Dress Off 08: Hotpants in Helsinki

"You can see what's inside that building?" Bree asked, still leaning over the engine and pretending to fiddle with random parts.

"Oh yes, that too, but actually I found one of their outside feeds and was just checking out the distraction across the street! Nice work on that engine, Hotpants."

Bree gave an extra wiggle of her butt. "Do I have to bring this badgirl back home for playtime after all this is done?" Bree teased.

'O's voice then cut in over the channel. "Agent Carson, I'm sure I don't know what you mean by that comment, but I'd kindly ask you to bring your field equipment back in one piece!" There was some muttering at the other end of the line before 'O' added "Especially after what happened to my favourite lab coat."

"Again," Brittney said through gritted teeth, "You shot me."

"Okay, let's cut out the bickering." Monica interjected. "Hotpants, a few more minutes of holding that pose and I reckon you've got your man."

"Thanks babe."

Brittney watched as the guard's face began to droop, and his eyes became unfocussed. She cast an eye nervously up and down the street. She could see cars in the distance zoom along main streets, and pedestrians in the distance, but they were on a quiet side-street and so far no-one had decided they had any business to transact here.

Then she looked up quickly at the building again. It would almost have been more reassuring if there had actually been people in the offices. While they may have turned at an inopportune time and spotted them, it would have been less eery than a seemingly abandoned six-story office building in the middle of a city that was allegedly the secret resting place of a great secret.

"Well," asked Bree. Brittney looked back and saw that the guard was now well and truly under. "It's done Hotpa... ahh... Bree." Brittney replied.

"That's totally your new codename." Monica added.

"Well," said Bree, "as much as I'd like to prove it's not the pants doing the heavy lifting in the hotness stakes, let's see if the nice man has something useful like a passcode or key for getting in. He's had an uninterrupted audience with my derrière for the past ten minutes, so hopefully he's got something to pay the fee with."

Standing up and turning around, Bree took a moment to grab her black handbag from car, before squaring her shoulders, taking one glance at the building in front of her, arranging a winning smile on her face, and starting across the street. It was show time.

****

Monica eyes drilled into the computer screen as she scanned for any sign of danger. Without breaking her gaze, she whispered to Olivia, who sat next to her. "Is it me, or is this seeming a little too easy?"

Olivia gave her partner a shrug. "This is easy?" Looking back at the inventory she was cataloguing, she added "You see, that is why I don't operate in the field!"

Bree and Brittney were currently moving through the building, which had proved to be as deserted as it had looked from the outside. The guard remained outside, so as to avoid raising suspicion if anyone had driven by expecting to see him there. He'd also provided the necessary security code to open the entrance door without any noticeable sign of an alarm being triggered.

Bree had turned off the hypnotic function on her bright-pink hotpants and both women were still dressed in what would come across as normal day-time clothes if they needed to beat a hasty retreat and disappear back into the city. There had been no time to change into stealth outfits anyway.

Monica's eyes were scanning the security cameras, trying to find something or someone in the building that might give them a clue to what they were looking. For a deserted building, there was a surprising number of high-quality, state-of-the-art security cameras. Undoubtedly somewhere else in the city, although hopefully not in the same building, there would be someone else scouring the camera feeds for any sign of break-in, ready to react should the Archives be threatened.

Monica had taken the liberty of recording a snipped of each of the camera feeds and was now sending it on loop to whoever else was watching on, and only her screens were now showing the live feed. However, that would only buy them a small amount of time. Eventually someone would wonder why the cameras showed no change in the dull light coming sin through the windows from the sunset outside.

However, despite having now complete access to the cameras for the entire building, there wasn't a single room that she could definitively point at and say "that's it!". In fact, while there were plenty of store rooms filled with boxes and crates, there was nothing remarkable or unique about any particular room. This was going to be a long search. Which was going to be a problem, Monica thought.

Monica gave a half-smile, and moved one hand to reassuringly pat Olivia on the thigh. "Don't worry 'O', you're doing fine. It's just..." Monica's voice trailed off for a moment, and when she spoke again she seemed to be consciously trying to suppress a note of doubt, "I don't know. I figured if this place is the resting place of something near-mythic, that getting in would be a hell of a lot harder."

Olivia shrugged again, and broke her attention away from the monitors to return back to her tinkering. In her lap she had a spray-gun, and was busily shoving a thin cleaning stick down the barrel when she piped up with "Well, maybe that's the point."

Monica finally broke her fixation on the screen to glance sideways at Olivia. "Meaning?" Monica asked.

Olivia completed her trilogy of shrugs, paused for a moment and then said, "Well, maybe it's just that the place is defended by making it easy to get in." There was another short pause, as Olivia waved her hand vaguely at the array of monitoring devices. "Defence in depth, isn't that the military term for it? Rather than trying to repel the attack at the front line, you let the attacking force advance a little, bog them down, and then counter-attack."

Monica raised an eyebrow, impressed. "'O', since when have you been a military strategic genius?"

Olivia sniffed momentarily, as if unimpressed that this little insight had been enough to impress Monica. "I've been a genius my entire life!" she said, peering down her nose at Monica for a moment, "it's just that much of it is unappreciated, it seems."

Monica's mouth curled up in a smile, and she mouthed a "sorry" to Olivia, who seemed somewhat mollified by the attempt.

"Well," Olivia conceded, dropping her eyes back down to the spray gun, "truth be told that when you're essentially a weapons designer, you do have to pay a little attention to how weapons have been historically used."

Monica released some of the tension and stress that had built up over the course of their surveillance with a short laugh. With an amused look, she added jokingly "so should we be expecting long-range stripper-gas artillery, bombard the enemy trenches and leave them without a stitch of clothing with which to defend their modesty?"

Monica's smile cracked a little when Olivia turned to face her with a very matter-of-fact expression. "Oh yes. Definitely." The beautiful engineer looked up for a moment and squinted slightly as she ran some numbers in her head. Then dropping her eyes back down to the spray gun, she finished with "I'd say six months, and we'll be in field trials." She gave a half-smile herself. "I've already identified the mall carpark that we'll be using as target practice."

Monica started to laugh, but the laugh turned into a slightly incredulous gasp as she realised Olivia was being serious.

Shaking her head, Monica turned back to the monitors. Bree and Brittney were continuing their exploration, and nothing on the camera feeds showed either a threat or a clue.

Except. Monica looked at the monitors intensely for a moment, silently mouthing something to herself. Then, she looked at the rough mock-ups of the external building that they'd managed to get from the internet. The images and screenshots have provided no hint of what was inside, but at least had given them a decent idea as to the size and the type of rooms inside.

"Hotpants." Monica called through over the channels.

"Yeah babe." Bree's response came immediately.

"There's a room, third floor, left wing, in the middle. No external windows."

"Sounds fun, what's in there?"

"Nothing much. It looks just like a large meeting room -- really big table, lots of seats, some kind of AV setup that looks like it was purchased from a 1990s memorabilia store."

"Well, that describes this entire building, to be honest." Murmured Bree, having completed a scan of what felt like the hundredth storage room to no avail.

Monica chewed a pen for a moment and look hesitantly back and forth from the plans and the building.

"This place was built in the 1920s, right?"

"Yep," Bree replied, "although I think whoever the architect was had a grudge against humanity. This place is a never-ending rabbit warren of soullessness."

Monica nodded to herself, a hypothesis forming in her mind.

"I... I think someone's already playing with the cameras in some way."

"What?" Bree asked.

"The conference room," Monica explained, "I think the camera feed from the conference room is off somehow. The quality of the resolution is different from all of the rest of the cameras, there's just something weird about it."

"Say no more, we're on our way."

Monica leaned back in her chair and looked at 'O'. "They gave us the storage rooms to soak up our time. Defence in depth, as you said."

****

Bree and Brittney entered the conference room, the door posing no issues as it had no lock worthy of the name.

"If this is it, it's not exactly well-secured." Bree muttered.

Monica's voice piped up over the comms. "I don't think this building's designed to stand up against a direct attack, I think it's designed so that you spend so much time in it that you're eventually caught getting out."

"Clever!" Bree said.

There was a brief burst of static, and then Olivia's voice cut in. "Yes, yes it was, thank you!"

Bree gave Brittney a puzzled look, but then just shrugged and both women moved further into the room.

"Seeing any of this?" Bree asked.

"I can see you, but you're coming through far more grainy than on any of the other cameras."

"Maybe they just forgot to update this camera?"

"Maybe." Monica conceded. "But still, there are thirty other feeds and they are all perfect resolution. Except for this one. Anything unusual about the room?"

"No," Bree replied, surveying the room. "A large table, a whole bunch of chairs, an AV setup, a few tables where I guess that might have served food and drink."

"Check out the AV gear." Monica suggested. Bree nodded and headed over to the display. "Maybe it's on the computer?" Bree wondered.

"We're looking for a document or a collection of documents made in the 1920s. Would be odd for it to be on a device made close to a century later. But," Monica conceded, "I don't exactly have any better ideas."

Bree started to fiddle with the computer, and as she did, she spied Brittney slowly walking around the table.

"Check out under the table Brittney, maybe there is something there." Bree instructed.

Brittney was lost in her own world and continued to walk around the table, running one hand over the surface. Bree paused to look at her.

"Monica?" Brittney asked. "What can you see on this table?"

"Nothing. It's just a dark mahogany finish, the table's otherwise empty."

Brittney continued to run her hands over the table. "The table, it's solid wood. All over. Normally tables would be made up parts wouldn't they? I mean, how did they get it into this room? It's... it's almost like this room was built around the table." Brittney paused for a moment again, and let her hands wander further over the surface. "I think I know why the camera resolution is so low." Brittney added, hesitantly. "The table... it's surface is rough... there's a faint pattern of bumps on it. That's not normal for a table, right?"

Monica leaned into the screen. She couldn't see what Brittney was talking about, but the junior agent had her full attention. "Absolutely not. Brittney, Bree, check if the pattern is all over the table."

Bree left her post by the computer and hurried over to the other side of the old wooden table, quickly running her own hands over the mahogany.

"Brittney's right," Bree reported, "the pattern is all over the table. You couldn't see it on the camera if the picture's grainy, but it's definitely there."

Monica leaned back in her chair, and spun around, clearly excited. "It's the Archive!"

"What?" Bree asked. "The table is the archive?"

"The pattern must somehow represent the encrypted text! I don't know how yet, but we need that pattern! The camera's lower resolution because they monitor remotely but couldn't afford to have the pattern broadcast outside the building!"

Bree nodded to Brittney. "Well, I don't see how we're taking this table out of the building. Brittney's right, I doubt this ever fitted through the door."

Signalling to Brittney, Bree retrieved a small camera from her handbag and waved it. "Start taking pictures. We'll both take a full copy in case we get split up getting out of here."

Brittney nodded in acknowledgement and grabbed her own camera. Excitedly, their hearts racing, the two agents began to go to work, ultra-high resolution photos of the table's surface soon beginning to fill up their camera's hard drives.

Phase one would soon be completed. The archives had been retrieved. As Bree hurriedly took snaps of the table from a host of different positions, she just hoped that phase two: getting the hell out of here, went as smoothly.

****

Monica watched the conference room on the camera. Bree and Brittney were busy at work cataloguing everything they could see on the table, and they were less than thirty seconds away from finishing.

A frown suddenly creased her face, and she fiddled with a few dials and menus on the software she was using. Pursing her lips, she switched to a terminal and hastily typed in some commands. The answers that came back made her narrow her eyes.

"That's not right..." she murmured to herself. 'O' when "hmm?" and looked at her questioningly.

"That." Monica said, pointing at something on her screen that 'O' felt looked like two squiggly lines that had fallen deeply in love and were now trying to give birth to a third squiggly line.

"Yes. Yes." 'O' said slowly, "I can see how that doesn't look like something you'd expect to be able to make sense of."

Monica jabbed at the screen again. "There's another signal. There's..."

She suddenly stopped talking. In fact, for a few seconds she forgot to breathe. Then, concern etched into every feature of her face, she turned on her comms again.

"Bree!" Monica shouted. "Edinburgh!"

In the conference room, Bree's eyes flew open, and she looked at a visibly confused Brittney. "We've got to get out of here now." Bree said urgently, covering her hidden mic with one hand.

Brittney gave her a bewildered stare. "We're in Helsinki, what's Edinburgh got to do with any of this?!"

Bree reached over and now covered Brittney's mic with her other hand.

"Because the last time Mon and I were on a mission in Edinburgh, we barely got out after discovering there was somebody else listening in on our comms line!" Bree hissed.

Brittney mouthed an "Oh!", and then without any further debate, both agents turned on their heels and sprinted for it.

****

Bree and Brittney burst out on to the street at a full run but came to a screaming halt as the cool night air hit them.

Something was wrong. Bree's head snapped to the side and she saw the guard unconscious against the wall. "Brit..." Bree started to say, but even as the sound escaped her mouth a projectile arced through the sky and unleashed a net.

Bree dived to one side, Brittney's reactions were a split-second slower, and the junior agent cried out in surprise as the heavy webbing wrapped around her. She fell to the ground and immediately started trying to disentangle her limbs. Bree leapt back on to her feet like a cat, and was the first to see the figures walk out of the darkness from behind where Bree and Brittney's car was parked on the other side of the street.

"Mon, we're in trouble!" Bree whispered into the comms.

There were six figures, all women, all dressed in identical black full-body jumpsuits. Bree knew who they were even before the lead figure stepped on to the pavement.

They all walked in a strangely robotic manner, although Bree didn't doubt that if she made a run for it, they'd be able to keep up. And then there was the matter of rescuing Brittney.

The dark-haired Elizabeth Harrington stopped six feet from where Bree stood, the blonde heroine weighing up her options against the overwhelming numbers. Flanking her, Bree instantly recognised her opponents from the Arena of Embarrassment: the two Japanese agents Akemi and Takara, and the two South African agents Thula and Charlize. Lastly, standing a small way behind the group, was the silhouette of a sixth figure.

"Tess." Bree said. There was no response from any of them. Bree looked at Brittney. Could she get her out of the netting before the others were on top of her?

Bree turned back to face Harrington, who took a shuffled step closer towards her.

"You will give us the archives. You will come with us." Harrington said, the voice that was so often dripping with malice and vindictiveness now completely devoid of any emotion.

Bree shook her head. "Sorry Harrington, can't do that."

"You will come with us." Harrington repeated. The woman was in her forties, but still well-built and imposing, even mind-controlled as she was now.

Bree glanced back at Brittney, who was halfway through extracting herself from the trap. How much time could she stall for, she wondered.

Harrington took another step forward. Bree would have no problem at all with laying a punch on Harrington, even if she was currently hypnotised, but seeing the look on her face gave even her a moment of pause.

Then, there was a flicker of recognition in the raven-haired woman's eyes. "Ca... Carson. Help." Harrington whispered, an expression of pain replacing the impassive look she'd been modelling.

Bree hesitated as Harrington took another stumbling step forward, her opponent reaching out an imploring hand. It only took that one second of hesitation for Harrington to act. The dull look on her face disappeared at the same time as she grabbed Bree's arm roughly, yanking her forward, and simultaneously bringing her knee up to connect forcefully with Bree's stomach. As Bree let out a surprised grunt, the air expelled from her lungs, Harrington brought both fists down on Bree's back, dropping the agent to the ground. Bree's handbag flew out of reach, a small collection of tiny devices scattering out as the bag hit the ground.

Then, as Bree lay prone in front of her, Harrington finished the fight before it had truly even began. Raising up one foot, she slammed all of her weight on Bree's right ankle. The blonde beauty heard her bone break before she felt the sharp, agonising pain shoot up her leg and momentarily blot out any other thoughts.

"She's not hypnotised!" Bree cried out, clutching her ankle and grimacing in agony as she rolled over on to her back, trying to escape any further blows that Harrington could deliver.

Harrington smirked, and flashed Bree and Brittney a look of pure evil. "Really," she spat, "did you honestly think I'd be taken in by something so mundane?" The raven-haired woman slowly stalked her prey, taking in the sight of her opponent lying helpless before her, clearly enjoying every second. "You'll pay for your naivety, Carson. And then I'll take a very great amount of pleasure in entertaining that stupid bitch Monica, who you seem to very, very fond of!"