Work Text:
Something happened a few days ago in northern Italy, and nobody seems to know exactly what.
The few people who were actually on hand aren't talking, and for once, all the people who don't know anything aren't particularly inclined to gossip to make up for it. Word has filtered down about an evil all-knowing computer that is taking—or has taken, or is merely trying, depending on how optimistic the speaker is—over the world, and that it's listening to everything and spying on everything, and that's why they're having to convert their entire knowledgebase from digital to hardcopy.
So everyone's running scared, even the ones that don't know enough to know how scared they ought to be.
Brandt, on the other hand, has enough intel (it doesn't take much) to know just how scared he ought to be of the Entity. But what he doesn't know is how scared he ought to be for his former teammates...not to mention what the hell happened in Italy. He's made discreet inquiries of anyone in the building he even halfway trusts, but still has next to nothing to go on.
Kittridge made it back alive, Brandt knows that much, because he showed up in the office this morning. (He'll probably have a bruised jaw tomorrow, because at least a dozen different people insisted on personally checking that he wasn't Ethan-Hunt-in-a-mask this time.) DNI Denlinger is almost definitely dead, which nobody seems overly mournful about (least of all Brandt). Ethan's friend Faust—who seemed for a while to be attempting to get disavowed by MI6 as many times as Ethan has been disavowed by the IMF—was killed in Venice, or maybe she was never there because she'd already died in the Rub' al Khali, and maybe she had half of the key that everyone was searching for, or maybe she never held anything but a forgery. The White Widow had the other half of the key and tried to hand it over to the CIA—or perhaps hers was the forgery and she always intended to give it to Gabriel.
And then the one piece of intel that nobody dares say above a whisper, which doesn't make it true any more than Brandt's desperate hoping can make it true, is that the two true halves of the key found their way to each other and slipped out of everyone's reach, in the hands of Ethan Hunt, who parachuted off of a crashed train in northern Italy and disappeared.
Which is very poetic and also extremely true-to-form for Ethan, but that doesn't mean Brandt can take scuttlebutt as gospel. And when it comes to Ethan, he has no other sources of intel currently. Nobody who would know anything has contacted Brandt since Luther and Benji left headquarters to rendezvous with Ethan in Abu Dhabi. Shortly afterwards was when the IMF ended up being subsumed again, so Brandt was faced with the familiar choice of joining the CIA or going rogue, and as usual he made the opposite choice from what the rest of his team did. So if they haven't been in touch so far, he doesn't think they're likely to contact him now. Not with the Entity watching the whole world's every move and the CIA obsessed with double-checking whether anyone's wearing a mask and putting up posters of most of Brandt's closest associates warning everyone to keep an eye out in case they try to break in.
He just hopes Ethan doesn't end up having to vanish for another six months or more, the way he did back when Hunley was after him...but to be honest, Brandt wouldn't be surprised if that's how things end up. It might even be the safest way this could all turn out.
And if that's what's going to happen, Brandt might as well settle in for the long haul himself. He leans an elbow on his desk and flips through the manual that came with his new typewriter. He's been muddling through with it over the past weeks since they carted out everyone's laptops and carted in their lower-tech (and much louder) replacements, but if he's going to be using a typewriter for the foreseeable future then he'd like to learn how to be a power user. Lydia in payroll said that you can change the font on these things—there's a way to take out the little ball that prints the letters and swap in another one, although first Brandt is going to have to find out where to get a replacement. But with so many things going wrong in the world, being able to customize the machine he's staring at every day just feels like it would be a little ray of sunshine: one thing he still has control over that the creepy artificial intelligence can't take away from him.
(He hopes.)
He wonders if it's worth trying to reach out to any of the team, or if that would just put them in more danger. So far, every method he's considered for making contact, even if it would fall under the CIA's radar, still bears the risk of the Entity noticing and interfering. He's thought about just sending a letter via snail mail to their last known safehouse, but even then the entire global postal system is computerized to the point that the Entity would probably detect the aberration somehow, without even actively looking for it.
As much as it galls him, it probably is best just to wait and hope. Brandt takes a sip of water and refocuses on reading the manual. Worrying won't do anyone any good.
There's a rhythmic tapping directly above Brandt, making it harder for him to concentrate. Normally the sounds from the second floor don't really filter down here because there's so much between the floors, conduit and air ducts and such.
Air ducts.
Now that makes Brandt think of a few possibilities that he would really rather not consider, because they would be really stupid and he'd like to think that even the most un-risk-averse of his coworkers know that you can't get away with breaking into the CIA through the air ducts more than once in the same lifetime.
"Brandt!" comes a sharp whisper that is definitely directly above him, and Brandt sets down his typewriter manual, shoves the typewriter itself aside along with the assorted piles of papers surrounding it, and climbs up onto his desk, because apparently Ethan Hunt is exactly that incautious and chaotic.
Which isn't really a surprise, not after Brandt has known Ethan for as long as he has, but somehow the exact ways Ethan finds to demonstrate those characteristics still manage to confound him. "What are you doing here?" he hisses, wrestling with the screwdriver on his pocket multitool in an attempt to unscrew the vent cover.
"I needed to talk to you," Ethan whispers, barely visible between the wide slats. Technically there's no way to be certain it's him and not an impostor, not until Brandt gets a better look at him; but, well—who the hell else is going to show up for a chat via CIA air duct?
Brandt sighs. "And this was the best idea you could come up with to do that, huh? Damn it!" The screwdriver head is slightly too small for the screws and he can't get it to move without slipping. He switches to the flathead; there's no rule against using a flathead screwdriver to unscrew a Phillips screw, after all. "If I'd known I was going to be needing a screwdriver today, I would have brought a better one."
"No, you couldn't have, because—"
"Because the Entity would have noticed that I was doing something different from usual, yeah, yeah, I do understand how this works." Brandt pockets the second screw in the wake of the first one, and scoots himself over to the very farthest corner of his desk to reach the two on the far side. "Do you want to hold the cover in place so it won't crash down on my head?"
"Got it." Ethan pokes some sort of wire hook between the blades of the grille. "It's going to be fine, don't worry," he says quietly, and it's probably a bald-faced lie but Brandt doesn't question it. Sometimes they all need to tell themselves these sorts of things regardless of whether they believe them. "You don't have any tech in your office, do you?"
"No, we can't because of the Entity. The most up-to-date thing in here is a typewriter, and I know the Soviets bugged those in the '70s but these have been scanned very thoroughly, and anyway I don't plan on typing anything while you're here. The offices are scanned for bugs every night, so I can say there's definitely no listening devices anywhere around. Damn it!" he yelps again, as the multitool slips badly enough to slide out of his hand and fall to the floor. He scrambles off of the desk to retrieve it. He really ought to buy a lighter multitool because this one is too heavy to hold over his head for this long. (If that wouldn't be another clue for the Entity that he shouldn't risk, but if one follows those trails of logic as far as possible in an attempt to out-think the Entity, that way eventually lies madness.)
"It's good to see you," Ethan adds.
"You too." Not that Brandt has gotten more than half a glimpse of him yet between the wide metal strips of the grille, but still, it's nice to have him here, to feel for a moment like he has a team again and it's not just William Brandt vs. the entirety of the CIA and the rest of the Intelligence Community too. As long as Ethan keeps himself safe.
He's probably safer up there in the air duct than down on the ground, but that doesn't stop Brandt from unscrewing the final screw (using his fingers, just for simplicity's sake, as soon as he's gotten the screw far enough out that he can get a grip on it) and then sliding the panel out of place at last. He leans down to set it on the desk as silently as he can, then clambers his way back onto the floor more or less gracefully.
Ethan slithers his upper body out of the air duct and then makes some kind of half-twist in the air so that he manages to land on his feet, hands braced on the desk, with only a slight thump that couldn't possibly be audible outside of Brandt's office. He's dressed all in matte black, an outfit that's good at avoiding snagging anything in an air duct but is going to be painfully obvious anywhere else in the office building. And more than that, he's wearing his own face—no mask or anything.
"Look, I may not have any tech that would let the Entity know you're here, but what I do have," Brandt whispers in a tone that's as close to yelling as he can muster without being audible more than two feet away, "is an unlocked door with hundreds of CIA employees right on the other side of it!"
"You don't have any meetings coming up, do you? That was the one thing I couldn't check. Computers, you know. Benji hasn't gotten to hack anything in weeks, I think he misses it."
Brandt sighs. "No, my schedule is clear."
"Then we're fine." Ethan grins like this is just any old day at the office, which honestly for Ethan it basically is.
"Okay," Brandt says, rubbing his face, "What's going on? Bring me up to speed."
"So we've got the key."
"I figured as much."
"I didn't bring it with me."
"Oh thank goodness. Please don't tell me where it is." Brandt tiptoes over to the door and shoves the little rubber wedge doorstop under it. It will only gain them a few seconds if anyone realizes Ethan's here, which won't be enough time to conceal the gaping opening to the air duct that is the only other way in or out of this room; and Brandt will be toast either way, but it's better than nothing. "Apropos of nothing, do you have a plan for getting out of here?"
"Of course. Or at least, the outline of half a dozen plans, which is better than just one solid one. I can figure out the details as we go along." Ethan unzips the low-profile backpack he's wearing and cheerfully brandishes one of those Kittridge masks that everyone's been so worried about. "But I figure they aren't checking people who are leaving for masks, just people coming in."
"What's my exposure here? Are people going to know you talked to me?"
"People aren't even going to know I was here," Ethan says. "If it looks like Kittridge left the building more times than he came in, it's just because you've gone all analog, and of course there's going to be a few mix-ups with access cards and who's in or out."
"Now when you say people," Brandt says with a sigh, "does that include the Entity?"
Ethan's cheerfulness doesn't diminish. He must be as happy as Brandt is to finally be around someone he doesn't have to keep as many secrets from. "Oh, the Entity probably has an idea of where I am, but it's biding its time waiting to see what we're going to do with the key. And meanwhile, I'm leaving it alone as long as it leaves me alone. We don't want to do anything that will encourage it to further mutate itself."
"Then you have a plan to take it down?"
Ethan sits on the side of the desk, swinging his legs. "Do you want to know what it is? Or would you rather be able to say that nobody's told you anything?"
Brandt sighs again. "I'm tempted to choose the latter. But the stakes are high enough that if you trust me with the information then I suppose I ought to have it. Don't you want to verify that I'm me first though? I may not agree with the CIA on everything they freak out over—like the time Hunley decided you were somehow responsible for every single thing the Syndicate had done—but I think they might have a point with this one."
"If you weren't Brandt, are there really that many people who would just happen to be sitting alone in your office doing a very convincing job of pretending to be you while not alerting those aforementioned hundreds of CIA employees on the other side of the door?"
"Well, I would assume any mystery bad actor who would go to the trouble of pretending to be me would be trying to lull you into a false sense of security. Their course of action from this point on would depend on their exact motivations, which not being them I don't know. As an analyst I can think of quite a few options, though. So better safe than sorry. See, I know you're you because nobody else would be insane enough to break into the CIA building through the air ducts twice, not to mention breaking in three times overall that I know of, and if it's more than three please don't tell me."
Ethan grins, looking much too relaxed for the situation at hand. "Well, we did discuss the possibility of slipping back to Langley back when Hunley was chasing us all over the globe in pursuit of the Syndicate he was certain didn't exist, but that didn't end up being necessary, so yes, it's just three. What's wrong with the air ducts? They worked great, and we didn't even have to fake a fire this time."
"Which is going to make me feel very safe and secure sitting in this office from now on," Brandt says, rolling his eyes. "Look, check that it's me, tell me what you need to say, and then get a move on. Every minute you're here is more time you can get caught, especially if the Entity knows you're here and decides to cause trouble."
"I don't think it would, it's too busy setting a trap for me in Malaysia a week from tomorrow," Ethan says. "If it makes a few butterflies flap their wings by causing trouble for me here, then I might not walk into its future trap. The bird in the hand isn't always worth two in the bush, for it or for me."
"Convenient...as long as you manage to stay out of the trap in Malaysia."
"I'll worry about that next week." Ethan reaches forward, telegraphing his movements and moving slowly enough that Brandt could have dodged a hundred times if he'd wanted to, before tugging on Brandt's jaw in the gesture that's become all too familiar to everyone at the CIA since whatever happened in Italy happened. "When and what did I tell you about Julia?"
"Two months after India, when we met up in San Francisco, you told me that she wasn't dead, that you'd faked her death. And that it was your job to protect her, not mine." It's a question that only the two of them know the answer to—even their closest team members don't know exactly, although they might be able to guess pieces of it—but the question serves double duty: Ethan clearly also means it as a reminder that he's trusted Brandt from the beginning, even though Ethan's presence here in his office, when the whole world is hunting him, already serves as such a reminder.
"It still is," Ethan says.
Brandt nods, and sits back down in his desk chair. He wonders how much he's had to do to keep Julia safe since the Entity became a threat, or if it's even possible to keep her safe anymore. He doesn't ask, though, and Ethan doesn't volunteer that information. Julia's always been safer the more people Ethan hides her from; that's why it meant so much to Brandt when Ethan trusted him with her life, all those years ago.
"Okay, listen carefully," Ethan says after a moment. He leans close to Brandt and drops his voice to the barest breath of a whisper. "I'll just give you the bullet points. Luther and Benji used their computer as bait for the Entity in Venice and we managed to get some fingerprints on Luther's hard drive, which is why we don't want to encourage the Entity to mutate until Luther can untangle what he's got and figure out what we have to work with. The Entity thinks Ilsa's dead—"
"So does everybody else, although the details are sketchy. She isn't?"
"Good, let them think that." Ethan runs a hand through his hair, his smile fading completely for the first time since he showed up here. "She's okay, she did exactly what we needed her to and she played Gabriel like a fiddle, and it was risky but she's healing fine. We needed a way to destabilize the Entity. It had grown too close to omnipotent too fast, so that by the time we were ready to take it on it was already infinitely beyond our own predictive capabilities. We figured making it certain of something that wasn't true was the best way to gain ourselves some room to maneuver."
"Whatever works," Brandt says. 'How did you know Gabriel would go for it?"
"That's another thing you need to know," Ethan says. "Gabriel is—well, I won't bother you with the exact details, but I knew him before I joined the IMF."
"You're one of those who were given the choice, aren't you?" It's an awkward question, which is why he hasn't asked it before, but it feels like something he might need to know. Technically every IMF agent has a choice of whether or not to join the IMF, it's just that for some of them it's not much of a choice. Kind of like all of those missions after they join that they could technically choose not to accept (if they don't mind the guilt of knowing that everything that happens afterwards is on their hands).
Nobody really talks about what they did before the IMF—which people transferred to the IMF from other agencies or signed up on a whim, versus those who joined up because they didn't want to go to prison (or worse)—but it's usually in people's files when you look back far enough, if you have the level of clearance that Brandt has. Ethan's file is an exception. All the details of his employment are censored through to the beginning of 1997, not even redacted normally: the pages were completely removed more than a decade ago—they were already gone after the Ghost Protocol mission, when Brandt pulled Ethan's file after Ethan told him he'd pulled his—and all that remains is a single sheet listing dates of employment and pay ranks held. Hunley hinted, back when he was CIA Director and focusing every resource on hunting Ethan down, that more information might exist somewhere, but if so he never provided it to Brandt, and he never mentioned it again once he joined the IMF. And Brandt never asked, because it didn't matter. But now it does. He raises an eyebrow at Ethan, who is staring off into the distance, or would be if the office wall wasn't two yards away.
Ethan sticks his hands in his pocket and shrugs. "A long time ago. The day after I last saw Gabriel, actually. Were you?"
Brandt shakes his head. "That wasn't my path, although I'm thankful it's worked out for so many people. I'd worked with the Secretary at his previous post and after he transferred to the IMF he asked me if I wanted to join. Well, first he had to break the news that the IMF even existed. There were several of us who joined all in a group around that time. It was when you were semi-retired, I think."
He wonders whether now would be a good time to ask Ethan more about his past, which they've never discussed outside of Julia. Brandt doesn't even know why Ethan broke into the CIA the first time—it was long before he joined the IMF, back in the days that are redacted in Ethan's file. It's an incident that has gone down in CIA legend: almost everyone has heard some version of the story, although it wasn't until lately (with all of the wanted posters going up in the halls) that most people knew who was behind it. Brandt's known for a while: he learned it was Ethan back when "Ethan Hunt" was just a name the Secretary mentioned once in a while, not yet the agent Brandt fought alongside who somehow trusted him despite Croatia, despite India, despite all the other times he's done his best but it hasn't been enough.
Brandt used to think, in those early days, that the CIA break-in was the only piece of Ethan's past that he was trying to keep quiet about, other than Julia. But sometimes, back before Brandt left the field for the second (and hopefully final) time, there were a few occasions when they were all holed up together in a safehouse with thin walls, and Ethan would have nightmares late at night that they all pretended didn't happen...well, those didn't seem like the sort of thing that would come from breaking into the CIA, so maybe there was something else.
Or maybe it was nothing more or less than Julia. Just because she isn't dead doesn't mean losing her wasn't difficult.
When the entire might of the CIA could come crashing through that door any minute, it probably isn't the best time to push Ethan to open up. Brandt settles for the one piece of Ethan's past that he knows matters right now: "So what do I need to know about Gabriel?" he asks.
"He's the Entity's 'chosen messenger,' you've probably heard that much. That's why he took the name Gabriel—it's not the name I knew him by. Back then he was just a low-level con artist, but already dangerous. Bloodthirsty, really. At the time, I kept telling myself I was imagining it and overreacting, but then he killed a mutual friend of ours and I thought he got killed himself, and that was the end of that...until it wasn't. As soon as he showed up, I knew he would target everyone around me, everyone I cared about, because he knew that was the best way to get to me."
"Is everyone all right?"
"Yes. This time I had backup and a plan, and we were ready for him. Even with the Entity telling him things he shouldn't know, Gabriel still seems to believe I'm the same person I was thirty years ago and that he can still play me the exact same way he used to. He underestimated me, and more than that, he didn't allow for the fact that I wasn't on my own this time. No one was hurt but Ilsa, and she's healing quickly. She'll be completely back in fighting form by the time we're ready to bring her back onto the board. She kept Gabriel right where she wanted him the whole time." Ethan smiles in a way that makes Brandt wonder whether things have progressed at all between him and Ilsa (or whether they're still merely staring longing at each other whenever they think the other person isn't looking), but they have more important things to worry about currently.
"Bullet points," Brandt says. Every minute Ethan is here there's a chance that someone will knock on his door, and if they do there's no way they can get the air vent closed behind Ethan in time for his incursion to go unnoticed. Maybe that doesn't bother Ethan, but it bothers Brandt.
"Okay, so Ilsa and Luther are in a safehouse in an undisclosed location. Undisclosed to everyone—Luther didn't tell Benji and I where they are, and I'm not even sure he told Ilsa. They're staying inside, out of sight of any satellites and well away from anyone who has a smartphone, so there's a decent chance the Entity doesn't realize anyone is there at all; but hopefully it at least doesn't realize who's there and what they're up to. Meanwhile, Benji and I are working on what comes next now that we have the key. Gabriel's henchwoman Paris saved my and Grace's life on the train—have you met Grace?"
Brandt shakes his head.
"Kittridge gave her the choice, and she's part of the IMF now—such as it is," Ethan says. "You'll probably see her around. Let her know you're a friend of mine, and help her if you can. She reminds me of myself when I was younger."
"What, ready to break into the CIA on the least provocation? Oh wait, that's you at any age. Is she hiding up there in the air duct waiting for us to finish this conversation?"
Ethan chuckles, shaking his head. "No, I believe Kittridge sent her to the Farm for training as soon as she got to the States. I haven't talked to her since I left the train. Nor Paris, though I hear rumors she's still alive, so you might try to figure out where she is and whose side she's on. Gabriel betrayed her, so she might be inclined to help us further. She's already been much more helpful than I ever would have expected. Besides saving our lives, she told us what the key unlocks."
"She did?" That's the best news Brandt has heard all week. "What is it?"
"Something to do with the Russian submarine Sevastopol. My access to intel is limited since...well, everything, but this was important enough to take some risks for. I need anything on the Sevastopol that the intelligence community has—" He ticks them off on his fingers—"the CIA, the remnants of the IMF, any other agencies you have legitimate or illegitimate access to. Preferably without tipping off the Entity that that's the direction we're moving in, or that we're aware of the Sevastopol connection at all."
"Which is easier said than done," Brandt says, "since despite our best efforts, the Entity still has a finger in nearly every pie."
"I have faith in you, you'll figure it out."
That's one of the most annoying things about Ethan, he trusts everybody so much that somehow they have no choice but to rise to the challenge. "Okay, I'll see what I can do," Brandt says. "Please tell me you weren't planning on hanging out here until I get it, though, because even if everything goes smoothly it's going to take days, not hours."
"Not here in the building, no; but I'll be staying in the area until I hear from you so you can pass the information via dead drop," Ethan says. He unzips his thin jacket and pulls a medium manila envelope from an interior pocket. "You absolutely can't let anyone realize this even exists, much less glimpse the contents," he says. "The Entity may be our biggest threat, but all the human agents searching for us are also dangerous, and they're far more capable of stumbling across hardcopy documents than the Entity is."
"Got it," Brandt says, and takes the envelope. It's thick enough that it must have several sheets of paper inside, with some small object making a lump in the corner. "I won't let anyone find it."
"There's instructions in there for a few different dead drops, with multiple possible ways to signal that each should be checked. Most are only for this mission and I won't check them again once you deliver the goods, but there's one we'll leave active that you can signal anywhere on the globe that it needs to be checked, and we'll get it eventually. But if there's anything time sensitive, you'll need to use the comm. It's completely analog, Luther set it up safe, so the Entity won't be able to eavesdrop, but it might still detect that a signal is present, so only use it for something truly important. Once you've used it, we have to act under the assumption that the Entity will suspect you're working with us."
"And it isn't already going to know, after your stunt here today?"
"What stunt? Nobody did anything. Your office doesn't have any tech in it and nobody anywhere else saw anything; as far as any humans are concerned, I was never here. And if the Entity figured out Benji and I were anywhere near the building, well...Benji is busy laying a false trail so it might not even be certain I made it inside, but if it does, there's plenty of offices I could have ended up in, none of which have any technology it can use to narrow down the possibilities. It's not like we set off any fire alarms this time, unlike the first time I allegedly broke into the CIA building."
"Allegedly? Ethan, there's no allegedly about it, everybody who is anybody knows about the CIA break-in. By which I mean—and I hate that I have to make this distinction—the first one, not the second one, although everyone's been talking about that one too. There are posters out there in the halls with larger-than-life pictures of your face."
"Which is why I'm going to wear Kittridge's face before I set foot in those halls," Ethan says, fiddling with the zipper on his backpack. "And the vast majority of people here not only have never met me, but they started working here long enough after the first break-in that they don't even know it got broken into at any point in the '90s."
"I started working here long after that and I know."
"Yeah but you've actually talked to all of the top bosses on a regular basis. Most people don't." Ethan claps Brandt on the shoulder. "Don't worry. I promise, we're going to make this work. I'll see you around. Let us know what you've got on the Sevastopol as soon as you possibly can, because so far we've got nothing. We'll keep researching it on our own, but we'll probably just be treading water until we hear from you. Good luck." He climbs up on the desk. "Give me a boost?"
Brandt follows him up onto the desk. If there were any tech in his office, maybe the Entity could somehow detect the infinitesimal shoe prints they must be leaving; or maybe since Brandt won't be able to replace the papers he pushed aside in exactly the same position they were before, somehow the Entity might be able to use that information to put 2 2 together in a way that isn't humanly possible.
But the smartest tech allowed in this room is an analog typewriter and a self-winding watch, so hopefully Ethan's right, and nobody will ever know he was here. "Good luck," Brandt says.
Ethan nods and flashes him a quick smile, then disappears into the air duct as suddenly as he came, except this time silently without the knocking. It shouldn't be possible to be that quiet while moving so quickly in such a narrow space, but Ethan knows what he's doing.
As soon as he's fully cleared the opening, Brandt lifts the vent cover back and starts screwing it into place. It's very tempting to promise himself that he'll bring a screwdriver from home and leave it here just in case Ethan breaks in again, or in case his new buddy Grace takes a leaf out of his book when she gets back from the Farm. But Ethan was right: anything they do out of their ordinary routine is at risk of being noticed by the Entity. Maybe he'll just decide it's time to upgrade his multitool, and coincidentally get one that has a better screwdriver but also a larger knife and a broader variety of gadgets. Just like how Ethan pointed out that his trip through the air ducts wasn't too much of a clue for the Entity (or at least, they hope it wasn't) because he could have ended up in any of a hundred different offices, surely a broad upgrade to his multitool would be opaque enough to the Entity...wouldn't it?
Or maybe it would just provide the Entity with the final clue it needs to figure out which of those offices Ethan stopped in after all. Brandt sighs, and slides his multitool back into his pocket.
He'll just have to hope he doesn't get any more visitors from above any time soon, and then when this is all over and the Entity is defeated, then he can buy himself a nice new multitool. He'll have earned it.
He climbs carefully off of his desk and takes the doorstop out from under the door, scuffing his foot a bit over the carpet there in case the doorstop left any marks. (Which might be paranoid of him, but is it really paranoia when an all-knowing all-seeing computer really is out to get you?)
It's almost hard to believe that really just happened, with Ethan vanished like he was never here, and everything outside Brandt's office still peaceful and quiet. Only the manila envelope on the desk is evidence that it was more than just a hallucination, which of course is a reminder that he'd better not leave that out for anyone to stumble across. For the moment, Brandt tapes it snugly to the underside of his desk drawer, where it would only take him a moment to get his hands on it but no one would ever find it unless they were thoroughly searching his office. He'll wait till later this afternoon to take a look at it, once he's given Ethan time to get out of the building without getting caught—or if he does get caught, hopefully without any ties to Brandt.
But just in case everything doesn't go their way, Brandt figures he'd better make himself less of an obvious suspect in the meantime. He scoots the typewriter back into place and arranges his assorted papers around it as close as he can figure to where they were before, sits himself down in front of his typewriter, and gets back to work.