Operation Cisco
Chapter 2
After the incident with the file, Agent Ward paced in the room alone. How could a fellow agent interfere with S.H.I.E.L.D. systems under the radar? It just didn’t make any sense. Ward sighed. No one said this job was easy and it most certainly wasn’t. Hopefully, Coulson and May would have enough information to investigate this agent. After all, they both have been in S.H.I.E.L.D. long enough to go through all of the agents’ profiles to find any matches in the evidence before the situation got worse. Ward still felt helpless just waiting there. He had conflicting impulses- he liked to give a helping hand towards any mission but at the same time, if he tried to pry into anything when he wasn’t supposed to, he would get into unnecessary trouble and possibly make the situation more difficult for S.H.I.E.L.D. and Coulson. Sitting down onto a lone chair, Ward closed his eyes to rest. *** “Can you imagine?” Jemma Simmons said as she sat across from Skye, “How could someone betray his or her agency like that by meddling with the communication systems?” Skye smirked, “It wouldn’t be that difficult. Especially when whoever did it probably had years to figure out how the security worked in order to breach it.” “Says the very skilled hacker who worked for worked for The Rising Tide,” Simmons replied. “Whoever did it probably doesn’t know that he or she is being investigated,” Leo Fitz chimed in, carrying a mug of coffee. I had been quite some time since anything had gone on and Fitz and Simmons were becoming increasingly jumpy and practically itching for something to do. In fact, a few hours ago, Skye found them mixing two reactive chemicals together in the lab. Potassium permanganate and glycerol, they told her, were two compounds that, when combined, could produce heat, smoke, and eventually fire. When the small test tube burst into flames, that’s when Skye knew the extent of Fitz and Simmons’s boredom. Luckily, they decided to stop playing with explosive chemicals after she showed up. Now all three were passing time in a more normal way- drinking coffee. “You know, it would be kind of stupid to not expect other agents to get suspicious really soon. I mean, it’s the main communication system!” Skye countered, her eyes following Fitz as he leaned against the nearby counter. “I just want to believe that it was an accident and nothing more,” Simmons said. “Hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s main communication system isn’t something that could be done by accident, Jemma. You know that,” Fitz replied, giving her a look. “Thanks why I said that I wanted to ‘believe’ it was. It can’t hurt to be hopeful sometimes, Fitz.” Hopeful. Skye paused, her thought drifting away from Simmons and Fitz’s usual chatter. She had been hopeful too. Hopeful that maybe once she found out who her parents were, she would be able to meet them after all these years. But that wasn’t going to happen. Skye remembered Coulson’s pitiful face as he told her what had happened. It still was a bit shocking. How could she be the reason for her parent’s death? All that guilt plagued her mind. The only escape was the constant work that needed to be done at S.H.I.E.L.D. Maybe the person messing with the communication systems would be caught soon. Hopefully. *** Melinda May made her way over to Coulson, who was standing on the far end of the room, looking out. After a couple hours of work, May finally managed to find something on a suspect. A location. She gently slammed the file on the table behind Coulson, “The suspect is in San Francisco, California.” “That’s all you’ve found?” Coulson asked, turning around and opening the file. May nodded once. Coulson sighed silently. At least they now had a possible location. It was better than nothing. He took a few minutes to think. “What’s today’s date?” Coulson asked, not taking his gaze off of the file papers. “June 16th,” May answered immediately. Of course. It all made sense now. “Get the others,” Coulson commanded.
