15Hey guys, look at me, uploading sooner than several months! haha Hopefully it will be even sooner next time. Anyways, I hope you enjoy, although it is a little shorter than usual. Thanks to those of you who followed the story and reviewed!
Lloyd and I walked away from Kathy and Dex, the tension still crackling in the air behind us.
I asked him tentatively, "Do you think they will be ok?"
He smiled at me and put his arm around my shoulders, his deep green eyes twinkling at me, and the sunlight glinting off of his blond hair like gold. "They will be just fine, mother hen. Now that there is no one to detract from the moment, I just wanted to thank you, sincerely, for having so much faith in me, in us. I know it must have been hard, to get out of a terrorizing captivity, only to walk into a situation where it seems as if all of your friends had walked out on you. I know how that feels, really I do." He gave a little shiver. "So thank you, for trusting us so much that you would go to the effort to see if we were to be trusted."
He tightened his arm around my shoulders and leaned down to give my cheek a kiss.
OMG. I blushed a deep pink, making my face clash a horrible color with my bright hair, until Lloyd lightened the moment by messing up my long locks. I growled and turned to him, making him laugh, pull away from me, and start running.
Now that was a sight to see, Lloyd Hall running in a dress suit of grey pinstriped, very dignified material. I just laughed my head off, and dashed after him yelling, "You better run faster if you don't want me to catch you!"
I continued chasing him, until my eyes passed a door, and I skidded to a halt. Oops! That was my purpose for coming out here, though terrorizing Lloyd was a definite benefit.
"Hey Lloyd, come back here, and help me with this!" I shouted at his receding back. "Lloyd? LLOOOOOOOOOYD!" My voice echoed down the corridor.
CRASH BANG jangle jingle bam, dink.
Hearing the sounds that made it appear as if someone just ran into a closet of kitchen supplies and emptied it out onto the ground, I ran towards the corner where Lloyd disappeared. What I came across was a sight worth seeing. Lloyd was sprawled out on the ground covered in pots and pans, with a little, old, hispanic lady yelling at him. I nearly died laughing until he spotted me and gave me the stink eye that plainly said come and help me, this is YOUR fault.
I composed myself and walked over to her and started picking up the pots and pans.
"Oh miss, has Lloyd made another mess of things? I'm so sorry, but you shouldn't blame this on him. It was my fault, since I sent him to go get our parents because our little brother just hurt himself. I knew if I sent Lloyd, something would happen, but I didn't know what else to do! We will just go now and be out of your way!"
The little lady smiled sweetly at me, and replied, "Oh honey, it is OK. I knew your brother didn't do it on purpose. Now you two just head off and help your little brother, I can pick up these."
I pulled Lloyd up from the ground, where he laid still wincing. "Thank you, and I hope you have a nice rest of the day!" I said back to her as I dragged Lloyd away.
"Why was she so nice to you and not me? She was the one that ran into me..." he whined. "So what's the thing that you yelled so loudly that it caused me to fall on the ground and that lady to dump all of her pans on me?" asked Lloyd.
"You see, the whole purpose of this trip, besides giving Dex some time, was to gather provisions. Since they don't know that we are leaving, we can gather everything we need without them getting suspicious. You'd distracted me and I didn't remember until I passed the door."
I led him to the door, sticking a gadget that you might see in the movies to it. Pressing a little button, it began whirring, and then soon turned the knob, and opened the door. Turning to see Lloyd staring at me, I just grinned and shrugged saying, "It's cause I'm cool and lazy."
As I started to walk in the room, he still gaped at me, and then stopped me, "Wait, what was that?" he queried me.
"Oh just a door unlocker," I smiled, "I'll make you one myself. Though just to let you know, they are not very helpful in a break-in because of the loud noise. But it's a lot faster and efficient. Kathy had to help me with some of the coding for disconnecting any alarms tied into the locking mechanism, but since it's mostly mechanical, it works faster, and I was able to do the rest myself. Why are you still staring, it really isn't that impressive. One of the only reasons that I built it was 'cause I was bored and so I wouldn't have to rely on the company equipment in case it was built faultily."
In response to my question, he pulled a nearly identical gadget out of his pocket and smirked, "No need to make me one, I already have one of my own. And I can show you how to get rid of the noise if you show me how you got it to actually turn the knob and open the door for you."
"It's a deal. Now lets grab stuff and go before they realize we are in here. If they do, I have an excuse, but it would just be easier to not."
We walked through the huge room, taking a peek at everything as we walked around. I glanced over at Lloyd to see him staring around, surprised at the huge space that was the company supply room. It really was ginormous, and I had that same reaction the first time I was here. I supposed they needed all of that room if they wanted to supply several hundred spies with the equipment for tons of different situations. Basically, the room was a Costco, but filled with outdoor and espionage equipment, mostly designed by spies in our system or from Russian Military surplus.
As we walked, I grabbed a couple of things for just-in-case situations, and then quickly got down to business. We grabbed four large hiking packs, and started stuffing them with essentials: ropes, comms and gps systems, freeze dried meals, canteens, compasses, whistles, the right size hiking boots and black, comfortable, uniforms with utility belts for everyone, sleeping bags and pads, notebooks and pens, extra cords and parts to build other devices, as well as portable internet sources, toiletries, water purifiers, several first aid kits filled with more equipment for more extensive injuries than ones found in everyday markets, and other gadgets for outdoor living and spying that you might not recognize. You might think that we were dumb to take all of their stuff, because it was probably tracked, but we already had a system for this. We would take it back to our room, scan for bugs or any trackers, remove them, and then when we were on our way, dump a wreck of a car with the trackers inside of it off of a bridge. This might sound over the top and unlikely to fool anyone, but we were taking every chance we got to send them on the wrong trail.
"Alright, I think that's enough stuff, shall we head back? Am I missing anything?"
"Not that I can think of," he replied, "though I am wondering what we are going to do for money? Since I have Olivia's permission to be here, she gave me a card linked to a bank account that only she knows of. To take away any fears you have, it's a Swiss bank account. But that money, if it is the only money we have, will not last us very long, especially if we need to bribe people to get information, which I'm sure we will. I can always sell some of my... acquisitions, but... let's just say that it will cause more people to follow us," he finished, just smirking at me.
I just shook my head, remembering the reason he was Olivia's criminal informant: he had been caught, after making several stupid mistakes supposedly due to a woman, and was charged for several things from impersonation to art theft.
Ignoring his final comment, I answered, "Since Dex is supposed to be going away on a mission, he is allowed to withdraw a rather large sum of money without immediately rousing suspicion, so we will do that, and then Kathy and I will withdraw the amount we are allowed being on downtime. So we should be good for a while. And if necessary, I still know my parents account, though I'd rather not use that, as they know of that one. Alright, I think we've given them enough time. And if it's not, we shall have to get ready to head out anyways."
We walked back to our room and upon entering the room, saw Kathy and Dex hugging.
*ahem, cough, cough*
At the sounds I was making, they jumped a bit, but looked at us quite happily.
"Alright you, we are nearly ready to go, we just have to fumigate these. Kathy, your spray?"
Wordlessly, she tossed me the scanner, which I handed to Lloyd and showed him how to use it, and how to remove any unfamiliar bugs or trackers without alarming them. I assumed he knew how to do this, but the equipment that this agency used was another level of paranoid. Then, Dex ran off to gather his gear, while Kathy and I gathered ours from around the room and our secret tunnel. Since we were leaving, probably to never return, everything we couldn't take with us, we destroyed. It was sad, the killing of all of Kathy's and my brain children, but we had models and plans of how to make them all again.
A half an hour later, we had all reconvened with our huge packs on our backs, dressed in our gear and hiking boots. It had been decided that it would be easier, if on the outside, we looked like a group hiking cross country. In the bottom of all of our packs was a dress outfit chosen for material that could be folded and still look nice, for just-in-casers, but overall, we looked quite the part.
As leader of this mission, since it was me that knew the most about it, I gave us some last words before we started out.
"Alright team, are we ready? Dex, give us your backpack, and until we meet up again, we will trade off carrying it. Now remember, he is going to head out, as if heading off on his mission, and we are going to check out, as if going on a hiking trip since Lloyd is here. We will then hike out to that camp ground that's a couple miles away, where we will reserve a camping space for 2 weeks. I have already payed a couple of town kids to meet us and stay there so that anyone lightly checking up on us will not realize that we are not actually there. They are going to go on several hikes, taking with them the trackers, and then after 12 days, will push the junky car off of a bridge, with the tracker inside. Dex will meet us a mile away from the campsite with his car, and we will then drive to his safe house for his own mission where he will check in with his contact, and then we will leave his car there, and go underground. This way, we will have a head start of at least a week, if not more. They shouldn't realize Dex is gone for around three weeks, since the stuff he is doing is a lot of research and observation. Yes, I do know your mission Dex, but that doesn't matter since you won't be completing it. Oh, and did you all ready and memorize the identity info sheets I gave you? Are we clear?"
"Yes sir!" they chanted in unison. I swatted at the lot of them, and they just fell about giggling like a pack of 12 year-old girls that had just seen Justin Bieber.
"Alright, you, now let's get going."
We walked down the hall, together again for the first time in a while, our arms around each other, despite the bulky packs. I'm sure we were all thinking about the same things; the happiness that we were back together again, and the hope that everything would go as planned.
But anyway it turned out, this was better than after my capture. This was how it was supposed to be, the four of us, together again. I again thanked the Lord for my peace.