Forever Fighting | ✔️ | [previously Espionage: double-cross]

Chapter 34

Julie sat there, staring at the closed door to the room that could be used to access everything on Auxilium's database, everything about them. She wasn't even fighting her bindings at this point, knowing aid was on its way and that struggling was futile. 

When the door opened, he found her staring at the wall, face void of all emotion. 

"Hey, you alright?"

She didn't even turn to look at him. "Just get me out of these."

He complied, looking at her anxiously. "I'm guessing the kid got in."

She only nodded.

"Any idea how?"

"Someone was in the control room."

She needn't say anything else. He accessed the security footage of the room, only to find it looping. "They've hidden their tracks, well. The code used can't even be traced."

Julie shook off the rest of the bindings. "Who else isn't at the event?"

More tapping on the keyboard. "Everyone is accounted for."

"Then who the hell let her in?" 

He backed up, arms held aloft in mock surrender. "Don't look at me, I know how scary you can get."

Julie didn't crack a smile. He knew then how serious this was, not even his stupid comments could elicit even a mere crack of composure.

He looked over at the wall, giving out orders to get it open. 

"It's programmed shut!" Someone was calling out from one of the meeting rooms, computer in hand while typing furiously.

"Get it open!"

Someone came in with a battering ram.

"Are you sure this will work? That wall is reinforced for a reason."

"It's the only option right now." He signalled the go-ahead. "Better start now, this is going to take a while."

He looked at Julie, watched her fists clench until he was sure her fingernails were drawing blood on her palm. He already knew that at this moment, she was going through every scenario, wondering how all of this could have been avoided. But he had watched the girl, seen the determination so much like their director's. 

This had been inevitable.

The room around her was dark, screens deep pools of darkness save one in the middle. The agency had decided to be cliché in the layout - the black screen with neon green text that stood out, very matrix-esque.

Alex took a seat on the old threadbare stool that sat under the desk, pulling it out with a long squeak. Of course she had expected simple security measures but as she stared at the log-in page before her she couldn't help but feel maybe she wasn't in her right mind when going through with all of this. 

She knew that the username wouldn't be as simple as an agent's name, that would defeat the purpose of the security. It had to be something that identified them without being so obvious that anyone could unearth it. 

She smiled as she thought back to the day Julie had first taken her to her office, her confusion at the words written by the door. It made it so much easier now.

She typed in the three words - potens velox intelligens - and smiled triumphantly at the little tick and green rimming that appeared around the words.

The more difficult thing, was the password.

As well as she knew Julie, there were too many possibilities. The hacking software on her phone would take too long to crack the password, leaving her to guesswork.

She knew she could rule out anything simple, doubting the director of a secret agency would have their password as password or anything of a similar simplicity.

Knowing Julie, her password would only be something she cared about enough to remember. Something she always had on her mind that no one else would ever think to try.

No, it couldn't be.

Alex stretched out her fingers and began typing. When the first try yielded no success, she continued to try numerous variations though stopping before she started replacing letters with numbers. 

Honestly don't know why Julie is so against words like l8r, much more efficient in my opinion.

After adding an exclamation mark, a very important date and a capital letter at the beginning, Alex was granted with access.

"Hell yes." She excitedly clicked the mouse, taking her to the documents folder and smiled, her grin widening to the point she could have played Alice in Wonderland's cheshire cat with no problem. 

Auxilium's database was well-organised. Even though the labels would have been mystifying for someone not used to their particular way of going about missions, Alex was more than adept at understanding them. 

She searched through the files to find her own, a recently edited file under the name of '5A-9P6', her assigned agent code. She double-clicked and dragged the new file onto one of the many blank screens that surrounded her. 

From there it was easy to access the footage from the sunglasses. All it took was some forwarding on the video and then running the facial recognition software. Even though he was wearing aviators, the software worked, a little window popping up on one of the other screens. 

Alex clicked it and found herself immersed in another file named 'Agent P-125'. In here were all of the other sightings, any information Auxilium had collected and there wasn't much. Apart from a face and a number of sightings around the Tower of London, the agency's database could provide little else about Alex's mysterious stalker.

What she did find interesting was the folder this file had been found in. Potentia was an interesting label, and a folder that had files whose names started with 'Agent' had to be important in the grand scheme of things. If the person she had seen was on their known enemy list, their file in this folder, Alex thought it was safe to assume that this was an enemy agency, one Julie had pretty much spelled out was connected to her mother. 

So backtracking and scrolling through the countless Agent P files on the database, she looked for something out of place. On coming across a zip-file called 'Project V', the scrolling stopped. Among the files of sightings and people with little information, a folder so big it had to be compressed was noteworthy, and definitely click worthy.

She tapped on it and waited as it 'unzipped'. When the little bar in front of her said 12%, the banging started. It was a rhythmic pounding, a sound too soothing to be the fore-bearer of bad news. 

Alex willed it to load faster, rapidly clicking anywhere on the screen in a pointless attempt to speed it up. She watched the numbers tick by, skipping a few dozen percents before freezing once again. 

The bangs became louder as the agents started breaking through the reinforced layers, each one crumbling with the effort.

The moment the number switched to 100, Alex was clicking around desperately, eyes scanning the many different screens. As she searched for something important, she had skimmed through enough information to know that this whole thing was to do with a virus, one dangerous enough to wipe out populations in weeks. Pages and pages of information regarding this project but none of it was what she wanted.

The desperation was clouding her mind, not letting her understand the significance of this information. All she could think about was the fact that she had gone through all this trouble, had caused all these problems, had most likely sacrificed her future at the agency for what? Knowledge that there was another agency who had sent someone after her?

It had been for nothing. A particular harsh pound sent the metal walls into a frenzy of vibration, making the screens rattle and shake on their hinges. One in particular looked to be in fear of falling so when she put her hand up to stop its descent, her finger landed on a little file that could be everything she wanted.

Alex clicked on her mother's name and watched as everything she wanted to know came pouring out in an incapacitating flood of information.