Chapter 18
Date: March 30th
Location: On way to Guardians Base
Time: 9:41 a.m.
"Are you alright?" I asked and the silence I had just broken felt wrong.
After I had agreed to Caldwell about his proposition to have a better alliance between the two organizations the next step was convincing William to essentially go into enemy territory. He didn't even flinch when we asked and after everything was all said and done we took a flight back to Texas.
I thought that he never got shook up by anything, but that was wrong. The closer we got, the paler his face had gotten. He wouldn't even have to worry anymore when we got to the base because he would be so white he'd match the walls.
"I've had better days," He mumbled, but his voice didn't have his confident edge.
"You want to talk about it?" I prodded. When we got to the Guardian base he would be under a microscope with everyone judging every single move he made. He needed to represent Caldwell, and being terrified wasn't going to help either of them.
But William remained quiet and for now I let it slide by, I knew how terrifying this could be and I didn't like people breathing down my throat. One needed space to breathe and to think through various scenarios and what you would say if someone asked you a question. It was like a job interview or a business negotiation, but it felt like more than your job was on the line.
A notification signaled that Matt had everything prepared at the base and now the rest were just waiting for our arrival. A day after William agreed with us to go back to the base Matt decided to head back early to explain what was going on and if William would be allowed to set foot in that place without being blown up. It was silent for a few days afterwards until we were given the green light. Of course my parents, L.J, and even the occasional texts from Iris kept me in constant communication with them. It was one thing to speak with Caldwell and his protégé in an open area at an undisclosed location, it was another thing when they were allowed in our most secure location. No one wanted another Ian.
"How do you do it?" William broke the silence this time.
"What do you mean?" He had to narrow down that field.
"Be calm when you go somewhere and you don't know if you'll make it out alright or not," I knew he wanted some philosophical answer, one that would chase away all his fears and worries.
Unfortunately I didn't have one.
"Don't tell anyone, but most of the time I'm terrified," I answered honestly. "But I know it's something that needs to be done, so I just try and do my best at pretending to be this person everyone thinks that I am."
"Really?" The disbelief was shining in his eyes.
"I thought I was going to have a heart attack when I met with Caldwell, but I knew I had hit a wall with the Reapers and I wasn't having much luck in finding Sebastian,"
That was another thing that I wished would just fade away, Levi was terrifyingly insane and manic, but Sebastian seemed 50 times worse. While most of the organizations I dealt with, I just took out the main leader for the group to crumble, it seemed like the Reapers weren't the kind to even blink an eye if Sebastian left. I was a bit out of my league with them, but with them trying to take out more and more Guardian bases, and succeeding with some, I didn't have much of a choice other than facing them.
I needed a new job.
"You'll be fine," I told William and for the most part I knew that part to be true. If they didn't kill Valentin when everyone knew he was the V.P of Lockstar then William would be fine. Besides killing him would be considered an act of war and then we'd have Caldwell against us too.
"How do you recommend that I approach them?" Again that was a vague question, but maybe a general answer would be best.
"Just be charming, people have a hard time killing people that they like," I smiled at that answer and he gave me a set stare.
"That's comforting,"
The rest of the trip was spent with idle chatter with the occasional question about how he should deal with the people higher up. Mainly what he should say, what he should do. We needed to create an alliance together, so it was important that he gained their trust. If there was even a minor slip, it would destroy everything.
If everything goes well, then the contract could be signed by the rest so we had a legally binding document between our two "businesses" and hopefully everything goes well after that.
When I knew we were only a few miles away I pulled to the side of the road and before William could question what was going on I held up a cloth black bag with a giant grin on my face. It was so nice for the shoe to be on the other foot.
"Really?" He asked and I finally see a whisper of a smile on his face.
"Can never be too safe,"
William merely rolled his eyes and put on the bag. I proceeded to do various odd faces to make sure that he couldn't really see and when he didn't laugh or give out an exasperated noise at me being ridiculous I knew that we were safe.
I quickly made a U-turn and made sure to take a few more turns than necessary and taking the winding roads in an effort to throw him off. Some people could recall how to get somewhere by counting the number of turns that they took. Once I was pretty confident that I threw off his sense of direction I started to the base.
The entrance looked like a normal parking garage, because well it kind of was. People always say that the best hiding space is to be hidden in plain sight and what better place than here? It provided good parking spaces and also allowed us to make a bit of profit from the tickets.
Pulling up to the gate, lights flashed asking me to push the button to get my ticket, once the slip popped out and the gate opened I went to the first level of parking and parked in one of the handicap parking space. Making sure that William stayed in the car, I got out and pressed my thumb to the handicap parking sign on the figure in the wheelchair. A moment later the floor descended enough to a hidden drive down to where our real parking garage was.
I got back in the car and was surprised that William wasn't asking any questions, I knew I was completely confused when I first came down here and it even took me a few times to remember how to get down here correctly. It seemed a bit much, but if it kept us safe I wasn't going to be complaining.
A minute later I was parked in one of the parking spaces and it felt like night with the lack of the light down here. Going over to William's side I opened the door and made sure he didn't hit his head on the way out the car. Instead of being like me, where I looked around wildly with the bag on his head, he remained calm and still.
"You doing ok?" I asked again, the bag could be a bit disorienting.
"Again I've had better days, but this isn't too horrid," Even though his face was hidden I could just imagine him smirking underneath that bag.
"Ok Mr. Bond let's go,"
After entering the code and giving it my thumb print it opened to the obscenely white hallways. While I previously wondered why we didn't have any cameras I later learned that a man named James had created these halls in a similar fashion that Lockstar had their room where they had me demonstrate my skills. It calculated our height and weight and gave us a certain color that was fed to the feed in the security room. There were also various places that gave us x-rays as we walked through to document all the weapons that we had. James had even created a program that disrupted any communication devices. While they didn't see the message we could, so we had another way to see if someone was going to stab us in the back or not. It was basically some of the best security anyone could ever have and it would be impossible to take it out.
It turned out James was another person that was on the Lockstar list as a hacker, and not wanting to be sold or killed he agreed to work with Lockstar as their own personal hacker. He was the one who created the software known as Mal which was a supercomputer that Michael used during my capture there. According to Iris, James had created a supercomputer knowing that it could be disabled, especially when I got there. He, however, was a bit irritated that I took so long to disable it when I was supposed to be a legend.
I hadn't spoken with James much other than the occasional hello, but with talks of protégés my mom was suggesting that I should get one of my own, and James was a perfect candidate. But the mere thought of sharing my software and secrets of the hacking with someone else, even if they were a fellow hacker, was uncomforting. Hackers were loners and recluses; we didn't train people to take over or to step in when we weren't there.
"Having fun Willy?" Matt seemed to appear out of nowhere and was grinning widely at William, also seeming to love that we weren't the bagged ones.
"This is just a delight," The sarcasm was thick in his voice, but there was a tenseness in there as well.
"Are we running late?" I asked before Matt could mock some more. I thought everyone else was supposed to meet William in one of the meeting rooms, but we should have had more time before people came looking for us.
"No, I just wanted to see this," At that I rolled my eyes. "You guys are actually early."
"Really?" William asked sounding a little confused. "With the distraction methods Aura tried to use to throw me off I thought we were going to be a few days late."
At that I glared at William even though he couldn't see me and the man still laughed. Ok yes I was trying to throw him off so he wouldn't be able to find it easily if he wanted to attack us, but I didn't think he'd be able to figure it out with no sweat.
"Oh please, you should have seen her distraction method when we were trying to give the cops back the Hope Diamond, Aura freaking -," Matt started to ramble off excitedly of something that happened nearly four years ago.
"And we're walking," I cut him off.
I remembered that day well, where I kissed a cop so Fran could make a getaway. It was one of those cheesy things that you see in the movies that you don't expect to work, but it did. And the others never forgot it.
Thankfully we reached the room for said "meeting" when it was really just first introductions. The room had some color in it, if you actually counted beige as a color, with a long wooden table with chairs hugging the sides of it. Food was on the table and my stomach growled reminding me that I hadn't eaten anything today.
Matt sat William down and took off his bag while I got a cup of tea, then thought about it for another moment, and poured tea for William as well. Matt and I did give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he wasn't as crazy about tea as the stereotype suggested, but I don't think I had ever seen the man drink coffee. Matt seemed to be the only British person I had met that didn't really care for the drink unless it was filled with sugar.
Handing him the tea he mumbled a thanks while Matt went to get a cup of coffee and I grabbed a bagel and started nibbling at it, knowing it wasn't appropriate to inhale food in front of a person. But I still got an odd look.
"What?" I asked as William stared at the food in my hands.
"You're eating a bagel with nothing on it," He stated.
"Yeah," I drew the word out slowly, not sure what the point was.
"It's not even toasted," He continued.
"No it's not," And I took another large bite just to bother him a bit more.
"Then what's the point? It's just like bread then,"
"No, it's a bagel," While Matt was trying to smother his laugh at my blunt humor, I didn't hide my grin and William just glared at me.
Before he could retort the door opened and familiar faces flooded in, well at least familiar for me. My parents, L.J., Fran, Iris, Maria and Max all walked in. Part of me breathed a sigh of relief that Valentin didn’t walk in, otherwise William may not have been able to keep his calm.
William stood up when the door finally closed and all fear that I had noticed earlier was gone.
"Hello everyone, it's lovely to see you all again, I trust you're all doing well?" Ah working the charming angle, good.
"We're doing quite well, but a little confused," My mother said as everyone took their seats and William sat back down as well. "I'm sure you can understand the latter though."
"Of course, your past experiences with Richard Caldwell haven't been necessarily positive, you're cautious," William theorized.
"I don't recognize you from Lockstar," My father blurted out and I grew a little bit tense at that statement, I wasn't expecting them to bring up that so quickly.
"That's because I was never a part of Lockstar," William answered easily enough. "I was a network analyst for the CIA, but I did not feel I was doing all that I could to make the world a better place. When I started to expand my horizons, I got into some trouble; Richard found me and offered me a place in his organization. He didn't consider me being his protégé until nearly five years afterwards."
It was a good response, carefully constructed and allowing bits of important information to be revealed without uncovering too much. These interrogations always felt like a game, you had to say the right things at the right time otherwise you'd lose.
"Why does Richard want to form an alliance with us?" My father didn't seem to like beating around the bush in this area.
"He believes it would be beneficial to both parties, especially with the Reapers involved. By using each other's resources we would be able to get rid of threats easier," William replied easily.
"And if you remember Richard's intentions for Lockstar were supposed to be like the Guardians, he has no intentions of trying to recreate a human trafficking organization."
At that silence filled the room. Everyone liked to believe that Lockstar was created to be this evil organization that they forgot that Caldwell had honorable intentions. However, the main problem was the no one knew what went wrong, no one knew why they turned into a human trafficking business.
Well, I thought looking over at William sitting a little bit tense but exuding confidence in the chair, not no one.
"And what are some of the terms that Caldwell wants us to agree to?" Iris asked this time.
Before William could give an answer the door opened and Kyle poked his head through, looking a little sheepish while doing so.
"Sorry to interrupt, Keys, can I steal you for a moment?"
I wrapped my bagel up in a napkin and stood up to follow him to whatever was so important that he needed to interrupt this. Part of me felt a tinge of fear, but I made sure it didn't show, things were already tense enough. Scanning the room I caught William's gaze and I saw a bit of worry in his eyes, he was probably thinking the one person that I trust and who will back me up is leaving. Darting my eyes over to Matt, he followed and seemed to relax a little bit knowing that there would be one person on his side.
Once I knew that William wouldn't break I left the room and immediately feel the tension leave before it was replaced by a new one. Something serious had to be going on and I hoped that it could be quickly handled.
"What's wrong?" I asked as we speed walked down the hallway.
"We have a problem," Kyle simply responded.
"Yeah I gathered that," I spat a bit sarcastically and felt bad at my sharp tone.
We stopped at my office and I typed in the password and gave my fingerprint and Kyle rushed in to bring something up on my computer. I didn't understand why he couldn't just tell me and it was making me more nervous and angry.
Before the door closed completely someone else slipped in. Turning around I saw Valentin who looked a little worse for wear. His appearance reminded me of the time when he first broke into the Guardian base, dark circles around his eyes and a bit gaunt.
"Oh my god V are you ok?" What the hell happened within the two weeks that I was gone?
"I'm fine, I was just worried," At that I felt a tinge of irritation that he didn't think I couldn't take care of myself, but there was a larger part that felt loved by his worry. "You've been sleeping well I see, have you had anymore nightmares?"
"No," I said after a few moments feeling surprised at my answer. Most of the time I had slept like a complete rock and there wasn't any faces coming to grab me from the dark and kill me. "Have you been sleeping?"
"Been busy training, searching," Valentin waved his hand.
"Searching what?" And that also reminded me what the hell was Kyle searching?
"More stuff on William,"
Why hadn't I thought of this before? Valentin worked for Caldwell a long time, although it could've been a different Caldwell, all of those facts got a bit hazy when you looked too long. He had to have met William, but maybe not.
"Do you know him?" I asked. "He's said he worked for Caldwell for at least 3 years."
“Caldwell seemed to go in and out of the picture at various times, now looking back it’s hard to know if he was really ever the one calling the shots,” Valentin explained. “But I never saw this William guy, nor did I ever hear Caldwell talk about him. Can we trust him?”
“He’s getting the third degree from everyone,” I tried to reassure him, but it didn’t seem to work. “Is there something you wanted to talk about? Is there something wrong?”
“I just, I don’t know,” He seemed a little bit lost and looked around the room with slightly vacant eyes. Growing concerned I took a step forward and gripped his arm and his emerald eyes zeroed back in on mine with the same sharp precision I remember him always having.
“V I think you need to speak with someone,” I said slowly and feared that maybe he would lash out at that comment but instead he entwined his hand with mine and gave me a smile that could make me forget that he was capable of murder.
“Will you be there?” He sounded like a little child and I wrapped him up in a hug.
I had spent so much time concerned with everything else that I didn’t even stop to consider how difficult this must be for Valentin. He was in a new place surrounded by people he didn’t really know all that well, with a majority hating him. It couldn’t have been a pleasant experience.
“Course,”
For a moment we forgot there was another person in the room until Kyle coughed loudly and awkwardly to get our attention.
“You guys need a minute?” He asked a little unsure and I couldn’t blame him, it was confusing to know where Valentin and I stood and whether or not to question it or to let it slide.
“No, you said there was a-,” I stopped midsentence as I saw the photo that was up on the large computer screen and my heart nearly stopped.
There was me, talking to Sebastian and there was no way it was a fake. The photo had high resolution and you could see the scar on my hand, but that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was the corner of a newspaper displaying that days date was also in the photo as well.
“Everyone knows you’re not dead anymore,” Kyle said awkwardly shifting from side to side. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”