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Date Posted: 12:37:00 01/13/07 Sat
Author: Jaron
Author Host/IP: adsl-75-40-25-215.dsl.rcsntx.sbcglobal.net / 75.40.25.215
Subject: Section's Mistake
In reply to: Jennifer S 's message, "Happy Anniversary LFN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (See inside)" on 08:00:04 01/13/07 Sat

Section’s Mistake
by Jaron

Michael waited patiently for the advent of consciousness to flood the pale cheeks of the woman on the gurney. The words that would welcome the new recruit to Section drifted through his mind endlessly. They were second-nature to him now. He was not happy to have this duty once again. With everything else on his plate, Michael thought that he had moved beyond the “welcome” speech duty. Madeline thought differently. With the death of his beloved Simone still fresh in his psyche and the news that he would be a father soon, Michael knew why he had been pulled from all but the most complicated missions. With extra time on his hands, he had been assigned light duty that had been translated by Madeline into welcoming new recruits and starting the reprogramming process.

Michael blinked as the woman moaned and moved slightly. He studied her. She was heavier than her file had suggested. Perhaps her time sitting in prison had caused the weight gain. The rather round face seemed quite different from the picture in the file. The hair, a mass of spiraled curls, was much thicker than the limp dark hair in the picture. These were all cosmetic differences. Weight could be lost or gained; hair could be chemically treated to change the texture. Michael sighed and waited.

The woman opened her eyes and jerked awake. Michael straightened his back, walked over to the gurney and began the rote speech, prefacing the Section standard recitation with a comment of his own. “You’re not in prison anymore....I won’t hurt you.”

He blinked and took one step back as a crimson tide of expletives burst forth from the woman’s mouth as she sat up. This was unexpected. The file had mentioned that the subject was quiet, and tended to keep her thoughts to herself. Blinking in surprise, Michael took a deep breath and stood his ground at the verbal onslaught. When she paused, he finished giving her the rest of the canned speech. He could almost feel the heat of her baleful gaze.

She ran her hands through her hair, trying in vain to restore order to the electric mass of curls. “Look, Beautiful, you’d better just tell me what is going on here. I’m not in the mood for much else. Where am I and just who the hell are you? And it had better be good. I don’t tolerate bullshit!”

What the hell....

The woman folded her arms and waited for Michael to continue. When he remained silent and simply returned her stare, she laughed at him. Michael blinked yet again. She had laughed at him! Michael steeled himself and concentrated on maintaining his iron control.

The woman stopped laughing and said derisively, “Honey, do you know what I did to the last man that riled me?” Michael raised his eyebrows in a silent question.

Honey?

The woman laughed again. “I took my shotgun and blew him and his privates to kingdom come.

Blew his privates off? With a shotgun? That wasn't in the file he'd read on this recruit. Taking another deep breath, Michael searched for an appropriate response. He looked at a point to the right of her head and then looked directly into her gray eyes. Gray eyes? The file said the subject had brown eyes…

“And that is why you are here.”

His response to her seemed to deflate the harridan in front of him. She looked down at her clenched hands. “Yes,” she answered, “and it’s also why I can’t ever be with my little girl again. I have always had a problem with my temper. My mouth and emotions engage before my brain does.” She stuck out her hand. “Let’s try this again. Hello, my name is Delores...and you are?”

Michael hesitated and then took her hand. “You can call me Michael. Your name is Delores?”

“Yes, that IS what I said. And if you blink those gorgeous green eyes at me again instead of giving me some answers, I just might have to snatch you bald-headed.” Delores grinned. Michael blinked. He moved to the door, pulled it open, silently moved through the door and shut it behind him. Alone in the hall, Michael leaned against the wall and smiled. Madeline was just going to love this development. He straightened and strode down the corridor.

Michael left the room too soon to hear Delores’ comment on his exit.

“Chicken!” She sighed when he was gone. “Damn, that is one beautiful man!” The woman known as Delores settled down to wait for her next encounter with the strange and frightening place in which she found herself. Delores knew she wasn’t in Texas anymore.
****

Chapter Two

Madeline leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes tiredly as Michael left her office. She leaned over and pressed a key on her computer. “Birkoff, Michael is going to need your assistance. Give him what he wants. I’m going to be in Receiving for the next thirty minutes. I don’t want to be disturbed.” Without giving him time to respond, Madeline locked down her computer and left her office.

The door to the White Room creaked eerily in the silence. Madeline entered and smiled slightly at the woman who was sitting cross-legged on the gurney. “Hello, Delores. I understand that you have some questions?”

Delores watched warily as Madeline clasped her hands behind her back and began to pace in a circle around the gurney.

“I want to know where I am and why I am here.”

Madeline stopped pacing and smiled warmly at Delores. “This is Section One, the most covert anti-terrorist organization on the planet. We sometimes take people from prison and give them a second chance.” Madeline resumed her pacing. “We saw some potential in you and it was determined that we might be able to make use of your...special skills.”

Madeline almost winced as Delores threw her head back and laughed heartily. “My special skills? Oh, Hon, that is a good one.”

Madeline took a chance. “I was referring to the crime for which you were incarcerated. We can use people who can do what you do.” Delores slapped her knee as another paroxysm of laughter rocked her.

Suddenly, Delores stopped laughing and pinned Madeline with a gaze full of derision. “Since when do secret anti-terrorist organizations need someone to shotgun no-good bastard husbands? If that is what you do, then sign me up. I’m ready.”

A persistent beeping saved Madeline from having to comment. She moved to a panel on the wall and quickly read the information as it scrolled across the screen. Madeline felt her face tighten with the effort to control her expression. Madeline took a deep breath. She turned back to face Section’s newest recruit, and presented to Delores the perfect picture of control. Madeline watched as Delores narrowed her eyes and gazed at her thoughtfully.

“Oh, now I see. You got the wrong person, didn’t you? You were after me and my special talents? What a disappointment I must be when you were expecting little Miss Psychobitch of 1994. Now that girl is really scary. She killed five johns before the law caught her and sentenced cute little butt to five life terms. I think that maybe you got lucky when you got me instead. Does an anti-terrorist organization have a place for a hairdresser from Texas?” Madeline tried not to smile at Delores’ smirk.

“My cellmate, Angel,, now she would smile sweetly at you at the same time that she knifed you. With me, you’d see it coming. I’m always up-front when I deal with people.”

Madeline resumed her carefully measured steps around Delores and her gurney. She glanced at Delores and smiled her best cryptic smile. “What makes you think we didn’t want you, Delores?”

Chocolate brown eyes beheld light gray ones as Delores dipped her head and absently played with the hem of her white tank top. “I’m not stupid...what is your name?”

“My name is Madeline. You were saying....”

“I’m not stupid, Madeline. I don’t have many “special” skills, as you call them. Now, Angel, she would just as soon kill you as look at you. From what you’ve said about what you do here, I think that you would be more interested in her talents than in mine. Of course, that’s just my humble opinion.” Delores crossed her arms and pursed her lips.

Madeline continued pacing, as she turned her head to regard Delores’ demeanor one more time. Delores asked her a question. “Excuse me?” Madeline stopped in mid-stride and blinked at what she thought she had heard. Delores repeated her question.

“I said, have you ever thought about adding some auburn highlights to your hair? It would make your hair shine and it would look a lot healthier than the flat brown that it is now. Don’t you ever get outside and just walk in the sunshine?”

Not quite believing what she had just heard, Madeline frowned at Delores and without a look back, walked briskly to the door and left. Outside the room, shaking her head and smiling, Madeline remembered the twinkle she had observed in Michael’s green eyes as he left her office earlier. Now she could appreciate it for what is was...the twinkle of suppressed humor. Delores was indeed an enigma.

Chapter Three

Madeline crossed the Comm area deep in thought. Birkoff called out to her. “Madeline, I’ve got the file on your Delores. It’ll be up on your computer when you get back to your office.”

She stopped abruptly and nodded at the teenager. “Thanks, Birkoff. I appreciate your help.” Unconsciously, Madeline reinforced Birkoff’s performance. The young Comm operative was coming along nicely. He was consistently achieving the goals set for him and set by himself. At the rate he was going, Birkoff would be the head of Comm before he was twenty. Madeline noted the pleased smile on his face as he ducked his head and refocused his attention on the computer screen in front of him. Carefully delivered compliments and an endless supply of snack foods seemed to be acceptable extrinsic motivation for the young man. Madeline also knew that he craved attention, so she delivered what he needed and recruited others to do the same thing. The approach was different for each operative, but it was her job to make sure that Section operated efficiently....and Madeline was good at her job.

The doors to her office opened automatically at her approach and she started to relax as soon as the doors shut solidly behind her. She loved the huge open space that was her office. The stone walls of her lair gave her comfort in her world of manipulation, intrigue and sometimes, stark terror.

There were few creature comforts in Section and Madeline had determined that this place of tranquility would serve her for as long as she could keep it. Things changed constantly in Section and this place was one place that Madeline did not want to change.

Operations had casually apprised her of the coming change a few days earlier at one of their planning breakfasts, a daily ritual between the two of them. “Your job is expanding so quickly, Madeline, that I have decided to shift some of your more minor responsibilities to others within Section. After you get these people trained and acclimated to those duties, you’ll be moving into a new office that will be designed for the work that you will be concentrating on in the future. You’ll like that, won’t you?” Madeline knew that he was watching for her reactions, so she gave him what he wanted. She smiled directly into his eyes, while her mind tried to adjust to the potential loss of her comfort zone.

“Oh, Paul, of course, I’ll like that. Although I do wish you would have consulted with me on the changes in my responsibilities. Have you downloaded this information to me yet? I’d like to study the changes so that I can pick the right people to train.” She carefully turned her head to offer Paul the coquettish look that he always seemed to admire. Madeline was not feeling coquettish in the least, but it never hurt to dole out her little reassurances to Paul so that he would make the decisions that she knew he would make with a bit of judicious coaching.

Paul preened at Madeline’s reaction. He liked to catch her off-balance and that didn’t happen very often. He knew that he had just scored a point with his news about her new office. He knew how much she loved her stone quarry of an office, but he wanted her to focus her skills on the more important aspects of her position as his second. He was sure that the move would take place, even if it took her a year or more to come to terms with it. He always got his way. Madeline made sure of that. Paul Wolfe smiled.

Shortly after Madeline’s encounter with Section’s mistake, Operations found Madeline in her cavernous comfort zone.

“You look a bit flustered. Is anything wrong, Madeline?” He almost winced at the sharp look she gave him.

“No, nothing’s wrong. One of our new recruits is a bit of a problem. I’ll take care of it.” Madeline casually punched up the file that Birkoff had sent her, turning her back on Operations. Hmmm…she was going to need a new hair/make-up/costumer. She might just have a person in mind for that role, but it would take awhile to train her…and, in the mean time she would continue to enjoy her cave as long as she could.

Feeling her curt dismissal, Operations scowled slightly and left her to deal with the problem recruit. Poor bastard, he thought, as he left Madeline to her work.

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