Formulating a plan

[MD1, 5:20PM, Knight's Rest Motel]

>"So what's next?" Jim asked. "Dinner? Then a blind date with >the mysterious lady?"

The idea of dinner really didn't appeal to Zenya, though for a moment she couldn't say why. Then it occurred to her that it had been over an hour since anyone had shot at or otherwise tried to do harm to any of them, and paranoid though it may sound, at least when the bad guys were in the rearview mirror, they knew where they were and what they were up to. Wondering what would happen next was a bit nerve wracking on its own, but the idea of seven people sitting around a table in a restaurant, presenting a rather large target, was asking for trouble.

"Not that it's worked so far," Zenya said, "but maybe we should split up. Smaller groups might attract less attention."

"Or at least keep the bad guys guessing," Vanessa said.

Jordan nodded thoughtfully. "Everyone try to keep out of trouble, though," he said with a grin.

"There's one thing we haven't discussed," Leo said, nodding in the direction of the device in Tom's hands. "Now that we have that thing, what do we do with it? Stand guard over it, or find a secure hiding place?"

"Make that two things," Jim said. "What do we do with it in the long run?"

All eyes turned to Jordan and Tom for an answer to that. Tom held the device up, looking at it almost lovingly. "We find out where it came from," he said. "How it works and what it's capable of doing. After that�" He let the thought trail off.

"That's a place to start, anyway," Martin said. Having something to focus on, a technological mystery, seemed to be helping to keep his other concerns at bay, at least for the moment. "Maybe there's something in the interface, a system menu so to speak."

"I haven't found anything like that," Tom said, "but I haven't been able to work with it as much as I would like."

"Well, to find out, someone needs to use it. Obviously, we can't do that here," Vanessa said. The enthusiasm in her tone brought smiles from the rest of the room.

"How far from the water do we need to be," Jim asked.

Tom shrugged slightly. "I'm not sure, exactly. The larger the body of water, the more interference, and probably the farther we need to be from it for the device to work reliably."

"So we need to find a secure location away from a large body of water in a city built around a harbor," Martin observed.

"That shouldn't be too difficult," Jordan remarked. "What about everyone else?"

"I've been thinking about your Sgt. Carter," Zenya said. "If he didn't send the device, do you have any idea who might have?"

Tom shook his head. "Not a clue. I didn't keep the wrappings, either," he said with a hint of disgust. "It was a California postmark, though." He looked at the device for a moment and then a thought seemed to occur to him. "Did you bring that notebook out of my desk?"

"It's in your bag," Jim said, nodding toward a suitcase by the door.

Tom retrieved the suitcase, opened it and pulled out a simple spiral notebook. "There was a note in the box. I don't know why I kept it, but I did. It really doesn't say much." He pulled a sheet of paper out of the notebook and looked around to see if anyone was interested.

Zenya went over to him and looked at the note over his shoulder. It was short, three sentences quickly scrawled. "No one's touched it but you," she asked.

"No."

"We still might be able to pull a print off of it, then. If it was Carter, there will be a record of his prints in the military database," Leo said.

Zenya nodded. She'd been thinking the same thing. "Read it for us," she told Tom.

"Okay," Tom said with a shrug. "'Tom, I think this is what we were searching for. Don't let it fall into the wrong hands. I'll be in touch. Carter.'"

"Does that sound like Sgt. Carter," Zenya asked.

Jordan shook his head. "No, it doesn't. He would have used a rank or last name in the address."

"What about the rest of it? Is that the way he would have said it?"

Tom and Jordan looked at each other for a long moment. Finally it was Jordan who answered for both of them. "No. He was typical military, formal and concise."

"This sounds too familiar," Tom said. "I never thought of it before, but I just can't hear him saying 'I'll be in touch.' It would have been 'I'll contact you,' or something like that."

Jordan nodded his agreement. "See if you can get some prints from it anyway. You never know," he said, although he didn't sound too optimistic at the prospect.

"I don't suppose anyone knows someone we can trust at the local field office or Boston PD," Leo asked, searching the other faces in the room.

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Sydnie Kathryn MacElroy
e-mail
alternate

SA1 Kate Calloway, X-Files, DELTA
SA3 Zenya Gorky, X-Files, ZULU
Fianna Nikal, Kal-Dixas Spaceport
(visit the DELTA archive )

Linguae quae genera distincta non habent inuriam faciunt feminis.

"It may not be apparent, but I am often amused with human behavior."