by Lee Sau Woon
Day 1, Hoover's carpark -----------------------
> Jordan and Vanessa left the Hoover building and walked to the parking > lot. They wokred their way across between the cars toward Jordan's. A > car door slammed behind them and a woman called out, "Agent Stern!"
> Both agents turned around and saw Rebecca Cross walking toward them. > Vanessa reached down and drew her gun, aiming in one fluid motion.
She was dressed in a brown trenchcoat tied at the waist, with black slacks and pumps. Her hair was let down and rested on her shoulders. Her hands were hidden in the pockets. As she walked towards the agents, several men paused and looked at her. It was not that she was deemed as a danger, but there was a aura around her that was arresting. Even Vanessa noticed that.
> "Rebecca," Jordan said flatly as the woman approached more slowly.
> "I'm not Rebecca," she said, "My name is Ann Cross."
"And I'm Santa Claus", Jordan heard Vanessa mumbled. He nearly laughed.
Instead, he replied to the woman.
"And may I know what are you here for, Miss Cross."
"To help you," she said, with a toss of her thick, wavy hair.
"What makes you think you can help us, whoever-you-are", Vanessa retorted. Jordan put a hand on her arm, stopping her from saying whatever more she wanted to do.
The woman that was Ann Cross smiled. "Because I can. "
"You are related to the Crosses of CrossTech, aren't you?" Jordan asked. "I'm not sure if you are aware of it, but ZULU and the Crosses aren't exactly on the best of terms right now."
The woman laughed, a genuine laugh.
"Oh that." She gave a smile to Jordan, a you-are-so-cute kind of smile that makes Vanessa want to turn sideway and see if Jordan was drooling. "I'm not sure if you are aware of it, Agent Stern, but right now, the Crosses though that I am on their side."
"And you aren't?"
"If you put it nicely, you can say that I am on my own side, or you can just be blunt and said that I am the type that can betray anybody."
"So what do you want?" Vanessa said, her gun still focused on the woman in front of her, ignoring the stares passerbys had on her gun.
"Next time, I'll help more, but for today, I just want to give an advice - don't take anything at face value, and don't trust every answer." With that, she turned and walked away from them.
"How am I going to contact you?" Jordan shouted after her.
She turned back just before she entered the car, and gave another smile.
"I'll call, Agent Stern."
Jordan and Vanessa stared as the car drove away.
"You believe that crap of her not being Rebecca Cross?" Vanessa asked.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"They acted differently. This woman is oozing with self-confidence."
"Self-confidence, or rather the lack of it, can be faked, Jordan. Women are very good at that."
"Did I see a lecture on Understanding Woman coming up?" Jordan teased her.
"You're crazy." She told him, but she was smiling.
"It matches this crazy world."
Santa Barbara, same time ------------------------
On this day, Georgia McKnight ended the lecture a few minutes early.
She packed her slides into her file and reminded her student that there will be a practical test next week. She walked out of the lecture hall before the first of the students managed to reach her to ask questions.
She went back to her office where she dropped her file, collected a bouquet of flowers and walked out again, this time to the car park, where she parked her car. She started the engines, drove out of the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara, and reached her destination before an hour was up.
The cemetery was quiet as usual. The place was rather huge, but each of the graves were widely spaced, as if the rich kept their snobbishness and distaste of close neighbours even after they died.
Georgia walked for a while before stopping in front of a grave and placed the flowers on it. The name inscripted on it was 'Caroline McKnight', not exactly the deceased's real name, but Georgia insisted that the name Caroline must be used.
As she stood in front of her sister, she relived her life when she was Sissy Lane.
She remembered Caroline's rebellious nature, of Caroline disappearing, of her parents' death, and then her near brush with death too.
And of being offered the offer that she knew she could not resist from the start. An offer by two strange men on the body of her missing sister.
"She died for the government for a grand cause, Dr Lane." They had told her. They had offered her her sister's body, and a new identity, a new life, but on one condition.
Christopher Starling was her colleague, her friend. And he was lying in a coma in the hospital then.
"He is going to die anyway, Dr Lane. " They said. They wanted her to help them, to replace him with a given dead body, and staged a explosion in the Intensive care unit, and to replace all his blood samples and medical reports.
"You are not to ask any question, nor are you supposed to read the reports."
She agreed to everything. The most important thing was having her sister back, even if its just her body.
And so here she was, after undergoing plastic surgery, after getting a new identity, a huge resettlement fee, a new life in a new place. She deserved her new life, she told herself.