Chapter Eight

David and Liz were waiting in the car, with the engine already running, when Don and Nikki exited his apartment building. Still not knowing where they were going or what they were doing, they silently sat in their seats and watched the outside world begin to move, thoughts moving slower and faster then swirling around until finally, three out of four agents had their heads in their hands.

Don was thinking about Nikki's illness, thinking about how shocked he was when she had told him, thinking about her future, and similarly, their future. Nikki was thinking something along the same lines, while Liz was just thinking. About Charlie. About Amita. About how Mulder and Scully conspiracy theory the whole situation was becoming.

David's crown vic took three minutes to park, but they speedwalked into CalSci, laptops under arms.

"So this is your bright idea?" Don asked his second-in-command, one eyebrow raised. "Go to CalSci? Who exactly is going to help us, smart stuff?" Don's voice was beginning to gain volume. "How is this going to help us in the slightest, David?" Without even looking at either of them, Nikki shouldered Don out of the way and strode through the doorway slightly to his left, not far from the turnoff to Charlie's office.

"Listen up everyone, and you, yes you, beardy, get outta here." The agents heard her voice, and her footsteps as she descended the stairs in the lecturing theatre. Trading looks, they all rushed to follow her.

The theatre was full of students, all watching Nikki take control of the room with bemused and surprised expressions. The man which Don assumed was the 'Beardy' that his partner was referring to - who had an enormous white beard - gathered up his papers and walked away rapidly, checking over his shoulder, clearly apprehensive about Nikki's up-front approach. The tough beat ex-cop stood up in front of the twenty-odd students in the hall, and placed her hands on her hips. Screw junior agent, she looked like the boss.

"Yo listen up, math people." She called, and her curt LA clip filled the spacious room. Most of the students looked none too pleased at her chosen name for them. "Professor Ramanujan was supposed to take your class this morning, and you don't know where she is, do you?" The students didn't know what to say at first. Some of them refused to talk, though they shot their neighbours alarmed glances.

"No, we don't." One of the braver students offered, looking shocked at her own admission. "She didn't come in this morning." She added, eyebrows knotted.

"We don't know where she is at all." The skinny man beside her added, eyes wide with emotion and by design. Nikki took a deep breath and locked eyes with David for a second. She understood why he had brought them here.

"Well honestly, neither do we." This turned and shook heads, while some of the students scattered near the back leaned forwards, as if dismissing what they had just heard as a trick of the mind. "Professors Ramanujan and Eppes are teachers of yours. If this is not true, I must ask you to leave the room." None of the students left the room. "If you can't hack into the NSA mainframe just for kicks, leave now." Nikki waited slightly longer to let the students decide, and six students got up and left, uncomfortable with the seriousness of her words. Don and David parted at the doorway to let them through, watching them carefully as they left. "Now, those of you who are uncomfortable with signing an official looking form saying that what you hear in this room doesn't leave this room, leave now." Another ten left, not comfortable with the closed nature of whatever it was she was about to propose to them.

Don leaned over to David.

"Is this what I think it is?" He asked, unsure what to think of Nikki's words, or David's idea. "And if it is, we can't trust these people with what we need them to do."

"Don-" They moved aside, lowering their voices as those ten made their way out of the door, shouldering bags and throwing suspicious and curious backward glances at Nikki, who was still standing in front of the whiteboard, which still bore the marks of yesterday's Charlie Eppes lecture of game theory applicable to whatever the hell he wanted it to be applicable to. The agents moved together again, still speaking in low tones, lest they were heard by the remaining four students.

"I'm not going to get us arrested because some college undergrads can't keep their mouths shut!" Don hissed, and David looked at the floor.

"Listen, all due respect Don, but we don't exactly have that much of a choice right now." He made his way down the stairs, to where Nikki was sizing up the students. Making a judgement call on whether she should trust them or not. But like David said, they didn't have a lot of choice right now.

"Right, listen up. I don't care who you are, I don't care where you come from, and I don't give a crap about what you like and what you don't like. All I care about right now is your intelligence, and what you can do with it." The four students stared at her, apprehensively.

"What exactly do you want us to do, and..." The girl who had spoken up first looked at her fellow students then back at Nikki. "Who exactly are you?" David joined the junior agent by the whiteboard.

"We're friends of your professors. We're agents at the FBI. We're one hell of a lot of things, and I know that it's hard, but right now we need you to trust us, and help us get your professors home safely." Nikki said, her voice softer than it was before. "Now we're going to ask you to do something in a minute, which you might find beyond your capability or your comfort zone. But as long as you swear to God that you're loyal to Charlie and Amita, then you have nothing to worry about. We have your backs." The students watched her, looking frightened. They were just kids, after all. Kids which hadn't seen what had ultimately made the agents grow up. "So are you in?"

The girl stood up, and for a moment, Nikki thought that she was going to leave, but instead, she took her laptop out of her bag, mouth set in a grim line across her face.

"What do you need us to do, Agent?"


They set up in Charlie's empty but otherwise familiar office, with a laptop for each of the undergrads and one for every two of the agents. Each and every one of the students seemed to find it easy enough to hack into the FBI mainframe. Don reminded himself to talk to someone about that once this was all over. While the four undergrads worked, Abdul Hassim, a middle eastern student with a Southern accent, explained to Don exactly what would go down.

"I've created a trap door to the area of the mainframe where the files which you have requested." He said, keeping his eyes on the screen of his laptop. Don raised his eyebrows, surprised, though not unpleasantly.

"Already? You only sat down like five minutes ago." Abdul shrugged, almost sheepishly.

"The FBI isn't as technologically secure as it thinks it is."

"Now what? Can you just yank them outta there?" The students looked like they were amused by his comment, and traded glances. "I mean, what's the problem? If you have a trapdoor, can't you just jump in? Metaphorically of course."

"Then, we have a certain time frame to copy, delete, print or whatever you want to do with the files before they're flagged as corrupted, and pushed to an alert level three. They can also zone remotely into our location, if the guys who built these firewalls know how to use their codes." Abdul did not look like he was at all comfortable with what was going on. "Then, everyone will know where we are."

"Don't worry, we'll have what we need by then. But, it would be good if we kept under that time limit. Just in case." Don tried to keep his voice casual. He knew that panic would not help the process, especially because the students only knew half the story. Hell, he only knew half the story. For someone to freak out and run to Easton; that was the last thing that she needed. Abdul nodded, but still did not look convinced.

"Hey Eppes, come take a look about this." Nikki called, from where she was leaning next to David. Naturally, everyone else came along to see as well. "Those closed files are what Easton doesn't want us to see. I think I've found what Easton does want us to see." The details splayed across the screen were black and white, lined up in the format of financial records. AD Wright's financial records.

"What's the crime?" Don leaned next to Nikki, their shoulders touching. Both quelled the heat felt between her body, and concentrated on their shared curiousity for what was on the computer screen.

"Looks like a few transactions meant to be divided between Violent Crimes, Children Crimes, Media Liason and Internal Affairs Departments. These are quite general figures - but they were accessed the other day." David began, bringing up another window and showing them. "But not all of it adds up when it arrived at the separate departments. Turns out that even I can do the math and not everything that went out came in. Supposing that Wright took this money, which is what Easton wants us to think, he has about one hundred thousand dollars which even the finance department can't trace. They only deal with the money before it comes into every department."

"So this is the incriminating evidence that Edgerton wanted us to find." Nikki concluded, frowning at the screen and standing up straight. Her partner kept his focus on the laptop. "Should I call him or do you want to do the honours?" Her sarcasm wasn't noted as he concentrated on comprehending the so called evidence in front of them.

"You should do it. He doesn't trust me and we all know why he trusts you." The bluntness of his voice hit her like a bullet, and she inhaled sharply. Liz glared at her ex-boyfriend, angry at his impartialness, and crossed her arms across her chest. David as usual, tried to distance himself, and ignored what was going on around him.

Nikki watched Don with such venemousity that the students around them traded more looks, this time worried. Nevertheless, she flipped open her phone and found the contact number, pressing the correct button while she glared a hole in the back of her boss' head.

"Hey, Ian it's me." Immediately, everyone else in the office stilled and listened into the conversation, even though the students knew that it was none of their business. "Yeah, we found something on Wright. It looks like he's been taking money from a distribution fund. We're looking into the details now, but it definitely looks like he's dirty." Nikki looked at the floor, and turned herself away from her partner, as if she didn't want him to hear the words that she spoke next. "I guess you were right." Don's eyes stopped flitting across the screen, but he kept his gaze steady. A muscle twitched in his jaw. "Yeah, you too Ian." When she disconnected, Don avoided her gaze. Nikki looked equally disturbed though, and she felt the echoes of nausea from earlier.

"Now that we've told him we know, we can monitor what he's going to do." David told Liz, really just speaking out loud to order his own thoughts. "And..." He tapped the enter, and fell silent again as they heard the sound of breathing - presumably Ian's. The transcript was blank, though its cursor blinked irritatingly, waiting for speech to record. It never did.

There was extensive rustling, and the line went dead - no more audio. Don stared at the screen.

"What - what's going on?" He asked, nervously. "Did he find it?" Nikki paced away, rubbing her forehead.

"Fuck." She put, eloquently. "We're screwed, Eppes." Don threw himself back from the desk and strode over to the students, all of whom looked nervous at his anger.

"Can you get the files now?" Abdul nodded, and motioned to the only girl, an undergraduate named Kelly Cotton, who started to type away.

"Activating the trapdoor now, we need to move fast. We have three minutes approximately to find these things." As soon as she spoke the first words, all of the other students hunched over their laptops and typed at three times ten to the power of eight metres per second. The FBI agents sat back, unable to do anything really to help them except stay out of their way. It was the longest two minutes and twenty-seven seconds of their lives.


I am hoping for a review before updating for the next chapter, because I would very much appreciate feedback. Furthermore, since I have had very little feedback so far in, I need confirmation that I should finish this story. Just a few moments of your time would mean the world to me. Thank you.