Eruption Communications conference room:
Hatter wakes-up and looks around the conference room. Bart and Anika were looking through some paperwork. Elizabeth was over in one corner of the conference room with her feet resting in a chair and the rest of her was curled up in another chair. Bart’s jacket was covering her body like a blanket. There were empty cups on the table and several laptops opened with one of them tracking Wraith.
“Looks like sleeping beauty woke-up.” As Bart glances, over towards Hatter.
“I’m not sleeping beauty. She’s a wimp.” Hatter covers up a yawn as she looks at the cups.
“Queenie, is there any tea in here?” Hatter wanted some tea to drink.
“No, but there’s some coffee left in thermos if you want that.”
“Okay.” Hatter grabs a cup from the stack near the thermos and pumps some coffee into her cup, after adding sugar and creamer to it.
She walks over to see what Anika and Bart were looking at. As she takes a sip of her coffee as she picks up one of the papers to see what was written on it. It was written in a foreign language she couldn’t read.
“What time is it?” Anika was wondering if Terry and Dakota were going to make it in time.
“It’s 9:30 and they are about forty-five minutes away from their target.”
“Well, hopefully they can get there before things go down.”
“She’ll make it Queenie.” Hatter had been watching Wraith on the laptop as she drunk her coffee.
Hatter picks up a roll left over from their dinner and munches on it. She wonders what has been going on while she was asleep. She walks
over and sits back down in the chair she fell asleep in.
Morgana’s face pops up on one of the laptops that were opened.
“Were all done here Anika. All the information that was stored here has been uploaded to your servers and to my servers for me to go through.
All access codes have been returned to normal and all holes that were in the satellite software has been fixed. I left a few back doors for us, just in case we still need to use certain satellite, but other than that. No one should be able to hack into the satellites anymore.”
“Thanks for the update Morgana. Do you or any of your team want to go ahead and get some rest before you tackle the mobile command unit?”
“Gloria and I are still able to function, but I think our body guards and Troy might want to get some sleep.”
“How much sleep have you gotten Morgana?”
“None, but I can still function. So, can Gloria.”
“You and your team take some downtime for a few hours. After you have gotten some rest, taken a shower and changed your clothes. Call me before you head over to the mobile command center. I have a job I want you to do first before you start digging into the computers on the command center. Put Keven on will you?”
Morgana moves out of the way and Keven appears on the screen.
“Keven, you and Selena go ahead and stay at the same hotel that Gloria, Troy and Morgana are staying at. I want you two to keep guarding them. See if you can get a room either next to theirs or upgrade to a suite. Tell the manager at the hotel to put the room on the company account. I’ll have Shigeko go and buy you two some clean clothes and drop them off at the hotel for you. I’ll have Greg come by and pick you all up including your equipment.”
“Okay Ms. Jaager.”
Anika looks for Hatter. She wasn’t anywhere in the room.
“Where did Hatter go?”
Bart looks up from a paper he was reading at Anika’s question.
“I don’t know. I didn’t hear her leave this room.”
Bart gets up and walks out into the hallway and heads down towards the women’s bathroom.
He knocks on the door “security.”
“You’re not security.”
Bart recognizes Hatter’s voice.
“We didn’t know where you went.”
“I hide to pee and Anika was on the computer talking to the geeks. So, I left to find a bathroom.” Hatter was sitting in a stall doing her business.
“Well, next time let someone know where you are. Come back to the conference room when you’re done.”
“Okay.”
Aylin waits till she hears the door close before she removes her foot from the stall door and put away her knife. She learned a long time ago at the hospital to keep on her guard when she went to the bathroom. The orderlies that raped her use to wait for her to be alone and molest her.
Even some of the mental patients that were there at the hospital with her. Would take advantage of her innocence and do things to her.
She finishes doing her business and walks over and washes her hands.
She stares at her reflection as tears start to form in her eyes. As flashes of what has been done to her come to the surface. Even though she hated her father for sending her away and killing her mother, she still misses having a family. She hated the Doctor for the experiments he performed on her and turning her into what she is today. She hates the orderlies for what they did to her body. She closes her eyes as tears slides down her cheeks. She didn’t know who or what she was anymore. Was she meant to go through life being nothing more than a killer?
She tries to get her emotions under control, but the tears wouldn’t stop coming. She drops to her knees and continue to cry.
Anika was worried about Hatter. She should had been back to the conference room by now. Bart had said she was in the ladies’ restroom. She walks down to the bathroom and when she opened the door, she could hear someone crying inside. She opens the second door just a peek to look in.
She sees Aylin balled up on the floor crying. She walks in quietly like she was ready to make a kill and kneel next to Aylin she didn’t want to startle the girl and be attacked. She scoops Aylin into her arms and just holds her, while she tries to calm the poor girl. She rubs her back and just let her cry against her shoulder.
Aylin couldn’t stop crying and didn’t feel when Anika pulled her to her body. She just buried her face against Anika’s shoulder and cries. Everything she has been holding back for years comes to the surface and out. All the pain and loneness she felt comes out. She slowly passes out and goes limp against Anika’s body.
Anika doesn’t know how long Aylin has been crying, but she does feels Aylin body go limp against her body. Anika holds Aylin limp body tight to her body as she stands up with her in her arms. Good thing she had strong leg muscles. She slowly makes her way back to the conference room.
Bart watches as Anika comes walking in with Aylin in her arms resting against her body passed out. She had her face buried against Anika's shoulder. Anika sits down in her chair and just holds Aylin as if she was her baby.
“What happened?” Bart was speaking softly so not to wake Aylin.
“I think the poor girl had an emotional breakdown. She was on the floor crying when I went in to check on her.”
“I wonder what brought it on?”
“Who knows, but I guess everything she has been through finally decided to come to the surface.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Aylin doesn’t have PTSD or something with what she has lived through.”
“Poor kid. No child should ever experience what she experienced.”
“I agree. If she hadn’t already killed the people who hurt her like they did, I would go after them and ask Jack if I could take Chaos with me.”
Bart just shakes his head. He knew how Chaos was and wouldn’t want to have that wolf come after him. Chaos wasn’t a wolf, but a hound from hell. He was surprised that Jack could control him like he does. That wolf had a vicious streak in him that was a mile long.
“What’s the progress of Dakota and Terry?”
“They have arrived at the location and have engaged the fire team. Morgana is remotely piloting Wraith’s combat drone as back-up for the team.”
“I told her to get some sleep.”
“Greg said she refused to leave Terry and Dakota shorthanded. She’s using her laptop to control the combat drone. It’s making a difference in their fight.”
Anika wasn’t happy, but she could see where the drone could make a difference with Morgana controlling it.
“I’ll talk to her later after this. We still got a lot of other things on our plate to handle. One is finding out where Arnold Bridges and his crew are.
The location Hatter and I took down were being manned by Korean and Chinese hackers. Arnold and his group have to be some where else.”
“They could had been in the mobile command center.”
“They weren’t, but I believe their location is in the computer systems in that command center. It was the nerve center for their operations.”
“Then, shouldn’t we get Morgana and her team on it right away?”
“No, they need some sleep. I know it’s important, but Morgana and Gloria need the down time. They’ll lose themselves in cyberspace if we don’t make them take breaks. Left on their own, they would keep it up till either they fell ill from waste buildup or just drop dead from their organs shutting down. I’ve seen to many people with their natural born talent get used to the point where there isn’t anything left of the person.”
“Alright. I’ll do some more research and see if I can at least get some idea who is working with them and turn the information over to others to handle.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Anika was still holding Aylin, who hasn’t moved since she picked her up and carried her from the bathroom.
Bart goes back to work looking for information.
Comments
Poor girl
I hope she is able to understnd she now has a family and is able to start healing
Mental "wounds" are much more
Mental "wounds" are much more damaging than even physical ones. Mainly because no-one can see them, so it is hard to treat them. That is why PTSD has "claimed" so many who suffer from it. Even today, with all our modern medical technologies, we still do not have a complete and true handle on how to deal with it.
Knife in the stall
Old precautions die hard, but bring some peace of mind. After everything Aylin was put through no one can blame her for wanting to protect herself even in a restroom stall.
There is still the original Aylin in Hatter, or she wouldn't have questioned her existence. Question the purpose of her being alive. The emotional breakdown Aylin had may help her to finally start healing. To finally start being able to come to grips with what was done to her. One thing is sure, Aylin trusts Anika. Or Anika might have received the knife when she took Aylin into her arms.
Others have feelings too.