While You Slept

11

When she got to the pentagon there was not much activity going on. But no surprise; it was a Saturday. Jane was not there either because she took the weekends off as well. So she unlocked the door to her office with her own key. As she opened the windows she wondered if the chief was around. They hadn’t submitted a report on the mission yet. Well Allen was going to have to take care of that. She already had too much work. She placed her palm on a spot on her file cabinet. It was a palm scanner; if you were not Sloane then you could not get into her desk. It was the perfect security.

Once the computerized voice said “Access granted, welcome agent Preston,” the drawer pushed open. She loved how organized she was. That would be something she would always be proud of. But she noticed one of her files were out of place. She immediately put it back where it belonged. Then she picked the chip which was in the evidence drawer and still in the plastic bag that she kept it in. The article on Silver was already in her bag so she closed the drawer and made sure it was secured before she closed her windows and headed out.

On her way out she met Richard in the hallway. What’s he doing here, she asked herself. But then again it was none of her business what he did so she bothered not to ask when he said hello to her.

“You never seem to stop working,” he said to her as they shook hands.
“Well maybe if you helped me out instead of commenting I would have probably gotten most of the stuff done.” She replied.
“I would love to help. But of course you would not let me.”
“Exactly, so if you will excuse me I have some were to be.”

Even while she was in her car on her way to Metro labs she still wondered what Richard was doing at the Pentagon when she met him. But then again it was not really her business so she dismissed the suspicion. Besides it was a beautiful Saturday, she had to enjoy every minute of it.
She arrived at Metro labs and in no time she was already explaining to Astrid what she found.
“I think agent Grey has already checked the chip. But I do not think he found anything.”
“Okay. I’ll get right to it. We will run it on our system’s database and see if we will get any information.”
“And I was doing some research myself on Silver, and I found this.” Sloane showed Astrid the articles she dug up on Silver.
“Can you find the location and also check on the drones too? I want to know if there is any connection.”

“Yeah. Geeky Barry will take care of this. That’s what he specializes in.”
Astrid took Sloane to where Barry’s office was. He could hack any computer with any kind of security and not get caught. He was also good with tracking and geo positioning. When they got in, he was having lunch of a sandwich and a cup of coffee. He was startled when they came in and obviously embarrassed when he saw Sloane. He quickly cleared his desk and straightened himself before he faced Astrid.
“I have a location I need you to check on and something on drones. Find out everything you can on the two.” She commanded.
“Roger that. I will get right to it.” He replied.
She nodded then said to Sloane, “Let’s head down to my lab and see what is in the chip, or would you rather stay here while he checks on the location?”

She looked at Barry who apparently did not hear what Astrid said.
“Sure I don’t see why not. I could probably learn a thing or two.”
Astrid shrugged then left them to attend to the chip. Sloane pulled up a seat and sat down next to Barry who was really concentrated on what he was doing. After a while of silence and no noise apart from Barry’s fingers working on the keyboard of his computer, Sloane asked,
“So Barry, what’s your other name?”
“Oh, Sterling. It’s Barry Sterling.” He answered still not looking up from the computer.
“That’s nice. Tell me more about yourself. Where are you from?”
“Well I’m from Missouri and studied at Princeton. Then majored in computer engineering before I applied for this job a few weeks ago and moved here. What about you?”
“I’m from New Orleans. I lived there with my parents and my junior brother. But I moved here once I got the job at the pentagon”
“That’s nice. I have an uncle in New Orleans. He is in to mechanical engineering.”
Sloane was about to say something about an uncle of hers also but Barry interrupted her,
“Great, well I have found the location you were looking for. But from the looks of it there is no sign that any activity went on there for the last 24 hours.”

Sloane leaned in to get a closer look at what Barry was talking about. He was right; it did look abandoned; like it had not been visited in days.
“Let me see if I can get the satellite recordings.” He continued.
“What about the drones.  Found anything?”
“Well not exactly. I checked with the military to see if they handed out any of their drones recently, but I did not find anything like that and I really do not think there is a connection between the two. But I will keep looking.”

After a while Astrid came in with her own news about the chip.
“Are you sure agent Grey found anything on that chip?”
“I’m positive. Why?”
“Well because it was empty; at first.”
“What do you mean by empty?”
“Blank. Calm down let me finish. It was empty at first. I think someone was trying to delete its contents. But we are really good at what we do and I was able to get everything the person was trying to delete.” Astrid replied. She asked Sloane to follow her into the room where she had just come out from. The room had different tech equipment and energy sources stored in containments. It was fairly big and other scientists were inside working on other things. Astrid took Sloane to where she worked on the chip,
“I ran it on the Pentagon’s database but nothing showed. It’s just a bunch of numbers. I’m going to guess that they are maybe codes or something. Take a look.” Astrid continued before she handed Sloane some sheets of paper. Sloane took a moment to go through the papers. All she could see were exactly what Astrid said, numbers, and a few letters. But what she really wondered was why had it been blank before and who could have wiped everything off the chip. Guess the security of her desk wasn’t top security after all.
“You might be right. But we cannot say for sure they are codes. I’ll look at them later.” She replied.
“Thanks for the help.”
They returned to the other room where they left Barry. He was still looking for a connection between the drones and Silver’s hideout.
“I think geeky Barry likes you.” Astrid commented.

Obviously shocked Sloane replied “That’s crazy talk. He can barely even talk to me.”
“Because he likes you. He is probably shy.”
Sloane looked at Barry and gave him a once over. She shook her head, it was clearly impossible. She left Astrid and went to see if he found anything. He turned even before she reached him.
“You might be interested to hear this. The drones are actually not from here. Each has a number printed on them for easy identification and the ones the military use do not have that yet.”
That gave Sloane idea. Since she had a bunch of numbers on the papers she was holding maybe one of them would match the number on the drone they found. It was a long shot but she would try it. But first she had to find out if there really was a number on the drone they found. She looked at her watch and was surprised at how much time she had spent. It was evening already and she remembered that she did not have lunch before leaving her house.
“That makes sense. Just keep looking. Contact me if you find any other thing.” She said. He’s only response was a shy smile. Good lord let Astrid not be right about this, she thought.
“Thanks for your help Astrid. I got to go. I do not suppose you work on Sundays?” Sloane asked. Astrid raised one of her eyebrows and Sloane laughed. “Thanks again anyways. See you later.”
“Anytime. And tell that chief of yours he owes me a lot.” Astrid told Sloane as she walked her to her car.
“Sure. He’ll get the message.” She replied and waved goodbye to Astrid