Chapter 10
Retribution
My 5:30am wake up call came a sooner than I would have liked but I know I would need the extra time to get up and ready for when my grandfather picked me up at Seven. I was still half asleep when I stumbled back into my room after a quick shower to clean away the lingering smell from my nightly accident. I wasn’t to shocked to see my aunt waiting for me with my changing supplies already spread out across my bed.
“Up you go Ian.” I was told as my aunt helped me get centered on the changing pad she had laid out. I again wasn’t to surprised to see that she was using one of my thicker disposables. I never really liked using them all that much because of the waddle I ended up with once they were on. Of course, I couldn’t deny that they did their job well. Once the diaper was securely on me my aunt pointed towards a stack of cloths that were sitting on my computer chair.
“Breakfast will be ready in just a few minutes so don’t mess around in getting dressed.”
“OK.” I said while reaching for the pants my aunt had laid out.
Breakfast was quiet since I was nervous about what was going to be happening during the day I just didn’t know what was going to happen, or might I might find once I managed to locate the server.
Just as I finished eating, my grandfather was led into the dining room.
“So Ian, are you ready for the day?” I was asked as my grandfather sat down and accepted a cup of coffee.
“I guess so. I just hope I don’t disappoint you.” I stated softly
“That won’t happen. Even if you don’t manage to locate the information we still have enough on Dr. Wu to nail him to the wall once we get our hands on him.” I nodded at this. But the statement still didn’t make me feel better. After a few more minutes of idle chit chat my grandfather said that it was time for us to get the day started
“Ian, I know this goes against what you had requested but you’ll be having one of our techno-geeks with you while you work.”
“But..”
“No buts. This was the only way I could get them to allow anywhere near our mainframe And I can guarantee that the person that’s going to be helping you isn’t the leak.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Because the leak came from inside my division, and the agent that’s going to be with you is being assigned to us from the D.C. office, and the other fact is that he happens to be one of your uncles. I will warn you now though, he does have a passing resemblance to your father.” Hearing this sent a major chill down my spine.
“Easy there. I can assure that he’s nothing like your old man.” I just nodded at this but I still could get rid of the chill this news was causing me. The rest of the ride into the office was done in silence.
“Keep that in view at all times. It will help you get into the mainframe area” I was told as I was handed an I.D. card.
“There are some rules that I need to go over with you while we’re waiting for Josh to get here. First off, is that you are to go nowhere without an escort Even if it’s down the hall to get a drink. Second, don’t talk to anyone about why you’re here. If anyone starts to question you about it, keep your mouth shut and have someone page me or Josh. And lastly keep your hands to yourself at all times and don’t go looking around at things that don’t pertain to the case you’re helping with. Understood?” I just shook my head at this.
“Do you have any questions?”
“How will you keep someone from getting to the terminals that I’ll be using?”
“The room you’ll be working in has a lock on the door that will only respond to your, mine, and Josh’s I.D.. So it is imperative that you don’t let anything happen to it.”
“What about a user name and password?”
“Josh is handling that and he’ll give you a rundown on that. He’ll also show you how to get around on it.”
“Is there going to be any problem uploading the program I had Aunt Mary tell you about last night?”
“There shouldn’t be. Josh will need to run a scan of the CD the program is on before it gets loaded. Anything else?”
“What about my problem?” I asked softly. Turning a bit red as I did so.
“Josh knows about it and said he wouldn’t have any problems helping you with it.” I just nodded my response to embarrassed to reply verbally. About this time, a knock came at the door and a few seconds later a man looking like he was only in his late teens walked into the room. With some relief, I saw that my grandfather was right about my uncle only having a passing resemblance to my father. Truth be told, I could barely see anything of my father in the person walking across the room.
“Ah Josh, I was wondering when you’d get in. I’d like you to meet Ian. Ian this is your Uncle Josh.”
“Sir.” I said as I stood and held out my hand. I saw my uncle pass his father a look as he took my hand.
“Good to finally meet you. Dad’s told me some interesting things about you”
“I’m sure.” I replied with a bit of a dark look but managed to hold the reply I really wanted to give in check. I had already resigned myself to the knowledge that the adults in the family would be well informed of my past. After a few more moments of talk Josh and I were sent on our way to get started.
“OK Ian, you and I will be working in here.” Josh announced after a few minutes of silence. Looking around I found us standing in front of a plain looking door.
“To unlock the door just swipe your badge through the look like this.” Josh added while swiping his own badge through the lock. Before he was able to open the door another agent walked up and I realized that it was the same one that tried to pull the good cop/bad cop routine on me a few weeks before.
“This is a restricted area. I’ll need to see your identification.” We were told bluntly while he help out his hand. Josh showed him his credentials and then the agent turned to me.
“And what about you?”
“I’m with him.” Motioning towards Josh.
“OK, but what are going to be doing?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“I’m sorry?!” came the shocked reply like the guy could believe what he was hearing. Catching a glimpse of Josh’s face I could see the same stunned expression.
“I said that what I’m doing here doesn’t concern you. Now if you’ll excuse me.” I stated while grabbing my I.D. from the senior agent’s hand. Turing around I took a step or two towards the door before a hand came forcefully down on my shoulder.
“Sir, I know that you’re a federal agent and all that, but if you don’t remove your hand from my shoulder in two seconds I’m going to remove it for you.”
“I’d like to see a little shrimp like you try.” The agent laughed.
“Sir, I really think this has gone far enough. Release him now and I won’t have to report you for assault on a minor.”
“Shut up. Pay attention and you might actually learn something about how us real agents get things done.” Josh was informed a bit loudly. By this time people were starting look our way.
“Now for the last time kid what are you doing in this area? Or do I need to hand you over to security and have them deal with you.” I was told while being given a small shake.
“Would you say this constitutes assault?” I asked my uncle who was starting to step towards me, along with several other nearby agents.
“Yes, it does.”
“Good.” I said before suddenly kicking my foot back into the offending agent’s shin and grabbing his wrist at the same time. Before anyone knew what was happening I had the asshole agent pinned to the floor in front of me. Several other agents stepped in by that time and hauled the stunned looking agent to his feet and took him away.
“Damn, David. I’m impressed.” Josh said as we entered our room.
“Thanks. I spent several years living in Japan with my Step-mother’s father and he showed me a few things.” I said with a small smile.
“I’ll take your word for it. Now let’s get down to business and see what we can find.”
“Sure.” I replied while taking a couple of discs out of my backpack and handed them over to Josh so he could scan the contents of them.
“Damn where could that asshole be.” I muttered to myself several hours later Frustrated at the lack of progress.
“Ian why don’t you take a short walk to clear your head. Let me call someone over to give you an escort while you do so. I’ll have you paged if anything turns up while you’re gone.” Seeing the logic of this, I just nodded and walked over to get my backpack.
“That reminds me how are you doing in that department?” I just turned a bright red when asked this because it dawned on me how wet I had become without even realizing it.
“That’s what I thought.” Josh commented with a chuckle. Come on over here and we can get you taken care of.” Sheepishly I picked up my bag and walked over to the couch my uncle was pointing at.
“Don’t worry Ian. I’ve changed most of my nieces and nephews at one point or another.” Josh proved this by having me stripped, cleaned, and re-diapered in just over five minutes. Just as he finished closing the last tape on my new diaper my terminal started beeping.
“Yes.” I said as I bolted from the couch without bothering to put my pants back on.
“Here. You might be a little more comfortable with these on.” Josh joked as he handed me my pants once I had gotten a solid lock on the server Dr. Wu was using and had started down loading everything on it.
Thirty minutes later, I had finished downloading the server and started getting things from it organized to make things easier to sort through. As this was going on I started to look through some of the files I thought were important. One of those was a file called “Contacts”.
“Son of bitch. I always knew he was an idiot.” I mumbled to myself while looking through the Contacts file.
“Josh, you better have my grandfather get down here A.S.A.P. I think I just found his leak.”
“That son of bitch.” I heard behind me as I turned and saw Josh was now reading over my shoulder.
“Are you sure this is accurate?”
“I can’t be sure of anything at this point. But it shouldn’t be too hard to confirm this information.”
“Good point.” Josh replied while reaching for a nearby phone.
“He’s tied up at the moment and can’t come down. Print this out for me and I’ll run it up to him in person.”
“Give me a second and I’ll have it all ready for you.” I told him excitedly. In moments, I was sending the information to a printer as Josh grabbed a file folder and started putting the freshly printed pages into it.
“I shouldn’t be gone too long.” Josh told me as put on his coat, grabbed the file and headed for the door. I Just nodded at his departure and started back into my work losing all track of time.
“What the hell is this?” I thought to myself as I noticed one of the last files downloaded was titled “Family Information” I decided to click on it and see if there was any new information I could turn up from it I wasn’t at all ready for the information I found in the file bearing my name. Without really thinking, I sent the file I found on myself to the printer also and placed it into a regular file folder and set it in my backpack. I went through the rest of the day in a haze. I’m not even really sure how I managed to do it.
“Is everything OK Ian?” my aunt asked as we headed towards home.
“What? Oh, sorry. Yeah, I’m fine.” I replied without thinking I highly doubt my aunt bought one word of this
“You’re not mad about Dr. Roberts canceling your appointment are you?”
“Not really. From what you said it couldn’t be helped.” I guess my aunt could tell that my mind wasn’t really into any type of conversation since the rest of the trip home was done in silence
“Ian, I’d like you to take a short nap once we get inside.” I was informed when my aunt and I pulled up to the entry gate of our property.
“OK.” I replied dully. After a quick diaper check once we were inside I was being tucked into bed. The next thing I knew I was being woken up for dinner.
“So Ian, my father told me you may have discovered who the leak in his office is.” my uncle asked a few minutes into dinner.
“Yes sir. I think I did. But I was asked not to say anything until they know for sure.” I answered unenthusiastically.
“Are you feeling OK?”
“Yeah, I just have some things going on in my mind right now.”
“All right. Just let us know if there is anything we can do to help.” My aunt jumped in before my uncle could start grilling me. Taking the hint my uncle moved on to other things.
“Well, as you all know you’ll be starting back to school in a few weeks and we would normally start to decide where we want to go for the last vacation of the Summer. I hope you kids don’t mind but your mom and I have decided already on taking you to Disney World. We know you’ve been there before but we thought that this is something Ian would like to see.” we were told. My cousins reacted with excitement, but everyone seemed a bit surprised that I hardly said a word in response to this announcement.
Once dinner was over, and the dishes were cleared my parents sent us kids downstairs to get things set up for the weekly family night. I think the only one who didn’t sense that my mind was more on something else than the game we were playing was David. Both my aunt and uncle as well as Megan tried to get me to open up about what was bothering me. Unfortunately, this was something that I hadn’t fully accepted yet so I was unsure of how to present it to someone else. After a couple of more rounds of the game we were playing, I asked to be excused and went up to my room.
“Are you sure you’re feeling OK Ian?” Megan asked about an hour later when she came up to perform my last diaper change of the day. I knew she was up there on my parents order since I’d been taking care of my own changes at home for about a week now.
“Yeah, I just came across some information today that I need to think over.” I told her. I could tell that she knew I was leaving something out of what I was really saying.
“You want to tell me about it. It might help if you talk to someone.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I need to see if Gramps is going to classify it first.” Megan just nodded at this and after giving me a small hug and kiss left the room . Not to surprising, I had several nightmares that night and was barely functional when I walked into the kitchen the next morning for breakfast.
“Jeez Ian you look like Hell.” Brad stated as I took my seat at the table
“Brad what have I told you about using that language.” My aunt said from the kitchen.
“Sorry mom, but he does.”
“You feeling OK Ian?” My aunt asked with concern when she saw me.
“Yeah. I just didn’t get much sleep last night. I’ll be fine though”
“OK. Just so you know Gramps called last night after you turned in and said that he wasn’t going to need you to come in today. So once you’re done with breakfast I want you to go back up and climb into bed.”
“But..”
“No buts young man. Brad is right you look like hell.”
“Yes ma’am.” I replied softly.
What I didn’t know at the time but figured out later, is that my aunt had slipped me a mickey in my juice so I could get some sleep. I woke up a few hours after I laid down with a bit of a headache. Not wanting anyone to know I was up so soon I quietly walked over to my computer and booted it up so I could work on my journal:
16 August 2010
Well, it’s been a couple of
weeks since my last entry and things were going pretty good up till a few days
ago. I’ve been getting outside of the property more with David and Isaac. I get
the feeling that Brad is trying to avoid me when possible due to the few run
ins we’ve had. David has introduced me to a few of his friends from school and
we seem to get along OK. I’m just glad that they didn’t have any problems
accepting my needing to wear diapers I know I’ve probably gotten some strange
looks from them when they’ve come over to swim and saw me without a shirt. But
like my diapers nothing was said. I think maybe Aunt Mary has said something to
them about it but it’s hard saying for sure.
A couple of days ago I was
told by my uncle’s dad that due to a leak in their department the case that I
had helped build against the Wu’s had been blown and that the Wues had skipped
town before the warrant could be served on them. Luckily for all of us my
father had loaded a GPS locator program into the server he had used I was
allowed access to the local FBI computer mainframe to search for the locator
I’m just glad that Mr. Wu is too lazy and stupid about computers to have moved
everything over to a new server. After several hours of searching, I finally
got a hit on where he was. Once things started downloading it was surprising
how much crap was really on that thing. What I was happiest to see was a file
on all the contacts that my father and Mr. Wu had maintained over the years.
Including a fair amount of dirt on each person. I also happened to run across a
file with personal information about each of the people in my family. I’m still
trying to decide if I want to show my aunt and uncle all of the file that
contained my information. I know I’ll have to at some point. I’m just not sure
how to broach the subject. Especially the part that has my birth certificate I
mean how does one accept finding out that he’s actually two years younger than
he was lead to believe and that he has a twin brother to boot. I know this will
be hard to do but I can’t see a way around this. I think what I’ll do first is
run this past my grandfather and see what he thinks. Since I can’t remember
anything about having a brother I can only guess that my mom had put him up for
adoption or something. What ever the case turns out to be I hope he’s had a
better time of it than I have. Maybe someday I’ll even be lucky enough to meet
him.
Another interesting thing
that’s happened was my uncle’s boss has offered me a part time job keeping the
computers at their office in shape and up to date. I told them that I would
need some time to think about it. Before I saw my birth certificate I was going
to take the job, but now I’ll turn it down. I don’t think they would like the
trouble it could cause if it was found out that they had hired a Ten year old.
I think what I’ll do with my grandfather’s permission, of course, is check out
some local consultant companies through the FBI database and make up a list of
ones I think would work best for them. Well, that’s all I can think of for now.
I started getting a bit sleepy again about this time so after saving my work and locking my system down again I climbed back into bed and was soon fast asleep.
I woke up a few hours later to the sound of David running up and down the hall with Megan hot on his tail from the sound of it.
“Are you feeling better this morning?” My aunt asked as I walked into the kitchen and pulled me into a hug.
“Yeah, I am. I guess I just needed a good night sleep to work out what I had on my mind.” I replied.
“Is it anything you want to talk to your father or I about?”
“Not at the moment. I’m wanting to run it past gramps first since I’m not sure if it’s going to have any bearing on my case.”
“OK. Just so you know that we’re here to listen when you’re ready to talk about it. Have you given any thought yet about what you want to do on our trip next week?”
“Not really. I guess what ever you guys decide to do will be fine.”
“Well, why don’t you sit down with your brother’s and sister later on and get something planned out. We like to do a little something from each person in the family.” I was told as I was given a small kiss on the top of my head and released from the hug.
“ And speaking of Gramps he wanted you to come in for a little while this afternoon”
“OK.” I said while walking off to the dining room. Megan, David, and Isaac were already in their normal spots as I took my own.
“Feeling better?” I was asked by Isaac as I sat down.
“Yeah, I guess I just needed to sleep on what I had on my mind.” This seemed to satisfy him since the subject was promptly changed to what everyone was thinking of doing when we went on vacation the following week.
“Speaking of the vacation, would you guys mind sitting down with Ian and show him what all there is to do so he can make some suggestions as to what he would like to do?” we were asked as my aunt walked into the room and sat down.
“Also, we’ll be going out later today to get all your back to school shopping down since I need to get Ian fitted for his uniforms and such. So don’t go to far. Where’s Brad? I would have thought he was up already?”
“He went over to Yoshi’s this morning. Dad said it was OK. And that he would need to be home before Noon.” Megan replied. My aunt just nodded at this as if remembering Brad had mentioned something about it in the past. Once breakfast was done, I was sent up to get ready for the day.
On arriving at my grandfather’s office building, I saw Josh waiting by the door my aunt had pulled up to.
“Will you be OK by yourself Ian? I need to take David to a doctor’s appointment” I was told as my aunt parked the car.
“Yeah, I should be. I’ll have them call you if there’s any problems” I replied as I started up strapping myself from my car seat. As I did this I was to think how grateful I was getting about the extra height and weight I had been slowly putting on. While I was still on the small side, I was hopping that these increases meant that the time I was needing to use a car seat were numbered
“How are you doing this morning?” Josh asked as we headed towards the elevators
“Not bad. How are things going with the case?”
“They’re going. But I’ll let dad tell you more about that when we see him. He had to postpone the meeting a bit due to an unexpected meeting. He said that he’ll beep me when he’s ready to see us.”
“So we’re going to work on the server some more?”
“Nope. Once we got the leaks plugged up. Dad went ahead and assigned normal agents to the case. And don’t worry they all checked out clean. He had them pulled in from other sections.” Josh told me quickly when he saw the look on my face. His addition calmed me down a bit but I was still a bit put out by these change of events.
“I will tell you though that what we’ve uncovered in the last Twenty-four hours is shocking. It seems the Wu’s were dabbling in a lot more than what was going on with you. With what you managed to pull off his server yesterday helped jump start at least twelve other cases nation wide.” This information calmed me down even further. After a short tour of the office building Josh dropped me off into the hands of another agent so I could answer more questions about the other cases that had been broken opened. Unfortunately, I didn’t have nearly as much information as I would have liked to have had. The agents questioning me though seemed satisfied with the information I was giving them. After about an hour, Josh showed back up and took me to a small coffee shop in the building to get me a small snack and let me unwind a bit. It was here that I asked if it would be possible to look into computer consultants. After explaining a bit why, Josh said that if I would give him the list he would have someone pull up the information for me and I would have it before I left. Seeing that this was going to be the best deal I got. I agreed and handed over the list of names. About this time, Josh’s cell phone went off and once he was done told me that Gramps was ready to see us.
Josh stiffened up quite a bit when he and I walked into my grandfather’s office as short time later.
“Ian, I’d like you to meet Emil Jacobs. He’s the F.B.I.s’ Director.” My grandfather explained when he saw the blank expression on my face.
“Pleasure to me you, sir.” I said while sticking my hand out.
“Believe me young man the pleasure is all mine. When I was called last night and told about the number of cases that had gotten a boost from information coming out of this office I felt the need to come out and meet the person responsible for them in person. I will admit that I was more than a little shocked to find out that the person responsible for the breaks wasn’t even an agent but one of the people that had been a victim of one of the cases. Anyway, I’d like to present you with this letter of commendation for the assistance you’ve given us.” I was told as my outstretched hand was taken and a folder was placed in my other one. I was so stunned by everything I didn’t even see that a photographer was in the room and taken my picture as I was handed the folder.
“Thank you, sir. I don’t really know what to say other than I’m glad I was able to help.” I stammered after a few awkward moments of silence After about another twenty minutes of casual chit-chat, Director Jacobs excused himself and left the room.
“There was one thing you weren’t told Ian.” My grandfather said after closing the door behind his boss.
“Several of the cases had rewards attached to them and depending on how they turn out you’ll be the recipient of them. I’ve already talked to your dad about this and he’ll be adding whatever you receive to a trust fund they started for you from a consulting fee you got from his office.” As he finished telling me this, his secretary buzzed in to let us know that my aunt was there to get me. I motioned for him to delay them for a second because I had something to talk to him about.
“I don’t really know where to begin in this request, but I found some personal information that I’d like to have checked out before I tell my aunt and uncle about it.” I said as I passed over the folder I had with me.
“Is this for real?” Came the stunned question after a few minutes of silence
“I don’t know. I get the feeling that it is because of where I found it, but I want to check it out first. I just want to keep it quiet till it can be confirmed one way or the other.” I said with a sigh of relief feeling that something heavy was finally being taken from my back.
“I’ll have it looked into and have the information for you by the time you get back from your trip.” I was told as the folder was closed.
“Now, go on and get out of here. I think we’ve kept your mom waiting on us long enough.” I was told with a smile. With a nod of my own, I got up and started for the door, but not before I placed the I.D. I had been given on the desk in front of me.
“What took so long?” I was asked when my aunt saw me.
“I just had something that I needed to be looked into.” Figuring that this was all she was going to get out of me my aunt led me out of the office and down to where everyone was waiting on us. The rest off the afternoon was spent getting us fitted for our clothes for the coming school year and our trip to Disney that was going to start in a couple of days.