Chapter 8

At least it was not complete darkness she was sitting in, Skye thought looking up to the windows from where cold, white light was floating into the room. A street lamp had to be standing right next to them and what little light it was, it at least enabled her to see her surroundings, especially as with the fading sunlight her eyes had gradually gotten used to the dark. Not that there was much to look at, by now she knew where everything was, even with her eyes closed.

She had made some progress in cutting her ties, but not yet enough to actually break them easily and was trying to decide whether she should get some sleep or if it might be better if she didn't even try. In the end she went on cutting some more. If she tried to go to sleep, she at least wanted to be a little comfortable, as much as one could be on a bare stone floor. Taking a deep breath, she stretched herself up again, rubbing the layers of tape against the sharp edge of the clamp that kept the two parts of the pipe together, when there was a sound she did not expect: the soft clicking of a key turned in a lock.

Surprised, Skye stopped, sliding back into her comfortable sitting position. She had not expected anyone else to come by today and at first thought the noise had come from another room, but if there was someone coming, it would be her chance to get out of here and she would take that sooner rather than later. And indeed, a moment later the door opened, throwing a stripe of cold, yellowish light into the room. The light was immediately broken by the shadow of a tall man, who stepped into the room, switching on the light that did not deserve to be called so.

For a moment he stood, blinking into the half-light as his eyes adjusted from the brightness of the corridor, and the agent immediately realized that this was the best chance she would ever get. Already used to the dim light, with very good knowledge of her surroundings and the extra element of surprise as no one would expect that she had managed to get rid of her ties, it was now that she might be able to overtake him, or possibly never.

With an enormous effort she pushed herself off the pipeline she was sitting on, lunging forward at the man who saw her coming, but not fast enough. The rest of the tape that had tied her wrists ripped with a sickening sound and a metallic groan from the pipe it had been wrapped around, leaving her free to use her hands and did so expertly.

Only for a second she hesitated as she saw the face of her keeper, but after that hit even harder in the knowledge that it had to be a mask. The man reflexively pulled up his arms to defend himself, but kept them high, shielding his face and keeping the rest of his body relatively unguarded. Protecting his mask, she realized, seizing the opportunity to deliver several straight, hard blows to his well trained but unprotected midriff. The mixture of surprise, inertia and gravity did it's work, and although with her legs still tied Skye knew she couldn't keep her balance, she at least managed to take the man down with her, landing on top of him.

Holding him down by kneeling on his lower body, finding some satisfaction in the fact that her knees were digging in somewhere around his stomach where it was sure to be painful, she kept her balance with her left elbow, the corresponding arm over his neck, threatening to crush his throat should he make one wrong move. This masquerade had been going on long enough, she thought, as she dug her right hand into the flock of thick blond hair on his forehead and, fueled by fury, pulled tightly.

There was a half suppressed, half suffocated cry of pain and overwhelmed by surprise, Skye instantly let go, maybe a little too suddenly, for his head fell back with a silent thud. For the first time, she actually looked into the man's wide-open tear-filled eyes. Into his eyes! Although in the half-light the dark blue was looked nearly black, the bright spot in his right eye was clearly visible. Still disbelieving she gasped: "Benji?"

"Who else should I be?" he asked, however the playfully mocking tone in his voice was drowned by lack of air and his grin turned into a painful grimace. Too late he realized that in light of today's events he maybe shouldn't have said that and immediately regretted it. Taking as deep a breath as his uncomfortable situation permitted him, he managed to produce a weak smile. "OK, bad question."

Finally Skye snapped out of her momentary trance. "Oh my god! I'm so sorry!" she said repeatedly, while trying her best to shift her weight off him as gently and quickly as she could, however she didn't quite succeed. She was glad that in the bad light at least he couldn't see her blush, however the concern in her voice was rather obvious as she asked: "Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine," Benji groaned, not entirely convincingly and when he sat up, he had to close his eyes for a moment, fighting the urge to throw up, until the throbbing in his head eased away and his body managed to decide where up and down were supposed to be.

Opening his eyes again, he looked right into Skye's worried face, who was about to ask him if he was sure. "Really, I'll be fine," he repeated, with a real smile this time, his voice decidedly more solid and his face somewhat less pale. Now it was his turn to be concerned. "What about you?"

"I'm fine," she replied with a relieved sigh. Then she looked at her feet that were still up to her legs in tape. With a carefully questioning grin she looked back at Benji who by now had gotten up to his knees, although a little more slowly. "You don't happen to have a knife?"

"Actually, I do," he said with that little-child-on-Christmas-eve-grin that he could do so awesomely well, producing Brandt's pocket knife, which he had borrowed for exactly this kind of problem. While he cut through the layers and layers of tape, careful to not accidentally cut anything else, Skye ripped off the remainders that still stuck to her wrists. "Oh, this is good," she sighed, rotating her feet, finally able to move them freely again. "I guess you're not here alone then?"

"No. It was a good thing you called for backup," Benji replied with a smile and helped her up.

Skye now had no more doubts that this was really him. Once she was up on her feet, she caught him in a loving hug, and this time everything felt just right. Gently leaning against his shoulder, she got up on her tiptoes. "Thanks for coming," she whispered, bathing in his warm scent.

"I couldn't just leave you here," he replied with a mischievous smile, leaning back enough to look her in the eyes, when something distracted him.

"Deadringer! Do you copy?"a voice asked in his ear. He had ignored the ongoing conversation in the last few minutes since it had not be important for him, but because of that he had now seemed to miss a few calls. Luther already sounded more than impatient.

With a sigh and an apologizing smile Benji turned away and activated his intercom. "Yes, I read you, Numbercruncher," he answered and immediately got a reply.

"What's your status, Deadringer? You already got us worried."

"I've found Darkhorse. I'm sorry, we, uh, got held up," he apologized, not knowing what else to say. Skye looked at him curiously, only hearing half of the conversation, but Benji decided to fill her in later and now continue before anyone started thinking about what 'being held up' could mean. "We're going out now."

"The corridor and the elevators are clear," Ethan commented and Benji thought he could hear a knowing smile in his voice.

"Got that, Nest-egg," the technician replied, then turned back to Skye. "Shall we?" he asked, laying an arm around her waist and indicating the door.

Chuckling she slipped out of his arm. "Lead the way."

Still smiling, Benji left the room, Skye following behind closely. As Ethan had promised, the corridor was empty and an elevator was already waiting. Just as he stepped inside the cabin, there was a call from Brandt: "Copycat here, I might have a slight problem," he reported.

While Luther had taken over the computer work, he had had a look around in the small room and he didn't like what he found there. "The door of the server room only has a lock on the outside. And the hatch of the ventilation system is three feet above my head with no way to get there. Which means, I can't get out."

"I'll come back and get you." Benji immediately offered, taking a step back, so he now stood inside the door, while Skye was already in the elevator. However before he could get out completely, Luther interrupted him.

"Wait a moment, all of you!" he said, his voice sounding distant with the clicking noise of his keyboard in the background. "Copycat, you'll stay right where you are. I'd like to have some more information, and for that I need you in that server room."

"Numbercruncher, I don't understand. The transmitter is working perfectly, you should have full access to everything," Brandt complained, but Luther had already anticipated that.

"The main server, yes, but routing everything over that computer makes the connection to the internal network horribly slow, and maybe you can help me around that. Besides you could help me pick out the details, because what I just found here is huge."

"What did you find?" Benji asked, curiously, while stepping back into the cabin as standing in the middle of the door had started to feel uncomfortable.

Luther sighed. "This is a whole lot of data and so far I've only been able to skim through a tenth of it, at most. But there is something bad going on, something very bad. They have data on the IMF, safe houses, agents, all kinds of stuff. Including things that are hard to get even with the proper security clearance."

"What do you make of it?" Brandt asked alertly, sounding more than a little concerned.

Luther made a sour face, which the others couldn't see, but clearly hear in his voice. "I've got no idea. But whatever it is, it's nothing good. And I think we should find out more now that we're already here, before they get the chance to notice and move all of this god knows where."

"Then we're going to need a new plan," Ethan put in, taking for granted that they all consented on this, but of course no one objected.

"Well, what about we simply copy everything, get out of here before they notice us and then look at what ever we got there?" Benji asked, spitting out the first thing that came to his mind, hoping that it might be somewhat useful after all.

But Luther immediately destroyed that hope. "As I said, this is a lot of data, it will take hours alone to download and even longer to process it properly. In that time they could make a move, and we've got no idea what that might be. Plus, our next real backup is in D.C. and they'll need at least seven hours until they arrive, which means that in this time we've got to find out what they are doing, shut them down for good or at least lock them up until the cavalry arrives. And we can't do that without a good plan, so I'd say you all get out of there and we think this through together."

"All but me, I guess," Brandt put in.

But his remark was left uncommented, as Ethan suddenly shouted: "Benji, stop that elevator!"

Reflexively the technician, who hadn't even had the chance to bring Skye up to date, hit the emergency stop. He didn't have the time to ask, what was going on.

"Darkhorse has been cloned," Ethan explained calmly, but with a sense of urgency. "I repeat, Darkhorse has been cloned. And the lobby is swarming with them."

"What?" Benji asked disbelieving, until the connection dawned to him. "So that's what she meant with change the plans," he muttered, then slightly louder added: "Dammit, what now?"

Ethan sighed. He knew the Brit wouldn't like his next suggestions. "You can't get Darkhorse out through there, with that many people the chances are too high that someone would notice her and as she's got no ID, if anyone does, you'd both be screwed," he explained. "But we have to make a new plan and regroup, and that's easier if we have you on the outside."

"I can't just leave them here!" the technician protested, as expected, but a soft voice next to him reminded him otherwise.

"I can take care of myself," said Skye, who had understood that this was about her, although she had only heard Benji's part of the conversation. "And if I got you right I'm not alone around here."

Benji was not convinced. He gave her a look that silently asked if she was sure, but she confidently smiled back and with a sigh he gave in. "Alright, I'll come out. But I'll leave her the radio," he said, and, after a confirmation from everyone, pulled out the ear-piece.

After wiping it clean on his shirt, he gave it to Skye, who put it in with professional skill. While she adjusted the little device and had the others fill her in, Benji also took out his skeleton key and the loaded gun he had been carrying in the inside pocket of his coat. "Just in case," he said, handing both to her.

"Thanks," she replied, slipping the key into the pocket of her jeans and the gun into her belt. Then she took a step forward and kissed him on the cheek. It was not much of a good-bye, but time was short. "Could you lend me a hand?" Skye then asked, pointing at an emergency hatch in the ceiling of the cabin.

"Sure," Benji replied reaching up to open it, then he linked his hands to make a step for Skye.

Putting her foot into it, she pulled herself up through the opening in the ceiling. "Take care," she said, before she closed the hatch.

Suddenly Benji realized that now he was all alone. Of course he could be sure that Luther, Ethan and Brandt were still watching, but if he was in trouble they'd never be there fast enough to help him. Then he scolded himself for being so easily terrified, after all the only thing he had to do was get out, and that had already proven easy the last time. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the ground floor button, and a moment later the doors opened.

Ethan had been right when he had said that the foyer was crowded. Even though in the rather large room there was still a lot of space, the people standing around in groups of two, three, or sometimes four people were a stark contrast to the former emptiness of the entry hall.

And Ethan had been right in another thing: Apart from seven or eight of his own lookalikes, and plenty of people in the uniforms of security guards or maintenance staff, there also were several smaller, female figures with distinct white-blond hair. They had indeed copied Skye, several times.

Trying not to look up, Benji crossed the room, hoping that no one would notice him. The many versions of himself did creep him out somewhat, and everything in him wanted to run, but he controlled himself and even tried to smile at the people he passed. Still he was relieved when he was finally through the door, headed away from the Roman Tower, and even more so, when a familiar blue van came around the corner.