The S.H.I.E.L.D. Chronicles of Alex Hua

Chronicle 12

I was fuming but I breathed a little so that I wouldn't cause a commotion. Just for the mission. Just for the mission. Don't kill him. This is for the mission.

I plastered a fake smile on as I faced him. Ian faced the group he was talking to and said "Um this is Skye, a member of the Rising Tide. And this is her friend." He whispered that last part as he started talking again. "They're a group of hackers. I've gotten some pretty big secrets out to the public."

I glared at him but saw Skye smiling at me. I pushed down my anger as Skye said "I prefer Hacktivist. I'm glad you've heard of our site." She smiled at him as he smiled back at her.

"I read it. We think very much alike. More freedom of information, Less government infringing on everyone's rights. I'm a fan."

"That explains the invite. This is a tough party to get into," She said to him. "Not as hard to get into as the encrypted back channel you contacted us through to request the invite," He said smirking at her.

She chuckled a little as she looked at him. "That's sort of where I live."

"You've got to show me how you did that. I mean, if you sign on," Quinn said to her. I got confused when he said sign on. Sign on to what?

"Sign what, now?" Skye asked him. "I've been known to turn a few black hats into white hats, not just for vulnerability analysis, but for very creative thinking," He said to her as he leaned a little.

"A-Are you offering me a job?" Skye said to him, stuttering. My eyes widened as I looked at him. He looked around smirking as he said to her "Well, I didn't invite you here for your pretty face. I didn't know you had a pretty face. Yes, I want to hire you before someone else snatches her up," He said as he walked off. My mouth dropped open as I glared at him walk away.

Who does he think he is? I'm literally standing right here. I'm her date for god sakes. He could have fake it a little more or tried to hide his flirting.

"That seemed to go well," May said to us through comms as he walked on stage. "Yeah. It did," I mumbled as I took a drink of the champagne. Skye pushed me a little.

"What?" I said to her. She just smirked at me as she said "Are you jealous?" I almost choked on my drink. I coughed a little and said "Um, of course not. Why should I be?"

"Well, I just wanted you to know that you would beat Quinn any time of the day." I smirked at her as I took another sip of the champagne as Quinn stepped on the stage.

Quinn smiled at the crowd as he started his speech. "Many of you shareholders have been with us for years, and I see a few names here, but I want to thank you all for traveling so far to this beautiful country and, well for slumming it at Shaba Tal-Banar." A few people laughed at that.

He continued "This country where we are allowed to pursue progress and profit without the stranglehold of regulations that are now choking our world. The United States government, the E.U., The DRTC, S.H.I.E.L.D. These are just a few of the institutions that are guilty of hating the development of new technology for anyone. Except themselves. We dare defy them with a new idea, they steal in and sweep it out from under us but not today. You're all aware of what Quinn Worldwide has been able to do with basic minerals, let alone Uranium or Plutonium. Despite these unjust restrictions that weigh scales in the other guy's favor...."

Me and Skye looked around for a bit before we left Quinn's speech fading in the background. I put my champagne down as Skye gripped on hers. We walked into the house looking around trying to find a computer. I looked behind us to make sure no one was following.

We kept walking as Skye tried to open a door. She tried a little hard as I looked down the hall to make sure no one saw us. "It's locked but there's no lock," Skye said to them on comms.

"Check for a keypad," Fitz said to her. She looked on one side while I looked on the other side. "Nothing. What, you can hack a keypad?" I said to them.

"No, not over the phone," Fitz said to me. I laughed a little as May said "Is there a reception desk?"

"Okay, yeah. Well, now what do we do?" Skye said as we saw a reception desk that we passed earlier. Why didn't we think of this in the first place?

"What do you two think you're trying to do?" I looked and scowled as we saw Ian looking at us. Skye smiled as she chuckled a little saying "Just looking for a pen." She grabbed one and showed him. I fake smiled at him.

"Both of you?" He said to her questioning as he looked at me. Oh, now he notices me?

"Yep. got to write down all those good ideas, you know what I mean? Of course, you know what I mean. Probably have like ten pens for all your ideas," She said to him rambling to her a little.

"What are you two really doing?" He said as his smile disappeared. I gulped as I said "All right. Were busted. We was trying to get a glimpse behind your office doors, see how you really operate things."

Ian took a step towards us and I stepped in front of Skye a little. He stopped as he glared at me. "I invited you here as a guest, you treat me like another corrupt institution, looking for trade secrets to leak online. Security," He said into his phone on the last part. He was mostly talking to Skye during the whole thing.

"No, no, no, wait. It's just with all these la-di-da people, you have to be so guarded, so careful. What you say, what secrets you reveal. And I thought that we could be honest with you. If you know what I mean," Skye said as she stopped him from calling security.

I looked at what she had held up and saw that it said "S.H.I.E.L.D. is listening." Quinn looked at her and then at me as he had a serious face on.