Chapter 21: Two Liars Walk Out of Stark Industries
"There's a shift that doesn't make sense?" Louise mused, twisting a lock of her red hair with her index finger. She copied over what little files she could, nothing that had any tech blueprints or even research notes but it did have her psych profile.
One from before she was hired and another from before she left. There wasn't any mention in the file that actually claimed Octavius had been fired, just that the Doc left their employ. But that was normal with big names like her, people didn't like to sully the reputation of such great people.
No, it was the difference between the first psych profile and the second that worried Louise, to say the least.
"Pat's gotta read this."
It was only the jangle of the door's handle that let the girl know that she needed to duck down to the ground, getting under the desk she was sitting by and allowing Lousie to duck in her legs so anyone peeking along the ground wouldn't spot them.
"Someone must've forgotten to turn off their computer?" Some male voice said, causing Louise grimace under the table. This was not something she'd actually planned for, the young girl had expected to get in and out of the room, hell even the building without nary a camera even spotting her.
But a guard coming in while she was at the computer? That was something that could force her to use rather noticeable force.
"Damn lab rats," the man growled, his footsteps clattering in the otherwise quiet room. There was a level of frustration that Louise remembered her Pops using once or twice, whenever he'd been in a particularly messy job. "Tink with such big IQ's they'd know to turn off da computers."
The guard seemed to have issues with the h's in his words, making think sound like tink.
The young girl could tell that the man was heavy, his steps echoed off the ground with so much force that the floor audibly creaked from his weight alone. It reminded Louise of that time she saw an albino step on a cat, something that killed the little thing with a wet crunch.
Louise was still very disturbed by that.
"Now, let see here," As his feet came into her view, the man spoke once more, acting casual enough that Louise knew for sure that he hadn't caught on to her hiding under the table. "Wha was the button-" His voice suddenly cut off, alerting her to his interest being raised by something.
Without waiting to see if he had sported a stray leg from under the table, Louise threw her body at the man's legs. Knocking him to the floor with enough force that it wasn't a surprise when he broke through the desk behind the one they were at.
Wood shattered into the air, falling down onto Louise's hair before she managed to rise back to her feet.
The guard suddenly groaned rolling to his stomach so he could push himself up, not knocked out as she'd hoped but mildly dazed would at least let the girl try a follow-up attack to end things.
"Sorry," Louise mumbled, bring her hand down to a spot on between the man's neck and his shoulder and squeezing down. Instead of putting the man to sleep, it only caused him to scream out in pain. "Shit!"
"D-did you just try to-" before the guard could even finish his statement Louise brought her hand down hard on his head. A loud crack that rang out was followed by the man finally crumbling to the ground.
"Vulcan Nerve grip, yeah I did," Louise sheepishly grinned while shaking her right hand, the limb stinging from making contact with the now unconscious man's skull. "Thought it would work."
Now with a guard down, Louise knew that there wouldn't be much time till someone else came to check upon him.
Deciding to hedge her bets, she grabbed the USB drive from the computer, nicked the man's security guard jacket, draped it around her head and hopped over his still body as one would garbage.
Sprinting forward, she went out the door, leaving the thing wide open as she made her way back to the window that had been her entrance point. The sounds of steps coming from around the corner caused her to stop dead in her tracks and throw herself into a nearby closet, letting the brush of a mop hit in the face.
Louise counted to ten, keeping her ear to the door so she could hear the sounds of the steps as they moved past her. When they stopped, slowly the girl opened the door, peeking out from behind the door, seeing that their backs were turned to her and slowly moving out.
Only to run into a man walking the opposite direction from her, knocking the O'Reilly girl to the ground.
"Sorry about that miss," The man spoke, his large hands help her back to her feet. "I should really be watching where I'm going… wait, you new-"
Louise kicked the man in the back of the leg, causing him to stumble, giving her time to snap her elbow right against the man's jaw, stopping him from shouting out in pain. opening the closet door and shoving him in so fast that by the time the man could even let out a groan the door was already shut.
It wasn't long before Louise was jumping out of the first story window, landing in full view of the camera the Stark building had pointed in that direction, something she had been careful enough to hide from the first time but now had caught her leaving.
But even that she had accounted for, ducking her head down and throwing the security jacket over the lens.
It was only then that Louise made her way around the front of the building once more, peeking in and finding that was still talking to the guy manning the desk and a single security officer. His face was something that the O'Reilly girl found funny in particular because it looked as if Pat was surprised that he was able to keep making stuff up this fast and make it believable.
Guy should've been an actor rather than a reporter.
But Louise could tell that her friend wouldn't be able to keep that up for much longer, the red on his face was a sign that he was running on mental fumes.
"This looks like a job for me," she muttered, walking through the door with a smile on her face. It wasn't long before her hand was touching his elbow, causing him to jump in fright. "Bae, this is where you've been."
Louise had said this with a sweet, Texan accent that she learned from her brief summer spent there a few years ago. Pat's response was to turn to her, mouthing the words that she'd just said, focusing on the bae part of the sentence.
She tried to send a message with her eyes or at least mentally to him, kind of hoping that telepathy would be a power that he'd randomly get, just like that time he sneezed and turned his drink into an ice cube.
Pat hadn't even noticed and had gotten his tongue stuck on it, one of many reasons she was friends with this super-powered Irishman.
"Of course you'd sniff out the only science Lab this side of Manhattan," Louise teases, pinching his right bicep with two fingers but only lightly. Pinch too hard and she'd break her fingers. "I swear."
"Linda!" Pat responded, his face regaining some of its natural colors. "How did you know that I'd be here?"
And once more, Louise was impressed by his acting chops.
"Could smell the scent of Irish charm from a mile away, honey." She smiled, turning to face the two Stark Employees, both of him seemed to have rather short smiles on their faces. They believed their act. "Sorry, if he bothered you. He's so easily lost when he finds something he hadn't expected."
"No, I'm not," he responded, huffing visibly and turning his face away with a frown. It was such a good performance that Louise almost brought it.
"Bae, you've got lost just two weeks ago buying milk in a small convenience store because you were confused that they were selling tapes, made you think it was the wrong store."
Pat rolled his eyes, making sure that they all caught the movement before he finally gave his rebuttal with a smug grin.
"Who sells cassettes anymore, I don't know anybody with a VHS player-"
"You do, in fact, you've got two. One in a TV and one standalone," Louise interrupted him, a large playful smile on her face. She just couldn't stop herself from enjoying this little game, mostly because parts of it were true.
Pat really did have two VHS Players.
"I told you that's for data transfer material that isn't in print anymore," Pat whined, stomping his feet down to the floor. "I can hardly find another copy of the Power Ranger Movie, it's a dead IP."
That news had oddly upset Doyle a few weeks ago when he learned that the show had been canceled after the Movie. Disney apparently brought them out and they hadn't been interested in making anymore, just sitting on the rights, rerunning the show and selling the toys.
"But not a good one."
Before Louise could continue this charade, the two security guards from before ran into the lobby. One with their nose running red with blood, the other with their head as the point from which the blood was coming from.
"It's you!" The one with the bloody nose yelled pointing his finger at the two of them.
She could feel her heart leap into her chest, her mind turning blank as they glared at her, stepping forward with daggers in their eyes.
"Who?" Pat spoke up, stepping forward himself, his expression something that she'd expect from an upset child rather than an adult. "Me? I've been here the whole time."
"Not you, her!" The smaller of the newly arrived guards growled. "She snuck in here and attacked us."
"Linda just got here," The Irishman said in the same way that a child would when they're first told the truth about Santa. "And she came through the door behind us, I think you've got your story confused."
"Kid's right," The worker from behind the desk piped in. "She's just walked through the door. Unless she'd gotta teleporter in her coat pocket then I don't see how she got around here that fast."
"You even see the girl's face?" Asked the one guard who'd already been here when Louise arrived, his hands going into his pocket.
The two bloody Stark employees looked to each other, before the taller of the two, the one that Louise had shoved into the closet stepped ever closer to them, a grin on his face and his finger now high in the air.
While it was always good to see someone come out of there, the O'Reilly girl really wished he'd waited just a few more minutes.
"No, but she was wearing the same clothes as your little girlfriend!"
Pat scoffed, throwing one of his arms over one of her shoulders and bringing her in for a hug.
"I got those clothes off a rack of a dozen of the same," he lied, raising an eyebrow and glancing over towards the two men he had been talking to earlier as if he was asking for help. "Are you saying that if I had been wearing them, you'd excuse me?"
The accusing guards seemed taken back by his rather heated tone, while the one closest to the front desk stepped between Pat and the other two.
"Look, guys how about we let these two go and we'll look over the security footage," He said, keeping his tone calm and his hands up. "I can vouch that these two had nothing to do with this."
"I'm tired." Pat suddenly spoke, leaning his head down onto her shoulder. Which was that far given how close in height the two were. "Can we go now."
Before Louise could even utter a word, the calm security guard spoke up once more.
"Of course, have a nice day kid."
With that Louise practically dragged Pat out of the building, a massive grin overtaking her face as they left sight of the building. But it didn't last for long, because soon she remembered that she had something that Pat needed to see in her back pocket.
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