Janie Crouch - Countermeasures

Totally gone was the shy, stammering woman he had seen at the front desk. This woman in front of him—he definitely could not think of her as mousy in any way—was a force to be reckoned with.

“The agent in charge of the technology you gave the FBI—”

“Fred McNeil.”

Sawyer shouldn’t be surprised that Megan remembered the name of an agent she’d spoken to months before, given her reputation. “Yes, Fred McNeil. Ends up he was also working for a crime-syndicate group known as DS-13.”

Megan closed her eyes and shook her head, her breath coming out in a hiss. “And is this DS-13 group terrorists?”

“No. But they would not hesitate to sell Ghost Shell to whatever terrorist faction was willing to pay the highest price.”

“And now DS-13 has Ghost Shell.”

“Again, yes and no.” Sawyer held his hand out to stop the sound of exasperation he knew was coming. “In a mission two weeks ago, one version—the working version—of Ghost Shell was recovered. But until we contacted you just a couple of days ago, we had no idea a second version of Ghost Shell even existed.”

“But you don’t have the other version?”

“No, Fred McNeil is still at large with it.”

Megan got up and began pacing around her office. “The other version, although not as dangerous as the first, is still definitely not benign. It’s just as potentially dangerous.”

“But it would take someone with a special set of skills to complete it, right?”

Megan shrugged a delicate shoulder. “My ego would like to think so. But really, anybody skilled in reverse engineering—taking something apart and figuring out what makes it work—and software development could probably do it. There’s a dozen people at Cyberdyne alone.”

“So the FBI should be acting on the assumption that Fred McNeil and DS-13 could have a working prototype at any time.”

Megan took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, leaning back against her desk. “Absolutely. With the right help, it won’t take long.”

“We’re going to do everything we can to stop that from happening.”

“No offense, Agent Branson, but my trusting the FBI is how this whole problem happened in the first place.”

Sawyer grimaced. There really wasn’t much argument around that one. “On behalf of the entire Bureau, I want to apologize for what happened. Nobody had any idea that Fred McNeil had flipped.”

“Well, thanks for the apology, but that doesn’t necessarily make me feel much better.” The ice doctor was back in full force. “Did you work with Agent McNeil?”

“No. I’m in an entirely different...section of the Bureau. Never met the man.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m bringing Ghost Shell back to you, not the other way around. But also, there’s a whole department involved this time. Not just one person. A lot more accountability that way.”

Megan stared at him for a long moment. “I guess so. Fred McNeil always seemed to want to keep things so quiet and just between us. Now I know why.” Megan shuddered. “He was so smarmy. I should’ve known better.”

“We’re working around-the-clock to find McNeil and Ghost Shell before it can be developed more fully.”

“What exactly do you want from us here at Cyberdyne?”

“We need you to finish the countermeasure decryption system you were working on before.”

Megan shook her head and sat back down at the table. “I explained to whoever I talked to a couple of days ago that I can’t do it without Ghost Shell. That’s why I stopped working on it months ago.”

“I have the first version of Ghost Shell with me. I know you will need this version to create the countermeasure so we can stop McNeil once he gets his version of Ghost Shell up and running.”

“You have Ghost Shell here, unguarded?” Megan stood back up. “Then we need to get that drive into the vault right away. It’s too valuable, too dangerous for you to just be casually carrying it around.”

Sawyer tried not to be offended. “I think I’m capable of guarding a software system for a few hours, Dr. Fuller.”

It looked as if Megan would argue the point further, but then decided to let it go. “Fine. But you’ll have to excuse me for not having too much faith in FBI agents at the current moment. And, honestly, why shouldn’t I just wash my hands of this entire thing? My team and I did our job right. It’s you guys who messed things up.”

Sawyer took a breath. He needed to convince Megan to help them. Because if she decided she’d already done her part, and that law enforcement were on their own, Omega’s job was about to become a lot harder.

Sawyer looked at Megan, who was standing beside her desk, lips pressed into a white slash, posture rigid. He couldn’t blame her for how she was feeling.

But they needed her help, and right now it didn’t look as though she was very interested in giving it.

Sawyer knew his colleagues considered him to be the charming Branson brother; they teased him about it all the time back at Omega. People—and okay, he could admit it, women especially—responded to him. It was a gift, and Sawyer had used it to his advantage multiple times in different operations. It made undercover work a natural fit—who didn’t want to like the guy with the easy smile and quick joke? But his easy smile didn’t seem to be getting him anywhere in this conversation, not since the ice doctor had appeared.

It was amazing how different this controlled woman was from the pretty librarian-type he’d talked to at the desk. The woman at the desk Sawyer would’ve known how to reach, even with her shyness. Yet this woman didn’t seem to see him as a man—hell, even as a person—at all. But he had to try to get her cooperation.

“You’re right, the FBI has messed things up.” Sawyer smiled and held a hand out to her in a gesture for her to sit back down. Standing up and towering over her wasn’t the way to make her feel more comfortable. “And Fred McNeil fooled a lot of people, not just you.”

Sawyer noticed Megan’s posture slump slightly. Evidently McNeil’s ability to fool her weighed more heavily on Megan than she wanted to admit.

Sawyer continued, “I don’t have to tell you how important it is that Ghost Shell not fall into the hands of terrorists. You’re the one who came to us with the problem because you could see the catastrophic damage Ghost Shell was capable of. Without you, law enforcement would have no idea of the potential threat they were up against.”

He reached out and touched her hand that rested on the table. “Thank you for coming forward. I’m pretty sure nobody has said that to you, but somebody should have.”

For a moment, looking into her big brown eyes, Sawyer saw Megan, not the cold Dr. Fuller. Sawyer realized maybe it had been him not seeing her as a person, not vice versa. Dr. Fuller and Megan were one and the same; he needed to remember that. Sawyer squeezed her hand in a friendly manner, then let her go.

“You’re good at what you do,” Megan said after a moment.

“And what’s that?”

“Manipulating people.”

Sawyer shook his head. “I know it seems that way, but I’m not trying to manipulate you, I promise. Everything I’ve said so far has been the absolute truth.”

She looked at him with one eyebrow raised, but seemed to have lost a little of her coldness, so Sawyer continued, “But don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely asking you for something. We need your help. We’ve got to have a way to stop Ghost Shell when DS-13 goes to sell their version on the black market. You are our best hope for that.”

Megan sighed, resignation clear in her eyes. “All right, Agent Branson. Whether you’re trying to deliberately manipulate me or not, I guess you’re going to get what you want. I’ll get the Ghost Shell countermeasure finished as soon as possible.” Megan stood up again and wiped an imaginary piece of lint off her lab coat. “But I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do. I just hope you guys don’t screw it up again.”