Series 10, the parody - Part 6

[Annie]

[Grid]

Harry was worried. He was fairly certain Home Secretary Towers was in some sort of trouble, but he was reluctant to share his suspicions with anyone just yet. Being accused of dirt-tossing wouldn't do anything good for his credibility, and this was a very bad time to lose any more of it. After Tower's last visit to his office, Harry had began to suspect that the HS' strange behaviour and his 24-hour absence earlier in the week was connected to the still undecoded message from the space shuttle.

It was also very suspicious that his new scurvy-suffering assistant had shown up on the exact same day. Some back-door inquiring revealed that he was indeed new. Harry had given Beth the task of tracking down any and all information she could find on him.

There was a knock on the door, and Dimitri came in followed by a rather timid looking Elizabeta.

"I'm ready to receive orders, Meester Pierce... err, I mean... Mister Pearce," Elizabeta said.

There weren't really any orders to give. Harry couldn't involve an unexperienced employee, who he wasn't yet sure would prove trustworthy, in the current mess the section found themselves in. Instead he told her that she could tail an annoying Asian tourist who had been reported obsessingly photographing in Chrystal Palace Park all morning.


[Basement Camp]

"Are you talking to the Organization?" Snake asked, as he saw Mystical Predicament tuning to their long-distance, completely-undetectable-even-by-the-most-advanced-monitoring-equipement, spy-com.

"Yepz."

"Will you ask them to send new supplies? We're low on dried rice and completely out of tea."

Mystic sighed. "Are you absolutely sure you don't want me to order something other than just rice and tea?" she asked. "It's all we've been eating for the last three months."

"I have noticed that!" Snake responded grumpily. He wasn't a morning person. "But we've got limited storage space, and we also need to get something that doesn't spoil. Ask them to toss in some ramen noodles, if variation is so essential to your well-being."

"We're hopefully not going to be in here for another five months," Mystic argued. "As soon as Peach Blossom has fulfilled her mission, we're off to somewhere else."

"Yes! Fine!" Snake grumbled. "You can order some dried eel. We need more vitamin-D."

Mystic gritted her teeth and dialed up the Organization HQ.


[Chrystal Palace Park]

It was wonderful to be out in the sun again. Blade had almost forgotten what colours looked like, down there in the basement. Now that he and Peach were making their way through London on foot, Peach had to stay out of sight as much as possible. They had headed into the park late last night, because even secret hitmen need some sleep every few days. Blade had spent the night curled up under some bushes, while Peach was snooping about. After waking to the sound of Mystic hissing into his ear over the spy-wireless, he had brushed the dead leaves off his clothes and continued his "vacation".

He had taken a lot of pictures of the old dinosaur statues. Actually, they looked more like dragons, Blade thought. Slithering Snake loved dragons, so he made sure to photograph them thoroughly to make Snake jealous. Snake had said the camera was for collecting evidence, and that was what he was doing now; Collecting evidence that it would be a good idea to let them out of the basement more. A few more photos of lovely ladies probably wouldn't hurt his case, either...


[Grid]

"This is weird, Harry!" Beth said. "There are absolutely no records of any James Cullen with the birthdate he has according the the Home Office files. His identity number doesn't exist either. This must be another case of false identity, right?"

"I was afraid of that," Harry replied. "You'd think the Home Office did really thorough background check of their employees, wouldn't you?"

Beth coughed. Harry thought it sounded like "John", clearly he was thinking too much about that whole sordid affair. He pushed it out of his mind and returned his focus to the current problems.

"I want you to tail him," Harry said.

"Tail James?" Beth responded with disgust. "How would I even do that? He's never away from Towers."

"I sincerely hope he doesn't follow William home in the evening," Harry said. "Tail him as he leaves work this afternoon. Pretend to bump into him. Ask him out for a drink or something."

Beth looked like she was going to vomit.

"I want you to get to know him," Harry said. "The boy is clearly hiding something. I assume it wouldn't be the first time you've used your feminine charm to get what you want."

"Just know this, Harry," Beth informed him, "I will not pretend to have any romantic interest in that guy. He's gross! He's got some sort of parasite. I definitely saw a worm coming out of his nose!"

Harry remembered that he had seen a worm-like appendage coming out of James' ear. Maybe it hadn't been the Scotch playing tricks on his mind after all. Could it be a deliberate attempt at infecting the government? Biological warfare? Harry felt something that strangely resembled panick rising.

"No snogging then," he told Beth. "We don't want you to catch whatever he has got!"

Beth made a face, and went on her way.


[Outdoors. Yay!]

Dimitri couldn't believe it. It was the second time in three days that he had to go and pick up a very hung-over Alec from his flat. He was disappointed in Alec. The man was supposed to be their new section chief, but so far he wasn't doing much of a job of it. Not only was he by far the most unreliable of everyone to have had the job, Bateman included, but he had broken a promise. Alec had promised Harry he would lay off the bottle, and look at him now - sleeping it off in the shotgun seat. Dimitri had been sorely tempted to put him in the trunk instead.

Passing through a street cafe, he noticed the Asian photographing tourist Harry had mentioned earlier. He was still taking pictures, but now of a willingly posing model who was by no doubt Elizabeta. Dimitri growled to himself as he pulled up in front of the cafe and got out of the car.

"Lizzy," He said loudly. "You've got to come home. Uncle Henry is sick."

Elizabeta looked up, a bit surprised but seemingly aware that she'd have to play along. "Oh, OK," she said. "I was just showing Andy around London. He's here on vacation. We met at the park."

"Very nice to meet you, Andy," Dimitri said. "I'm sorry, but we've got a little family emergency."

"I see," said Andy. "Is that your Uncle Henry in the car. He really doesn't look well!"

"No, that is uncle Benny," Dimitri said, feeling the frustration growing. "Nothing wrong with him, he just works the night shift."

Stuff like this never happened in the army.

"So... Andy, huh?" he asked when they were in the car. "Doesn't sound very Chinese, does it?"

"He told me it was his English name," Elizabeta said. "Just like mine seems to be 'Lizzy'. Who's that?"

"That is our superior," Dimitri replied dryly. "The guy who's supposed to replace Lucas."

"Oh. I... see," said Elisabeta. "Life must go on."

"I'm afraid so," Dimitri said, not entirely without sympathy.


[Grid]

"Tell me that isn't Alec," Harry said, looking out of the window on Dimitri and Elizabeta carrying an unconscious person between them.

"It is Alec," said Ruth. "Are you surprised?"

"I wish I were," said Harry, "But I think I can now say that absolutely nothing surprises me any more."

"Me neither," Ruth said. "Oh, look. That's Beth. What is she doing back so soon?"

"I supposed she had no luck with young Mr Cullen," Harry replied.

Dimitri, Elizabeta and Beth came through the pods.

"You were wrong, Harry," Beth stated triumphantly. "James does go home with Towers!"

Harry took half a second to determine if he was surprised by this, and discovered he wasn't.

"Where is Alec?" he asked.

"Outside," said Dimitri. "Have you ever tried getting a completely limp person, who can't stand on their own feet, through the pods before? Oh, and Lizzy had a chat with our keen amateur photographer."

"He's just a tourist, I think," Lizzy said. "He told me his name was Andy Chang and that he was from Beijing. Took an awful lot of photos of everything, though."

"You were not supposed to have been spotted," Harry said with a sigh. "No harm done, though. This was just for the sake of training. You are free to go home now, I'm sure you miss your own bed."

"Thank you, Mr Pearce," said Lizzy, and headed out the door quite happily.

"Harry..." Ruth came over to them with her phone still in her hand. "They called from the lab... Something very unusual has happened to the body of Vaughn Edwards."

For some reason, Harry still wasn't surprised.


[Basement]

"Seriously," Mystic said angrily. "You are on a secret mission, Blade! You can't just take the day off to go flirting your way through all of London with every girl you meet."

"It was one!" Blade answered, slightly offended. Rustling sounds suggested he was taking cover in the shrubbery again. "One, single woman. And I didn't exactly tell her what I'm really doing here."

"Where is Peach Blossom?" Mystic asked.

"She's here," Blade said. "Enjoying the lovely spring sunshine. You ought to try it some day, Mystic."

"I will be able to enjoy the sunshine a lot sooner if you just get Peach to the destination, so we can finish the mission and get out of here!" Mystic snapped.

"We are pretty close," Blade said

"No they aren't," Snake protested. "I can see their location on the map here. They have been heading away from the destination all day."

"Explain, Blade," Mystic said sternly.

"Just avoiding detection," Blade explained. "We will lie low until sunset, then we'll use the night to travel. By tomorrow evening we should be there."

Mystic switched off the connection. "He's got no clue where he's going, has he?"


[Secret Government Lab]

"I have seen a lot of strange stuff in my life," said the coroner, "but never anything like this!"

He pulled off the blue sheet that was covering what was supposed to be the body of Vaughn. Ruth gasped. The body had been completely transformed. Vaughn had shrunk about three feet in length and was covered all over by long, white tentacles. More than anything, he looked like a bunch of overcooked spaghetti with stick-thin arms and legs coming out of it. It wasn't easy to see where his head was, apart from a mushroom-like growth that was probably his nose.

"Somebody must have swapped the bodies!" Harry exclaimed.

"Harry...," Ruth said nervously, "This is not a human being!"

"I can assure you this is the same body that was brought in as Vaughn Edwards," said the coroner. "We have recorded the entire transformation through pictures and film. But you are right, this is not human. At east not anymore. Test results show that the DNA is different from any known living creature."

"Could a parasite have caused this?" Harry asked. "Could it have altered his DNA?"

"Very unlikely," said the coroner. "No parasite we know of, at least, could have caused this. But as I said, this is so far unknown. What is strange is that he started changing form soon after we removed the implants he had in his brain. We think the removal may have triggered the change."

"What about Lucas North? I mean, John Bateman," said Harry. "Has the same thing happened to him?"

"No," the coroner said. "It hasn't."

Harry turned towards Ruth. "This," he said, "is serious."

"I thought it might be," Ruth replied.

"There are two possibilities," said Harry, "and they are both horrible. This is either a terrorist attack with a very powerful biological weapon, or aliens are trying to infiltrate our government."

[HellsBells]

A very intriguing plot is developing in this story. Really hope you update soon.