❛𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐮𝐬❜ - 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝

ACT ONE

FBI HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C. — CYBER DIVISION OFFICE

The sun had barely peeked over the horizon of the bustling city of Washington, but the brief glimpse of gold slowly crept its way up the building, barely skirting along the sixth floor, where Vivienne LaForteza was already holding her ID up to the scanner. Her work day technically didn't start until 8:30 AM, but she had woken up unusually early that day, and lounging around her sorry excuse of an apartment wasn't an option, so there she was.

The FBI Cyber Division Office was rarely quiet, so even though the morning sun was only barely beginning to shine, the office was bright with fluorescent lights and large monitors. The floor buzzed with the sound of nails hitting keyboards, idle gossip that spilled over from the break room, and the occasional ring of a phone. Still, it was white noise to Vivienne's ears, and she briefly said her greetings to her colleagues before heading to her station.

Her desk was situated just in front of her supervisor's office, positioned at the head of a row of cubicles with agents on all sides. Her computer barely took a few seconds to power up, and compared to the constant beeping of the rest of the high-tech equipment surrounding her, it was as silent as a snake as the monitor blinked to life.

As if on cue, the phone just to her left rattled with an incoming call, and she kept her eyes on the monitor as she picked it up and pressed it between her ear and shoulder. "LaForteza," she stated matter-of-factly, and the voice on the other side was just the same.

"This is Eleanor Hargrove, MI6 Liaison," she greeted, and without Vivienne saying anything in response, she continued. "We've had a recent development on one of our cases and found a potential link between our suspect and a known trafficker in Europe. We were hoping to forward some digital patterns that you may be able to uncover leads from."

Vivienne had already been sifting through her emails, her cursor lingering for merely a nanosecond before she pulled up everything she had. "I'll cross-reference the existing data with what you've sent. I'll flag anything that seems out of place."

"Thank you, Ms. LaForteza," the MI6 agent said, and Vivienne returned the gesture blandly before clicking the receiver off.

With slightly fatigued eyes, she had the file reviewed and cross-referenced in a matter of minutes, her fingers flying across the keyboard as she listed all of her discoveries before sending it off. There wasn't a scarcity of cases when it came to her workload, as she was the go-to for most departments that lingered too long at certain points in their investigations, so she barely took her eyes off the screen unless she stretched for a few seconds.

The smell of coffee flowed throughout the cold floor of the office, but Vivienne knew it smelled better than it tasted. Still, it served a fitting background to the culture of the Cyber Division, whose agents rarely left their stations as the FBI had done a good job in recruiting those who preferred cold, straightforward machines to the warm, complex coworkers that surrounded them.

Vivienne couldn't deny that she was the same. She wasn't exactly a no-nonsense type of coworker, but when it came to her work, she rarely ever strayed from the topic. Her eyes, whose corners wrinkled whenever she smiled, gave off the impression of innocence and curiosity, but no one had ever seen her take an interest in anything that didn't involve her job.

Perhaps that was why she was so particular about the coffee at the office; while it was readily available, one of the few luxuries Vivienne allowed herself was an expensive iced Americano with a pump of hazelnut, and she just so happened to forgo it today.

A tap on the shoulder had her glancing at the tiny clock at the bottom of her screen, and she realized that a few hours had passed by without her getting up from her chair. If she was going by technical terms, she was only an hour into her actual shift, but who was counting, really?