Archive of Our Own

It is 8:30 in the morning, and Alexandra Woods, ex-insurance investigator, is well on her way to getting hammered in an empty hotel bar. Slumped over in her chair in a rumpled suit, bags puffy under her eyes, she watches as the bartender approaches with her drink.

“I checked,” the bartender informs her, primly placing a soda on a little square napkin in front of her. “Airport shuttle’s in 15 minutes.”

Good. She can’t wait to get out of here.

Lexa just nods solemnly in reply, and as the bartender turns away, she slips a nip of whiskey from the inside of her suit jacket. Straight into the soda it goes, none the wiser.

“I’m sorry Ms. Woods, sorry, I know who you are...” A flustered woman approaches her, struggling to juggle both her coat and to-go cup of coffee. “I’ve, uh, excuse me,” the woman stumbles over her words, and Lexa gives her a perplexed, annoyed look as the stranger drops her cup down onto the bar counter and drapes her coat over the next chair.

“I’ve read all about you,” the stranger continues, words running together as they speed from her mouth. Lexa has no idea who this woman is and just wants her to leave, subtly shifting her body backwards and away from the stranger.

The stranger hoists herself onto the bar seat. Lexa continues sipping her drink, trying to ignore this person invading her space, but the woman just keeps on going. “I know for example that—that when you found that stolen Monet painting, in Florence? You probably saved your Insurance Company what, 20, 25 million dollars? Then there was that identity theft thing... You saved your insurance company, I don’t even know how many millions of dollars! But I just know that when you needed them… What happened to your family, that kind of thing—”

Lexa slams her glass down onto the counter, rounding on the woman with steel in her eyes and acid in her voice. “You know that part of the conversation where I punch you in the neck nine or ten times? We are quickly approaching that part.”

The woman winces, but doesn’t withdraw. “I just want to offer you a job.”

“What kind of job?”

The woman leans forward, lowering her voice (which is ridiculous — the closest person is the bartender, and even he isn’t in sight) and asks, “Do you know anything about airplane design?”

“I could give it a shot,” Lexa snarks, stirring the ice in her drink with her straw. “You give me a pencil, and one of those little rulers…”

“Somebody stole my airplane designs,” the stranger interjects, gesturing wildly with her hands in her frustration.

“Ohhh, I see. And you would like me to find them?” Lexa drawls, dripping with sarcasm.

“No. I know where they are.” 

Lexa rolls her eyes and starts to turn away, taking another pull from her tiny cocktail straw, until the woman continues. 

”I want you... to steal them back .”

The four meet in front of the Pierson Aviation office building. It is night, and in the distance, the wail of sirens pierces the air. Three of the people — two women, one man, all dressed in dark clothing — break off and cross the street towards the building. The fourth — Lexa — waits until they depart before turning and walking into the opposing building.

Lexa puts a folding table down into an unfinished room in the empty building and sets up a laptop. She rises, looking at the building across the street through long office windows. 

“You are sure Pierson stole your designs?” Lexa inquires, holding a blown up photograph of a middle aged white man. She tosses it down onto the bar table that she and Lorelei Tsing now occupy.

“Look,” Tsing explains, gesticulating with her hands for emphasis, “my engineer goes missing. He disappears with all my files and then one week later Pierson announces an identical project? Come on.”

Lexa scratches the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know. Stealing them back seems like a stupid risk. There are other ways…”

“Listen. Listen to me,” the other woman interrupts, to Lexa’s annoyance. “At the end of this month I have a shareholder’s meeting, Ms. Woods. I’ve spent, already, five years, 100 million dollars on R&D. If I go to that meeting with nothing to show for it? Then I. Am. Dead.” 

Tsing opens a folder and slides it across the table to Lexa. “I’m serious. Look, look at the people I’ve already hired. Do you recognize any of these names?”

Lexa sighs and picks up the folder. She rifles through its contents, pulling out sheets to inspect them closer. “Of course,” she replies absentmindedly, “I’ve chased all of them at one time or anoth— Wait, Bellamy and Octavia Blake? You have the both of the Blake siblings?”

“Is there anyone better?”

“No,” Lexa replies, “but Octavia Blake is insane.” Her tone is incredulous. “Bellamy’s a thug — and they never work with other people, not even with each other.”

“Which is why I need you,” Tsing explains as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Lexa chuckles dryly, shaking her head and shutting the folder. “No. I’m not a thief.”

“Thieves I’ve got,” Tsing replies, leaning forward with one finger lifted for emphasis. “What I need... is one honest woman to watch them.”

Back in the empty office, Lexa sets up a projector and brings up some specs on her laptop. Blueprints of another building shine on the wall. She scans through them, locating the correct floor plan.

Tsing finally asks, “Are you in?”

Lexa looks like she is seriously considering it. “It will not work,” she says, voice full of doubt. She meets Tsing’s eyes. “These people you hired — they all have the same reputation. They work alone. They always work alone. There is no way they are going to work for you.”

“No, they will, they will,” Tsing reassures her. “For $300,000 each, they will, and for you, for running it, it’s double that. And it’s off the books, completely off the books. Look at me, I’m desperate here,” she pleads as Lexa shakes her head. “And that’s just the salary, there is a bonus. Pierson is insured by I.Y.S., your old bosses. It’s a 50 million dollar intellectual property rights policy.” This get’s Lexa’s attention.

“Ms. Woods, how badly do you want to screw the insurance company that let your son die?”

Lexa woods puts on a headset, fiddling to make sure it fits correctly. “Okay,” she says at a slightly higher volume than usual, “clear comms.”

Across the street, the other three are setting up on the roof.

Raven Reyes, Internet and Computer Fraud Specialist, picks up a headset and looks at it skeptically. “No, no, no, no. No, hell , no. This equipment is total VH1... it's like the 80’s. I’ve got something nicer.”

“Okay…” Lexa replies over her comm. “No surprises now.”

“I’ve been doing this since high school,” Raven explains as if Lexa is an idiot. “I’m Captain Discipline.”

Flashback to a New York City Hotel, five years ago. A harried hotel manager walks down a hallway quickly with a federal agent. “They came straight from the airport and up to their room.”

“So you never actually saw any of them, then?”

The manager stutters out, “No, but the credit card numbers checked out!”

They approach a room and the agent barks out, “Break it down!”

The doors are kicked open to reveal a younger Raven lounging on a couch, drinking directly from a bottle of orange soda, while three beautiful people dressed as Star Wars characters play-fight with lightsabers.

The agent turns back to the hotel manager. “Does that look like Mick Jagger to you?”

The lightsaber duelists laugh while Raven slowly raises an arm and waves it in front of her. “This is not the room you’re looking for.”

Raven holds up an earpiece, turning it around in her hand to show it off. “It’s a bone-conduction earpiece mic. It works off the vibrations in your jaw.” She turns around and hands it off to the taller, dark-haired man standing a couple feet away. He holds it up to his ear.

Raven whispers, “You can hear everything.” It comes through loud and clear.

The dark haired man inspects the earbud and flicks his eyes upwards back to Raven. “You’re not as useless as you look.”

Raven sneers, shooting a dirty look over her shoulder. “I don’t even know what you do , pretty boy.”

Three years ago. Retrieval Specialist Bellamy Blake, wearing glasses and sipping delicately from a mug of tea, enters a room full of rough-looking men in Belgrade, Serbia.

Bellamy lowers his mug. Softly, he looks at the leader, a man with a mean, puckered scar slashed from his forehead down to his cheek, and says, “I’m here to collect the merchandise.”

There is a moment of silence, and then every man but the leader pulls out guns. Bellamy just takes a long sip of his drink, waiting patiently. 

Outside, the windows flash with the sudden bursts of gunfire. Groans and the sound of bodies thudding to the floor fill the air. Inside, Bellamy calmly takes another drink. Only the leader remains, still seated at the table, as smoke drifts throughout the room. He is surrounded by the bodies of his henchmen who now litter the ground. 

Slowly, the man reaches into his pocket, and places a framed baseball card on the table. Bellamy smiles.

As Bellamy dons a black beanie, a younger woman drops down between him and Raven, hanging upside down from some scaffolding set up on the roof. “Can I have one?” she inquires.

Raven grins appreciatively as she eyes the other woman, holding up the box of comms for her. “ You... can have the whole box.”

The hanging woman takes one and pulls herself back up and out of sight.

Bellamy scoffs. “What are you going to do when my sister finds out you live with your mom, Reyes?”

Raven chuckles and slips the box of comms into her jacket pocket. “Age of the geek, man. We run the world.” She slips her own beanie on.

Bellamy just rolls his eyes. “You keep telling yourself that.” As they start to wander away, Octavia Blake, Thief, sits carefully on the scaffolding and puts the comm in her ear, smiling absently.

19 years ago, in a sleepy cul-de-sac in Kansas City, a ten year old Octavia Blake stands in her living room watching her foster parents fight. A slap pierces the room. Her foster father turns away from his wife and rounds on Octavia, holding a stuffed bunny out threateningly. Her foster mother stands in the background, crying.

“You thought I wouldn’t find this?” He growls, walking towards the girl menacingly. “You don’t get bunny until you do what I say. So be a good girl,” he jabs his index finger at her. “Or, I don’t know,” the man comments as he starts to leave the room, pausing to shake the bunny at Octavia, “...a better thief.”

“Bill!” Her foster mother yells after the man, desperately.

Some time later, Octavia walks outside in her coat. She makes it to the sidewalk before the house explodes behind her, spewing broken glass and debris onto the lawn. Octavia hugs her bunny tightly to her body and smiles, skipping down the sidewalk.

Back on the roof, Octavia adjusts her repelling gear, caressing it as if it were a lover. “Last time I used this rig, Paris, 2003,” she says proudly.

“Are you talking about the Caravaggio?” Lexa asks over the comms, clearly irritated. “You stole that?”

A couple steps away on the roof, Bellamy examines his earbud and asks Raven, “Is this thing safe?”

“Yeah,” she replies, “It’s completely safe. It’s just... you know... you might experience nausea, weakness in your right side, stroke... strokiness...”

Bellamy puts the earbud in and shakes his head, already done with this shit. “This is why I work alone.”

Lexa watches them in the distance from her window across the street, binoculars up to her face. “Listen up. We’re going to go on my count, not a second sooner. Octavia, no freelancing.”

“Hey, relax, we know what we’re doing,” Bellamy says into his comm.

Lexa ignores that. “On the count of five…”

Raven leans towards Bellamy. “Aww, she doesn’t want to be our pal.”

“We’re on the count. Five, four…”

Octavia races behind Bellamy and Raven towards the edge of the roof.

“…three…”

“She’s gone,” Bellamy comments.

“Son of a…” Lexa exclaims to herself in frustration, tearing away her binoculars. 

Octavia dives off the roof, letting out a huge cheer. Her two accomplices run to the edge and watch her fall. Bellamy shakes her head in exasperation. “Turns out my sister is twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag.”

Several stories down, Octavia clings, upside-down, to the side of the building. She peers in through a window, taking stock of the security system inside the office.

“Vibration detectors are on,” she reports, eyeing a box in the corner of the room with a little green LED glowing on it.

“No cutting Octavia, use the binary,” Lexa replies over the comms. Octavia gives a little nod in reply, mostly to herself. Lexa watches through her binoculars as Octavia withdraws a canister from her harness and applies a blue foaming substance to the outside of the window, spraying in a circle. She gives it a moment to eat through the glass before attaching a suction cup inside the circle. It pops off silently, and Octavia lets the circle detach and fall to the ground. The vibration detector doesn’t notice a thing.

Octavia slowly reaches through the hole and sets a remote down on the desk adjacent to the window. She slides her body through the narrow opening with one fluid motion and hits the remote, which releases her harness. She flips herself off and over the desk, landing on the floor with barely a sound. A pencil almost rolls off the desk, but Octavia catches it before it can hit the ground. She gives herself a satisfied little smile. 

She makes her way out of the office and sneaks several doors down the hallway, pausing before a room marked “Danger: High Voltage.” She quietly opens the door, entering a room full of electrical equipment.

Up on the roof, Bellamy opens up a hatch into the building. Raven grabs their supply bags and drops them down through the opening before swinging herself down and onto a metal ladder. Bellamy follows her descent.

They reach the bottom of the ladder and drop down on top of an elevator. 

Inside the electrical room, Octavia quickly sets up some equipment. She pulls out two wires from the rack in front of her, crossing them together with a spark.

“You know Octavia,” Bellamy says from the elevator shaft, “anytime you want to— Woah! ”

The elevator jerks into motion, descending rapidly. Raven almost falls over, waving her arms to regain balance.

“Guys are on their way,” Octavia informs Lexa over the comms from the electrical room.

Back in the empty office, across the street, Lexa paces back and forth in front of the windows. “What are you getting with security? Do see any security?”

Octavia taps on one of her monitors, bringing up the security room cameras. Several men sit around watching panels of various security feeds, one of which shows unmoving elevators. Octavia grins. “They don’t see a thing.”

The elevator continues to descend with Bellamy and Raven standing on top, unbeknownst to the security guards.

“Doors open,” Octavia says from the electrical room.

“All right guys, show time. Here we go,” Lexa Informs them over the comms.

Raven and Bellamy make their way down an empty hallway. Bellamy reaches into his equipment bag and passes a device to Raven. “Here.”

“Got it,” Raven says, grabbing it and plugging it into a door. She surreptitiously looks around before starting to hack the door’s keypad while Bellamy stands guard, watching out for security.

“Okay,” Lexa asks, “do you have any chatter on their frequencies?”

“No. Why?” Octavia replies from the electrical room.

In the unfinished office, Lexa is looking up at the projection of that night’s duty roster, checking the records. “There are eight listed on the duty roster. There are only four at the guard post.”

“I can’t even tell how many guys are in the room,” Octavia replies incredulously, “how can you tell who’s who?”

“Haircuts, Octavia. Count the haircuts.”

Octavia pauses, double-checking the security feed. “I would have missed that…” she says quietly to herself, impressed despite herself.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Octavia answers a little too quickly.

Down in the hallway, Bellamy asks into his comms, “problem?”

“...Maybe,” Lexa replies. “Run the cameras.”

Raven watches the display on her device as it starts to count down, trying to crack the code to open the door. She looks fairly impressed. “Ten digit password,” she says to her device. “I salute you, sir.”

In the electrical room, Octavia scrolls through the camera feeds until she finds the missing guards. “Got ‘em. They’re doing their walk-through an hour early, why the fuck…”

“Because it’s the playoffs.” Lexa curses. “It’s game five of the playoffs. They are doing their rounds an hour early so they can watch the playoffs.”

Low and behold, Octavia zooms in on the view of a TV screen in the security room, which shows a basketball game. Three guards are gathered around the screen, watching intently.

“All right,” Lexa asks, “where are they?”

“They’re at the stairwell,” Octavia warns.

Lexa turns to inspect the location on the blueprint projected onto the wall.

Down in the hallway, the missing guards walk by an open doorway. “Hey!” one yells to the other three, ducking over to peer through the door, “we have a security breach!”

“Get them on the radio upstairs, go, go!” They draw their weapons and start hurrying down the hallway.

“Okay, here’s what we need to do. We need to squelch them,” Lexa says to the team.

Octavia frantically hits the keys on her laptop, sending a high pitched sound onto the guard’s comm frequencies. One of the guards in the hallway tries to use his radio, but gets only a high pitched whine. Up in the security station, the remaining guards hear the screech. One of them reaches up and turns it down so it doesn’t interrupt the basketball game.

In the empty office, Lexa consults the floorplan. “Bellamy, what I want you to do is clear the zone, and use Raven as bait.”

Bellamy zips open his jacket, throwing it to the ground as he jogs away from Raven, who takes a moment before processing what Lexa said. “Bait? What? Hold up. Wait a minute,” she yells after Bellamy. “I know you’re not talking about me, I am nobody’s bait...” She looks back down to the device plugged into the keypad, tapping it impatiently as the numbers slowly unlock each number in the passcode, digit by digit. “Come on, work for me, come on…”

Down the hall, the guards are still trying to reach base on their radios. “Base, come in. Does anyone copy? Agh!”

“Raven, they’re almost there,” Octavia says over the comms.

“Come on, come on, just come on!” Raven exclaims down at her device. Finally, she shakes her head and drops the device, leaving it dangling from the keypad by it’s ribbon cable. “Forget it!” She reaches down to grab her equipment bag and turns to leave, but the guards are standing there, weapons pointed at her.

“Hold it right there!” 

Raven slumps as if to say, “really?” and raises her hands over her head, still holding on to her equipment bag. 

Bellamy casually strolls out behind the guards, rolling his shoulders. Raven drops her bag. By the time the bag hits the ground, Bellamy is the only man left standing, having disarmed and incapacitated all four of the guards. He smirks at Raven as he empties one of the guard’s guns of its ammo and brags, “ That’s what I do.”

Raven looks impressed. She raises one eyebrow and nods her head in approval, conceding his expertise. 

Behind her, the device finally unlocks all of the passcode digits and the locked door snicks open. Raven looks behind her at the unlocked door, and then she and Bellamy trade a grin before entering the server room. Raven looks like she’s hit the jackpot lets out a barking laugh.

In the unfinished office, Lexa is still pacing. “Guys, you need to talk to me, okay? Because I don’t know what’s going on.”

Bellamy ties up the security guards and dumps them into the server room while Raven works on a terminal. “It’s all good,” she says, “I’m stripping the drives right now.” She plugs in a flash drive and starts transferring files. “Come on baby…” She says to herself with satisfaction. “Mmmhmm.” The files finish transferring onto her flash drive, showing a “no files found” message on the screen. Raven unplugs the drive and speaks into her comms. “Got all the designs, got all the backups. I’m leaving this cupboard bare.”

“Drop the spike,” Lexa replies.

Raven enters a command into the computer’s terminal, and the monitor flashes a couple times as if glitching before showing the Blue Screen of Death. Lights on the servers begin to go out.

“Did you give them a virus?” Bellamy asks from over Raven’s shoulder.

Raven smirks and looks back at him. “Dude, I gave them more than one virus.” They grab their bags and exit into the hallway.

“Problem,” Octavia says from the server room, monitoring the security feeds. Bellamy, Raven, and even Lexa pause, listening intently to their comms. “Those guards you ganked? They reset all the alarms on the roof and all the floors above us. We can’t go up.”

Bellamy glances over to Raven. “Everyone for themselves, then,” she says, starting to walk away.

Rave scoffs at his back. “Go ahead, I’m the one with the merchandise!”

“Yeah, well I’m the one with an exit!” Octavia replies over the comms.

“And I am the one with a plan,” Lexa replies, staring intently at the Pierson building from across the street as the other three listen intently. “Now, I know you children don’t play well with others, but I need you to hold it together for exactly seven more minutes. Now get to the elevator and head down.” She turns on her heel, walking away from the window. “ We are going to do the burn scam.”

Octavia smirks to herself in the electrical room. Down in the hallway, Bellamy and Raven nod to each other, then rush head down the hall together. They enter an elevator and begin rapidly changing their clothes. “Going to Plan B,” Raven says as she strips off her jacket.

Lexa starts packing down her equipment. “Technically, that would be Plan G.”

The elevator dings and the doors open up to Octavia. She runs into the elevator and begins changing while the others finish — literally — suiting up.

“How many plans do we have?” Raven asks over the comms, “is there like a Plan M?”

“Yes, but Raven dies in Plan M,” Lexa answers.

“I like Plan M,” Bellamy jokes to himself as he straightens up his tie.

Down in the building lobby, one of the entrance security guards looks toward the elevators as it starts moving. “I thought we locked down those elevators?” He asks half to himself, half to his coworker, as he slowly walks around the booth to investigate, pushing the hem of his jacket aside and reaching for his holstered gun.

In the elevator, the team is dressed in business suits. Bellamy kneels to put a brace on Octavia’s leg while Raven applies fake burns to her face. “Stay still, stay still, don’t move,” she chastises and pulls Octavia’s face back towards her as the other woman tries to look down and see what Bellamy’s doing. Octavia rolls her eyes.

The guard approaches the elevator with his hand on his gun. The doors ding, sliding open to reveal Octavia limping with a cane, helped by Raven and Bellamy. The guard drops his hand down and stares at Octavia as the three move slowly toward the exit.

Bellamy glares at the guard. “Nice!” He exclaims indignantly, “Why don’t you stare a little more?”

The guard turns red with embarrassment. “Sorry!”

“You gotta be kidding me,” Bellamy continues.

Octavia interjects weakly. “No, Tom, it’s okay…”

“No, it’s not,” Raven replies darkly, shooting the guard a dirty look.

“Sorry, sorry!” He says awkwardly, walking them over to the exit.

“I understand,” Octavia replies through a face full of tears.

“—I’m sorry—” The guard continues, digging himself further into a ditch. Outside, Lexa pulls up to the curb and looks through the doors into the building.

Bellamy gestures to the guard impatiently. “Get the door, come on!” The guard quickly helps them out, still apologizing while Octavia sobs and limps through the revolving door and both Raven and Bellamy continue chastising him.

The guard hurries back to his desk, and the team finally gets out of the building, gradually dropping their act as they head for the car. As they approach the curb, Octavia tosses her cane to Raven, who deftly catches it. They all quickly slide into the car and Lexa speeds off.

A couple hours later, the team stands around in a park just before dawn, watching while Raven works on a small laptop. Lexa starts pacing back and forth. “Come on, come on, it’s only taking all night. Come on.”

“I got a couple of Wi-Fi networks with some crappy bandwidth,” Raven brushes her off, hitting more keys. “There you go,” she says after another few moments. “The designs are sent.”

“All right, all right. The money will be in all your accounts later today,” Lexa assures the team. She seems eager to get the hell out of there.

Raven snaps her laptop shut and grins up at the team. “Anybody else notice how hard we rocked last night?”

“Yeah, well, one show only, no encores,” Bellamy says dismissively, turning to leave. 

Octavia turns in the opposite direction. “I already forgot your names.”

“I literally named you, O.” Bellamy says as Raven turns to Lexa. 

“It was kind of cool, being on the same side,” she tells her.”

Lexa shakes her head. “No, we are not on the same side. I am not a thief.”

“You are now. Come on Alexandra, tell the truth. Didn’t you have a little bit of fun playing the Black King instead of the White Knight, just this once?” Octavia croons. Lexa shutters her eyes and looks away, unwilling to reply. 

After a moment of silence, the group all turn and walk away in different directions.

Some time later, Lexa is passed out diagonally in her hotel bed, still wearing her dirty clothes from last night. Little empty bottles of alcohol litter the nightstand. Her phone starts ringing loudly. She groans and fumbles to answer it, knocking the bottles over as she reaches out.

Finally, she grabs her phone and squints at the number. She answers tiredly, “yeah?” rubbing her head with her fingers.

On the other side of the line, Tsing is walking through her office building in a rage. “You screwed me! The designs never got to me!”

“No, no that can’t be right,” Lexa stutters, “I watched them go out…”

“I don’t know what you saw, but I received nothing!”

Lexa props herself up against the headboard, tilting her head back and swallowing. “Look,” she replies, “I told you, you could not trust them.”

“It–it’s not my job to trust anybody! That’s what you were here for! I’m freezing the payments, I’m freezing all the payments!” Tsing threatens over the phone.

“All right, okay, look,” Lexa sighs. “Look, I will come over there right now. We will straighten this out.”

“No, no, no don’t come here,” Tsing says, finally reaching her personal office. She picked up a mug from the table. “My company has an old aircraft facility outside the city and I’ll text you the address. You be there in one hour.” Tsing hangs up, and calmly takes a sip of her coffee, a satisfied look ghosting on her face.

In her hotel room, Lexa groans and slowly puts down her phone, staring off into the distance.

Lexa makes her way carefully into the warehouse Tsing texted over about an hour later. She hears shouting down the hall, and cautiously makes her way towards the noise, shoes silent on the scuffed linoleum floor.

In the distance, she hears someone cock a gun and say, “you mind telling me what happened to the designs?” It sounds like Raven.

“What makes you think I know what happened?” That’s definitely Bellamy, sneering in reply. He spits out a low “stupid” to himself.

“Look, screw you man! You did it when we were coming down from the elevator.” 

Lexa rounds the corner and takes in the scene in front of her. Raven and Bellamy are standing in a dark, open, dusty room, several feet from each other. Raven has a gun pointed straight at the man’s chest.

“Yeah, that makes sense, doesn’t it?” Bellamy replies quietly, leaning into Raven’s gun. “ You had the file every second.”

“Hold up dude, I did my part. I transferred the files,” Raven replies, gesturing at herself. “What—”

“You better get that gun out of my face—”

“—did you do?”

“—or else I’m gonna feed it to you!”

“Hey!” Lexa shouts, walking over to them.

The two turn and Raven points her gun at Lexa in surprise.

“Did you do it?” Bellamy asks Lexa offhand, eyes still trained on Raven. The woman quickly swivels the gun back at him. “You’re the only one that’s ever played both sides.”

Lexa arches an eyebrow. “ You seem pretty relaxed for a guy who has a gun pointed at him.”

Bellamy eyes slide back over to Raven, and then flick down to the gun. “Safety’s on,” he explains.

Raven scoffs. “Like I’m gonna fall for that!”

Lexa shakes her head, stepping closer. “No, no, actually he’s right, the safety is on.”

Raven looks down to inspect her gun, and Lexa steps in quickly and snatches it right out of her hands. Gun secured, she glances up at Bellamy. “You armed?”

Bellamy shakes his head. “I don’t like guns.” He looks pointedly past Lexa’s shoulder as another gun cocks behind her. Lexa turns smoothly and points the gun at Octavia, who, of course, has another gun pointed straight at the former insurance agent.

“My money’s not in my account,” Octavia growls. She walks around Raven, raising her gun as Lexa lowers hers. “That makes me cry inside in my special, angry place.” She looks between Bellamy and Raven sourly.

“Okay… Octavia…” Lexa slowly reaches out and lowers Octavia’s gun. “Now… did you come here to get paid?” She asks the three.

“Hell no!” Raven exclaims. “Transfer of funds. Global economy.”

“It’s supposed to be a walk away. I’m never supposed to see you again, Lexa,” Bellamy replies.

“...Then the only reason you guys are here... is because you did not get paid. And you’re pissed off.” It starts to dawn on Lexa, and she lets out a laugh. The other three stare at her as she continues laughing. “As a matter of fact, the only way to get us all in the same place at the same time is to tell us that we are not. Getting. Paid.”

A look of realization passes through the group, and all at once, they start to run, following Lexa as she dashes towards the exit. In their haste, Raven trips on the stairs and Bellamy drags her up by the back of her jacket, rather than leaving her behind.

“Come on, come on, get up! Let’s go, hustle, go!” Lexa yells as she slams her fist against a control box, which makes a mechanical wine and starts to open a garage door. The others duck down as the door slides slowly upwards and exit. There is an enormous boom, and Lexa looks back over her shoulder to see a wave of fire headed toward her.

The building explodes outwards in a ball of fire, throwing Raven, Bellamy and Octavia to the ground as debris rains down onto them.

Lexa wakes up with a gasp to find herself handcuffed to a hospital bed. She groans and raises her head, attempting in her bleary state to take stock of the situation. Her entire body tenses up when she realizes her surroundings.

Across the room, Bellamy is sitting patiently, handcuffed to a chair. “You don’t like hospitals,” he remarks.

She forces herself to relax, muscle by muscle. “Not much,” Lexa finally replies softly, eyes darting around the room, looking desperately for a way out. She glances down at her handcuff and tugs at it experimentally.

“It’s about time,” Octavia’s voice rings out impatiently.

“What...?” Lexa looks up, eyes catching on an air vent above her bed.

Octavia and Raven are in the room next door. Octavia paces, anxiously spinning her handcuffs on one finger, having clearly long broken out of them. Raven is still handcuffed to her own hospital bed, where she sits cross-legged. “Cops and firemen got there just as we were waking up.”

“Where are we?” Lexa asks through the vent from the next room over.

“County hospital,” Raven explains. “Local cops responded to the explosion.” She lifts her wrist and gestures, from Octavia to her wrist, eyebrows lifted. The other woman ignores her.

“Have we been processed?”

Bellamy raises his hand and wiggles ink-covered fingertips at her. “They faxed our prints to the State Police.” Lexa lifts her own hand up to inspect her fingertips, which are similarly stained.

“If the Staties run us, we’re screwed,” Raven says to the other room.

Octavia looks over to her. “How long?”

Raven shrugs. “Thirty, thirty-five minutes depending on the software.”

Bellamy drops his arms, clearly frustrated with the answer. “They printed us twenty minutes ago. So unless we get out of here in the next ten minutes, we all go to jail.”

Lexa swings her legs over the side of the bed. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right. I, uh …” She stretches her neck, eyes closed in mild pain.

“I can take these cops.” Bellamy is dead serious.

“Don’t you dare, bro,” Octavia growls from the next room. “You kill anyone, you screw up my getaway!”

“Hey hold up, I’m still handcuffed here,” Raven says to Octavia, “I can’t even go to the bathroom. I need to go.”

“Octavia!” Lexa yells from the other room. “Get me a phone. We are going to get out of here together.”

Bellamy shakes his head. “This was a one time deal...”

Lexa ignores him. “Look guys, here is your problem. You all know what you can do, I know what all you can do, so that gives me the edge. That gives me the plan.”

In the other room, Octavia considers this skeptically. “I don’t trust these guys.”

From the bed, where she is still handcuffed, Raven remarks, “not even your brother?”

Octavia scoffs. “Maybe I’d trust Bell a little more if he hadn’t left me alone in the foster care system—”

Bellamy looks intensely uncomfortable, and opens his mouth to reply, but Lexa cuts him off. “Do you all trust me? ”

Everyone pauses to think about it. From his chair, Bellamy finally nods. “Of course. You’re an honest woman.”

Lexa nods. “Octavia. Phone.”

“This is gonna suck…” Octavia groans to herself. She sticks her fingers down her throat and bends over, gagging.

Raven recoils in disgust as Octavia starts vomiting, turning away from her. “Oh, hell no!”

A few minutes later, Octavia is lying handcuffed in her hospital bed, a doctor bending over her checking her temperature. The thermometer beeps, and the doctor takes a look at the readout. “Nausea could mean a concussion,” he mumbles to a nurse standing behind him. 

While the doctor inspects the thermometer, Raven and Octavia surreptitiously trade looks. 

“If you feel any more effects or blurred vision, tell the policeman right away,” he tells Octavia with a stern look.

“Mmhmm.” Octavia smiles gently up at the doctor and nods compliantly, and the doctor and nurse leave the room. A police officer checks her handcuffs, tightening them a bit, and then leaves after the hospital staff. When the door closes behind him, Octavia and Raven grin at each other and hold up the phones they managed to steal. 

After a quick glance, they switch phones. Octavia holds up the keys she stole, already out of her handcuffs. “Hey!” Raven exclaims, and Octavia tosses the keys over to Raven while she hops up out of her hospital bed and talks through the vent into the next room. 

“Hey, Lexa.” Octavia slides one of the phones through an opening in the vent.

Lexa grabs it as it falls through. “I’ve got it.” She looks over her shoulder at Bellamy as she turns towards him. “So, the trick is to give them what they want. They are expecting a phone call, right?” She tosses him the phone, and he catches it deftly with a look of understanding.

Outside in the hallway, a nurse approaches the officer on guard, who is lounging on a door outside the prisoners’ rooms reading a newspaper. “There’s an outside call for you. Line 2,” she tells him. The officer puts his paper down and follows her over to the nursing station.

Inside her hospital room, Raven takes a selfie on her stolen phone. “Okay…” She starts typing furiously.

The officer answers the phone. “This is Deputy Burns.”

Bellamy replies on the other side of the line. “This is Detective Lieutenant Carden with the Illinois State Police. We got those prints that you sent us.” Lexa listens on as Bellamy masterfully fakes a stern southern accent. “The problem I have is that they’re sending up red flags all over the place and I’ve got somebody on the phone for you from the FBI down there in Washington. Can you hold, son?”

“Yes, sir.”

In her room, Raven is staring intently down at her phone. “Come on... There it goes!” She manages to send a message through a digital fax service. Thank god for modern support of antiquated technology.

In his room, Bellamy tosses the phone back over to Lexa.

“Yeah, Deputy Burns, this is Deputy-Director McCumber, FBI,” Lexa speaks into the line. ”Yes, is our agent all right?”

“Uh, I’m sorry, I don’t follow…”

“Deputy, listen to me,” Lexa says sternly. “The woman that you have inside there is ours. She’s been in deep cover for three years.”

Deputy Burns flicks his eyes quickly and turns to shield the phone from nearby nurses. “Seriously?” He whispers into the phone.

“That is correct. In fact, you should be receiving a fax any moment now confirming what I’m telling you.”

Another officer rushes down the hallway brandishing a piece of paper. He shoves it into Burns’ hands. Raven’s selfie is printed on the top, along with the word CLASSIFIED.

Lexa continues from inside the hospital room. “Most of what I have told you is classified. I need to know I can trust you. Can I?”

Deputy Burns gulps. “Yes ma’am.”

Outside the hospital, Raven leads a handcuffed Bellamy to a police cruiser. Lexa and Octavia are already seated inside the back of the car. As Raven guides Bellamy into the backseat, she knocks Bellamy’s head against the top of the doorframe, just for fun. Bellamy turns and growls up at her.

Raven smirks. “Walk it off. Walk… get inside the car. Get inside.”

Bellamy acquiesces, grumbling, and slides himself into the car. Raven slams the door shut, straightens, and turns back to Deputy Burns and the other officer with a salute. “Men, it fills my heart with tears of joy, what you guys do. It does,” she says charmingly. They salute back, looking mighty pleased with themselves. She tips her head and gets into the driver’s seat of the cruiser.

As she gets into the car, another nurse speedwalks out of the hospital lobby and approaches Burns. “There’s a call for you,” she informs him. “State Police.”

Raven smiles sweetly and drives away.

“Four first class tickets to anywhere but here, coming up,” Raven announces, leading the group into her loft, a refurbished open-concept apartment recently renovated in an old mill building. Light streams in through the windows, gleaming on her beautiful hardwood floors. 

Octavia whistles in appreciation, looking around. “Whose place is this?”

Raven shoots a grin over her shoulder. “It’s mine.”

Octavia continues surreptitiously scoping the place out while Bellamy stalks towards the living room, fuming. He looks down at his knuckles. “I’m gonna beat Tsing so bad that even the people who look like her are gonna bleed.”

“You won’t get within 100 yards, bro,” Octavia replies, settling herself against a beam. “She knows your face. She knows all our faces.”

“She tried to kill us, O!”

Octavia rolls her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “More importantly, she didn’t pay us.”

Bellamy looks like he’s going to scream. He shoots the rest of the crew a look of frustration before exclaiming, “How is that more important?”

“I take that personally,” comes his sister’s airy reply.

“There’s something wrong with you, O,” he mutters to himself and perches down on the back of a couch.

Raven has moved over to her high-tech battle station and is furiously typing on a mechanical keyboard. “Heads up, heads up, look,” she says, interrupting their little spat. “Tsing’s story is 90 percent true. She is the head of Bering Aerospace—big rival to Pierson—but, check out what my little web crawlers coughed up.”

On a second monitor, she brings up a streaming video featuring a news conference where a Pierson Aviation Rep is at a podium, speaking to the press. Lexa scrunches up her face and comes up behind Raven to watch the video over her shoulder.

“We’ve lost research that we’ve been working on for over five years,” the rep on the video says. “Our servers have been sabotaged. We’re going to pursue these perpetrators to the full extent of the law, with all the resources we have at our disposal.”

“Could be a cover story,” Lexa remarks.

Raven pulls up a file in her terminal. “Here’s a log of last night’s rip. Internal timestamps on the project—” She leans in close and reads from one of her monitors. “2003, 2004. They’re way, way down in the code. There’s no reason to fake those, Lexa.”

“So we didn’t steal the plans back?” Bellamy asks.

“No,” Octavia replies dryly, “we were just stealing them.”

Raven turns to face the rest of the crew. “Why would Tsing lie to us?”

Lexa lets out a short, scornful laugh. “Because you are all thieves. If she hired you for a straight-up crime, you would know she was a bad guy like you. You would be suspicious. This way, you just saw another citizen in over her head. That’s why you didn’t see the double cross coming.”

“Why didn’t you see it coming?” Octavia asks, tone dripping with sarcasm.

Lexa arches an eyebrow at her. “Because I am not a thief.”

Bellamy jumps up and walks menacingly towards the woman. “You know what, maybe that was the problem. If you—”

“Hey, hey hey!” Raven stands up and puts a hand on Bellamy’s chest, stopping him. While he tenses his neck muscles, straining not to get any angrier, she starts handing out sheets of paper. “I bought tickets to London, Rome, Paris and Sao Paulo all matching the IDs that you gave me.”

Lexa walks over to look at Raven’s monitors. “You’re running,” she remarks absently at the screen.

“Yes ma’am. You got a better idea?” Bellamy replies, tucking his itinerary into the inside pocket of his coat.

“No, no,” Lexa murmurs with a wave of her hand. She’s staring down at the screen, where Tsing’s headshot is featured prominently in an article about the theft. “ You’re running. Now that was a high-risk play... You’ve got yourself tied to the stock price like a cinder block, shareholder meeting coming up…” She pauses and remarks to the rest of the team, back still turned, “we can not let this woman have any time to cool down.”

“You want to run a game on her? You?” Bellamy sounds incredulous.

Lexa nods once, firmly and turns to the crew, gesturing down at the screen. “Yes. I mean, how do you think I got most of my stolen merchandise back? This lady is greedy, She thinks she is smart. She is the best kind of mark.”

Octavia looks like she’s seriously considering this. “She does think she got rid of us.” She says with a shrug.

“Element of surprise,” Raven chimes in, a slow grin spreading across her face.

Bellamy scoffs. “What’s in it for me?”

“Payback,” Lexa replies. “And, if it goes right, a lot of money.”

“What’s in it for me? ” Octavia asks, stepping forward.

Lexa smirks. “A lot of money, and if it goes right, payback.” Octavia looks pleased at this. Lexa looks over to the last member of their little crew. “Raven?”

“I was just gonna send a thousand porno magazines to her office, but, hell yeah, let’s kick her ass.”

Bellamy still seems skeptical. “What’s in it for you?” He asks Lexa suspiciously.

Lexa’s eyes unfocus as she stares down at the floor. Finally, she replies, low and slow, viciously. “She used my son.”

The crew is rendered speechless, even concerned. There is a tense moment of silence before Lexa breaks it, clapping her hands together. “All right. Let’s go get Clarke.”

She turns and leaves the apartment. Raven and Octavia follow without another word. Bellamy watches them leave in frustration and remarks to himself, “what the hell’s a Clarke?”

Bellamy is about to find out the hard way just what a Clarke is.

The group sits in the very back of a sparsely populated, dimly lit theater. The gentle strumming of a lute fills the room. On the stage, illuminated by soft red stage lights, a woman dressed in medieval clothing flounces about in front of the set, a painted castle wall cut out of plywood. Dramatically, she raises her arms and beseeches, sinking to the floor of the stage, “come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst! Make thick my blood...”

Raven, Octavia, and Bellamy are transfixed on the actress. They look horrified, pained, even shocked. Lexa just watches intently, mouthing the lines to herself.

“Stop up the access and passage to remorse, that no…” Clarke hesitates, then restarts her line. “That, that no compunctious visitings of nature…”

“She is awful ,” Raven remarks, deadpan.

“Is she injured?” Octavia hisses. “In the head?”

“Seriously, this is the worst actress I’ve ever seen,” Bellamy scoffs quietly to Lexa while Clarke continues her awful monologue in the background.

“ This,” Lexa replies simply, “is not her stage.”

Lexa, Raven, Bellamy and Octavia are waiting at the end of the alley outside the theater when Clarke finally exits.

“No. No, I vote no,” Bellamy insists as they watch Clarke rummage through her purse. Behind him, Raven and Octavia are slouched against the side of a car, both still looking very skeptical.

Lexa shakes her head. “Octavia’s right. Tsing knows us, and we need a fresh face.” 

She straightens her back and starts to clap, walking towards Clarke. “I thought you were great!”

Clarke looks up and her eyes light up in recognition. She grins and shoulders her purse, sauntering towards the other woman, replying wickedly “My only fan.” She gives Lexa a saucy little smile.

In Paris seven years ago, Clarke Griffin, Grifter, is standing in an ornate room. Gold filigree and gilded flourishes adorn every surface. Rich, plush tapestries line the walls. Empty frames litter the floor. Propped up on a chair is another frame. Clarke is busy expertly cutting out its painting. 

The door burst open. Lexa charges into the room with a gun in hand.

“Freeze,” Lexa shouts, pointing her gun at the thief.

Clarke grabs her own gun from the mantle beside her and shoots Lexa in the shoulder. Lexa grunts and staggers back, clutching her wound. As Clarke turns away, Lexa shoots her in the back. Clarke gasps and shakily turns back to face the other woman, indignation shadowing her face. In disbelief, she proclaims, “you bitch!”

Back in the alley, Clarke continues to smirk at the woman who once shot her in the back. “I’m a citizen now. Honest,” she remarks, words dripping from her lips like honey.

Lexa cocks her eyebrows. After a moment, she smoothly replies, “I’m not.”

A shocked look, then a slow grin spreads across Clarke’s face. “You’re playing my side.” Lexa just smiles. Clarke’s eyes flick up, taking in the team behind the other woman. “I always thought you had it in you.” Her eyes come back to rest Lexa, pausing ever so briefly on the woman’s mouth.

Lexa unconsciously bites her lips and breaks eye contact. “Um,” she says, uncharacteristically abashed. She gathers her composure. “...Are you in?”

“I wouldn’t miss this,” Clarke replies, silken.

Lexa looks flustered. She nods once and then suddenly pivots, clapping her hands together. “All right. All right, let’s break the law just one more time!”

The team piles into the car. Lexa holds the front passenger open for Clarke, and then together, they speed off.

Back in Raven’s loft, the crew lounge around on the plump leather sofa. Raven is sprawled back, feet propped up on her coffee table. A bottle of orange soda is open in front of her. On the wall, a huge flatscreen TV displays photos of Tsing. 

Raven gestures at the screen. “Lorelei Tsing, executive vice-president in charge of new technology development over at Bering Aerospace.”

Bellamy walks into the living area with popcorn and awkwardly maneuvers over Raven and Octavia’s propped feet. He finally manages to sit down between Clarke, who is taking notes quietly, and his sister, all without spilling any kernels. 

Raven continues. “Rich daddy, trust fund, Yale MBA. Blah, blah blah.”

“Lorelei? Now when was the last time you met a Lorelei?”

“Vietnam,” Bellamy replies instantly. “Town called Banho Zay.”

“Chinese border,” Clarke notes.

Bellamy pauses, slightly surprised, and leans back against the couch. “That’s an odd thing for you to know.”

Clarke mimics his movements. “That’s an odd place for you to be.” She quirks an eyebrow at him, and he shifts his shoulders slightly in reply. Lexa watches this silently, putting some random pieces from her past life together in her head.

Raven continues, completely ignoring their little side conversation. “Now, Bering is in charge of a lot of big fat government contracts. Some Department of Defense research, very classified stuff.”

“Can we use that?” Octavia asks, stealing some of Bellamy’s popcorn. Clarke continues to jot down some notes.

“No, I don’t think so,” Raven replies, gesturing at the screen. “Tsing is in charge of their commercial airline business.”

Lexa chimes in hopefully. “I know when you sent Tsing her designs, you were not supposed to make any copies...”

“No, I promise. That would be very wrong,” Raven replies innocently, putting a hand to her chest as if to say, who, little ‘ole me?

Tone even, Lexa requests, “show me your copies.”

Raven chuckles and brings up files she did, in fact, copy.

“It’s an airplane,” Bellamy drawls as the files load.

Lexa gets up and paces around the couch. “It is a short alt domestic airliner, usually one hour flights. The fastest growing segment of the industry, very fuel efficient. High tech. Very nice carbon nose, has the titanium wrap. 3 to 1.” The team all looks at her with varying levels of surprise as she summarizes. “You know, you pick up things here and there.”

“You pick up a lot of stuff,” Raven remarks incredulously.

“Ha!” Octavia barks loudly, eliciting a what the hell was that? look from her brother.

Raven loads some more files. “Check this out. Now Tsing and Pierson, they were head-to-head for five years trying to grab the lead in an industry that’s worth, like, eleventy-billion dollars.”

“So Pierson got there first, Tsing took a shortcut.” Octavia ponders this while munching on more of Bellamy’s popcorn.

“So she has a rival. ...She has a rival that pisses her off so much, she hired us to steal his designs. This is good.” Lexa nods, cogs clearly turning in her brain.

“What are you thinking, Lexa?” Clarke inquires.

“I’m thinking Nigerians... Yes,” she decides, “Nigerians will do nicely.” She nods once, sharply, and walks away. The others look over at Clarke in confusion.

Clarke shrugs, twirling her pen in her hand. “Well, she hasn’t changed a bit.”

Lorelei Tsing lets out a sigh as she enters her office at Bering Aerospace. Her secretary sits up straight when she sees the woman enter, and informs her, “your 9 o’clock is here.”

“My wh...” Tsing turns, confused, and spots Clarke, sitting patiently in a chair. “Huh.”

Clarke smiles and rises, smoothing out the skirt of her smartly tailored two-piece suit. She holds out her business card. “Mrs. Tsing, Anna Gunstott, African Commercial Transport and Trade Initiative,” she says in introduction, decently faking a South African accent.

Back in the loft, Raven sits down at her computer. Lexa strolls over, hands tucked into her pockets, and watches over Raven’s shoulder.

“Here comes the mountain of suck,” Raven mutters absently.

Tsing glances down at the business card, and turns towards her office. “You government?” She tosses back.

“No, no. Private business consortium.” Clarke follows Tsing into her inner office. “We’re… looking to encourage infrastructure development. And economic renewal.”

Tsing puts her briefcase down onto a table and gives her a look. “I have no idea what that means in English. What does it mean?”

Clarke scoffs, just a little patronizingly. “We create jobs and trade in Africa. Keep the graft and the stealing manageable.”

“She’s not awful,” Raven remarks, shaking her head in disbelief.

Lexa paces behind Raven’s chair. “This is her stage. Clarke Griffin is the finest actress you’ve ever seen… when she’s breaking the law.”

“Keep graft and stealing manageable in Africa?” Tsing scoffs. “Good luck, but I don’t think I can help. I don’t think any human being on Earth can help you with that. Sorry,” she says with a shrug.

Clarke laughs. She gestures out the door with a tilt of her head. “Come on. Let’s go and talk somewhere a little less formal, eh?” She saunters towards the door.

“Uh, no, no, no. Look, I, Miss, ah—” Tsing follows behind her reluctantly as the receptionist watches them go, perplexed at this whole interaction.

“Okay,” Lexa says, “and… Now.”

Raven starts typing. She pulls up a program and remotely connects to the computer Tsing’s secretary is using. Her desktop pops up in a new window on Raven’s screen. Raven types in a few terminal commands, and back in Tsing’s office, the secretary’s computer crashes.

The secretary sees the Blue Screen of Death on her desktop and gasps. “No. No, no. No, no, no please!” She pleads, frantically pounding on her keyboard before slumping down with her head in her hands.

Up in the air duct above her office, Octavia is comfortably settled on her back, looking up into an open panel. She has a phone hooked into the wiring.

The phone rings. “Hello, IT,” Octavia answers sweetly.

“Yeah, this is Lorelei Tsing’s office, my computer just completely crashed.”

Octavia tsks. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Did you try turning it on and off again?”

Back in her loft, Raven smirks and looks up at Lexa. “That’s a computer thing,” she proclaims proudly, “I told her to say that.”

“Well done,” Lexa replies with a nod of commendation.

“ Yes, nothing seems to be working.”

“Aww, well, we’ve got someone on your floor already,” Octavia replies.

“Thank you,” the woman says impatiently, hanging up.

She’s barely put down the phone when Bellamy pops his head into the office. He’s decked out like a stereotypical corporate computer nerd: ill-fitting khakis, checkered short-sleeved button-up tucked in, clashing striped tie, high-tech watch. He even has a pocket protector with pens, and oversized glasses on.

Bellamy smiles charmingly at Tsing’s secretary. “Somebody call IT?”

Outside the building, Clarke and Tsing stroll casually towards the canal outside of Bering Aerospace. While they walk, Clarke explains, “I represent a group of investors who are looking to start an airline for short tour flights in Africa.”

“Of Johannesburg?” Tsing asks.

“ Okay, he’s testing you,” Lexa informs her over the comms. “You want Bloemfontein.”

Clarke shakes her head. “Keep away from the hubs. Revitalize the regional airports. In South Africa, Bloemfontein for example. But really, it’s Nigeria we’re focused on.”

“ Yeah, perfect.”

“Most of their airport runways are a mess,” Tsing remarks skeptically.

“I believe new airplanes will make people more comfortable while we renew old runways.” Clarke is nothing if not persuasive.

“Uh huh. I don’t recall saying anything about new airplanes.” Tsing’s tone is light, but she’s clearly testing the other woman.

“Lorelei,” Clarke replies smoothly, voice like honey, “Both you and your chief engineer are scheduled to speak at your shareholder’s meeting.”

“I think you know more about my business than I do.”

Clarke turns and offers her a secretive smile. “I’ve done my homework. I find you... fascinating.”

Tsing laughs awkwardly, not sure what to do with that statement.

Back in the woman’s office, Tsing’s secretary and Bellamy are clustered around the computer. Silently, Octavia opens the vent into Tsing’s office and peeks out. With Bellamy flirting with the secretary to distract her, the coast is clear. 

“It’s good. It’s good to have a passion, you know,” she hears the secretary tell her brother.

She slides out of the vent noiselessly.

“Let me show you how to, uh, reconnect with the network,” Bellamy says as a distraction, keeping the secretary’s attention entirely on him. Octavia can’t help but roll her eyes.

Raven takes a swig of her orange soda. “Now, shouldn’t I be playing the computer gal?” She complains to Lexa, gesturing towards her monitor.

Lexa smirks. “No. I want you to actually be the computer gal.”

Octavia makes her way over to Tsing’s personal computer and wakes it up. She plugs in an external drive and copies over all of Tsing’s files. While the files transfer, she ducks under Tsing’s desk and plants a bug.

“All right,” Bellamy says from the antechamber. The secretary tries to grab her mouse, but Bellamy covers it with his own to guide her movements. She looks him up and down, a slow smile spreading across her face as he works. “And reboot… …Voilà.” He turns to her and grins stupidly.

The secretary strokes his arm, impressed, “You sure are strong for a computer guy.”

Bellamy chuckles, removing his glasses to look her in the eyes. “Why, thank you.” He shrugs. “I like to work out and try to stay big, ‘cause I love dressing up like a Klingon,” he grimaces toughly, “and going to all the conventions, you know.” The secretary nods along. Suddenly, Bellamy shoots out his hand, fingers spread into a claw. “Bacla!” He shouts as the Secretary jumps back, alarmed. They both start laughing. “Sorry,” Bellamy says, contrite.

The Secretary continues laughing breathlessly. “It’s okay. Bacla!” She startles him back.

“Oh! Don’t you tease me,” he jokes, shaking his glasses at her.

“ Oh, hold up man, that is not … that is not cool. That is not cool. We are gonna have a strong talk when you get back,” Raven admonishes him over the comms.

Meanwhile, Octavia removes the external drive and tucks it away safely.

“You’ve got unbelievably blue eyes,” she can hear Bellamy remark from the next room.

“Thank you!”

“They’re stunning. Just breathtakingly blue.”

While Bellamy and the secretary continue to flirt, she climbs back up into the ductworks.

Tsing and Clarke have strolled down to the edge of the canal, taking in the beautiful weather. Clarke hums gently to herself, turning her face up to the sun to bask in the warmth for just a moment.

“Uh, sorry— is it Gunshot?” Tsing asks as they approach the railing overlooking the water, hands restlessly smoothing down the silhouette of her pencil skirt.

Clarke chuckles. “No—”

“I’m sorry—”

“ Gunstott .”

“I’m sorry. Really sorry—”

“Anna.” Clarke insists, leaning against the railing.

“Anna, thank you. How’s this? If we announce a new product, then you can order as many as your little heart desires.”

“Hmm…” Clarke humms, looking like she’s thinking to herself.

“ Okay, you know what to do,” Lexa says. “Hit her.”

Clarke turns back to the woman and flashes her another winning smile. “We’d also like to build the planes. More jobs. Build them in Africa, fly them in Africa, sell the rest around the world.”

“Well, that’s very ambitious. You have the manufacturing facilities to do all that?” Tsing inquires.

“Ach!” Clarke waves off the idea, rolling her eyes. “We can easily raise the money to build the facilities... If... we know for certain we’re going to get the contracts.”

“ Atta girl.”

“Anna, I’m really sorry but I can’t help you.” Tsing tells her firmly.

“It was a nice try, man,” Rave offers sympathetically.

Lexa looks nonplussed. “Wait for it.”

“I understand.”

Tsing checks her watch. “And I really do have—” She says, starting to turn away back towards her office.

“I’ll take it to Pierson.” Clarke interjects.

Back in the loft, Raven and Lexa freeze, listening intently over the comms.

Tsing stops. “Pierson? No, Pierson’s a good company… Uh, sure, go ahead, Pierson’s a great company, I don’t think they can help you, but…” She trails off.

Clarke smirks. “Oh, they have a reputation for long-term investment, you don’t. They’re innovators. Yeah, it’s probably a better fit.”

“I know—I’m aware that you’re manipulating me, Anna.”

“Well, I should hope so,” Clarke says as she leans in closer to the woman, replying silkily. “Hundreds of millions of dollars in new contracts, a lot of good press.” She leans in closer, forcing Tsing back a step. “All at your door.”

Tsing’s eyes dart rapidly between Clarke’s eyes and her lips. She swallows, and finally replies after a pause. “Okay, I give up, I’ll take the meeting.” She raises her arms in surrender, then offers a handshake.

Clarke ignores Tsing’s proffered hand and turns away, leaving her high and dry. “I’ll have my office call you.”

Tsing is startled by the sudden change in tone. “What? Yeah.” Her hand is still stupidly raised.

Clarke turns back for a moment. “Day after tomorrow?” She confirms, before turning back around and continuing to walk away.

“Uh, yeah sure. Look forward to doing business with you,” Tsing stammers behind her back.

“Hah!” Lexa slaps Raven on the shoulder in triumph. Raven grins up at her and shakes her hand.

Later that evening, Raven is working in the dim apartment, while Bellamy plays some pool in the background.

“Hey, Lexa,” Raven says, “I got all her financials off her hard drive and all her passwords.”

Lexa strides over and watches as Raven starts pulling up all of Tsing’s records. “Good job,” she comments, and then heads over toward the pool table.

“Your shot,” Bellamy informs her, and tries to hand her a beer.

Lexa reaches towards it before withdrawing her hand, picking up a pool cue instead. “No thanks,” she refuses, then leans over to make her shot. “Five corner.”

“You look better than when we started,” Bellamy observes.

“Yeah.” Lexa’s clearly wary about where this conversation is going.

“Yeah. And that bothers you, huh?” He asks, leaning back against the table.

Lexa looks conflicted, “I, well. This isn’t supposed to feel—”

“Good?” Bellamy interjects, chuckling. “It’s not that hard to figure out. Tsing screwed you. She cheated by stealing from that other company and your good guy brain sees her as the bad guy. Your conscience is clear.” He gestures at her with his pool cue.

Lexa doesn’t reply to any of that. “You want to take your shot?” She asks simply.

“Listen, I’m sorry about your kid…”

“You don’t know anything about that.”

“Everybody knows,” Bellamy whispers gently. “Someone like you goes off the street a lot of people notice. And it was a bad story, too.” Lexa can’t look him in the eye. “How did they justify that, huh? The insurance company just not paying for his treatment?”

In her mind, Lexa flashes back a couple years. She can see the blinding white lights of the hospital, feel the antiseptic burn in her nose, hear the beeping of monitors in her ears. She watches from the next room, pained, as nurses stick electrodes to the small body of Lexa’s unconscious son, Aden. Her eyes are haunted, afraid.

“BP’s dropping,” she can hear a nurse say through the door, and her fists clench tighter in the pockets of her suit jacket.

She leans her head against the window, breath coming in unsteady gasps as the hospital staff fight to save her boy.

Finally, Lexa snaps out of it. “They claimed it was... experimental,” she says evenly, her eyes locked down onto the pool table.

Bellamy scoffs and takes a swig of his beer. “You should have kept one of those Monets you found, hmm? You fence that—”

“Bellamy, you and I are not friends,” Lexa cuts him off, eyes cold and harsh and she looks back over at the man.

Bellamy observes her wordlessly for a moment, before shrugging away. “Right. Right. Because you have so many of them,” he says sarcastically, backing away. He gestures behind Lexa with his beer. “Incoming,” he warns her, then walks off.

Lexa just stares at Bellamy as Clarke approaches from behind her.

“Hey,” she says, coming up next to Lexa. “Can you help me with this earpiece?” She offers it to the other woman.

Lexa looks down at her hand for a moment and then tries to wave her off. “Uh, yeah, ask Raven…”

“Lexa, come on.” Clarke holds out the earpiece to Lexa, who acquiesces. She takes it, sweeping Clarke’s hair out of the way before tucking the device gently into the other woman’s ear, cheeks flushed red. Once the earpiece is in place, she awkwardly brushes Clarke’s hair back into place. From this closeness, she can feel the heat of Clarke’s body, smell the sweet scent of Clare’s shampoo...

“Thanks,” Clarke says, gaze flicking between Lexa’s lips and her piercing green eyes. “So, uh, this time you really are inside my head,” she flirts, fluttering her eyelashes. She bites her lower lip and gives Lexa a meaningful gaze before turning away. Lexa watches her go silently, eyes never leaving the other woman.

Raven glides her computer chair across the room, grinning at Lexa. “Oooooh.” She points at Lexa, and then off in the direction Clarke left. “Ooh.” 

Tsing pulls up in front of an unfamiliar office building in a black car, Starbucks cup in hand. She opens the door and slides out, removing her sunglasses for just a moment to scope the place out. Lexa and Raven watch from a table at a café across the street as she enters the building.

“ Clarke, she’s on-site.”

Inside an office within the building, Clarke puts her hand up to her ear. “What?” She hisses into the earpiece. “No, I’m not ready!”

Tsing enters the lobby and takes a look around, trying to spot Clarke.

“ If you don’t meet her right now in the lobby, she’s going to go to the building directory and look for the office number. We are not in the building directory,” Lexa replies urgently over the comms.

In the building’s stairwell, Bellamy is making his way up. He has some signage tucked under one arm, and a bag in the other. He pauses. “ And why aren’t we in the directory?”

“ I don’t know,” Raven replies, “maybe because they’re fake offices.”

Higher up on another floor, Clarke runs to the elevator and starts frantically hitting the “down” button, while in the lobby, Tsing looks at her watch impatiently. 

Clarke tries pressing the button a couple more times before giving up. “There’s no elevator.”

Lexa stands, impatiently, and paces away from the table. Raven puts down her newspaper in confusion and hops up as well, following a few paces behind. 

“ All right, I’ll distract him,” Lexa finally says. “Octavia, you have ten seconds to get Clarke to the lobby.”

Octavia pops her head out of a doorway down the hall from elevators and hisses, “Clarke!”

Hearing her name, Clarke whips her head around and spots Octavia. She jogs over to her. “What’s going on?”

Octavia just replies, “put this on,” and throws Clarke a harness.

Clarke holds it up and examines it quickly, totally confused. “What’s it for?”

“Speed.”

They duck into the stairwell just as Bellamy arrives on their floor. He shoulders past them and hurries over to the office Clarke was just setting up in with his signage.

Outside, Lexa takes a retractable baton from her coat, extending it with a snick. Seeing this, Raven backs up a bit, casually throwing her hands into the pockets of her jacket and looking away, as if to say, no, I’m not with her, ignore me.

Lexa spots Tsing in the lobby, and starts to look around for something. Her eyes land on one of the cars parked in front of the building. Ducking down, she smashes out the driver side window. The car alarm goes off, blaring loud enough to draw the attention of people around — including the security within the atrium of the office building.

Tsing pauses briefly to glance outside, but it doesn’t distract her for long; her eyes finally land on the building directory. She starts heading over.

Lexa sees this, and moves on to the next cars. She smashes two more windows, setting off the alarms of both cars in the process. People in the lobby start to congregate around the windows, trying to see what’s going on outside. Tsing can’t help but pause, wondering what’s happening outside to cause such a ruckus.

Up in the stairwell, Octavia checks to make sure the rope dangling from a higher floor is secured. She attaches Clarke’s harness to the carabiner, then straps in herself. Clarke peeks down over the rail and phew boy is that a long way down. She looks back to Octavia incredulously.

Tsing bores of watching whatever mayhem is happening outside and finally approaches the building directory.

Up in the hallway outside their fake office, Bellamy starts drilling a sign onto a door.

In the stairway, Octavia attaches their two harnesses together, pulling Clarke towards her. The other woman lets out a little gasp, but doesn’t even have time to reply before Octavia hoists them over the railing. Clarke screams as they plummet, floor by floor.

Tsing begins typing on the directory display just as Clarke stumbles out of the stairwell, looking frazzled. She quickly smooths down her hair before speed walking over and waving a hand to get Tsing’s attention. “Oh, ah, our offices are on the tenth floor,” she manages to stutter out.

“Ah,” Tsing acknowledges. “You’re uh... you have a glow,” she says, gesturing at Clarke.

“Hah,” Clarke replies cheerfully, “just … excited!” She leads the other woman toward the elevators. She presses the up button, and one elevator shaft dings, sliding open. They enter.

“Um, one thing,” Clarke says as the doors glide to a close. “The gentleman bringing you this opportunity to work with their government, they’ll, um, expect some, um, compensation. Not a bribe, of course,” she reassures Tsing.

“A finder’s fee.”

“Exactly!”

“I thought your job was to eliminate graft and stealing,” Tsing replies with just a little bit of sass.

Clarke smirks. “No. My job is to keep it manageable.” The other woman nods slowly in understanding.

Upstairs, Bellamy finishes drilling the sign just in time. He grabs his bag and walks away from the door just as the elevators open. 

Clarke and Tsing step out, making their way down the hallway to the office. The sign now reads “African Commercial Transport and Trade Initiative. Anna Gunstott, Director.” Clarke leads her inside, into an office room filled with Nigerian government officials. They rise to greet the two women.

One of the men moves forward and sticks out his hand for a handshake. “Good afternoon! Ms. Tsing, we are honored by your presence.”

Tsing shakes his hand with a broad smile, clasping her other hand on top. “No, no, the honor is entirely all mine, getting in on the ground floor of something like this is a wonderful opportunity!”

Back outside, Lexa and Raven settle back down at their café table. Octavia joins them. She plops down into an empty chair and puts her feet up onto the table.

Lexa nods in greeting. “Nice job on the zipline.”

Octavia crosses her arms, chuckling. “Totally thought she was going to break a leg. Not bad for a first time,” she says, sounding vaguely impressed.

Tsing’s voice comes in over the comms. “ So what do you think?”

“She’s closing it up,” Lexa drawls.

In the office, the group has settled back down around the conference room table and begun negotiations. 

The man in charge of the Nigerian delegation nods. “Yes, absolutely. We can definitely repurpose those factories.”

“Great,” Tsing replies, gesturing positively. 

The official smiles. “I believe we will be able to do a lot of business together, sir.”

Clarke taps her fingers on the table. “About the… the other matter.”

The official breathes in deeply, looking pensive. “Of course,” he finally replies with a sharp nod. 

Tsing and Clarke exchange glances. Clarke gives her a tiny nod and slides to her feet. She makes her way to the other side of the table as the rest of the officials quietly stare downwards, not making eye contact. The official pulls an envelope from the inside of his suit jacket, and wordlessly slides it towards Clarke. He doesn’t look up. Clarke slips it into her hand and brings the envelope back over to Tsing.

Tsing opens the envelope under the table. A piece of paper inside reads $1,000,000. Her eyes widen slightly.

“Is it agreeable?” Clarke asks, tapping her fingers together.

Tsing smiles. “Oh, I think we can work something out,” she replies, tucking the envelope into her jacket.

Clarke claps her hands together. “Excellent.”

Clarke sees Tsing off after their meeting, waving as the woman gets into her car and is driven away. Once the car is out of sight, the rest of the team joins Clarke on the sidewalk.

“We got her?” Lexa confirms as she approaches.

“We own her.”

Lexa nods. “Okay gang, let’s go. We have a busy day tomorrow.”

“This is going to work, right?” Clarke asks her softly as they start to walk away from the office building. 

“I guarantee it.”

Tsing strides into her office at Bering Aerospace, an anxious engineer following at her heels.

“This is insane!” He exclaims. “We are risking everything…” 

Tsing hushes him, gesturing over at her desk. She kneels down and points under her desk. The engineer fumbles to his knees and ducks his head under the table, while continuing to say, “...we already took a chance by stealing the plans—” He stops and shuts his mouth as soon as he sees the blinking red light of the transmitter attached to the underside of the desk, illuminated by a small pocket flashlight in Tsing’s hand. His eyes widen with understanding.

Tsing nods at him, once, and gestures for him to follow. She clicks off her flashlight, and they stand up and walk out to the antechamber of Tsing’s office. Tsing closes her office door behind her, and they perch on the other side.

“What is that?”

“It’s a transmitter,” Tsing explains quietly, her voice barely carrying beyond their conversation. “They’ve been listening to everything I’ve been saying.”

The engineer shakes his head in confusion. “Who are ‘they’?” He whispers back tensely.

Tsing reaches into the inner pocket of her jacket and pulls out a printed picture of Lexa and Clarke, talking together outside the office building.

“Who do you think?” She says. “Also, I’ve checked, there’s no office for the African Commercial Trade Initiative anywhere in the city. They’ve been hustling me, and I know exactly what they’re doing. Tomorrow, it stops. Get the FBI on the phone,” Tsing commands.

The engineer nods. “Yes, ma’am.”

Later, Tsing and her engineer are strolling outside on an office patio. Around them, building staff and catering are setting up for the shareholder meeting where Tsing will unveil her new—stolen—airplane plans. They dodge around the high-tops, keeping away from the staff currently putting out tablecloths.

“Are you sure you know what they’re doing?” The engineer inquires anxiously and Tsing pulls him further down the patio.

Tsing nods. “Yeah, they’re pissed, I get that. They want to make me pay. I mean, an opportunity like this, the same week as the Shareholder’s Meeting. The bug, the fake offices, cash bribes, Nigerians for god’s sake! Nigerians!” She exclaims with a guffaw, gesturing wildly with her hands. “I mean, it’s like those email scams with Nigerian bank fraud letters.”

The engineer nods along, not looking convinced, as Tsing continues to rant. Her tone gets angrier and more threatening. “Who the hell do they think I am? Some dog they can just lead around?! They’re going to find out exactly how wrong they are.” 

In Raven’s loft, the team is clustered around the pool table, preparing. They stuff some final bags into their duffels, survey each other, and move for the door. Bellamy, Octavia, and Raven head out of the building, but Lexa pauses and holds open the door for Clarke, coming behind her. Clarke pauses, looking the other woman over. She smirks and follows the team. Lexa’s eyes stay trained on her back for another few moments, before she lets the door close behind her.

Meanwhile, in a packed conference room in the office building, Tsing’s presentation is a success. The woman introduces the stolen airplane plans to her shareholders, explaining the higher level vision and work that went into developing the new fleet. After going over her piece, she hands the presentation off to her engineer. He goes into the technical details, showing off specific diagrams projected onto a screen. 

The presentation wraps up with a round of applause from the shareholders. Tsing looks quite satisfied with herself as she shakes their hands and leads them outside to celebrate.

Downstairs, Clarke greets the group Nigerians delegates. She leads them up to the patio, where the reception is underway. The shareholders cluster around high-tops, cheers-ing with glasses of champagne as catering staff drift around, collecting glasses.

At a table on the other side of the patio, Tsing stands with one of the shareholders. He raises his champagne and tells her, “All I know is, good day for you.”

Tsing smiles charmingly. “It’s a good day for all of us. Stock’s gone up 15 points since the announcement.”

His eyebrows raise, impressed. “Really?”

“You didn’t know?”

The shareholder shakes his head. “No. I’ll pass it around.” They clink glasses and he strides away.

As Tsing takes a long sip of her drink, Clarke approaches from behind. “Well, aren’t you the cat that ate the canary?” She remarks, voice warm and inviting — almost seductive.

Tsing turns, startled. She laughs nervously. “Does it show?”

“Horrible poker-face,” Clarke tells her with a smirk.

Tsing shrugs. “Guilty.” Her eyes drift over Clarke’s shoulder, and she spots the group of Nigerian officials clustered a couple tables away. She clears her throat and tilts her head towards the building. “Why don’t we get this done?”

“Now?” Clarke asks, surprised.

“Yeah.”

“You… you have the whole payment?” Clarke stumbles, just a little.

“Absolutely,” Tsing replies, taking another sip of her drink. “I think we should make the deal. I want to make the announcement, get even bigger headlines. I’ll take them into a conference room away from all this.” The grifter pauses, unsure, and Tsing ushers her away. “Go, go, go, let’s do it.”

Clarke gives her a couple nods, nervously smiling as she finally agrees. “I’ll be right back.” She turns back towards the group of Nigerian officials and talks to them quietly, while Tsing watches through narrowed eyes over the rim of her glass. As she lowers her glass, she can’t help but smirk in satisfaction.

After handing off her empty glass to the catering staff, Tsing leads Clarke and the Nigerians inside into a conference room. “Gentlemen, now everybody come in, relax, make yourselves comfortable!” She taps the conference room chairs and makes her way to the head of the table, where she hovers, standing.

“Thank you,” the lead official says. He and his colleagues take a seat while Clarke remains perched in the doorway demurely.

Once they’re all settled, the Nigerian official continues. “I assume we all understand the... terms... of this agreement.”

“Well I’ll tell you,” Tsing drawls, “the exact terms of the agreement... are these.” She leans over and presses a button on the conference room controller. It lets out a short bzzt.  

“FBI, don’t move!” A group of agents in FBI jackets stream into the room, securing each exit.

“You all right?” The man who is clearly the lead agent asks, into the room.

“Oh, I’m fine—” Tsing starts, while the Nigerian official responds, “Yes, of course.”

“—I’m fine, thanks for asking, everything’s perfectly…” Tsing is startled as agents surround her. “Wha— What are you…?” Tsing demands as the two men grab her arms, trying to detain her. “Wait a minute, wait a minute, let go of me—” She wrenches her arms free, “—please.” 

Huffing, she straightens her jacket and looks to the lead agent. “What are you looking at me for, the criminals are sitting right over there, look at them!” Tsing gestures to the group of seated Nigerian “Listen, I spoke to Special Agent Higgins, if you call him on the phone—” She continues condescendingly.

The agent holds up his badge, cutting her off. “ I’m Special Agent Higgins.” Tsing looks over his badge, aghast. “Lorelei Tsing, you are under arrest for soliciting a bribe from these Nigerian Government officials.”

“I’m not—I’m not soliciting—these aren’t even Nigerians!”

The Nigerian official stands and approaches the cluster of agents, holding up his clearly Nigerian passport. “Of course we are,” he says indignantly.

“No. No, no—” Tsing stutters.

“ Your woman knew that when she contacted us last week.”

“My… woman? Anna? Anna?” Tsing looks around the room urgently, but Clarke is long gone. The Nigerian officials and FBI agents all stare at her. “Anna!” Tsing gulps and rubs her face. “Um, Special Agent Higgins, Anna Gunstott works for them ,” she explains, gesturing to the Nigerians.

“Ridiculous!” The official asserts in disbelief. “She contacted us on your behalf!”

Another official behind him chimes in. “She told us she worked directly under you.”

Several days prior, Clarke shakes hands with the Nigerian officials, welcoming them to the office the team has rented. “Anna Gunstott from Bering Aerospace,” she introduces herself, handing one of the officials her business card. “Directly under Lorelei Tsing.”

Tsing lets out a shocked laugh, looking between Agent Higgins and the Nigerian officials. “But… b-but she took me. She took me to their office,” she tries to explain.

“No, we do not have an office in this city,” the lead official interjects.

Tsing snaps her fingers, pointing at the Nigerians. “Exactly—”

“We met her at your other office.”

The woman stares blankly, unsure how to reply. 

At the office, Bellamy puts up a sign that reads “Bering Consulting. Lorelei Tsing.” He ducks out of the way as the group exits the elevator and approaches the office. Clarke comes out to greet them, shaking hands. “Anna Gunstott from Bering Aerospace.”

Tsing gulps, realization suddenly dawning on her face. “The shareholders…” She mutters to herself, eyes wide and frantic, darting around as she thinks rapidly. “The shareholders!” She runs from the conference room, leaving a confused group of FBI agents and Nigerian officials.

Outside, rows of police cars with lights and sirens flashing pull up to the building. Confused shareholders and guests look on and point, chattering to themselves about whatever is going on.

“What in god’s name—” the shareholder Tsing was talking with previously says, watching as FBI agents rush the building. They surround the patio, making sure no one can leave. Some, unsurprisingly, try to argue.

Tsing runs outside. She shouts and waves her arms, “no, no, no! Uh, everybody, could I have your attention?” The shareholder pushes his way through the crowd as Tsing yells, “it’s just, it’s just a permit problem!”

“Lorelei, what’s going on?” He demands.

“I can explain Tom, it’s just—”

Agent Higgins appears at her side, along with the rest of the FBI agents from the conference room, and cuts her off. “Anybody else here involved in the bribe?”

The shareholder looks at him, stunned. “Bribe?”

“Bribe?! There’s no bribe!”

The Nigerian official strides forward, gesturing at Tsing. “I handed this woman an envelope containing a cashier’s check for $200,000!”

Tsing stutters in disbelief. “No. No, no. Nobody— I wasn’t handed any…” She thinks back.

The Nigerian official places a cashier’s check for $200,000 into an envelope.

“I didn’t—nobody handed…”

Clarke walks to the end of the table and takes the envelope from the official. Unseen, she quickly tucks the envelope into her pocket. She approaches Tsing and hands her a different envelope, containing a piece of paper reading $1,000,000.

“This will look a lot better for you if you did not deposit that check,” Agent Higgins warns her. “Do you still have it?”

“I… I didn’t get a check,” Tsing tries to explain, desperately.

Another FBI agent approaches from behind Higgins. “Sir,” the agent says, “we got people searching the lab, seizing the files and computers.”

Agent Higgins nods. “Good job.” They turn together towards the building as Tom the shareholder hisses at Tsing, “Lorelei, news crews. If they find out...”

Tsing barely glances at him, distracted by the FBI agent walking away. “Higgins! Higgins you can’t do that!” She commands. “You can’t take my computer!”

Higgins pauses and scoffs. “This company has government defense contracts. There are very serious rules regarding contact with foreign nationals.” He slowly walks back towards her, power in every step as he looms over the woman. His face comes within inches of her. “The Patriot Act applies here. Ma’am, I can take your underpants.”

Tsing chuckles weakly, blood draining from her face as Agent Higgins turns again to follow his agent. “Okay, it’s getting a little aggressive…” She trails off and turns to the Nigerian official next to him. “I’m sorry, Bobatumbai, this is Tom Bailey.” She turns to the shareholder. “Tom, these gentlemen are from Nigeria. Everybody just take it easy, relax, I’ll be back and explain everything,” she says and disappears into the crowd.

“Where are you going? Lorelei! Lorelei!” Tom yells as she makes her escape.

Inside the building, several men desperately shred documents as Tsing’s engineer bursts into the room. “Guys, we gotta get rid of this stuff. Keep shredding, keep shredding!” He grabs a wastebasket and pours the shredded documents out the window. His head jerks back towards the other office workers, and he yells, “help me!”

Small fragments of shredded paper float down from the upper level as FBI agents move in and out of the building. Amongst them are the team, dressed in FBI coats. They walk out of the building, carrying hard drives and boxes full of documents.

A group of FBI agents, guns drawn, enter into the room where the men are still desperately shredding documents. “Freeze!” One of them demands.

The men stop, slowly raise their hands.

Later that day, Lexa approaches the empty building across from Pierson Aviation, where Pierson himself is waiting. Lexa strides into the office with an external hard drive in hand, watching as the man leans against the window, looking out absently. He turns his head as the woman enters, tucking his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “I came alone.”

Lexa nods. “Yes, I know. Thank you, Mr. Pierson.” She approaches him. “Now, I understand your research was completely wiped out. I have complete copies right on these hard drives along with absolute proof that they were on Bering Aerospace computers. That should be good for a couple of lawsuits, right?”

“And I drop the investigation of all parties involved with the... original theft.” He quirks an eyebrow at her.

Lexa shrugs. “That seems fair. You get your property back.”

“Agreed. No charges. Nothing on you, or your people.” He gives Lexa a short nod. She simply hands him the hard drive. He accepts, silently. Lexa turns and walks away. 

“Don’t you want money?” Pierson asks as she goes.

“This particular project has a different revenue stream.”

At Bering Aerospace, FBI Agents rifle through Tsing’s office. They look through her files and take out boxes full of documents, while a despondent Tsing, slumped in one of her office chairs, watches the news.

“In a massive sell-off sparked by multiple federal investigations of Bering Aerospace the stock plummeted 33 percent before trading was halted,” a reporter declares on the TV.

Tsing’s phone rings. She lets it ring a couple times before finally answering. “Yeah?”

“You should have just paid us,” Lexa explains patiently over the line.

Tsing sits up, shocked. “I found the transmitter!”

“Oh, you found the transmitter with the blinking light, yes. We wanted you to figure some of it out. Then we just gave you what you were expecting.”

Tsing sneers into her phone. “I am Lorelei Tsing. I am going to beat this.”

“Aren’t you forgetting about the bribe?”

“Who cares? You can’t prove anything, I didn’t get any money.”

“Bingo.” An FBI Agent behind Tsing opens up a safe under her desk and takes out handfuls of stacked cash.

“No, it doesn’t account for all of it. Clarke kept a little to buy a truly impressive number of shoes.”

In the park outside Bering Aerospace, the team walks together to their meeting with Lexa.

“What is it with women and shoes?” Octavia remarks offhand. 

Clarke side-eyes the other woman. “There’s something wrong with you.”

Raven agrees with Clarke. “That’s what I said!”

Meanwhile, a little bit away, Lexa continues her conversation with Tsing.

“See,” Lexa explains over the phone, “if a company’s stock price falls ten, fifteen percent in one day and you see it coming, you sell short, you make a lot of money. If it’s going to fall thirty percent, you can make shattering amounts of money. We didn’t need the FBI to show up and take you to jail, we just needed them to show up and take boxes out of your office... all day long... in front of TV cameras... scaring your investors. You going to jail is just a bonus. I wouldn’t say anything about us to the Feds. Next time, we won’t be so nice.” She hangs up and approaches her team.

An FBI in Tsing’s office demands, “Who was that?”

Tsing sighs, eyes looking off into the distance. “Nobody,” she finally replies, defeated.

Raven hands out envelopes to each member of the team. The Blakes can only stare as they look at the checks inside their envelopes, but Clarke gasps, stuttering, “wh-wha—um—”

Lexa joins the group. “Job well—” Raven hands the woman her check. She looks at Raven in shock. “Whoa!”

Raven smirks and explains. “There was an overlap in the London stock market. Valuation carried over to NASDAQ and…” She trails off as everyone stares at her in shock. “I’m just very good at what I do,” she concludes succinctly.

“This is the score,” Octavia exclaims, just short of hyperventilating. “THE score.”

“Age of the geek, baby,” Raven reiterates.

Bellamy claps her on the shoulder. “Somebody kiss this nerd so I don’t have to.” He considers, and then plants a kiss on the top of her head. 

Raven winks at him, then turns to the whole group. “So, we’re out, huh? I mean we’re out, this is retirement money. This is... go legit and buy an island money.” 

The group excitedly exchanges glances while Lexa examines her check once more. “...Yes, well…” she trails. “Pleasure working with you.”

“Yeah. One show only... No encores,” Bellamy says, slowly.

“I already forgot your names,” Octavia replies, without any energy this time around.

After a long silence, each teammate looking at one another, Lexa nods once, finally, and everyone disperses in different directions. 

Lexa doesn’t make it very far before she’s joined by Raven.

“You know, I never had that cool a time on a job…”

“It’s a walkaway,” Lexa replies tersely.

“...And I have focus issues. Girl, you kept me right on.”

Octavia joins them on Lexa’s other side. “I’m really good at one thing—”

“Octavia,” Lexa warns.

“…only one thing that’s it, but you, you know other things and—and I can’t stop doing my one thing, can’t retire…”

Bellamy walks up behind them. “You want to know what I think?”

“Not really,” Lexa throws aside.

“How long until you fall apart again?”

“Oh, I’m touched,” she replies sarcastically.

“Well a gal like you can’t be out of the game. That’s why you were a wreck, you need the chase,” Bellamy tells her.

“Yeah, I’ll manage.” Lexa’s phone rings, and she answers, pausing. “Yeah.” The group pauses along with her.

Clarke is sitting nearby on a bench, one leg crossed over another. Her eyes slide from her phone to Lexa, and she hangs up. 

Lexa hangs her head and sighs as Clarke gets up from the bench and approaches. “You pick the jobs,” Clarke says.

“My job is helping people. I help find bad guys.”

Clarke grins. “Then go find some bad guys. Bad guys have money.” She leans in and murmurs for Lexa alone, “Black King, White Knight.” Her eyes flick from Lexa’s eyes, down to her lips, and back up to her eyes.

Lexa gives her a long, searching look.

In a house, just like any other house — framed photographs on the mantle, a few scuffs on the wall, here and there — in a nice neighborhood, just like any other neighborhood — rows of neat houses with tidy lawns — a couple sits on their couch, holding each other tightly. The woman cries while her husband tries to comfort her.

“I’m sorry,” she gasps out through her tears, while her husband reassures, “no, no, no…”

“Please,” Clarke says, seated on the coffee table opposite the grieving couple, “take your time.”

“She—she was 17,” the woman sobs.

“I know,” Clarke reassures her, putting a hand on her knee comfortingly.

“They—they killed her. They said it was an accident but that company killed her.” She looks up, meeting Clarke in the eye. She steadies, just a little, as ice creeps into her voice. “I want them hurt.”

Her husband rubs her shoulders. “W-we can’t pay you...” He looks up, entreatingly, at the group.

Behind Clarke, Lexa lounges, legs splayed, in a plush chair. Her dapper navy pant suit is perfectly tailored, and even while sitting casually, she radiates power. Octavia, Bellamy, and Raven stand around her, looking serious and just as dapper in their own finely tailored suits. Octavia’s arms are crossed across her chest.

“We work on an alternative revenue stream,” Clarke explains sympathetically.

“I don’t understand,” the husband says, shaking his head in disbelief. “The judge said that we couldn’t appeal... What are you gonna do?” He asks.

Lexa finally speaks up, and the couple’s attention shifts to her. “People like that,” Lexa says slowly, carefully, “corporations like that, they have all the money. They have all the power. And they use it to make people like you... go away. Right now, you’re suffering under an enormous weight.” She tilts her head, the side of her mouth quirking up into a hint of a smile. “We provide... Leverage.”