Chapter Eight

Just got back from watching The Amazing Spiderman. Does it make me a geek or a girl that I cried? I think both. But the upshot of that is that I was so caffeinated from coffee beforehand that by the time I got home, I still had the energy to finish another chapter and post it. I think my typing speed is 50% faster than what it normally is. 600 words in 15 minutes. Not bad. This chapter is relatively safe. There's an evacuation and Ladyguard's back story. She was a punk rocker, did you know that? I didn't, until I typed it. Also, I realized that I changed Stomcock Jr.'s name from Roger to Richard sometime in the last chapter. I like Richard better, though. Gives more opportunities for puerile jokes.

Enjoy. Two posts in one day! Woo!


Stranger woke up. He appreciated that, he really did. But surely there had to be better ways to wake up than face down on concrete? With George, this happened regularly, but he was pretty sure this wasn't George's fault for once. In fact, as he began to remember a Certain Sir Dick, he realized that leaving him here was probably sheer pettiness, combined with a sense of the dramatic. At least for once he didn't have a pan-galactic hangover. Sitting up a little gingerly - he was sore all over, probably from whatever they'd done to the phaser to get it to make impressive and scary noises when it was fired - he looked around. He was, once again, on the path in the Boston Gardens, although this time it appeared to be the middle of the night. George lay beside him, in roughly the same position as last time, even, while Ladyguard was lying on a bench with a rolled-up jacket for a pillow. Stranger suspected that Sir Dick might have a bit of a soft spot for her, still, even if she was tied to the bench.

With a groan, he pushed himself to his feet, and then kicked George. He lifted his head blearily and said, "Wassa?"

"Time to wake up, sleeping beauty," Stranger told him. "I've had a change of heart about this whole debacle. We're going to deal with Sir Dick."

"Really? Wicked." George got up and started feeling at his pockets. "Oh, goddammit, he took my phaser."

"Would you really trust anything that dick left you with?" Stranger asked as he went over and started picking at the knots securing Ladyguard, peering through the murky sodium-yellow light of distant street lamps to see how they were formed.

"No, not really," George said, doing likewise. "But it might have been interesting to analyze any traps he put in it."

Ladyguard, who was awake and appeared to have been for some time, glared at them. "Sorry, ma'am," Stranger said to her. "The knots are in unfortunate places." The glaring intensified.

Roughly five minutes later, when enough ropes were undone that her arms, at least, were free, she pushed the pair of them away, yanked her gag off, and said, "Stranger. You said you had a change of heart about this? Does that mean you're going to be cooperative now?"

"Yes ma'am," Stranger said. "And I'll even volunteer some of George's resources for you."

George nodded. "I've an entire revenue stream dedicated specifically to neutralizing threats against my person. I'm a bit surprised you've managed to avoid them so far, honestly. You're free to use it."

"Good," Ladyguard said grimly. "I was doing my absolute best to not make this personal, but that bastard just pissed me off." She looked around, busily undoing ropes binding her waist and ankles. "Do you two have any idea where we are?"

"Actually, yes," Stranger told her. "Follow us. And don't fall into the pond." As he led them off into the gloom, he covertly flipped off the bench where the geezers had been sitting last time, just on principle.

----

They didn't go back to the hotel this time, not once Ladyguard was properly oriented. Instead, they went down streets Stranger had never before explored, ending up in a residential area, all brownstone apartments with trees out front. Ladyguard went up to one of the buildings and started down the stairs to the basement level, rapped on the door, and then opened it up. Stranger and George, following her inside, momentarily stopped upon seeing the interior. If the bus had been a mobile control center, this was Headquarters, or at least the regional outpost. It was like something from a movie, a pristine white room, with various people walking around doing things that looked desperately important. Ladyguard strode through them like a modern day Moses parting her very own Red Sea. They followed after her once they'd stopped gaping, doing their best to avoid the agents who were paying them less than no notice.

They ended up traveling down hallways that extended way farther than could have existed under the one brownstone - Stranger realized they must be at least at the far side of the block, if not the next one over, by the time they left the hallway in favor of an office, seemingly like the numerous others they'd passed.  This one, like all the others, had someone in it, doing things that were presumably very important. However, this was the first time Stranger had recognized anyone in the offices.

"Jean-Luc?" George exclaimed.

Jean-Luc looked up. "Hello, sir. I told you I had a second security job, didn't I?" And it was the slight French accent that finally clued Stranger into the fact Jean-Luc was the person who regularly showed up to prevent them from getting thrown in the drunk tank.

"Yes, but..." George said, then paused. "You know, I'm not even going to think about complaining about my head security officer working for an international spy group, because it's probably why I'm still alive and why you haven't been actively getting police helicopters searching for me."

"Very true on both accounts, sir," Jean said, then looked at Ladyguard. "Code red?"

"No," she told him. "I'm giving this a code fucking indigo."

His eyebrows went up. "Are you sure?"

"We were all shot by an untested energy weapon, after being pointlessly kidnapped, and then left alone and unconscious in the middle of Boston at night, just because of some sort of dick-measuring contest, as George so aptly put it," she said. "Richard is a menace. He's not psychologically sound. And now, he's gone active. It's time to get rid of him."

"Duly noted," Jean said, typing something into the futuristic laptop in front of him. Then he looked up once more. "We were looking for you," he said, his voice ever so slightly less formal. "We've found his facility, and there's currently an unfortunate fire going on in one of the warehouse on the wharf." His face hardened slightly. "Unfortunately, the lives of three employees at that warehouse were lost. No trace of the blindfolds that were on their persons will ever be found."

"Jean, you're a sweetheart," Ladyguard told him, the first unguarded smile Stranger had ever seen her give appearing on her face. "Thank you."

He smiled back at her. "No problem, mon amour."

Ladyguard looked at Stranger and George, who were staring at her in shock. "Now, you two. You're going to a real safe house now, so -"

"No, we're not," Stranger told her. It was irrational. He knew that going to a safe house was his best bet towards survival, but that didn't change his mind. "We're going to stay where we know what's going on. There has to be something we can do, even if it's standing quietly out of the way while qualified people do the work."

Ladyguard looked a bit thundery, but then Jean, of all people, spoke up. "George I know could be of real assistance to you in code-breaking and computer work. Stranger... Stranger, can you do anything particularly well?"

"I write," Stranger offered. "I have an English degree. I knew my uncle relatively well. I'm a decent actor. Uh, that's about it."

"The acting we could maybe do something with," Ladyguard said dubiously. "But I suppose that we can allow you to stand quietly in the corner somewhere. It'll save on manpower."

"And when you go in to take Dick out, I'm going with, and I'll have one of those phasers," Stranger said firmly, quite aware he was treading on thin ice.

She stared at him for a moment. "Fine."

"Thank you," Stranger said. He decided that his luck had been stretched far enough today, and Kept his Mouth Shut after that.

------

It was an education, watching Ladyguard come in and take the place over. It was obvious she was in charge. Really, truly in charge, not just the somewhat impotent in charge of a VP coming in from out of town, who can't do anything other than perhaps fire a person. She was the person /everyone/ listened to. Stranger was more than a little bit in awe of her, and was doing his best to ignore his envy of Jean, who was her right-hand man, following her about and making sure people did as she said. Meanwhile, George had been coopted by a group of people who, from the snatch he’d heard of their conversation, were cryptanalysts of the highest caliber. They were, of course, being put in the shade by George. Stranger honestly thought George a little uncanny, whenever he saw him work; surely it couldn’t be possible for one person to be good at /everything/ involving numbers? But it was – the only thing he ignored were theoretical things that wouldn’t have applications that he could foresee. Those were ‘impractical’.

Then there was Stranger himself, who’d been left by himself, standing quietly in a corner. When he’d said that, he hadn’t meant it literally, he thought, a little resentfully. It was like they thought he’d screw something up. Feeling unwelcome, he wandered off to find a chair, and maybe take off his shoes, which had been bothering him for a while.  He even managed to find a suitably-civilian looking computer that he decided he could use without setting off WWIII.

So he sat, pulled off his Chucks, and felt around inside for whatever it was that was bothering him. Pulling out the lump he felt, he looked at it. “Oh, shit,” he said. It was a computer chip. He didn’t know what for, but he knew it hadn’t been in there before they were kidnapped.

He headed back into the hubbub, still stocking-footed, and found Ladyguard berating some miserable person for not adequately following procedure to preventing being tracked via the internet. She turned to look at him when he burst in, looking thoroughly irritated, but before she could say anything, he said, “We weren’t searched for tracking devices when we came in here, were we? I know I found one in my shoe just now. Sir Dick knows where we are now, and probably a lot about whatever you’ve been talking about.” He handed her the chip.

Her face went suddenly, awfully blank, and silence fell over the room. Then those present were treated to a bout of cursing that demonstrated Ladyguard had learned the local vocabularies of several different continents quite well, as well as the fact that her preferred words were short, sharp, and Anglo-Saxon in origin. Finally, she took a deep breath, and said, “Procedure M, go.”

The results were instantaneous. Everyone, working in more or less unison, grabbed their laptop from their desk, flipped a switch on its side, closed it, then pulled out a bag from a drawer and put the laptop in it. All papers on their desks were stacked neatly and placed likewise. Then, in a preternaturally neat line, a rehearsed line, they all went out the door in the back. Stranger didn't quite know what to make of this. An evacuation, obviously, but how was this supposed to not draw suspicion?

"Come on," Ladyguard told him. "We're the epicenter for the code M, so we get to go down to the bunker. Grab George, too."

Stranger followed her, collaring George on his way past. George squawked and grabbed the laptop he was working on as he was dragged away.

This time, they were led down a flight of stairs, at least fifty feet below the ground. Stranger suspected that this wasn't on any official maps, anywhere. lADYGUARD POINTED the pair of them towards one door at the bottom of the steps, even as she headed towards the other. "Go in there and strip," she said. George leered. " Drop your current clothes in the chute. Take a /thorough/ shower, and put on the sterile garments you'll find on the far side. And sorry about the shower, it might sting a bit."

Stranger, having long ago decided that his life was now an actual science fiction novel, just did as she said. George, however, was loathe to part with his laptop or his clothes, and Stranger was forced to remove the former from his position by force, then shoved George bodily into the decontamination shower. Spluttering, George came back out of the spray, and said, "You're a bastard."

"Yep. Deal."

The clothing that they were provided with after their showers - which had stung, and were almost too hot to bear - reminded Stranger of the scrubs that seemed to be a necessary part of every hostpital-based television series ever. They also seemed to be made of paper. But he put it on, dubious though he was, because he was not about to leave the room naked and he suspected his clothes had been incinerated. He was going to miss those chucks.

When they were both clothed once more (Stranger didn't feel the word 'decent' could ever properly apply to them.) they left through the far door, to find Ladyguard dressed much like she was before. That was unfair, but not unexpected. "Now what?" Stranger asked her. "Do we just sit here and wait for some unknown signal?"

"More or less," she told them. "Although I think George is going to be less than bored. How did you manage to get the laptop through the decon shower?" she asked him.

George mumbled something, completely absorbed in what he was doing, already seated in one of the armchairs scattered through the bunker. Stranger looked at him for a moment. So easily entertained. Just give him an unbreakable code and he was fine.

Then he turned to Ladyguard. "Since we've nothing better to do, why not give me a bit of backstory? It's obvious you've got a history with Sir Dick. Since it's personal for both of us, I might as well hear your reasons."

She looked at him for a moment. "Fine," she said, finally. "But sit down, at least. It's going to take some telling."

He did so, and she sat down across from him, on an ottoman. "I'm British," she told him.

He rolled his eyes. "No duh."

She shook her head. "Not Cockney British. Upper class, blue-blood, trace my ancestry back to Olde Englande," she said, her accent suddenly perfectly matching what she was telling him, all clipped and plummy tones. "The kind of person who gets ponies for Christmas."

He eyed her. "You don't exactly strike me as a pony type of person."

"I wasn't," she said. "I was born Elizabeth Caroline Annabella Tarrington, the daughter of an ancient family and a true subject of Her Majesty the Queen. But I wasn't exactly the most tractable child."

"I'm shocked."

"I was given some leeway, though, because I was the youngest daughter, and I was considered precocious. My aunt, Lady Ethelridge and my father's sister, took some interest in me. Now Aunty Ethel had been a bit of a wildcard in the family, and not everyone approved of her spending so much time with an obviously impressionable child, but my father doted on both of us - his youngest daughter and youngest sister - and so we got to spend quite a bit of time together.

"Aunty Ethel, unbeknownst to her kin, was a member of the British Secret Service. She had been working with them since her eighteenth birthday, and had been retired after a gunshot wound to the shoulder - things that explained much about her supposed exploits that no one really wanted to know about, but interested a curious young girl. I didn't find out about this until I turned twelve, when she deemed me to be trust-worthy, and I swore I'd never tell a living soul.

"She'd done some interesting work, and had had a large hand in dealing with Stomcock Sr. when he was trying to pester your uncle. She decided that I wasn't cut out for the life of landed gentry, and that I should be informed of the worlds of opportunity that lay outside the boarding schools and such I attended. I, of course, jumped at the idea that I could do something other than be a debutante and marry some dull man, or do some boring work that women of my status were allowed to do. So she started helping sign me up for various things - martial arts, in the name of self-protection; better math courses, in the name of mental betterment; a course in cryptography, because... Actually, I'm not sure how she explained that one," Ladyguard said, cocking her head. "But in any case, I was thoroughly educated in all things that would make me a wonderful candidate for the British SS.

"The day I turned eighteen, I applied. They turned me down, because of some undefined unsuitability." She shook her head, obviously a little bitter still. "Whether it was a matter of birth, gender, or what have you doesn't matter. I was turned down, and the past six years of my life were suddenly a burden rather than a preparation. I didn't know much beyond the workings of politics that could be considered remotely suitable for a lady of my 'stature,' and so I decided that I wasn't going to be a lady of stature. I ran away.

"Now, it wasn't the normal kind of dramatic running-away that leads to police investigations or anything along those lines. Instead, I went to a college not normally deemed suitable. I wasn't suitable either, though, so no one thought it odd. It was a good college, but one that had a large proportion of untitled people - just average, everyday Londoners. And that's where I picked up my current accent. I also picked up a hell of a lot of other stuff, like knowledge of how the average person thinks and relates to life. When I'd chosen to go against my family's wishes and go to that college, I'd been cut off from the family in general - except for Aunty Ethel, who thought I had the right idea. I had to fend for myself, work less than pleasant jobs, et cetera. I learned what the real world was like. I was a punk rocker for a while, actually. It was an interesting period.

"Then I graduated with a degree in pre-law, an understanding of why I'd been turned down, and not a lot of prospects. Then I was approached by Sir Richard Stomcock, and wooed by him both romantically and for his business. Both were working alarmingly well until I went to his apartment one day, uninvited and planning to surprise him, and found him..." She paused, "with a minor, in highly compromising circumstances. When I arrived, he basically exploded at me, screaming, just generally a big bit of not-good. I got the hell out of dodge.

"Then, after that, he started tracking me. Full on stalker, only with his own high-tech organization devoted to following me. I can't say I ever got a horse's head in my bed, but I once got a sheep's heart put in my fridge, with a poisoned dagger through it. Still have the dagger. Everything I'd learned when Aunty Ethel was training me to be an SIS agent was put to use, and I basically went to ground. Of course, at that point, I wasn't very good at it. Aunty Ethel, thank god and all the angels, found me first, and took me back under her wing. She was impressed that I'd managed to do so well by myself, and recommended me to one Augustus Orthenal, a friend your uncle had made in Switzerland, who'd helped him hide. Aunty Ethel and he had been the main reason why Stomcock Sr. had never found your uncle and why he'd never managed any real harm. I basically became Orthenal's apprentice, and he tutored me in the many and varied arts of running an intelligence service and being a good spy. All this was his orginal idea." She waved a hand, indicating everything in the room and a good bit besides. "He was my mentor, and when he died, I was given half control over the place. The other half went to Aunty Ethel, god rest her soul.

"She died not long after he did, a little less than a year. I've never been entirely sure whether either death was completely natural, but I suspect that it's more ikely hers was a broken heart, to use laymen's terms. Those two were always close. And so I gained complete control. I had the general idea by that point, but I'd also learned how to delegate. I'd learned exactly why going to ground completely by myself was such a bad idea, and how to avoid ever making that mistake again.

"So I expanded the organization, even beyond what Orthenal had done. We're now truly international, with an office on six continents and an agent on all seven. We're based in England, still, but this was one of our prime East Coast facilities." She looked disgusted with herself. "And because I wasn't thinking straight, and because everyone else assumed I was, I've compromised it."

"And how is Code M not going to raise attention?" Stranger asked her. "A flood of agents all leaving at once?"

"Code M means that we all migrate," she told him. "Through the sewers, the electrical tunnels, and even some of the old covered-over streets. We come out slowly, in ones and twos, all over the city, while the causes of the Code M stay where they are."

"Do we have to deal with whatever happens by ourselves?"

"No, the office should take care of most of that," she said, with a vicious smile. "That was one of my improvements. Any other questions?"

"Do we still have to call you Ladyguard?" George asked. "Because honestly, it's a stupid codename. It sounds like a tampon."

She looked at him, and Stranger expected his head to explode. But instead, after a moment, she shook her head, and said, "No, call me Caroline. And it really does sound like a tampon brand, doesn't it? Why'd no one mention it?"

"Because you scare the shit out of everyone," Stranger told her, feeling that it was the moment to be honest. "I'd rather be eaten by tigers than piss you off. They might show mercy."

Caroline gave another vicious smile, reminiscent of those big cats. "Very true."