-Jake Aylesbury -
When I got to Miss Andersen's door, I froze. Her scent was faint and I couldn't hear any sounds from within. I could smell blood, I told myself it was her usual nosebleeds. Still, anxiety rattled through my ribs. Knocking and calling for her didn't seem to get any response.
I opened the door and stepped into her white room. From the doorway I could see the sheets were a mess, there was the usual from her nose and perhaps some from her ears last night. But the arrangement of pillows and bedding and the other red marks told me she'd dug her nails into herself whilst she thrashed about in bad dreams. I sighed, even with that, her scent was fainter in here. I moved towards the bathroom, the generic products pre-provided for her were lined up in a row on a little glass shelf over the sink. All but the soap. She'd cleaned herself up before she left, only leaving a couple droplets of red stray, one of them diluted with water than dried beneath the sink where she probably hadn't thought to look. I followed the trail of her scent out of the bathroom, and then out of her quarters. That was when I detected whiskey in the hall.
I turned and watched Cole go in to Swan's room. I frowned, it wasn't that unusual to see them together. But moments later the door opened again and there was Kate looking flustered.
Her face lit up when she saw me, relief. But also I could see a similar look in her eye to that of one Martello would often have when she was eager to discuss a finding. Kate zipped up the hallway in a blur and saluted. "Aylesbury," she said, "I know there's Unit business to take care of, but something really weird happened last night."
I could detect more of Swan's juniper on Kate than her own, softer scent, and frowned. "Is it that you spent time with your sister, outside of the gym that is?"
Kate rolled her eyes, "Well yes, but no, not that." She grabbed hold of my wrist and started to pull me down the hall impatiently. We were headed for the lift, she hadn't even thought of changing out of her night clothes.
"Andersen," I said snappishly,
She stopped and looked down at herself. "Oh," then let go of my hand and after throwing me a glance, sped back towards her room telling me to, "stay right there!"
When she got back she was in one of her sweater-dresses, red, and wearing black tights and boots. She liked being cosy more than she liked practicality. But being a Nocturnal, she could afford it I supposed. "Into the lift," ushering me forward, I obeyed without thought of pulling rank. She seemed lighter than she had been in a while. "We're going to need Jennings, now he's got his superpower back," she said as she hit the button for the ground level and swiped her key card. From up here no scans were generally needed unless the floor someone wanted to go to was restricted access, the cards were new since the turn, to identify better which agents are where, more specifically the Nocturnal ones. Ground and basement level required scans of prints to get to any other level now, not just the restricted access. There were ways to bypass the system if you didn't want to be tracked through the building or slowed up, I'm sure, but I hadn't gotten around to figuring them out. As they may come in handy later.
"What is this all about, Andersen?" Her toes were wiggling inside her boots, making the leather creak as it formed to their shape and gave to her fidgeting, I clenched my jaw, ran my hands back over my hair and let out a breath. Sometimes even I could be irritated by the smallest things.
Kate glanced up at the dark grate above our heads, she'd made the camera in it, and put on a fake smile. Out of the corner of my eye I watched her lift her hand and wave to it, so quickly I was reminded of three people, two of which may have directly influenced her. Rin being at the top of the list. Without even looking back at me, she spoke through her smile, "Just something interesting."
I dipped my head, this was not the place to talk about it; whatever it was. So I changed the subject. "What were you doing in Swan's room?"
"Bonding over traumatising experiences." She shrugged, lopping her head from side to side and finally her eyes were glancing about the lift, then we flinched in sync-mine was a little more controlled-as it came to a stop and the doors parted for us. "I say bonding, but it was really a one way conversation. I think if she's a tree, I'm definitely moss."
"Growing on her?" I realised, stepping out into the hall with Kate ahead of me by a few, small but quick steps. She was always having to slow herself down these days in the halls.
"I hope so." Kate stopped in front of the old lab and frowned at its closed door, then kept moving up the halls. "Where's Jennings anyway?" Apparently she didn't feel the need to discuss it with me alone first. That or she was impatient. Which giving all the waiting around she's done in her life was more than likely.
"He's," I paused, we both stopped, his light tread wasn't far away. We both turned and moments later there he was.
"Sir, Miss Andersen," He saluted to me and then gave Kate a cheeky smile. "Breakfast calls,"
"No," Kate caught his arm just before he was about to continue walking. "Not yet, not for the three of us."
He gave her a quizzical look, it turned concerned as his gaze shifted in my direction. "Should I be worried Sir?"
"If I knew, I'd tell you." I lifted my hands up, palms up in front of me.
"This bodes well." He muttered, "Alright, where to, Miss Andersen?"
"Somewhere there are very few cameras, it'll be easy to sweep for listening devices and we'll need your tech skills, Jennings." Kate's optimism had never really died, but it had been hampered, and suddenly there it was in full force. I felt like sitting back and watching her ride this odd spark of life out, only I figured I needed to watch out that it didn't land us in hot water.
"After the turn there are few places like that here, it was hard enough before." I rubbed my chin, as if it would stimulate the thinking process. "Jennings, can you set up a loop for the video in the old lab, remotely I mean? Once you have I can sweep for anything untoward."
Kate beamed, "You're really going along with this?"
"Yes," if she thought I was simply humouring her, she had another thing coming. I'd learned the smallest of details here could be the difference between life or death and being in any collaboration with traitors meant we needed whatever details we could get of the goings on here. For our own good as much as anyone else's.
* * *
"All set," Jennings held up his tablet, his laptop in front of him on one of the desks in the old lab. The lights were dim, which was a wonderful change from the halls. "So what's this all about?" He turned to Kate who was staring through the glass screen separating us from a cold, cream tiled wall and floors, observation room. She was lost for a moment, skin pale, eyes dead, before she flicked her attention round on us and regained part of her smile.
"When I showered after my match with Swan, I felt something..."
"Are you sure this isn't something for a Doctor to deal with?" Jennings eyebrows rose in apprehension and Kate threw him a look, as cutting as her sisters, but painted it with humour when she realised.
"No, not like that. I felt someone, a presence here." She clarified, although I leaned up against a cabinet trying not to screw my eyebrows so far down I couldn't see past them. She was becoming anxious as she realised neither of us were entirely on board. "L-look to start with it was a shudder, my skin prickled, and I could feel this electrical pulse. A life force, but a very s-strong one, not something natural, n-not one I've experienced before."
"Okay, so strong life force... in the shower?" Jennings glanced up at me searchingly, but we were both asking as many questions in our heads.
"No, th-that's just the thing. They were in the sub-basement level. Beneath plenty of concrete and joists and a drain and... basically, I've never so clearly felt something so strong from so far away." She looked between the two of us as it clicked in our heads. I pushed myself forward, straightening up, crossing my arms. Jennings span his chair slowly towards her, invested in finding out what she had to say now. "It also affected the lights, they surged and dimmed for a moment. Whoever it was, it moved directly beneath me and caused it."
"But, I was around the gym, they'd have had to have passed under it and there was no real issue there with the lights." I realised aloud, this disturbance's affect had a localised affect.
"I won't be able to hack into the sub-basement level security feed to see what it was, if that's what you want. I'd get caught pretty quickly if I tried." Jennings was suddenly nervous too, but Kate just shook her head.
"You don't have to. This thing, it moves around. It's not being kept in one place. It scaled the building last night, from the outside." She added, flicking her hair back over her shoulder, the static of it being pulled from her sweater material made the ends splay and almost float before it settled again, messily. "It passed my window, my lights flickered just like they had before, I got all the other symptoms. But the darkness outside, combined with black glass and abyss lights meant I got barely more than a shadow. But..."
"I can look into other video footage and check for hitches in the power... if something effected the lighting in your room, it may have caused other problems. You want me to see if it got caught on camera." Jennings was already tapping away at his tablet, his laptop was open and when he wasn't doing something on the one he'd be typing into the other.
"If... it can be caught on camera." Kate's eyes locked on mine and there was an understanding between us. Despite her first mission being a dud and her being locked in her own head for a part of it, she'd been aware of some of what was going on.
"You believe it could be linked to our mission usurper?" I surmised,
"That, or it's just a new breed of Nocturnal I'm not sure I want to meet." As Nocturnals and Scavengers go, Kate had met the most dangerous in a very short period of time. I didn't blame her for worrying about a new threat surfacing from the underbelly of this place. "You'll want to look at time stamps starting at eight-o-five when it started moving, basement and ground floor disturbances, to time stamp around nine-thirty-six, twentieth floor, west side of the building. I can't account for the time between that or the fact this thing was moving in the wrong direction to be heading up at the time either."
After that we fell silent, until tapping a couple more keys Jennings simply drew out the word, "Okay," Kate and I gathered over his shoulders to see what he was looking at.
"Okay," He repeated, in front of him a split screen view of areas around the gym, "There," he said, noting a slight flicker in the lights. Very subtle, and barely a dimming. "So it's definitely not in your head," he muttered. "I'm not going to waste time searching through all the time in between searching for this disturbance, I'll do that in my spare time." Then he was changing the split screens to twentieth floor security cameras. There was again a slight flicker in the lights and a dimming, but it was slight. "A chink in their armour?" He wondered aloud,
"Possibly, can you hack the outside cameras?" I checked, watching him while he veered into checking other floors.
"The disturbance holds on the twentieth floor for a while, but the electrical problem seems to become really subtle on camera, then," he's ignoring my question and flipping through the other floors until he hits restricted and stops. "It stays on Mister Andersen's floor for an excessive amount of time." He licks his lips, then he's searching through the outside camera feed too. The problem with abyss lights is they don't help recordings. But there on the side of the building is a little dark creature. A creature because apart from the fact it is a skinny humanoid, it is cast in shadow and tiny and climbing up the building like Spiderman. It gets to Kate's floor and lingers near one of the windows, Swan's room, then carries on up to Mr Andersen's floor and then disappears inside. As if it's possible to enter through sealed, bullet proof windows so easily.
"S-should I be worried about my father?" Kate glances up at me, eyes wide with her anxiety that is stinging up my nose.
I put my hand on her shoulder, "Yes, but maybe not for the reason you may think."
* * *
"So it didn't leave out the way it came, it used the elevator, but this is the thing. The transmission of the camera cuts out the second the doors open. It comes back on in subbasement level, just as the doors close again." Jennings, holding up his spoon, broad smile on his face as if he's gloating about something. But really he's talking quietly and giving the others an update.
Skinner shimmies in his seat uncomfortably, Hudson has both his eyebrows raised while he chews on the fried mushroom that came with his breakfast today, and Kate watches them carefully. "It seems Andersen's up to something,"
"When isn't he?" Hudson chuckles, making light, but his gold eyes are serious.
"The thing is... the real thing. This is static interference. Not someone tapping into the system and blocking transmission. It fits our assassin perfectly, and seeing what it can accomplish, I'd venture to say it's not something I'd want to be on the hit list of." Jennings says, putting another spoonful of porridge into his mouth. This was now our meeting place, a table in the cafeteria, because my office wasn't entirely safe anymore. "I think they have limited control over this static though. So I won't say the camera's blacking out isn't planned."
"It's too bad this entity isn't an ally. We could go just about anywhere and be wiped from cameras before we were even on them." A glimmer in Skinner's eye, it was sharp, made me sit a little straighter.
"Yeah," I agree, poking at my porridge. It looks grey and tastes like vitamins and dust, which would be great if either were appealing.
"We're digging deeper right?" Kate gives me moon eyes and I sigh, because I want to tell her no, it's too dangerous. But I know it won't work and that it may be more dangerous to do otherwise.
"Carefully, we've still got a missing body to dig up." I shudder at my own casualness over Norton's body.