Chapter five

Cafe
Colorado Springs
November 28th, 2008

(Three days earlier)

Lex was grateful for her friend Jo, short for Josephine Phillips, but preferred that everyone called her just, Jo. Without that woman's help, Lex would have been stuck in Colorado still, trying to track down Elaina on her own. Hell, she would have been still trying to figure out who had taken her.

However, Jo, was very tech savvy, and knew her way around firewalls and security systems better than most. When Jo was just the young woman Lex ran into each Saturday morning at the local coffee shop, before Gunnison and before Antarctica even, they had bonded over the love of hiking trails. Jo would come in every Saturday and sit down at the same table and order the exact same thing. She would fire up her laptop and get to work on whatever it was she worked on, Lex still didn't understand it even after all these years, and could easily spend countless hours at it.

It had taken Lex a few weeks of watching the woman discreetly from across the coffee shop every Saturday morning, before she had gotten the nerve to talk to her. It had started so simple and evolved to them bonding over hikes into the wilderness where technology could barely reach, and ended with them becoming very close friends.

It had been because of one of their many hiking conversations that had led to Jo's arrest. One moment they had been talking about Lex's dad, and the next the FBI was entering the coffee shop and hauling Jo out.

Thinking back to that time, Lex had been sure she would never see Jo again. So that following Saturday, she had been extremely surprised to find her friend sitting at her table, cheeky as always, like she hadn't been hauled out in handcuffs a week earlier. That had been the beginning of Jo's career with the FBI. They had given her the choice of a lot of jail time, or a job. Jo had only flourished under the guise of a tech analyst for the FBI. Her friend rarely considered it actual work, since it was something she loved to do, and now that she got paid for it, only made it that much cooler.

Their friendship had lasted all these years, so it had been no hardship, when Lex called her up after settling in to her new hotel to ask if she could investigate the security footage at the Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center. These last few weeks, she had been relying a lot on her friend Jo, requiring her skills in hacking the security footage of the Hospital and finding out that Weyland-Yutani has taken Elaina from the hospital. Jo had also helped her get her hands on satellite footage of the company picking through the rubble that was left of Gunnison.

Jo might be curious by nature, wanting to test her skills with the next firewall challenge, but she rarely pushed Lex for information. All Lex had to say was that it had to do with Antarctica and a friend of hers was in trouble, and Jo had been 100% in, no questions asked, other than what she could do to help.

Lex sat at a coffee shop, now, reminiscing the old times of spending the morning with no care other than what mountain she wanted to climb next. Life had been so much easier back then, she mused to herself before taking a sip of her coffee. Her leg was almost completely healed up, and only seemed to ache when the temperature dropped too low. She probably wouldn't be climbing many mountains in her future; however, she wasn't sure she would survive after the end of this month. If she managed that, she'd worry about mountain climbing then.

Spread out on the table in front of her were several different photo shots. She gently set her coffee cup down, making sure to place it in the only open space on the table so as to not damage any of the photos. There was one of Elaina being kidnapped. Another of a military force searching the rubble of Gunnison. There were several of Ms. Yutani, the new owner of Weyland-Yutani, as she traveled from her hotel in Salida to Gunnison, and then to the airport.

Jo had gotten her flight itinerary, and knew Ms. Yutani had traveled to San Francisco, to where her main office was located. It had taken some digging, but Jo was able to scrounge up information on where Elaina had been taken, only they were several steps behind. Elaina had been flown on a military cargo place from Salida to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to a smaller facility owned by Yutani before they had taken over Weyland Corporation. By the time Lex had gotten the information, however, Elaina had been transferred to a new facility near Rachel, Nevada, off highway 375, to be exact. The images she was staring at was another satellite image of a large warehouse looking building in the middle of a desert wasteland.

The location had Jo teasing Lex if she was looking for aliens, since the warehouse wasn't far from Area 51. Lex had tried to laugh with her friend, but it had come a little forced since that was almost too close to home.

Knowing Elaina could be moved at any time, should have pushed Lex to jump on a plane and take off after her friend to rescue her. However, Lex knew she had to play this smart. Yutani was a huge company that had a lot of hands in their pockets. They had declared Elaina Weyland dead without a body and seized her father's company completely. They weren't playing around, and unless she wanted to avoid disappearing into a black hole like her friend, Lex had to be smart about this.

Which was why Lex was sitting in a coffee shop in Colorado Springs, waiting. With Jo gathering as much information on the facility in Nevada, as well as Ms. Yutani's whereabouts at all times, Lex felt she almost had all the pieces she needed to stage the coop she was planning for the past three weeks.

As the door to the coffee shop jingled, indicating a new customer had entered, Lex stared at the last photo Jo had sent her that morning. The time stamp on it was from two days ago, not that it mattered. She wouldn't have been able to do anything to help, had she been informed in the moment of what the Military had found in Gunnison.

A shadow fell over her, and Lex quickly scooped up all the photos and filed them together with her hands tapping the edge against the table. She lifted her head just as the visitor spoke up.

"I never expected to hear from you again, not after you left us at the crash site," Kelly said. She stood over Lex; her arms crossed over her chest in a guarded stance. Kelly O'Brien appeared as she had, when Lex had seen her in that diner with her family back in Gunnison. Lex had learned later the woman was a member of the United States Army and was fresh from a tour in Afghanistan. Kelly was very good at compartmentalizing her emotions, and it showed with the way she held herself now, so soon after what they went through in Gunnison. Her dark hair was pulled back into a traditional ponytail, with the shorter loose strands falling over the right side of her forehead. She looked paler than Lex remembered from Gunnison, but that might have just been the lighting overhead. She was dressed in a casual green sweater and jeans.

Next to her, Dallas looked a little withdrawn, like he had lost weight over the past couple weeks. It seemed he hadn't shaved recently either but had a day or two worth of facial hair growth on his face. There were dark circles under his eyes as well, like he barely slept, something Lex could relate with. She imagined he was still mourning the death of his brother and suffering from PTSD. Aliens trying to kill you, can be pretty traumatic.

"Have a seat," Lex offered them the seats that were against the wall, knowing how hard it was to sit with your back exposed so soon after what they went through. Lex was struggling herself but knew that if she was going to get them on board with her plan, she needed them as comfortable as possible.

Dallas pulled the chair out for Kelly, who paused in surprise. Her lips pressed together, like she wanted to say something, but thought better of it. She took the offered seat and waited for him to sit down beside her before she turned her attention back to Lex.

Lex hadn't been surprised to find out the two had stayed together since Gunnison. It hadn't been hard for Jo to find that they had been relocated to Colorado Springs after the incident. They were staying with Kelly's parent's place. Lex understood the need for that connection with someone who had survived the same horror you had. Some might think that they would want to put as much distance between each other so as to not be constantly reminded of it. However, when you couldn't talk to anyone else about what happened to you, it was much easier to move on to have that outlet close by when you woke up screaming from the nightmares.

"I'm sure you understand why we couldn't stick around," Lex offered, after they were both situated.

Kelly scowled, her fingers drumming along the table. Next to her Dallas grunted in response before adding, "The technology you took."

Kelly shot him a look then, like she was worried someone might overhear. However, Lex had picked this place due to its slow business, not for its coffee.

"I am sorry we had to leave you there, but if we had stuck around, it wouldn't have been good for any of us. You were at least released after questioned about your experience. Had we been there, I doubt any of us would be allowed to walk away."

"What do you mean," Kelly asked at the same time Dallas argued, "They can't do that."

"Yes, they can." Lex said, cutting her eyes to Dallas. She pulled the photo of Elaina being kidnapped and slid it across the table to them. "They caught up to us and took Elaina. They have her."

Kelly picked up the photo and studied it closely. It was a clear shot of Elaina being dragged into a van, not putting up a fight since it appeared she was unconscious. Her eyes landed on the time stamp and her expression darkened. "This happened over a month ago," she commented, though it seemed mostly to herself as she didn't look at Lex when she spoke, but instead continued to stare at the date.

"This is barely twenty-four hours after we parted," she said, finally recognizing the date and what it meant. "They've had her this whole time?"

"The news said she was killed in Gunnison, and this guy- he told us that we couldn't say otherwise, or we would be detained," Dallas said looking at the photo from over Kelly's shoulder. His eyes flicked over to Lex. "Who are these people? The government?"

Lex shook her head. "Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Ms. Yutani bought into shares of the Weyland corporation after Mr. Weyland was killed in Antarctica. Elaina was too young to run the company herself, and after losing her father, she wasn't in the right mind either. She sold her father's company after inheriting it, but kept a few shares, to hold onto something her father created. Now that she was declared dead, Yutani owns all of it."

"Jesus," Dallas muttered, and sat back in his chair. His skin paled as he thought about what had happened to Elaina Weyland, the heiress of Weyland Corporation. In Gunnison, he hadn't realized who she was. She had disappeared from the limelight back in 2004 and was rarely a footnote in the news. Yet for someone like her to just disappear.

"Exactly," Lex said, as the information sunk in. "I need your help to get her out."

"Our help," Kelly asked with incredulity and the two of them shared a look before giving Lex their full attention. "I don't-"

"I know it's a lot to ask," Lex cut in, before Kelly could shut her down. "Believe me, I know what is at stake here. But I am asking you to help me rescues Elaina. She did everything she could to make sure you guys survived what happened in Gunnison. That your daughter made it out alive."

Lex studied the woman, keeping her expression unreadable so as to not sway her the wrong way. She needed the woman's military experience and hoped they were loyal to more than just to each other, but to other survivors.

"Okay," Dallas said, and Kelly whirled around to look him. Her expression told that she couldn't believe he would agree to do this so easily. "What do you mean okay. Do you have any idea who these people are?" Kelly asked him, trying to get him to really think this over first. "-What they can do to us, if they find out we are even talking about this?"

"Doesn't matter," Dallas said with a shrug of his shoulder. For a moment, Lex saw the young man from the city bus, arriving in Gunnison. He seemed on edge back then, guarded, but still youthful. Some of the hardened shield he erected after the horrors of Gunnison cracked open and he looked over at Kelly with a soft smile. Kelly stared back at him for a long minute, her brows furrowed as she read something in his expression Lex couldn't grasp. For the first time since walking into the coffee shop, Kelly slumped in her seat, defeat sagging her shoulders and she nodded her head, relenting to his call.

"What do you need from us," Kelly asked at last. The couple leaned in as Lex went over her plan, going into detail so that they were aware of just what they were signing up for.

In the end they agreed to meet up tomorrow morning, before heading out. It would give them each time to pack and prepare for the trip. It was a thirteen and half hour drive to Rachel, Nevada. About eight hundred and nine miles between them and their destination. If everything went according to plan, three days from now, they would have infiltrated a highly guarded facility owned by one of the most powerful companies in the world and rescued Elaina.

"And maybe this nightmare will finally be over," Lex said on a tired sigh.

AN: Hey at least I didn't wait like a year before updating again! *hides before she's attacked* I know this is probably not what you wanted to see happen next, but I want all the players to get their 15 minutes of fame. Plus, if I didn't have these fillers, this story would be so darn short!

Anyways, tell me what you thought. I am not a very tech savvy person, as you may realize long before even this chapter. But I am sure it is glaringly obvious now. I tried to keep my ineptness limited though.

As always tell me what you think, did you like, love hate it?

Inky Out