It's been scientifically proven that the more time between posting chapters, the more mistakes I make.
The Welcome Party
Jane readied her badge in case they were pulled over for speeding, which she expected any minute as her new fiancé raced north on the highway. Claudia kept tabs on Eileen's phone to monitor any movement and also told Pete where the radar traps were.
Myka turned to Helena in the back seat. "Helena, what do you think we're facing here?" she asked.
Helena didn't answer immediately, which told Myka - Helena wasn't one hundred percent certain. Why should she be? She had been away from this life for many years now and had no contact with them after she was rescued. At the time, the Regents assured Myka it was the process set up to make sure the person Helena chose as her One was worthy. Myka thought they were full of shit. But she conceded not to understand the workings of this group, nor their entity, and so she simply warned them never to contact Helena directly again.
And they had heeded that warning, up until now.
"Something must have happened that they hadn't planned on," Helena finally said, breaking Myka's thought.
"Like what?" Myka asked because their actions so far seemed unprofessional.
"These people who have Eileen? They're not doing anything by the book," Helena said. Even Jane found it odd that Helena would know what 'by the book' meant.
"We're almost there," Claudia announced when they approached the property. Pete turned the car lights off as they slowly pulled up.
"Can I safely assume that no one in this car is carrying a weapon?" Jane asked and Claudia started asked Helena if she thought they actually needed guns.
"Oh, I seriously doubt that we do," Helena said, her voice deep and her lips curling.
The plan they discussed on the way up was quite simple. They would tell the agents they arrived, approach with caution and demand Eileen's freedom. Jane reviewed what negotiations often sounded like and reminded Helena that they truly weren't sure just whom they were dealing with. None of that mattered to Helena. Eileen was inside and she had every intention of getting her released.
Pete unlocked the trunk and Claudia started her program to commence the drone launch. The small device started and took flight right up to the house where it peered through a window.
"There she is!" Claudia said when the camera showed Eileen sitting at a table with three men. "I swear, if they put one hand….," the techie said, choking back her fears.
"She looks okay," Myka said, reaching over to pat Claudia's hand.
"Detective Tierney, a word?" Helena said and asked Myka to excuse her as she scooted over Myka and got out of the car.
"Of course," Jane said, sorry she had to put her high heels back on. She regretted they were all involved in this situation, but she was seeing a different side of Helena and was experiencing a new found respect for her.
Myka may have let her wife get out of the car first, but that didn't mean she wasn't right behind her. She knew better than to let anyone hear Helena's plan first.
"Any sign of our guests?" Damien asked Henry who sat very busy at the computer.
"What? Oh!" Henry said, turning off his international match of chess and checking the program tracking their guests. "They're outside."
"What? Outside?" Demetri exclaimed as he pushed his chair back and shot up from his seat.
"Demetri, calm down. We know what to do," Damien said and looked at Eileen.
"Ms. Sullivan, I believe this is where we part company," the agent in charge said and Eileen frowned at him. "Well, I mean, after we take you to the …..designated place," he said. He stood up, touched the cuff links and asked Eileen if she would be so kind as to follow him quietly.
Knowing that she was under some weird influence didn't make Eileen feel any better as she stood up and felt as if she wanted to follow him. She really felt hypnotized, yet fully aware of what was happening. She tried to will herself to stop, but her body simply wouldn't cooperate. Damien needed Eileen to comprehend what the plan was, so he allowed her to speak once they were in the basement and approaching the door.
Demetri walked ahead and Henry followed behind, all the time, looking at his laptop. Eileen smiled because she knew it was just a matter of time. Then she heard it - that familiar noise a computer made when her girlfriend had cleverly hacked into it and was about to take the owner off line.
Henry stopped in his tracks. "Boss!" he said as he frantically tapped keys on his device.
"What is it now, Henry?" Damien asked and stopped to turn back.
Henry showed them the screen on his computer that simple read: "KNOCK! KNOCK!"
Eileen burst out into the broadest smile. Claudia had been there five minutes and had already hacked into his computer.
"I'll reset the IP address, patch the firewall, and reassign a ….," Henry said desperately as Eileen delighted in his attempts.
"This is good," Demetri said, trying to see the glass as half full. "If Agent Wells is busy trying to hack, then she won't be on our heels."
"Tsk, tsk," Eileen said to him, unable to move, but still able to express herself. "Helena is saving her energies for when she meets you. That, my dear Demetri is the work of Claudia Donovan. She can make your friend Henry here look like a MIT Freshman."
Henry started banging the keys now, but someone else had control of his laptop. "Leave it, Henry. We'll access the computers inside," Damien said and Henry gave his computer one last shake to try and release it, but to no avail.
"Dammit, she's good," Henry said because he understood how many steps it would take to even begin unraveling his security.
"And that, Henry, was probably the least painful part of your meeting," Eileen said looking straight at him. The young agent was unnerved by how intense her light blue eyes appeared.
"It's okay, Henry," Damien said, "Ms. Sullivan thinks we're all going to be sitting around a table discussing the mission, when in fact, we won't even get to meet the infamous Agent Wells."
"I can't imagine Helena allowing you to get away with this," Eileen pointed out as they continued to walk down the hallway that connected the house to the final destination.
"Agent Wells is going to be…busy," Damien said assuredly because after all, that was the whole plan. "Here we are."
Eileen didn't like the sound of that. Busy, how?
When they reached the end of the long hallway, Demetri punched a long stream of numbers into a keypad and placed his eye to the screen. A rather large, very thick heavy door opened and they entered.
"What is that smell?" Eileen asked and the three agents told her they had no idea what she was talking about. It smelled very familiar to her.
Damien went over to a computer and pressed the keys, typing something in that Eileen could not make out. They seemed to be in an office with a large window that had shades on it. The room was very cool and Eileen was wishing she had her scarf that she left in the booth at the restaurant.
Suddenly, the senior agent seemed very agitated as his underlings gathered at his side.
"What does that mean – Do it yourself? What does that mean?" Henry asked.
"Could you give me a minute to talk about this?" Damien asked and he sounded more like their father than their boss.
"My-instructions-" he started to speak out loud as he typed the words, "…were- to- bring- her – here –and – leave." He seemed to be typing the message to someone whose answers appeared as soon as he was done typing.
"Take Ms. Sullivan downstairs. I cannot have Helena walking in here to simply find her, kill you and leave!" Damien read back the reply.
"KILL US?" Henry yelped.
"I'd like to see her try," Demetri said, flexing his muscles.
"Oh, you won't see her coming," Eileen sneered at him.
"Boss, I took this assignment because of the opportunity to hack into one of the most secure companies in the world. I did that. I don't want to die," Henry explained.
"That does sound like a bit more than we expected. Tell me, Ms. Sullivan," Damien said, touching his cuff links, "…does your boss still possess any weapons?"
Eileen answered truthfully as instructed; "Just her hands."
"Ha!" Demetri laughed. "Piece of cake."
"Take her downstairs," Damien told his two wards as he collected what he needed. He glanced back at the screen where the instructions he was told he would receive appeared. "Do NOT harm her."
He foolishly thought they meant – Helena.
"Yes, yes," he answered to no one in particular when the response appeared on the screen; "I mean it!"
Damien considered that the place was bugged or had camera who some other sensing devices around. It was the oddest place he had ever been in and when he went outside to the stairs, he looked out on what looked rows and rows of shelves.
"Section L, Aisle 5," he shouted out to his underlings who walked ahead with Eileen. There was a great similarity between this place and the Warehouse where Helena had been. This place must be a satellite office, she thought, as she looked around at the shelves. Most of them were empty.
"Where are they?" Damien shouted into the air and looked at his phone. "Good, they're approving the house."
When Helena turned to talk to Jane, she wasn't really surprised that Myka was right there. Jane bit her lip at seeing the Brit so accepting of the fact that she wasn't going to do this alone.
"Detective, if these men are armed, I intend to disarm them quickly," Helena said and Myka wanted clarification on that.
"I have to identify myself as NYPD," Jane reminded Helena.
"Aren't we going to talk to them?" Myka asked, touching Helena's arm.
"I don't want you anywhere near them," Helena said as sternly as she could without sounding off alarms.
In that instant, the detective could see in Helena's demeanor, that she already had a plan in mind. "What do you need me to do?" she asked.
"Don't let anyone near her," Helena said.
"They went downstairs," Claudia reported when she got out of the car. Pete was there now, too.
"They know we're coming," Helena said. "I think if we just approach the house, they will let their intentions be known."
"Okay, as the only authorized person to use force, I'll go in first," Jane said.
"Helena," Myka said, pulling at her wife's sleeve as the group started walking. "Please don't take any chances. Promise me you won't."
The zip ties that had just been placed around Eileen's wrists were less constricting than that request. When faced with a situation like this, Helena knew one way of dealing with it – revenge; fast and painful.
"I can't let them do this to my family," Helena said, her voice now sounding sharp. "This time they lured us with Eileen. Suppose they don't get the message, Myka? Suppose one day they decide to take….," and Helena couldn't finish the sentence, but Myka knew exactly what she meant. And she hadn't thought of that. Myka didn't understand their maneuver at all – but was trusting that Helena knew these people well enough to know they weren't going to harm anyone. But that didn't meant Eileen wasn't afraid or upset. Helena was right. Suppose, years from now, they came back and took their child?
Myka's head raced with these thoughts. They may not know exactly what they were walking into, but she trusted Helena to handle it. She trusted Helena knew not to be foolish in her actions. She trusted Helena – period.
"Make them understand, Helena," Myka said and squeezed Helena's arm. It was all the blessing Helena needed.
"Of that, love, you can be certain," Helena said, her lips turning up just the slightest. Then, they joined hands as they caught up with their friends.
Claudia was loading schematics of the house. Jane was peeking through the windows to make sure the house was empty. Pete was pacing – afraid he'd be caught between defending the two women who meant the most to him. Except Jane had a gun.
"Listen," he said softly to Jane. "If anyone comes at her …,"
"I know, Pete. Let's hope it doesn't come to that, but I know," Jane said because she knew that his relationship with Helena was deep.
"How are your vibes?" Claudia asked, trying to remain calm as her stomach tightened.
"They're calming down," Pete said after he thought about it. He had no way of knowing his empathic sensors were being thwarted.
"Boss, how are they going to get through if we locked the doors?" Demetri wondered.
"Henry left them unlocked, didn't you Henry?" Damien said.
A creature of habit, Henry locked every door he ever went through. "Oh, I thought you wanted them locked."
But before Damien could react, the text on his phone told him not to bother. "We have lit the way for Agent Wells," the message told him.
"So, now what?" Demetri asked because the plan was very sketchy.
"Now, we part company with Ms. Sullivan," Damien said. "I do hope you will forgive us for the way we went about this, Ms. Sullivan. Ours is not to question why, ours is but to do or…," and Damien thought he better not complete the old adage and scare his subordinates.
With that, he touched the cuff links one more time and instructed Eileen to scream – which she did. Henry immediately put his fingers in his ears. Then Damien took a small box off the shelf, took the cuff links out of his shirt sleeves and placed them in the box and put it back. Then he looked down at his phone and a map appeared. "This way," he said, believing he was leading his men to safety. "It seems we're not quite done."
As Jane entered the house, Helena's phone vibrated – and a text appeared. "The direct way has been illuminated for you."
"Where is this coming from?" she asked Claudia who did a quick scan of her phone.
"It's …coming…from…..," Claudia said as she walked to the back of the house and looked out the window. "There," she said, pointing in the direction of a door that appeared at the end of a lit up path in the backyard of the house.
Nothing about this make Jane feel like they weren't walking into a trap and yet, she was trusting Helena's instinct. They walked the distance to the doorway of the facility which as they got closer, seemed flush with the mountainside. Claudia already was figuring out how to force the code on the keypad. Within minutes, it was opened.
"Let's go," Pete said and he and Jane walked down the long entryway first, then Claudia, followed by Myka and Helena.
"What the frak?" the techie asked when they all heard the loud moaning sound in the hallway. It wasn't scary, but it was loud. They walked down to the next door and waited for Claudia to decode it. It almost seemed too easy, she thought.
"They're in," Damien reported to his fellow agents. Eileen's sporadic yelling could still be heard. As soon as the group of friends entered the office room, they could hear it as well.
"What the hell is this place?" Jane asked, her hand on her gun as they looked around.
"How do we find where she is?" Claudia said, frantically rushing to the window to look out.
Then the large computer screen started to spew lines of data, making a screeching sound as it did so. Suddenly, it stopped and everyone looked at the final message.
"Welcome home, Helena."