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Secrets. Those are the things that have ruined her life, so she immediately heads back home to look at the flash drive. Perhaps there she can find answers unwashed by her Uncle's honeyed words.

They're taking Jay to the plant. It's the newest of her Uncle's business ventures, and Uma's program was to be a great help in parsing data for his new chemical enterprise. Whatever they're doing to Jay, It's all part of whatever master plan her Uncle has cooking up--she just knows it.

The flash drive yields a wealth of information. The first is a spreadsheet that appears to be some sort of ledger. Plenty of names catch her eye, each of them wealthy business rivals, government employees, or delegates. The numbers this sheet displays are astronomical, ranging into the millions with both outgoing and incoming funds. Was this bribery and extortion how her Uncle got to build a chemical empire out of a small family business?

But that's not the only kind of transaction she finds on the list. There's one more name, a 'Mr.

---

," whose transactions all show that her Uncle was paying out to him. These were the largest sums, by far, and, worse yet, every time he shows up, the largest debtor on the list either pays up, or disappears entirely. She recognizes a few of the names, but only in passing. That is, until she stumbles upon one in particular.

The story was enmeshed into the zeitgeist, and even though it happened so long ago, she knew who it was. Some years ago, a very active and loudly outspoken liberal senator's wife and child disappeared from a charity dinner. It was all over the news. And there is his name. She closes the ledger, but her heart falls when she sees a folder with his name on it as well. She gulps and clicks it, only to be greeted by a single video file.

The film looks like a screen shot from some CC security footage, and it shows the two kidnapped women. No one knew what happened to them, but here they are. The little one is screaming, bound and bruised as she looks on at her mother. Her neck hangs limply in the jaws of a large snake. Not as large as her uncle, and certainly patterned differently. But she's seen those patterns before. They were a constant reminder to her each time she looked into the mirror. Though she had never met the snake, she knew him from the only picture she had from him, and from how his scales patterns just like hers. There's no doubt that this murderer is no one else but her own father.

She didn't notice him at first, but another snake appears in the footage. At first, his back is to the camera, but as her father drops the

limp woman, the snake turns, showing the distinctive scar that could only

belong to one person--her Uncle. This is the most damning proof of all, yet

something still nags in the back of her mind.

There's one more folder. This one was marked 'Secret Project--unencrypted." She slides the pointer over to it, and with the heaviest fingers in her life, she clicks the link. Within is a single document file.

The letter comes from the Doctor, and is dated twenty years ago. It's vague, with the recipient supposedly knowing exactly what he's talking about. But there's one thing that she sees on it that makes her tear out the flash drive and head over to get dressed. She needs to find Jay and find out what her uncle is doing, and she needs to do so now, because what she sees there is the name of the project. It is called "Arya."

Slithering is out of the question, and she cannot drive when she takes her natural form. So, it's time to don a disguise once again, one she thought she would never have to wear. She slides on over to her vanity, looks herself dead in the face and says. "You are Arya, and that is your name--not something someone else can take from you."

This time, she thinks, she'll try something new. Perhaps, she'll be someone she has never been before. Maybe she'll slip on the form of an employee, a security guard of the like. Slip up behind her unnoticed and knock her out, then take her badge and her uniform. No, wait. That'd be stupid. She'd have no way to research anything about any of the employees. Even if she could get a face to work with, she has no idea how she's ever going to look well enough into their duties, schedules, or personalities in order to make things work. No, she's going to have to go in as an infiltrator. She's going to have to concoct a whole new identity for herself to use.

The plant lies in the outskirts of town. Being a newer enterprise among her Uncle's business ventures, it stands as a shining beacon to those approaching from the north. Its stacks rise high into the air, letting off steam from some of the supposedly green energy sources. A car pulls up to a lot next to one of the less successful ventures, an old abandoned warehouse for a competitor, not yet signed over, and thus not patrolled by security. The figure in black steps out of the car, making sure that it is parked somewhere off and out of the way. Of course, this means that getting from one lot to the next will require some skill. Walking to street lights is out of the question, so she starts off by sticking to the dark.

She darts across a highway, probably being mistaken for a deer on a late-night parkour run before she makes it to the official lot. Security cars patrol the place, so she waits behind the pillar of an overpass, her back pressed against the concrete. She remains frozen for awhile, noting that it takes ten minutes the first time. She waits again, licking her lips as the ten minute point approaches, only to breath out a sigh in relief as the car comes around--its the same one. Just a single patrol car. That should make the infiltration easy. She waits two minutes, and then she zips in between vehicles. There are still quite a few workers on board, which means sneaking past even more security and blending in where she can. She will cross that bridge soon, surely, but for now, she slinks from car to car, keeping away from nearby light poles and possible camera instillations. The last thing she needs is someone catching her right now. Of course, in this disguise, no one would even notice it's her... until they try to get a bit grabby.