A Valentine Surprise
By Aries
Part One
Aries walked into Walter's station to find the man busily perfecting some new gadget that he'd created. He looked up at the sound of footsteps and smiled brightly.
"Well hello sweetness! What brings you here? I didn't know that you had a mission on deck." Walter asked somewhat surprised to see one of the higher operatives enter. One who rarely came to him for advice or help.
"Well, I have a problem but I need complete secrecy about it." Aries began looking around to make sure there was no one listening.
"What's up?" Walter asked knowing by the look on her face that it was serious.
"I got a call on my cell phone a few minutes ago from someone that I don't know who it is telling me to meet them in an hour. I didn't recognize the voice." Aries emphasized the part of her not knowing who it was meaning it was someone outside of Section.
"Have you talked to Birkoff?" Walter asked worried.
"Yes. He's working on tracing the call now and finding out who it was but the person who called said that the call couldn't be traced and that there was no way to find out who he was without me meeting him." Aries replied to Walter sounding a bit more urgent. The last thing she needed was to be put in abeyance for something that wasn't her fault to begin with.
"Now that could be a problem. Are you sure it isn't someone inside of Section disguising his or her voice? You know that we have voice modulators around here." Walter said thinking.
"Yeah, that's part of why I'm here. Have you handed out any of the voice modulators to anyone within the last few days that haven't been returned yet?" Aries asked looking around. She didn't know where Walter kept them.
"Let me check to make sure they're all there but I didn't give one out for use. If someone has one, it's because they took it without my knowledge." Walter replied heading over to the case that held the modulators. He opened it and sure enough, there was one missing.
"How in the hell?!" Walter exclaimed. "It was there this morning when I did inventory…"
"Well at least I know that it's someone inside of Section hopefully. I'll tell Birkoff so that it might help him out. Thanks Walter." Aries said, kissing Walter lightly on the cheek and headed off to Comm again to let Birkoff know what she'd found.
As Aries walked up to Comm, Birkoff looked up slightly worried. "I'm not finding anything. You're cell phone isn't even showing that you received a call."
"What?" Aries responded pulling out her phone. She found the call in her caller id and showed it to Birkoff. "See, I know I'm not delusional like Sherry is!"
Birkoff looked at it thoughtfully. The unknown name, unknown number was quite usual to be found on the caller ids of Section operatives’ phones but the time for this call wasn't showing up in her incoming call log. That was highly irregular.
"How could it be?" Birkoff wondered to himself.
"Could it be someone inside of Section?" Aries asked thoughtfully and remembered what she'd found out at munitions. "Hey, Walter's missing a voice modulator! I wonder if that could be tied to this!" Aries said to Birkoff in a rather hushed tone due to the operatives walking around them.
"That might be but why isn't the call showing up on your log?" Birkoff asked thoughtfully.
"I have no idea, you're the computer genius, figure it out! I've gotta get back to my office and get some work done or Operations is going to figure out that something's wrong." Aries responded standing straight up from her leaning position.
"Yeah, you'd better get back to your office. I'll let you know what I find." Birkoff responded beginning to type again.
Aries managed to make it back to her office when DeLeah caught up with her.
"Hey! How are things going? What's wrong?" DeLeah was rather cheerful as she approached her friend and superior until she saw the look on her friend's face.
"Come on." Aries said and motioned DeLeah into her office.
The entered and closed the door. Aries turned off surveillance then sat down in her chair looking at DeLeah.
"I've got one hell of a problem. I got a call on my cell phone a little bit ago and I didn't recognize the voice of the caller. They said the only way to find out who it was is to meet them (Aries looked at her watch) right about now. I have Birkoff looking into it but the call I received isn't even showing up on my incoming call log. Plus Walter's missing a voice modulator. So right now it could be someone inside or outside of Section and I don't know." Aries said rubbing her hand across her forehead worried.
"Yeah, I'd say you have a problem. Anything that I can do?" DeLeah asked willing to help her friend.
"Yeah, find out where Michael is now and was at the time the call was placed. He's the only one I can think of who would do this." Aries responded looking up at DeLeah.
"Are you sure it was Michael? I thought he was spending Valentine's with Sherry." DeLeah responded.
"No, he was spending it with me. We have plans to attend the dance together remember?" Aries responded.
"Oh yeah, that's right! Sorry!" DeLeah couldn't believe that she'd forgotten that. Maybe she was just too preoccupied with Antonio lately.
"No problem. Will you do that for me?" Aries asked.
"Yeah, I'm on it. I'll let you know what I find out soon!" DeLeah said and headed out of the door.
Just as the door shut behind DeLeah, Aries' cell phone rang.