're gonna be one floor down."

I nodded and grabbed my bag, slithering awkwardly out of the rear seat as Sam got out and moved the bucket seat forward.

"You yell your head off if she's already one of them," Dean reminded me again, getting out his side and glancing up at the building's street-facing windows.

"I got it."

Hurrying across the sidewalk and up the short flight of steps to the front door before he could repeat the instructions again, I jammed my finger on the buzzer for 3C. There was a short wait and I wondered if we'd missed her, if she'd finished Frank's drive, handed it over and disappeared.

"Yeah?"

The voice, coming out of the cheap, tinny-sounding speaker, made me jump. I swallowed the flutter of nervous, leaping butterflies in my stomach and hit the button for the intercom.

"Uh, Ms Bradbury? This is Francine, from Ralph Wyman's department? I have a list of instructions for you from Mr Roman," I said, hoping that the speaker's poor quality would cover the anxious tics in my voice.

"Oh, um…yeah, come up," the voice said, and the buzzer sounded along with a distinctive click of the lock being released on the front door. I pushed it open and left a wad of paper stuck in the mortise so that the Winchesters could follow.

Climbing the steps two at a time, I clutched a plain office envelope, bulky with all the hard information we'd been able to find on the Leviathans and what Lauren had been able to find on the recent changes to Dick Roman's personality. I was hoping it would serve as an introduction less awkward than 'hi, I know this is hard to believe but…'

As I rounded the last landing, I slowed down, telling myself that my heart was pounding from the rapid ascent up the stairs, that it was a just a person I was about to confront – although she could've been copied, despite what Roman had said in the episode, it could be a levi waiting there in Charlie's apartment – and I had no reason to be freaking out.

I stopped in front of the door and lifted my hand, holding it poised there for a long moment then finally knocking on the door.

"Come in, it's open," a female voice came from inside the room, highish and sounding reasonably calm, I thought. Turning the doorknob, I pushed open the door –

SPLAT!

The stream of liquid hit me in the face, and I guess it was instinct that made me swing the envelope around behind my back as my eyes squeezed shut and I took a staggering step, completely blinded, into the room.

"Monster!"

"NO!" I sputtered, spitting out the foul-tasting stuff that was running into my mouth. "No, I'm not!"

I wiped my free hand over my face, tried rubbing at it with my sleeve, which I didn't realise was just as soaked, and finally realised that just standing still would give my assailant a chance to see that whatever she'd sprayed me with, it wasn't burning my skin to ashes.

"See? Not burning," I said, to hurry the process along.

There was an indistinct muttering from ahead and just to the left of me. Then I felt another assault, this time a shower of something light and grainy, peppering my face and hair. Squirted and granuled, I thought, trying to brush the stuff off my eyelashes. Salt. It came to me a second later as I felt it begin to melt into the liquid still on me. Perfect.

"Not a monster, seriously," I told her, my eyes screwed shut. Talk about defenceless! She could have pulled out a gun and shot me where I stood and I wouldn't have had any idea.

"Who the hell are you then?"

"A friend," I said. I was starting to shiver, the apartment didn't seem to have any heat, or perhaps it was because I was standing in an open doorway. "Are you done throwing stuff at me?"

"Maybe."

I eased my arm from behind my back and waved the envelope. "Look, I really am a friend. This explains it – sort of."

I felt her take the envelope and heard the end being ripped open.

"Uh, do you have a towel? Or a shower?" I said, using both hands to try and uncongeal my eyes.

"In a minute," she said, and I heard the rustle of papers.

It was longer than a minute, but I didn't argue further. Looking at it from her perspective, it seemed reasonable to me to take these kinds of precautions. I wondered irrelevantly how Dean would have taken the attack. Probably would've missed him entirely, I thought, he'd have ducked or dodged and convinced her some other way.

"So," she said, and I felt a soft, dry, fluffy cloth pressed against my hand. "Who the hell are you?"

Wiping the clinging mess from my face, I said, "Really, a friend. My name's Terry. I'm here with two men, hunters, who are trying to get rid of the monsters led by Dick Roman."

I risked opening my eyes and looked at her.

She was a redhead but that was about all she had in common physically with Felicia Day.

About my height, she was a pocket-Venus, plump but positively overflowing in that houri shape that appeals to nearly every guy on the planet, her tight, multi-layered tops showing a fair, freckled cleavage and tight, faded denim jeans encasing full hips, with a small tattoo of a dragon just peeping above the waistband over her hip. Her hair was that screamingly Titian red, cut in a shaggy fringe around her face and pulled back in a pony-tail down her back. Dark-brown eyes stared back at me, above a short, button nose and a wide, full mouth.

"Done with the inventory?" she asked sarcastically and I pulled myself back from my inspection.

"Sorry, it's just –" I gave up on trying to explain and shook my head. "Did you see your boss being eaten?"

She blinked at the bluntness of the question and nodded slowly. "Pete wasn't the brightest, but fuck, no one deserves that," she said, lowering her Master Power Water Blaster so that the barrel pointed to the floor, droplets of the borax solution she'd filled it with dribbling out. "What are they? Why are they here? What do they want?"

I sighed. "They're called Leviathan, they're God's first experiment with living organisms, according to those in the know, they're here because a demon released them from Purgatory and they want to turn the human race into a herd of docile, walking and talking prime cut steaks."

"That's all?" she said, her face scrunching up. "And here I thought it might be something serious, like alien attack."

I shrugged. "Can't have everything."

"Alright," she said, apparently coming to a decision fast. "So what do you want from me?"

"Uh – well," I hedged. "You've got an inside track in Roman Enterprises."

"I'm not going back there," she said instantly. "I was lucky to get out without becoming an hors d'oeuvre!"

"Yeah," I agreed reluctantly, looking absently around the apartment. It wasn't anything like the production team's idea of a hacker's apartment. For starters it was almost empty. A long sofa faced a tv set. The dining table had been pushed against the wall and was covered in hardware…two laptops, both open, a couple of big monitors, cables and notes strewn over the horizontal surfaces between them, slim towers bristling with peripherals squeezed into the small amount of space. The kitchen looked like it'd never been used. There were two doors in the other wall, both open, showing a bare room with an unmade double bed to the left, and a bathroom with one threadbare towel hanging from the shower rail to the right.

"Did you hand over Frank's drive?"

"No, I just split when I saw what happened to Pete," she said, her voice becoming suspicious. "Why?"

"They'll look at it, see what you saw and come after you, you know," I said, wincing a little at her expression.

"And your solution is to go back into the Castle of Doom?"

The phone rang and she stared at me for a moment then wheeled around to pick it up from the bare kitchen counter, putting her water-gun into the sink at the same time.

"Oh, hey, Pete," she said, overbrightly. "Yeah, sorry for bailing without telling you…no, no, just not feeling well…lady's thing, y'know…right. Right. I'll be in first thing…oh, look, gotta go…cramping again."

She finished the call and set the phone back on the counter, staring at it as if it were a snake. We both turned at the sound of footsteps in the hall, and I saw her reaching for her WaterBlaster again.

"No, it's alright," I said as Sam came around the doorway, followed by his brother. "These are the hunters I was talking about. Sam and Dean Winchester."

Watching her expression change as she slowly lowered her hand and took in the two men standing at her front door, I fumed at the writers once more. Not gay. There was no way that Charlie was anything but straight with the way her gaze travelled incrementally and appreciatively up and down each of the brothers.

Apparently, both Dean and Sam got that vibe at the same time, both unconsciously straightening up and lifting their chins, squaring their shoulders.

"Not monsters," Charlie said, looking back at me. I shook my head and sucked in a deep breath.

"Maybe we better sit down, this is going to take a while," I said, waving a hand at the sofa. Sam shut and locked the door behind him.

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

"So you're saying, you guys are monster hunters," she said an hour later, staring at Dean. "So, there are other monsters?" She held up a hand immediately. "Stop. Never mind. Just shh."

"Okay, I get how you tracked the drive – straight GPS – but it's still at the office. How did you find me?"

"Frank managed to get most of Roman's business files before they came after him," Sam said. "HR files included. Found your address in them."

"I told that idiot the security needed to be tighter on the personnel files," Charlie said furiously, apparently forgetting that was probably the least of her worries.

"Uh, how long did it take you to get into Frank's drive?" Sam asked.

She shrugged. "About twenty-seven hours."

"Is there anything you can't get into?" Dean asked.

"Not yet," she told him, with a disarming lack of modesty. I mean, I get that. If you're good, why hide your light under a bush? Or bushel…or whatever the saying is.

"What about Roman's email and scheduler?" Sam looked at her.

"Not remotely," she said, looking from him to Dean. "It's on a private server at the office."

"So, we'd have to be in the office to get to it?"

"Right," she said abruptly. "But you can't hack it. Roman's like completely OCD about security for his own shit."

I looked impatiently at Sam for a moment, then turned to her. "We need to get into that server."

She laughed. "Well, you'd have to break into –"

I wasn't that impressed by her cognitive powers that it took her so long to figure out what was being asked.

"What? Me?! Break in? No!" she sputtered, staring at me. "Are you kidding me?!"

"No, we're not kidding," Dean said. "We need to get in there."

"Well, you'll just have to figure out another way!"

"There is no other way," I said. "You have a pass, you work all hours of the day and night so they're used to you coming and going, you're the only one who could break through the security on the computer, you have to go back anyway…"

"Look, maybe we can work this another way –" Sam said, looking at her. "This is a volunteer-only kind of job. We can figure –"

"Fine," she said, switching a baleful glare onto him as she changed her mind. "I'm volunteering."

"No, you don't have to –"

"You think I'm kind of douchebag that just saves my own skin when the world is in danger?" she snapped at him, and I got the feeling she might be regretting her decision. "But I've never broken into a building in my life, so I hope to hell you gotta plan."

"Sort of, yeah," I told her. "Did you get the van?" I asked Dean.

He nodded. "It's outside."

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~

"Your plan sucks," Charlie said to me as we walked to the front doors of the building.

I sighed. "Probably."

"I mean, we're talking major-league suckage here," she said again and I glanced over at her. "What's in this for me?"

"Not getting hunted down the rest of your life and eaten by a monster?"

She looked me up and down. "You're what? All of ninety pounds, soaking wet? Why couldn't one of the guys come with me to do this?"

"The Levis know their faces," I told her. I didn't need the reminder that as far as saving her ass was concerned, I wasn't going to be much of a deterrent to the bad guys. "They've never seen me."

"And that helps how, precisely, when we get busted and have to run for our lives?"

"We won't get busted, just be cool."

She huffed a bit at that but let it go. One and a half blocks down the street, Sam and Dean were listening to it all, from the relative safety of a plain black van.

"When we get up there, I'm gonna need forty minutes, to break his password," she said, sliding her pass through the scanner at the front door.

I nodded as I followed her inside, feeling my pulse accelerate. The night guard at the front desk nodded to Charlie and looked at me.

"Visitors sign in," he called out and like little automatons, Charlie and I swivelled around in unison and walked to the desk. To my shock, he pulled out a digital camera and took a photograph of me, the flash no doubt making my eyes cross and my mouth fall open. There was a whirring noise from behind the high counter-top and he pulled out a plastic-wrapped pass, with my less-than-attractive face on it and the word 'Guest' underneath in large, friendly red letters.

"Sign here," he said, pushing a book toward me. "The pass just stops the security guards from dropping you with their tasers."

"What?"

"Ha, just kiddin', right?" he said and I signed a very shaky name somewhere near the line it was supposed to be on.

"Yeah, you're a riot, Carl," Charlie said, squinting at his name tag. "I got a call from my boss, a job that has to be finished tonight," she added, glancing at me. "This is Rowena, we were out, and well, it won't take me long to finish it."

I thought that was way too much information, the guard's eyes starting to get dull as he stared at her, and especially the implication of our night out, but he nodded and waved his hand toward the elevators.

"Sign out when you're done, Row-ena," he called after us and I hurried on Charlie's heels to the open door of the lift.

"You're not a lesbian," I hissed at her as the doors closed behind us.

"No, but you notice how guys just lose their curiosity instantly when you say it?" she replied, watching the steady ascent of the numbers above the door. "Relax. I've never been to the executive floor but there's only one guard per floor on the rest, and he usually spends the night in the waiting area reading magazines."

"How do we get to the executive floor?"

"First stop my workstation," she said, pulling out her pass again as the lift slowed down. "We wipe the hard drive, and if I'm the only stiff working tonight, we can pull a bit of jiggery-pokery with the printers up there."

"What?"

"Watch and see," she said, getting out as the doors opened.

The night guard looked up as she walked in, lifting a hand incuriously as we walked past him to the internal security door and went through when Charlie's pass beeped the lock.

"That was easy," I said, looking around. Like so many deluded corporate ideas, the entire area was open plan, hundreds of desks spread out in some kind of designer-pleasing swirling pattern. Charlie looked at my expression and laughed.

"Yeah, no one can hear themselves think when the place is full," she said, with a shrug. "We all plug into our headphones and try and ignore everyone else."

"Very productive work environment," I said, following her through the curving path to her workstation. "No security for your top-secret project?"

"I don't think anyone but Pete and Roman knew what I was working on," she said. "No one else cares anyway."

The drive wasn't bristling with poisoned needles and booby-traps and I was almost disappointed. She plugged it in and flicked on her monitor and sat down, her eyes glued to the screen and her fingers flying through commands that appeared and disappeared faster than I could read them.

"This'll take about a minute to run," she advised me from the corner of her mouth.

"No problem," I told her, relieved to see no Harry Potter, Star Wars or Lord of the Rings dolls, doo-dads or otherwise on her desk.

"Coffee pot's usually going till midnight," she said. "I could use a cup of joe."

I looked around the huge room and she waved a hand toward the wall furthest away. Obviously it wasn't a request.

"Just black."

"Of course," I said, repressing the impulse to drop a curtsy as I walked away.

I was no longer sure it was a relief to have someone who seemed like an actual hacker rather than a bouncy geek-girl as an ally.

Meandering my way down to the coffee machine and back again, I wondered about Charlie's plan to get us up to the top level and in through the no-doubt formidable security measures Roman had in place to protect his inner sanctum.

She looked around briefly as I set the cup of black coffee next to her. "Thanks, okay, let's make some mayhem."

Rolling her shoulders and cracking her knuckles like a pianist about to attempt a difficult concerto, Charlie picked up her mug and swallowed half the contents in a gulp then started typing. Fortunately for me, and I guess for the men waiting outside, she kept up a muttered, running commentary.

"Right…WS0021 you are now going to be boss for an hour…that's it, Richard Roman…password, now what would that be…the hell with it…peopleeater works for me right now…okay…Dick…you're working late…sending lots of files to your assistant's printer…and…oh, no…damn, you're late for a meeting…well…if you just cancel those files…surely they won't be all lined up at the print station…right? Wrong, Dick, wrong…the thing about computers and the latest operating software is that it's persistent, Dick, persistent…so…how many files…?...let's see…forty-five thousand should keep everyone jumping for at least the time I need…till I ride up and save the day…of course…ah…the crowd goes wild….aaaaahhhh."

I blinked at the non-stop flow of words and sipped my coffee.

A second later, Charlie lifted her hands from the keyboard, picked up her coffee and downed and sat staring at the phone.

"No one here but us chickens tonight," she said in a small sing-song voice. "Nine-eight-seven-six-five-four-three-two…one."

The phone on her desk rang and I jumped, the liquid in my mug slopping up and over my hand.

"Charlie Bradbury, IT Services," she said sweetly into the phone. "Oh no, really? That sounds terrible, no, no, I'll be right there – oh, I don't have a clearance for the Exec level – you will? That'd be great. Right, see you in one."

She hung up the phone and launched herself out of her chair. "Finish up, we're going uptown."

"What?"

"Seems there was a tewwible problem with the printer at Dick's assistant's desk, just keeps printing and printing and throwing paper all over the damned room," she said, walking briskly for the elevators. "Looks like it's up to us to save the building."

"What?"

Throwing a sharp glance over her shoulder, she said, "Geez, woman, keep up with current events. We have to hustle."

As we got to the main waiting area, the security guard was on his feet, standing by an open lift and talking to another guard.

"Gentlemen, what's the problem?" Charlie asked, walking over to them.

"You the tech?" the guard in the lift asked. She nodded, and waved a hand at me.

"My assistant, you got a problem?"

"The printer in Miss Davenport's office is going nuts," the guard said. "I can't make it stop, every time I turn it off and turn it back on, it just keeps printing out more stuff and I don't know if it's secure shit or what the hell –"

"Oh honey, that's all secure shit up there," Charlie said to him knowingly. "Well, the night's not getting any younger, so let's take a look?"

She walked past him onto the lift and I followed her a bit more hesitantly. The guard slid his key into the lock and hit the top floor button and the doors closed softly, barely a sound or movement taking us whirring up the levels.

"You, uh, working late?" he asked me, looking at our outfits. In order to add verisimilitude to the cover story, we were both wearing short skirts, tight tops and a lot of make-up. I felt like a Ninth Street call-girl. Charlie looked like a Ninth Street call girl.

"Emergency call in," Charlie said, adjusting her breasts in the top, deliberately I hoped. "Nothing to do with this, just a job I had to finish before morning." She glanced at me, her eyes widening a bit. "This is Rowena, my girlfriend."

I kept my gaze fixed on the numbers flashing by above the door as the guard nodded.

"Well, hey, I'm Max."

"Hey Max," Charlie said and I might've muttered something, I don't really remember.

"Do you know where the printouts were generated from?" she added, leaning back against the wall of the elevator.

"Uh, they all had Mr Roman's name on them," he said, easing a finger around the neck of his shirt. "That means they came from his computer, right?"

"Right," she agreed instantly. "Can you let me in there so I can clear the queue and see why it suddenly decided to print all his eyes-only files?"

"Uh, I gotta key, but no one's supposed to go into that section without authorisation, I mean, they made that super-clear when we all started, it's like totally off-limits," he said, his ears turning a bit red with nervousness.

"Well, which scenario do you prefer, Max – me going in and fixing the problem, shredding the files and putting everything to rights? Or Mr Roman coming in tomorrow and seeing his precious, top-secret files printed and spread across the floor of his assistant's office for anyone to see?"

"Right, yeah," he said, swallowing. "Sure, you're right."

"Always right, baby."

I tucked my chin against my chest to hide my eye roll. I really would've given anything to have heard the conversation in the van at that moment.

The elevator came to a smooth halt and the doors opened and even from the lobby, we could hear the darned printer, chattering away and the rustle and whoosh of paper falling to the floor. Charlie took charge.

"Okay, let me into his office, and I'll start there," she said, wading her way through the already significant piles of paper coming from the industrial-sized printer by the desk. "This might take some time, you guys, so I suggest you start cleaning up and shredding this mess."

I nodded and dropped to my knees, scrabbling around for sheets and gathering them as Max followed Charlie to Roman's door and let her in. I was a bit surprised when he closed the door behind her, but maybe he thought one person snooping in there was enough. He got down on his hands and knees a couple of feet from me and started to pick up the papers.

"So, uh, girlfriend?" he asked a moment later.

I laughed nervously. "Girl and friend," I said, smiling at him.

Come to think of it, that smile might've been a bit much. It seemed to push him onto a different train of thought.

"Oh, right, like a girl's night out thing," he said, seeming more comfortable with that idea.

"Yeah, like that."

"So, you seeing anyone?" he asked a moment later, his arms full of paper. "Shredder's just in the next room."

"Uh…" I was about to say yes, when Sam's voice came through the discreet earpiece that was tucked deep inside my ear.

No, Terry, you're not.

"Um, no…?" I said uncertainly as an argument erupted in my ear.

She is seeing someone, I heard Dean hiss at his brother. Me.

You heard Charlie, she needs at least forty minutes, so deal, dude!

With my arms full of paper and tottering a bit unsteadily on the heels Charlie'd made me wear, I followed Max to the shredder and tried to shut out the voices in my head.

"Here, you hold them, and I'll drop them through," Max said, turning the shredder on and dumping his load on top of mine.

Guys, some direction here. That was Charlie's voice.

Just tell Charlie what we need her to do once she's in. Lauren and Bobby are already on their way to the airport. Sam said forcefully, and I could hardly hear what Max was telling me with all the chatter going on.

Check his emails for any mention of a dig, or whatever he's found. We need you to send an email to the shipping agent, rerouting the artefact to Denver. Dean bit out the details, his voice hard.

The printer stopped spewing pages out ten minutes later and Max and I crawled around the room, gathering them up and taking them to the shredder, the machine's sharp burring whine covering any noises Charlie might've been making in the inside office.

There, I heard Sam say. See, she's fine. Involuntarily I looked around the office for the camera that had to be there, my gaze passing over it twice before I registered the tiny, blinking red light.

I glanced at my watch as the last of the papers was sucked into the machine and turned into confetti. Another ten minutes needed.

Max looked around the clean floor, and unhooked the bag from the interior of the shredder. "I'll just take this down to the chute," he said, smiling at me. I don't think it was just imagination that it was a warm, friendly smile because there was a discontented, but indistinct mutter in my ear.

"Come on, Charlie, get moving," I muttered. The mike I was wearing was pinned discreetly to the inside of my top, lying flush along the bra strap. It seemed to be picking up everything pretty well.

Keep him busy for another ten and I'll be done. This isn't a cake-walk and I can't stuff it up.

Another ten, I thought, glancing up guiltily as Max walked back into the office. The darned trash chute must've been just down the hall.

To my horror, he walked past me toward Roman's door and I panicked, I admit it. I bolted after him and skidded to a halt right beside him, my hand clutching at his sleeve as he raised his hand to open the door.

"You don't want to interrupt a tech-head when they're working," I said, forcing my voice down a couple of notes as I looked up at him. Flirting isn't really my thing. At least, I flirted okay with people I already knew, but I wasn't that great at the whole doing-it-with-strangers thing. His hand paused a few inches from the lock, though, so maybe it'd worked.

"You want to do something else?" he asked, his voice dropping a little as well as he looked down at me.

"Well, I did have my night out interrupted," I said, fluttering my lashes at him fatuously. There you see? I'll admit to a bit of hamminess. I was flesh-crawlingly aware that three people were listening in on this conversation, one of them someone I would really rather not have had listening to any of it.

"Yeah, you did," he said, and his hand dropped, the keys going back on his belt as his free hand slid around my hips and pulled me closer.

Sonofabitch.

That told me that Dean could in fact see the guy's hand curling around my ass.

Terry, I don't care what you have to do, but I need another few minutes, so just do it. Dean, if you can't handle it take the comms off because the guy'll hear you when he gets close enough. Charlie's voice said matter-of-factly against my ear and I dragged in a deep breath, lifting my chin and smiling into Max's eyes.

He bent his head and his mouth covered mine, his hands wandering more enthusiastically as I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back. He was sliding one up under my shirt, and I leaned back, breaking the kiss with a breathy little laugh.

"Hey, slow down, sugar, we got plenty of time," I told him, internally rolling my eyes. I don't think I've ever called anyone 'sugar' in my entire life. It sounded good, though, low and sexy and it seemed to have the desired result on Max, who slid his hand back to my ass.

"We could use the storage closet," he said, ducking his head to kiss my neck as he reached for a feel through my top this time. "It doesn't have cameras."

How romantic, I thought, but refrained from saying. I ran my hands down his sides to buy a bit more time and he moaned a little, lifting his head and diving in for another kiss.

Gotcha. Done. Dick's package is en route to Denver. Your friend's photo and details are in the system, confirmed as his assistant and duly authorised to pick it up. It'll be there in two hours. Am I a god or what?

I felt myself sag slightly as the door to the office opened and Charlie stepped out, her eyebrows shooting up as Max stepped awkwardly back and I awkwardly readjusted my clothing.

"Well, glad to see someone had fun tonight," she quipped, walking past us. Max turned to lock the door and Charlie took my arm, hurrying me along faster as I teetered on the four-inch heels beside her. She looked up at the camera and gave a teeny wave on the way out.

"Uh, Rowena, so you want to give your number?" Max sped up behind us.

"Uh…" I said, my mind blanking out completely.

"Sure, it's 555-4939," Charlie supplied effortlessly, pushing me ahead of her into the lift. "There you go, sweetie, you got a date after all."

It's possible my head actually exploded at that point. There was a mutter like thunder in my ear, followed by a lot of talking in a low voice designed to calm. I gave Charlie a filthy look and she gave me a smile in return.

"Well, Max, don't be a stranger," she said breezily to him as we stepped out of the elevator and he had to stay in it. "Carl, see you first thing."

Carl nodded and we walked out, the cold, windy night air hitting me like a freight train as I staggered along with her, only now noticing how badly my toes were being squeezed, pinched and generally tortured in the narrow shoes.

"Whew," she said when we crossed the utterly empty, silent and dark street. "What an adrenalin rush! I can see why you guys like doing this stuff!"

The van was up ahead and at that moment, all I could think of was sitting and taking the darned shoes off. The back door flew open as we reached it and Dean looked out, grabbing Charlie's hand and yanking her inside. He turned away as I held out my hand for a bit of help to get in, disappearing up to the front and a moment later the engine started.

Perfect, I thought. I was almost tempted to take off the shoes, throw them in the van and stomp away in my bare feet. But you know, it was Chicago, we'd just broken in and stolen and messed around with the head Leviathan's business, it was cold and I was tired, not to mention the whole looking like Ninth Street callgirl thing. I swallowed my pride, the overwhelming sense of injustice I was feeling and clambered inside on my hands and knees, managing to pull the doors closed behind me as the van lurched forward.

~o-o-o-0-o-o-o~