She couldn't believe it had actually worked. Not just once, but twice.
At this moment, Nina was grateful to her past self for having the foresight to have insurance before infiltrating CTU. It had taken her a while to contact the right people and obtain the necessary resources, but it had all paid off. The knife she had enchanted to transfer her spirit between bodies had done its duty. She was lucky that nobody managed to find it since she'd hidden it in CTU nearly five years ago when she had gotten in deep with the Drazens. But when she had made her escape from CTU on the day of the Cordilla virus outbreaks, she had risked everything to see if the knife was still there. And it had been.
Of course, that had only been half the battle.
To transfer her soul, she had had to die in contact with the knife. She had hoped that tucking the knife into her waistband would be enough. More importantly, she had hoped the transfer would happen quickly enough to allow her to retrieve the knife using her new body. Thankfully, when Jack had shot her, she had woken up just seconds later in the body of one of the security guards she had killed. Nobody had found his body yet, so she had casually walked towards the site of her death and taken the knife back. People had asked questions, namely how he was still standing despite all the blood on him. It had also been a challenge trying to familiarise herself with the body of a stranger, learning important details like his name and duties on the fly, on top of dealing with the shock of seeing her own dead body in front of her. The virus outbreak had worked to her advantage. Nobody had cared enough to scrutinise her sudden behaviour change, and she had successfully learned to assimilate with the rest of CTU. Her own experience certainly helped there, too.
Admittedly, she hadn't had much of a plan for after besides trying to contact her old associates and sell information from CTU, just as she had been. But many of those associates were dead or incarcerated. Being a security guard also didn't offer her much computer access. Her clearance level was not very high, nowhere near as high as it once was. She did get a surprising amount of information just from eavesdropping or casual conversations with her colleagues — well, if gossip about her colleagues could be called that, it wasn't quite valuable government secrets. Nina had studied how to prepare the knife for transfer again, hoping that she could jump the food chain. However, it would be riskier. The longer her soul pushed Bryce's down, the weaker he became. Chances were if she left his body, he would drop dead, and she would have to deal with that quite quickly. The other risk was not getting into the correct body. The person she wanted to get into would have to be on the brink of death or severely weakened with an open wound. It had been dumb luck the first time because multiple bodies had been nearby. No, if she wanted to ensure she did this properly, she would have to be right next to them, which was tricky to achieve with someone like a director or department head. She would also need to have observed and known the person long enough to impersonate them well. Of course, she doubted anybody would suspect possession if she slipped up, but she couldn't risk a suspension or termination.
What made the situation even more depressing was that the handful of people she had wanted to interact with and missed had left CTU pretty soon after that day. Jack had gone to rehab, and Tony had gone to prison. Her best bet had been to get close to Tony's wife, Michelle, who was in charge of CTU, but with the stress of Tony's situation, she had been highly focused on her work, not one for chitchat. Being in a man's body also meant she couldn't speak to Michelle much without seeming like she was making some kind of advance. Michelle also wasn't easily fooled despite her vulnerability. She was stronger than most people probably realised, and Nina had to admit she admired her for it. This line of work was famous for being male-dominated; showing weakness as a woman was not an option if she wanted to keep her career.
Eventually, Michelle left, too, and Driscoll — who was even less sociable — replaced her, putting Nina back at square one, trying but failing to execute her plan to get into a more useful person's body. But by some miracle today, Jack had returned to CTU, which thrilled her more than she would like to admit. But he, as always, was constantly on the move. It had been too difficult to get him alone. Miracle number two was seeing Tony walk into CTU, which, again, made her realise just how deprived she was of familiarity and genuine connection. But he, too, had been difficult to corner since the higher-ups were watching him carefully given his treason charge. However, just as Nina had thought she would lose her chance, Michelle walked through the door. It seemed like everything had fallen into place. Any one of them would be a decent candidate. People generally listened to Jack, even when he wasn't officially in charge. And likewise went for Tony. If Jack trusted him, then everybody had to trust him too. But Michelle had the most authority. And she was the least likely to leave CTU for a field mission and risk getting herself killed.
Which led Nina to where she was now, on the floor of Tech 3, gasping and slowly opening her eyes.
She glanced at Bryce's bloodied body beside her and felt stickiness on her back from the stab wound. Her hand moved under her blazer, feeling the knife protruding from her lower back. Nina yanked it out with a wince before quickly confirming that the wound had already healed. She then tried to sit up but felt a wave of dizziness, planting her palms on the ground. The loss of blood aside, it would take some getting used to being in a body of a smaller stature again. At least Michelle's body was much closer to her original physique than Bryce's. Nina knew the transfer probably hadn't taken very long, but she still couldn't arouse suspicion by disappearing. Using one of the computer servers to stabilise herself, she slowly stood, securely holding the knife.
Nina grabbed Bryce by the shoulders and moved his corpse behind one of the servers. It wasn't an ideal spot, but rumour had it people didn't like coming down here, so she wasn't too worried. When she first looked into soul transfer, she learned that the process had lingering effects in the environment where it occurred. She hadn't personally noticed anything, but then again, her perspective was a little biased here. She wiped the excess blood off the knife with Bryce's shirt before tucking it into the waistband of her skirt.
There was a bathroom down here, which was also rarely used. Stepping out into the hall, she warily glanced around before walking quickly towards it. Nobody was in there, to her relief. Nina turned away from the mirror, glancing over her shoulder to look at her back. The blazer did a good job of covering the huge bloodstain on her white shirt. But it did smell a little, so she hoped Michelle had perfume or deodorant in her purse. She tucked her hair behind her ears, inspecting her appearance to ensure nothing was out of place. At least since Michelle didn't work at CTU anymore, very few people would be likely to pick up a change in her demeanour. Tony, Jack, Chloe, and Bill Buchanan, the man she'd come here with, were the only ones who knew her well. That being said, it was because they knew her that they wouldn't question her. They wouldn't doubt her judgement even if she was acting slightly off. She was in charge of CTU, for God's sake. They should respect that, at the very least.
Nina let out a breath, looking at her reflection one last time. She still wasn't sure if she could pull off running CTU during a national crisis. It had been a while, after all.
But she took comfort in the knowledge that nobody would figure out what had really happened and that even if they did, it would be too late for them to stop her.
