Hello and well…umm…I'm sorry? It's got to be coming on for a year since I last updated and to tell you the truth, despite these chapters being the ones I was most looking forward to writing, I kind of lost the plot of what the hell I was writing and then United We Spy came out, which I had really wanted to finish this story before because I had a theory. That theory was proved correct and then I felt like what I would write would just seem like something I quickly knocked off because I was being a bad updater,(it's not even in this chapter anyway) so then I just completely ignored the fact this story existed until an impatient little reader reviewed with their annoyance at my complete lack of fan fiction capability. So thank you random stranger, because you've guilt tripped me into updating again!

Disclaimer: Again with the not owning thing, it's still happening. I should probably see a Doctor about it.

Chapter. 16 – The Romanov operation.

"Are we sure this is the right place? Or that we got the right idea? Because this is the sort of place mom and dad and the others could have had a picnic or something but I'm not getting a serious secret evil headquarters vibe from this place." Krissy remarked kicking at a bit of the massacred looking soil they had stopped at. She immediately regretted it, which was a disturbance to how it had always been, probably for years and anyone who was good enough to be a threat would recognise it as evidence of her being there, so yes Krissy, well done, very spiey.

"I've always wondered that," Cameron remarked from where she stood slouching with folded arms. "Do the bad guys think the good guys are the bad guys or are they fully aware that they're bastards…although you seem a little brain washed to me so I guess I can't really count you as reliable evidence." By the end of her sentence she sounded as if she had been speaking purely for the benefit of them understanding her first remark because she had very little passion into talking to any of them. Cam squinted upwards at the sky, not particularly seeming that interested in the birds she watched fly by.

Krissy looked rather indignant to being accused of seeming brainwashed but Liz started a conversation with her as if the blonde was completely unaware that anything was going on between the two conflicting sides their little gang was harvesting, a conversation that Cam didn't pay any attention to as she scanned where Bex and Macey were standing over a patch of ground that was seemingly identical to everything else they were surrounded by to everyone else but them, and which was creating a great argument between them. Zach had joined Liz and Krissy, disagreeing with everything they said with complete and utter certainty, which seemed to be sending Liz into something of a nervous breakdown. Cam backed away from them completely deadpan, not taking her eyes away from them for a heartbeat as she moved her way backwards around the place she had had memorised as a map inside her head since age fourteen.

Her foot found something of a vine like root that she reached automatically down for, still surveying the others, and yanked with a need of surprising strength. Mud crumbled around the earth that she was pulling up to barely half a meter, and only then did she take her eyes off the group of complete imbeciles that she had no intention of having to look at again unless she was taking the life from them.

Cameron slid through the gap easily finding herself in a damp, dark, mudded and stinking confined space, just as she had been expecting, and she stomped down with one foot where she was hunched without a single moment of hesitation to let herself fall into nothingness.

Nothingness, however, turned out to be a split second of falling before Cameron landed skilfully on the stone grounding of the much larger space that formed one of this headquarters tunnelling corridors and was formed instead to just be a damp, dark and a little less stinking space like most of these quarters were.

Cam ran down the length of the hall without making a sound, still apprehensive of the possibility of those naive fools following her, but certain she would be able to find anyone, any member of the circle that could get Catherine and alert them of the ambush she was certain her blood family were acting on towards her real family, even if the place she was in now looked completely abandoned. It was the beauty of this place, she breathed in increasing relief as she moved past a silent doorway to another deserted stretch of space, although she didn't go here very often, it never failed to lull people into a false sense of, albeit apprehensive, security.

"Really." A bored voice remarked as Cameron hurtled around another corner and slammed straight on her foot to stop herself from hurtling into the broad chest that had enacted a sudden boil in her blood so furious that she blushed as soon as she realised she'd let herself get caught by Zach, even through this light she could see that he was covered in mud. "I'm the one who gets stuck with Ms. Cavan chaperone duty? Just my luck…" He muttered it as if to himself as he turned around, strolling casually down the hall like he knew the space just as well as Cammie did and as if he was under no impression that she would do anything but follow after him despite this.

"How did your lot get in?" She snapped at him through the darkness, furious at the fact that for another three corridors at least there was no choice but to go whichever way Zach was going.
"Well, it takes a genius." He reminded her as if that hadn't been why she'd asked in the first place, he stalled by the doorway at the opposite end of the corridor they were talking to each other from. He beamed. " So it was a good thing they had me with them, I've told them where they need to go to catch up with your mom, dad, aunt, uncle and creepy British guy that begrudgingly hangs around with them." He took a step forward. "Now come on Goldie-locks, you know there's nowhere else for you to go but with me."

cCc.

Cameron had never thought it could have happened, but she was lost on Circle territory. She blamed Zach; mentally and verbally, but she hadn't thought it would have been possible for her to be this terrified in her own home but then again, the enemy who was walking behind her had the definite advantage, so it was a perfectly valid emotion to feel – that being what Cam told herself anyway.

"Hold my hand." Zach remarked absently as he tapped around at a seemingly dead end wall he'd brought her too. Cammie only scoffed and continued to look at him like he was a complete and utter idiot, even if he wasn't looking at her to notice it.

"What do you need help crossing a road? Because I have been under no impression that that is our sort of thing." At some point Zach had pulled a more metallic looking door out of existence on the wall they were facing, which only made her more jealous and petrified at whatever the hell he was trying to get done. Zach just straightened up and looked down at her as if he were completely exhausted with her stupidity, and that her company really wasn't something he had time to fuss over.

"Fine." He shrugged indifferently, grabbing her at the crook of her elbow and swinging the door that he'd apparently knocked down a wall to find, pushing her through it before Cam could gain herself past the confusion to fight back to his domination and to stop herself from falling past where logic should dictate a path continued. Instead Cammie dropped, a lot further than the tumble she'd taken in good faith to get to the main tunnels of this place. Instead this fall was full of air and empty space that rocketed around her, it should have occurred to her that it had been a strange way for Zach to have finally decided to kill her, but then again it had been so strange that she hadn't even seen it coming, her mind was blankly alive with panic as her limbs automatically lashed out for something to stop the falling. There shouldn't have been anything to save her, she should have smashed and splattered against something painful and that would have been it, but Cammie found her fingers feeling rope. She clawed at it desperately, gripping a fist around it so quick and precisely that the force of stopping at the hold of it practically gave her whiplash.

Breaths were coming over her heavily now, finding it harder to regain herself after some adrenaline filled terror like she could normally do automatically - which only unnerved her more. It didn't feel like she was touching the rope, not with her hands, as if only the only people Cameron Goode was truly and honestly terrified of, and only because of being put in the same situation as them, got to hold onto these ropes. Somewhere in her thought process Cam decided it was a good idea to look down, choking at the sight of the gap directly below her before the solid ground she was really starting to realise she didn't appreciate enough, the gap was really more of a pit, a seemingly bottomless one due to the fact the darkness came onto it before its end did.

Zach abseiled down into her thoughts, literally, the jumper he had been wearing was dismissed to his waist and the movements of his muscles were unnervingly clear now that his arms were shown from under his t-shirt as he moved down a second rope that hung against the wall next to Cameron and half a dozen other that rained unused around them.

"Are you crazy?" She hissed, because no matter what the opinion of the person's arms you were talking to, that was the sort of thing you hissed at someone who had just pushed you from a high place. Zach didn't look much put off by this though, nor did he look very crazy considering Cammie was the one who had started hearing circus music again, in fact the best word to have described him in that moment would really have been bored, even though he was clearly a little amused too.

"You wouldn't take my hand!" He defended taking one hand from the rope to hold it up in surrender, even looking at that made Cam feel physically sick, although Zach didn't really seem to notice. "and besides, I trusted your instincts and this is the quickest way towards the heart of this place, would have thought you'd known, now come on." But Cam hadn't know and yet its very existence was something that was arrogantly etching its way into Cameron's subconscious and humming her a wicked circus themed lullaby.

"Christ! What are you waiting for? This is probably the quickest way to find your loving and adoring family that isn't looking for you!" Zach called impatiently, awakening Cam's senses to the fact that he wasn't hanging next to her anymore, she glanced down to see him standing on the floor of the room that dropped off for the opening that was only thinly immediate to what Cam hung over. She was barely aware that the room they had dropped into was the first one they'd come across that had had light at all, no matter how orange it was, so the chances of her having picked up on how Zach had gotten down was pretty much nonexistent, she was vaguely aware that she should have been a lot more professional without a hitch and that she should have been puzzling over why she had no idea why she was reacting like this, but her heart was beating just too hard for her to think clearly and she was in the wild extremes of unprecedented fear that was distracting Cameron of everything but itself.

She looked at her hands again, where they clung to the ropes like it was the only thing that she had ever been able to fully rely upon. Her head had gone light, and now she wasn't as certain of what she was looking at anymore, as if she were seeing two versions of the same thing in front of her and one that was much, much darker – with a lot more blood. Cammie gasped for air as she fought the mental breakdown that was crashing down on her while the music intensified with volume in her head, swinging where she hung and consequently plunging her heart a little deeper as a memory came back to her – one that didn't make any sense. One of Dr. Steve standing where Zach was now, calling up to her where blood was leaking from her wrists where the ropes were attached with carefully positioned blades and terror chasing the sweat and blood dripping with it down her back, but she couldn't remember what he had said.

"Seriously, like, what? Are you afraid of heights or something?" Zach asked from where he slouched impatiently, glancing back at the door that was noticeably small compared to the height of the wide room he was beginning to regret entering from. Cammie's heart beat even faster, too rattled to be surprised she didn't have a heart attack as the words of the mentor to the boy who she had loved in ways she wasn't specific on and then who had drugged her came back to her. Talk, forget or die, Dr. Steve had offered calmly from where pain had rattled through Cammie and she had thought of the circus music which was the last thing she could remember that reminded her of safety that came close to peace of mind. Cameron clung to it now like it was more sacred than the rope she was holding without really realising what she was doing. It doesn't really matter which one you choose, we'll get all three out of you eventually.

"Everyone's afraid of something, Zach!" Cam managed to call back, lost to how she had managed to achieve it, especially considering it wasn't something she could even remember feeling the urge to do. "Although apparently I'm only realising this one now." She trembled so quietly it had no hope but to be too herself. Cammie tried to get a hold of herself, or rather she became more aware of the need to, because all she could focus on were the images – memories? No, that made the trembling pit inside her quake too much for comfort – and there were more than just the first one now, layers and layers of glimpses of something that didn't make sense, she shook so the rope impersonated her certainty in sanity now.

"Just push off from the wall using your legs and let go before the rope swings back! You can trust yourself to land, right?" Zach instructed from down below, strangely sounding less impatient, to start with at least. Probably not, Cammie thought in reply to his frustrated question but she took a deep breath and ordered her body to do what he'd said, which she guessed was control enough to best what she'd been capable of a minute ago but there was no devotion to her movements, nor concentration, and she could have sworn she landed next to him without having any of the falling or swinging stuff having happened in between.

"I don't understand...I – I don't understand." Cam was blundering, heart still fluttering even if grounding herself had calmed her down ever so slightly and if not having given her a clear head, given her the capability to dwell over how much it was rushing with and what that contained.

Cam straightened herself up, Zach might have been saying something to her, in fact considering the noises that sounded like the ones Cammie heard when he usually talked he probably was, but every instinct and skill being trained in places like this was zoned in on the surroundings she had grown up in for what felt like the first time in her life, even if she'd never been to this part of the base before, or at least that's what she had thought, something would have clued her in to whatever this was. There had to be a reasonable explanation for this terror, for why her heart was pounding where she was choking on it in her throat.

This place that was flickering before her. Flickering with darkness and bright blinding pains and faded images, the sort Cameron was used to associating with memories, but all that just made her head pang worse than any mere headache could possibly endeavour to achieve, it was more like her brain was rejecting where she'd brought herself.

"This place...It doesn't make any sense...I don't...this place..." There was a crack of agony in her head again that was as bad as the pain she felt all over her body even if that couldn't be real, couldn't ever have been. Zach was still talking, or had started again; Cam hadn't been paying enough – or any – attention to note if he'd stopped. Glancing around dazedly, harsh enough to snap her neck as every inch of the room and position she'd found herself in filled her with dread she started down the stretch the room took in its width.

Weapons lined the walls, which Cam tried to scan and gather details from the way she might have already been able to in a glance but that just made the sights that her mind was screaming at her more gruesome. They weren't memories, Cam was deluded and deluding herself further enough to convince herself of that, because Catherine wouldn't be standing idly by when Cam was feeling the way the images were telling her she had done, Catherine wouldn't be looking at her with that expression of so much sadism or wicked contentment.

Cammie made for a door she hadn't been aware she was aware of as she dashed towards it without really deciding that's what she was going to do nor did she notice the fact that she was running to it with such speed there was a lull before Zach had registered the fact that he should be running after her.

Cam's head was too scrambled, the circus music too blazingly distracting that she wasn't consciously aware of what expectations fuelled her endeavours with the door that she kicked at twice with everything she had –because you didn't need to check if doors as conspicuous as this were locked in Circle bases, they always were – shooting it open with a bang that held the possibility of rousing suspicion, not that it mattered, Cammie just knew if anything around here had the chances of clearing why she was struggling to breath at the panic so much before she collapsed from it, it would probably lie hidden behind the door that proclaimed The Romanov Operation so proudly it made Cammie sick for reasons she couldn't quite understand. Even if it was hidden behind several layers of hacking.

The door had a lot of locks on the inside, because that was a logic that was built into some areas of the Circle, strangely the most high security ones, which Cammie had never really questioned, there was something wicked in it if you let yourself plot long enough. Wicked, that wasn't a word Cam was supposed to associate with the workings of the Circle, but there it had floated across her mind as natural as water slipping through cracks in crumbling rock. She only did one, shoving the random heavy items that she immediately came into contact with in front of it instead as the tiny closet like room pressed around her.

Zach was a trained assassin and spy, Cammie was aware of this, no matter how much she might of detested him, and was therefore aware that he would be able to get past her half-hearted blockade to her soon enough. But Cameron just couldn't bring herself to worry about that, not as she turned to the thin grey technological boxes that shot from every corner of the wall, marked with symbols in patterns so complicated they could send someone insane but Cam found that thought made her want to huddle on the floor and scream even if she could recognise the markings as codes for alphabetical organisation. Turning to one that should have been random considering how detached her mind was at that stage, but Cam's version of common sense was a lot more intellectual than the majority of other peoples and what the circus music was subtitling in her head was demanding her attention more, she began to attack it.

Imagine shocking a couple dozen filling cabinets with a hearty dose of science and electricity and that would basically be what Cameron was whizzing through now as if they were a common household furniture. A particularly high-tech over coded one. The several layers of hacking turned out to be several dozen, which Cam did need to stretch her attention towards, driven by a horrifically determined terror that she told herself she hadn't felt before, even if it felt like pulling her stubbornly reluctant nerve covered atoms from her brain one by one. That was until much of Cammie ceased to exist for a split moment of reality as she broke the protection over Morgan, C. and Cameron's own stubbornness dropped down a trap door deep inside for reasons not completely known, but she was sure if those reasons were anywhere, they'd be in that file.

Morgan. Andrew. Matthew.
CIA.
Case subject: THREAT. See file.
M.A.M Disposal.

Cause of prevention of:

Italy (see file.): assassination attempt (Presumed: strong evidence see file.), Bomb disposal, undercover agent corruption. (see file.)

Prague: Agent corruption, theft postponal – theft prevention (strong evidence see file.) Headquarter corruption, headquarter destruction. (see file.)

Japan: 3 assassination attempts, undercover corruption, headquarter destruction. (see file.)

See subjects full file.

URGENT ATTENTION NEEDED. SUBJECT MUST BE STOPPED. (see rebuild file: Italy. ) SUBJECT MUST BE PREVENTED FURTHER. SUBJECT MUST BE DIMINISHED. TARGETS FOR DISTRACTION AND END ACCQUIRED (Morgan. R ,see file.) (Morgan. C ) ROMANOV OPERATION IDEAL.

Morgan. Ann. Cameron.
Enlisted for Gallagher Academy attendance (see file.)
Romanov Operation Agent. .DAUGHTER OF THREAT.

Issued: Dr. Steven Sanders (see file.)for TFD. (see entries.)

ENTRY. 1 - Subject acquired from M.A.M (see file.) under group 978, situation discovered simple.(Fire initiated for separation: successful. Trial M.B.A (see file.): successful, improvement to be ascertained in higher level) Subject strong, reluctance to be appropriately dealt with, request for Cameron Ann Morgan to be issued in blank out room immediately.

ENTRY. 2 – Discovered situation with M.A.M not initially as understood, details still reluctant. Use of agony increased – still reluctant. More time requested.

ENTRY. 3 – Listed targets for M.A.M disposal mission gained, (see file.). Plans for Agent J.D.S (see file.) splinter group recruitment postponed. NOTE: Subject strength: situation taken. see too. Details still reluctant.

ENTRY. 4 – Cancel Agent J.D.S splinter group recruitment. Intensified subject questioning. NOTE: Sanity balanced on situation taken.

Re-issued: Catherine Goode. (see file.) TFD continuation RO subject pressure.

ENTRY. 5 – M.A.M intensions obvious, details from discovered situation require more attention. Questioning intensity taken into personal issuing felt appropriate. URGENT. Blank out slowing needed, report to Agent .

ENTRY. 6 – Leading list acquired (see file.)M.A.M weakness as detailed as they can get from interrogation on subject Cameron Morgan. Initiation and focus on blank out into full force, report to Agent D. SS. Soon acceptable for Romanov Operation.

ENTRY. 7 – Blank out eventually succeeded, enrolled in Romanov Operation. RO Agent M.B. Abrams (see file.) requested double RO partnership to be set with subject Cameron Morgan, overlooking responsibilities understood. RO double pairing accepted: RO Agent M.B. Abrams to report back by week. (see files.)

ENTRY. 8 – M.B. Abrams reports on RO Agent. C.A. Morgan to be changed monthly due to blank out success. (see files.)

Cammie had quite forgotten how to breathe, and she had backed up and fallen against the confined wall of screened cubed behind her now. That was Catherine writing, Cam didn't want to cry, but it felt like her head was going to tear open because that was Catherine writing, writing about getting information out of her in ways that Cam wished she didn't know the both of them were capable of. The last two entries were dated much further apart than the rest of them, Cammie was sure the uneven feeling in her stomach was going to make her insides boil and melt out.

Catherine had saved her from her family, not this; she'd been writing about getting information out of her that she had withheld, she had been holding onto it for as long as a child the dates said she had been could have done and just that little stretch longer because of Matthew Morgan, like she had cared about him. His files didn't make sense either, none of it met anything of the story Cammie had thought she'd grown up knowing. Ignoring that, all of this about her went against all reasoning Cammie had ever thought she'd lived by, so if this had all been about her than surely she would remember it; but that was just the problem, she was beginning to.

Cam clicked on Martin's file numbly, she wasn't not thinking anymore; she could hear Zach – who had stopped yelling through at her – working against whatever lock he was guessing she had used. Zach, her mind woke up with anger like nothing she had ever felt for her parents the way she had been told to, fury like she'd never felt before at all. Zach Goode. Catherine Goode, she'd loved her like she was her mother, she had wanted that name, deserved to be him more than he did, but maybe that wasn't such an honour. Cam's anger collided with something like grief, anger without words. Her head was a hurricane of thoughts now, a furious one, still scared and confused but screaming the thoughts through her veins as she harshly hacked her way into her best friends file.

Abrams. Barney. Martin.
Circle of Cavan.
Romanov Operation Agent.

RO test run. Targeted from Gallagher Academy base agents, opportune. Birth family Abrams, pharmacists (see file.). Incident easily executed, Martin Barney Abrams is dead to the world.

Issued to Dr. Steven Sanders due to Agents training in use to growth surrounding and belief systems. Romanov Operation less forced for set years in first year time frames. (see entries.)

First child agent achieved through RO. Hopeful answer to M.A.M situation.

(see Matthew Morgan.)
(see Italy.)
(see List.)
(see Cameron Morgan.)
(see Romanov Operation)

Initiation included for group 978, M.A.M prevention/ M.A.M disposal. Use in capture of subject Cameron Morgan (see file.) reported as success in terms of child agent training. Agent reported as indifferent, found preferable, uninterested in fate of subject C.A.M, found preferable.

RO agent has most understanding over his own purpose and general Romanov Operation than other RO subjects. Request for partnership to be made with RO Agent C.A. Morgan accepted. (see entries.)

Cammie was sure she was going to be sick. She had hated him since he'd left her to be drugged by Townsend, but part of her had hoped for a reasonable explanation, and not one that included an entire friendship based on everything Cam had thought she had known about herself being an experiment, or a way to divert Matthew Morgan from bringing hell down on the circle. Stop him preventing assassination attempts? Thefts? Murders? That wasn't what the circle did, that's what he did. Her mind had split open now and it was crying out in agony, everything she had ever known could not be down to the masks of psychopaths. Cam gagged from nausea. But it wasn't everything she knew, not anymore.

There was a bang at the door and Cammie had shut the files down automatically. Zach was there, but Cam couldn't bring herself to see how it mattered. Memory was a terrible thing.

WHAT A WONDOROUS THING IT IS TO FINALLY UPDATE AGAIN. I DON'T CARE IF IT WAS A TERRIBLE CHAPTER, I AM PROUD AT HAVING ACTUALLY ACHEIVED IT.

Please drop a line of review. Follow and favourite if you like it, all that jazz.