Behind Her Eyes Ch. 02

<Let's keep going through these files,> thought Yvain, returning to a neutral tone. <If they've got anyone else of ours working for them, we need to know.>

Zoe turned back to the computer and tapped the next file. It was an agent neither of them recognized, carrying out a mission in a foreign country. Many others were the same. They did find one more Resistance spy, but it was a new recruit who had been caught by a drone and jailed on his way to join.

<I heard about that guy,> thought Yvain. <Pretty lousy of the City to keep him in jail for doing their dirty work. But I guess it made for good press.>

<On the news they said he was a major Resistance kingpin.>

<Figures.>

After going through a few more files on the computer, Yvain decided that they'd got everything they could out of it. As there wasn't anything of Heinrich's in the hotel room besides the computer and the pile of his clothes on the floor by the bed, there wasn't anything more to do.

<Shouldn't we install a virus or something?> Zoe asked. <Like, a tracker?>

<Good thinking. Having backdoor access to a major official's computer would be a massive boon for the Resistance, maybe even more useful in the long run than the info we've gotten.>

Under Yvain's direction, Zoe opened a few more windows and typed in some arcane sequences of commands on the thing that Yvain had called a keyboard.

<...and Enter... Awesome, I'm seeing the connection on my side. Mission accomplished, Fighter Zoe.>

Zoe allowed herself a moment to bask in the adulation before her thoughts turned to question of completing her next mission. The original mission, of meeting with the Resistance, which had turned into a midnight streak, and then a honeypot. Now it was time to return to the midnight streak. Unless...

She glanced down at her body. Yep, still naked. Behind her, Heinrich slept soundly, and the towel she'd used was lying where she'd dropped it.

Zoe approached the towel and picked it up hopefully. <Did you ever find out whether towels have trackers in them?>

<You're in luck, they don't,> Yvain thought back. <But they do have monograms. That one's instantly identifiable as property of this hotel.>

<What are you trying to say?>

<Anyone could see you with it, and if you brought it back to HQ...>

<Seriously?!>

<Yes, seriously. This is not a game, Zoe.>

<You're saying that people will be suspicious of a towel, but not a naked woman running around?!> Zoe looked longingly at the fluffy white towel, caressing it with her fingers.

Yvain's thoughtwaves were exasperated. <Look, I know that you think I'm just a big old pervert at this point, but we have to be careful. You've already gotten into trouble with one covering tonight.>

<That cop wouldn't exactly have shown less interest if I hadn't had the poster...>

<How about this: keep the towel for as long as it takes to get out of the hotel, but don't take it out of the building. I'm sure we can figure something out.>

<Okay, that sounds reasonable,> Zoe thought back. <And after that... well, I guess if I have to streak again... for the Resistance!>

<Just don't turn off your sight sharing again, or I won't be able to guide you.>

<Lucky you.> Zoe tightened the towel around herself as she thought this.

<I am lucky. Shall we go?>

A wry smile played across Zoe's features as she reached for the hotel room's door handle. <Glad you admitted it.>

Closing the door softly behind her, Zoe now found herself in the middle of a deserted hallway, with just a white fluffy towel for cover. She wondered what a normal Public Service girl would do at this point. Not even the most brainwashed and devoted girl would sleep beside Heinrich until morning, surely, so maybe they got fetched by this Romondo person and taken home. Obviously that wouldn't happen in her case, but if she just went down to reception and walked out, the receptionist probably wouldn't think it out of the ordinary.

Well, unless she tried to take the hotel's towel with her. Yvain had a point, there. She would have to leave it in the elevator. And considering how deserted this hallway was, she probably wouldn't even be seen by anyone until then.

Perhaps it was more in character for the naked Public Service girl Heinrich had picked up if she put the towel back. Zoe twisted the handle of Heinrich's room door, but the door had locked from the inside. She would keep it then, at least for a short while.

<Someone's coming!> Zoe thought, hearing footsteps around the corner. Not wanting to be caught wandering around in just a towel, Zoe darted to the other side of the hallway and ducked around the far corner. Fortunately, the hotel was not laid out in a straight line.

The footsteps grew closer. Out of curiosity, Zoe peered out of her corner. The footsteps belonged to a blonde woman, who appeared to be heading for the room adjacent to Heinrich's. It was the same blonde woman she'd seen on Heinrich's computer minutes earlier.

<The traitor is here,> Yvain thought darkly. <Probably planning to divulge more of our secrets.>

<Why would she need to do that in person?>

<It's got to be a meeting with someone high up, and old. You saw how Heinrich's computer didn't even have a CMR port. Old people don't know how to use these things. Some of the real high ups don't even have them implanted.>

Zoe was dumbfounded. <Not having a CMR? But, how do they do anything? You can't ride trains, or fetch rations, or get work orders without a CMR.>

<You don't really think the Secretary-General rides the metro or orders his own food, do you?>

The blonde woman, Violet, real name Kirsten, rapped her knuckles sharply against the polished wooden door. There was a click as the door unlocked, and she quickly disappeared inside, without affording Zoe the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the room's occupant.

<Let's see if we can hear what they're talking about in there.>

Ignoring the butterflies in her stomach, Zoe crept towards the door, her bare feet totally silent against the hallway's lush carpet. She pressed an ear against it and granted hearing access to Yvain, but could make out only indistinct murmurs. <Maybe if I had a glass...> she thought.

<No good. They're probably on the other side of the room, near the window.>

<How do you know?>

<That's where the sitting area was in Heinrich's room. I'm sure they're all the same.>

<Damn. I guess it's time to end the mission then. At least we got the dirt on Violet.>

<Not so fast, Zoe, I've got an idea.>

There was a sinking feeling in Zoe's stomach. <Oh?>

<Look, do you see that window to your left?>

<Yes.> Zoe glanced at the tall window, showing the night sky.

<I've pulled up the blueprints for this building, as well as some aerial photographs, and we're in luck. The room they're meeting in is right on the corner, and there's a ledge that goes around from that window to the outside of the room. You might be able to hear better from there. Especially if the window's open, like it was in Heinrich's room>

Zoe took another glance at the tall window to her left, and the impressive vista of the city that unfolded beneath it. <I... don't know if I like your ideas, Yvain.> She gingerly stepped towards the window and looked at the ledge beneath it. It was wider than she had been expecting, but not by much. <That's a lot of ifs and maybes for me to climb out a top floor window for...>

<I wouldn't ask you to do this if it wasn't important to the Resistance,> thought Yvain, utter emotionless professionalism. <If she's meeting with someone who stays on the same hotel floor as Heinrich Jorgenson, it must be about something big. She's got to be their most highly placed spy—I still can't believe she's a spy! We have to know what they're talking about. It could be the end of the Resistance otherwise—woah, what was that?>

<I just shared my sense of touch with you,> Zoe thought. <Felt like you should get to feel some of this wind as well.> For she was now standing on the ledge outside the hotel window, her towel-covered back pressed against the rough brick wall, the wind whipping her long hair across her face.

<I knew I could count on you, Fighter Zoe.>

As she inched sideways across the ledge, Zoe knew she had never felt this terrified before. She'd forced herself out of the window and onto the ledge by avoiding thinking too hard about what she was doing, but the slow process of her movement gave her plenty of time to dwell on it now. <Don't look down, don't look down, don't look down!> she thought furiously, wanting Yvain to feel a bit of her panic.

<You'll be fine, Zoe, just go slowly,> Yvain thought, his thoughtwaves buttressed with a deep calm. <The wind's dying down a bit.>

And indeed it was. Zoe inched slowly towards, and then around, the corner of the wall. The bricks of the wall were rough against her tightly pressed hands, and the stone of the ledge was cold against her feet. Her towel seemed to be shifting slightly as she dragged it across the wall. The fold on the right side of her chest that held it together appeared to be loosening.

<Stop here. We're right near the window, and it appears to be open,> Yvain thought at Zoe, describing what they both could see perfectly well out of her own eyes. <Good thing we're having this heatwave. I am surprised the hotel isn't air-conditioned though.>

<It's broken,> Zoe replied, remembering a sign she'd spotted behind the receptionist's desk.

<A place like this, that's surprising. Encouraging though. Another crack in the regime!>

<A shame though. I've always wondered what air-conditioning felt like. We had the units at school, but they never worked. Whenever I asked the teachers about them, they would say that the air-conditioning was going to get fixed in a few weeks. It never did.>

<My school said that about the leaks in the roof.>

A self-impressed female voice reached Zoe's ears. "... I've arranged to meet Manuel tonight at the location we discussed earlier. He's very eager."

Zoe knew the significance of the name. Manuel Silva was the leader of Resistance and a symbol to all dissidents within the City and beyond. <If she's not lying, this is massive,> thought Yvain.

"Really? That's quite impressive. Will he be accompanied?" The other voice was male, deep and gravelly from a lifetime of smoking.

"His bodyguards will be around of course, but not too close. I shouldn't have any trouble getting him alone."

"Are you quite sure? This is the leader of the counter-revolutionary forces, a man who has evaded our grasp for years. Most of the City believes him to be a myth, such is his slipperiness."

<Even we have difficulty contacting him. I'm recording this audio right now and streaming it directly to the closest contact I have to Manuel.> Zoe's heart soared at the thought, and she couldn't help but squirm a little with delight. On her first night as a Resistance member, she was already foiling a plot against Manuel's life. The thought was almost good enough to take her mind off the way her towel continued to loosen.

The woman, Violet, chuckled softly. "Oh, he's a flesh-and-blood man, just like you. And men have needs. Not all men are as ravenous as Comrade Jorgenson, some can control themselves a little better, but for the right woman, a man will do anything."

"And you tell me that you have convinced this Manuel, a legend among our enemies, who could no doubt have his pick of traitorous capitalist women, that the right woman for him is yourself?"

"We have a connection. Perhaps, deep down, he can sense that my heart is purer than the counter-revolutionary whores he has dabbled with before."

<Surely Manuel could not be fooled like this!> thought Yvain.

<Men can be pretty dumb about some stuff,> Zoe replied. The wind picked up, and her towel billowed in front of her. She felt a jolt of anticipation from Yvain. <Case in point,> she snapped. <Keep your mind off my towel and on the mission.>

"Are you saying he suspects you?" asked the man in the hotel room.

"Not at all, I speak metaphorically," Violet replied. "He trusts me absolutely. You will give me until twenty-seven minutes past three to disarm him. Have your men in place around the location. As the clock strikes that time, give the order, and they will apprehend Manuel and his lover, cutting the head off of the reactionary forces."

There was a long pause before the man spoke next. "Comrade Kirsten, if you did not come highly recommended by Jorgenson himself, I would send you away and have your superior discipline you for wasting time. But as you have this recommendation, I will do as you say. That you are young and beautiful undoubtedly tinges Jorgenson's judgement somewhat, but I have never known him yet to place faith in an inferior agent. Go now. My men will be proceed you to your destination."

"Thank you, Comrade Umbert. I will add one last wrinkle to the plan. If your men do not witness me entering the room we have spoken of, the operation is off. I am not so arrogant as to assume my own infallibility."

"You know the consequences for failure."

"Yes, Comrade. Good night."

There came the sound of rustling clothes and footsteps fading away, and then the creak of a door opening. After the door had creaked closed again, Zoe waited some time to make sure she didn't re-enter the hallway window while Violet was still present. Without the conversation to focus on, the only sounds she heard were the wind and her own heavy breathing. So far, she hadn't looked down once.

<Okay, the coast should be clear. I'm still waiting for a reply from Manuel's guy, but we've done all we can here. Awesome work, Zoe.>

Zoe forced herself to smile and focus on Yvain's praise as she began to inch sideways again. Her towel had gotten very loose at the top, and had slipped down to reveal a lot of cleavage. She could feel it sticking to the brick wall, and tried to pull at it with her fingers to keep it on course.

As she turned the corner, the fold at the top finally came fully apart, and the wind whipped it open. Her naked front was immediately exposed to a strong gust of wind.

<Woah!> thought Yvain. <I might have to turn off this sense of touch thing.>

<How do you think I feel!> Zoe blasted him. <The least you can do is show some solidarity from your comfy office!>

<It's not that comfy,> Yvain retorted. <This chair is murder on my back, y'know.>

It was at precisely that moment that Zoe's quick sideshuffle coincided with another strong gust of wind. The towel, momentarily loosened from its position between the rough brick wall and Zoe's back by her movement, was caught at once.

Zoe yelped as the towel vanished from sight. She pressed her back, butt and legs hard against the wall, hoping to catch it, but felt only rough brick.

<Don't do that again, someone might hear you!> Yvain thought frantically.

<S-sorry.> Zoe sheepishly continued sidestepping, all too aware of the cold wind on every part of her body.

<I'm sorry about the towel,> thought Yvain.

After what felt like a lifetime, Zoe's hand traded rough brick for the smooth metal frame of the tall hallway window. She inched the last little way, and then dropped in a heap on the lush carpeting, her body shaking all over.

<That was a really good job,> thought Yvain. <I don't think I've ever heard of anyone in our movement doing this much good on their first mission. Now for the easy part. Let's go you to the rendezvous. I've got a big coat with your name on it.>

Shaking, Zoe picked herself up from the carpet. <That sounds great.>

To be continued...