Shade and Clearwater

Chapter Seventeen

 Worry can really eat at you. It was stressful enough for us, sitting in a dark room waiting for Miles' data transfer, when we knew what was going on and had consciously chosen to stay. But with every moment that passed, I worried more and more about Cleo and Butch, who we had not only left out in the open but had also not informed of the change in plans. What must they be thinking?

The minutes crawled by like hours. It was only as the taskbar neared completion did I dare to hope we might make it out of there without an incident. And that's when, with five minutes left on the download, the door to the lab opened and the light switched on.

It was a marshal, of course; anyone else I would have heard coming and sent them away. It was also a particularly trigger-happy one. He had his sidearm unholstered and brought to bear before I could even blink. "Freeze," he barked. Then he turned his mouth toward his lapel radio. "Dispatch, we've got two unknowns in Sub-Level 3."

Miles shot me an urgent look, and I knew what he was thinking. This was escalating way too fast, and this marshal was not fucking around. We had to do something quick, before we lost all control. I had to stall to give Jon enough time to get into position.

"Black Flag, Authorization Code Mike-Oscar-Delta five-oh-three," I said suddenly.

The marshal gave me a puzzled look. "Dispatch, stand by," he muttered to his lapel. Then, to us, he said, "I can't run that code over an open comm. What the hell is a black flag operation doing in the sub-level, though?"

I straightened my posture and forced my face into a scowl. "What's your rank and ID?"

"SPC, 129-0789."

"Well, specialist," I sneered. "This operation is on a need-to-know basis, and at your rank, you don't have the clearance."

The marshal's face turned bright red and I almost felt sorry for the man. "Just doing my duty," he said, holstering his gun. "I'll still need to run that code when I get upstairs."

"Well, you had better do that, then," I snapped and looked back to the computer monitor as if I was dismissing him.

The marshal turned away, then spasmed as if a large shock had just been administered to him. He staggered to his knees and I could suddenly hear his thoughts.

"Took you long enough," I muttered to Jon, who appeared just then, gloved hand still raised. I squeezed the marshal's thoughts, made them my own, grimaced as I felt the pain from the shock slowly subsiding.

"Couldn't get him while his gun was trained on you," said Jon. "Might have convulsed and squeezed the trigger."

"Shh, let me hear this," I hissed. A voice was in the marshal's ear. Agent Morris, this is dispatch. What is your situation?

"All clear," I made Agent Morris say, "Just caught two of the techs fooling around in the empty lab."

You've got to be kidding me.

"Dead serious. I'll put it in the report, let their supervisors sort it out. Morris, out."

I noticed Jon staring at me. "How did you know about that code?" he asked.

"I made it up," I said with a shrug. "If he had actually run it, it would have set off some serious alarms."

"Yeah, but how did you know what a code should sound like well enough to fake it like that?"

That stopped me as I realized I didn't know. "Maybe I'm tapping into some of Agent Hughes' memories." The thought made my blood run cold.

"Fascinating," said Miles. Then he pointed at the computer. "Looks like our download is done. Let's get out of here."