V is for Vengeance

[Vigilante]

"Oh no you don't," Virginia "Ginny" Hayes turned to face the dark figure that was coming along behind her in the alley. "Jaime Connors don't think I can't see you there."

With a sigh the seventeen year old girl dropped off the wall of the building, brushing off the knees of her jeans as she did so. Jaime's skin was a dark purple, and her long black hair was drawn up into a messy ponytail. Bright yellow eyes peeked out at Ginny from under her bangs. "Back to being vigilant, I see?" She was attempting to bait her older friend, and Ginny knew it.

The red-head tossed her hair over her shoulder and laughed. "Vigilant? Perhaps you're just not as good at hiding as you thought you were." She stood next to her Harley-Davidson motorcycle and worked her hair into a braid. "You should be getting inside you know, Pete doesn't like it when you're late for your shift."

Jaime sighed, waving a hand about as though dismissing Pete altogether. She secreted a super sticky substance from her hands and feet, making her able to walk and crawl along vertical surfaces. Even upside down across ceilings. People at her public school called her Creep, or Creepy... or Bruise-Face. Jaime had taken a self-defence class after her encounter with the red-eyed monster that had met her on the wall outside Ginny's apartment over a year previously, and the 'bad name' calling had almost completely stopped.

She'd gotten nearly expelled from school in the process. Her parents weren't very understanding, either.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But usually you don't give up shifts, so naturally I am curious as to where you'll be spending your free time today." Jaime adjusted her white t-shirt, idly inspecting it for dirt.

"How I spend my Saturday is none of your business and you know it." Ginny tied off the braid with a rubberband and picked up her helmet. "Just be glad I gave the shift to you. I know you're saving up your pennies these days."

Jaime grumbled, "I'm so far away from getting a car it isn't funny." She tossed her head, and sighed, "Fine, be secretive. Is it a boy?" The girl grinned at Ginny's face, and held up her hands defensively. "Okay, okay! I'm going inside. Ride safe, okay? I'll see you tonight?"

"Yeah, I'll call you when I get home." Ginny smiled. "Just come in the door this time, not the window? My neighbors get nervous with you hanging around the fire escape." They had made it a weekend habit to have movie night on Saturdays, and Creep's parents couldn't care less about how their daughter spent her time. Jaime didn't talk about home much.

Ginny stradled her bike and fired up the engine as Jaime disappeared into the back door of the mini mart. No, she didn't want to get anyone else involved in what she was about to do. Hell, she didn't even know what she was about to do, other than pay a visit to an old Army buddy. It all hinged on what he could dig up for her.

Revving the engine, Vigilante roared down the street and into morning traffic.

[Vigilante]

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Lieutenant Virginia Hayes." Paulo beamed from his porch steps, and ushered Ginny into his half of the duplex she'd parked her bike in front of. "To what do I owe this great honor?"

"Oh shut up, Paulo," she growled, then grinned and let him pull her into a friendly hug. She slapped him on the back a few times and then he released her, turning to close the door behind them. "I couldn't tell you much over the phone, I know."

He raised an eyebrow, crossing his muscled arms in front of his chest. "Well it isn't every day someone I met in the desert calls me up and asks for a favor. But we saved each others lives enough times over there that I figure I owe you at least one." He winked, his latino charm oozing over, "And you owe me as well, Lieutenant Hayes."

"Psh," Ginny huffed, but she smiled and took a seat and his offer of something to drink. When they were both settled with a beer, she got down to business. "I need your help tracking down someone."

[Vigilante]

"Tracking down someone?" Paulo Martinez repeated. "I'm not a P.I. or any of that crap." He leaned back in his leather recliner and sipped his Bud Light.

Ginny nodded, "I know, this isn't that sort of a favor. I'm looking for a semi-retired Army Colonel. He works in a government program now called 'Vanguard.'"

Paulo leaned forward, and she could almost see his ears pricking up with interest. "So, you want me to check the system for you. Unofficially of course, or you'd have met me at the office." Martinez was still in - he was making a career of the Army even after an injury in Afghanistan had sidelined him to a desk. Now instead of using his computer 'skillz' in the field he was on the homefront doing his part to keep his country safe.

"Yeah, unofficially." She set down the sweating beer bottle on the end table nearest her. "Can you do it?"

He shrugged, beer to his lips, and swallowed. "I can sure as hell try. I don't suppose you'll tell me why you want to find this guy..?"

Ginny looked at him, and shook her head. "Its personal. Don't spread it around that you're trying to find him, either. I don't want him getting wind of this."

Paulo frowned lightly, "Sounds serious."

"Not so serious that you should be overly concerned," she reassured him, and slid a slightly crumpled envelope across the coffee table towards him. "There's all the information I have on Vanguard and my mystery man, Col. Vasher. Anything you can turn up would help."

He took the envelope but didn't open it. "Will do. You still at the same apartment in the city?"

"Yep," she said. "By the way, when are you settling down with a good woman? You said that you were aiming for a wife and kids when they saddled you with your current job."

"Oh, you know how it is. My mamasita chases them all away. 'No one is good enough for my Paulo' she says..." The conversation turned towards lighter topics.

[Vigilante]

Several days later she got a call on her cell from Paulo.

"I've been able to find you the address to Vanguard's offices in D.C." A rustling noise on the line sounded like a potato chip bag, and Paulo continued with his mouth obviously full. "Doesn't look too special from here - just the usual dull government invoices. I have your Colonel listed as the man in charge, so you might be able to find him there. No home address coming up anywhere, not even any from past residences."

Ginny made a face, "No one gets through life that clean without doing it on purpose."

"Exactly my thoughts. I'll do some more digging, but I've texted the office address to you." He paused. "Want some help checking it out?"

"Nah, I'm a big girl. Thanks for everything Paulo."

Ginny ended the call and checked her messages for the address to Vanguard's home office.

[Vigilante]

There were two options, of course. Go in the middle of the night and break in, or go during the day and risk... Risk what? Being recognized? If Vanguard was responsible for her kidnapping last August, then showing up at the home office could be dangerous.

In the end Ginny decided to go during the day, but left Creep a text message about where she was going. That way if she didn't come back, for whatever reason, there would be a place to start the search. Of course, she had to gamble that Jaime wouldn't try to tag along, but thankfully the girl's efforts to procure a car were still falling short.

The drive out to D.C. was peaceful - the late spring day was bright and sunny, and it didn't take long once she got there to locate the office building that contained Vanguard. There were the standard security guards and metal detectors that you would find at any government building, and Ginny tapped impatiently on the counter as a guard looked her over.

"Why did you say you were here again?" He eyed the package she'd had the foresight to bring along.

"Delivery for Vanguard something or other." Ginny looked at the address on the package and said, "Look its right here." She turned it around so he could get a good look. "I hafta deliver it in person." She waved a print out she'd made on her own computer, with a fake letterhead and instructions for the delivery from her 'job.'

The security guard rolled his eyes and allowed her through the metal detector, taking time to send the package through an x-ray machine. It held a couple books that she'd purchased for a dollar at a garage sale, and Ginny popped her gum impatiently as she waited for him to finish examining it.

[Vigilante]

The guard grunted and pushed the package towards her. "Don't dawdle." He pointed her towards a lonely elevator that would take her up into the offices.

Ginny popped her gum while she stared blankly at him, and took the box. "Right-o, pops." She turned and swaggered to the elevator, purposely not looking back at the guard. He snorted and said something she couldn't make out as she pushed the call button.

Once inside the elevator Ginny read the floor descriptions carefully, selecting the one labeled DHS VANGUARD. The elevator carried her upwards towards uncertainty. Well, it was bound to be interesting.

[General Gideon Vasher]

On the seventh floor the elevator opened to a nondescript lobby common to hundreds of nondescript government office buildings. Across the wall from Ginny was a row of windows screened on the other side and a metal door labeled DHS VANGUARD CENTRAL OFFICE.

Inside was a secretary's desk and six doors leading off to separate offices. Somewhere a phone was ringing. Voicemail picked it up.

There was a sound of rustling paper in one of the offices - the one with the nameplate reading Adrian Koch, Associate Analyst.

[Vigilante]

The lobby was quickly assessed from a tactical P.O.V. and there were no threats except for normal looking security cameras set up facing the elevator and secretary's desk. Ginny tugged at the ballcap she was wearing, pulling it down a little further as she walked purposefully towards the desk.

Setting the package down, she looked for any sort of bell, or button to use to summon someone. Finding none, Ginny left the fake package on the desk and walked loudly towards the office with rustling noises coming from it. "Hello? Anyone home?" She popped her gum again and rapped her knuckles on Adrian Koch's office door. "Delivery!"

[Adrian Koch]

The door opened moments later - not all the way, just far enough for Adrian to peek out at Ginny like she was some sort of ghost.

He had a young, not unpleasant face, but he was unshaven and generally disheveled and looked like a grad student with too many papers due. After looking Ginny up and down, he cautiously pushed the door out further.

"Delivery?" he said. "For... for who?"

[Vigilante]

"I dunno, some Colonel Vasher or something." Ginny jerked her thumb over her shoulder towards the lobby. "He in today?"

[Adrian Koch]

The young man looked genuinely shocked.

"Vasher? Uhh..."

He looked around at the empty offices surrounding him. He really wished someone else was around who could handle this.

"I know the name... but I don't think I've ever seen him in here. Or anyone military, for that matter."

[Vigilante]

Ginny tugged on her braid of red hair and peeked behind him into his office. There were a few personal items and a half eaten lunch on the desk. "Well, I'll have to take it back with me then," she injected irritation into her voice, "'Cause it needs his signature."

She followed his gaze and looked around the empty offices as well. Some of the nameplates were even blank. "Everyone knock off early for the weekend, eh? Tough luck being left to hold down the fort." Ginny winked at him.

[Adrian Koch]

Adrian wasn't sure what the wink meant. It only added to his sense of discombobulation.

"Yeah, well, it's been sort of slow lately..."

He trailed off as his brain caught up and told him it wasn't smart to talk shop with a stranger about government business no matter how cute she was.

But his curiosity caught up about the same time. "So it was addressed to Colonel Vasher here? That's... that's very peculiar."

[Vigilante]

"Is it?" Ginny tried to sound bored... but not so bored that he'd stop talking to her. "Guy have a forwarding address or something?"

She smiled, trying to appear as though she found wire-rimmed glasses very sexy. It would be easier just to threaten him, but hopefully it wouldn't be necessary.

[Adrian Koch]

"He does, but I don't really think I can give that out..."

His eyes dropped to the letterhead on Ginny's packing slip. "What company are you from again?"

[Vigilante]

She saw his eyes move, and turned the paper around so he could get a better look (although accidentally the paper was never quite still enough to get a really good look). "Big City Messenger Service." She sighed, "Just started, to be honest. Don't really want to have to bring back a package in my first week!"

Ginny folded up the packing slip, tucking it into the front pocket of her jeans.

[Adrian Koch]

Adrian made a futile effort to follow the piece of paper. Then he licked his lips nervously.

"I... I wish I could help you," he said. "Really." And then he laughed in a way he apparently thought was nonchalant. "I can sympathize, actually. Sort of like being a rat in a maze."

His eyes dropped once more to the package. "I wonder who it's from..."

[Vigilante]

Ginny shrugged, but handed it to him. "No return address. Very mysteeeeerious." She waggled her eyebrows, and added, "Give it a good shake if you want, just don't open it. There'll be hell to pay enough when I bring it back and I won't even bother going back if its been opened."

This Adrian character was interesting, and she decided that she didn't need to drop her cover just yet. Maybe not at all. "'Course, if I had another place to take it to, then I wouldn't get in trouble..." She made puppy dog eyes at Koch, and then laughed self-consciously. "Geez, listen to me. I don't want you to get in trouble, either, so don't worry about it."

[Adrian Koch]

He smiled back - but he didn't move toward the package. Curious as he was, he had a suspicion he didn't want his fingerprints found on the outside.

"Well, if the address took you here, I can't see why you'd get in trouble. Doesn't it just get marked 'return to sender' or something?"

He turned his head and looked at her sideways. "Do you... want me to take it?"

[Vigilante]

Hmmm. That was an interesting question. If he took it, would he send it to the correct address? Would the Colonel show up to pick up his mail?

The more she thought about it, the more Ginny realized she didn't have much to lose. "Well, if you can make sure Colonel Vasher gets it, then... well I suppose it would be okay." She smiled.

[Adrian Koch]

Adrian laughed nervously and adjusted his glasses - only now his nerves had little to do with talking to a pretty girl.

"I just find that very interesting, since I route paperwork every day through just about every service in town and I've never heard of Big City. Or anyone that prints their letterhead on an inkjet. So I guess that leaves the question of what you're really doing here."

He laughed again, then swallowed as if he'd just told an unsuccessful joke.

[Vigilante]

Ginny looked mystified, and looked down at the paper on her clipboard as though she'd never really seen it before. "An inkjet? Really?" One key to being undercover was that when it looked like your cover was getting blown... get even deeper into character. "How can you tell?"

She frowned, "But I'm just trying to deliver a package, mister. Guess I'll take it back and let the office sort it out." Ginny gathered up the package and clipboard, hoping she was doing the right thing. Well, it couldn't be more of a dead end, so she wasn't likely to make it worse.

[Adrian Koch]

"Well, it's the resolu... tion..."

A look of doubt crossed the young man's face. "S... sorry," he stammered. He knew he should have left it there, but somehow he couldn't stop himself from going on. "The job gets to you after a while, you know? So boring you just start looking for things to justify the metal detector up front."

He coughed and took a step backwards. "Ah. Guess I'd better let you go."

[Vigilante]

She smiled at him without the previous warmth she'd exhibited, "Well, working in an office this big all by myself would make me a little crazy, too. Guess that's why I ride for a living."

"Thanks anyway. Sorry to be a bother." She sighed theatrically, scribbled something on the clipboard, and gave him a little wave as Adrian closed his office door. She walked all the way back to the elevator, pausing just once to take a peek inside the empty office beside his.

As the doors opened, Ginny stepped as though she was entering, and then disappeared. It was risky with all the cameras around, but best case senario they'd think it was a glitch, worst case they'd recognize her as someone they'd already kidnapped once and come back to do it again. Or, you know, kill her.

Package and useless clipboard in hand, Ginny bamfed back to reality inside the empty office. The walls were cheap and thin, and she pressed her ear near the outer wall and window where there was a bit of a gap that allowed sound to pass easily from office to office.

[Adrian Koch]

For a while, there was little to be heard - just a world-weary sigh known to all junior employees and the creak of a task chair leaning back under Adrian's weight. The young analyst shuffled through some papers, tapped away at a laptop, then sighed again.

And then:

"What the hell?"

The office chair creaked again. And there was more typing.

[Vigilante]

Couldn't he just pick up the phone and immediately call his superiors? Wasn't that how it always worked in the movies? Ginny settled in for a long wait. She was free all day.

If only there was a way that she could see what he was working on. There wasn't enough room between the wall and the window to use a mirror to spy into the other office. Perhaps 'porting into his office, scaring him to death, and then reading the computer screen?

Ginny let a smile form. Nah.

[Adrian Koch]

Adrian was not, apparently, someone who talked to himself while he worked. And other than a few spurts of animated typing, there was little audible indication of what he was actually doing - though he frequently turned in his task chair, as if he were glancing at the door for anyone who might surprise him.

He hit a key with authority. And at once the laser printer behind Ginny shuddered to life and began spitting out pages, the first of which read EYES ONLY.

[Vigilante]

She jerked as the printer initialized, then got to her feet, looking at the pages that were coming out. After seeing the EYES ONLY, Ginny picked up the pages, scanning them for clues. Relevance. Anything.

Footsteps indicated Adrian was coming to the next door office to pick up his printings. Ginny grabbed up all that had printed so far and teleported out just as he opened the door.

[Adrian Koch]

The door swung open, and Adrian stepped into the room and then stopped. He took off his glasses, rubbed them on his shirt, and replaced them. For a moment, he'd had an impression of a dissipating reddish mist, but it was gone now.

And then a strange smell caused him to wrinkle his nose, something like rotten eggs, or - he suddenly flashed back to college chemistry - sulfur.

Or maybe it was the moldering box of Taiwanese takeout on the abandoned desk. Pulling a face, Adrian swept it into the wastebasket and turned to the printer tray. There he stopped again.

The first eight pages of the fourteen-page dossier were missing.

He reached down and turned up the first of the remaining pages, and at the very top was a truncated line that read "other abilities may include teleportation."

"Oh, God..."

Adrian snatched the remaining pages out of the printer, smacked the clear jobs button and hurried back to his own office, where he started packing. Fast.

[Vigilante]

The only place she'd been able to 'port to had been the hallway, which was certainly not a safe place to stay for long. There was some movement in the office she'd just vacated, and a quiet "Oh, God." Ginny 'ported to the elevator, punched the call button, and slipped inside when the doors opened.

Cap in place, stolen papers stuffed under her clothes, Ginny slouched out of the elevator. "Stupid job, guy doesn't even work here."

The guard raised an eyebrow as she got through the checkpoint, and then reached down to answer a ringing phone. Ginny gave him a little wave, and slipped outside. She hurried to her motorcycle and cleared out just as the guard came running outside.