Infinity and Beyond
-Chapter 32-
Glass Houses, Part One
"I did what you said." Alex tells mommy as I'm eating cereal and milk. "I did a surveillance sweep, and there's no one physically watching my apartment. I can bolt at any time, I can leave the car, I can leave the clothes, everything... In fact, I don't even have to go back there now. I mean, I can set up right here!" Alex sounds happy.
"This is not a good time to blow your cover and join me on the outside." Mommy says as she sits down beside me with a smile.
"Why not?" Alex frowns. "What are you waiting for?"
"Look, we're doing really well." Mommy tells her. "Apparently, Percy's freaking out, cause I've killed two of his black boxes. He called Michael in to help him secure the rest along with the bonus of trying to snatch Infinity from me. We've got him on the ropes, but we can't afford to make a mistake."
"Fine." Alex says. "But you're just making my point. Michael's a way better double agent than I could ever be. You don't need me inside anymore! You're the one who's always telling me that it's too dangerous for me in there and I thought you wanted me to get out."
"When out meant Fiji, not sticking around to fight Division." Mommy says.
I tilt my head up towards mommy. "Mommy, feed me?"
"Sure." Mommy smiles before she pulls me onto her lap and grabbing the bowl of cereal and milk before feeding it to me.
"Nikita, I look at you, and you call your own shots." Alex says. "You're not running away from anything."
"Doesn't mean that I can't wait for this to be over, Alex." Mommy tells her before hugging me from behind. "I mean, look at me, I'm a mother who's dragged her own child into this!"
"Nikita, you're a great mom." Alex smiles at her. "I see it, you know. The way you throw yourself in harm's way just so that you can keep her safe."
Then, Alex looks at mommy more seriously. "Besides, when this is all over, where are you planning on going?"
Mommy hugs me tighter. "Wherever it's safe for Infinity..."
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"Remember the big changes that Percy was telling me about?" Michael says to mommy as she's packing a bag. "A move by Division against the government. I think that's what Operation Sparrow is code name for."
"Then, you want me to hunt down the guardian?" Mommy says as she walks over to me as I'm playing with Play-Doh. "Get the black box, but not destroy it."
Mommy crouches down and hugs me from behind. "We've to go somewhere soon, honey." Mommy tells me. "Do you want to bring Lily and Johnny along with us?"
"Yes, please." I nod as my oval-shaped face smiles.
"Then, go get them." Mommy smiles back before I stand up and run off to get Lily and Johnny...
"Yeah, you'd better get going." Michael sighs. "You've about a six hours window."
"I thought that..." Mommy sounds unhappily surprised. "Wait, I thought that Percy gave you twenty-four hours?"
"We've twenty-four hours to spy on Winters and report back." Michael nods. "But if my report is that you showed up, kicked the guardian's ass, took the box, and I failed to stop you..."
"Then it had look pretty suspicious." Mommy interrupts with a sigh as I bring Lily and Johnny over for mommy to pack.
"Which is why you need to get it done before I show up." Michael says. "That way, I can tell Percy, sorry, you send me in too late."
"I don't like it." Mommy shakes her head.
"We've dealt with worse." Michael says.
"No, I mean I think we should destroy the box, not peek inside it." Mommy sighs.
"Cracking the box is the only way to get ahead of Percy." Michael says. "If I have to wait for him to brief me in on Sparrow, then I think it would be too late."
Mommy sighs and smiles sadly as she picks me up into her arms. "Hey, what's wrong?" Michael frowns.
"When you told me that you found the third guardian, I got all excited." Mommy tells him. "I thought we're halfway to taking Percy down, and once that's been done, there would be one less threat that's after Infinity, and..."
"Yeah." Michael interrupts with a little smile. I don't know how grown-ups can know what other people are going to say before they say it... "And then what? We attempt to live a normal life while having a part time job of continuing to take out other hopefully not as deadly threats that might threaten Infinity? An altered form of domestic bliss..."
"Stupid, right?" Mommy smiles sadly.
"No, it's not." Michael smiles and shakes his head. "You're Infinity's mother, Nikita. You should want these things for her, even if they seem next to impossible..."
"It's noon. We should get going. We're running out of time." Mommy sighs as she hugs me closer to her before grabbing her bag as we leave home...
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Mommy stops the car beside a white house before looking at her computer screen where there's a picture of a dark-skinned woman and a ugly-looking map.
Mommy gets out of the car before lifting me out of my carseat. "Stay close to mommy, okay?" Mommy murmurs to me quietly as she's holding me in her arms.
Mommy is also holding a handgun as she slowly and silently walks over to the white house and peeks in through a glass door.
"Mommy, what are we doing here?" I whisper nervously.
"Shh..." Mommy whispers in my ear as she silently opens up the glass door and steps inside.
Mommy very quietly hides me under a table behind a VERY long table cloth. "Hide here, okay?" She whispers to me quietly. "Mommy's going to be right back."
After a moment, I hear mommy growl and some fighting sounds. I feel goosebumps pop up my olive skin nervously. "What the hell are you doing in my house?" I hear a man yell before I hear him scream and groan.
"Where's the woman?" I hear mommy say.
"Who?" The man asks loudly.
"The woman who lives here." Mommy tells him. "Dana Winters."
"I swear, I've no idea who that is." The man says. "Been here for the last year, on my own."
"Then, where's the signal coming from?" Mommy asks.
"What signal?" The man says. 'Dana Winters has dug her tracker out.' I don't know what that means...
After a moment, I hear footsteps walking towards me. "Sweetie?" I hear mommy's voice. "You can come out now."
I crawl out from my hiding place at mommy's words. Mommy smiles a little as she quickly picks me up into her arms. Then, she looks back to the man. "Don't tell anyone we were here." She tells him before carrying me out of the house and back into the car...
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"We've got a problem." Mommy's on the phone with Michael as we're back in the car. "I'm sitting outside the guardian's house right now."
'Did she spot you?' Computer mama tells me what Michael's saying.
"No." Mommy sighs. "But I don't think we're going to be able to pull this off in time."
'Well, I'm reading she's in close proximity to her house right now.'
"I know." Mommy nods. "I got her tracker in my hand. I just don't know where she is."
Mommy starts the car and starts driving before continuing. "Pretty clever on Winter's end." She says to Michael. "Percy checks her tracker, looks like she's living in her inner pointed residence."
'For all we know, she's sitting on some beach at the tropics. We've to scrap this mission. Clock's ticking and I need to get to Plainview for appearances. Maybe we can go to dinner. Right before I tell Percy that his guardian's gone.'
"Unless we don't." Mommy says. "What if she's still here?"
'What are you saying? You think she removed the tracker and stayed in Plainview?'
"Just hear me out." Mommy says. "All the black boxes are kept at banks, right? Guardian protocol. There are three banks in Plainview, and only one of them has safety deposit boxes."
'Where are you going with this?'
"Hurry up and get down here." Mommy tells him. "I got a plan to flush her out..."
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Mommy and I are standing inside a big building...
"Alright, honey." Mommy says to me as she's holding a BIG black gun and a black hat (the type that I wear in the winter) with three big holes on it. "You need to stay and hide here. Mommy's gonna go do something, but I'm going to be right back, okay?"
Mommy smiles at me as she puts me behind some thick curtains. "Okay, mommy." I nod.
"Stay quiet and don't play with the curtains." Mommy tells me before moving the curtains to cover me up. Then I hear footsteps as she rushes away...
I hug myself closer and stay as quiet as I can. I'm a good girl, I'll do what mommy tells me to. I'm gonna stay here and wait for her...
After a while, I hear footsteps coming towards me again. I bite down on my red lips quietly. I hope that's mommy...
"Sweetie?" I hear mommy say as she quickly pushes the curtains away.
"Mommy!" I smile as I raise my arms toward her for a hug.
"Good girl." Mommy smiles back as she picks me up into her arms. "Come on, sweetie, let's go back to the car..."
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Mommy drives us back to the front of the big building we were inside in. There are many police cars with flashing lights around us. I think policemen come when scary, bad things happen...
"Mommy, did something bad happen?" I tilt my head.
"No, honey." Mommy smiles at me softly as she stops the car and looks out the window. After a moment, mommy looks back to her laptop and then back out the window again.
Then, mommy looks down to her cellphone and types something...
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Mommy drives to a road where there are lots of houses around. Mommy stops the car before backing it up into a little corner. Mommy rolls the window down and looks out with a black thing that looks like a video camera...
Just then, a police car drives up to the house I think mommy's looking at. Mommy's eyes widen as a man gets out of the car and walks towards the front door of the house.
Mommy quickly grabs the big black gun beside her and puts the black thing on top of it and points it towards the house. "I don't believe this..." I hear mommy mumble.
"Mommy, what are you looking at?" I ask as I put my curly dark brown hair behind my ears.
"Nothing, sweetie." Mommy smiles a little before turning her head to look at me. "You want to go get ice cream?"
"Yes, please." I nod happily...
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Mommy's feeding me ice cream as we're sitting inside a restaurant when Michael walks in and sits down across from us. "This is unbelievable." Michael sounds a little annoyed.
"I know." Mommy says as I duck down under the table with a smile and crawl over to sit beside Michael.
"Hey kiddo." Michael smiles at me.
"Alright, sweetie." Mommy sounds happy as she holds another spoonful of ice cream. "Open up."
"Ahh..." I open my mouth wide before mommy puts the spoonful of ice cream in my mouth.
"We've less than one hour before I've to call Percy." Michael sighs as he grabs a napkin and wets it with the glass of water beside mommy. Then, he raises a hand and tilts my oval-shaped face towards him and starts wiping my mouth with the wet napkin.
"And what am I supposed to tell him?" Michael sounds as if he doesn't really want to know the answer to his questions. "That the guardian adopted a family? Send in the cleaners."
If he doesn't want to know, then why is he asking?
"No." Mommy says.
"Nikita, all we have to do is grab that black box." Michael tells her as he continues wiping my mouth.
"And when Percy finds out that the black box is gone, he'll kill Dana, and the cop, and his son along with them." Mommy says.
"We're not in the guardian protection program." Michael shakes his head.
"We're now." Mommy tells him. "There are civilians involved. Michael, if Percy didn't order this investigation, she could've flown under the radar for years. And the only reason he ordered it is because of me."
"We get them out, they're going to spend the rest of their life looking over their shoulders." Michael says.
"There are worse ways to live." Mommy says.
"Name one." Michael says.
"Apart, alone..." Mommy sighs.
"That's two." Michael raises an eyebrow.
"I know." Mommy says.
Michael finishes wiping my mouth before I duck under the table and crawl back over to mommy, but this time, my head bumps on the table.
My almond-shaped dark brown eyes quickly grows wet as something inside my head feels as if it's shaking. "Ouchy..." I whimper tearfully.
"Come here, sweetie." Mommy says as she gently pulls me onto her lap and wraps her arms around me. She kisses the top of my head.
"Look, the way we live... Try not to spend too much time thinking about the future." Michael tells her.
"How can I not?" Mommy sounds sad and worried as she hugs me tighter. "If we lose this fight, what's going to happen to Infinity?"
Mommy's words makes me a little scared as something in my tummy feels as if a rubber ball is bouncing around. "Mommy..." I whimper nervously as I hug mommy.
"Shh..." Mommy murmurs to me as she rubs my head.
Michael's quiet for a moment before he starts talking again. "We'll help her, we still have an hour before I've to call in..."
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Mommy and Michael takes me back to the house mommy was watching. Michael's holding me in his arms as mommy rings the doorbell.
After a moment, the man who was in the police car opens the front door. "Hey." Michael smiles at the same time as mommy. "Hi."
"You folks lost?" The man asks.
"No, actually, we just moved in around the corner." Mommy smiles widely at him.
"We figured we should get to know some of our neighbors." Michael smiles at him. "I hope you don't mind us stopping by like this."
"Charlie!" A woman's voice rings out. "Who is it?" The woman walks over to stand beside Charlie. 'Dana Winters: a Division guardian.'
I don't know why, but Dana looks a little scared. "Hi, it's great to meet you guys." Mommy says nicely.
"Oh, this is Dana." Charlie introduces her.
"I'm sorry, is this a bad time?" Mommy says. "Because we can..."
"We could come back another night." Michael nods.
"No, no." Dana speaks up with a nod, but she sounds unhappy. "Come on in. I'm sure there's enough pot roast to go around..."
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Author's note: hey guys, sorry I haven't updated in so long. I had a bit of writer's block, but I'm back now and here's the next chapter. So please remember to review and I'll try to update sooner.