| Subject: Priority Mail 8 |
Author:
Nikita507
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Date Posted: Thursday, October 21, 08:14:03pm
In reply to:
Nikita507
's message, "Priority Mail 6+" on Wednesday, October 20, 11:23:55pm
Adam jumped off of the back porch and trotted after the other boys that seemed to be growing in numbers even as they ate lunch. Michael watched as Adam ran off and his mind wondered to the daughter that was out there. Was she running about and happy just like Adam was? How did Nikita just let her go?
“No tracking devices, Michael,” Walter spoke as he came up closer to Michael as he leaned against the railing that was on the top deck of the porch. Michael swallowed hard as he nodded his head. “They are too dangerous for a baby that young.”
“No,” Walter shook his head back and forth. “I promised Nikita.”
Michael exhaled and looked as Adam helped one of the boys up that had just tripped. Adam was enjoying this time with these boys and Michael was glad. He had made his son run a mission with him earlier today and that was something he never wanted to touch Adam again, but yet he had to do it.
“He is a smart boy,” Walter stated as he patted Michael’s shoulder. “A lot like his dad.”
“He is too young to have done what he did today,” Michael commented and Walter snorted. “He loves you too much to not have done it.”
Walter looked at the table as he tossed away the paper plates that he had on hand for the boys. “We have coffee in the kitchen if you want that.”
Michael shook his head back and forth as he picked up the disposable plastic cups and tossed them into the garbage. Michael had found it difficult to eat, but he was also grateful for the break that Walter had gave him from processing the birth of his daughter before moving into anything else that he wanted to know.
“She was doing the best that she could, Michael,” Walter spoke as he took the bag out of Michael’s hands and waited for the younger man to sit down. “You’ve done the best that you could have done.”
“I’ve been protected. I have cases with the government. She had to have a role in that,” Michael stated as he looked directly at Walter to gauge the reaction. Michael noticed that Walter knew something about that. Walter pulled a chair closer to Michael and shook his head slightly from side to side. “She assigned Jason to all of that.”
“She still assigned it,” Michael stated and Walter gave up at that statement because Michael was truthful in his statement. “How did you get out?”
“Retirement,” Walter said with a slight shrug of his shoulders. Michael didn’t even move or make a reaction which told Walter that Michael wasn’t going to let him off that simple. “Things changed out there, Michael. With the emergence of Homeland Security and interagency cooperation between FBI, NSA, CIA, and all those other alphabet soups out there… Section, although not governmentally funded, was being deemed as unnecessary.”
“They decided to do something about Section?” Michael asked as he shook his head and Walter nodded his head up and down slowly. “I don’t know the details… I know how Nikita got me involved.”
“Involved?”
“She started having me research operatives… find out the reasons that they were brought into Section were valid – to make sure that they were guilty. I checked out all of the missions that they were on to see if they had lost all hope at humanity… I had to look at which ones could make a go of it on the outside again – as part of society,” Walter tried to explain what he had done. “I tried so hard to find something good in all of them once I realized why this was happening.”
Michael exhaled and swallowed against the lump in his throat. “Why it was happening?”
“I think it was the beginning of closing down Section… Nikita never confirmed anything…. Davenport was the first one who just simply didn’t come back from a mission.”
“Davenport is dead?”
“Davenport is on the outside,” Walter corrected quickly as he glanced to the woods. Walter wasn’t afraid of anything. He knew that he was safe. No one was watching him. But it was still habit after his time of being on the outside. “I saw him about eight months ago… he is in the city… kind of close to you.”
Michael blinked his eyes. “Davenport is on the outside?”
“Goes by Christopher James… he is a photographer. Basically does weddings and such,” Walter stated as he pulled out his wallet and placed the business card down on the table. It was offering Michael the information to challenge what Walter was saying. There was no doubt that Michael was going to be checking in on Walter’s intel.
“He helped you with the letters?” Michael asked and Walter shrugged his shoulders. “It was my handwriting.”
Michael snapped up the car and shoved it into his own pocket. “Davenport helped Nikita and myself…”
“She got Jason out next,” Walter declared and Michael leaned back in the chair. “No… not Jason.”
“It’s true that he is nothing like his twin brother… but he was a good boy, Michael. Helped out Nikita and helped me out in finding this information out about the operatives…. It seems fast when I say it out loud, but it was a slow process,” Walter explained as he shifted and leaned forward onto the table. “But slowly the numbers started to go down. We were missing support personnel, who were the easiest people to verify that they weren’t bad… “
“How can you be sure that they are out?”
“Nikita finally told me when I confronted her. She said that Section was purging and that she was doing her best to make sure that no one of quality was sacrificed,” Walter bluntly answered. The words were sharp, but those were the words that Nikita had said. Walter knew that it also meant that Nikita was doing her best to find any reason to get someone out. “She was working ungodly hours… and finally she said that it was time for me to go… that I had reached retirement.”
“Retirement isn’t a release.”
“It was for me,” Walter answered with a shrug. “I tried to tell my Sugar that I’d help her… from the outside. I made ways for her to communicate with me…”
“But there hasn’t been anything,” Michael commented as he knew how that it felt to see Nikita never trying to reach out to him.
“Sounds like you were a lot like me there, Michael,” Walter nodded his head up and down. “I found some of the ones from Section. Some were unfortunately in jail. A few I think took positions in one of those alphabet organizations… some are just out and starting to have a life over. All are so happy to be out that they know not to go back to the life they were in prior to what happened to them that had them in Section.”
Michael pushed at his shirt and looked out towards Adam who was running free. Freedom meant so much to Michael and he could imagine that others felt that way. But Michael had been tormented in his freedom and Walter appeared to have been tormented himself. Because they had left someone behind. “And Nikita?”
“She never said if they had plans for her. I can’t imagine that she had agreed to the closing of Section without planning for herself. But by the time that I was on my way out for retirement, the pickings of who was left in Section weren’t very good. It had to be dangerous for her. I know that she had lots of problems with her guards. The personnel knew that something was going on but those left weren’t really smart enough to start putting together the pieces. I imagine that it should have come together at some point.”
“Or they could have recruited more people,” Michael offered and Walter shook his head slightly but offered no words to that. “You have no idea what has happened to Nikita, do you?”
“I didn’t have anything that tagged her. She was Operations, Michael. She was too good to know that I was trying,” Walter rasped as his hands trembled. He grasped them together and squeezed. “I don’t know.”
“You know something,” Michael declared and Walter jerked to his feet. “I can’t, Michael.”
“Tell me,” Michael commanded and Walter turned to look at Michael. “I left beacons behind… I left tracking devices… I had that place tagged with some many hidden sensors… and Sugar had to have known that I did it.”
Michael’s eyes grew stormy as Walter shook his head. “I don’t know what happened, Michael.”
“Tell me,” Michael hissed with a quiet intensity. Walter swallowed hard. “I wasn’t the only one who left things behind…”
“Walter…”
“Jason is a good guy, Michael. A lot like his brother. He is an ethical hacker…”
“So you have been in touch with him. You both must know something,” Michael tried to hurry Walter up. Walter looked to his hands and then returned to the table. He flipped the chair around and sat down to stare at Michael. “His hacker name is Birkoff… he is more like Birkoff than we gave him credit for. I think he cared about Nikita just as much.”
“Walter…”
“I don’t know what happened…” Walter warned and Michael shook his head from side to side slowly. “She isn’t dead, Walter.”
“I don’t know,” Walter hollowly whispered as he lost the color in his face even more. “I don’t know.”
“What do you know?” Michael questioned directly. Walter rubbed his hands along the wood of the chair and looked towards the house. “About eight months ago… Section disappeared.”
“It couldn’t just disappear,” Michael countered and Walter nodded his head slowly. “All the sensors were working… and then at 12:01 a.m. – they all stopped.”
Michael rubbed his head as he looked down at the table with a shake of his head. Section was so big. Even when they had to go to the secondary Section, there was evidence of it happening. It couldn’t just have gone dark or become a black hole. “No… there had to be a sign.”
“It was down to one fourth of the people, Michael,” Walter leaned forward and looked at him. “No one is going to say they know what happened. Section didn’t exist.”
Michael shook his head as he looked at Walter. “Nikita isn’t dead.”
“She was sort of dead without you,” Walter rasped and he looked at Michael. He couldn’t even tell Michael that when he took their daughter in his arms it was like Nikita had died some more. He did worry that Nikita thought that she was not salvageable for the outside world like so many others that she had deemed rehabilitated enough to try again in society. Michael slapped his hand out to Walter’s. “She isn’t dead.”
“I left her ways to contact me,” Walter declared and Michael pulled his hand away. “I did too.”
“At least when there was something going on in Section… I could hold onto the belief that my Sugar was there… but this is too long, Michael. And no one knows anything,” Walter warned as he pulled his hands up to his head to tug on his bandana. “I should have found away to get her out.”
“Don’t,” Michael declared as he shook his head from side to side. “She is alive. Maybe working for one of the alphabets…”
“I don’t think so… Would you trust someone from Section in that role?” Walter inquired as he looked at Michael. Michael stood up and leaned against the house. Doubt was starting to fill his mind. He wondered if Nikita had decided to sacrifice herself. He shook his head against the thought.
Then he looked out and saw Adam. Michael would have done anything to get out if in the same situation for his son, even if he didn’t know where he was. Michael looked at Walter and knew that he was right. “Nikita didn’t die.”
“Then you have to find her,” Walter announced and Michael jerked his head. “Me?”
“And then find your daughter,” Walter outlined and Michael looked out towards Adam. Doing this could risk everything that he had built. Michael jerked as he saw that Walter had stood up and moved towards him. “It’s safe now to be with her…. You just have to find her.”
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