10011

With all of the cameras completely shut down, it was time for the meat of the mission to take place. It was impossible to deny a buzzing energy surrounding each and every one of us. There was adrenaline from our excitement and fear mixing together until it was impossible to differentiate them from one another.

I'd realized that our main goal in storming the base was simply to connect their computers to ours so that the actual revival could take place. Of course, this was vital, but we weren't actually doing any of the reviving ourselves. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but hear every doubt coming into my head and making me feel as if a single mistake on my part could end up ruining everything.

These sorts of qualms continued to torment me as we dashed deeper into the enemy base, searching for the pathway to get to the main room where all the computers were. Parts of my mind started flaking off to other topics - how did we manage to get such a bad relationship with China, what was happening when Ronnie pulled me up to me and kissed her - but I did my best to stay on track.

After all, there were only four of us in this team - that meant that each one had to pull our complete weight. We'd all trained and we'd all been successful in that training. There was no excuse for any of us to start slacking off now that we were getting into the major part of this entire initiative. Unless one of us suddenly became ill or injured, we had to keep going.

I reminded myself of this fact over and over again. If I began to feel fatigued, I reminded myself that there was only so much farther I had to go before everything was over and the world more or less saved. If I had a cramp there or something was sore somewhere else, I reminded myself of the exact same thing. I needed to get myself just as mentally prepared as I was physical.

Things had gone relatively smoothly so far - and that alone made me feel nervous. Certainly our good luck wouldn't last forever - before we knew it we could end up in a bad situation simply because we were getting overconfident. I had faith in everyone - Ronnie, Deric, and Zeke - but I knew that they could all end up getting lost in their own congratulations. I could as well, if I didn't fight it off.

We were just about running through the halls, trying to keep our footsteps light while still being speedy. I ached to be at the front of the group just so I could run freely, but I had to follow the others because they actually knew the layout and where we headed for. It seemed like we were right about to find the main room when suddenly we found an enormous obstacle in our way - security.

"What the hell?" Ronnie breathed, her gaze snapping from side to side as she attempted to figure out what she was looking at.

"I guess that's what all of the physical training was to prepare us for," Zeke sighed. He ran his fingers through his hair as he gazed down at the pathway out in front of us. "There's only so much of the security we can disarm with our codes..."

"And this security is controlled remotely," I continued. "So the only thing we can do is find a way around it. With our physical training. Oh, no..."

"This looks like something out of a movie," Deric said, releasing a sigh in the same way Zeke had just a few more moments ago. "Like...we're supposed to be spies, or something."

"Well, if we have to be spies, then we have to be spies," Ronnie replied, gritting her teeth. She watched as the the beam of light moved back and forth across the ground. "We can't just give up now."

"No one said anything about giving up," Zeke said.

"But it's not going to be easy," I added in. I tried to take in all the details - there was a device on the ceiling projecting an ever moving beam back and forth across the floor. It had to be a scanner of some sort, which meant it was likely used to detect if there was anyone there. If we were to walk over that beam, we'd be detected.

In other words, if we walked over that beam all of our hours of work would have been absolutely wasted. It was almost funny how the smallest misstep could end up erasing everything, causing a horrible disaster - maybe even launch the globe into World War III. As none of us wanted to be responsible for such a thing happening, we all stayed glued in our spot.

But we couldn't keep standing there blankly for long - we were in the middle of a time limit, the most vital time limit we'd ever been put up against, and we needed to move quickly. I knew I was good at moving quickly, I just wasn't sure how good I was. My head was beginning to spin now that I was thinking more and more about it all, and it started to make me feel panicky.

There had to be something I could do, some way for me to recollect myself and all of my thoughts enough so that I wouldn't end up in any further amount of trouble. I knew this was just another puzzle sitting in front of me, something else that I had to solve in order to progress forwards. Panicking wasn't going to be a proper option for me. I needed to think. I needed to think like my brother.

As much as it pained me to think about Ianto, I realized it was my best option. He was by far the best thinker I'd ever known, and trying to tap into his thought patterns would likely end up helping me through this ordeal. I wouldn't be the only benefitting, either - the rest of the field group would be helped as well.

I convinced myself that what I needed to do was combine my best qualities with Ianto's - I needed to think quickly, and I needed to think well. My first act was to scope out the security device as much as I could, gaining as much information as quickly as possible. All it seemed to be was a simple laser sort of thing, but I still needed to know more.

I was attempting to push my mind to its very limits, just in order to solve this problem as quickly as I possibly could. If I stared straight ahead then I could see little but darkness throughout the rest of the hallway...but there was a red beam moving back and forth across the floor. I looked up again.

I knew what to do.

"It's a tiny device on the ceiling, but the beam covers the entire floor. It must be coming down at an angle, making a triangle shape...which means there has to be room between the triangle and the walls."

"We're going to have to jump into that room, though," Deric said. "We can't see the triangle."

"Well...we can see where the corners of the triangle would be, right? I'm not saying we have to pull out a calculator and start doing trigonometry, but we're all good at math...we have to be. We can figure out where the triangle should and shouldn't be."

"Just by looking at it?" Zeke asked skeptically. "I mean, isn't that a bit risky?"

"Isn't this whole thing 'a bit risky?'" asked Ronnie. Good - she was coming in to support me on this. Besides, all of our talking was just wasting time. If Ronnie could manage to get the others in check, then we'd likely not have all that much of a problem. Deric seemed more or less ready to leap, but Zeke still held back.

"There's always a chance that we'll end up setting off the alarms, but it's either risking that or running back all the way to the field base. I think you know that this is what we need to do," Ronnie continued to push, hints of frustration creeping into her voice.

"We don't have much of a choice to do otherwise," Zeke said, but he still sounded reluctant.

Ronnie rolled her eyes at the rest of us, as none could find the will to be the first to go. With a flick of her blonde hair over her shoulder, she turned around and began running at an angle towards the wall. She reached out her hand and then leaped, pushing off of the wall in order bend herself around where the triangle created by the security device would be.

We all stood there and gawked for a few moments in her direction - nothing had happened. She'd gotten over the security device without a single problem.

"What're all of you staring at?" she called over to us. "Come on!"

We then all followed suit. Despite having only sprinted a few steps and leaping once, we were all out of breath. Keeled over, we all panted in the dark side of the hallway. It seemed that we'd done it - we'd got past the security. Even though I never considered myself to be the type that operated well under pressure, I'd managed to use my head and figure it all out.

Our path onwards now seemed much clearer and much safer - soon we would be arriving at the main room where the entire mission would come together. The risks were far from through, but at least we'd managed to leap over security. We tried to keep our heavy breaths as hushed as possible as we followed a faint blue light into a room filled with computers.

"Look at that - there are three different keyboards for three different monitors, which all must feed into the big daddy one right there," Ronnie said, clicking her tongue as she pointed over in their direction.

"Well, of course. More security," Deric replied. I could hear a shake in his voice and I couldn't blame him a bit for it - we'd already done so much under so much pressure, and now we were getting closer and closer to the end. "You'd never expect a group to come in, just one person. It keeps things safer."

"So that's what's going to make it so fun now that we're in here," Ronnie said. Even though I wasn't facing her at the moment, I knew just from the tone of her voice that she was grinning. Of course she would manage to make this seem like something fun and upbeat when the reality was something rather close to the opposite.

In a strange sort of way, I loved this whole thing - it just seemed so fulfilling, so fascinating that I'd managed to do such a thing along with everyone else. I reminded myself that there was still much left to do, but it never fully registered in my mind. Instead I found myself excited to continue with this mission, excited to help it succeed.

"Alia, Deric, Zeke - each of you take a keyboard. I'll keep guard," Ronnie commanded.

"I don't remember anyone telling you that you were the leader," Zeke grumbled.

"Well, we don't have time to fight over leaders," Ronnie retorted. "Get to typing! I would do it myself, but everyone knows speed isn't my forte."

I thought that this was a complete lie - everything was Ronnie's forte, including kissing people and then confusing them out of their mind. I'd been doing my best to keep that out of my mind so that I could be focused on everything that really mattered, but I wasn't entirely successful after all.

Instead I rushed towards the farthest side of the room, taking the keyboard I found there. My one and only goal was to break into its security and connect it to the central base. Deric and Zeke would each be doing the same thing themselves, and together we would presumedly manage to open up their computers to ours - then the true data revival could take place, the data eaters doing the opposite of what they were taught.

"Come on, Alia!" Deric hissed in my direction, his voice cutting through the air despite being relatively soft. "What are you doing? You aren't..."

"I know," I replied, a triumphant smile I was sure I'd picked up from Ronnie pushing across my face. "I'm ahead of you." Despite all of the adrenaline coursing through me and making me feel as if I were shaking all over my body, I managed to continue being far ahead of everyone else. My speed was coming together.

Deric scowled somewhat, but I ignored him. This had nothing to do with him, after all. Right now it was my job to focus on my computer and then he would focus on his. I would just let my fingers fly across the keyboard and make it all come together as quickly as I could - as long as Zeke and Deric caught up eventually, it seemed clear we wouldn't have any real problems.

"Wait. I think it's working," Zeke exclaimed, pointing up to the main screen. I tried to catch the text as it scrolled past, but my eyes refused to work properly. It was all moving so quickly, and I didn't know what to do with it.

"How do we know if it's working?" Ronnie asked, leaning forwards to see the screen more clearly herself. I could tell (though she would likely slap me if I said it to her face) that she was nervous. She was on edge, unsure of what was going to happen next. But then again, we all were - you could tell by the way we tapped our feet against the ground and had quivers lodged in every word we spoke.

"There," Deric said. The screen now only displayed two words flashing over and over again.

CONNECTION SUCCESSFUL.

"So it worked," I breathed out. I felt like I'd been holding in an enormous volume of air in my lungs the entire time we'd been in this enemy base, but in that one moment it has all been released. I could finally breathe properly again because there was nothing more to be done. We'd been successful in everything even with all of the obstacles in our way. Then again, it wasn't as if we'd been expecting it to be easy.

We stood there doing nothing more than staring at the screen for what felt like hours. Honestly, we could've stayed there for hours, being sustained by nothing more than our awe at having accomplished such an incredible task. None of us even wanted to look at each other during that time - our eyes were fixed on the screen.

I wanted to take this image in front of me and seal it in my memories forever - it was nothing less than the moment when Alia Parr, sixteen year old girl, more or less helped to save the world and all of the people in it. Maybe I couldn't take a picture of it to share with my grandchildren, but I could certainly find a way to recall all its details.

But no matter how badly I wanted to bask in all the glory, at the end of the day I simply had to bring myself back down to earth. I'd done my part in all of this, and despite all of my qualms I managed to make it through. Worrying about the finer details of it all would have to wait for some other time - for the moment I needed to focus once again.

Finally we began to move, the rustling of our clothing causing just enough noise to make it clear that we were all still alive and such. In our moment of silence and stillness, it hadn't been completely obvious that we hadn't just stopped breathing entirely. Now we released sighs, ran hands through our hair, let our lips curl into smiles that could never be replicated just as the situation never could be.

"We did it," Ronnie murmured. I could tell that she was about to start yelling out her cheers and that the other boys would be joining in, but I made sure to leap forwards and press my hand against her lips to prevent such a thing from happening.

"We did do it," I replied, letting out a soft laugh. "And now we just have to worry about getting out of here."

Ronnie rolled her eyes as she pushed my hand off of her mouth, but she didn't start snapping at me or anything else. I looked around to see if Deric and Zeke were ready to go - and I wasn't sure if they were. They seemed awfully stiff and pale, as if they'd gone into shock after they'd found out that they'd managed to do this.

"Our part is done, then," Zeke exclaimed, his voice very soft. "We don't have to do anything else."

"Except leave," Deric said.

"We have to go now," I pressed. Every moment I looked at them I felt myself starting to panic inside a bit more, and I wasn't prepared to deal with that. I'd just gone through everything they had, after all. The celebratory part of me was fading away - should anyone come in soon, we might end up being caught and all of our work compromised.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Ronnie asked, her voice in a whispered sort of yell. "It's time for us to go back to the field base and celebrate the fact that we've done our part of the Intel Initiative. Just let that sink in for a few moments, all of you - and then start moving!"

A/N Fire the confetti cannons! We've been successful in completing the Intel Initiative! And by we, I mean the characters in the story. I'm not sure that was completely obvious. Anyways, I want to thank those of you who are reading, and also let you know that this story is coming to a close very soon...