The sun beat down on Sydney Bristow's head as she jogged towards headquarters. Her face showed no exertion as she pushed herself to her physical limit. Her silken brown was tied up in a pony tail that was flying around the back of her head. Her chest heaved under the sports bra that she was wearing for a top. She had her walkman on blaring some Third Eye Blind song, but she wasn't really listening to it. Her mind was totally focused on her run. That was the reason she loved the fact that she wasn't working out of the Credit Dauphine building anymore. She always had to drive or take a cab there. With CIA headquarters underneath an overpass 20 minutes from her apartment, she could run to work and use that time to clear her mind. With all the things that seemed to be going on in her life at any given time, she needed a little quiet time all to herself.
Of course, it wasn't just her idea that she run to work. When she first started doing it, it was a requirement of the CIA. They wanted to know she was coming so the run would announce her. With the fall of SD-6, she could probably stop running to work. She was well-trenched in the CIA now. Now, she ran, not for the CIA, but for herself.
She surreptitiously looked all around her to see if she had a tail. She didn't see anything so she slipped under the overpass and opened up the emergency call box underneath. She punched in the code that let her into the Rotunda, a branch of the CIA that publicly did not exist. She entered the dark, cool office beyond. She untied the USC T-shirt that she had tied around her slim waist and pulled it over her pert breasts and flat stomach.
Now that her mind was off her run, she had time to think about what why she was here. She had gotten paged by Director Kendall himself. It had to be important if he had paged her personally. She wondered if it had anything to with Sloane. Sloane had been on the run ever since before the fall of SD-6. He and his associates like Sark were busy jet-setting around the globe trying to gather together items created by Milo Rambaldi, the 15th century Italian seer and inventor. She wondered what kind of dirty little business Sloane had his fingers into now.
Sydney walked across the office. She felt someone looking at her. She turned and saw the ever-handsome Michael Vaughn looking at her, determination adding a distinguished look to his features. She smiled broadly at him and walked over. She asked him, "What's going on?"
Her smile seemed to melt the determination in his features. "I'll let Kendall fill you in. We're meeting in his office right now."
He looked like he wanted to wrap his arm around her waist. He reached out hesitantly and pulled back. She understood his reluctance to show this public display of affection. Even though everyone knew that they were a couple, it just wasn't seemly to be flaunting it around.
They both walked into the conference room. Director Kendall was at the head. A focused and fierce man, he didn't play around. He was a man a lot like her father, Jack Bristow, who was sitting to Kendall's left. To Kendall's right was Marcus Dixon, one of Sydney's closest friends. It felt like they had worked together forever, even though it had only been about 3 years. Like most of the other men in her life, Dixon was focused and determined too. The difference, though, was that Dixon was a caring man who wore his heart on his sleeve. Ever since the death of his wife Diane, though, the caring look in Dixon's eyes had changed to hard flint.
Sitting next to Dixon was Marshall Flinkman, head of Op-Tech. He seemed flustered as always. Vaughn and Syd sat down on Jack's side of the table and gave all their attention to Director Kendall.
Kendall stood up and picked up a clicker off the table. It controlled the laptop that Kendall was using to present slides. He said, all-business, "You're probably wondering why I called you here today. Well, it concerns a couple of old friends of ours," he focused on Sydney, "especially you Sydney."
He pressed the clicker and a picture appeared on the screen behind him. A picture of a handsome 30s-ish black woman with almond-shaped Oriental eyes appeared on the screen next to a picture of the man Sydney hated more than anyone else, Arvin Sloane.
Sydney sucked in a huge gasp of air. "Anna Espinoza is working with Sloane?"
The look on Kendall's features froze and looked like granite. "That's right, Agent Bristow. Our girl, Anna, has been working free-lance ever since your mother had Sark kill her old boss, the head of K-Directorate. Free-lance, though, has not been as lucrative as Anna thought so now she's hooked up with Sloane.
"Sloane has hired Anna to assist him in his search for Rambaldi artifacts. Anna, being a Rambaldi convert, probably couldn't pass up Sloane's offer. Anna's current mission is to locate this," Kendall clicked to the next slide as he continued.
The picture on the screen was of an item that looked like an old-fashioned movie projector without the reels. Instead of one lens, mounted on the front, though, there were two that projected out from the front to the right and the left. It looked like it was made out of some kind of tarnished bronze or brass.
"From what we've been able to translate in the Rambaldi journals, it's some kind of energy-mass converter. Curiously, in the diagram, Rambaldi has the two lenses labeled as "Etna" and "Vesuvius." Why he chose those names is anyone's guess, but our men think it has something to do with what they actually do. Whether it's a reference to explosive power or what, we don't know. It could be a biological or chemical weapon, too because of thisโฆ," Kendall click to another side that was a close-up of one side of the device. There was a panel on the device that had a phrase etched into it.
"โฆpanel. This phrase is written in two different languages. The first part is written in the strange language that Rambaldi seems to have written in. It says, 'The cure isโฆ.' The last three words are actually French. It says, 'le petit mort."
Sydney spoke up. "The little death? What does that mean?"
Kendall answered her. "That's one of the many things that we don't know Agent Bristow."
Vaughn spoke up, "Well, whatever it does, if Sloane wants it, it can't be good."