Chasing Phantoms

Part I: Mad World

Chapter Two: But It's Better If You Do

Early November, Daniel Fenton sat as his desk in the bullpen as usual. It was a typical Wednesday morning, the sun wavering weakly just above the low buildings surrounding the J. Edgar Hoover building, a thin mist of gray cloud draining the life from the day; draining the color from the faces of the people; the color from the usually vibrant orange trees. The day had started off bitterly cold and the thick wool coat thrown behind the desk chair was proof of it. The old crackling radiator between the first two bullpens often took naps throughout the day, and didn't even bother turning on at night, and when it was on, it complained noisily about its tiresome job of keeping the division from freezing as they idly filed papers and filled out reports. People didn't really kill when it was cold. The heat made people crazy, and the heat of the city had fled in mid-October, never looking back.

There was nothing to do. Everyone was either playing Tetris on their aging computers or finding little amusement in chatting with or harassing neighboring agents. The preceding weekend was not fresh enough to reminisce on, nor was the following weekend near enough to even think about. Not that Daniel really had plans. He had been with the FBI's Homicide Division all of three months and three people had died so far; he had spent three months busied with chasing the serial killer from Montgomery County to Fairfax and back again, but just November came upon them and the weather took a turn for the worse, everything had ceased. There were no more leads, no more deaths, and no more evidence to process. Part of Daniel was glad that no more people had died, but as a long-time cop, he knew that the more the killer murdered, then the more evidence and connections they would have to work with. Going underground just meant that it would take that much longer to find out who the hell he was.

Daniel was alone in the bullpen. Out of boredom, he placed his arms behind his head his head, he twirled around in his desk chair, waiting for either of his team members to emerge from their current engagements. Down in the subterranean-like basements of the building, Tucker was working with the main computer terminals, probably just cleaning the crap out it – 'defragmenting,' whatever that meant. Kim was a few floors up in a department meeting or something. As team leader, she was given responsibilities from the department head, who answered to the director of the FBI. Daniel grumbled about the whole bureaucracy of this place, annoyed with the ridiculous amount of red tape all every agent had to go through just to do their jobs. He stopped spinning abruptly as he saw a flash of red in his peripheral vision. Kim stood in front of him, her hand on her hips as usual, but she was strangely swaying back and forth – now that he thought about it, the whole floor was swaying…

"You are being reassigned," she said sharply, her lips pursed, and obviously displeased. Which, could be most likely attributed to his juvenile behavior, but she was also known to complain extensively about the constraints of the FBI, so he wasn't really sure. The file she slapped on his desk vehemently told him it was the latter. Daniel looked up, fearing the worst. He didn't want to leave for another department. The team meant just a little bit too much to him now. He mentally chided himself for getting attached so quickly. That was something he had learned early on in his days as a cop. Never get attached, because you never know how much it will hurt to lose a partner, a friend, until you do; you never know how long it will take you to recover from the shock and grief until you have to go through it. The fear in his eyes was evident, and Kim felt a twinge of remorse at making him think the worst, but she merely beckoned at the file. Flipping the yellow manila folder open, Daniel read what he saw as his own file:

TRAINEE AGENT DANIEL J. FENTON. BIRTHDATE: 1983-04-30. JOINED: 2008-08-01. HOMICIDE DIVISION. POSSIBLE UNIT. PREVIOUS OCCUPATION: BALTIMORE CITY HOMICIDE UNIT.

Well, he knew all of that already. He wasn't sure why he had to read his file over again. Kim saw the confusion flicker across his brow. The boy was slow sometimes. Hiding her chagrin, she leaned over and flipped six or seven pages.

TRAINING LEVEL THREE: NOT COMPLETED. RECCOMENDED FOR ADVANCEED COURSE OF ACTION. MINIMUM ONE MONTH DEEP COVER WORK.

He understood. As a trainee agent, he wasn't qualified for some of the heavier duties of the division. At least, until he passed the three levels required to become a full agent, another fourth to qualify as a special agent, and then a fifth for department positions. He mentally cursed the bureaucracy once again; three years as a Baltimore cop should have been more than enough to qualify him for the job, but alas, it wasn't. Daniel looked up at his team leader and she gave him a sisterly smile.

"You'll be put in advanced psychological and combat training for about two weeks, and then the department is shipping you out. I don't know where yet. I don't think I will know until a few days after you are sent out actually… for your safety apparently. After that, you'll be undercover for about two months unless I really need you here. The director of trainees will brief you and the other agents this afternoon, and you get the rest of the week off to rest and memorize your new identity. It's only nine, you should probably say goodbye to Tucker." The younger agent smiled at her, excited to break the monotony of work for the first time in weeks. "Don't get lost in that basement if you find Tucker before he finds you. I would set out fifteen minutes prior, but knowing you, you should aim for a whole hour." The look on her face told him she was not joking.

"Go get 'em," she finished with a smile. Daniel rushed to hug her, abandoning the boss-trainee boundary in his sudden rush of excitement. She growled threateningly, but he knew the gesture was just for show. He put the folder in his lockable desk drawer, making sure it was secure, and when his things were organized, he left the bullpen and rounded the corner into the main hallway of the floor. Stepping into the elevator, he gently collided with Tucker. Silently thankful that he didn't need to navigate the subterranean maze that was the Cyber sector, he gave Tucker gentle punch, pulling the slightly confused agent from the elevator and down the hallway in the opposite direction he had came from. No one ever used the stairwells located at either ends of the hallway, no matter how crowded the elevators were.

Kim watched Daniel leave the bullpen. She knew she had gotten attached to the new agent, and it had only been three months since he had been offered a place on her team. She chided herself for letting it happen, but she knew that no agent could really help it. She heard the dull padding of heels on thin carpet and shifted her gaze to the left to see Valerie Grey approaching from the back row of bullpens. The African-American woman greeted her with a warm smile, leaning the back of her thighs on the front of Kim's desk, mimicking the way Kim stood.

"They grow up so fast," she said with a hint of melodrama in her voice.

"Oh shut up Valerie, he's not my kid," Kim retaliated, trying her best to sound angry. The slightest lift at the corners of her mouth suggested that Valerie had known exactly what Kim was thinking.

"Girl, you sure got hooked fast. I can see why, he sure is a cutie…" drawled the darker agent. Kim gave her a horrified look

"Ugh, Val! You have such a one track mind, stop preying on my newbies!"

"You mean stop preying on little Danny? I didn't know you claimed him." It was all a game to Valerie, toying with Kim's strict principles. At this point, the game was in her favor. Kim's face showed the score.

"Valerie! Not only is he a full nine years younger than me, he's my brother!" The usually cool and collected agent was turning a queer shade of red, and Valerie was enjoying her victory, but the agent doubled back, looking thoroughly confused. Kim rushed to correct herself, knowing that the agent was never really informed about her time undercover a few years back, but then again it was an undercover job.

"When I went undercover for three months about five years back, I was paired with Daniel as a liaison job. He was just a baby then, I think just a year out of college. We were trying to catch an arsonist and murderer, and I was supposed to be his older sister."

"Where the hell did you find this kid? He's kind of hunky…"

"Val, if you use that to describe him, I might just have to file one of those sexual harassment slips. From what I've heard, they make you go to those classes every day after work." She gave the agent a light punch on the shoulder, but smiled despite her annoyance. The woman couldn't really help it. Her mind had only two tracks: high tech weaponry and men.

"But to answer your question, I 'found' him at Baltimore PD. He was a homicide detective there for four years before I asked him to join my team because…of what happened. He's a smart kid. He was an aerospace engineering major in college, but decided to join Baltimore PD instead of NASA. I have no idea why he chose to chase gang kids and psychopaths off of the streets instead of going up into space. From what I heard from all the people in his unit at Baltimore PD, he would have made a fantastic astronaut. Not that the life expectancies are that much different."

"That's a bit strange…I would think that being up in space would surely beat anything down here. How's trying to find Skulker?" the African-American agent inquired. Kim groaned, rubbing her eyes with one hand.

"You know I can't stand these affectionate nicknames you give my serial killers. How does Skulker even pop into your head when you look at his pattern?"

Valerie huffed, but gave the woman an apologetic look. It wasn't her fault that nothing had actually been found on the case yet. Her cell phone in the pocket of her standard issue black slacks buzzed gently with an incoming text message. The agent flipped the phone open, reading the backlit words on the tiny screen. Her face lit up in excitement, and Kim nodded in a silent gesture of dismissal. She knew that whatever it was, it was more important that chatting with her. The darker agent turned to leave, but was halted by the sudden appearance of Tucker, tapping away violently on his PDA. It was probably that 'Doomed' game again. Typical Tucker, thought Valerie, but just as the thought completed itself in her mind, he looked up at her. Both agents blocked each other's way. The technology-geek was two years younger than Valerie, but she thought that, God Almighty, he had the face of an angel. She felt her cheeks warm unusually, but decided to hide the rare embarrassment with a wink and continued on her way, sashaying off towards the weapon lab four floors below.

Kim looked at Tucker's equally red face as he sat down, smirking to herself. This time, she had won. She sighed happily at her small victory, taking her place behind desk once again. She glanced back at the technology-obsessed agent across from her, wonder what kind of agent he was going to become. Sure, he was smart, but he had only been an agent as long as Daniel, and wasn't even qualified for field work yet because he hadn't finished his training at the Academy. Actually, he was really smart. The kid was a damn genius, and severely overworked. It wasn't every day that a guy out of MIT and the CIA offered to work at the FBI. He was a 'techno geek,' as Daniel like to put it, and there he was, just sitting around playing 'Doomed 9' on his PDA. She smiled to herself, remembering how that game came out when she was in college. Her little brothers loved it. She cut off her train of thought, remembering that she had a sizable stack of paperwork left on her desk to file. She pulled a pen out of a coffee mug she had long ago turned into a pencil holder, waiting for her own PDA to go off.

To be continued...

Please review, your input is much appreciated.