#<- they reached that conclusion with addi's help of course. and like they incorporate the 00s stuff in there too

[hsslilly-blog]

i love claire's wardrobe because her clothes are super nice but she IS dressing like it's still 2009 in 2014. this is because those are the only clothes in her wardrobe lmao

[a-mad-scientist-approaches]

The Cipher Conspiracy (3)

I was going to get straight into more action for this one, but I thought I needed to pay more attention to these bits. Also, it’s quite a bit shorter than the last one.

Adeline Marks (and her parents) belong to @hntrgurl13, and the Addiford ship belongs to @scipunk63.

AO3  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14

Chapter 3: Three Plans Made

Darkwell, Oklahoma (USA)    ∆

“Still nothin’ on Stanford Pines. Apparently he just stopped existin’ after leaving the FBI five years ago for an unknown reason,” Fiddleford said.

Addi nodded distractedly, pacing their rented room in Unassuming Hotel. Marks Incorporated. She never thought she would have to deal with them again.

“Guess it’s up to the director now. Anywho, the earliest chance we have ta practise our negotiating and/or blackmailing skills on yer parents is at – oh goody, another party. Dancin’ and everything this time,”

She’d always hated their parties when she was growing up. From the moment she turned fifteen she was paraded around like some kind of show-dog. Unfortunately, the only things her mother had been interested in flaunting her for were the perks that came with a trophy marriage to a suitably wealthy and influential man. Countless faces, all much older than she had ever been, all with a much more appraising look in their eyes than was comfortable, sped through her mind. Adeline Marks, a commodity, Constance Marks’s very own bargaining chip, ready to be spent as the owner saw fit.

“It’s their anniversary, apparently, but I s’pose you’d already know that,”

Addi reflected sadly that the nicest thing she could say about her father was that he was distantly caring. While Constance was the social interface of Marks Incorporated, James handled the analytical side. Although, Marks Incorporated was one of the biggest tech companies in the United States. Even with delegating, he didn’t really have time for anything else. Oh, he’d tried. He’d unlock her room after she had an argument with her mother, or he’d try to make breakfast for her himself, et cetera. Those were the only reasons she still called him – however brief the conversations were.

“No invites, ‘parently we contact them to ask if we can come. Well that’s more cuckoo than a clock factory. What a power-play,”

Packing her things and simply leaving when she was old enough was one of her proudest moments.

“Addi?”

“Huh?”

Fiddleford was looking at her in concern. Adeline realised she had stopped pacing and had been glaring ferociously at a wall, trying her best to bury the cold feelings of anxiety, insecurity, and even outright fear under hot layers of hurt and anger. The result was a muddled-up mess of emotions, overwhelming her even more.

Her friend stood up and gently led her to sit down on a bed, then sat beside her brought her into a one-armed hug.

“I’ll be right there with you the whole time, alright? And if ya need to leave, just say so. I can manage on my own if I haveta,”

“What, so I can miss out on all the fun?” she sniffled into his shoulder. He chuckled. “I’m fine, I am. It was just a bit … sudden,”

“A’know.” Fiddleford rubbed her arm comfortingly. “I think there’s something that’ll cheer y’up though.”

She took the bait. “Yeah?”

“There’ll be ballroom dancin’, and you know how ta wipe the floor with those uptight asses,”

Addi laughed.

Then she sighed. “I guess I should call my dad,”

Sacramento, California (USA)    ∆

Carla glared at her partner and was about to respond to this latest disaster with some suitably scathing remarks right in his smarmy English face, when her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and stalked off to find the janitor’s closet, her unofficial cool-down room.

“Yes?” she said, breathing in through her nose and shutting the door behind her.

“Senior Special Agent Carla McCorkle?”

“That’s whose number you dialled,” she bit, the acrimony rising all too easily.

Whoever was on the other end was unfazed by her rudeness. “I assume the Cipher Wheel investigation is not going as smoothly as you had hoped?”

Carla froze. “Who is this?”

“Are you in a secure location?”

She looked around at various cleaning supplies and shelves. Who would bug this place? “Yeah,”

“Is your phone secure?”

“It’s FBI issue,”

“I know. Is your phone secure?”

“Yes, very. I did some work on it myself,” Carla frowned.

“I knew you were the right choice. My name is Jheselbraum,”

“Do you have a last name? Or a first name?”

“No,”

“… continue,” said Carla after a moment.

“We are both investigating the organisation known as the Cipher Wheel, albeit myself in a rather more secretive manner. The US government has presented me with the resources of an entire agency, known as Oracle Division, in order to do this. Neither of us have had any luck so far, so I want you to consider a proposal: inter-agency collaboration,”

“How convenient,”

Was she really supposed to believe this? Right when she needed it, an offer of help supposedly from people whose sole purpose it was to handle this? What a happy miracle. No, there must have been a severe security breach, and someone had got their hands on classified material. Whoever this person was, they needed to be arrested and brought in for questioning. They could be a prank, or a foreign spy, or maybe even someone involved in the Cipher Wheel itself.

“Listen to me very carefully. You have committed a serious crime, stealing from the FBI, and you are looking at a very long jail sentence. If you want any hope of getting out of this, you will give me your real name, you will tell me where you are, and you will not move. When you are brought in for questioning, you will cooperate. You will not do anything to further jeopardise your position. And you will tell me everything you know about the Cipher Wheel,”

“I’m intending to, Agent McCorkle.” Carla could almost hear a smile on the other end of the phone. “I understand that this must seem very unlikely. You need proof of who I say I am. Something that shows you my status and my reach, as well as my lawful involvement in your affairs. Fortunately, I have just the thing. Have you heard of a material called shimmern?”

“Of course I have,” said Carla, making a mental note to look up what the heck it was when she got back to her desk.

“Sure. I’d advise you to look at Interpol’s recent case files for Italy, then, and know this: it isn’t over. You’ll be hearing from me soon,”

Jheselbraum, or whoever it was, hung up.

Carla made her way to her office, sidestepping Agent Wexler as he nearly ran into her when his own office phone rang. She fumed as he surreptitiously closed the door behind him so she wouldn’t listen in. Like she even wanted to. Her new partner was not making it easy to like him.

There were no recent news articles or reports regarding Italy and shimmern, other than science journalists applauding how the presentation had lived up to their expectations. Whatever had happened was therefore being hidden, if Jheselbraum was to be believed.

She sent an email to a contact in Interpol, who responded in minutes with an attached document. It was a case file from yesterday. Apparently this amazing, valuable, extraordinary new material had been stolen. Go figure.

Carla didn’t really care much about the theft itself; she had far too much on her plate without worrying about Interpol’s problems too. What did grab her attention and cause her stomach to bottom out was the realisation that this was classified information, and that there were two conclusions which could be drawn.

One was that the security breach Carla had originally suspected was far more serious than she’d imagined: it affected not only the FBI, but Interpol as well, and had to be dealt with ASAP. On the other hand … how likely was it that someone could have compromised two large law enforcement agencies without setting off any alarms at all?

The second option was that Jheselbraum was telling the truth. A miracle agency really had appeared out of nowhere to help her, like an angel complete with a sword of justice. Lord knows she needed one. Considering how sensitive and guarded both FBI and Interpol databases were, this option was much more likely than someone hacking in.

Okay. I’m interested.

The next time Jheselbraum called, Carla would be ready to accept the offer. In the meantime, she’d keep all this to herself until she was positive it was for real.

Nodding as she made the decision, Carla’s eyes drifted once more across the screen, and came to rest on a description (from a someone known only as AM) of the perpetrator.

American . . . Caucasian … brown hair/eyes … glasses … square jaw … approximately six feet tall …

That was as far as Carla got before she was snatching up her phone and calling Stanley Pines.

Stan, I swear to God, if you’ve gone back to being a criminal, I will hunt you down and arrest you myself. And this time I will NOT be cutting any deals or going on any dates with you!

She would have wondered briefly why he’d been wearing glasses, but mostly what she was concerned with was why he was stealing scientific achievements.

Darkwell, Oklahoma (USA)    ∆

Stan stared at his brother across the table. Ford was concentrating hard on his computer, not paying any attention to the sandwich at his elbow. The diner they were in had just the right balance of not too many customers who could overhear their conversation, and not too little that the staff would pay special attention to them. While this was good, Stan had been hoping that they would at least have gotten a motel room to stay in since touching down at the airport. But no, Ford was insisting on sitting at this diner until he finished going through whatever plan his boss had sent him. Apparently, life as a spy wasn’t as glamorous as Stan had thought it was. Or maybe it was just Ford’s spy life that was like this. Maybe normal spies really did get hotel rooms, and beds to lie on, and time to sleep off the jetlag …

“Hey, Ford. You gonna tell me this plan any time soon? It’d better be really good if you’re making me wait this long for it,”

“Hmm? Oh no, this isn’t the plan. I finalised that hours ago. I was just performing a search for Adeline Marks. I thought if we knew more about her then we would have a better chance of defeating her, but no luck. There’s no record of her after she left her parents’ home when she was eighteen,”

Stan groaned and thumped his head on the table. “I’ve just been sitting here for no reason? Thanks a lot.” He swiped Ford’s sandwich and got even more miffed when his brother didn’t complain. “Sixer, you better give me something to hit soon, or you’re up,”

“Hopefully you won’t be hitting anybody. B – I mean, my employer, has arranged an opportunity for us to take the shimmern necklace back. Using his considerable influence, he has convinced Marks Incorporated to release a few of Dr Hansen’s other inventions ahead of schedule, which, you can be assured, has ruffled the feathers of quite a few people in high-up places,”

“Has it,” said Stan dispassionately, looking tiredly into his empty coffee cup.

“It has. Hopefully, this will incite Agent Marks to attend her parents’ anniversary party tomorrow, on the orders from her superiors, and convince them to go back to the original schedule,”

“I’m gonna be totally honest here. The only reason I can think of why you’re bringing up her parents is so you can meet them, because for all you know, once you kiss someone you’re dating them,”

“Her parents own Marks Incorporated. Keep up Stanley,”

“No,” he said spitefully.

Ford continued on, steamrolling over Stan’s interruption. “We will also be going to the party, and that is where we’ll take back the necklace. Also, since we now know there are other people interested in taking it for themselves, we also need to reclaim the method for creating shimmern, if only to prevent them from having it.” Ford turned his laptop around and showed Stan a photo of a small, empty vault room. “This is a vault James Marks had installed in his house. It is open for use by all guests to the party, and is where I am certain we will find the necklace. Mr Marks keeps the key card on his person at all times, so there’s a pickpocketing job involved.”

“Nice,” said Stan, becoming more interested now that the details were emerging.

“Meanwhile, the method is going to be harder to obtain. That will most likely be stored either on a computer in the Marks’ mansion, if Agent Marks is staying there, or off-site completely, if she isn’t. My employer will notify us as soon as he finds out where Agent Marks is, but Darkwell is a big city. We might be at the party when that happens,”

“You keep saying party.” Stan said, starting to grin. “Do you mean like an actual party? With dancing?”

Ford looked at the webpage announcing James and Constance Marks anniversary. “Ballroom dancing. I think the Marks are quite traditional,”

At Stan’s laugh, Ford asked, “You like dancing?”

“Eh, not as much as Carla, but it’s okay. I’m just remembering the last time we were at a dance together. Prom, wasn’t it?”

Ford grinned too. “Ma was so mad we ruined those suits,”

“The suits? Remember the photos!”

“That was all your fault. The entire night was terrible,” Ford said, but with his smile still in place.

“Well, I had a great time. And how was it all my fault? You got punch thrown on you all by yourself,”

“Because of a pick-up line you suggested. If you’d just let me talk to a girl like a normal person-”

“Ford, normal for you is so far from normal for everyone else. She might have called the police,”

“What – it wouldn’t have been – well – okay – shut up-” Ford spluttered before they were both overcome with laughing fits, remembering what they’d been like as teenagers.

“So, it’s settled,” Stan managed after a few moments. “I’ll go dancing, with a side of pickpocketing, and you can skulk at the edge of the room until you find a computer. Actually yeah, this is gonna be exactly like prom,”

They dissolved into hysterical giggles again, and a waitress gave them a strange look as she filled up their coffee. Stan didn’t care. This was feeling so much like home again it was starting to hurt.

Sacramento, Califoria (USA)    ∆

“How’s it hangin’, Blind I?”

“All according to plan. Agent McCorkle is gaining no leads whatsoever,”

“Good, keep it up bud, if you know what’s good for you, ha ha. But really,”

“Understood, sir,”

“That’s why I like you, Ivan. Complete obedience, no pesky initiative or ambition, unlike another certain upstart I could mention. You do what you’re told, no questions asked, and even better, you don’t screw it up! Wish you had some sparks of brilliance in that greymatter of yours though. Then you’d be perfect,”

“Do you want me to address the problem with Pines?”

“No, no, stay where you are for now. I still need him to get me that shimmern and assemble the gun. I gotta admit, he does occasionally lay a golden egg, so to speak. I’ll see how he does on this one, and if it goes well, we’ll keep him around. The brother though, he needs to go. Gotta get our genius back on track! I’ll let you know if I need ya,”

“Yes sir,”

“Oh, and you know what happened with this conversation right?”

“It is unseen,”

“And unheard, I’ll bet. Catch ya later!”