Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

September 2012

My hands shook. They were clasped tight in my lap, but they shook anyway. Couldn't blame them, really, not after what I'd been through today. My entire body trembled from time to time. Maybe it was some after-effect of the electrical shocks, or maybe my body was like a car engine, sputtering on the last fumes of adrenaline with no gas station in sight. Or maybe it was nerves.

I'd done a lot of dubious things in my life, especially after meeting John, but lying to a federal agent was a definite first.

Special Agent Donnelly sat next to me in front of his desk. He had one leg crossed over the other and his shiny brown Oxfords gleamed beneath the glare of the florescent light fixtures overhead. He was hunched over his clipboard, writing down in his impeccable handwriting every word I said, and then some. His pen scratched and scraped in the quiet of the FBI office. His tired eyes were fixed on the paper. There were deep, dark circles beneath those eyes, and his skin drooped a little there, making him look like a sleepy old basset hound. Yet at the same time, every so often he would glance at me, and I would see the fiery alertness behind those eyes, taking in every detail, all the time.

John had told me about Donnelly. He was a good man, John had said. A good agent. But that didn't change the fact that he was hell-bent on putting John and anyone who worked with him behind bars. And here I was, John's sidekick, telling Donnelly a story, every word a lie...starting with my name.

“We're almost done, Miss Weston,” Donnelly said. I squirmed in battered seat. A sharp tear in the leather cushion poked at the back of my legs and I winced, wishing for the dozenth time that the thin gown I had been given was more substantial. I mean, it was better than being naked—but still. The blue fabric was thin and the sleeves were short. Maybe it was just as well. The angry red welts on my arms and legs—burns from the electrodes—stung enough without the added aggravation of cheap fabric rubbing against them.

The ones elsewhere on my body...well, I just had to grit my teeth and put up with the itching.

Agent Donnelly glanced at me, then looked back down at his notes. He scratched the back of his head as he read. “You're a great help, Merida; a real great help. We've been trying to nab these guys for years.”

I nodded, and then, because Agent Donnelly seemed like the guy who would bend over backward for an innocent young woman in distress, I faked a sniffle or two and threw a little waver into my voice. “So are they gonna go to jail?”

“Oh, most definitely,” he said. “Don't you worry. We've got all the evidence we need to keep these people from hurting anyone else.” He held the pen against the clipboard with one hand, reached for the paper cup that had been set precariously close to the cell phone on the desk. He took a long sip, then said, “You sure I can't get you some coffee? You look like you could use it.”

“I'm fine,” I said, glancing over my shoulder and looking at the corridor leading to the elevators. I wanted out of this office. I wanted to go find the nearest of John's safehouses and lick my wounds and curl up into a little ball on the couch and not come out to see the world for a good week or so. But I couldn't leave just yet without attracting suspicion.

“So,” Donnelly said. His eyes were on the paper. He waved the pen around like a baton to direct his thoughts. “Let's just go over this real quick...you arrived at the black-hat convention on Friday?”

“Y-yeah,” I said. My leg didn't want to stop wiggling.

“Okay. Then, you said, last night you—”

He was interrupted by the arrival of a young man with curly blond hair and the kind of thick-rimmed glasses that looked like they'd been imported direct from the 50s.

“Agent Donnely, sir?” he said. “Alex salvaged that VHS footage. You won't believe how clear it is.”

Donnelly's face lit up like he was a little boy getting a new remote-control airplane for Christmas. He said, “I'm sorry, Merida, but I really have to handle this. Wait here a few minutes, will you? I'll be back as soon as I can.” I nodded, and Donnelly lurched out of his seat to follow the young man, leaving his clipboard, his coffee, and his cell phone behind. Not to mention me. He disappeared into an open doorway about ten feet away.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes, wondering how long until I could safely leave. Probably, not until Agent Donnelly was through with his paperwork. He seemed to love paperwork. There was probably a paper he needed to sign about talking to a witness...and then a paper to sign about signing a paper about talking to a witness...

I stared down at my hands, still clasped tight in my lap. The shakes seemed to be receding, and for that, I was thankful. Now, fatigue was setting in. If it hadn't been for the voices babbling through the doorway, I might've fallen asleep right then and there. Donnelly's voice carried above the rest, and he sounded pretty damn excited.

“That's the best view we have of the area,” he said.

Someone else said, “He'll be on screen in just a minute, I think—we rewound the tape a bit too far...“

On the desk in front of me, Donnelly's cell phone chimed. I ignored it, until it chimed a second time. Then a third. And then, it began to play an ominous little tune. It took me a few seconds to recognize it: the song was the boss theme for an old cartridge video game from the 90s.

I glanced up and smiled, amused—Donnelly did not seem to be the type to listen to old video game tunes—but the smile slid right off my face when I noticed the word on the screen: ruben pick up.

Oh. Shit, I thought. Is it John? I glanced around, then snagged the cell phone off the desk. It didn't even give me a chance to touch the screen. The words disappeared and were replaced with another message.

take phone and run, it said. There was a short pause, during which my heart accelerated like a warp drive and my brain tried to catch up, and then I noticed the sender: Sybil Thornhill.

As soon as I saw that, I knew I had to act fast. Clutching Donnelly's cell phone (what was a little theft on top of lying to a federal agent?), I stood, pulled the gown tighter around my body, and crept towards the hallway, winding my way between the desks. My heart thudded and fear dripped down my spine, like ice water. There were two other agents towards the other side of the room, but neither of them looked up at me—thank goodness. I would've fainted.

The voices from the office became even louder.

“That's no better than the footage we already have,” Donnelly said. There was a note of disappointment in his voice. “I can hardly see him.”

“But wait,” said the other voice. “There's someone else with him. Look.”

A pause. I was almost at the mouth of the hallway. The elevators were just around the corner at the end of the hallway—thirty feet away.

Donnelly's voice. “Who is that? No no, go back...that's—is that—shit—”

“Isn't that the girl you were just—?”

The phone buzzed in my hand.

I made the mistake of looking back over my shoulder. Donnelly stood in the doorway across the office, his mouth agape. Those droopy eyes were droopy no longer—they were wide, and they were mad.

“Stop!” Agent Donnelly shouted. The other two agents looked up. Donnelly vaulted a desk in front of him like it was nothing more than a speedbump and barreled towards me. “Someone stop her! Stop!”

I didn't need any more motivation—I ran.

*****

Chapter Text

April 2012

“Ellie,” said John, “you need to get out of there. Duane is on the move.”

His soft voice crackled through the tiny Bluetooth headset that was nestled inside my right ear. My fingers stumbled on the grimy black keyboard in front of me.

“Every time you distract me, it takes longer,” I complained. The convoluted shell scripts took long enough to type without John nagging me every thirty seconds. “I've almost got his emails copied.”

My external hard drive chattered on the desk as it copied data from a massive desktop computer at thirty megabytes per second. Most days, I considered that to be fast enough; right now it felt like I was copying files from a glacier. The drive's indicator light flashed rapidly, on-off-on-off, as I scanned the partition for any other files of interest—word documents, memos, todo list, pictures, scanned images, zip files, spreadsheets—anything that could help us figure out just why this Jonathan Duane fellow had shown up on John's vigilante-o-matic radar, or whatever it was that John had in his Batcave that let him know when someone was about to get themselves in a boatload of trouble.

“Ellie, he's heading back. Get out now.”

“Almost done,” I said, biting my lip. My heart pounded and my fingers shook, but I wasn't ready to yank the drive, not when I was so close! The shell scripts recursed into directory after directory, dredging up information and feeding it to my hard drive's two-terabyte maw.

“Ninety-three percent,” I told John. I kept my voice low—sure, no one else was in the house besides a particularly fat and ill-tempered cat, but I didn't want to be overheard by one of Duane's neighbors. The last thing I needed was for somebody to come a-knockin', or worse, to call the cops. John's detective friends could only do so much to run interference for us.

The speaker crackled in my ear. John's voice now had a tone that I didn't often hear from him: not quite fear, but getting there. “Ellie, we just found out: he's not a vet, he's a money launderer, and he's headed right for you. Go, now—damnit. Fellows, not now, I'm a little busy—”

There came a sudden crashing noise in my ear, followed by sounds of pain and what sounded suspiciously like a fistfight.

“John?” I asked. He didn't respond, but the sounds of the fight continued.

Come on, come on, come on, I thought, watching the script run with impatience. As far as desktop computers went, this Duane guy had a decent model, but there were thousands of interesting files on his hard drive, and it took longer to copy a great many small files than several large ones. I tapped my foot impatiently on the carpet. Glanced up at the window for the dozenth time, even though I knew the shades were drawn.

A long, drawn-out howl screeched through the earpiece, overloading the tiny speaker. I winced, and for an instant, worried it was John—but the voice was too high to be his. The fight was still going on. Glass broke. Things crashed. John panted and grunted in my ear as the files copied, one after another after another, until—

“It's done!” I said. I had the drive synced and unmounted in seconds. I dropped it into my tote bag, pulled the infiltration flash drive too—it was mounted read-only, so I could just yank it—and powered off the computer. I shouldered the bag and stood.

The front door lock clicked. The knob turned.

Aww, shit, I thought. Dread trickled down my spine, like ice water. I backed away, but I was in sight of the door, almost in the center of the room, and I couldn't run fast enough. My hand dipped towards my bag—

Jonathan Duane was short and bald and far too muscular. He had a goatee, the kind that screamed “thug,” and a single tattoo of a rose on his wrist. He was wearing a polo shirt, a pair of gray shorts, and flip-flops. His eyes widened when he saw me, standing there like an idiot in the middle of his living room, and he froze. But by then, my hand had closed around my pistol and I brought it up, arms straight, aimed straight for the center of his mass like John had taught me. Clicked the safety off with my thumb mid-motion.

For a long, long, long moment, neither of us spoke.

After awhile, Duane said, “So, Tyler sent a schoolgirl in a skirt to get his revenge?” He took a step towards me, then another. I backed towards the kitchen, keeping the dealer in my sight the entire time.

“Sorry,” I said. “Just passing through. I'll be going now.”

My hands shook around the gun—not enough to throw off my aim, but enough for me to notice. I wondered—would this guy be The One? My first victim? I had never had to fire my gun before—not even out of self defense. Usually, the mere sight of it was enough of a deterrent. But not for this guy.

“Not here to kill me? You looking to be a client? I can give you more bang for your buck with a little...persuasion.”

“No, thanks,” I said. Beneath my shoes, the flooring went from carpet to linoleum. The back door was less than ten feet away. If I could just make it across the yard and through the wooden gate...

I took a step backwards. Then another. And then—

A yowl—

That fucking cat—

The fluffy monstrosity had crept up behind me and tangled itself in my legs. I stumbled and fell backwards and landed flat on my back. Somehow, I managed to keep a grip on my gun, but before I could regain my wits, Duane was on top of me. He hadn't showered in awhile, I noticed in a sort of detached way as I was pinned beneath the mass of his body, or maybe he had just come from the gym. Either way, he stank, and either way, I wanted him off me. He grabbed my right wrist and held it to the ground, forcing the gun away from him, but with his attention fixated on the gun, there was nothing to stop me from introducing my knee to his family jewels.

Twice.

Hard.

Duane wheezed and his grip loosened. That gave me just enough freedom of movement to jab him in the eyes with my free hand. Swearing, he released my wrist. I thanked him by elbowing him in the face. His head snapped back and he clutched his face. I scooted out from under him. By some miracle, the gun was still in my hand, and I kept it pointed at Duane as I stood, breathing hard.

“Stay down,” I hissed. He obeyed, clutching his face and crotch.

My bag had fallen from my shoulder mid-fight. I collected it, and then, with all the calmness I could muster, I backed my way to the front door, keeping the gun pointed at the man squirming on his own living room floor. I yanked the door open and stepped out into the afternoon, keeping my gun concealed between the bag and my body as I made my way down the front walk. There was no one around.

“I'm out, John,” I panted.

“Are you hurt—?”

I ignored the sharp ache in my wrist and backside. “No,” I said. “But Duane is.”

“Badly?”

“You care?”

“Consider it morbid curiosity.”

“He'll live.” I kept the gun concealed between the tote bag and my body as I reached the sidewalk and made my way to the little brown car John had loaned me. Didn't relax until I had checked the back seat, then slid behind the wheel and locked the doors.

“Okay,” I sighed. Took a deep, steadying breath. “Okay. I'm heading back to the rendezvous. What was all that noise I heard? Are you all right?”

“You should see the other guys.”

The corners of my mouth rose as I put the car in drive and pulled out into the street. “Seems to be a common theme today.”

“I'll tell you all about it when you get to the diner,” John said.

“You're buying me tea. Lots of honey.”

“Yes. Oh, and Ellie?”

“Yeah, John?”

“Don't do that again.” The humor had disappeared from his voice. “You're getting better at defending yourself, but you're not that good. It's better to run than to fight. When I say get out, you need to get out. Got it?”

“Yes, Mama,” I said. But I knew he was right.

***

There was a little room in the back of Sinclair's diner towards the rear of the kitchen. The room was hot and moist and stuffed with computer equipment for the sales terminals up front, and it offered John and me a good rendezvous location. Sinclair had gotten herself into a bind a few months back. John and I had done our thing and helped her out, and now she felt that it was the least she could do to allow her saviors a private place to meet. As an added bonus, Sinclair's had the best sweet-potato french fries I had ever tasted—on the house. At least, Sinclair tried to make it on the house. John always left a hundred-dollar bill behind whenever we borrowed the back room, even though he never ate anything. Well, sometimes he snuck one or two of the fries from my plate—but other than that, he seemed to run on coffee alone.

My little netbook—a recent, unexpected gift—sat amidst piles of old bills and invoices on the desk. The compact computer was jacked right in to Sinclair's router, which in turn was connected to a business-class DSL modem. My external hard drive was lying on its side nearby, connected to the netbook by a thin USB cable. A half-full mug of tea warmed my hands, which still trembled from time to time as the adrenaline faded from my body. I took a deep swig of tea, set the mug down on a spot of desk that had been cleared of papers, and pointed to the screen.

“Here's another email from Tyler Morris, dated two days ago...dayumn, he's pissed off.”

“We may have just found our perpetrator,” John said, rubbing his chin. There was a cut on his cheek and a shiner throbbing above his left eye. He didn't seem to notice, or to care. His hair, usually combed so precise, was tousled—a sure sign he'd been in a tough fight.

“Can Duane and Morris both be perpetrators?” I asked. I still wasn't sure about the whole perpetrator/victim thing, or why John's BatRadar didn't tell him which one a person was about to become—leaving it up to us to figure it out. “Because, Duane doesn't act like much of a victim.”

“Funny how people get mad when you break into their house,” John said.

“Yeah, well, like you said—it's for their own good.”

“I don't remember saying that.” John's hand snaked towards the basket of french fries that was balanced a little too close to the netbook; I slapped his hand away.

“You implied it.”

“Well, it is for their own good, but they get even madder if you try to explain it when they catch you.”

His hand crept towards the basket again; I rolled my eyes and allowed him to make off with a single fry.

“I think I'll be paying Tyler a visit later today,” John said. “Maybe Duane, too. If we're lucky, the case will be closed tonight.”

“Don't beat Duane up too much,” I said. “I took care of it for you already.”

“Ellie, I'm proud of you. You've graduated from B&E to assault.”

“He came at me first. Think he's gonna tell anybody he got beat up right and proper in his own home by a girl in a skirt?”

“Probably not. Nobody would believe him.”

I smiled; took another sip of tea. The tremble in my hands was receding. I reached for the netbook keyboard, brushed a few stray crumbs aside, and pulled up a file manager to see if there was anything else interesting among the files I'd copied from Duane's desktop.

“Finally warming up to Sybil's latest present?” John asked, tilting his head towards the netbook.

I glared at John, which only made the little smirk on his face widen. “I like my old laptops better,” I grumbled.

“Nothing wrong with getting a little new hardware every once in awhile,” John said. “Does it work well?”

“Well...yah,” I admitted. And that was the problem. I'd spent days looking for even the tiniest fault in the little netbook, but it performed as advertised and beyond—the keyboard was comfortable, the Linux operating system was stable, the solid-state drive put the tiny computer's short boot time into a class of its own, and try as I might, I hadn't managed to get the darn thing to overheat even with all CPU throttling disabled—impressive, considering the tiny laptop had a quad-core CPU and a discrete graphics chip. The only thing that really bugged me about it was the built-in webcam, and that little problem was easily solved with a strip of electrical tape. “But—she didn't have to be so snarky about it.”

“What's snarky about saying you could use a faster computer?”

“It's just—she—she typed it sarcastically. The greeting card that came with it. It was sarcastic.”

John raised his eyebrows and looked aside.

“Oh, shut up,” I said, poking him in the chest. “I swear, when I finally meet this Sybil lady...”

John helpfully finished the sentence for me: “...you'll thank her for the expensive netbook, and the books, and the tea, and the chocolate?”

“Yeah. Sure. So, when do I get to talk to her so I can, uh, thank her?”

“I dunno,” John said. “Sybil is a very private...person.”

“Sybil, Lucius Finch, Shaw—all you superheros are private people,” I muttered.

“They're called 'secret identities' for a reason,” John agreed.

We stayed there in that over-heated, over-cramped room for another half-hour, nibbling on sweet potato french fries and picking apart Duane's emails just to be sure there was nothing that we had missed. John left first, as usual. I waited fifteen minutes, packed up my computer equipment, slipped out the back door, and walked the three blocks to the garage where I had parked my car. I kept close watch on my surroundings as I rode the lift to the third floor, loitered a bit, then took the stairs back down to the second floor and walked to my car, but no one paid me undue attention.

It was paranoia, I reflected as I started the engine and eased the car to the spiral downward ramp, but John had told me stories about some of the men and women he had met during the course of his career as professional vigilante, and with people like that out there, I figured it paid to be extra careful. So I put up with it.

I kept a careful eye on the cars around me as I drove. No one seemed to be following me. About a half-block from my apartment, I parked the car in an underground garage, made sure I'd gotten all my belongings out, and walked the rest of the way.

The car would be gone by that evening.

I entered the apartment building through a side door, took the lift up to the seventh floor, and walked down the hallway to a door marked 7C. This apartment, if anyone had cared to check, was rented out to a Cassandra Bradbury, who did not exist. Sure, I had her driver's license and passport, and I occasionally updated her FriendZone profile, but Cassandra was nothing more than a cover identity, one I had created myself with a little help from John and a lot more help from his mysterious rich guy, Harold Finch. Cassandra was my newest identity, the latest of three—still a bit sparse, especially in the social networking department, but given time, it would grow.

Right now, though, I didn't want to be Cassandra, who liked blue cheese and video games and bebop jazz and colorful T-shirts with geeky, nerdy things emblazoned on the front. I just wanted to be plain ol' Elizabeth Ruben, who preferred cookies over salad, and could barely hold a GameStation controller the right way (really, a good computer was far superior for gaming), and wore happy blouses and swirly skirts and dark tights and little-girl shoes, none of which had any logos or printing on them because she didn't want to be a bipedal billboard.

I unlocked the door and stepped inside the modest apartment. Locked the door behind me. Then, before I did anything else, I pulled out my gun and swept through the apartment, room by room—more paranoia, but some of John's stories were really quite good at scaring the bejesus out of me, so I did it anyway, checking each room until I ended up back in the living room. Once satisfied that the boogieman wasn't awaiting me, I plopped down onto the couch. Unloaded the gun. Set it and the tote bag on the glass coffee table. Unbuckled my flat Mary Janes, one at a time, and tossed them towards the obsidian rectangle that was the television. Stretched. Padded into the kitchen to set the tea kettle boiling and to snag a cookie from the tin atop the refrigerator. Ducked into the bedroom, stripped off my clothes, and draped myself in a silky forest-green nightgown, like liquid comfort. A little later, I fixed myself a cup of black tea with a generous dollop of honey.

It was amazing how easy it was for me to put on my mask and become a vigilante sidekick, and then later, to take off the mask and go back to being an innocent young woman. Like flipping a switch. Just a few hours ago, I'd been fighting off some sod who thought a girl in a skirt was easy picking, and now here I was, settling down on the couch with a steaming cup of tea and a sci-fi book from the wall-to-wall bookcases out in the living room. The transition was natural, mindless...

Most days.

(Other days, it took much more than a mere cup of tea and a book to calm me. The Wilson case still haunted me. That poor man...)

I read until 11PM, soaking up the words from the book like a good, hot bath, and then retired to the bedroom to sleep. I took the gun with me. Slipped it under my pillow.

Just in case.

As John liked to say, only the paranoid survived.

#####

Miles away, in a second-story chamber within a derelict library, John Reese sat in a swivel chair. Sprawled, actually; casually, without a care; a shadow against dark leather. The only illumination in the room came from the six LCD monitors arranged on the round wooden desk before him. It lit his face and the sliver of white shirt visible beneath his black suit jacket, making it appear as though his head were floating in the night.

Adjacent to him, poised like a lord in his castle, sat Harold Finch, dressed to the nines and then some in a burgundy three-piece suit that had cost more than all of the computer equipment in the room. His fingers tapped away at the keyboard, like a rabid pianist, but he exuded the same atmosphere of tranquility as the abandoned library building. The various windows and terminals open on the monitors were reflected in his glasses; a tiny, ghostly constellation hovering inches before his eyes.

A teacup, half-full, sat in its saucer on the desk. Next to the saucer, two cell phones charged.

For awhile, neither of the men spoke. It was Reese who broke the silence.

“Today was fun,” he said. His voice matched his pose—lazy, laid-back, dark, ominous—and just a touch seductive.

“Mr. Reese,” said Finch, not taking his eyes from the lines of C and assembly code he was optimizing, “you sent six thugs to the hospital today, not to mention Mr. Morris, and set two ambulances and a fire truck on fire. You also managed to infuriate Detective Carter—yet again—and very nearly shot Detective Fusco in the posterior. And let's not discuss the state of Miss Shaw's boots. Or her propensity towards high-caliber weaponry.”

“Like I said: today was fun. Don't forget about Duane. Elizabeth got him pretty good. He was still limping when I got to him.”`

Finch's mouth turned downward and his eyebrow rose. “About that. I believe you told Miss Ruben to vacate the premises—four times.”

Reese shrugged. “Bad connection, probably. Maybe Duane's house is a dead zone.”

“Mr. Reese, while our Miss Ruben has proven herself to be a valuable asset on occasion...working with someone who is unable or unwilling to follow orders will inevitably imperil our mission.”

“You let Shaw hang around,” Reese pointed out.

“Miss Shaw is experienced. Miss Ruben is not.”

“Then we should give her experience,” Reese said.

Finch looked away from the monitors just long enough to give Reese a glare of disapproval.

“Our work is perilous, Mr. Reese. Miss Ruben needs to understand that what we do is not some sort of—trivial comic book adventure. Her attitude towards our endeavor occasionally borders on flippant and rollicking.” He glanced at Reese again. “I wonder where that came from?”

“Shaw,” Reese said, without hesitation.

“I was thinking someone with a greater propensity towards tying petty criminals to lampposts to await their imminent arrest.”

“Hmm,” Reese said, rubbing his chin. “Bear.”

The incredulous look on Finch's face was a sight to be behold. “Bear,” he repeated. “Mr. Reese, you're childishly avoiding the subject. Bear is a dog.”

“He's smart.”

“He doesn't have thumbs. He cannot tie a knot.”

“Well, if the guy is holding his leash, Bear can drag him to a post and run around the post a few times. Works pretty well. Right, Harold?”

The pearly illumination from the monitors was just sufficient for Reese to see Finch blush.

“Perhaps we should discuss this matter tomorrow,” he said, salvaging his dignity by returning his attention to the monitors.

“Suit yourself,” Reese said, and for awhile longer, there was silence. Until...

“Elizabeth warmed up to Sybil's latest gift,” Reese said. This time, Finch's fingers faltered.

“Gift?” he asked, uncertain. “Which gift? The software disassembly book?”

“No,” Reese said. “The top-of-the-line IFT UltraPad netbook and mTech two-terabyte external hard drive.”

Finch's brow knitted itself together. “It sent her a computer?”

“Yeah,” Reese drawled. “And a nice hard drive. I tell you, Finch, I'm feeling a little hurt here. Sybil never buys me computers. Neither do you.”

Frowning, Finch turned to the monitors and said aloud, “Did you send Miss Ruben a netbook and hard drive?”

For some seconds, nothing happened. But then an LED lit up next to the monitor: the “record” light on the tiny webcam clipped to the monitor frame. Finch's cell phone buzzed a second later.

1, said the screen.

“Why?” Finch asked, in a voice that managed to be both curious and irritated at the same time.

62 65 63 61 75 73 65, said the screen. Reese had no idea what that meant. Finch must have, because mouthed out a few syllables and said, lovingly, “Oh, now you're being childish too. And it would take you less data to transmit that in the clear.”

that in the clear, said the screen.

Reese smirked. Finch, for a long time, did not speak.

“It's right,” he said to Reese. “Technically, that is fewer characters.”

“Your Machine has a sense of humor, Finch.”

“Yes. And I don't know if that is awe-inspiring or terrifying. Perhaps both.” He cleared his screen and said to the camera, “The gifts to Elizabeth Ruben need to stop.”

y ?

“Because—because each shipment is a trail that could potentially lead back to you. You are careful, I'm sure, but your actions carry with them an inherent risk. So do these text messages, for that matter. You know how I feel about long conversations.”

1.

pkg det prob: 5.62112351x10^-37

phn det prob: 8.12342623521x10^-38

Finch sighed. “Well...I suppose you know better than I do.”

1.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Finch said, “Why do you use the alias Sybil Thornhill?”

y! ?, said the screen. It took Finch a little longer to decipher that one.

“Why not. Haha.” Finch looked amused.

“Maybe it's having an identity crisis,” Reese suggested.

0, said the screen.

“You're tired of being Ernie?” Reese asked.

0, said the screen.

“You're still Ernie?”

1.

“And you're Sybil, too?”

1.

“Whadaya know, Harold,” Reese said. “It's Schrodinger's cat.”

Finch cleared his throat again and said, “Do you...wish us to call you by a particular one of these names?”

*, said the screen.

“What does that mean?” Reese asked.

“I believe it means that it does not prefer any particular name,” Finch said.

1.

“Well,” said Finch, staring straight at the camera, “whichever identity you wish to go by—please, be careful. There are factions out there that wish to find you. To control you. To use you to harm others. Miss Ruben does not know you exist as you are. It would be better for her if it stayed that way. Safer for her and for you.”

There was a long pause.

1, the screen said, and Reese noticed that the font was half the size it had been before, as if the Machine didn't really want to admit it...

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

“Class dismissed,” said Dr. Goodwin. “Don't forget to grab your quiz before you go.”

I closed my laptop and slid it into my rolling pack along with my notes and my pens. I yawned and rubbed my eyes. Weary, I stood and joined the throng of students at the table at the front of the classroom. Papers were spread out over its surface. No doubt they had been a neat stack, ordered alphabetically by last name, before the first students had arrived to dig for their graded quiz; now the papers were scattered across the table like autumn leaves.

Dr. Goodwin stood behind the table. Her brown hair was tied up tight in its bun, but the long day had taken its toll and dozens of strands had escaped. She looked particularly fierce today, dressed all in angles and sharp lines; blood red blouse and white blazer and fine gray pants. When I neared the table, she caught my eye and said, not unkindly, “Elizabeth? Can you stay a few minutes, please?”

“Uh, sure,” I said. I waited until the crowd around the table had cleared some—how I hated my classmates breathing down my neck as I searched for my messy scrawl among the papers!--and started digging around for my quiz.

I didn't find it.

I checked twice, and then peeked under the table to make sure it hadn't fallen to the floor, but my quiz was nowhere to be found.

Several of the students had surround Dr. Goodwin, no doubt demanding an explanation for their low scores. I stood to the side and watched her explain, in no uncertain terms, precisely which each of the answers they claimed were correct were actually wrong. Soon, I was the only other person in the room.

“You wanted to see me, Doctor?” I asked. I leaned against the edge of the table.

“Yes,” she said. “Just a second...” With long strides, she stepped behind the computer desk and hunched over her open suitcase, rifling through papers and holding them up near her face to read.

“Ah,” she said. She held the paper to her chest with those long fingers of hers. “Elizabeth, I'm concerned about your performance as of late.”

“Uh oh,” I said, eying the paper. “What'd I get?”

She handed me the paper. I saw red, literally—red marks everywhere.

“Oh,” I said, stunned, but not surprised. I had been so busy working the last few cases with John, I hadn't had time to study for the quiz at all. Still, I'd been hoping to squeeze by with a slightly higher score...

“Elizabeth, for the past five semesters, you've been the top student in all of my classes. But this spring...”

“I'm sorry, Doctor,” I said. “I've just...had a rough few months.”

“You know I don't take attendance for this course, but I can't help noting that you've missed seven class sessions. I'm worried that, with your current grade—especially considering this last quiz—if you don't do well on the final, you won't be able to pass the course, and then you wouldn't be able to graduate this May.” She peered at me, concern etched in her face. “I don't want to pry—but is there anything I can do to help?”

I sighed. “No, Doctor, I've just been really, really busy lately. Work and the dissertation and all that. Mostly work.” And it wasn't a lie. I mean, John paid me and everything (not that I did it for the money), so it was a job. Technically.

“Perhaps you could shift or reduce your hours at Landis or the library? You're working two part-time jobs...”

I didn't have the heart to tell her that I had already quit my library job sometime mid-January. Freeing up two days out of the week had made it a lot easier to help John with the cases.

“I could ask,” I said.

“Let me know if there's anything I can do,” Dr. Goodwin said.

“I will, doctor. Thanks.” I slid the paper into my bag, said goodbye, and left the classroom. My rolling bag grumbled along the linoleum floor as I walked down the long hallway to the bank of lifts at the center of the building. I was on the fourth floor. I ignored the lifts and made my way down the stairs instead, because if there was one thing that I hated about this building, it was the ancient traction lifts that liked to malfunction every other day. (You would think that the Engineering department would be able to fix its own damn lifts, but—)

I made my way across campus in a haze. My feet knew where to go, even if my brain was fixated on other things, like my quiz grade. A year ago, I would've fainted if I had gotten a grade that low, but now, all I felt was a dull sense of disappointment. I was having a hard time making myself care much more than that. Even the threat of failing the course—which would be a first for me—and having my Master's degree slip through my fingers for a year didn't seem so very dire.

Amazing what almost dying a few times will do for your sense of priorities...

Ten minutes later, I reached my car. Did the obligatory check of the back seat, then joined the mid-afternoon bumper-to-bumper traffic on the main road leading out of the campus. By the time I pulled into the parking lot outside my apartment—my real apartment, not one belonging to any of my aliases—it was well into the evening. I made my way up the front walk, past shaggy hedges and limp petunias, and felt around in my purse for my keys. That's when I heard it: a voice. From inside my apartment.

Where I lived. Alone.

My heart thudded into overdrive and fear trickled down my limbs. Without taking my eyes off the door, I reached down into my purse and pulled out my pistol. The voices continued, but there was a tinny quality to them, and there was music, too. It sounded like the television had been left on, but I hadn't had time to turn it on that morning. Which meant that someone had gone into the apartment and turned on my television—and might even have still been in there.

If only I had left the window shades open...but I hadn't anticipated needing to peek inside my own apartment.

I glanced over my shoulder, making sure none of my neighbors were watching. Then, holding the gun in one hand, I jammed the key into the lock, twisted it, and flung the door open, cupping my gun with both hands and bringing it up before me. My pulse pounded in my ears and my eyes swept the living room for threats.

“Hi,” said the woman.

It took me a few seconds to recognize the brown-haired intruder, who was sitting cross-legged on the mottled maroon couch before the television. Her feet were tucked in tight beneath her legs. She wore a black tank top, gray sweat pants, and white socks. She looked unimpressed at the sight of the pistol in my hands.

“The hell, Shaw?” I said. I lowered the gun, yanked the key from the lock, and kicked the door shut behind me. “Make yourself at home, why don't you?”

“Thanks,” she said. “I did.”

I stared, incredulous. “Are you eating my ice cream?”

“What does it look like I'm eating?” Shaw held up the striped cardboard carton in her hands and motioned to its contents with a spoon. “You buy the good stuff. Not that cheap fake crap John likes. The cookies are pretty good, too—”

“You ate my cookies?”

“No, I just licked them all.” The expression on her face stayed constant: flat, lazy, bored. “Ha-ha. Kidding. I had four. Where did you buy them? They're really good.”

“I baked them,” I said.

Finally, a change: raised eyebrows, a quirk of the lips. Shaw's face suddenly looked feral. “You bake?”

“Uh, yeah. I make a few batches of cookies every weekend. Look, Shaw, what on Earth are you doing in my apartment? Eating my ice cream?”

While I sputtered, Shaw dug around in the carton with the spoon and scooped out a glob of ice cream. She raised the spoon to her mouth, opened wide, and slid the spoon in. Then closed her lips and slowly drew the spoon back out, as if to say, this ice cream is really good, and I didn't leave you any.

She did it a second time, then took her time about licking the spoon to a shine. I put the gun back in my purse and put my hand on my hip.

“Been a long day,” Shaw said, idly twirling the spoon. “Got shot at. Blew up a few cars with John. The usual.” She unfolded her legs, stretched them out in front of her, and quite deliberately put her stockinged feet up on the coffee table, crossing one ankle over the other. “So I wanted to unwind.”

“By eating ice cream. My ice cream.”

A tiny shrug. “I got hungry waiting for you.”

I blinked. It was only then that I realized that I hadn't even moved from the entryway. I balanced on one leg at a time, reaching down and unbuckling my shoes by feel—because Shaw, like a damn panther, always managed to give off the impression that breaking eye contact would result in very bad things. I mean, I knew she wasn't a threat—John trusted her, which meant that I trusted her too, or at least tried to trust her—but that didn't mean I was comfortable letting her out of my sight for very long.

“Why were you waiting for me?”

“Because I'm bored,” Shaw said, as if that answer cleared everything right up.

“Uh-huh. Look, I hate to break it to you, but it's been a long day for me too.” The desire for a cup of tea battled with the urge to not let Shaw out of my sight. I compromised by edging towards the kitchen, keeping my eyes on the couch's occupant at all times. “I just wanna relax.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding disappointed. Or maybe not—it was hard to tell with her. Either way, for the next five minutes, she stayed quiet. I put the kettle on the stove and lit the burner and even dared to look away for a few seconds to dig around for a tea bag. I dropped it in the mug, poured the hot water. And then politeness took over, and I found myself saying, “You want a cup of tea?”

“Eww, no,” Shaw said. “I'm fine with ice cream.”

“You're paying for it,” I said.

Another shrug. “How do you want your payment?”

“Uh...in money, or replacement ice cream?”

“You have no imagination,” Shaw said.

“Whatever,” I said. I looked at Shaw, who was sitting right in the middle of the couch, and then I looked over at the kitchen table, with its old wooden chairs, and then I looked back at the couch, which was battered and ugly but comfy, and I decided that my butt had been sitting on enough hard surfaces today. So I put my tea on the coffee table and flopped on the couch, trying not to be too obvious about how I was sitting as far away from Shaw as possible.

It wasn't that I didn't like her. It's just that she exuded this energy around her, like a playful cat that at any moment might decide to have a few swings at the hand that was petting it—only instead of claws, this cat had guns and knives and a disturbingly encyclopedic knowledge of improvisational explosives. Not to mention an uncanny knack for knocking me flat on my backside whenever we spared at the gym.

So I sat and sipped my tea and watched whatever Shaw was watching on my television.

“Are you watching Monk?” I asked.

“Yep,” said Shaw. She tossed the ice cream carton onto the coffee table. The carton was empty. It'd been at least half full the last time I'd checked. I sighed.

Shaw wasn't much one for talking. Or laughing. She just sat and watched, even as I snickered and giggled at the antics on TV. Shaw didn't even smile, except once, and that was when one of the characters pulled out a sniper rifle. A second later, she frowned.

“Rifles don't work like that...” she muttered.

“Now you know how I feel every time they show 'hacking' on TV.”

“Hollywood. Who writes these things?”

I shrugged. Shaw went back to watching the show, and didn't speak again except to point out an inaccuracy in the way one of the police officers held her gun. After my second cup of tea, I decided that I really wanted to get on with my evening, so I said, “It's getting late. Do you need a drive home?”

“It's six o'clock,” Shaw said. She didn't seem to get the hint.

“Well,” I said, “I need to get some programming done, so...”

“Okay,” she said.

I stared at her, but she kept her eyes on the television. I contemplated spelling it out for her, then figured that, as long as she stayed as quiet as she was now, I wouldn't be distracted from my projects. So I went into my bedroom, clicked on the lights, and fired up three of the nine desktop computers slumbering around the room. I sat down at my desk before the twin monitors and logged in. Pulled up my projects directory, opened several C files, and began hacking away.

When I went back out into the living room an hour later, Shaw was gone. The empty ice cream carton was in the recycle bin, the spoon was in the kitchen sink, and a ten dollar bill was sitting on the kitchen counter. Other than that, it was like she'd never been there.

Like a goddamn cat. There one moment, gone the next...

#####

The next morning, John Reese arrived at the Library to find Harold Finch down on his hands and knees beneath the computer desk.

“Good morning, Harold,” said John. He set a pink cardboard box, still warm and smelling faintly of buttery crust and cherries, on the desk. He grinned. “Did you lose your contact lens?”

“Ha-ha,” Finch said drily. His hands were deep within a desktop computer. Its side panel had been removed and was propped up nearby against the desk. In Finch's left hand was a silver rectangular object; he guided it into a frame mounted to the front of the computer, using his right hand to part the wires and ribbon cables that dangled in the way. “Just some minor maintenance.”

“Looks more like open-heart surgery,” Reese said.

“I assure you, Mr. Reese; installing a hard drive is quite a trivial task.”

Reese looked over the mess of computer equipment surrounding his boss. There were five desktop computers, most of which lacked side panels; several boxy NAS devices, and a rack server with its top cover removed. Cables snaked between all the computers and hung down from the edge of the desk like a beard. Usually, the desktops were arranged neatly next to each other beneath the desk, but Finch had pulled them all out.

“Is that the server from Connetrix?” Reese asked.

“Yes,” Finch said. “I thought I might make another attempt at deciphering the encrypted hard drive, this time with the assistance of several high-powered research GPUs with several hundred CUDA cores apiece. We never did determine why the Machine passed us Sarim Horstmann's number...”

Finch reached around to the front of the computer and pressed its power button. It lit up. The fans whirled into life, violently at first, then spooled down until they were nearly silent. One of the monitors flashed as the computer went into its POST cycle and then began booting the operating system.

“Excellent,” Finch said. Stiffly, he stood. “However, we have another matter to attend to today—we've received two new numbers.” Finch motioned to the cracked pane of glass that served as a whiteboard. On it hung two pictures, each adorned by a wreath of post-it notes.

Finch said, “Meet Robert Bartley and Jackie Winslow.”

Reese studied the photos. In one of them, Robert Bartley posed beneath a coconut tree. The sand was sparkling white beneath his feet and the ocean behind him was vivid teal, almost unnaturally so. Bartley had tucked his sunglasses on top of his bald, squarish head and he waved to the camera with an awkward grin. He wore colorful shorts and an exceptionally awful Hawaiian shirt. Reese estimated him to be about six foot, maybe six foot two; a hundred and ninety ponds. Caucasian; well-muscled legs. Attractive by most peoples' standards.

And quite possibly someone about to commit a violent crime.

Reese turned his attention to the other photo. Jackie Winslow stood in an entryway to an apartment building, one leather boot up against the weather-worn bricks. Her arms were crossed and she was smirking at the photographer. She was short—five foot two, maybe—and she had dark brown skin, like rich chocolate. A fine leather jacket protected her from what seemed to be the autumn chill, judging by the fallen leaves on the sidewalk in the foreground.

“What do we know about them?” Reese asked.

“Mister Bartley is a freelance writer—not a particularly eloquent one—and Miss Winslow owns a small import/export company. Neither have any offenses on record, unless you count Mister Bartley's distastefully vivid outfit.”

Reese said, “Not everyone can dress as well as you, Harold.”

Finch gave Reese an undefinable look, then continued: “Their finances are stable. Mister Bartley has a brother in California and Miss Winslow has no family to speak of. Bartley lives in a Manhattan townhouse and Winslow lives in an uptown apartment. I haven't found a link between them yet, but I assume there is some undiscovered connection—the Machine gave us their numbers simultaneously.”

Reese nodded and considered the photos. “Where should we start?”

“Dibs on the grumpy guy,” Shaw said. Finch jumped ever so slightly at her sudden appearance. Reese merely smiled.

“Looks like I'll be following Jackie...” Reese said.

He got his first look at Jackie Winslow an hour later. Thirty feet away from where Reese sat in his Buick, Jackie descended the steps of her apartment building, unlocking the gate at the bottom. She looked almost exactly as she had in the photograph he had seen earlier this morning; there was the leather jacket, the black boots, the jeans and the striped gray scarf. A small maroon handbag hung from her shoulder. She closed the gate behind her and walked down the sidewalk, her boots clicking on the concrete with each step.

Giving her a few second's head start, Reese stepped out of his car and followed, taking care to keep his distance. As he walked, he reached up and tapped his ear twice, instructing his Bluetooth headset to call the second number on speed dial.

“She's on the move,” Reese said. “Wait a few minutes, then go in.”

At the other end of the line, somebody scuffed.

“I'm already in,” said Detective Carter. “Your girl's place is a mess.”

John smiled. “I'm glad that you're taking the initiative in your descent into deviancy, Joss.”

“What's a little B&E among friends? I mean, compared to lying to a federal agent and tampering with evidence to get your ass out of jail...”

“Thanks again for that,” John said lightly. A crackling sigh echoed over the line.

Reese followed Jackie down the crowded sidewalk until she headed down into a subway station. He barely made it into the tram before the doors snicked shut behind him. He sat down at the opposite end of the crowded car from Jackie, whose attention was fixed on a smartphone.

Naturally, it was bluejacked within seconds.

“Hey,” Carter's voice crackled in his ears. “I got a laptop here. It wants a password. Maybe Finch can take a look at it?”

A moment later, Finch's voice crackled into existence.

“I'm a little busy researching our cases at the moment, Detective,” he said. “But I know someone who may be able to help...”

#####

Chapter Text

February 2012

The first time John taught me how to use a bobby pin to pick a lock, we broke into a custodial closet at the gym. It was all his idea, of course. Not that I was complaining. It was more fun that getting knocked on my butt.

“Oww,” I groaned. I'd had enough of falling today, thanks. I was fine with staying down here where I was, flat on my back, staring upwards from the gym mat. One of the lights recessed in the gym ceiling was burned out. I wondered if anyone else had noticed yet.

John offered his hand. Irritated, I brushed it away and levered myself up off the mat.

“Not bad,” he said. “You almost had me.”

“That's what you said last time,” I panted.

“You almost had me last time, too.”

“Right.”

“Let's take a breather,” John said. He tilted his head towards one of the soft benches set against the wall, and I followed him. For awhile, I felt the smooth exercise mat beneath my feet, then thin carpet. I sat down next to John and crossed my feet at the ankle.

Suddenly, John got this disturbingly mischievous expression on his face, like he'd just thought of a really inappropriate joke, the kind that would've had Mama snickering. John leaned towards me. Instinct told me to scoot away to protect my personal space—but I didn't, because this wasn't some random guy on the bus, or a moron on the sidewalk, this was John, and how often did he get that close to me? Especially when his upper body was clad in nothing but a thin, black T-shirt?

“Ellie,” he said, “you have something behind your ear.”

I scowled and put my hand up to feel. “I do not.”

He reached behind my head, and when his hand came back, he held a black bobby pin between his fingers.

“Nice,” I said. “So you're part ninja and part magician, 'cause I don't wear those.”

“You should.”

I crossed my arms. “Oh? Why? You tryin' to say something about my hair?”

“No. But these make good emergency lockpicks.” He bent the pin apart. “Better than a paperclip.”

“Okay, Michael Weston. Now tell me how to rig a car to explode with a potted plant, a half-eaten yogurt, and a washing machine motor.”

“Weston is alright,” John said. “At least he knows his explosives.”

“He's fictional.”

“Details. Anyway...you see that door over there?” He nodded across the room to a completely innocent-looking wooden door with an industrial-grade silver doorknob. I knew what was going to happen next. John wasn't the kind of person to point out random doors unless they were going to get a good old-fashioned hardware hack in the near future.

Sure enough, a minute later, John was showing me how to pick the door's lock...with a hairpin.

As I worked at the lock with the makeshift pick, John said, “Now, I'm not saying your hair needs work or anything...”

“Good,” I said, sticking my tongue out in concentration. “'Cause if you were, it'd be reason number four hundred eighty-six for me to kick your ass one of these days.”

“...but you should really carry some of these with you. Preferably, in your hair. You never know when you'll need to pick a lock.”

“To date, the only doors I've hacked have been your doors.”

“Oh, this one isn't mine,” John said, rapping lightly on the door frame. He peered back over his shoulder—the third time he'd done so.

I paused. “Don't tell me you didn't ask the gym first.”

“Relax, Ellie. It's just a custodial closet...”

I rolled my eyes and kept working at the door. A few minutes later, my patience paid off—the lock clicked and turned. As promised, the door led to a room filled with cleaning supplies. Not the most rewarding payoff, and I said so.

“Just think,” I said. “Now I can have a lifetime supply of bleach and air fresheners for free. Yep. Crime sure does pay.”

“Cleaning supplies can be valuable,” John said, somehow managing to give the sentence just enough of a mysterious touch to make me not want to ask for any details. “Now, let's try that door over there.”

“You mean the one that says 'staff only'?”

“No, the one next to it.”

“Oh, you mean the invisible door that doesn't exist.”

“Yes.”

I shut the custodial room door behind me and tapped my bare foot against the carpet, glancing up at John. “I dunno,” I said. “The sign is there for a reason.”

“Think of the sign as a...guideline.” He held out another bobby pin, one that hadn't been bent out of shape yet. I chewed my inner lip and wondered if this was such a good idea. I mean, breaking into a custodial closet was one thing. Breaking into a staff area?

But then again...it was just a little ol' door...it wasn't like I was breaking into a bank or anything.

I grabbed the pin from John's hand, bent it like he'd shown me, and set off towards the door. John leaned against the door frame as I worked, shielding me from view of the hallway that led to the front desk. I could feel the amusement radiating off him, or maybe it was just the heat from his body...

#####

The next time we used bobby pins, it wasn't on a door lock.

As soon as I arrived at the gym, I could tell that something different was going to happen today. Maybe the little black nylon bag tucked beneath one of the benches at the periphery of the exercise room was a clue; maybe John was acting a little odd. Maybe it was that John himself led me back into the gym instead of the usual twiggish man at the front desk—the valet was nowhere to be seen.

Months ago, I wouldn't have even noticed that, but now, with John teaching me how to use the eyes and ears I'd been given, it struck me as strange.

“Where's Alfred Pennyworth?” I whispered as we entered the exercise room.

“Talking with Commissioner Gordon,” John said.

I rolled my eyes and headed back to the changing rooms. I emerged several minutes later dressed in a tank top and a pair of gray cotton shorts. When I got out to the mat, John and I took our time warming up and then started sparring. By now I was really sure that something different was going to happen, because it felt like John was going easy on me. I mean, not enough to where I could get him down on the mat (I was still eagerly awaiting that day), but enough to where I could hold my own against him.

We sparred for maybe twenty minutes, then John suggested a break.

“Come on, we were just getting started!” I said.

“Are you relaxed?” John asked.

“Uh—yeah, I guess.”

“Good. I have an idea—but you don't have to do it if you're not comfortable with it.”

“Do what?” I asked him, perplexed. I followed him off the mat and over to the bench, the one with the bag under it. John sat down and picked up the bag. He set it on his lap but didn't open it.

“So what's the 'idea' that requires me to be relaxed and comfortable?” I asked. I narrowed my eyes and said, “If it involves turning out the lights, forget it.”

“Not quite that, but right idea,” John said gently. He tilted his head and said, “How much harder do you think it is to pick the locks on a pair of handcuffs than a typical door lock?”

It took me a second to process what he had just said. As soon as I figured it out, I felt a funny feeling seep into my stomach: the same nauseous trembles I got whenever I stepped near a darkened doorway, or saw a cargo container (especially a red one), or even thought about having my blood drawn.

“I—I don't know?” I said, swallowing. “Harder?”

“Actually, easier, if you know how to do it,” John said.

“I...uh...” I wasn't sure what to say, but I was pretty sure of what was in the little black nylon bag now. Memories flashed before my eyes: waking up to find my wrists cuffed together; Tara grinning wickedly as she squeezed the garden shears with my pinky finger pinched between the blades; darkness, then the rumble of the car engine; Tara's harsh voice reverberating from the walls of the cargo container; the light of the headlights glinting off the steel cuffs that bound my wrists to the wall; the numbness in my hands as I struggled in the darkness; John throwing the cargo container doors wide and picking the lock on one of the cuffs in seconds; the caked blood on my wrists as John tenderly removed the other cuff once he had carried me out to the car; the breeze from the air conditioning drifting over my naked, overheated body...

I looked down and rubbed my wrists. The wounds had healed well. The doctor had promised that they wouldn't scar, but sometimes, if I looked real closely, I saw—or imagined—the faint outlines where the cold metal had bitten into my skin...

“I can teach you how to pick handcuffs locks if you want,” John said gently. “But I understand if you don't want to right now.” When I didn't respond right away, he added, “It might come in handy someday...”

I gulped and said, “What did you have in mind?”

“Well,” John said, and he reached out behind my ear and pulled out a bobby pin. “We'll start with this. Most of the time, you wouldn't have a real lockpick to work with. So you should carry your own. It's easier than trying to find one while cuffed.” He showed me how to bend it into the right shape, and he handed it to me. Then he unzipped the bag and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

Curiosity overcame the urge to cringe away. I made myself look. Nausea bubbled in my gut. Yep, those were handcuffs all right; metal and rivets and pure intimidation linked together by a short silver chain. The cuffs looked disturbingly robust.

John opened and closed one of the cuffs using a key, showing me how the double-ratchet system worked. Then he plucked the lock pick from my fingers, stuck it in one of the key holes, worked it from side to side, and several seconds later, the cuff fell open. He described how the lock worked, and then he reached into the nylon bag again and pulled out a piece of paper with a cutaway illustration of the lock mechanism. He pointed out various components of the latch on the drawing.

“It's easy, once you get the hang of it,” John said softly. “Watch again.”

He had the other cuff open in thirty seconds, which was probably a snail's pace for him. But it was still slow enough for me to figure out what he was doing.

Sorta.

He locked both cuffs again, then picked one of the locks a third time. Locked the cuff again and set the cuffs on the bench between us.

And then he handed me the lock pick.

I hesitated, then, slowly, I reached out and took it from his fingers. I gulped. My fingers brushed against the surface of the cuffs. They were icy cold. I didn't like touching them, even though the logical portion of my mind knew there was nothing to be afraid of—what were they going to do? Jump up and lock themselves around my wrists? John had the key. There was nothing to be afraid of. I could do this.

With shaking fingers, I picked up the cuffs, worked the pick into one of the keyholes, and spent the next few minutes battling the urge to vomit.

It took awhile to figure out the right motions necessary to unlatch the ratchet. As usual, John had made it look way easier than it was. I had to feel around with the pick to find where the latch was. John stayed quiet, for the most part; he only offered a few words of advice.

After a few minutes, I heard a click, and the cuff loosened.

“Very nice,” John said.

“Let me try the other side,” I said tentatively.

I managed to get the other cuff unlocked a minute or two sooner, but it was still an eternity of fumbling and scratching and picking compared to John's well-practiced movements.

John said, “Now you're probably wondering how to pick the cuffs if you're wearing them.” I wasn't, not really—I was thinking about other things, like what it was like to be trapped in a roasting cargo container and how I wished Tara could've endured the same torment—but I stayed quiet. “It's not too different,” John said. “It depends on which way the keyholes are facing.” As he spoke, he casually unlocked one of the cuffs, slipped it around his wrist, and ratcheted it closed with the key. “Now, it's a lot easier if the keyholes are facing out, but with these types of cuffs, it's not much more difficult to pick the locks even if they're facing the other way.” He unlocked the other cuff with the key and soon it was ratcheted around his wrist as well. He wasn't even looking down—he was looking at me. He held up his hands—now cuffed—and rattled the cuffs once, then motioned for the lock pick.

I handed it to him and watched, simultaneously fascinated and disturbed, as he stuck it into one of the keyholes and felt around for the latch. Several seconds later, the cuff fell open.

Just like that.

“A paperclip works okay too,” John said. “Really, almost anything thin and sturdy will do. Do you know what handcuffs are for?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “To keep somebody restrained when the police arrests them.”

“Exactly—they're temporary restraints. Not a replacement for prison bars and locked doors and watchful guards. Handcuffs aren't meant to be inescapable—they're just meant to last long enough to get the bad guy to the station.” He locked the cuff around his wrist again, then started picking the cuff on the opposite wrist. “When the police use handcuffs, the cuffs are always accompanied by a watchful officer. A skilled prisoner can easily slip the cuffs in dozens of ways, from lockpicking to dislocating their thumb. If they can find something to jimmy the lock, plus a little privacy for a few seconds...”

On cue, the cuff fell open.

“...they're much easier to slip than people think.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Now, some of the bad guys I've met know this. Most don't. In fact, most of 'em leave you alone and don't bother to watch you too closely, figuring that the cuffs will keep you subdued.”

“And how's that work out for them?”

“Not too well,” John said. “The ones that don't know how easy it is to escape from cuffs usually end up cuffed themselves. Somewhat poetic.” John smirked, but a moment later, it faded from his face. Concern showed in his eyes. He held up the cuffs and said, “Do you want to try?”

Fear bolted down my spine. I stared at the cuffs.

“I have the key,” John said. “Two of them, actually. But I understand if you don't want to do this.”

“I...I'll...” I wasn't sure what I was trying to say. I was having a hard time breathing. But the logical part of my brain was whispering in my ear, saying things like if you meet another Tara in the future, you'll be better prepared, and this might save your life, and stop worrying, John has the key, it'll be fine, and all these other things that somehow didn't reassure me very much.

“All right,” I whispered. I held out my wrists. My arms were trembling. Gently, John held my left hand and picked up the cuffs. I winced when the metal touched my skin. The sound of the ratchet was very loud in the silence between us.

“Maybe try just one first,” John said as I fought down nausea. The cuffs dangled from my wrist. I stared at it like it was some kind of parasite that had attached itself to me. John put the bobby pin in my free hand. Taking a deep breath to calm myself—or at least, to try and calm myself—I stuck it in the lock. At first, my fingers shook too much for me to feel for the latch. It took a minute or so to regain my dexterity, and then a small eternity to get the cuff open. I exhaled shakily once my wrist was finally free.

“Not bad at all,” John said. “Speed comes with practice. But I've seen many foolish guards leave prisoners alone for at least that long.”

“So, I should hope for inept captors,” I said. Damnit, even my voice was trembling.

“That always helps,” John said. He held up the cuffs again. “Do you want to try both wrists, or stop now and get back to trying to kick my ass?”

“I...sure, I guess,” I said. I took a deep breath and held out my wrists again.

Having one wrist cuffed wasn't too bad. I could take that. There was something strange about the way John ever-so-carefully closed the ratchet around my wrist, something almost erotic about the cold steel and his warm hands. But that feeling was quickly driven away when the cuffs were closed around my other wrist. I stared at my hands in horror. I could barely breathe; it felt like someone was squeezing my chest. John handed me the pick. I had to focus hard on getting it into the keyhole, and it took several tries. My fingers wouldn't obey me. I tried turning the pick, but it slipped from my fingers and fell to the carpet beneath the bench.

“I'll get it,” John said. He bent down and felt around for the pick. I was too terrified to speak. John seemed to be taking an impossibly long time to find the pick, and breathing was getting harder and harder, and it sounded like there was a freight train roaring in my ears—and then I heard Tara's voice, whispering poisonous things about how she wanted me to suffer, and I just couldn't take it any longer.

“J-J-John,” I stuttered, feeling very sick, “take t-them off, p-please. I can't do this.”

I didn't have to ask twice. Before I had even finished speaking, John had the key in his hand, and a moment later, the cuffs fell to the bench. I looked away.

“S-sorry,” I said, rubbing my wrists. “I just—”

“It's all right,” John said, patting my shoulder. “You did good.” He snagged the cuffs with his fingers and dropped them into the nylon case. The keys followed, and a moment later, the case was zippered shut. He tucked it under the bench again. I sat very still until John gave me one of his looks and said, “You still in the mood to kick my ass?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, sure. Just—give me a minute.”

“Okay,” he said.

I felt better when we got back on the mat, even though John had me on the ground in minutes. But later that night, I found myself lying awake in bed while the scene at the gym played itself over and over again before my eyes. I didn't fall asleep until three AM.

When I dressed the next morning, I put a few bobby pins in my hair. Just in case...

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

#####

Jocelyn Carter pulled her car into a parking space, turned off the engine, and yanked the keys from the ignition. She looked at the numbers affixed to the side of each building in the little apartment complex until she spotted the right address.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, she sighed.

You really want to get this girl involved? Carter thought to herself. She's nearly gotten herself killed twice now working with John. Now you're just enabling her. That thought was followed by, well, if I don't, he will. And maybe you can talk a little sense into her while you're there.

Pushing the car door open, Carter stepped out into the cool afternoon, toting the laptop beneath her arm. She walked up the cement sidewalk, past a line of shrubs and bushes planted against the wall of the gray building, and reached a dark green door with the brass numerals 14 set dead center. She knocked twice.

“Just a minute!” someone called faintly from inside the apartment. A few moments later, the lock scrabbled and the door opened several inches. A curious freckled face peered through the gap.

Carter said, “Remember me, Elizabeth? Detective Carter.”

“Oh!” said Elizabeth Ruben. Her face brightened. She grinned and swung the door wide. “How are you?”

“Fine, thanks,” said Carter. She showed Elizabeth the laptop. “I was hoping you'd have a minute to look at this thing. It's for a case.”

“Sure! Come in.” Elizabeth Ruben stepped back and motioned inside. She was wearing a long satin nightgown and her curly brown hair was unkempt. There were faint circles under her eyes. Carter noted with some amusement that Elizabeth's gown was almost the exact hue of green as the front door.

The last time Carter had seen Elizabeth, the young programmer—working undercover as Robin McCartney—had just been attacked and nearly killed in an office server room. The time before that, she had been rescued only hours prior from a horrifying death by heat stroke, bound and left to die in a cargo container. She had seemed so fragile then; withdrawn, in shock, clinging to anyone within arm's reach. Now she seemed happy and at ease—surprisingly so for someone who had narrowly escaped Death's claws twice in a year...

Carter wondered if the circles beneath Elizabeth's eyes were from more than just fatigue.

“Hope I'm not interrupting anything,” Carter said as she stepped into the apartment.

“No, I was just programming,” Elizabeth said. She swept towards the kitchen. The hem of her gown twirled around her bare feet and her hair bounced when she looked over her shoulder at Carter. “Want some tea?”

“Uh, no thanks,” Carter said. She looked around, taking in the simple, sparse decorations in the living room and kitchen, the photographs on the walls. There were a few dusty paperweights on the coffee table. A round red cookie tin sat on the kitchen counter, its lid ajar, and dishes were stacked in the sink. “Nice place. Cozy.”

“Thanks. So what's with the laptop? You forget your password?”

Carter set the laptop on the kitchen table. “I'm kinda borrowing it.”

“Ah, you're pulling a Rooney.”

“A what?”

“You know, a Rooney?” When Carter raised her eyebrows, Elizabeth said, "That's whenever 'John Rooney' gets all audacious and breaks into peoples' apartments and 'borrows' their things and—never mind.” She sat down at the table, balancing a cup of tea on a saucer, and she reached for the laptop. “Can I see?”

“All yours. I gotta get it back in a few hours though.”

“I'll clone the drive then,” Elizabeth said. Her fingers stroked the keyboard. “But first, let's see what we're dealing with...” She stuck out her tongue in concentration as the laptop booted. Carter watched over her shoulder as the operating system logo flashed on screen. The login prompt appeared.

“Oh, good,” Elizabeth said.

“'Good'? It's asking you for a password.”

“Well, yeah, but it looks like it's just an OS password. Just a sec.”

She stood and padded across the living room, disappearing through an open doorway. Carter heard the sounds of rustling. A moment later, Elizabeth reappeared with a flash drive and a sleek black external hard drive clutched in her hands.

She grinned and said, “Betcha I can get at the files in less than five minutes.”

Carter raised her eyebrows as Elizabeth seated herself before the laptop again.

“No bet,” Carter said. “I know better than to put money against you geeky types.”

“You're no fun,” Elizabeth said. She plugged the flash drive into a USB port on the side of the laptop. She tapped a button on the keyboard as it booted and the laptop displayed a new, unfamiliar logo. It disappeared a moment later and lines of text began scrolling down the screen, white on black.

“It'll take a bit to boot,” Elizabeth said. The text disappeared, to be replaced by a simple blue progress bar crawling from left to right across an otherwise blank screen. The laptop's fan whispered and the hard drive grumbled. Carter glanced at Elizabeth as the laptop did whatever it was that it was doing.

There were definitely circles under the young programmer's eyes.

“You look tired,” Carter said.

“Huh?” said Elizabeth. “Oh, yeah.” She waved her hand dismissively over the keyboard. “Haven't been sleeping well lately.”

The progress bar continued to grow towards the right edge of the screen, but Carter paid little attention.

“Nightmares?” she guessed.

Elizabeth looked surprised. She hesitated, then shrugged, but didn't look away from the laptop.

“Kinda,” she said. Her fingers idly tapped the keys. “How'd you know?”

“Lucky guess.”

Elizabeth chuckled. “You're psychic like Mama. But...yeah. It's been a rough few weeks.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” Elizabeth said. The progress bar on the laptop screen faded out, to be replaced by another login prompt. Elizabeth's fingers flew over the keyboard and tapped the enter key. A plain blue desktop appeared on the screen.

“Awesome,” Elizabeth said. “Let's see...”

The next five minutes was filled with file browsers and terminal windows. Carter had no idea what Elizabeth was doing, even after Elizabeth tried to explain it.

“The operating system on the laptop won't let us log in,” Elizabeth said as she typed a long command into a terminal window. “So if we boot a second operating system that can grok the native file system, we can access the files directly if they're not encrypted. We just have to mount the partition and—hah! See?”

“Way over my head, hun,” said Carter.

“Let's poke around and see if we can find some emails or something,” said Elizabeth. She took a sip of tea and opened yet more terminal windows.

Carter wondered if Elizabeth really needed all of those command prompts.

“Hmmm...” Elizabeth chewed the inside of her lip. “I see a shortcut to Thundermail...but where is it pointing?”

“It says it's on D drive,” Carter said, squinting at the screen. “You can get to that, right?”

“Yeah, but we're in Linux right now—D is going to be something like 'dev sda3'. I...don't see it in the mount list. Lemme open up parted...”

She typed a few commands. Her fingers faltered.

“Awwww, crap,” Elizabeth groaned. She leaned back in her chair and exhaled. “It's an encrypted partition.”

“Can you get in?” Carter asked.

“I doubt it. I mean, I'll try, but I don't think so.” She sighed. “I'll clone the disk so you can give the laptop back.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate this, by the way. Usually, I got a guy who does things like this, but he's busy.”

“No problem,” Elizabeth said. “I needed a break. Tracking down segfaults in a C program is a pain, you know?”

“I'll take your word for it.”

Elizabeth hooked up the external hard drive and started the cloning application running. An ETA of 10 minutes appeared in a status window.

“Small drive,” Elizabeth commented. “I'll copy it to one of my machines too, see if I can get anywhere with a wordlist. But if the owner has a long passphrase...”

“It's all right,” said Carter. “We may not even need it.”

“Meh,” Elizabeth said. “So what's the story? Whose laptop is this, anyway? I'm gonna guess it's not an official case, since you 'borrowed' it...”

“It belongs to a girl named Anna Winslow. John's tailing her around New York right now.”

“What'd she do?”

“Dunno. As usual. But we'll find out soon enough.”

Conversation languished. For a while, the loudest sound in the room was the laptop's fan and the rumble of Elizabeth's refrigerator. The cloning application displayed its progress every few seconds and the completion percentage crept upward.

“You sure you don't want some tea?” Elizabeth said. “I'd offer coffee, but...I don't have any.”

“I'm good, thanks,” Carter said.

Silence. Elizabeth watched the screen, her eyes glassy. She fidgeted often, Carter noticed; Elizabeth shuffled her legs, tapped her feet, and ran her fingers absentmindedly through her hair.

“Hey,” Elizabeth asked after some time. “You ever wonder how John's Bat Signal works?”

Carter had to think about the question for a moment before she realized what Elizabeth was asking. “You mean how he knows somebody's about to get themselves in trouble?”

“Yeah,” Elizabeth said. “I mean, I've asked him. And I kinda got this 'we'd have to kill you if we told you' vibe, or maybe 'someone else would try to kill you if you knew'. I mean, it's weird, you know? He says so-and-so is gonna be in trouble soon, or maybe they're going to murder someone, and then a day or two later it turns into Burn Notice. Every time. Sometimes they get it backwards—Mary Jane isn't in danger from her crazy abusive boyfriend, but maybe she's actually planning to kill him. But something always happens.”

Carter nodded absently. “Sounds about right. I don't know for sure. I got a few ideas, but...” She exhaled and shook her head. “I gave up trying to ask about it.”

Elizabeth grinned and said, “If I was a little less skeptical, I'd say one of the Justice League was psychic.”

“Huh. Hadn't thought of that one. But I've seen so many bullshit 'psychics' in my time as a homicide detective...”

“Yeah. I dunno. Just curious.” She yawned, covering her mouth. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

Carter glanced sidelong at Elizabeth, whose attention was once again focused on the laptop. “You get nightmares often?” Carter asked.

“Kinda. It's fine, really, it is. They just get worse some nights, but it's a small price to pay for being alive.”

“That doesn't mean you have to just put up with them,” Carter said gently. “If they're a problem—”

“They're not,” Elizabeth said.

“Well, if they ever do become a problem, and you need to talk about them—or anything else— you can always call me. You know that, right? 'S why I gave you my card.”

“I know, I know,” Elizabeth said. “It's in my desk drawer.”

“Okay,” Carter said.

More silence. The progress percentage slowly increased. Elizabeth tapped her foot against the chair leg.

Well, Carter thought, let's see if I have more luck than John—assuming he even tried to talk her out of his shenanigans after things went to hell at Connetrix.

“Do you feel like you owe him?” Carter asked gently.

Elizabeth tilted her head and looked at Carter, but for several seconds, she didn't say anything. Her expression was equal parts annoyance and amusement, with maybe a tiny bit of uncertainty mixed in.

“Well...yeah,” she said, balancing her chin on her hands and contemplating the laptop in front of her. “I mean, he saved my life. That's kinda a big deal.”

“It is,” Carter agreed. “But that doesn't mean you owe him a—what do they call it in Star Trek? A Wookie life debt?”

“Star Wars,” Elizabeth mumbled. “It's Star Wars. There aren't any Wookies in Star Trek.”

“Right. I'm just saying. It's natural to feel grateful to the person who saved your life. Not saying you should feel differently. But John doesn't expect you to owe him anything. You're smart, Elizabeth, and you've got a rich life ahead of you. But if you keep getting tangled up in these cases—there's no nice way to say it: you're gonna end up dead.”

“Meh,” Elizabeth said. “Did John ask you to try and talk me out of helping again? 'Cause I'm not changing my mind. Yeah, I owe him—but that's not why I wanna help. I just wanna give other people the same chance I got, y'know? And I like what we do. It's kinda secret-agent-ey, but for a good cause. Like Burn Notice meets Batman meets Robin Hood. Except John doesn't wear tights or a cape.”

That would make a great photograph, Carter thought, but she kept it to herself. She said, “There's nothing I can say that will make you reconsider, huh?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Elizabeth said. She smiled weakly. She motioned to the laptop screen and said, “The clone's almost finished. The second copy will go way faster—this laptop's USB port is pretty slow.”

When the disk clone was finally done, Elizabeth disappeared into the back of the apartment again and came out a few moments later with a second external hard drive and a tiny netbook. She connected both drives to the netbook and used it to copy the disk image over to the new drive. As promised, it took much less time than it had with Anna's laptop. When Elizabeth was done, she disconnected one of the drives and handed it to Carter.

“You can hang on to the drive for awhile,” she said. “I'm gonna try to crack my copy of the partition, but I don't think it'll get very far. Your tech might be able to do better...”

“We'll see,” Carter said. “Thanks again, Elizabeth. And remember—you've got my card. Anything—anything you need to talk about, I'm a ring away.”

“I know,” Elizabeth said. Carter collected Anna's laptop and tucked it under her arm.

“And, by the way,” she said. “Hanging around John makes you forget, but privacy is still a thing. If you're worried about too many ears, you can always come by the precinct and we can chat, just the two of us. Nobody else needs to hear about it. Just, uh, leave your cell phone at the door.”

Elizabeth laughed and shook her head. She said, “You're just like Mama, you know that? But, really—I appreciate it. I just—there's nothing to talk about. I'm fine.”

“All right...” Carter said.

Well, she thought to herself as she stepped outside, I tried.

#####

My burner phone rang while I fixed myself another cup of tea, less than five minutes after Carter left my apartment. I ran back to the bedroom, snagged the phone off the nightstand, and held it to my ear.

“Good afternoon, Ellie,” came John's voice.

“You owe me a cookie,” I said.

“Why, did Shaw stop by today?”

I laughed and paced my bedroom. “I meant for looking at the laptop, silly. I'm gonna try to crack the password with a wordlist, but I don't think I can get in unless Anna Whoever has a really lousy password, like 'password'.”

“It's possible,” John said. “She's not very, ah, security-conscious. I'm watching her right now.”

“What's she doing?” I went back out to the kitchen, scooped up the netbook and external hard drive with one hand, and carried them back to the bedroom. I set the netbook on my desk next to my keyboard and plugged the tiny laptop into its equally tiny power supply. Then I went back out to fetch my tea and finally settled in at my desk.

“Not much. She's about to go into a business meeting with a potential new client.”

“What's she do for a living?” I set the cell phone on my desk and put it on speakerphone so I could have both hands free to type.

“Import-export business,” John said.

“You know, on Burn Notice, that almost always means 'smuggler'.”

“You'd be surprised at how legitimate—and lucrative—the business can be,” John said. I watched the little netbook run through its boot cycle until its login prompt popped into view, then entered my credentials. John said, “But you're right; businesses like that make a good front. Either way, it takes a certain type to pull it off. Anna looks like she's it—charismatic, likeable, shrewd, good with numbers.”

“So what makes you think somebody's about to off her?”

“The usual signs,” John said mysteriously.

“Uh-huh. Anything I can do to help?”

“Try to get into that partition, but no worries if you can't—Finch might have better luck when he gets back.”

“Oh?” I grinned. “When Finch gets back from where?”

John didn't respond for a few seconds.

“From wherever he is,” he said lightly. I rolled my eyes.

“Anna's on the move,” John said suddenly. “I gotta go. We'll talk later—and I'll bring cookies.”

“Make sure Shaw doesn't eat them,” I said. I heard a chuckle, and then the line went dead. I glared at the phone and snapped it shut.

I spent the next half-hour setting up the attack on the encrypted partition. I decided to use the netbook to try to crack the password—the netbook might've been the smallest computer I owned, but it was also the most powerful, and I still hadn't managed to get it to overheat...yet. After spending a few minutes browsing online, I found that my favorite password-cracking app would work on encrypted partitions with only a few configuration tweaks. I told the cracking application to utilize my largest word list—114 gigabytes of English words in several dialects. The app would first try as many combinations of words as it could from the word list, staying under a certain character limit (I picked the rather arbitrary value of 21), and if none of those worked, it would try brute-forcing the password one character at a time. I left the brute-force settings where they were—minimum password length of one character, max unbounded, use all possible ASCII characters—because I knew that if the wordlist didn't crack the password there was little point in trying to brute-force it for very long. Depending on how complex the password was, it might've taken longer to crack it using brute-force techniques than the universe had left to exist. So I didn't bother optimizing the brute-force settings.

Once everything was configured just so, I set the application running. The little fan in the base of the netbook kicked on immediately, and soon hot air was pouring out of the vent on the side as the cracking application harnessed the computational power of the discrete GPU inside. I spent another five minutes writing a script to shut down the netbook if it got too hot—I didn't think it would overheat, but I wasn't willing to bet on that, and I didn't want to risk frying the GPU by running it hot for a long period of time.

Admit it, I thought as I worked. You're getting attached to Sybil's little gift...

I finished the script, enabled it, and set the netbook aside, being careful not to jostle the attached hard drive too much. I blanked the screen, too; otherwise, I would've been tempted to check every few minutes to see if it had managed to crack the password.

You sure that thing won't overheat? I thought to myself. The fan is running awful loud.

On a whim, I set the netbook on four little post-it note pads, one at each corner, to make sure there was a large enough air gap underneath so the fan could draw air inside. Just to be safe.

Yep. Totally attached.

I smirked and turned my attention back to my desktop. Soon I was deep in my debugging groove, and after awhile, I didn't even notice the whir of the netbook's fan.

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

As a general rule, Harold Finch preferred libraries to coffee shops. The latter tended to be chaotic, bustling places, permeated with frantic energy, and this one was no exception. There were dozens of patrons packed inside. Their conversations blurred together into an ever-varying background babble, punctuated by the noises from behind the counter: the growl of the blenders, the yells of the overworked baristas, and the clang of metal on metal as utensils and containers were dropped into sinks. And, heavens, the smell wasoverwhelming...! Finch much preferred the pungent scent of leather-bound pages, to be best enjoyed in a room where absolutely nobody was talking.

Unfortunately, Robert Bartley did not share Finch's appreciation for literature.

Finch had chosen a small table in the corner of the coffee shop, partially for privacy and partially because the wireless access point was mounted to the wall above and slightly behind him, affording him the best possible connection to the coffee shop's complementary wireless network. Finch sat with his back to the wall, both to conceal his laptop's screen and to keep an eye on Bartley, who was two tables away. He looked little different than he had in the photographs Finch had pulled from his social networking profiles; a little older, perhaps, but the green-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt was just as offensive to Finch's sense of fashion as had been the shirts Bartley had been wearing in the photos.

Bartley had his own laptop; a sleek, thin device that Finch recognized immediately as an IFT UltraPad, though a slightly larger model than the netbook that Elizabeth Ruben used. Bartley's typing was rapid, but uncertain; his fingers perpetually hovered near the backspace key. Finch could see part of the laptop screen from where he sat; Bartley appeared to be checking his emails. A steaming paper cup sat uncomfortably close to his keyboard, but he hadn't touched it since he had sat down.

As Finch watched Bartley type, Shaw's voice crackled in his earpiece.

“Are you done yet, Harold?” she asked.

Finch peered past Bartley. Beyond the front windows of the coffee shop, an inconspicuous black town car was parked across the street. Shaw was in the passenger seat, and she appeared to be dangerously bored.

“No, Miss Shaw,” Finch said. “And might I add, asking me every four minutes will not make the process go any faster.”

“You sound grumpy, Finch. Just 'cause you couldn't bluejack his phone doesn't mean you have to get all crabby.”

“I am not 'crabby', Miss Shaw; I'm merely concentrating. And Mr. Bartley does not seem to own a cell phone. Even I am unable to hack something that does not exist.”

Shaw yawned quite loudly in his ear. “You know,” she said, “I could just mug Bob when he walks out. Grab his laptop, run—profit.”

“I would prefer a more...subtle approach,” Finch said.

“I can be really subtle,” Shaw said. “For example, I could say, subtly, something like: 'If you don't finish up in the next ten minutes, I'm going to borrow some of Reese's C4 and—'”

“I believe our definitions of 'subtlety' differ,” Finch said. His eyes flickered up to Bartley again, then back down to the laptop. Finch's network analysis program was still running, examining each of the computers connected to the wireless network—fifty seven of them in total. (No wonder the network is so congested, Finch thought.) As soon as it identified the network traffic from Bartley's laptop, Finch set up a filter to block out the rest of the wireless chatter, allowing him to focus only on the traffic flowing to and from Bartley's laptop.

Finch mumbled as he worked. “Mr. Bartley is encrypting all of his network traffic and tunneling it through a VPN provider in Switzerland. It's most likely a bouncer...the company looks quite dubious. I think it would be more effective to probe Mr. Bartley's laptop and infect it with a backdoor, rather than attack his VPN.”

“That's your definition of subtlety? Hack his laptop?”

“It's at least more subtle than stealing it,” Finch pointed out. He started a port scan on Bartley's laptop. The scanning application quickly reported several insecure applications running behind open firewall ports. This was bad news for Bartley but excellent news for Finch, who merely needed to find a suitable exploit for one of those applications to gain access to the laptop. He watched the port scanner as it finished its preliminary scan and began to search deeper for vulnerabilities.

“Well,” Shaw said, “while you're being subtle, why don't you subtly grab me one of those glazed starfish cookies they sell there? Actually, you know what, make it three. And a slice of that really goodlemon cake. And a large coffee, black, with one sugar.”

“Would you like fries with that, Miss Shaw?”

“Do they really have French fries there?”

“No.”

When the scan on Bartley's laptop had finished, Finch allowed himself the tiniest of smirks. Behind one of the open firewall ports was an aging and insecure remote desktop application—one that Finch could use to stick his virtual foot in the door. It took only a minute for Finch to select an exploit from his library and send it over the wireless network to the laptop.

“Got you...” he mumbled softly.

“Oh, good,” Shaw said. “Are you done now? I'm really getting hungry.”

“No,” Finch said.

“C'mon, Finch. I'm starving. I'm dying here.”

“Miss Shaw, you ate lunch not more than an hour ago.” Finch waited several seconds for the exploit to burrow its way into the system, establish permanence there, and open an arbitrary port on the firewall. Then, he tried connecting to the laptop and was greeted with a list of files on Bartley's hard drive.

“You'll miss me when I'm gone,” Shaw was saying. “You'll—”

“I'm in,” Finch said. “But I cannot download files at any appreciable speed over this—this—this misconfigured, over-congested excuse for a wireless network. I'll have to be extremely selective.”

“Go for the porn first,” Shaw suggested. “As long as it's not weird purple midget balloon porn or something.”

Finch raised his eyebrows and said, “I'll keep your suggestion in mind.”

“I was kidding. Well, only kinda. His kinks could tell us a lot about him. Like, for example, people who are into rubber duckies? Usually freaks. Not always though. I once knew this guy, he—”

Finch began to probe the laptop's file system, but before he could open more than a few files, the network connection stalled. He looked up to see that Bartley had closed the laptop, putting it into sleep mode. Bartley stretched and took a sip from his drink, then slipped the laptop into a carrying case and headed for the door.

“Change of plans, Miss Shaw,” said Finch. “Mr. Bartley is on the move.”

“Did he find out that you were—?”

“No, I don't think so. It's merely coincidental timing.” Finch shut down his own laptop. “Follow him. I'll return to the library shortly. The next time Mr. Bartley connects his laptop to the Internet, I'll be able to examine it remotely.”

“Okay. Hey, how long is the line in there? Because I could really use a cookie right now and Elizabeth's apartment is too far away.”

With a wince, Finch slung the laptop case over his shoulder and said, “No time, Miss Shaw. Follow Mr. Bartley.”

“Fine,” Shaw pouted.

#####

Finch did not return to the library immediately. Instead, he walked to a nearby park. Ambling stiffly down the sidewalk, he drew no notice from any of the pedestrians around him as he made his way to a bench and sat down beneath the leafy branches of a sprawling oak tree. The weather was a little cold for this time of year, but not unreasonably so. Finch much preferred this sort of temperate spring weather to the sickly swelter of the summer, especially since it was very difficult to adequately cool the derelict library building during the hottest months of the year.

Less than a minute after Finch sat down, Detective Carter came around the bend in the sidewalk and took a seat next to him.

“Punctual as always, Detective,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Carter. She reached into her coat and pulled out the external hard drive that Elizabeth had given her. It fit neatly into the palm of her hand, trailing a short USB cable like a mouse's tail. Finch reached for it, but before he could take it, Carter pulled it back and held it just out of his grasp.

“You need to keep Elizabeth safe,” Carter said, leveling a finger at him. “Because that girl just doesn't give a shit about her own skin.”

Much like an owl, Finch gazed unblinkingly at Carter and said, “I'm well aware that Miss Ruben has a rather...reckless attitude towards her mortality.”

“Sounds familiar. Look, she's loyal to a fault. Don't abuse it. And don't you send her anywhere you wouldn't go yourself. If you do, you're gonna answer to me.”

“I would never knowingly place Miss Ruben in harm's way,” Finch said carefully. “She's a valuable asset to our cause.”

“She's a victim,” Carter said. “And don't you forget that.” She sighed and handed him the hard drive. “I'm sure you can figure out how to access whatever she put on there.”

“Of course,” Finch said. He slipped the drive into a pocket in his suit jacket.

Carter leaned her elbows on her knees, clasped her hands together, and glanced around the park.

“So why are we looking into this Anna girl, anyway?” Carter asked.

“To be honest, I don't know,” said Finch. “She may be connected to the other name we gave you.”

“If she is, I can't find anything. And I dug pretty deep. Their sheets are clean. That Bartley guy? A few parking tickets. Anna? Not even that. Clean finances, no known criminal associations...I dunno what to tell you.” She smirked. “If it was anybody but you, I'd say your intel was off.”

“It's not.”

“Yeah, I figured that.”

“Mr. Reese is tailing Miss Winslow as we speak; Miss Shaw is following Mr. Bartley. If we are fortunate, a connection or threat will reveal itself soon.”

“Could one of them be planning to bump the other off?”

“Possibly. They could be both victims; they could be both perpetrators. It's too early to tell.”

“It's always a mystery with you,” Carter muttered. Finch raised his eyebrow. Carter waited for a response, but when it became clear that she wasn't going to get one, she stood and said, “I should get back to my day job. Good luck with that hard drive.”

“Thank you, Detective Carter,” said Finch. He hesitated, blinked, then said, “Detective, might I ask—how is our Agent Donnelly doing these days?”

“Same old, same old,” Carter said. “Thinks he's gonna get close to our boy by finding people he's helped or stopped. He hasn't had much luck, but he's still trying. I hope John's telling his rescuees to keep a low profile.”

“Oh, he is. The last thing we need is an overly-thankful would-be-victim singing praises to the press about the Man in the Suit. But most of the people we save understand the need for discreteness. As for the perpetrators—there is little to be done about that, I'm afraid. I trust you'll let us know if Donnelly stumbles on any leads?”

“Yeah,” Carter sighed. She glanced around the park. “You'll be the second to know.”

“Excellent,” Finch said. He stood, wincing, and said, “Good day, Detective.”

Carter nodded and walked away.

#####

Finch took his usual roundabout route to the library and slipped into the decrepit building via the concealed entrance in the tunnel. As he made his way upstairs and unlocked the gate, he was greeted by an eager bark and the clatter of claws on the linoleum floor.

“Hello, Bear,” Finch said, scritching behind the dog's ears. “Have you had a productive day ferociously guarding my innermost lair?” He opened one of the filing cabinets and fished out a dog treat from a tin in the top drawer. Bear froze in anticipation as soon as he saw the treat.

“Good boy,” said Finch. He tossed the treat to Bear, who snatched it right out of the air and began chewing. His tail wagged in satisfaction. Smiling, Finch limped off to prepare a cup of tea for himself. Bear followed, doubtlessly hoping for another tasty tidbit.

Once he had settled in at his desk, Finch dialed a number on the speakerphone.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Reese,” he said as he connected Elizabeth Ruben's hard drive to one of his computers. “Anything to report?”

“Anna's done nothing but hit the shops all day since her meeting,” Reese said. “She bought a few books, an MP3 player. A nice one, I think. Bluetooth enabled, so I bluejacked it. The client she was meeting isn't a threat to anybody—just a guy who wants to sell plastic poodles in France. Sent you his picture. I looked around the office she rents downtown, but there wasn't much to see. I might check it again tomorrow. How about your guy, Shaw?”

“Nada,” came Shaw's voice. “Robert has been sitting in the park and typing on that laptop for almost an hour—out of wifi range. Look, Finch, I think I'm gonna faint. I've diagnosed myself with low blood sugar. I had an ice cream cone and it didn't help. I need cookies. Reese, if I die, you can have my Beretta. Take good care of it.”

“I will,” Reese promised. “Also, if you're in the car, check under your seat.”

A pause. Rustling.

“...a bag of banana chips?” Shaw said. “Really? How long have these been here?”

“A few months, probably. Would you rather starve?”

Shaw hung up.

After Reese signed off, Finch began to examine the hard drive. As he had expected, it was a byte-for-byte clone of Anna's hard drive, including the encrypted partition. Finch spent a half-hour examining the unencrypted portion of the hard drive for any files of interest, but they were few and far between; the most interesting files were shortcuts and history items that pointed to a location within the encrypted partition itself.It would have to be decrypted before he could make any further analysis. So Finch unmounted the drive and connected it to the computer that was currently cracking the hard drive recovered from the Connetrix server room several months before.

Finch suspected that Elizabeth Ruben had made the exact same examination of Anna's hard drive, and perhaps even now was attempting to crack its password. But he doubted she had access to the high-performance computing hardware necessary to test an adequate number of potential passwords per second. Finch had designed this computer specifically for the purpose of cracking passwords, and it was almost certainly more effective at that than any of the hardware Elizabeth owned.

(Not that it was a contest or anything of the sort...)

He paused the current running job, saved its progress, and then reconfigured the password cracker to work on Elizabeth's external hard drive instead of the one from the Connetrix server. He started the program running and instructed the computer to send him a SMS alert if it found the passphrase.

After the process was underway, Finch sighed and switched to his main desktop. He opened a web browser and began to search the Internet for more digital footprints left behind by Anna Winslow and Robert Bartley.

#####

Finch worked well into the night. He paused once, late in the evening, to take Bear for a short walk. When Finch returned to the library, he immediately resumed his search for further information on the two Numbers, but he was still unable to find even a hint of a connection between them.

At Reese's urging, he decided to stop at one in the morning.

“You won't be able to do much without sleep,” Reese said over the speakerphone. “We'll figure it out tomorrow, Harold.”

“And when will you be sleeping tonight, Mr. Reese?” asked Finch.

“Soon,” Reese said. “Carter and I are working in shifts. Shaw is doing the same with Fusco. She talked him into bringing take-out from Addison's somehow.”

Shaw's voice crackled on the line. “Mmm. Mmph, this burger is really good, Finch. Oh, god, yes. Mmm. Just saying.”

In the background, a gruff voice said, “You having sex over there? And tell glasses he owes me for dinner!”

“Kindly tell Detective Fusco that I'll cover the bill,” Finch said. He was pleased that his operatives were taking care of themselves—for once—but at the same time he was just a little bit saddened. He was all too aware that he was alone at the library.

After exchanging good-nights and see-you-tomorrows with his operatives, he terminated the call, and turned off all of the monitors. He rose, painfully, and staggered off in search of a cup of tea and his pain pills—he had been at the desk much too long.

Several minutes later, he returned to the desk with a steaming teacup clasped in one hand. He clicked on one of the monitors, intending to check one last time on the progress of the password-cracking application before he left the library. (Even though it was programmed to alert him if it succeeded, he still preferred to see an indication of progress.) He typed in his password and immediately noticed a little icon flashing in the upper-right corner of the screen.

A new IRC message? he thought. Surely that isn't...?

He clicked the icon, bringing up the IRC window. The new message appeared in a private conversation window.

< elev> Hah! I GOT it! starling5 is *mine*. Pwned it using a RPC exploit. I left the usual proof-of-conquest in /root. Tricky, tricky! I just now got it.

Finch's eyes darted to the clock in the corner of the screen, then back to the IRC window. Carefully, he typed:

< Corvus> Congratulations! I was not expecting you to hack that server so quickly. I put it online merely two days ago...

< Corvus> But it is 1:17AM in your timezone, m'dear. Should you not be in bed?

He waited for a response.

It's too late, he thought. She probably sent the message right before she detached from her client shell—

A new line of text appeared on the screen.

< elev> I *am* in bed, silly. I just happen to have a laptop in bed with me.

Raising his eyebrows, Finch typed:

< Corvus> You're sleeping with your laptop? This is a side of you I was not aware of, m'dear.

Another reply appeared a few seconds later.

< elev> This is how rumors get started, you know. :P It doesn't help that I'm not wearing a whole lot right now.

< elev> But I'll leave that up to your imagination. :)

< elev> What about you? Is it late where you live as well? Shouldn't you be sleeping too?

Finch chuckled. Much as John Reese had probed for information on his mysterious benefactor during the early days of his employment, Elizabeth Ruben—“elev”—occasionally tried to coax revealing information from Corvus. Most people would not have considered their time zone to be revealing, but of course, Harold Finch was not most people.

< Corvus> It's late enough. But I function well on minimal sleep.

< elev> That must be nice.

< elev> I've been staying up too late studying and telecommuting at Landis for the past few months. Another night isn't gonna kill me, I guess.

< elev> Got another server for me to attack?

Finch blew over the surface of his tea, then took a sip.

< Corvus> I must admit, m'dear, you have temporarily out-hacked me. I don't have another server ready for you to examine just yet and probably will not for another few days.

< elev> Oh, cool! Well, notch in my keyboard. That one was tough. RPC is a pain in the butt.

< Corvus> Its subtle nuances can be difficult, yes. But it is valuable to know. Its heyday is most assuredly not over.

< elev> Yeah; NFS uses it.

< elev> NFS seems like it'd be an easy target if you could attack a network from inside, since it's usually run on LANs where the clients are (sorta) trusted...and the RFC portmapper it uses is pretty insecure. Seems like an interesting vector.

Finch smiled. He liked the way Elizabeth's mind immediately jumped to potential exploits for a given technology.

< Corvus> Indeed.

< Corvus> If you are curious, you should research some of the other procedure calls for NFS. I may set up an NFS server on a private LAN for you to attack later...

< elev> That sounds fun!

< Corvus> I will have it ready in a week or so, depending on how busy I am.

< elev> Awesome. No rush. :)

Finch glanced at the clock again: 1:34AM.

< Corvus> You should really be sleeping right now.

Elizabeth's response took a little longer than usual.

< elev> I don't want to sleep tonight.

< elev> Had some creepy weird dreams last night and I'm just not feeling that tired.

< elev> It's more fun to stay up chatting!

< Corvus> Indeed it is.

< Corvus> I was considering burning the midnight oil myself. I am behind on some important work.

< elev> Oh! I'll let you be so you can work then :)

Finch's fingers stumbled on the keyboard.

< Corvus> Oh, no, it's perfectly all right. I would welcome the company.

< Corvus> Just be aware that if I stop responding, I may have fallen asleep at my desk.

< elev> Been there, done that. :) Let's see how late we can stay up together.

< Corvus> Staying up late together? I believe that is how rumors get started, m'dear...

< elev> Hah!

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

“Hey,” Carter said. She nudged Reese's shoulder. Instantly alert, Reese opened his eyes and looked around the dark interior of the car.

“'S six o'clock,” Carter said. She fetched the thermos from the foot well, popped off the cup, and unscrewed the lid. The bitter aroma of coffee filled the car, rich and invigorating. She poured Reese a cup and handed it to him. “Sleep well?”

“Well enough,” Reese said, accepting the cup. “Thanks.” He peered out the dirty windshield at the apartment building across the street. The faint morning light washed the world a dull, uniform gray but for the warm yellow squares of lit windows. “Any activity around Anna's place?”

“Nothing,” Carter said. “She's still sleeping.” She yawned. “Look, I hate to leave the party, but I gotta head to the precinct soon. Go do your business before I go.”

Reese raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He set his cup on the dash, pushed open his door, stepped outside, and walked down the sidewalk. A few dozen yards away, he turned into an alley and vanished. A minute passed, and then he sauntered back out of the alley and made his way back to the car.

Carter could've sworn Reese's hair hadn't been that nicely combed when he'd awoken. What'd he do, carry a comb with him everywhere?

“I can take it from here,” Reese said once he was back in the car. “Anna should be up in an hour or so.”

“Good luck.” Carter reached behind her and grabbed her coat from the back seat, then pushed her door open.

“Hey, Joss?” said Reese. Carter paused halfway out of the car.

“Yeah?” she said.

“Thanks,” Reese said. A tiny grin appeared on his face. “Maybe we can meet up at Addison's after this case?”

“'S a date,” Carter said. She smiled, held Reese's gaze a moment longer, then closed the car door and walked off into the dawn.

#####

John's breakfast was the remnants of a bag of stale “barbeque flavored” potato chips. He munched on them as the sun rose, keeping his eyes on the window of Anna's bedroom. At seven o'clock, a flash of movement flickered between the floral drapes. Reese caught a glimpse of black hair, a dark shoulder, and blue silken pajamas as Anna woke and shuffled off into another room of the apartment. The living room window lit up soon after.

Reese glanced down at his phone, which displayed live security camera footage from the apartment building. One of the hallway cameras was positioned near Anna's apartment. Finch had set up a motion-sensitive trigger to send an alert to Reese's phone if anyone stepped too close to Anna's front door. So far, no one had.

Anna walked past the window several times over the course of the next half hour. At first, she was still in her pajamas; the time after that, she was wearing a gray tank top and jeans. Just a few minutes shy of eight o'clock, she opened the front door of her apartment and stepped outside. The phone buzzed when the motion sensor detected her movement; Reese canceled the alert and then followed her progress through the building by switching between cameras. She took the stairs and soon reached the lobby. Reese watched her descend the front steps of the building and amble down the sidewalk.

Reese's phone rang as he stepped out of the car into the cold morning sunshine. He reached up and tapped his ear.

“Good morning, Finch,” he said. He crossed the street and followed Anna down the sidewalk.

“Good morning, Mr. Reese,” came Finch's voice. “I hope you had a restful night.”

“I did. What about you, Harold? How late did you stay up past your bedtime?”

“Vigilantes don't have bedtimes, Mr. Reese. Has Miss Winslow awoken yet?”

“Yep,” said Reese. “Following her right now. She's headed uptown.”

Anna stopped at the street corner, waiting for the crosswalk light to change. Reese hung back until the walk symbol appeared, then waited a little longer before crossing the street behind his target. As he moved, he said, “Anything happen with Bartley?”

“No. Mr. Bartley stayed home all night and went to bed at approximately ten o'clock. He woke up several minutes ago and is now feeding his cats—all five of them. Miss Shaw says, and I quote, that Mr. Bartley is going to die an old man with too many cats.”

“Nothing wrong with cats,” Shaw's voice cut onto the line. “But damn, this guy is boring. No, wait—he just got a phone call on his land line. Finch, can you patch me in?”

“Working on it,” Finch said. “I'll check in with you later, Mr. Reese. Stay safe.”

“Always, Harold.” Reese signed off.

He followed Anna for several blocks. The pedestrians on the sidewalk became more numerous and so did the street traffic. Reese had to run to make it across the last sidewalk. He crossed the street just in time to see Anna's curly hair vanish down the entrance to a subway station.

Reese picked up his pace and shouldered his way through the crowd of pedestrians at the station entrance. As he descended the staircase, he started the spoofer app on his phone. He reached the turnstiles and waved the phone near the card sensor, allowing him to pass through without breaking stride.

He reached the train just in time to see the doors close behind Anna. With a grumble, the subway lurched into motion and disappeared into the tunnel.

Reese sighed.

“Finch?” he said. “I've lost Anna. She went in the subway. Track her phone when she gets off.”

Finch took several seconds to respond.

“The New York cellular network reports that Miss Winslow's cell phone has not moved since last night,” he said. “Either she has a different phone with her, or she has it turned off.”

Reese turned around and headed back up the stairs towards the street, dodging pedestrians as he went. He said, “Tell me if it comes back on the network. In the meantime, I'm going back to her apartment. Maybe there's something there we missed.”

By the time Reese reached the lobby of Anna's apartment building, it was a little past nine in the morning. He took the lift up to the third floor, waited until no one else was present in the hallway, and withdrew his lock picks from his pocket. His phone buzzed once when he stepped into the motion-sensor zone in front of Anna's door; Reese ignored it. He made his way inside the apartment to find that Carter's description of “a mess” might've been an exaggeration.

He had certainly seen more disorganized dwellings.

The living room was the worst. There were used paper plates on the TV tray and empty beer bottles on the coffee table. Wrinkled clothes were tossed over the back of the couch and a stained, tattered blanket was draped over the armrest. There were posters of famous musicians up on the walls—Reese recognized Ella Fitzgerald, Marvin Gaye, and Freddie King. Reese made his way further into the apartment. He peeked into the kitchen and noted that it was much cleaner than the living room—there weren't any dirty dishes in the sink and the counters had been cleaned recently. He headed into the hallway, peered into the bathroom, and then stepped into Anna's bedroom. Most of the room was taken up by an elaborate four-poster bed, complete with a billowing white canopy and deep blue sheets. The bed was flanked by two nightstands, each of which had a small stained-glass lamp on it. Papers spilled from a little cherry-wood desk in the corner and a small dresser had been squeezed in between the closet and the door. More posters hung on the walls. A record player sat on top of the dresser. There wasn't much room to move around.

Reese stepped over to the desk and examined some of the papers. They were invoices and shipping labels. He took out his phone and used its camera to take pictures—there were several unfamiliar addresses and phone numbers on the forms. Finch would doubtlessly find them interesting.

He snapped a few dozen pictures and then explored the desk drawers. They yielded nothing more interesting than a dozen music CDs (Charlie Parker, Rhoda Scott, Jimmy Smith) and a plethora of office supplies. Reese switched his attention to the nightstand drawers and soon hit pay dirt—a small hardcover journal beneath another stack of invoices. Setting the papers aside to examine later, Reese opened the journal. Anna's handwriting was thin and flowing. The journal entries were written in shorthand and heavily abbreviated. She hadn't made an entry in several days.

April 9, 2012,

talked w/ bob. seemed jumpy, like he thought somebody was watching him. agreed w/ me about the shipment—what the hell, dick? defn crossed the line. thinking we need out but don't know how.

Reese mused this over. That didn't sound encouraging. He checked the previous page.

April 7, 2012,

don't know what to do. the dick said to keep mouth shut + not worry, but how can I not worry. he's playing w/ fire and if he gets burned we all go to jail or die or worse. gonna talk w/ bob soon.

And then, a few pages further in, Anna's handwriting became shakier:

April 2, 2012,

what the hell you stupid dick, did you suddenly loose 90 IQ points, what were you thinking shipping that sort of stuff. I knew you were idiotic but this is a whole new level of idiocy.(The word was underlined not once, but three times. Anna's pen had made deep scratches in the paper.) I signed up to ship watches and phones you fucking moron, not this.your greed is going to get us killed.

Reese pulled out his phone again and took pictures of the interesting pages, then browsed some of the earlier entries at random. Anna mentioned several people—Bob (probably Robert Bartley, thought Reese), Daniel, Shane, and “the dick”, who was the subject of several scathing entries. The latter entries in the journal were considerably shorter than the earlier ones. Many of the entries from late 2011 and earlier discussed friends, sights around New York, or interesting clients. “The dick” and the others hadn't come onto the scene until around January.

Very interesting.

Reese put the journal back in the drawer, taking care to position it precisely as he had found it, and then started photographing some of the invoices. He had snapped a dozen pictures or so when the phone buzzed in his hand. Reese reached up and tapped his earpiece. “Yeah, Finch?” he said, but there was no response. Perplexed, he tried again. A moment later, he realized what had just happened. That hadn't been an incoming call. Reese's hand darted for the gun tucked into his belt—

“Don't even think about it,” said a voice behind him. A gun cocked. Reese froze. The voice said, “Take your gun and toss it behind you. Nice and easy.”

Sighing, Reese obeyed. There wasn't much else he could do, not with an unknown number of armed assailants behind him. The gun thudded to the carpet. Someone picked it up.

Finch's voice sounded in Reese's ear. “Mr. Reese?” he said. “The motion sensor just sent me an alert; two men have entered Miss Winslow's apartment.”

Good to know, Reese thought. But it would've been better to know sooner.

“Look, fellas,” Reese said. “Maybe we can come to some kind of—” But he didn't get the chance to finish. Something struck him on the back of the head. With a grunt, he fell to the carpet.

#####

The call to Robert Bartley was short and succinct. A nasal voice at the other end of the line said, “Meet us. Two hours. You know the place.” And that was it. For an hour and a half, Bartley alternated between pacing his townhouse and staring at his computer. At around 9:30AM, Bartley stepped out the front door. He glanced up and down the street several times, shoved his hands deep into his pockets, and walked down the sidewalk. He peered over his shoulder at regular intervals.

Bartley unlocked an old maroon pickup truck parked at the curb and started the engine. A puff of gray smoke spat from the exhaust pipe. Shortly afterward, he pulled away from the curb and joined the city traffic.

Shaw had no trouble at all tailing such a distinctive vehicle across the city, especially since he drove like somebody's grandpa. For someone acting so paranoid, he was thoroughly oblivious to the black town car several dozen meters behind him.

After twenty minutes and four blown red lights, Shaw had followed Bartley all the way to the shores of the Atlantic. Bartley's truck pulled into a driveway blocked off by a fence. Beyond was a small dockyard. Bartley got out of the truck, looked furtively around, and unlocked the gate. In the lot beyond was a beat-up brown van parked in front of a squat concrete building. Bartley drove through the gate and closed it behind him, but by then, Shaw had already parked down the road. There was a cinder-block wall between her and the dockyard that Bartley had entered. She scaled the wall with ease, peeked over the top to make sure there wasn't any trouble waiting for her below, and then dropped down behind the building with all the silence of a cat on the prowl.

The area smelled of creosote, diesel fuel, and salt water. Large patches of white paint peeled off the side of the building and many of its windows had been broken. Shaw edged towards the end of the building, eyes and ears on full alert. She peeked around the corner to see Bartley get out of his truck, which he had parked near the van. There were two men waiting for him. One of them was thick, the other, tall. The thick guy had swarthy skin, dark black hair, bushy eyebrows, and a full beard. He was wearing a gray T-shirt and jeans. His arms were crossed. The tall guy had wavy blond hair and a pointed nose. He wore a black polo shirt.

Shaw quickly cloned their cell phones and started recording the conversation.

“What now, Jaime?” Bartley said. He crossed hims arms, but he just didn't have the look that the thick guy had, in part because Bartley's arms were on the flabby side and in part because he was trembling.

“Well,” said Mr. Tall, “we've been thinking about our little deal.” Shaw recognized his voice from the phone call.

“Deal?” said Bartley. “Deal? It's not a deal—it's blackmail.”

“You say potatoes, I say mutually beneficial agreement.”

“Look,” said Bartley. He glanced around again. “The deal's off. We can't do this—”

“Oh, so I suppose I should give another little tip to the FBI, then?”

Bartley shook his head and held up his hands. “If you do that, we're dead. You have no idea what this client will do if they think the FBI is on to us.”

A shrug. “Not my problem.”

The other guy spoke up and said, “We want a bigger cut.” He had a faint Spanish accent.

Bartley's eyes widened. “No. No, we can't do that. They already think we shorted them. They noticed the weight difference.”

“Too bad.”

“You're supposed to be cops,” Bartley said. He waved his hands around in exasperation. “I came to you for help! You're supposed to be protecting people.”

“Bartley,” said Mr. Tall. He grinned. “Bartley, Bartley, Bartley...didn't you get the memo? You're a criminal. Bad things happen to criminals.” The grin disappeared. “Either you make another few kilos disappear, or we arrest you and hand you over to the FBI. I hear your clients have a few pals locked up in federal prison. How long do you'll last?”

Bartley's chest heaved. He looked very pale. “I'll testify against you. I'll—!”

Mr. Tall sighed, reached down to his belt, and pulled out a pistol. Bartley gasped and backed away when it was pointed at his head.

At that moment, Finch began to babble in Shaw's ear.

“Miss Shaw,” he said, “I'm afraid Mr. Reese has tangled with some rather unsavory-looking individuals at Miss Winslow's apartment. He requires assistance.” He spoke fast, like he always did when Reese got himself into some sort of trouble. Shaw wondered why he didn't just cut it out with the verbosity instead of trying to squeeze too many words into one sentence.

“Yeah, well,” Shaw whispered, “We've got trouble here too. Two crooked cops holding Bob at gunpoint. Get Carter over there.”

“She and Detective Fusco are on the way,” Finch said. “But—”

“Shut up a minute,” Shaw said. “I'm further away than they are and Bob's about to get his head blown off.” A moment later, a chime sounded in Shaw's ear; someone else was trying to call her. Without looking, she tapped the decline button on her phone and pulled out her pistol.

Mr. Tall was speaking. “...or I could just shoot you now. I'm sure I could dig up enough dirt on the rest of your little posse to have them do whatever I please. You know, now that I think about it—” Mr. Tall clicked off the safety and Bartley looked like he was about to collapse. “Maybe I should just do that anyway.”

Two gunshots cracked, echoing off the side of the building. Mr. Tall screamed and dropped his gun to the dusty gravel. He clutched his knees and collapsed. Mr. Thick yanked his gun from his holster. His head whipped back and forth as he searched for the shooter. Shaw popped him in the knees as well and stepped around the corner. She walked up to the moaning men and kicked their guns away, then faced Bartley.

“Hello, Bob,” she said.

“W-w-w-w-ho the hell are you?” he stuttered.

“Deus Ex Machina,” said Shaw. She grabbed his shoulder and led him towards the gate. “Let's get you out of here.”

Shaw tapped her earpiece and said, “Finch? I got Bartley. He's safe. Might want to get somebody to deal with our two dirty gumshoes here. Some orthopedic surgeon is going to be really happy in a few hours...”

#####

Reese groaned and blinked. The world came painfully into focus.The back of his head throbbed.

“I told you, you shouldn't have hit him so hard,” someone said above him.

“Doesn't matter. He's awake now. Aren't you, bub?” Someone patted Reese's shoulder. He reacted by instinct, reaching up to grab the man's wrist—or, at least, he would have, if his hands hadn't been bound behind his back. Reese quickly found that he had been tied to a sturdy wooden chair in Anna's kitchen. In front of him, a man leaned against the counter, looking bored. His face was unusually long. He had short black hair and a goatee, and he looked to be about thirty years old. He picked at his fingernails and didn't pay attention to Reese. On the counter beside him was a pistol with a silencer attached.

Footsteps on linoleum. Another man came around from behind Reese. This man was bald, with a ferociously pointed chin and prominent veins in his neck. He wore a red leather jacket. A pair of wire-frame sunglasses were balanced on his head.

“Hi,” he said. He pulled up a chair, set it in front of Reese, and straddled it, leaning his hands on its back. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I could ask you the same question,” John rasped.

“My name isn't important. You can call me that-guy-you-pissed-off, if you want.”

“Funny,” said Reese. He flexed his wrists and legs, testing his bonds; they were solid. “I don't remember seeing you before.”

The guy nodded. “Same. Okay, so maybe you're not the one who pissed me off, but you're the only one here, so I'm afraid you get the short stick, my friend.”

“I don't have any friends.”

The guy chuckled and grinned, showing perfect white teeth. “I don't either. But you're lying.”

“Am I?”

A tiny shrug. “You're a friend of Anna's. Otherwise you wouldn't be here.”

“Maybe I'm a thief,” John said, raising his eyebrows. “And I'm just looking for things to steal.”

“Uh-huh. Right. See, if you're a thief, you're a lousy one. There's two apartments on the first floor that are more accessible than this.”

The guy leaning against the counter said, “Three. Three apartments. Plus two on the second floor next to the fire escape.” He went back to picking at his fingernails.

“See? You make a piss-poor thief, my friend. Didn't catch your name, by the way.”

“I didn't give it to you.”

“Right, right. I, uh, tried looking through your cell phone to figure out who you are.” The guy pulled John's cell phone out of his jacket pocket. The screen was riddled with cracks. “And then I, uh, dropped it. And stepped on it. Somebody called, it startled me. Sorry.”

“I didn't like it very much anyway,” Reese said calmly.

“Too bad, it was nice.” He dropped it back into the pocket. “So—where is Anna?”

“I don't know,” John said.

“I think you're lying again.”

“If I knew, I wouldn't be trying to figure out where she is by going through the stuff in her apartment.”

Another nod. “And—just why is it that you're looking for her?”

“Why are you looking for her?”

“I asked first.”

The guy at the counter spoke up. “This is boring,” he said. “Can we just shoot him or something?”

“If he doesn't cooperate, maybe,” the guy said. He chewed the inside of his lip and said, “You want to know why I'm looking for your friend Anna?”

“Maybe because she pissed you off?”

The man's face split into a grin. He laughed and pointed at John. “This guy's funny,” he said to the man at the counter. “Really funny. You know what? You're right, funny guy.” He punched Reese in the shoulder, none too gently. “You are abso-fucking-lutely right. She pissed me off. You know what she did? She shorted me. Shorted me two kilos of cocaine. Bitch is probably getting high on the street as we speak.” The grin persisted. “And you know what? That pisses me off. Nobody pisses me off and lives. So, Funny Guy, before you piss me off, you tell me—where is she?”

“I don't know,” John said.

The man chuckled and drew back his fist. Reese barely had time to see the blow coming before it hit the side of his face.

“Where is she?” the guy asked. His voice was softer, deeper. John spat blood on the floor and said, “I don't know.”

Another blow, this time to the gut. Reese doubled over and coughed.

“If I knew, I wouldn't be here,” he said through gritted teeth.

“I'm getting kinda angry now,” the guy said. He frowned. He stood and ambled over to the counter. Picking up the pistol, he chambered a round and clicked off the safety. “I don't like being angry. My therapist said I should find ways to calm myself when I get angry. I find shooting the extremities of people who anger me to be very calming. Don't you agree, Teddy?”

“Right, boss. Very relaxing. Kinda zen.”

The bald guy tilted his head towards Reese and told Teddy, “Gag him, then turn on the TV up loud.The neighbors aren't home. We'll start with his knees and—”

Something went bang behind Reese, something that sounded suspiciously like a door getting kicked right off its hinges. Teddy and the bald guy jumped. “NYPD!” somebody shouted. “Drop your weapon! I said drop it!”

The bald guy sighed and dropped the gun, raising his arms above his head. A moment later, Fusco and Carter came around on either side of Reese. “Turn around,” said Carter. “Hands on the wall.” Within minutes, both men were in handcuffs.

Carter sighed and turned to Reese.

“What the hell, John?” she complained as she untied him. “I can't leave you alone for even five hours. I turn my back and you're knee-deep in trouble.”

“Like a little kid,” Fusco agreed.

“Good morning to you too, Fusco,” Reese said. “Fancy seeing you again, Carter.”

“Uh-huh. You hurt?”

“No,” said Reese. He stood and stretched, acting casual.

“Good, because I'm not kissing any boo-boos. Fusco and I have to get these moppets to the precinct.”

“And I need to find Anna,” John said. “She's in danger.” He straightened his coat and walked over to the bald guy, who glowered. John reached into the man's jacket pocket and pulled out his phone, saying, “I believe this belongs to me.” He gave Detective Carter a little grin, patted Fusco on the shoulder, and left.

On his way down the stairs, Reese tried powering on the cell phone. The screen refused to light up. Sighing, he slipped it back into his pocket. Stepping out onto the sidewalk, he made his way across the street and entered his car.

#####

A half-hour later, Reese had located an appropriately shady street vendor and purchased a burner phone. He used its web browser to download a software package from an anonymous web server and waited for the phone to configure itself. When it was done, it had synced to his Bluetooth headset and restored his contacts without any further intervention or input from him.

Reese called the first number on speed dial.

“Hello, Harold,” he drawled.

“Oh, Mr. Reese, thank goodness you're all right.”

“Carter and Fusco took care of the bad guys at Anna's place,” John said. “Now we need to find Anna.”

“Yes. Although, Mr. Reese, I should point out that Miss Ruben attempted to call you twice while you were incapacitated. She also called Miss Shaw and Detective Carter, though neither of them were in a position to answer.”

Reese blinked. “How long ago?” He opened the door of his car and swung himself inside.

“About thirty minutes.”

“I'm calling her now.” Reese hung up, then found Elizabeth's number in his contact list and dialed it.She answered on the third ring.

“Hello, Ellie,” John said. “Sorry about the delay. Bad guys, fighting, saving kittens, the usual.” He grinned and then added, “Why are you whispering?”

His back stiffened. The grin slowly slid from his face.

“Ellie,” he said, “where are you?”

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

I ended up chatting with Corvus until three o'clock in the morning. When my forehead hit the laptop for the second time in ten minutes, I figured it was really time to call it quits, so I bade Corvus good night, closed the laptop (an old IFT I43, which I had used since my netbook was busy cracking Anna's password), set it on the carpet beside the bed, and fell asleep mere moments after I clicked off the bedside light.

When I awoke from a hazy not-quite-nightmare, it was half-past nine o'clock. I draped my robe over my shoulders and went about my morning routine, starting with a visit to the bathroom and then a nice hot cup of tea at the kitchen table. By the time I got back to my bedroom to get dressed, I was awake enough to realize that the room was too quiet. At first, I couldn't figure out what sound I was expecting to hear, but I quickly realized that the netbook's fan had shut off. Either it had cracked the password, or it had overheated and shut down—or maybe slagged itself. I ran over to it and brushed my fingers across the touchpad, wondering what Sybil would think if I'd managed to kill her netbook after just a few months of use. I sighed in relief when the screen flickered on.

I entered my password and brought up the window to the password cracker.

And stared.

[elev@ shannon ~]$ /opt/pw/jtr -users=anna -wl=~/words -fallback=yes /dev/sdb3

JtR password cracker, version 1. 7. 9

CUDA-capable GPU detected. Switching to GPU engine.

Attempting to crack 1 password using wordlist...

guesses: 0 time: 0:23:15:42

Exhausted wordlist. Giving up...

Attempting to crack 1 password using brute-force...

password found: abc123 ( user: anna)

guesses: 1 time: 0:00:00:3 100% (2) c/s: 5164 trying: 123456 – pepper

[elev@ shannon ~]$

I had a hard time believing my eyes. I blinked, only to find that the lines of text on my console window were unchanged.

The password to Anna's encrypted partition really was "abc123". The password was so stupidly simple, it had taken just three seconds to brute force—but only after the netbook had spent almost a full day grinding away at it (and failing) with a gigantic word list. The password had been too simple for the word list to handle.

Wow. Just wow. I was amazed that anyone would choose a password like that. "Not very security-conscious" was a severe understatement.

Grinning, I sat down in front of the netbook, carefully took it off its pedestal of post-it notes, and immediately tried decrypting the partition. The dialog box for the password popped up. Well, I thought, here goes nothing. I entered the dumbest password I had ever typed in my entire life and clicked the "Decrypt" button.

The dialog thought for a moment, then disappeared.

And I had access.

"What a moron," I mumbled to myself. I eagerly began to explore the portions of Anna's hard drive that had previously been denied to me.

I started with her emails, which she stored in the encrypted partition. I tried opening them—and found that they were protected by a second layer of encryption.

Hmm, I thought, tapping my fingers on the palmrest. I wonder...she wouldn't be dumb enough to actually...no, she wouldn't—would she?

On a whim, I tried entering "abc123" as the password to her private email key, and to my surprise, I was suddenly looking at a decrypted email. I laughed aloud. This was ridiculous. Not only had she picked one of the most easily-cracked passwords possible, she had picked the same password for both her emails and her encrypted partition. I was willing to bet a small amount of money that the operating system's password was the same as well.

I couldn't wait to tell John about this.

So I got up and fetched the burner phone from the dresser and hit the first number on speed dial. While I waited for John to pick up, I read the most recent email.

From: Jarrod

To: Hawaiiman52, Anderbook, Lillian, MenASSerie

Subject: Meeting

We need to meet. Tomorrow. 10:30AM at the warehouse.

The email was dated yesterday. I glanced at my alarm clock: it was 9:55AM now.

John's phone kept ringing.

Come on, come on! I thought. Pick up the darn phone! This is important!

I started to scan through the rest of Anna's emails to try and figure out where this warehouse was, but then I got an idea. I pulled up the email search dialog and entered "warehouse", searching by date, oldest first.

The third email from the top had an address within. It had been sent from Anna's computer to Jarrod.

Subject: New warehouse

Got a property for you to check out. 1514 West Baker Street. Place is a dump. Should be perfect. Sorry about the delay. Forgot my goddamn password. Again.

I shook my head and scrawled the address on a post-it note. I couldn't stay still. I stood and paced my bedroom on shaky legs as the phone rang and rang and rang—what was John doing? He just about always answered his phone. A feeling of nervous anticipation shivered down my spine. Come on, John! I thought. The meeting is gonna happen in a half hour!

Growling, I tried dialing Shaw's number as well, and I still got no answer.

Well, I thought. What now?

I stared at the screen, thinking. It sounded like something important was going to happen, something big, and here I couldn't contact John or Shaw to check it out.

Which left me.

I didn't really think about what I was doing until I was already halfway dressed.

You realize that this is stupid, I thought as I buttoned my blouse. This isn't like one of John's 'go here, I know he's not at home' gigs. There's gonna be people there.

So I tried calling John again—and there was still no answer.

Carter, I thought. Maybe she'll be able to help.

I dug out the card from my desk drawer and dialed one of the numbers on the front—turned out, it was her precinct phone. When the call connected, I felt both relieved and a little disappointed, at least until I heard a woman's decidedly un-Carter-ish voice at the other end of the line.

"Detective Carter's phone," a woman said. "Detective Sedgewick speaking."

"Oh," I said, surprised. "Um, is Carter there?"

"Uh, Detective Carter is busy with a case at the moment. Who is this? May I take a message?"

I hesitated.

"...it's not important," I said. "I'll call her back in awhile."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Thank you." I snapped the phone shut, thinking.

Oh, to hell with it, I thought. You won't even have to get out of the car. Just cruise around and get the lay of the land so John can go snooping later.

So I slipped a few bobby pins into my hair and fetched my gun from the desk drawer. It wasn't Mama's little Ruger; oh, no, I only took that one out for target practice these days. It jammed way too often for comfort, even after John had shown me how to clean it a few months back. So John had given me something with a little more punch, a compact Glock .380 that had a few small scratches and no serial number. I'd asked him where he'd gotten it, and he'd gotten all mysterious and told me I probably didn't want to know—so I tried not to think about it too much.

I took it to the range every week to practice. I hadn't gotten it to jam yet.

I slipped the gun and my cell phone into my purse, buckled my shoes, grabbed my keys, and headed out the door.

#####

Anna hadn't been kidding about the place being a dump. It was in the middle of a run-down industrial district near the shore of the Hudson River; a complex of old warehouses and factories, the sorts of place that OSHA would've loved to close down if the businesses had still been in operation—which they probably hadn't been for decades. The roads were a maze winding between dilapidated, crumbling buildings. Most of the tin roofs were rusted and some of the warehouses looked like they were about to collapse. Near the edge of the district, there were a few stubborn businesses open—they either hadn't gotten the memo about operating in a junkyard, or they hadn't cared—but when I drove further in, there was no one around. I used the GPS app on my phone to navigate my way to the warehouse. When I got to the entrance of the parking lot, I deliberately drove past, sparing only a glance to see how many cars were in the lot. There were two cars—a truck and a little sports car parked near the tall warehouse doors. I saw at least three people standing near the vehicles.

I kept my speed steady until I was out of sight, then slowed down. I wasn't sure what to do. The meeting was obviously going down soon—it was 10:18AM—but there was no way I could see or hear what the people were up to without getting closer, and that meant I would have to leave the safety of the car.

Once again, I tried calling John. No answer. Frustrated, I pulled into a parking lot across the street from the rear of the warehouse.

Maybe you can get a Bluetooth signal this far, I thought. So I navigated the cell phone's menu to the section that contained all the fancy spyware apps from Harold Finch, only to find that the phone registered no other Bluetooth transmissions in the area. Maybe the warehouse was blocking the signal. Maybe the people were smart enough to have their phones turned off. There was no way to tell which without getting closer. I tapped my foot anxiously on the floor mat, trying to decide what to do.

It's safest to wait, I thought. It's only 10:21AM now. Wait for John to call you back.

I tried. I really did try. The minutes passed so agonizingly slow. I kept my head swiveling constantly, watching for cars, people—but aside from a few ill-tempered birds, nothing moved. I fidgeted and shuffled my feet and tried taking deep breaths to calm myself, but none of it did any good.

10:34AM.

Oh, to hell with it, I thought, pushing my door open. I made my way across the street, darted across the gravel lot between the sidewalk and the building, and flattened myself against the back wall of the warehouse, putting one ear to the tin siding to see if I could hear anything inside.

There was nothing but for the rapid thudding of my heart. The area was disturbingly quiet.

I edged towards the gap between the warehouse and the adjacent building, only to find that it was blocked by a wall. So I made my way to the other side of the warehouse. There was a wide alley there, overflowing with weeds growing up from the gravel. A dumpster sat against the side of the warehouse down near the other end of the building, and about halfway down the alley was an intersection with a smaller alley that ran between the two squat brick buildings to the left of the warehouse.

I could hear voices, but the phone still reported no Bluetooth signals in range.

I took a deep breath and began creeping down the alley, sticking as close to the side of the warehouse as possible. I did my best to keep the rustling of the weeds to a minimum. When I got to the intersection, I carefully peered down between the brick buildings before I continued on.

I made it to the dumpster. Crouching down behind it, I strained my ears and tried to ignore the little voice in my head telling me that this was a bad idea. I couldn't hear anything distinct, but when I took out my phone and brought up the spyware app again, I found that I was just barely within Bluetooth range of somebody's phone.

Grinning, I told the phone to bluejack it. Suddenly, I could hear the conversation in my earpiece, distorted only slightly by static.

"...the fuck is Bartley?" said somebody—a guy whose voice had a distinctly southern twang.

"Late as always," said another guy.

Silence. The wind whispered down the alley, making the weeds sigh.

"I dunno about this, Richard," said a woman—Anna, I was guessing. Her voice was cool but boisterous. "I mean, I like Bob. He—"

"He's in bed with a pair of crooked cops," the southern guy replied. "You wanna join him?"

"No, I didn't..."

A burst of static crackled in the earpiece, drowning out their words. I struggled to listen. The guy—Richard—was speaking again.

"...and he cost us the fucking warehouse," he said. "He might cost us everything. He's a liability."

"Yeah, but this is cruel. It would be nicer to just shoot him and get it over with. Why do we even have to—?"

"Nicer? Fuck nicer. You want to be fucking nice, Anna? Go get yourself knocked up and play Mommy to a bunch of little black womb tumors. I don't do nice. Robert is going to have time to think about every damn bad decision he's ever made, and if you can't handle it—well, you just remember whose name is on the deed for the—"

The phone buzzed in my hands. I gasped and nearly dropped it. If my heart started beating any louder, I was pretty sure Anna and her pals would hear it. With a shaky hand, I tapped the screen to accept the call.

"John?" I whispered.

"Hello, Ellie," he said. "Sorry about the delay. Bad guys, fighting, saving kittens, the usual. Why are you whispering?"

"I'm eavesdropping on Anna Whatever-her-name-is. She's trying to talk some guy named Richard out of killing some other guy named Robert for ratting them out. Richard sounds like a real asshole. I bet he's gonna be the perp."

There was an awkward pause, and when John spoke again, all traces of his usual playful croon had dropped away.

"Ellie, where are you?"

"At their warehouse. I decrypted Anna's hard drive. She had the dumbest password I can possibly—"

"Get out of there. Now."

"But—"

"Remember what happened last time? Get out of there, Ellie. Robert's safe with us. I'll deal with Richard."

"Okay," I whispered. Glancing over my shoulder, I began to make my way back up the alley towards my car. "I'm getting, I'm getting. You need to answer your phone more, by the way." I glanced behind me again as I neared the intersection in the middle of the alley.

"I was a little tied up," John said, and then things went to hell. When I looked up ahead again, I saw movement at the mouth of the alley. A man, kinda on the thin side, came around the corner. When he saw me, he did a double take, then reached down to his waist and oh my God, that was a gun, and I didn't need to see anything else. I ran, darting for the intersection.

People shouted behind me as I dove into the smaller, darker alley between the brick buildings. I reached into my purse and grabbed my pistol, clicking the safety off and jerking the slide back. Two sharp pops echoed down the alleyway. The bullets hit the wall just behind me and I was sprayed with little pieces of brick and mortar.

"Ellie, what's going on?" John said.

"People with guns," I panted. "Why does everybody have guns these days?" The alley ended at a concrete wall. There was a narrow gap between the wall and the building on my left, so I took it. If I could make it to the end and get across the street, I would be at the car, and then I could get the hell out of here.

I tore out from beside the building, like a rabbit fleeing from a forest fire, and I ran right into the thin guy. We both fell to the gravel and the guy's gun went flying out of his hand. I recovered first and tried to scramble away, but he tackled me to the ground. I landed hard. Sharp gravel poked into my back.

"Who the hell are you?" the guy snarled. He wasn't guarding his face very well, so I answered him with a sharp poke in the eyes. He howled and fell backwards. I scooted backwards and stood just in time to see another guy running at me. I brought up the gun—

—oh my god, I thought in slow motion, oh my god, you're about to shoot someone—

—and the shot went just barely wide. The guy winced and cowered away, holding up his hands, and I figured he wasn't much of a threat, so I started running as fast as I could towards the street, squeezing off a few shots in the general direction of my pursuers to discourage them. I could see my car, it was right there, maybe fifty feet away, but as I got out to the road, the third guy came out of nowhere and slammed into me from the side. My gun went skidding along the asphalt until it was eaten by a storm drain in the sidewalk.

I fought. I used every dirty trick I could think of. I kicked him in the balls and scratched at his face and tried to tear off his ear. Apparently his pain tolerance wasn't too great, because after the second or third knee to the groin, he rolled off me.

I got my feet under me just in time to get tazed by Anna.

My muscles locked up and the breath I had just taken exploded from my lungs. I screamed, an inhuman, screeching wail; Jesus-fucking-Christ, it hurt. The tazer darts burned like fire in my side and my muscles were too busy quivering to bother responding to my brain. I collapsed to my hands and knees, but I still struggled to stand. I looked up just in time to see the second guy come running up with a length of jagged pipe in his hands. Anna looked horrified. Her mouth hung open and she dropped the taser.

"Wait!" she said, "don't kill her!"

He swung. The pipe cracked against the side of my head.

Stars danced before my eyes, and then everything went dark.

#####

"Schaum!" I called. "Schaum, dangit, get back here!"

The German Shepard paused only for a moment, his tail wagging like crazy, before he bounded off through the meadow again. One of my red sandals dangled by its strap from his mouth. My little legs were no match for the dog's speed and agility, especially since I only had one shoe and the grass was still slick from last night's summer rainfall.

Gray was laughing, a wide ol' grin on his freckled face. He was standing about thirty feet away, and if he moved fast, he could catch Schaum.

"Gray!" I shouted, "Catch him! He's got my shoe!"

"I got him, Ellie, I got him!" Gray ran towards the dog, arms and legs pumping like a steam engine, a tan-and-orange blur against the meadow. For a second, it looked like he might be able to reach Schaum before he could get away. But Gray slipped on the wet grass and landed on his belly. (Oh, Mama was going to have a fit; the ground was muddy and she'd just washed all his clothes a few hours ago...) Schaum darted past him, then looped back around to see what all the fuss was about. He dropped the sandal and began licking Gray's face instead. Laughing and panting, I finally caught up and snagged my shoe back.

"Sit, Schaum," I said. "Sit!"

Obediently, the dog sat, his tail thumping against the grass. Gray levered himself up, brushing wet flecks of greenery off his clothes.

"Did you see me, Ellie?" he said, all bright eyes and smiles and tousled ginger hair, "I almost got him!"

"You did," I said, laughing. The laughter turned into a sigh of disgust when I realized that Schaum had slobbered all over my sandal. I was fine with wearing just one shoe for now, thanks...

I sat down next to Schaum, scratching behind his ears. He was as tall as I was when I sat. Suddenly, he sniffed the air, leapt to his paws, and darted away towards the house, which was just barely visible through the trunks of the pine trees at the edge of the meadow.

"Schaum!" I called. "Get back here!" But he ignored me.

"I bet I can catch him," Gray said. He stood. "'Cause I'm so fast now. I bet I'm even faster than Danny. I'm so fast, I'm—" He trailed off, and the joy on his face slipped away. He took a deep breath and coughed. I winced.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"I'm fine—" Only he wasn't fine because he started coughing again, clutching his chest, and I knew that that was bad, but I couldn't figure out why because an awful haze had descended over my mind. My forehead throbbed.

I stood, or tried to; something was wrong with my sense of balance and I fell back to the grass. Above me, Gray continued to cough. His skin had turned pale.

"You said you'd take care of me," he said, gritting his teeth.

"Gray, what's wrong?" I tried to stand again, but I was paralyzed.

"Why didn't you get here faster?" he whispered. His legs went out, and he collapsed to his knees, his arms still wrapped around his chest. He coughed again; a horrible, wet, drawn-out wheeze. "Where were you, Ellie?"

He keeled over, face down, into the grass, and he did not move.

"Gray!" I cried. In the distance, Schaum began to bark. I struggled to my hands and knees, but my limbs would not support me. "Gray!" I shouted. "Wake up!" When he didn't respond, I began to shriek at the top of my lungs. "MAMAAAAAAAAAA!" I screamed. "Mama, help!" But my voice, like my body, was frail and tiny and weak. Mama wouldn't hear me, even if she had the study window open.

I managed to drag myself over to Gray's body before I collapsed. The haze grew darker, clouding my vision, my thoughts.

But that's not where he collapsed, I thought groggily. You didn't even see him collapse. And he was older when he got pneumonia...

I moaned, and the sound bounced around in my head, making the headache feel a dozen times worse. I heard something slam. Heard voices: "Just leave her, damnit, the timers are set," and "We'll meet tomorrow—you know the place," and "Who do you think she is? Cop? Friend of Bob's?" and finally, "Dead, that's what she is. Bitch." Something else slammed, louder, and I winced.

I opened my eyes and immediately regretted it, because the world was entirely too bright and I just wanted it to go the hell away. But there was another sound now, a persistent sound, a piercing sound. Somewhere nearby, a cell phone was ringing.

After a few rings, I realized it was my cell phone, and that was enough to make me remember everything that had happened.

Startled, I forced my eyes open, wincing as they adjusted to the light. Oh, that was not helping the headache. I blinked a few times until I could make out my surroundings. I was in a warehouse, it seemed—maybe the warehouse where I'd been attacked. There were pallets and crates and barrels stacked all over the place. Wide skylights overhead let the afternoon sunlight pour in to stab at my eyes. A small two-story office had been built against one wall with a rickety wooden staircase descending to meet the concrete floor. There were workbenches against the opposite wall. The place smelled like dust and old cement, tinged just barely by the fading scent of somebody's perfume.

I had no idea where my cell phone was. It was ringing still—which was pretty weird, because I'd had it on vibrate—but it seemed to be a long ways away. I finally spotted it on top of a crate about ten feet to my left. Well, that was well within Bluetooth range. If I'd been feeling a little better, I would've gotten up to scoop it off the floor, but right now I was content with just sitting here, so I reached down to toggle the earpiece—

Wait a minute. Reached down? Why were my arms were up above my head? I had a really bad feeling about this. Reluctantly, I tilted my head back, and sure enough—handcuffs. I was handcuffed to a fucking support beam.

That just figured.

The cell phone fell silent. I jumped when John's voice suddenly began to speak into my ear.

"Ellie?" he said. "Ellie, can you hear me?"

"Oww," I grumbled. "Talk quieter, will you?"

I heard the faintest sound of static, something that might've been a sigh of relief. "I have a fix on your cell phone. Are you all right?"

"Oh, fine," I said. "Just peachy. I like being handcuffed, remember? Love it, totally love it. Fetish of mine." I laughed shakily. Tried pulling on the cuffs. They had been passed through some sort of metal handle welded to the beam.

"Stay calm," John said. "I'm on my way. Ten minutes out. What happened?"

"Four against one," I said. "They're gone now. Screw tasers, by the way. I don't care how many times Shaw says they're 'fun'." Despite John's advice, I was really not feeling very calm at all. I yanked on the handcuffs, but they did little more than rattle. I kept talking, hoping to distract myself from the situation. "Nice trick, getting the phone to answer the call remotely."

"Just one of Finch's many talents," John said.

"You tell him he owes me hazard pay. Oww, getting tazed hurts." I looked up at my hands again and quickly wished I hadn't. Oh, this just sucked. And then I remembered: I had bobby pins in my hair! I could try picking the locks.

Even if I couldn't get the cuffs off, it would pass the time faster while I waited for John.

I couldn't reach the top of my head with my hands where they were now, so I gathered my legs beneath me to stand. My limbs weren't doing a very good job of obeying my brain. As I squirmed around to get my feet into position, something flashed briefly in the corner of my eye. I looked around the warehouse, wondering what it was, when I saw it again—a red LED light.

Which was on a circuit board.

Which was connected by thin wires to a glob of grayish putty.

Which was stuck to the side of a barrel along with a half-dozen other globs of putty with wires coming out of them, and the whole thing was barely ten feet away.

I'd never felt an oh, shit moment quite like that one before, not even when Tara had thrown the cargo container doors shut and left me to die. The dread poured down my spine like ice water—no, like liquid nitrogen. I tried to speak, but my throat was caught in the grip of a hydraulic press and I could barely squeak.

"Oh my god," I whispered. There was another red flash to the right, and oh my God it was another barrel, and there was another by the massive doors at one end of the warehouse, and two more over by the office building, and I turned my head a little further and found that there was one right next to me maybe four feet to my right, and then there were three in a cluster by a support column to my left, and—

"What is it?" John said. "Ellie, what's wrong?"

"J-J-John?" I said. My voice was hysterically high-pitched and yet barely audible. "John—they've-they've got bombs."

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

“Did you say bombs?” John asked. His voice was noticeably harder than it had been before. “What type? How many?”

“I—I—I—I—they're b-b-bombs, John,” I said. My voice cracked. “They have w-wires and—and—and a thing w-with a flashing light and—I'm not S-Shaw! I d-don't know anything about bombs!” My brain was stuck in an infinite loop of oh my God and I didn't know how else to describe the bombs. I was still trying to get over the fact that I was surrounded by explosives.

I was so, so screwed.

“Ellie, listen to me. Stay calm. Do you have anything you can use to pick the cuffs?”

“Hair pins,” I said, gulping. My legs wobbled and trembled, but I managed to get onto my knees. By tilting my head forward, I could just reach the top of my head. My fingers were shaking like crazy, but I managed to pull one of the pins out of my hair.

“Okay. Okay, that's good. Try to pick the locks. Can you describe the bombs? Give me as much detail as you can.”

I forced myself to look at the bomb next to me while I bent the pin into shape.

“It's—it's a barrel,” I said. “With a bunch of b-blobs of gray goop attached to it. A-a-and wires. Black and yellow and blue, and they all are connected to a c-c-circuit board with a flashing light and a battery.”

“Is there a keypad? An antenna? A phone?”

“I—I don't know. I don't wanna look at it anymore.” I focused on getting the pick into the keyhole on the handcuffs. My hands shook even worse and I was deathly afraid of dropping the pick—I didn't have many bobby pins, and if I dropped them all, I would be dead, because there was no way I could reach down to the floor to pick them up.

“Ellie, I'm just a few minutes away.”

“N-n-no,” I stuttered. It felt like someone was shaking me by the shoulders. “Stay away. W-what if they explode while you're in here?” Even as I said that, my brain was screaming, What the hell are you saying, moron? If he doesn't rescue you, you're dead. DEAD. There's no way you can pick the lock. Remember your little meltdown at the gym? You can't do it. You can't do it. You're a wimp and you can't do it. There's no way you can do it. You're dead, dead, dead. About fucking time.

I took a deep breath and felt around for the handcuff latch with the lockpick. John didn't respond for what felt like an eternity of eternities.

“I'm on my way,” John said softly.

I felt like throwing up. I felt like screaming. But I stayed quiet and tried to force my trembling fingers into doing what they were supposed to do. The warehouse was silent but for the scratching of the pick inside the lock.

The hair pin caught on something inside the handcuffs and it slipped from my fingers. It fell to the floor. It might as well have fallen from the uppermost floor of the Empire State Building. I was at the top—the pin was at the bottom, inaccessible. Tears leaked from my eyes. I felt around on top of my head and found that I had two pins left. I pulled one out, along with a few strands of hair. I held the pin tight enough to make the tips of my fingers turn white as I bent it into shape and guided it to the keyhole.

The pick scrabbled against metal. My knees burned on the concrete. I was horribly aware of the bomb next to me. I started thinking: I wonder when it will go off? Would it go off in the next second? Nope, not that one. What about the next one? Nope, not that one either. How long did I have left to live?

“I don't know if I can do this,” I said.

John's response was immediate. “You can do it, Ellie,” he said.

“N-no, I can't. Look, I knew I was living on borrowed time when I started—”

“Be quiet,” John said. “You can do it, Ellie.”

“I already dropped one of the picks,” I cried. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I could hardly see my hands, let alone the goddamn hairpin.

A pause. “Do you have more?”

“Two.”

“Then you're not out of the game yet. Keep trying. I'll be there soon.”

I took a deep breath and blinked back the tears and tried to focus on the handcuffs—I couldn't see the bombs if I stared straight ahead, so that meant they didn't exist. Out of sight, out of mind. Like a little kid, right? And—

Don't think about that, I thought. Don't think about that. Don't think about Gray. Just—just don't. It wasn't your fault. Think about anything else.

So, naturally, my thoughts turned to computers. I started thinking about cryptographic hash functions and DNS amplification attacks and how that guy who programmed the Linux systemd framework was a moron. I thought about binary tree traversals and UDP checksums. I thought about IPv6 and how my old router had choked trying to deal with more than 300Mbps between two network interfaces. I thought as hard as I could, and I tried not to think about my predicament, and it worked out pretty well.

Until things started beeping.

It was a harsh sound, a sudden sound, and it scared the shit out of me. It made my fingers twitch—and there went the pick. I twisted my head to the side, staring at the bomb in horror. The one right next to me was beeping, like an alarm on a watch, and then the ones behind me started beeping, and then they all started beeping, and I lost it.

“Oh m-my g-god,” I said. I laughed. “Oh my god. J-John—they're beeping. The b-bombs, they're beeping.”

“I'm almost there. Ellie, keep trying the cuffs.”

“I don't think I can—”

“Shaw says to tell you that if you don't at least try, she's going to eat all your ice cream again. And then buy more with your credit card. And then eat that too.”

“She's gonna eat the card?” I said. I couldn't help it. Even when I was about to die, my instinct was to make snarky remarks at grammatical ambiguities.

“Yes. She's very hungry.”

I tried to block out the beeping, I really did. I felt around on top of my head for the last pick. Bent it out of shape as carefully as I could. Guided it into the key hole. Seconds passed as I felt for the latch. It felt so agonizingly ineffectual.

“I'm three minutes away,” John said.

Don't give up, I thought. There's still a chance. And just imagine how much ice cream Shaw could charge to your credit card if you don't make it. Keep trying.

I kept trying, but it was clear that I just couldn't get it to work. Maybe these were a different kind of handcuffs than the ones John had shown me. Maybe I was just a fucking idiot. I didn't know.

I couldn't stop the tears. The end was near—I could feel it. Hear it. The bombs were still beeping, beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep—

“John?” I said softly.

“Yes, Ellie?”

“Is it gonna hurt?”

John stayed quiet for several seconds while I doggedly kept picking at the latch.

“No, Ellie,” he said, his voice very soft. “It will be so fast, you won't have time to feel it. You won't even know what happened.”

“Good,” I said.

“Two minutes.”

I promoted handcuffs to the very top of the list of things I really hated, right above dark places. Okay, maybe not right above. It was a tie.

The pick slipped. I gasped and clamped my fingers shut and barely managed to catch it before it fell to the floor. Taking a shaky breath, I positioned it in the hole again and kept at it.

I said, “If I die, you be sure to tell Shaw to stay the hell out of my underwear drawer. I just know she's the type to poke around in other peoples' private—” My voice cut out with a squeak. I choked and gasped and stared at my hands, because all of a sudden the cuff around my left wrist had released and my hands were freed from the beam. I couldn't believe it. For a second, I was too stunned to move—and then I remembered:

There's a BOMB right next to you, moron.

“Ellie?” John started, but I cut him off.

“I'm free!” I said, stumbling to my feet. “Where is the fucking door—?”

I spotted a small metal door about fifteen feet away. I ran for it. I ran faster than my feet had ever carried me. My shoulder slammed into the door and my hands clawed for the doorknob.

It was locked.

Locked.

“It's—it's locked!” I said, stupefied. My brain couldn't process that information fast enough. I jiggled the handle again.

“Look for another—”

There was a workbench next to the door. It had a sledgehammer on it. I grabbed the hammer with both hands. It was heavy and rusted and dusty. The thing had to weigh at least thirty pounds, maybe more, but it felt like a feather because I was amped up, high on adrenaline and fear. I swung hard in a wide arc, aiming right for the handle of the door.

The hammer bounced off with a jagged thunk, but the door jiggled and suddenly there was a quarter-inch between it and the doorjam, just enough for the afternoon light to seep through the gap. That was all I needed to see. John was saying something. I told him to shut up, and then I pulled the hammer back again and screamed—because I was pissed off, and terrified, and all I wanted was to be out of this horrible place—and I swung the hammer as hard as I could. It hit the door and the door slammed open. The doorjam splintered and exploded outward in a shower of wood and metal. Something went pop in my shoulder. I threw the hammer aside, letting it clatter to the cement floor, and I ran outside into a narrow alley. It was a dead end. I spun around and ran the other way, aiming for the alley mouth—and freedom.

“I'm out,” I cried. “I'm out!” I reached the alley mouth and kept running, putting as much distance between me and the building as possible. The cuffs still dangled from one wrist, but there was no time to deal with that, not now. I had to get away. I tore across the wide parking lot in front of the warehouse. “I'm out, I'm out, I'm out—”

I was maybe forty feet away when I heard the first crack. It sounded like a firecracker, or maybe a gunshot. Something flashed behind me. Like an idiot, I looked back over my shoulder. The windows of the warehouse were illuminated by a strange glow and fiery light seeped between the gap in the massive sliding doors on the front and—

Without warning, the world went white.

The sound hit. It was like being forty feet from a lightning strike, like the collapse of a cymbal factory. Something slammed into me and suddenly I was flying through the air, shrieking and flailing, until I landed on something hard. Pain arced through my body an instant before I blacked out.

When I was aware of myself again, things were hurting.

I couldn't see. The world was blurry and piercingly purple-white, as though I'd stared at the world's largest camera flash for too long. Somebody was jamming screwdrivers into my ears. My shoulder burned and a sickly ache radiated from my chest. Breathing hurt. I couldn't hear anything but for a shrill ringing.

I had landed on my stomach. I tried to get my hands and knees under me, but as soon as I put pressure on my right wrist, I collapsed, gasping in pain. Or at least, I tried to gasp—I couldn't tell for sure if I was actually gasping or not, but it definitely felt like I was gasping because it made my chest hurt more.

Oww, I thought hazily. Oh god, oww. C'mon, Ellie. You gotta move. What if they come back to finish you off?

So I tried again, and this time I leaned as much as possible on my left wrist. Gravel stabbed into my palm and knees. After several false starts, I managed to stand. It was a slow, agonizing process. I kept my right arm wrapped around my chest. I wasn't sure why it hurt so much to breathe.

I looked around and realized I had no idea which way to go. I could see nothing but indistinct white blurs no matter which way I looked. I was blind and deaf. So I just stood there, shell-shocked, cradling my arm and grimacing in pain, until I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I reacted by instinct, tried to defend myself, but I didn't even manage to turn around before my chest cheerfully reminded me that it hurt. I doubled over and fell to my knees and there was that hand again. I used my left arm to punch, blindly, and wasn't really too surprised when I felt someone grab my arm. But they didn't do anything else.

“John?” I said, coughing. I couldn't hear my own voice. I really wanted to vomit. “John, is that you?”

Again with the hand on my shoulder, only this time, it squeezed twice.

“John, I—I can't see,” I said. “I thought you were supposed to be the bat.”

I felt my eyes roll back into my head, and then I fainted.

***

“I don't even know how to tell you how lucky you are,” the doctor said as she scribbled on her clipboard. “I mean, we're light-years beyond 'I found a penny on the street'. Forget about four-leaf clovers, socks, and rabbits' feet. We've passed 'I won a trip to Italy on a game show' doing 55 miles-per-hour in the slow lane. We've even left 'I won the lottery, twice, in a row, using the same numbers, and I've only played two lottery tickets in my entire life' behind in the dust. On a different planet. In a different galaxy.”

“So what you're saying is, she's lucky,” John said.

“Yeah. That.”

I was lying in a hospital bed, but it didn't feel like I was in a hospital. The room was comfortably furnished, with generic-yet-tasteful watercolor paintings on the walls and white fabric drapes over the window. The lights were turned down low and the room was blessedly quiet; at least, as far as I could tell—my ears were still ringing, especially the right one. The only sound in the room was the gentle beeping of the cardiac monitor.

And I really did not like that sound.

“Could you—could you turn that down, please?” I asked the doctor. “I don't like the beeping.”

“Sure.” The doctor—Tillman, her name was—stepped over to the monitor beside my bed and tapped the touch screen. The noise ceased.

“Thanks,” I said, scratching at the splint around my right wrist.

John was sitting in a plastic chair by the bed, his hands in his lap, an unreadable expression on his face. The doctor hovered next to him and looked me over. I had met her once before. She had been the one who had treated me just after I had been rescued from the cargo container. She looked the same as she had then: a messy bun of dark hair framing a youthful face; a petite body shrouded in scrubs.

She sighed and looked at the clipboard. “Let's go over the list again. Cracked ribs—check. Fractured wrist—check. Torn ligaments in the shoulder—check. Concussion—check. Flash-blindness—”

“I can see now,” I said. “The spots are going away. And I'm feeling way better.”

“That's because you're high. Ruptured eardrum—check. Cuts, scrapes, and bruises on your knees, palms, elbows, arms, face, and chest—pretty much all over—check. Minor shrapnel wounds—check. Bruised shoulder—oh, wait.” She glanced up and put her hand on her hip. A tiny smirk appeared on her lips. “That one should be on your doctor's checklist, not yours. Because that was from when you punched your doctor, who was just doing her duty and trying to make your life less miserable.”

I felt suddenly nauseous. “I said I was sorry...I don't like needles much.”

“Well, you're going to have to live with the IV for a day or so. Don't think about it.”

“Too late,” I gulped. John had wrapped most of my right elbow in gauze, which meant I couldn't see the needle anymore, but I knew it was there, and I didn't like that one bit.

“Should I get the trash can again?” John said.

I took a deep breath. “No,” I said. “No, I think I'm fine this time. It's the alcohol smell that got me.”

“Don't feel bad,” said Dr. Tillman. “I've seen worse reactions to needles. I had a boy faint on me and once had a big guy run, screaming—but that's another story. Never been punched before though. Are you comfortable?”

“Yeah,” I said. I felt like I was floating—as long as I didn't think about the needle. Whatever drugs it was pumping into me were doing a great job of making me think that my chest and shoulder and wrist and everything else were just a little sore. When I thought about that a little more, I actually found it kinda creepy. What was this stuff? “But—should my ears still be ringing? It feels like I'm underwater.”

“It's not unexpected,” said Dr. Tillman. “Especially since your right eardrum has a hole in it and both ears were exposed to major acoustic trauma and a pressure wave. Explosions are nasty like that.” She shook her head. “When I'd been told to expect injuries resulting from a large explosion, I was braced for burns, collapsed lungs, punctured diaphragm, major shrapnel...I was going to send you straight to surgery. You're very lucky. Although you might not feel like it right now.”

“Meh. Beats being dead,” I said. I wiggled my foot. John twitched, just a little bit.

“Definitely,” said Dr. Tillman. She smiled. “Now, the ringing should go away in a few hours, maybe a few days. Your eardrum will heal in several weeks. If you're lucky, there won't be permanent damage. Only time will tell.”

“Yay,” I said. “I feel happy.”

John raised an eyebrow.

“What?” I said. “You've never watched Monty Python?”

He slowly shook his head.

“Uncultured. That's what you are. Uncultured.”

Dr. Tillman chuckled and said, “Do you need anything? Food, more water...?”

“I'm good,” I said. “Thank you.” I fingered the sleeve of the blue hospital gown I had been given. The fabric felt even nicer than some of my clothing; it was soft and warm and comforting. “Maybe turn up the lights a bit? It's kinda dark.”

She smiled again and said, “They lights aren't on a dimmer. Flash-blindness. You'll be able to see fully in an hour or so. If you need anything, don't hesitate to use the intercom.” She nodded to John, and then she left.

And John was staring at me.

“Don't even think about it,” I told him.

“Think about what?” he said.

“That look on your face. It's the 'we're going to have a talk about you helping me' look. And we're not talking about it while I'm busy having fun being high. Is this what being high is really like? Because it's kinda boring. Where are the unicorns? Where's my jet pack?”

“I thought it was more of a 'you almost died' face, with a little 'I'm very glad you didn't' mixed in.”

“Only a little? You're lucky I'm all wounded, otherwise, I'd smack you.”

“I had to make room on my face for the 'I'm proud of you for keeping your cool and getting yourself out alive' look.”

“Oh. I guess I can forgive you.” I sighed and leaned back into the pillows. For a hospital bed, this was really comfortable. “So how long am I gonna be here? When can I go home? Can I have my laptop?”

“Something tells me you're not going to make a very good patient.”

“I'll be an angel if you get me my netbook and external hard drive. And Internet access.”

“I think that can be managed,” John said. “But for right now—you've had a very rough day. You should rest.”

I grumbled, but he was right—I was getting drowsy, no doubt thanks to the drugs.

“What about Richard and Anna?” I asked.

The smile on John's face slipped. “I'll take care of them,” he said. “Unless you want me to stay a little longer.”

I sighed and said, “Go kick their asses. I'll be good. Promise. Just don't be too hard on Anna—she tried to stop them. After she tazed me.” I grimaced. “No wonder Shaw is still grumpy about that Root woman you told me about. Tasers suck.”

John grinned, just a tiny bit, and stood. “I'll be back,” he said. “We have things to talk about—later.”

“Can't wait,” I said, and he left, and then it was just me and my thoughts.

I tried not to think too much about what'd happened today.

Fortunately, I was tired, and hazy besides from the drugs. It wasn't very long at all before I closed my eyes and dozed off.

***

John Reese nodded to the young man sitting behind the curved front desk in the waiting area and exited the clinic through the front doors. He emerged onto a quiet street lined by handsome brownstone homes. The sun was bright in the sky. A soft spring breeze muttered among the buildings and whispered through the wide oak trees. Far overhead, a passenger jet drifted across the sky, leaving a contrail in its wake.

Reese's phone rang just as he reached his car. He checked the screen to identify the caller before he accepted the call.

“Hello, Shaw,” he said.

“How is she?” Shaw asked. “How bad is it?”

Reese raised his eyebrows as he slid behind the wheel. “If I didn't know better, I'd say you sound concerned,” he said.

“Fuck you. How is she?”

“Elizabeth is fine,” Reese said. He glanced at the passenger's seat. The fabric was flecked in places with dried blood. “Fractured wrist and ribs, but nothing broken. She'll be laid up for a few days at the least.”

“I have a medical degree, you know. And in medical parlance, us doctors don't usually consider fractured ribs to be 'fine'.”

“Considering the circumstances,” Reese said, “it could be worse. She's...very lucky.”

“Whatever,” Shaw said.

After several seconds of silence, Reese said, “Do you need help with Bartley?”

“No. He's in a hotel. For a dumb guy, he's at least smart enough to stay in his room. He won't be trouble.” A pause, and then, a little quieter: “You sure she's all right?”

“She's in good hands,” Reese said. “Dr. Tillman won't let anything happen to her.”

Another pause. Shaw said, “Good. Um. Anyway. Finch is looking through Anna's hard drive with the password Elizabeth found. He's trying to figure out where Anna and Dickface and the rest of the club might be holed up. Got a few addresses to check out.”

“Send one to me,” Reese said. “I'd like to have a nice...conversation with this Richard fellow.”

“Same here,” Shaw said. Reese's phone buzzed with an incoming message from a blocked caller; the message contained a street address. “But I have to warn you, Reese...if I find him first? I'm not sharing.”

She hung up.

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

Shaw and Reese spent the better part of the afternoon searching for Anna at the addresses Finch sent them. At first, they worked separately to cover more ground, but shortly after Reese had cleared his second address, Finch suggested that Reese and Shaw team up.

“I realize that this slows our search,” Finch's voice crackled over Reese's phone. “But given the information I have recently unearthed about Richard Hardy and his operation, I feel it would be far safer. Aside from Miss Winslow, there are still three members of the smuggling ring unaccounted for, and do recall that they attempted to murder our Miss Ruben this afternoon. These people obviously have no compunction about committing violent acts.”

“Right,” Reese said. He tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel while he waited for the traffic light to turn green. Shaw sat beside him in the passenger's seat.

“Send us another address,” she said.

“Done,” said Finch. “There are plenty more where these came from. Miss Winslow's hard drive is a veritable treasure trove of information. It seems that our Miss Winslow owns, leases, or otherwise has access to an impressive amount of property in New York City and the surrounding areas—very little of it in her name, I might add. She has several aliases. I haven't yet examined all of them. Mr Bartley's computer has similarly yielded valuable data. The information he gave to Miss Shaw has allowed me to make great progress in the unearthing of this smuggling ring.”

The traffic light turned green.

Finch said, “I cannot help but feel that the sooner we find Anna Winslow, the better. I would enlist the support of our detectives in investigating the various addresses where Miss Winslow and the others may be in hiding, but I'm afraid that Detectives Carter and Fusco are busy handling the assailants that the two of you have managed to incapacitate today.”

“We'll make do,” Reese said.

But each address was a bust. Lofts, warehouses, loading docks, even a sixty-seventh-floor office downtown—there was evidence that all these spaces were often visited, but little to suggest that anyone had been to them recently.

Late that afternoon, Shaw and Reese rejoined Finch at the library for a quick meal and breather. Shaw had ordered Chinese take-out. The trio gathered around Finch's computer desk to eat. Shaw flopped backward into her chair with a dramatic omph, while Reese sat on the opposite side of the computer desk from Shaw. Finch, as usual, sat between them. Several cardboard take-out containers were on the desk, positioned as far away from the keyboard and mouse as possible. Reese leaned back in the chair, sighing and closing his eyes for a brief moment before picking up a pair of chopsticks.

The trio ate in silence. Reese picked at his food. Shaw demonstrated her imitation of a shop vacuum. Finch hardly touched his food at all.

After some time, Finch cleared his throat and said, “I'm afraid we have not exhausted the list.” He leaned forward and opened a map window on his monitor, where a half-dozen red dots had been overlaid on a map of New York City. “These addresses in particular seem to—”

Shaw dropped her chopsticks back into the take-out container and tossed it lazily to the desk. It hit the keyboard and nearly tipped over. Finch cringed.

“Look, Finch,” Shaw said. “Can't you just ask your stupid machine where Anna is? I know you two talk when you think nobody's looking. You're like a 12-year-old girl sneaking the phone under the covers when Mom and Dad are watching TV downstairs.”

Reese smirked. Finch looked considerably less amused.

He said, petulantly, “As I've said in the past, I'm afraid the Machine's programming does not allow—”

“C'mon,” Shaw said. “Have you actually tried asking about a Number recently?”

Finch hesitated, then said, “No.”

“Fine. I'll ask it, if you're scared.”

Reese had the distinct impression of a bird puffing out its feathers as Finch said, “Miss Shaw, I am hardly scared of the computer network that I constructed from the algorithms up—”

“Uh-huh. Hey, you.” Shaw reached forward and tapped the little webcam clipped to the side of the monitor. The “record” light lit up immediately. “Where's Anna Winslow?”

For the next few seconds, nobody spoke.

The Machine did not respond.

“C'mon,” Shaw said. “It'd help us find her faster.”

Still no response.

Finch coughed and said, “Miss Shaw, it will not—”

“You are stubborn,” Shaw said to the camera. “Okay, fine, I get it. Four-eyes programmed you to be tighter than a politician's ass, I get it, I really do.”

Finally, a response. A terminal window popped up on the monitor. A single character appeared.

0

Shaw looked satisfied, or at least, as satisfied as she ever looked, which wasn't very satisfied at all. “See, I know how to talk to it, Finch. I just need to insult you and it responds. Cute, really.” She raised her voice. “Okay, Sybil, look—Anna could be in trouble. Maybe. Some fancy-pants drug dealer thinks she shorted him and who knows how many goons he has looking for her. But more importantly, Anna tazed Finch's geeky BFF Elizabeth. That earns somebody a lot of points on my shit list because Elizabeth bakes some killer peanut butter oatmeal cookies. I figure that tazing her has gotta earn somebody, I dunno, at least a few points on your list.”

1

Shaw grinned. The effect unnerved Reese. “And you know where Anna is?”

1

“So where is she?”

The trio waited, but the Machine stayed silent. After some time, Shaw sighed.

“Fine,” she said. “We'll do it the hard way, you stubborn bucket of bits.” She stood, stretched, and walked off down the corridor. “Meet you at the car in ten, Reese.” She turned the corner. For several seconds, Finch and Reese heard her boots on the stairs, and then she was gone.

Finch stared after her for several seconds, then turned to look at Reese. He quirked one eyebrow. Reese shrugged and focused his attention on his food.

For a time, the only sounds in the library chamber were the gentle clack of the keys on Finch's keyboard, the drone of the computer cooling fans, the soft clatter of the hard drives.

“Hey, Finch?” Reese said.

“Yes, Mr. Reese?”

Reese tapped the computer tower under the desk with the tip of his shoe. “How did Elizabeth manage to crack the password to Anna's drive before you did?”

One corner of Finch's mouth turned downward in frown. He stared at the monitors before him and, for a time, did not respond.

“A mistake,” he said at last. He glanced at Reese out of the corner of his eyes before gazing downward. “When I paused the password cracking application and disconnected it from the Lachesis drive, I neglected to reset the configuration parameters for it to use on Miss Winslow's encrypted partition.” He sighed. “The cracking application tried to resume at the last 'guess' where it had left off, thinking it was continuing its work on the Lachesis drive. The program would have never matched a password less than eleven characters in length because it had already excluded those passwords, thinking them to be incorrect. Our Miss Winslow's password was a mere six characters long.”

Reese nodded.

“It's—this is all my fault,” Finch said. “If I had reconfigured the application correctly, we would have known about the warehouse meeting ahead of time. We would have been able to stop them. But now, one of our Numbers is missing—and Miss Ruben has sustained considerable injuries.”

“Don't beat yourself up, Harold,” said Reese. “We all made mistakes.”

“This was a mistake a child would make,” Finch said. “It was stupid, Mr. Reese.”

“We all do stupid things,” Reese said, “Including Elizabeth. Right now, the best thing we can do is to find Anna and Richard. But I have to admit, I'm more concerned about Anna than I am about Dick. The drug smuggler I met at her apartment might have other people looking for Anna.”

“Then I suppose we had best find her first,” said Finch.

But they didn't find her that night.

#####

Shaw and Reese resumed the search for Anna Winslow early the next morning and quickly worked their way through three more addresses. Finch's list was down to six locations. The next was a small suburban home a few miles beyond the city limits. By the time they arrived, the sun was already well above the horizon.

The exterior of the house looked little different from the houses around it: white wood siding, white trim, casement windows with white shades drawn. There were a few wilted potted plants on the tiny cement front porch and the lawn looked like it hadn't been mowed for a few weeks at least.

Reese parked the car a little ways away from the house. He and Shaw climbed out of the car and moseyed up the sidewalk, keeping a careful watch on their surroundings. When they neared the house, Reese's phone rang. He glanced down at the screen and checked the caller ID: Carter. A grin appeared on his face as he tapped the accept button.

“Hello, Joss,” he said, but he got no further than that.

“Where's Elizabeth?” Carter demanded. Reese's grin faded.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“I mean, where's Elizabeth? Somebody called my phone while I was pulling your smarmy ass out of the fire yesterday. A young woman, Daniels told me. So I look up the number in the logs and, turns out, it's blocked. I dig a little deeper and find out it's a cell phone, and y'know what? The location data's been erased. Sound familiar, John? Ringing any bells?”

“Yes,” Reese said, bracing himself for the storm.

“And then, you know what? I see Donnelly rushing by, all excited about something, and he tells me a warehouse involved in some new drug trafficking case of his just went on ahead and blew itself up. Just like that. Took out three of the buildings around it. A bomb, the techs are saying. Imagine, it happens just after a girl with a hacked cell phone tries to call me. And you know what? Elizabeth isn't answering her land line or her cell phone—the one I know about, which is at her apartment according to the location data. John, so help me God, you have five seconds to tell me that this is all one big goddamn coincidence—”

John took a deep breath and said, “It's...not.”

“Where is she?”

“Resting,” John said.

“Resting where?”

“Someplace safe.”

“She got hurt, didn't she?” Carter's voice was deadly quiet. “What happened to her? Where. Is. She?”

“In a clinic.”

“What happened to her? Was she at that goddamn warehouse?”

“She—” But before he could finish, Shaw tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the front door of the house.

“Blood on the front stoop,” Shaw whispered. A pistol materialized in her hand.

“I gotta go, Joss,” Reese said. “I think we just found Anna Winslow.”

“If you don't call me back in an hour, so God help me, I am going to hunt you down and rip your—“

Reese hung up. A tiny smile appeared on his face, then faded as he considered the immediate situation. He pulled the pistol out from his jacket and approached the front door.

“Door's ajar,” he whispered to Shaw.

Standing to the side, he reached forward and pushed the door open. It moved without a squeak. Like a shadow, Reese moved into the entryway, which opened onto a small living room. There was more blood there, staining the hardwood floor. It trailed off into the hallway and kitchen. A shattered cell phone lay in the center of the room, surrounded by a wreath of broken plastic. With a jerk of her head, Shaw indicated the kitchen and slipped off to search it, moving silently. Reese continued on to the hallway. His senses were on full alert, eyes peeled for movement, ears perked for the smallest sound that might indicate an intruder about to attack.

The blood trail led to a room at the end of the hall. The door was open. Reese came around the corner, his gun held before him.

Anna Winslow was sprawled on the ground, propped up against a bed with white cotton sheets. She held a bloody cloth to her upper arm. The blood ran down her arm in dark rivulets and dripped onto the wood floor from her wrist. Another cloth had been wrapped around her thigh. A small silver pistol lay on the floorboards by her free hand. Anna's mouth was set in a grimace. When she saw Reese, her eyes widened. Her fingers scrabbled for the gun and she struggled to hold it up.

“Get the fuck out,” she said.

Reese lowered his gun and held up his hand. “I'm not here to hurt you, Anna,” he said. “I'm here to help.”

“Yeah, like I'm gonna fall for that sort of bullshit,” she said. She tried to raise the gun again, wincing. Her voice was roughened by pain. “You here to finish me off?”

“No,” Reese said. “I'm really here to help. I know about your troubles with Richard—”

Reese felt, rather than heard, Shaw as she came up next to him. “Oh, shit,” she said when she had caught sight of Anna. Unlike Reese, she kept her gun pointed at the injured woman on the floor. “I'm a doctor,” she said. “Well, I was a doctor. Put the gun down and I might make you less miserable.”

“Tell me what you 'know',” Anna said, looking between Reese and Shaw. “Then I might put the gun down.” But the barrel had already dipped an inch.

“I know Robert Bartley tried to go to the police after Richard Hardy used your warehouse and connections to smuggle drugs into the country,” Reese said. “I know Robert had the bad luck of meeting two crooked cops, who tried to blackmail him. I know that Richard found out and decided to kill him at the warehouse—except my friend showed up and your gang tried to kill her instead.”

“We're still kinda pissed about that,” Shaw said.

“That little white schoolgirl?” Anna looked horrified. “I didn't—we weren't planning to—is she all right? Did she—is she dead?”

“She'll live,” Shaw said. “No thanks to you tazing her.”

“Look, Dick and his boys were out for blood. I thought they'd kill her if she fought any longer. I didn't know what else to—”

“Just be glad she didn't die,” Shaw said. “Be very, very glad.”

Anna gulped. “What about Robert?”

“He's fine too,” Reese said. “We got to him before the cops did.”

Anna chewed the inside of her lip. Her shoulders slumped and she set the gun on the floor, sliding it away. Shaw and Reese crouched on either side of the wounded woman. Reese aimed his pistol at the doorway while Shaw examined Anna's wounds.

“Gunshots?” Shaw asked. Anna nodded and winced as Shaw peeled back the fabric over the shoulder wound with a surprising amount of gentleness....for her.

“Think he just grazed my arm,” Anna said. “Oww, shit. Not sure about my leg. That fucker is nuts. He thinks I'm the one that told your girl about the warehouse. But I got a shot off too—he's limping. I can't believe I did that. You ever shot someone before? I still can't believe I did that. Owch! Easy!”

“How long ago?” Reese asked.

“Maybe...ten minutes?” Anna sighed. “I think I was aiming for his balls. Got his knee instead.”

Reese chuckled.

Anna said, “I was just sitting here, all in shock, waiting for Dick to come back with his croonies to finish me off. A nice agonizing crawl to the landline wasn't looking too bad when you showed up. Who the hell are you, again?”

“We'll explain later,” Shaw said. “Like, when you're not bleeding all over me.”

It took Shaw only a few minutes to determine the nature of Anna's wounds. One bullet had grazed Anna's right shoulder, carving a shallow, bloody divot as it went; the other had gone clear through her left thigh. Shaw used towels from the bathroom as crude bandages to keep the bleeding down.

“You're lucky,” Shaw said as she worked. “You'll be limping awhile, but you'll live. The bullet hit the outside of your thigh and missed the major arteries.” She scoffed. “What'd he shoot you with, a .22? This guy's an idiot.”

“How am I supposed to know how big Dick's gun is? Oww, motherf—”

“Can we move her?” Reese asked Shaw. “We're sitting ducks here.”

“I can move,” Anna said. She grimaced. “I think. I just might have to lean on you a bit, that's all. Hope you don't mind a little blood on that suit, pretty boy. Where are we going?”

“Someplace safe from Richard, and his minions, and the drug dealers that want you dead.”

Anna raised her eyebrows and said, “Hang on—the who that want me what?”

Shaw said, “That drug shipment? The cops Bob went to for help blackmailed him into stealing some of it. The dealers think you did it.”

“What?”

“We took care of it,” John said. “I think. He might have a few guys looking for you still. You have bigger worries right now. Do you think you can stand? Take my arm. That's it—”

Anna groaned and leaned against Reese, swearing under her breath. But she was mobile enough to limp her way out the door and to the car while Shaw covered them with her pistol. Reese buckled Anna in the back seat and Shaw slid behind the wheel of the car.

“Ready?” she said.

“Let's go,” said Reese, cramming himself into the back seat beside Anna and pulling the door shut.

“I guess I should thank you,” Anna said as the engine throbbed into life. She looked like she was trying very hard not to wince in pain. “But I don't know who you are.”

“I'm John,” said Reese. “That's Shaw.”

“Well, gee, thanks,” she said. “That just clears everything right up, doesn't it?”

They drove off.

#####

They took Anna to one of Finch's many private clinics, a well-kept brownstone apartment in the Bronx. The resident doctor, a willowy Japanese woman with spindly gold-rimmed glasses perched on her narrow nose, shook her head as she examined Anna's wounds.

“Third bullet wound this month!” she said. “Mr. Reese, you getting slow and old. Your job to save people before they get shot.”

“I do try, Dr. Kazuko,” he said dryly.

“Don't worry, Reese,” said Shaw. “Getting old isn't that bad. I'm sure Finch has a nice private retirement home all lined up for you.”

“I doubt I'll need it,” Reese said.

“Yeah,” Shaw said. “Carter is going to murder you way before you ever retire. You did say you'd call her back, you know. You should probably do that.”

“Right,” Reese said, looking pained. He pulled out his cell phone. “Excuse me.”

“I still want your sniper rifle if you die,” Shaw said. “Really, you should put me in your will.”

Reese stepped out into the quiet hallway outside the treatment room, closing the door behind him. He closed his eyes, sighed once, leaned against the wall, and dialed Carter's number.

She picked up halfway through the second ring.

“Wow,” she said, drawing out the word. “He actually calls me back. Tell me, John, 'fore I start ripping you a new one—is that Anna girl alive?”

“Yeah,” Reese said, glancing over his shoulder at the treatment room door. Through the little window, he saw Anna smiling as she talked with Shaw. He smiled slightly. “She's safe. Shot in the thigh, but she'll live and probably won't even be limping after a few months. Now we're looking for a man named Richard Hardy. He's the head of the smuggling ring.”

“Finch sent me the details,” Carter said. “Already got an APB out. Now.” Her voice dropped dangerously low. “How bad is Elizabeth hurt? You tell me the truth about that girl, John, or—I don't even know what I do, but it'll be bad. Count on it.”

“She's not hurt too badly,” Reese said, trying his best to sound reassuring. “She just needs a few days to rest—”

“John...”

He paused and closed his eyes. Resigned, bracing himself for the inevitable explosion, he said, “A few cracked ribs, a fractured wrist, and some scrapes and bruises. Nothing Dr. Kazuko can't—”

“The hell, John?” Carter's voice fell even lower, almost to a whisper. Over the phone, he heard footsteps and then the squeaking of a door hinge. “You consider that not too badly? What's badly to you, huh? This is Elizabeth we're talking about. You might be used to brushing away the shrapnel and walking it off, but not her!”

“It could've been worse.”

“What the hell happened at the warehouse? Why was she even there?”

Reese sighed and wiped his forehead with his hand. “Elizabeth managed to crack the password to Anna's drive before Finch did. She found an address in one of Anna's emails and went to scout it out.”

“She what?” crackled Carter's incredulous voice. “She got into the drive before Finch did? How'd she manage that? No, you know what? I don't want to know. What I do want to know is: why was she alone when she decided to pay a visit to an exploding warehouse?”

“I was a little tied up at the time.”

“John, do I sound like I want humor right now?”

“Sorry, Joss,” Reese said, sounding sheepish. “Shaw was off rescuing Robert, you and Fusco were rescuing me—we all managed to miss Elizabeth's calls.”

“And what about Finch, huh? Where was he when all this was going down?”

Reese hesitated. “Elizabeth has...never met Finch. The less she knows about us, the safer she'll be.”

“Uh-uh. No way. Don't you try that. She's already in too deep for you to be worried about that kind of bullshit, just like I was. Safer? Look what happened to her! How'd she even get that banged up? How close was she when the warehouse blew?”

“A few dozen meters.” For a moment, there was an uncomfortable silence, then Reese said, “I should've been there. One of us should've been there. We let her down.”

Carter sighed, exasperated. “John, that girl went out by herself even after she couldn't get ahold of someone to help. That's her fault. That—that was stupid. But you know what? That's your fault, too. 'Cause you've made her think she's goddamn bulletproof. She's been hanging around you, and you've been taking her to the houses of known criminals, and you've been having her hack their shit, and she thinks she's in a comic book or something because even when they catch her, you're there to bail her out and give the bad guys what they've got coming. You've taught her how to pick locks and how to poke somebody in the eye, and she thinks nothing in the world can touch her because—”

“Joss—“

“I'm not through, John. You've been teaching this poor girl—who, by the way, nearly died one of the most horrible deaths I can imagine, but you swooped in at the last minute, like you always do, and now she thinks you're some goddamn superhero or something—and you've been teaching this poor girl how to do stupid shit, the kind that gets people killed. Only, until now, you've been there to protect her from the part that's actually gonna kill her, so she hadn't gotten more than a bruise here and there. You've been showing her this—this—this idealistic, happy-go-lucky, let's-all-hold-hands-and-sing-Hallelujah-for-justice side of vigilantism, but you've been hiding all the bad parts, like what really happens to people who try to take the law into their own hands. How could you have possibly not known that this was going to end with somebody getting hurt? What did you think would happen the day she tried going off on her own to be just like her hero, the Guy in the Suit? Well?”

Reese blinked. “I—didn't.”

“You didn't what?”

“I didn't...think about that,” he said, sounding uncomfortable. He shifted his weight from foot to foot.

“No, you didn't. And she didn't think either. And it nearly got her killed today. You're idiots. You're both idiots.”

“I don't think either of us will forget this,” Reese said softly.

“You sure as hell will not forget this,” Carter said. “'Cause I won't let you. As for Elizabeth, it's about time she learned that this isn't some—some—some goddamn movie where the good guys always win and the bad guys always end up behind bars. That girl needs to understand: people die when they get involved in things like this. People get killed, John. People get shot and stabbed and drowned and tortured and she doesn't even know all the horrible things a person can do to somebody else. But she needs to know. She needs to understand that if she keeps this up, she's gonna get hurt—or worse. Because it takes just one second, one shove, one goddamn bullet, and it's lights out for good.”

“Yes, but—”

“Talking here. You know what? Better yet, she doesn't need to know. Better yet, she stops with this nonsense and counts her blessings and starts using that big brain of hers for something else. 'Cause she's got the kind of smarts that a lot of people would kill to have, and she could do a lot of good with it if she wasn't hanging out with you. Your turn. Talk.”

“For what it's worth,” Reese said, “Elizabeth got herself out of trouble today. I got there too late to help. She was already out. She's not defenseless.”

“She got lucky. That all you got? I've been talking up a storm for the past five minutes, and you give me four sentences?”

Reese scratched his forehead. For several seconds, he didn't speak.

“I'll talk to her,” he said at last. “I hope I can get through to her this time.”

“You'd better do a hell of a lot more than talk,” Carter said. She sighed in bitter exasperation. “Otherwise, we're gonna find her body in a dumpster one of these days, and all the good things she's gonna do someday will go down the drain. And you're gonna lose it and break into a billion pieces—and John, I can't keep putting you back together. I just can't. So for her sake, and for your sake, and for my sake—you'd better make damn sure she knows what she's getting into before she goes anywhere with you again. You spell it out for her, 'cause even though she's probably the brightest girl in her class, even though she can hack into somebody's laptop with her eyes closed, even though she can make my computer get up on its hind legs and do a fucking jig on my desk, she is stupid.”

There was a pause, and then Carter said, “You got all that?”

“I got it,” Reese said. His voice was almost inaudible.

“I won't believe it until I hear you've talked with her. And I'm gonna ask her, soon as she's back on her feet. So you'd better do it.”

“I'll talk to her.” Reese closed his eyes and said, “I'm sorry, Joss.”

“Don't you be sorry to me. I'm pissed off at you.” Her voice softened. “Be sorry to Elizabeth, 'cause you've nearly gotten her killed at least twice now. Go talk with her. And don't you dare call me back until she knows that you ain't no goddamn Batman.”

There was a click, and the call disconnected.

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

I slept for a long time, though my sleep was restless and uneasy. I wasn't used to sleeping on my back, and I didn't want to lie on my side or stomach with a needle jabbed in one arm and a splint around my wrist, so I had a hard time falling asleep. I walked a tightrope between consciousness and darkness throughout the night, thinking sluggish thoughts when I was lucid and slipping into a hazy, shadowy dreamland when I wasn't.

My dreams were indistinct and unfocused. Thank goodness, they had little to do with the terrifying events at the warehouse. Or Connetrix. Or the cargo container.

But Gray was in some of them.

I opened my eyes once to find him standing next to the hospital bed. He looked much as he had in the addled dream at the warehouse: tan cargo shorts, a plain orange T-shirt. A little ghost of a smile graced his freckled face and his hair was still wet and mussed from Schaum's tongue.

"Gray?" I mumbled. "What are you doing here?"

"I dunno," he said. "I'm bored, Ellie. Can we play?"

"Not right now," I grumbled, closing my eyes. "I'm tired. Go find Mama; we'll play tomorrow. And I'll help you with your math homework after breakfast, I promise."

For a little while, there was silence.

"Mama's busy," Gray said. I didn't respond until he said, "She told me to tell you that if you get yourself killed, she'll be really upset."

My eyes flew open and I jerked upright. "What did you say?"

But he wasn't there. The room was dark. The only illumination was the blue-white glow from the cardiac monitor next to the bed; it was little brighter than a full moon, but that was still bright enough to keep me from having a mental breakdown in the darkness.

Barely.

I fell back against the covers with a groan. It took a long time to fall back asleep. Great, I thought to myself. Now even my dead little brother is trying to get me to stop helping John. Who next? Harold Finch? The President of the United States? Mama?

Fortunately, nobody else tried to guilt-trip me that night.

By the time morning came, I didn't feel particularly well-rested. I mumbled and yawned and opened my eyes to find Dr. Tillman leaning over me.

"Good morning, Elizabeth," she said. "Sleep well?"

"Pretty good," I said, "considering you shoved a giant needle up my arm."

"It's just a flesh wound," she said, examining the IV bag. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," I said, frowning. "Kinda floaty. And I'm supposed to be making the Monty Python quotes, not you."

"Sorry. I can't let you do that." Dr. Tillman went over to the monitor next to the bed and tapped the screen twice, scrolling through menus.

"Why not?" I asked.

She paused and a shy grin spread across her face.

"It's too perilous," she said with a lousy English accent.

I groaned.

After scrawling something on her clipboard, Dr. Tillman said, "How are your ears?"

"Better, I guess." I pointed to my head as best I could with my right arm in a splint. "Not as muffled anymore, but this one's still ringing."

"Well, we'll keep an eye on that," she said. "Is it worse than last night?"

"I think it's a bit less."

"That's good." She made a mark on the clipboard. "If it gets worse, let me know right away. Do you need to visit the restroom?"

She wheeled the IV stand out from next to the monitor and offered her hand. After helping me up and giving me a pair of soft, comfortable slippers to protect my feet, she led me over to the room's private bathroom and held the door open for me to enter.

The bathroom, with its wide gray floor tiles and silver fixtures, managed to give off an air of pleasantness despite its drab and utilitarian appearance. It was clean and well-stocked. I did my business and washed my hands. I put my hand on the door handle, but before I opened it, I stopped. I heard voices beyond the door. Cautiously, I pulled the door open a crack and peeked out the gap to see John talking with Dr. Tillman.

"You'd better not be talking shit about me," I said, opening the door all the way.

"Oh no, she's here," Dr. Tillman said, feigning surprise.

"We should probably stop talking about our plan for world domination," Reese said to Dr. Tillman, sotto voice.

"Hey," I said, "as long as I get a slice of Colorado to rule with an iron fist, I'm all for it."

"Colorado, huh?" said Dr. Tillman as I shuffled unsteadily back to the bed, wheeling the IV stand behind me. "My family went there once for vacation when I was a kid. It was...nice." Her voice sounded detached, but it quickly regained its usual cheer. "I was just telling John that you should be out of here in a week or so."

"A week?" I squawked. "But I feel fine!"

"That's because you've been impaled by a giant needle that is currently pumping narcotics into your ungrateful body." Dr. Tillman smiled and said, "It might be sooner. We'll have to see how you heal up...and how you behave."

I muttered dark things as John helped me back into the bed. I laid back with a sigh. "Do I at least get my laptop?" I looked imploringly at John. "Please tell me you brought the laptop."

John smiled slightly and pulled a familiar, battered old laptop case from under the bed.

Dr. Tillman said, "I'll show you how to get on our wireless network in a few minutes. You need anything?"

"Can I have a time machine so I don't have to stay here for a week?"

"Sure. I'll just go call up Doc Brown right now."

"And here I thought you were Doctor Who."

"Actually, it's just the Doctor," she said, winking. She nodded to John and walked out of the room.

John unzipped the laptop case and pulled the netbook out, followed by its power adapter and the external hard drive. He set them both on the bedside table to my left before taking a seat.

"Don't worry," John said, "if she tries to keep you more than a week, I'll get you out of this place. It'll be just like a jailbreak, only without the statewide manhunt."

"You mean 'womanhunt'," I said.

"Either way, it's not very fun. Well, okay—jailbreaks are fun. The aftermath isn't."

I grinned and shook my head. "At least I have the laptop to pass the time."

"I picked up a pair of earphones too," John said, pulling out a little pouch and tossing it on top of the netbook. "You're one of the only patients here, but I figured you might like the privacy for music or something."

I suddenly realized just how quiet the room was. There were no nurses walking up and down the hallway outside, no patients talking in the next room over, no alarms or calls over the intercom. "So this isn't a hospital," I said. "I knew it was too nice to be a hospital."

"Private clinic," John said. His eyebrows went up. "Very exclusive."

"Only people who almost get blown up by exploding warehouses are allowed in, huh?"

"Not that kind of exclusive."

I chuckled, but the sound quickly faded at the thought of my harrowing escape the day before. I struggled to think about something else. "So," I said, "what about the people you were looking for? Anna and the bad guys?"

"We found Anna," John said. "She got shot, but she'll pull through. She regrets tazing you, by the way."

"Good," I said, eyes narrowed.

"We'll be looking for Richard now. Once he and his croonies are...behind bars...this case is closed."

"Mmm," I said. I leaned over and reached for my laptop. John handed it to me and plugged its adapter into a power outlet by the bed. I mashed the power button with my finger and tapped my fingers on the aluminium casing as I waited for the operating system to boot.

John was staring at me. I could feel it. He had me fixed in that gaze of his and he wasn't saying a word.

"I can feel you looking at me," I said, keeping my eyes on the laptop screen. John didn't respond. I entered my username and password into the login prompt. A moment later, it flashed an error message, something about invalid credentials. Annoyed, I typed in my password again.

John still hadn't said anything. I wiggled my foot and turned my head to look at him and said, "You want to talk, don't you? About yesterday, I mean." The laptop rejected my credentials. I was getting really irritated now.

"You're still drugged," John said as I tapped in my password for a third time.

"I'm lucid." Login failed. "Oh, for heaven's sake—!"

"Apparently not lucid enough to notice that you misspelled your username."

I looked at the screen and grumbled.

"'eeelev'? Really?" I cleared the username box, typed in elev, and this time, the laptop accepted my password. I went right for the wireless network utilities to see what kind of connectivity I could expect in this place

"I think the talk should wait," John said, his voice teasing.

"Maybe we can just have the short version?" I asked hopefully, hoping to avoid another "you shouldn't be helping me" lecture. But John shook his head.

"No," he said. "It's important. But it will have to wait a few days."

"Mmm," I said. I watched as the wireless network app scanned for available network and piped the results to the screen. There were only a few networks around. All of them were encrypted, mostly with WPA2 enterprise-level authentication...

"Here we go," Dr. Tillman said as she bustled back into the room. She handed me a slip of paper with a network SSID, a username, and a random alphanumeric password printed on it. "John tells me you're some kind of computer wiz, so I'm pretty sure you can figure it out. But let me know if you have any problems connecting."

"Thanks," I said, and less than a minute later I was online. Dr. Tillman left again. John watched me check my email accounts for awhile, then said, "I should go deal with Richard. We have a pretty good idea about where he's hiding now."

"What are you going to do to him?" I asked.

"Persuade him to turn his back on his life of crime and treachery," John said.

"Uh-huh." I found myself thinking about the conversation I'd overheard outside the warehouse, and I shuddered. I didn't know exactly what John was going to do to this guy, but whatever happened, I was pretty sure the guy had it coming.

"I'll check in on you in a day or so," John said, patting my shoulder. "You need anything else, let Dr. Tillman know."

"Sure," I said. "Thanks for the laptop."

John stood and ambled out, closing the door gently behind him. With a sigh, I drew up my legs, perched the laptop on my thighs, and started skimming through some of my unread emails.

#####

Reese signaled to Shaw, counting down with his fingers. When he reached zero, he kicked the basement door open. Shaw tossed a flashbang into the room. It clattered against the cement floor amidst startled cries from the room's occupants. The operatives held their hands over their ears until a muffled whump sounded from within, then strode into the room, guns held at the ready.

Two men were crumpled on the floor, dazed and disoriented. One of them reached for a pistol tucked into his belt, but Reese grabbed the man's wrist and twisted it behind his back. The man squirmed and yelled, his face contorted in pain.

"Jesus, fuck man! Let go! Let go!"

"Sorry," Reese said. He tossed the man's gun away. "I'm not Jesus. Just your friendly neighborhood vigilante."

Reese glanced up to see that Shaw had already disarmed the other man and was now pinning him to the gritty cement floor by planting her knee in his back. She nodded to Reese, who quickly restrained the man beneath him with several thick plastic zip-ties.

Finch's voice sounded in Reese's ear.

"I do admit," he said, "that spectacle was duly impressive even over a low-resolution security camera. But was the flash bang really necessary?"

"Yes," Shaw said, ratcheting a zip-tie tight. "I haven't used one in awhile and I thought it'd be fun. C'mon, Finch. You should be happy. It's one less grenade in the Library."

"To be replaced by the six high explosive grenades you acquired last week."

"I figure we're even now," Shaw said. "You brought in six new computers, I brought in six slightly used grenades."

Reese was fairly sure he heard Finch sigh. He smirked.

Finch said, "Need I remind you both that Mr. Hardy worked as a demolitions expert until he decided to take up a somewhat safer career as a drug smuggler? Perhaps you should keep this in mind the next time you decide to lob a flashbang for entertainment purposes—into a room he might be occupying."

"That's why we had you hack their security system," Reese said. "To make sure he wasn't occupying the room."

The man beneath Reese tried bucking his captor off. Reese raised an eyebrow and shoved the man's face into the concrete floor. The man continued to struggle until Reese tapped him on the back of the neck with the muzzle of his pistol.

"I'm not sure which one of you took a shot at my partner," Reese said. His voice was dangerously soft and cool. "But I can always take it out on you, if you'd rather."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" the man yelled, his voice rising hysterically in pitch.

"That's a start," Reese said. "But it's not good enough."

"Shit, what do you want, man?"

"Your boss. Where's he hiding?"

The man stammered incoherence, something about Richard threatening his family and promising to murder anyone who crossed him. Shaw looked down at her own captive, in the same way that a kid might look at a particularly grotesque bug just before squashing it, and said, "How 'bout you? You feeling more talkative? 'Cause we only need one of you to spill the beans."

The man stuttered. "I—I—I—"

"You, you, you sound like you need some encouragement," Shaw said. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a grenade.

"Don't you think that's overkill?" Reese said, sounding nonchalant, while the captives' eyes went wide.

"Nah," Shaw said. She dangled the grenade in front of the man's face. "See this?" she asked. The man nodded frantically as best he could with his nose less than an inch away from the ground.

"Good," Shaw said. She pulled the pin out and dropped it on the floor just in front of her captive's face, then put the grenade in his bound hands, wrapping his fingers around the handle. "I hope you've got a good grip."

"No!" the man shouted, horrified. "God, no, wait!"

"Isn't that the grenade with the over-sensitive detonator?" Reese asked. His voice was the very definition of innocence.

"Dunno, might be," Shaw said. "Let's get out of here and let him find out on his own. I doubt he'll be able to hold it for very long."

"Takes a strong grip," Reese agreed.

"The boathouse!" screamed the man. He spoke very fast. "For God's sake, he's probably at the boathouse!"

"Where's the boathouse?" Reese said.

"Someplace up north. There's a GPS unit in my car, it has the address." Reese was fairly sure that the man's eyes were going to pop out of his reddening face if they went any wider. "P-please, put the pin back!"

"Crybaby," Shaw said. She plucked the grenade from his hands and picked up the pin. "It's a dud. But if you're lying, the next one won't be." She tilted her head towards the door. Reese stood, brushed off his jacket, and looked down at the men, grinning.

"Don't go anywhere," he said.

#####

Richard Hardy was broad and bulky. He had a wrinkled, pinkish face capped by frazzled gray hair. He wore a plaid shirt, jeans, and brown work boots, and his movements were angry and jerky. John and Shaw found him in an abandoned old boathouse along the Hudson. He was kneeling in front of a dusty safe set in a dark corner of the room. He didn't realize there was anyone else in the building until they were mere feet behind him. Richard spun around, jumping to his feet, and reached for the gun in his holster.

Shaw tazed him, then kicked him in the gonads.

Twice.

Reese bound and gagged him, then stuffed him into the trunk of their car.

For a long time, they drove. Neither Reese nor Shaw spoke.

They stopped at an aging, run-down garage set a ways back from an isolated stretch of highway; they had visited the location while searching for Anna. They got out of the car, ignoring the muffled thumps and groans from the trunk, and entered the building.

"This place will work," Shaw said, looking around. The room was a wide, empty expanse, lit dimly by yellowing plastic skylights above.

"Nice ambiance," Reese agreed. "Soundproof. Isolated. Let's get everything set up."

#####

Richard Hardy, despite being restrained, was not a very docile prisoner. Shaw tazed him again to get him under control (or possibly, merely because she felt like it). As a result, he was unaware of his surroundings as they zip-tied him to a support column in the center of the no-longer-empty room.

Then, they stood in front of him and waited until he stirred.

"Whattizis?" he slurred, groaning. He blinked and shook his head. Rage shone behind his eyes as he strained against his restraints.

"Hello, Dick," Reese said, his voice cheerful.

"This is payback," Shaw said.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Richard spat. He yanked against his plastic bonds. "Let me go!"

"We're making you pay for what you did to our friend," Shaw said.

"You don't have any friends, bitch," Richard said.

Reese said, "You don't remember the little brown-haired girl you cuffed next to a bomb?"

Richard laughed. It was not a pretty sound. "That feisty little whore? I bet she went up crying in a puddle of her own piss."

Shaw's face was impassive, but her voice sounded strained to Reese's ears. "She lived. More than I can say about you in ten minutes."

"You can't touch me," Richard said. "You—"

"We just did," Reese said.

"You're dead." Richard snarled and clenched his fists. "You, and your friends, and your families—you're all dead. I'm gonna hunt down every goddamn last person you love and—"

"You're tied to a support column," Reese pointed out.

"Probably not gonna be killing anybody," Shaw said.

"Fuck off!" Richard screamed.

Reese looked at Shaw. "I think he wants some alone time," he said.

"We can arrange that," Shaw said. She stepped to the side, letting Richard see what was behind her. It took him several seconds to notice the flashing red LED light.

Richard's face paled.

"We stopped by your storage facility," Reese said, patting the top of the barrel. "Borrowed some of your things."

"You won't be needing them any longer," Shaw said. "Thanks for the C4, by the way. I was running low."

"Let's let him be," Reese said. He tilted his head towards the door, and Shaw followed him. Their footsteps echoed throughout the empty garage. Richard didn't make a sound until they were almost outside.

"You—you can't do this," he said. More than anything, he sounded angry—and just slightly desperate. "Are you listening to me? You can't do this to—wait, wait! Come back! COME BACK HERE."

Reese kicked the door shut behind them.

"How long do you think we should leave him in there before we send our tip to the FBI?" Reese asked as they trekked across the uneven asphalt to the car.

"Forever," Shaw said. Reese couldn't tell if she was joking or not.

"Let's call it an hour," he said. "Okay, maybe two."

"Fine, whatever."

They leaned back against the trunk of the car and, for awhile, did not speak. The empty parking lot around them was devoid of life or activity. A breeze whispered through the trees surrounding the lot. A car zoomed past on the highway, like static on wheels, and then there was silence.

A faint, angry scream came from the garage, then another.

"He sounds like he's having fun," Shaw said.

Reese said nothing.

More silence. Another scream, this one more desperate. Reese looked sidelong at Shaw. After several seconds, he said, "Back in there—you called Elizabeth a friend."

"So?" Shaw crossed her arms and stared straight ahead.

"Dick was right. You don't really have friends."

"She's a friend," Shaw said. No hesitation, no uncertainty.

"That's good," Reese said. "You could use a friend or two."

"Thanks, Dr. Phil."

"I mean it."

A shrug. "It's nice to have someone...innocent to talk with. And she bakes awesome cookies."

"The mark of true friendship."

"Shut up. Have you tried her cookies?"

"No."

"Loser." Shaw uncrossed her arms and tapped her fingernails against the hood of the car. "First time I broke into her place, around Christmas? She'd been baking. Dozens of cookies, cooling right there on the rack, and I figured she wouldn't miss one or two, so I snuck a few while she was napping on the couch. Best break-in ever."

Another scream. They both ignored it.

For several minutes, they sat in silence.

Shaw opened her mouth slightly, then seemed to reconsider. She did it a second time, and finally, she said, "A few minutes after I got there, I think Elizabeth started having a nightmare or something."

Reese said, "She doesn't sleep well."

"All of a sudden she starts moaning like some cat in heat, clawing at the coffee table, getting her legs all tangled in the blanket...I left before she woke up. I didn't know what to do."

"There wasn't much else to do," Reese pointed out. "I doubt she would've liked waking from a nightmare to find a stranger in her house."

"Right." Shaw's mouth twitched. "She looks—delicate when she's asleep, you know? Hell, Reese, she even looks delicate when she's awake. She wears cutesy dresses and those leather shoes like little girls wear—it's like, how the hell does this kid go around with a gun and hack people's computers?"

"She's tougher than she looks," Reese said.

"Yeah. Yeah, I hope."

Yet another scream came from the garage, the loudest one yet. Reese pulled out his cell phone and tapped the screen. It expanded into a video feed from a camera—actually a carefully-positioned cell phone—inside the garage. The camera was focused on Richard, who was struggling furiously against his restraints, to no avail. Four fake barrel bombs had been positioned around him.

"Think it's time to make them start beeping?" Shaw said. "I can't wait to see his face."

"We can let him stew a bit longer," Reese said.

And they did.

#####

Special Agent Donnelly surveyed the remains of the warehouse and shook his head. Beyond the yellow caution tape before him lay a scene that might as well have come from a war movie. What had once been a warehouse was now nothing more than a blackened, spindly collection of metal beams jutting out from a smoking foundation. The building to one side had been levelled, blasted to rubble; the opposite building still stood, although its brick walls leaned alarmingly, and even as Donnelly watched, a lonely brick fell from its precarious position atop a demolished wall and clattered to the ground.

Debris spread outward in long trails from the blast center, like a flower of destruction. Two massive door panels lay flat on the ground in the parking lot, about five feet beyond the caution tape. They were both bowed by the force of the blast.

Sighing, Donnelly ducked under the tape and strode towards the workers milling around the scene. Although the remains of the buildings were still too hot (and unstable) to examine for potential evidence, the agents could still search the surrounding area for anything that might have been thrown clear by the blast.

Donnelly walked along one of the massive doors on the ground. It was easily twenty feet to a side. The metal ribs that reinforced it had been snapped and stuck out at odd angles, like the carcass of a beast that had been scavenged by hyenas.

He reached the end of the door, stepped around a pile of rubble, glanced down, and paused. He crouched, snapping on a pair of gloves as he did so.

The misshapen black blob sticking out of the debris looked somehow out of place. Donnelly touched it tentatively, and when it did not burn him, he pulled it gently free.

It was a cell phone.

Badly damaged, to be certain—but the boys at Quantico had pulled miracles out of more charred remains than this. Motioning a tech over, he had the phone sealed in an evidence bag and sent off for expedited processing.

Thirty seconds later, his own cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and was surprised to see a text message from a blocked source.

It read: "You should check your email, Agent Donnelly..."

#####

Chapter Text

September 1993

The golden autumn sun hung high in the sky, filtering down through the branches of the massive trees around us and casting dancing shadows across the ground. The day was chilly. Every so often, a little gust of wind would come up and nip right through my fuzzy sweater and leggings, but I didn't mind the cold. The forest smelled like dirt and pine needles and dry leaves. Gray was having a lot of fun with the leaves. He kicked them up with every overactive step he took, and every so often, he would jump and stomp, relishing the crisp sound they made as they crackled and crunch beneath his sneakers.

The forest was quiet, very quiet. Aside from the whisper of the wind through the trees, the only sounds were the ones that we made.

Naturally, we made a lot of noise.

"I'm not a pirate," I protested, one hand on my hip. "I'm a ninja." To prove my point, I brandished my sword in my hands. Well, to be honest, it wasn't really a sword—it was a stick, and a very fine one at that, long and straight and perfect for whapping against tree trunks as we passed them, and maybe for occasionally poking Gray when he wasn't looking my way. "Mama said I make a great ninja. See?" I whipped the stick back and forth through the air. It made a satisfying whistle as it moved.

"Yeah, well," Gray said. "You're not very sneaky. Mama said ninjas have to be sneaky!"

I thought about that for a little while.

"I'm a knight," I announced to the world at large.

"What about a shield?" Gray said. "You gotta have a shield to be a knight."

"Hmm." I looked around the forest. I spotted a huge chunk of tree bark that had separated from the trunk of a great pine tree. I picked it up. It covered my entire arm, but I couldn't figure out how to hold it like a shield. A few moments later, it crumbled to pieces in my hands. I rolled my eyes as Gray laughed.

"Knights are boring," I said, poking him with my sword. "Ninjas are cooler."

"Hey!" he whined. "No, they're not. Pirates are the coolest. Yarrrrrgh!" He picked up his own stick and poked me back, right in the belly. I giggled and brandished my sword, parrying his next poke. Undeterred, he poked again, and this time I dodged and gave him a little thwap on the shoulder. He darted backwards and hid halfway behind a tree, sticking his tongue out with a big ol' "Nyaaaaaa!"

I took a menacing step towards Gray and he took off running.

"Gray!" I laughed. "Get back here! I'm gonna get you!"

I chased after him, jumping over fallen logs as I went. Gray skidded to a halt near a giant granite boulder and turned to fight; he got in a good stinging whap or two before I ran around the boulder. He followed, but I was ready for him. When he came around the rock, I jumped forward and tackled him to the leafy ground with a loud omph! I landed on top of him, but then we rolled around and I found myself underneath him. We wrestled, and after a minute or so, Gray ended up on his back; I straddled his chest and pinned him to the ground by his arms.

"I win," I said, grinning.

"Aww, c'mon, Ellie!" he groaned. "Let me up!" He tried to push himself up, but with his arms pinned, he couldn't get enough leverage to dislodge me.

"First," I said, grinning, "say that ninjas are cooler than pirates."

"No way," he said.

"I'm not letting you up then."

"Come onnnnn," he whined. He tried getting up again. It was no use. I was heavier than he was, and I was on top.

"Say it!" I said.

"No!"

"Then we're gonna be here all day."

"Fiiiiine," he said, defeated. "Ninjas are cooler, okay?"

"Now say 'Ellie is a great ninja'."

"Ellie! Let me up!"

I considered holding him down longer, but I doubted I could get him to say much more and I was getting bored anyhow, so I sighed, all dramatic-like, and stood, offering my hand. We brushed the leaves and dirt off our clothing (and, in my case, out of my hair), gathered our sticks, picked a direction, and started walking. I led, as usual. That was just how things went with us.

For a minute or two, it was just us and the forest, and then Gray piped up.

"Hey, Ellie?" he said. "How come Mama got so mad at you this morning?"

I shrugged. "She wasn't mad. She was just—upset." I thought back to all the times when Mama had been really mad—not just exasperated or irritated, but actually, truly mad, which was always scary to see because after the initial outburst she got so deathly quiet and intense. I could only recall a few times she'd gotten that angry, like maybe the time I had used our dial-up modem to log into the university's servers late one night using Mama's username and password. I wasn't supposed to know her password, but I had seen her type it plenty of times, and once she'd accidentally typed it into a terminal window instead of the password prompt, and I'd memorized it before she even noticed. So I'd used her password and had started playing with some of the commands I'd seen Mama use before and I'd ended up crashing the server...and the entire department network. Mama had been furious. Not for crashing the servers—I think she'd been proud of that, in a weird way—but for using her password, and for tying up the phone line late at night (way past my bedtime, too), and for sneaking the keyboard lock key from the desk drawer in her study so I could use the family computer in the first place.

The next month, with lots of lectures and without access to a computer, had been really boring.

In comparison to Mama's fury back then, her little scolding this morning was nothing. But it was still odd, because Mama usually didn't tell me off so harshly just for being a little noisy.

"So...why was she upset?" asked Gray.

"I dunno," I said, shrugging. "You know how she gets when she has the meetings at the university."

"Yeah," Gray said. "She gets all nervous and stuff."

"Nu-uh," I said. "Mama doesn't get nervous. She just gets super serious."

We came to a little babbling brook. I hopped from rock to rock to cross it and Gray did the same thing just behind me. We began climbing a hill, following an animal trail that went diagonally upward among the trees.

"I think she's nervous," Gray said. "Remember when the Dean and the grumpy guy came to visit? Or when she was showing everybody her programming...thing at the school?"

"She was serious then too," I said. "She wasn't nervous. Mama can't be nervous."

"Whatever," Gray said.

As we neared the top of the hill, the ground became rockier. Moss-covered granite boulders stuck out of the dirt at odd angles. There was a huge one a little ways down from the crest of the hill, and I mean huge like thirty feet across and tall. It was flat like a table, with a single jagged crack running through it, and it was tilted, so that one end was buried in the hillside and the other was high above the ground. We climbed up the boulder. At the pinnacle, we could see out above the treetops. We had a great view down into the valley. Gray stayed back a few feet from the edge of the boulder, but I went up as far as I could, put my hands on my hips, and gazed outward at the valley and the mountains beyond. I felt like I owned the world.

"You're not supposed to go up to the edge," Gray said. "Mama said so."

"Mama's not here," I said. I peered down past my scuffed red Mary Janes at the forest floor far below. I took a step back. All right, maybe that was quite a drop, but that wasn't going to keep me very far away. "C'mon, it's fine."

Gray hesitated, then shrugged. He went over to the edge of the boulder a few feet away from me, leaned his weight back, and hurled his stick outward with all his might. It flew for maybe fifty feet, then hit a tree and became lodged in the branches.

"Aww," he said.

"There's like, a thousand other sticks here," I pointed out.

"We should bring some paper with us next time," he said. "Then we could make paper airplanes! I bet they'd go really far."

"Only if we pick them up when we're done," I said. "Mama wouldn't like it if we left them. Let's pick some really bright colors so we can find them when they land."

"Sure," Gray said. "Hey, can I throw your stick too?"

I handed him my stick. He went back over to the edge, keeping enough distance between us so he could swing his stick nice and wide. He put one foot forward, right at the edge, and the boulder cracked beneath him with a sharp pop!

I watched, wide-eyed, as the rock beneath his foot slid away. He dropped the stick, arms windmilling. "Gray!" I shouted, leaping to my feet. "Look out!" I ran forward, reaching for his arm, but he was tumbling backwards. Our fingertips brushed. I saw Gray's terrified face, frozen for an instant in time as his fingers grasped at air, and then he was gone, screaming downward, until something went thud.

"Gray!" I shrieked. "GRAY!" I was afraid to get too close to the edge to see what had happened to my little brother, so I ran back down the boulder to where it met the hillside. When I got near the bottom, I tripped and landed hard on both knees. My leggings tore, and there was blood, but I got back up and kept running. I doubled back around the boulder and ran down that hillside like my feet had sprouted wings. My heart thudded and icy fear coiled in my gut. I ran and ran, yelling my brother's name.

I came across a gigantic fallen log and clamored up over it. I jumped off the other side to save time, but landed badly on my ankle. I forced myself to stand again and started limping as fast as I could. The boulder seemed to be even bigger than it was before. I didn't understand why it was taking so long to reach Gray. I could hear him crying for me, could hear it like he was right beside me, but no matter how fast I moved, I couldn't seem to make it around the curve of the boulder to where his broken body lay.

Tears streamed from my eyes; tears of pain and tears of guilt because this was all my fault, because I hadn't listened to Mama, and I'd gone up to the edge, and Gray had wanted to be just like his big sister and had gone up and done the same thing and now he was hurt really bad.

I came around the curve and there he was, lying motionless on his back among the leaves and pine needles. I fell to my knees and crawled to him, grabbing his wrist.

"Gray," I cried, "Gray, wake up. Wake up!" He wouldn't move. His arm was icy cold beneath my fingers. I screamed at him and shook his shoulders until he opened his eyes. I sobbed in relief—but there was no life in his eyes. They were dark, like marbles. He turned his head stiffly, like a machine, and said, "It's your fault, Ellie."

"No!" I said. "Gray, no, you're still alive, you're okay!"

"You killed me," he said sadly. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a blob of putty with a timer attached. He pressed a button on the timer, and it began to beep. In his other hand, he was suddenly holding a pistol. "So now, I'm going to kill you."

"No," I whispered. I stood on shaky legs and backed away, but he had risen to his feet, still moving all mechanically, and he matched every step I took. "Gray, please!" I cried. "It wasn't my fault!"

He didn't respond, but he kept coming at me, so I did the only logical thing: I screamed for Mama and turned and ran as fast as I could, tearing down that leaf-strewn hillside. When I got to the brook at the bottom, I tried jumping over it, but my foot caught on a rock and I went face-down into the icy water. My clothes were covered in mud and my knees stung like fire and my ankle had just about had it, but I made myself get up and staggered through the water to the other side and clamored onto solid ground. I limped as fast as I possibly could through the trees. I could hear Gray's footsteps behind me, the rapid crunch-crunch as he ran through the leaves while the timer on the bomb went beep-beep, beep-beep, getting ever louder as he neared. I dared to look over my shoulder for just an instant to see how close he was, but then I tripped on something hard and the ground went out from underneath me, and now it was my turn to flail and scream and fall down, down, down into a pitch black void—

I sat up so fast, I nearly clocked Dr. Tillman in the forehead.

"Woah," she said, leaning back. "Hey, you awake now?"

I gasped and choked down air. I swayed; it felt like I was still falling. I grabbed Dr. Tillman's arm tightly to balance myself. The image of Gray holding a bomb hovered, like a ghost, before my eyes, and no matter how much I blinked, it wouldn't go away.

"I—I—oh god—" I chocked.

"You're safe," Dr. Tillman said quietly. She put her free hand on my shoulder. I could feel her warmth through the hospital gown. "Safe and sound. I'm gonna guess you were having a nightmare."

"R-really?" I stuttered. "G-gee, how could you t-tell?"

"Your heart rate was really high," Dr. Tillman said. "I saw it on my workstation monitor." She hesitated, then added quickly, "You were yelling in your sleep. I don't need a degree for that diagnosis." She looked down at my hands, which were still clamped tight around her arm.

"Sorry," I whimpered, releasing her.

"It's okay."

I shivered. The afterimages from the dream were finally fading, but Gray's voice still echoed in my ears—or was that my ears still ringing from the explosion? My mouth was dry, very dry.

"Can I have some water?" I mumbled. "Please?"

"Sure," Dr. Tillman said. Squeezing my shoulder once, she bustled off, ducking into the bathroom. I heard water running. Trembling, I laid back down in the hospital bed and focused very hard on taking deep breaths and not crying.

"Here," said Dr. Tillman. She handed me a paper cup. I drank most of its contents in seconds, swallowed wrong, and coughed a third of it back into the cup. My throat burned, but the pain helped to ground me, to distract me from the disjoint memories of the dream that were still flashing before my eyes.

"Thanks," I gasped. She took the cup from me and set it on the bedside table. Then she sat down in one of the chairs and scooted it a little closer to the bed.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked.

"Can you get me that time machine for real?" I asked.

"Sadly, no."

"I don't think there's much you can do then," I whispered. "Thanks though."

Dr. Tillman looked like she wanted to say something, but couldn't decide just what. The silence between us quickly turned awkward. I looked away, staring down at my feet beneath the sheets. I wiggled my toes and moved my ankle, just to make sure I hadn't really jumped off a log. There was no pain, only a dull ache. Beside me, I heard Dr. Tillman shuffle in her seat, as though she wanted to stand up, but she hesitated. A moment later, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her lean forward, balancing her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands in front of her.

"I don't mean to pry," Dr. Tillman said quietly. "But, when I came in, you were saying something over and over. Is 'Gray' somebody's name?"

"Yeah," I said. "He was my brother."

"Ah," Dr. Tillman said. She caught on to the was right away. "I'm sorry."

"Thanks," I said.

Now the silence was even more awkward.

"I might know a little about how you feel," Dr. Tillman said. "I lost a sibling too."

"You did?" I asked, looking over at her.

"Yeah," she said. "My sister, Gabrielle." She got this far-away look in her eyes, and her voice softened. "Little Gabbie..."

"I'm so sorry," I whispered.

Her mouth quirked in a sad little smile for an instant. "Sounds like we both are," she said.

"Yeah," I said. I couldn't look her in the eyes. Instead, I focused on fondling the edge of my sheets, noting idly that they were even softer than the ones on my bed. My splinted hand fumbled, moving stiffly. "How long ago?" I asked.

"Eleventh anniversary, coming up."

My lip trembled. "Do you think about her still?"

"Almost every day," Dr. Tillman said. "You?"

"Not as much as I used to," I said. "But I really miss Gray." Despite my best efforts, my voice began to crack. "I never get to have good dreams with him. Only nightmares."

"Do you have the nightmares often?" Dr. Tillman asked softly.

"I used to have them only every once in awhile," I said, shrugging. "Maybe...once a month, if that. Then they started getting worse, after—after I—" I hesitated, not sure how to explain the whole John-saving-my-life thing. I wasn't sure how much Dr. Tillman actually knew about what he did. "After I almost died," I said, deciding to keep it simple. "And since then, I've...seen a bunch of things I didn't really want to see."

"C-beams glittering in the dark near Tannhauser Gate?"

"Pretty much." I couldn't help but make a tired grin. "You must watch a lot of sci-fi."

A shrug. "For months after Gabbie died, I was too depressed to do much more than stay on the couch all day. Movies were a good distraction. I had nightmares, so I stayed up most nights until I dozed. I think I watched Blade Runner through my eyelids the first time around." She chuckled, but it was a weak sound.

"I do that too," I said. "Stay up late, I mean. I program when I can't sleep. Sometimes I program straight through 'til morning."

"It's really not healthy. But sometimes it's what you have to do."

"Yeah."

"Did they go away?" I asked.

"The nightmares?"

"Yeah."

Another shrug. "I keep them under control pretty well these days. My shrink had me try a few things that helped. You ever heard of lucid dreaming?"

"Yeah. I tried that. But I never can figure out when I'm actually dreaming."

"It takes practice. Keeping a journal helped too, if only because it kept me from bottling everything up inside."

Maybe I should try keeping a journal again, I thought. But I haven't had the patience since I was...thirteen? Fourteen?

"How long did it take?" I asked.

She seemed to get what I was saying right away. "Years," she said. Her mouth twitched and she cast her eyes downward. Her shoulders slumped and she suddenly looked much older. "It's a little better now. I had...closure." Her voice began to waver ever so slightly. "But some nights, I open my eyes, and I still see her face, and it hurts just like the day I found out she died."

The room became very quiet.

"Makes you wish Doc Brown would hurry the hell up, huh?" I whispered.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, it does." And for the next few minutes, neither of us said anything.

There wasn't anything more to say.

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

Bear ambled down the park sidewalk, tail wagging happily as he towed a limping Finch behind him. Reese ambled along besides his employer. He appeared relaxed, but his eyes revealed otherwise; Reese continuously scanned the park for danger, scrutinizing each passerby to determine if he or she was a threat. It was a habit Reese found difficult to switch off—but it had saved his life many times, and Finch's too.

One could never be too careful in their line of work.

The weather was pleasantly warm that day, but not hot; more people were frolicking about the park than usual. Reese preferred the cold—it tended to drive people indoors, which meant that an attacker had fewer people to hide among in a crowd. But he wasn't about to complain about the weather. He simply kept up his vigilance as he enjoyed the sunshine.

"Nice day," he said.

"Yes," Finch said.

"Good weather to celebrate a good case."

"I suppose, given the circumstances, this case did turn out well in the end."

"Let's see..." Reese said, "Dick is in FBI custody and facing decades in prison, Anna and Robert are safe and sound; Elizabeth cracked the case, got herself into trouble, and then got herself out of trouble...mostly...we took down two dirty cops, a drug dealer and his enforcer, and nobody died." He tilted his head. "Yeah. Seems like a pretty good case to me."

"I daresay the only casualty is your relationship with Detective Carter. How she puts up with your antics, I'll never know."

Reese made a pained face. "I'll make it up to her. Somehow."

"Preferably before she gets tired of telling you that she's going to shoot you and decides to actually shoot you."

"I'll try to avoid that," Reese said dryly.

"She's right, you know," Finch said. "We have been quite irresponsible about educating our Miss Ruben to the dangers of our line of work. In fact, the concern runs deeper than Detective Carter knows, because she is not aware of our—source of intelligence." Finch fell silent until a nearby runner had passed them, then turned stiffly to look behind him. "Nor is she aware of the dangers associated with it. One might question whether we have any right at all to involve an innocent young woman in an endeavor of which she does not—cannot—must not—know the true extent of the stakes, perils, and costs. As you know, Mr. Reese—" He halted and turned to face Reese. Bear reached the end of his leash, tugged once, and then obediently waited for his master to resume walking.

Finch said, "If Miss Ruben knew the full extent of our operation, she would be in grave danger. But we can tell her very little. Do we truly have the right to involve her?"

"We involve Carter," Reese said. "And Fusco."

"True. But our good Detectives are well aware of the dangers of taking the law into one's own hands. They are older and wiser than our Miss Ruben."

"Wiser?" asked Reese. He grinned. "We are talking about the same Fusco here, aren't we?" Finch ignored him.

"The detectives are also more capable of defending themselves when placed in harm's way."

The duo stopped talking as two young children, a boy and a girl, zipped past on roller blades, giggling all the way.

"I think Elizabeth knows what she's getting into now," Reese said. "If not, we'll have a talk. She's capable of deciding for herself, Finch."

"Yes, of course," Finch said. He resumed walking, and Reese fell into place beside him. "I suppose I am merely—conflicted. Miss Ruben has made several valuable contributions to the open-source software ecosystem, and it would be a shame if her budding talent were...squandered. Her mere association with us has a frightful effect on her mortality."

"You care about her," Reese said. "That's good. But we can't make all the decisions for her. She's already involved, like it or not. Now, maybe this case changed her mind. Maybe not. Either way, we should tell her as much as we safely can—and let her decide."

"I suppose you're right."

A small crowd of children, led by one very frazzled looking teacher, made its way towards them. Finch pulled Bear closer to him, more to alleviate the worried glances from the teacher than out of concern that Bear might harm one of the children. Some of the kids reached out to pet Bear as they passed. The dog didn't even look their way.

"I don't know why a significant proportion of the people we meet seem to fear that Bear will devour them," Finch said.

"That's because he looks like a killer, Harold," Reese said lovingly. Finch frowned.

"He's a very well-behaved dog," Finch said.

"He's also trained to eat peoples' faces off on demand," Reese pointed out.

"Right," Finch said. His face held a look of disapproval.

For a time, the duo walked on in silence. Finch appeared contemplative. His eyes were downcast and twice he nearly walked right off the sidewalk into the grass.

"Mr. Reese?" he asked after a time, "Has Miss Shaw been acting...oddly to you, lately?"

"We're all odd, Harold."

"I do believe I saw her pacing the Library yesterday. I have never seen Miss Shaw pace before. And she declined our offer for a celebratory luncheon today."

"She declined free food?"

"Yes."

Reese raised his eyebrows. "I think she's worried about Elizabeth," he said.

Finch blinked. "I don't believe I've seen Miss Shaw harbor that sort of emotional attachment often. If at all."

"There's a first time for everything, Harold..."

#####

I closed the laptop with a sigh. After checking all of my email accounts, I had spent several hours lurking on IRC channels and browsing some of my favorite webcomics. But there were very few people chatting on IRC right now and there was only so much mindless Internet usage I could tolerate in one sitting, and on top of all that, the laptop was making my lap very warm. So I set it on the little table beside the bed and leaned back against the pillows and thought.

There was little else to do but think, and there was a lot to think about. Even besides the whole being-handcuffed-in-a-room-full-of-bombs thing, which I was trying really hard not to think about because recalling that horrific situation made my gut bubble with nausea, and especially besides the terrifying nightmare last night, which I would've preferred to forget about entirely. There were plenty of other things to think about, like the fact that I had shot at someone two days ago. The more I thought about that, the more horrifying it became.

I mean, I'd pointed my pistol at a living, breathing human being—okay, maybe not at them, but pretty close—and pulled the trigger, more than once. I had done it in self-defense, yes, but if my aim had been a little off, I could've easily killed the guy.

He held up his hands, I thought numbly. He didn't have any weapon—or did he? I couldn't remember. The events had blurred together in my mind to form one long, panicky smear. I forgot how many times I had squeezed the trigger—two, three? More?

What if I hadn't missed?

I can't believe I did that, I thought. Whatever happened to "don't ever point a loaded gun at something unless you want it to have a bullet in it"?

Sure, the whole being-chased-by-angry-men-and-almost-dying thing had been one hell of a motivator. But that didn't make me feel any better about the fact that I'd come within a few feet of killing someone who'd been, as far as I could recall, totally unarmed.

At least you're not dead, I thought glumly, but it did little to alleviate the guilt gnawing at my gut.

For awhile, I tried making myself think about happier things, but my mind kept wandering back to the little minor fact that I'd shot at someone. After awhile, I gave up on the thinking and went back to the laptop, with its promise of mindless, instant entertainment.

Dr. Tillman checked on me throughout the day as I brooded and dozed and browsed stupid cat pictures on the Internet. Around noon, she brought me lunch on a tray. To my mild surprise, it was wonderfully edible, especially for hospital fare: a turkey sandwich with lettuce, Swiss cheese, tomatoes, and pickles, all on soft bread; fruit salad in a cup; iced tea. I ate half the sandwich and was fishing around with my fingers for a cherry in the fruit salad when somebody spoke from the doorway.

"You gonna finish that sandwich?" Shaw asked.

I started, nearly spilling the fruit onto the sheets. I hadn't heard Shaw approach at all. I doubted that even Dr. Tillman knew she was here.

"Yeah," I said, pulling the plate a little closer to me. I stuck out my tongue. "Yeah, I am. I'm hungry and I nearly got blown up two days ago, so I deserve this sandwich. I'm immune to your puppy-dog eyes."

Shaw raised an eyebrow at that.

"I'll just snag one from the kitchen on my way out then," she said. She peeked over her her shoulder before stepping into the room. Her movements looked hesitant, uncertain, like an unwilling dog straining against her leash, and her presence seemed subdued.

It was almost like she didn't want to be here.

"Hi," she said, standing at the foot of the bed. I noticed that she had a thick hardback book in her hands, which made me curious, because Shaw didn't seem to be the type to read for pleasure.

"Uh...hi?" I said, wiggling my foot. "What's up? Nobody to save today?"

"Nope, unless you count Carter wanting to tear John a new one because you got hurt," Shaw said. "But he's a big boy. He doesn't need saving from me."

"I dunno," I said, "Carter seems like she could be pretty scary, like my mother."

Shaw shrugged. "John and Carter have a thing. She won't scar him too much."

"Ah," I said, wondering just what kind of a "thing" Shaw was talking about.

"So, anyway—" Shaw glanced down at the floor and then towards the window; she looked like she'd suddenly forgotten why she'd walked into the room. "I wanted to see how you were doing. You seem cheerful and sarcastic, so the painkillers must be working. How bad are your injuries?"

"Fractured wrist," I said, holding up my splint to show her, like it was some kind of trophy. "I think I landed on it. Cracked ribs, sprained ankle, torn tendon in my shoulder from going all MC Hammer on a locked door. And my ears are still ringing, especially the right one."

"Ruptured eardrum?"

"I think that's what Dr. Tillman said. It's kinda annoying. Things are muffled out of that ear."

"Oh. Well, at least you can hear still."
"What?" I made a big deal about turning my head and cupping my hand around my ear.

"Ha-ha. How long is Dr. Tillman keeping you here?"

"A week," I sighed.

Shaw nodded. "Sounds reasonable. You need to heal. You got thrashed."

"I'm fine."

"Uh—you have cracked ribs and your wrist is in a splint," Shaw pointed out.

"Meh. I want to go home. It's so boring here, even with a laptop."

"About that..." She held up the book, then came around the side of the bed and handed it to me. It was heavy and thick, and had obviously been well-loved and well-read. I turned the book over to see that it was an anthology of all of Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels. They were some of my favorite sci-fi stories. I hadn't read them in months. Really, I hadn't had time to read anything in months...

"I figured you'd be in here awhile, so I grabbed you a book," Shaw said.

"Aww," I said, touched. "Thanks!" I opened the book and noticed that it had been signed.

By Mama.

As a gift for my 9th birthday.

"Hey," I said, dumbfounded, "this is my copy of Foundation."

"Uh, yeah," Shaw said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "It even says it right there in the cover: to Elizabeth—"

I frowned. "This book was in my bookcase."

"Yep. That's where I found it."

"...in my apartment."

"Uh, yeah," Shaw said. "Where else would your bookcase be?"

I rolled my eyes. "You broke into my apartment," I said.

"How else was I supposed to figure out what kind of books you liked?" When I kept frowning, she added, "I didn't have any cookies this time. They looked kinda stale, anyway."

I chuckled and shook my head, incredulous. I was thankful, but I was also very confused, because this wasn't the Shaw that I knew. Shaw wasn't the kind of person to stop by to see how somebody was doing. She wasn't the kind of person to bring somebody a book to pass the time in the hospital. She was more the kind of person who would've just asked somebody else about my injuries—assuming she'd even cared—rather than bothering to visit.

I had no idea why she was here, and when I thought about the way she was acting, I realized that she probably didn't know why she was here either.

It was kinda cute, if not perplexing.

"Well, thanks," I said. I reached awkwardly over and set the book on the table next to my laptop. "It'll make it at least a little less boring around here."

"Great," Shaw said, and she apparently had no idea what else to say, because for the next thirty seconds or so, we just stared at each other. Shaw looked really uncomfortable. She finally indicated the door with her thumb and said, "I just—I'm gonna go. I'm going now." And without another word, she left, disappearing out into the hallway.

"Thanks again for the book," I called after her. She didn't respond.

Just like a cat, I thought, amused. At least she didn't bring me a dead mouse...

I didn't understand her at all.

Chuckling, I reached for my sandwich plate. I hadn't been lying when I'd said I was hungry. I ate every last scrap and then, after carefully wiping my hands with a napkin, I set the tray aside and reached for the laptop again. But I hesitated.

What to do, what to do? I thought. The laptop or the book? Near-infinite on-demand entertaining drivel or a series of thoughtfully well-written science fiction novels?

My hand drifted towards the book, but just as I wrapped my fingers around the spine, I heard a soft chime from the laptop. A little information bubble had popped up on the screen: a new email.

Huh, I thought. Abandoning the book for now, I perched the laptop on my knees and clicked on the notification. The laptop opened the inbox for my school email account.

I gulped when I saw the sender's name.

From: Meridith Goodwin (goodwinm @ cs.nyuc. d)

To: Elizabeth Ruben (ruben @ cs. nyuc.ed)

Subject: From the desk of Meridith Goodwin: CS252 Reminder

Hello everyone,

A reminder: our second examination will be held in one week, on April 25 th , 2012. Subjects covered will include all lecture material from the midterm up through and including today's lecture, as well as homework assignments #2 and #3. Be sure to bring a Blue Book! Expect the same format as our first examination.

See you all Monday.

Dr. G

It occurred to me then that I hadn't studied for that class in weeks. I could barely remember the topic of Dr. Goodwin's last lecture.

And I was just one bad test away from flunking the course.

Yeah, you know what? I thought. Forget lolcats and spaceships. Studying seems like a great idea right about now.

I brought up the laptop's web browser, navigated to Dr. Goodwin's website, downloaded all of her lecture notes by running the Linux wget download manager in recursive mode, and settled back against the pillows to read.

At least now I had something productive to do with my downtime...

#####

Finch preferred to keep the lights in the library computer room switched off whenever possible, both to save electricity and to give the derelict building a proper "uninhabited" look from the outside. The elaborate wrought-iron light fixtures overhead were dark. Sunbeams from the tall, grimy windows mixed uneasily with the shadows in the recesses of the room.

Somewhere nearby, Finch heard footsteps.

He did not look up from his monitors when Shaw walked over and stood next to his desk. In fact, he didn't give any indication that he noticed her presence until she cleared her throat. The potential new cryptographic weakness he had just discovered for the encryption on the Lachesis hard drive was very interesting, and he was trying to concentrate on it...but Finch knew from experience that Shaw would not leave until she had been noticed.

"Yes, Miss Shaw?" said Finch.

"I went to see Elizabeth," Shaw said. "She's bored."

"Perhaps you should have brought her more books," Finch said. "You have quite the selection to choose from. After all, we do work in a library." He tilted his head towards the short hallway that led to one of several cavernous chambers filled with bookcases.

"She's also upset," Shaw said. "Tillman says she's been having trouble sleeping."

"Unfortunately," Finch said, "our Miss Ruben has had difficulties sleeping for some time now."

"Oh? And you know this...how?" Shaw planted both hands on the desk and leaned forward. She wasn't quite in Finch's face, but she was definitely more difficult to ignore in that position.

"She told me," Finch said.

"Right, your little anonymous chat thing."

"The technical term is 'IRC'," Finch said, casting his eyes to the side. "And it's hardly anonymous unless one takes proper precautions to—"

"You need to visit her," Shaw said.

Finch's eyebrows climbed towards the ceiling. He rotated slowly in his chair to face Shaw. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me. Elizabeth is stuck in a clinic with nothing to do and she needs a distraction. You two would have mutual geekgasms talking about things like IRC and anonymity and hacking routers and hard drives and flux capacitors and all that shit you try to explain to me and Reese all the time while we nod politely."

"I...don't believe that would be the wisest course of action at this time," Finch said with care.

"You know what, you're right. Nodding politely won't help anyone right now. But visiting Elizabeth would probably cheer her up a lot."

"It probably would," Finch agreed. "But it is...really not the wisest course of action."

Shaw rolled her eyes. "What's the matter, Harold? Shy?"

"She doesn't know who I am," Finch said.

"Maybe you should introduce yourself."

"It's safer if she does not know who I am," Finch said. "For both of us."

The chamber became very quiet but for the soft hum of the computers beneath the desk.

"Really," Shaw said, "you're still gonna go on about that?" When Finch didn't respond, she shrugged.

"Fine," Shaw said, standing up straight. "Whatever. I just thought it'd be nice for Elizabeth to finally meet the guy she keeps almost dying for."

She walked out of the room, leaving Finch to stare at the computer monitors. A small red LED light glowed on the tiny webcam clipped to the side of one of the monitors. When he looked at it, the LED blinked twice.

Two characters appeared on one of his terminal windows.

:(

"Not you too," Finch sighed.

But the Machine didn't respond.

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

Dr. Tillman lowered the dosage on my painkillers on the fourth day, and I started feeling the difference soon after. Nothing too bad—a dull ache in my wrist and shoulder, a sharper ache in my chest—but it was a reminder that I was here because I needed to heal, and not just because Dr. Tillman was a sarcastic, acerbic individual who liked to torment her patients with boredom to alleviate her inner pain. The world seemed a little less hazy now, a little sharper. I felt more alert. And I felt more bored, even despite my cramming for the test next week.

John and Shaw visited me that afternoon, and we talked.

I knew it wasn't going to be a happy talk as soon as John came in. He had this look on his face, serious and yet regretful at the same time, and I just knew I was going to get one heck of a talking-to. Shaw ducked in the room behind him, once again moving like she was pulling against some invisible leash. She closed the door behind her. John and Shaw sat down in the chairs next to my bedside. They both looked tense.

"This is going to suck, isn't it?" I said, collecting a dozen sheets of scattered homework notes from the bed and setting them on the bedside table.

"Yes," John said, right as Shaw said, "Yep."

"But we really need to have this talk," John added.

"I know, I know," I said. "I went off and did something dumb and I almost died. No more sneaking off to play Wonder Woman. Got it, Dad."

"It's...not so much that," John said. "But that is something we need to talk about." He paused, then said, "Elizabeth, what we do is dangerous."

"No shit," I said. Shaw rolled her eyes.

"You don't understand," John said. His voice was more forceful than usual and there was no hint of playfulness. "What happened to you at the warehouse is a daily occupational hazard for us. Shaw and I have been in situations like that more times than we can count."

"I usually end up saving his ass," Shaw said, jerking her thumb towards John. He ignored her.

"There are a lot of people like Richard Hardy out there," John said. "And we mess with their plans every day. These are people that are more than willing to commit murder to get what they want. You almost became one of their victims. All it would've taken was thirty seconds less on the timers—and we'd be going to your funeral."

"Closed casket," Shaw added.

"Probably watching your mother cry at your eulogy," John said.

Up until then, I hadn't been paying very much attention to what John had been saying. But when he mentioned my mother, I flinched. The mental image popped up unbidden before my eyes: Mama sprawled in a wooden chair at the kitchen table at two o'clock in the morning, her skin bleached and washed blue by the florescents overhead. Her face was reddened and puffy and her shoulders were hunched. She looked more dead than alive.

Gray had passed away two nights ago.

"I think you got through to her," Shaw said.

"I'm sorry, Elizabeth," John said, his voice sorrowful. "But it needs said."

I took a deep breath and said, "I'm listening."

"People don't live long doing what we do," John said. "It's an unavoidable fact. We have a lot of enemies. It's not just the criminals we put away—there are a bunch of other people out there, right now, who want Shaw and me dead, or strapped to a table, or renditioned to a black site in some third-world country where we would never, ever see the light of day again. Your association with us puts you in danger. If these people find out that you—"

"What kind of people?" I asked. "I want to know."

John blinked. "Dangerous people."

"That's kinda a given," I said.

"Criminal organizations, for starters," Shaw said. "Remember HR?"

"The ring of dirty cops you guys busted?"

"Not just dirty cops," John said. "City councilmen and political advisers too. They had contacts in the District Attorney's office and worked with the Five Families and the Russian mafia."

"Holy cow," I whispered. I mean, I knew that they'd been bad news—John had told me a few stories about them—but I hadn't known they'd been that big of a deal.

"Drug deals, money laundering, bribery, contract killings—they did it all," John said.

"They were our number one fans," Shaw said. "And they went to a lot of trouble to put us down."

"They're gone, but there's others after us," John said. "Take the FBI, for instance. The Man in the Suit is popular enough to have his very own task force nipping at his heels."

"Yeah, but they don't torture and kill people," Shaw said. "They just stick them in jail for a billion years. The CIA, on the other hand...they still want to put a bullet through Reese's brain after having him make nice with some electrodes and power drills. It's their retirement plan, see. ISA wants to do the same thing to me, and they've tried more than once."

I was starting to feel queasy. I mean, John had told me before that the CIA wanted to "retire" him, but he had left the details up to my imagination...

"We're leaving foreign agencies out of the list, of course," John said. "But there's open warrants out for our arrests in at least a half-dozen countries, and they're not for parking tickets."

"Let's see, who else can we tell her about?" Shaw said. Had it been a trick of my ringing ears, or had she stressed the word can a little too hard? "Oh, I know. The corporations. Corporations love it when people try to expose them for dirty deeds. Remember Virtanen?"

"The company that got sued and went under?" I said. "That Virtanen?"

"Yes," Reese said. "They—"

"Show her Dana's picture," Shaw said.

John pulled out his cell phone, swiped the screen, and held it up for me to see. On it was the face of a smiling young woman. She had long brown hair and light skin. It looked like she was talking on a television show. The name "Dana Miller" was printed at the lower-right hand corner of the screen.

"Who's she?" I asked.

"She worked for Virtanen Pharmaceuticals," John said softly. "She discovered that the company was rigging their drug trials to cover up the minor fact that their new wonder drug was killing people."

"She tried blowing the whistle," Shaw said.

"A few days before she planned to go public, they killed her." John said.

I stared at the phone. The woman looked so cheerful, so alive.

John said, "Zoe Morgan—I told you about her—she got her hands on an audio recording Dana made shortly before she died. It implicated the company founder in covering up the clinical trial deaths. So the company tried to kill Zoe as well—and me—to keep that recording from getting out."

"Oh," I said. It was starting to dawn on me just how many angry, powerful people John and Shaw had probably pissed off in their line of work.

"Dana was somebody's daughter," John said, and there was that mental image again.

"Everybody is somebody's daughter," I said, squeezing my eyes shut to try to get rid of the memory.

"This is taking too long," Shaw said. "She's not getting it. Show her the pictures in the other folder."

"Oh, I get it," I said firmly. "I know what we do is dangerous. I just don't care. I'm living on time I shouldn't even have, and I want to use it to help people."

"I'm sorry, Ellie," John said. The look on his face was just so sad, even though his features hadn't changed much. It was the eyes, I realized. He had so much emotion in those eyes.

"Sorry for what?" I asked, confused.

"For what I'm about to show you."

He tapped the phone screen in a few places and tilted the screen towards me. I was reluctant to look at first, but when I did, I saw a smiling woman, maybe forty years old. She had curly black hair. Her white skin was starting to tan and she had a little sunburn on her nose. She wore a long blue sundress and she was standing on a sunny beach. A pair of leather sandals—kinda like the ones I liked to wear—dangled by their straps from one hand.

Beside the woman was a young girl. She was clearly the woman's daughter. Her little dress was the same color as her mother's and she had even mirrored her mother's pose.

"This is Mary MacTaggart and her daughter, Linda," John said.

I said, "You're sorry for showing me an adorable little girl and her mother?"

John swiped the screen to reveal the next image. I gasped and covered my mouth, suddenly feeling very, very ill. There was blood. Oh my God, there was a lot of blood. The woman's blue dress was stained dark purple in wide swaths. I couldn't count the number of wounds on her arms and legs. Her mouth had been duct-taped shut.

It was hard to tell, but it looked like her fingers and toes were missing.

"The police found her like that in her own bedroom," Shaw said. I tore my eyes away from the phone and stared, dumbstruck, at John and Shaw.

"Her husband worked for Benzer Chemicals," John said. "There was an accident at one of their plants; seven hundred thousand gallons of toxic chemicals were released into a nearby river and fifteen people died. The husband was going to go public with evidence of negligence and the cover-ups."

"We never found his body," Shaw said. "We think he went on the run. But we found hers."

"And her daughter's," John said. His voice was tinged with bitterness.

"We won't show you that picture," Shaw said. Even she seemed disturbed. "Mom's is enough. But that girl was twelve. And they weren't much nicer to her."

I gulped and took a deep breath to steady my voice. "Did they get arrested?" I asked.

"They caught the guys that killed the wife and daughter," John said. "They're in jail. There was an investigation against the company. It was fined five million dollars for the negligence charges."

"That's pocket change," Shaw said.

"Other than that..." Reese gazed at the phone. For a second there, I thought he was going to start crying. "We think the CEO ordered the hit. But we don't have proof. It could've been any one of a dozen high-ranking employees at the company. Finch still works on decrypting some of their emails from time to time, but..." He sighed. "Another case came up, and then another, and we had to shelve the Benzer case. But I'd still really like to have a one-on-one chat at zero-dark-thirty with whoever ordered the hit."

For a brief moment, the silence in the room was very awkward.

"They were looking for the husband," Shaw said. "When they didn't find him, they went to town on Mommy here and her little girl."

"She had no idea what her husband was trying to do," John said. "He kept her in the dark. But they tortured her anyway to send a message."

"Shitty way to go," Shaw said.

I dared to look down at the cell phone again and immediately wished that I hadn't. When I looked up at John again, he had a very strange look in his eye

"Ellie..." he said gently, "the next Mary MacTaggart could be your mother."

My heart froze and my brain shuddered to a screeching halt.

"What?" I said, horrified.

"It's not just you we're worried about," John said, and it hurt, it hurt like he'd slapped me in the face, because I realized for the first time that I wasn't the only one I was putting in danger.

Look, I didn't give a shit about what happened to me. I was way past that by now. I'd been pretty much past it after Gray had died, and then Tara Dodson had come along and taken care of any remnants of the notion that my life might be worth anything. John could've shown me pictures of dead, geeky thirty-ish-year-old women like me killed in horrible ways all day long and it wouldn't have made a difference, I would've said yeah whatever, I'm already living on borrowed time, I'm gonna die someday, bring on the next case. But he'd found my weakness and gone straight for the jugular with a serrated blade, because I sure as hell gave a shit about Mama.

If something happened to her because of my work with John, I'd never forgive myself. If she died because of me...

I couldn't bear to think about it.

John said, very quietly, "Ellie, you need to ask yourself two questions. First, could your mother live without you? Second, could you live without your—?"

"Stop," I squeaked, holding up my hands. They were shaking, and so was my voice. "Stop, stop, I get it."

"I think she gets it," Shaw said. "About time."

I couldn't respond. I couldn't breathe. Somebody had come along and dropped an invisible one-ton weight on my chest. Icy horror dripped down my spine as the implications slowly dawned on me: all this time I'd been having fun and playing vigilante with John, I hadn't just been putting myself in danger—I'd been putting Mama at risk.

"What—what about my aliases?" I whispered. "My identities don't tie me to Mama."

"Aliases do help," John said, "as long as you're careful."

"But not if you piss off somebody like the NSA," Shaw said. "Or even just a really powerful corporation."

"We're not gonna lie," John said. "Your everyday criminal isn't going to link your aliases to the Ruben family. But a more elaborate organization might. And those are the organizations that would put your mother in danger."

"But Mama's in Colorado," I said. I felt very dazed and very sick. "She's safe there, isn't she?"

"If they have the resources to figure out who you really are," John said, "they probably have the resources to hurt your mother, no matter where she's living. Now, I'll be honest: it's a small risk. Smaller than, say, getting shot by some common thug on the street. But it's there."

"And the longer you work with us, the more likely you are to make some three-letter acronym or private intelligence agency angry at you," Shaw said. "They're the ones that really suck."

"You need to think about this," John said. "Very carefully."

I opened my mouth, but I just couldn't get any words out, so I settled for nodding instead.

"I'm sorry, Ellie," he said. He reached out to grasp my shoulder, but halfway there, he changed his mind, probably because he couldn't remember which shoulder I had injured. "If you're going to help us, you need to know just what you're getting into...and how it might affect your mother."

"Right," I whispered. My voice was steadier; I was regaining control. "Any other horrible, gruesome photographs you want to show me?"

"Nope, that's about it," Shaw said.

"Think about it," John said. "But don't forget to study for your test."

I didn't even bother asking how he knew about the upcoming exam.

John stood and headed for the door. Shaw hesitated, then followed him, glancing over her shoulder once before she stepped out into the hallway.

I waited until I was sure they were gone, then I began to cry.

I cried for a long time. I was still crying when Dr. Tillman came in to check on me. She tried to comfort me, but she didn't know what had made me upset and I didn't feel like telling her. Instead, I told Dr. Tillman I was fine.

She looked dubious. "I don't think that word means what you think it means," she said, handing me a box of tissues.

"Really," I said, "I'm okay." To prove my point, I wiped my eyes and reached for my notes on Dr. Goodwin's class. "I need to study."

It took a few more minutes to convince her to leave me alone, but eventually, she did. After she left, I buried myself in homework.

I didn't want to think about Mama. I didn't want to think about John and Shaw and the dangers of working with them. I didn't want to think about what it would be like if I got Mama killed. So I didn't. Instead, I made myself study Dr. Goodwin's lecture slides. It was slow going. I wrote out each of the equations and all of the proofs, annotating them just as they appeared in the lecture slides. My tears dripped onto the paper. Nothing made sense at first, but I forced myself to concentrate. After awhile, the tears started falling less and less often. I became lost among the theorems and diagrams. I filled up every inch of each paper with notes, pausing only twice: once to visit the bathroom and once to eat whatever Dr. Tillman had brought me. I didn't even notice what it tasted like.

I was pretty sure I heard Dr. Tillman say something about workaholics, but I was too busy studying to respond. I worked late into the night and fell asleep with a pencil still clutched firmly in my hand and the laptop balanced on my chest.

#####

As Reese and Shaw descended the front steps of the clinic, Reese's phone rang. He reached up and tapped his earpiece.

"Yeah, Finch?" he said.

"New number, Mr. Reese," came Finch's voice. "So far, it seems like it will be a more trivial case than our last one. Have you and Miss Shaw concluded your talk with Elizabeth Ruben?"

"Yep," Reese said. "We'll be there in fifteen." He hung up, then said to Shaw, "New Number."

"Good," Shaw said. "I was getting bored."

They walked down the sidewalk towards a little gray Toyota parked a few dozen feet away. Reese reached into his pocket and felt around for the car keys, but to his surprise, they were no longer there.

"Sucker," Shaw said, strutting around him. "You're too easy to pickpocket these days." She jangled the keys, then unlocked the driver's side door. They climbed into the car. Shaw twisted the key in the ignition and the car grumbled to life.

They sat in silence for some seconds.

"You know," Shaw said, "you really hit her below the belt."

"I know," Reese said. He was messing with his cell phone. Shaw glanced over just in time to see the words "Deleting photo 42/42" vanish from the screen. Reese locked the phone and dropped it into his pocket. "But it was necessary." He looked at Shaw. "I don't know what else will get through to her."

"So much for the lecture we had planned on her going solo without backup."

"If she decides working with us is worth the risk to her family, we can talk about it then," Reese said.

"Whatever," Shaw said. She put her foot down and the car screeched away from the curb. Reese was pushed back against his seat. "The MacTaggart case freaked her out. How long has Finch been working on their emails?"

"About nine months," Reese said.

"We should just break into their offices again and steal the whole email server this time. Or we could tell Elizabeth that somebody on the company board sent an email with a 'yo mama' joke about her mother, and see how long it takes her to own their network."

Reese looked amused. "Maybe later, if she decides she still wants to work with us."

"Right," Shaw said. "I hope she does. It'd be boring around here without her getting into trouble all the time. And I'd go into cookie withdrawal."

"I think we all could live with Ellie getting into trouble less often," Reese said.

"Sure," Shaw said. She sighed. "Well, let's go save Harold's latest muggle..."

#####

Chapter Text

February 1999

The VCR clock glowed green in the dark of the living room. 3:27AM, it said, and even as I watched, the trailing seven flickered into an eight. I really should've been in bed. Mama always insisted that I be in bed and sleeping by ten o'clock, which meant teeth brushed and face washed and lights off by the turn of the hour—or else. That was just the way things were around here: go to sleep at ten, wake up at seven, start my studies with Mama at eight-thirty sharp, except on weekends. But two days ago, the ambulance had come to take Gray's lanky body away from my mother and me, and since then our routines had been shattered.

I probably could've stayed up until midnight without getting into trouble. Heck, I probably could've stayed up the whole night and gotten away with it. But I didn't want to be up late. I wanted to be in bed, snoozing away and not thinking about my little brother at all, but a nightmare had woken me up and I didn't want to go back to sleep. Usually when I had bad dreams, I picked a book from my huge bookcase and read for awhile. But tonight, I'd looked out my bedroom window and noticed that the yard below was lit faintly by the kitchen window. It looked like Mama was having trouble sleeping too. And when Mama was having trouble sleeping, she made tea.

Tea sounded pretty good right now.

So I'd wrapped my silky nightgown around my body and padded downstairs into the dark living room. I felt my way around the couch towards the light spilling from the kitchen doorway up ahead. The hardwood floor was cold beneath my bare feet. My big toe hit the old bookshelf; I hissed and hopped on one foot until the stinging went down.

When I got to the kitchen doorway, I leaned around the corner, grasping the door jam with both hands. Mama was slumped at the kitchen table. She was weeping. Her reddened face was streaked with tears. Her long green nightgown hung loose off her hunched shoulders. She gazed down at a picture frame she held in her hands. I knew instinctively that it was a picture of Gray.

Mama's favorite white teacup sat steaming on the table, but she ignored it. The kitchen was very, very quiet. The only sounds were the humming of the old fluorescent light fixtures overhead and Mama's soft sobs.

"Mama?" I said. She didn't respond, so after a few seconds, I walked out from behind the wall, moving hesitantly, tentatively. The kitchen floor squeaked and creaked with every step I took, but Mama didn't look up. She was still crying. Her tears dripped down onto the picture frame in her shaking hands. It was so quiet in the kitchen, I could hear each drop splatter on the glass.

"Mama, are you okay?" I said. I went over to her and put my arm around her shoulders. Still no response. She kept staring at the photograph in her hands. I looked down, expecting to see Gray's face looking back up at me. But it wasn't Gray in the picture.

It was me.

It was my body, torn and mangled and bound—just like Mary MacTaggart.

I jerked and woke with a gasp, forcing my eyes open. It took me several seconds to realize I was at the clinic. It was morning. Warm, diffuse sunlight filtered through the draped window. My laptop was still on my chest, but it had gone into sleep mode to save electricity. I closed it and set it on the bedside table, then laid back in my bed and stared at the ceiling.

John's voice echoed in my head: You need to ask yourself two questions...

Funny how it was as simple as that and yet so damn complicated at the same time.

The first question: could Mama live without me? I didn't know if I could answer that, but the second question was a lot easier to answer. Could I live without Mama? Especially if it was my fault she died? I had an easy, succinct answer to that:

No.

Well, all right—say she died a natural death from ripe old age. Sure, I could see myself bawling for a year or two or ten and then carrying sadly on in her honor, especially if I had a purpose in life, a cause to sustain me, a job in which to bury myself. But if her death was my fault, I didn't think I'd last very long at all. The guilt would eat me alive, not that it wasn't already doing that for Gray. Hell, if I got anybody killed, I'd probably lose it. I just couldn't take that kind of guilt.

By all rights, that should've been enough for me to tell John that I was tossing in the towel, but it wasn't so simple, because damnit, I was saving people here, I was doing something good in the world for once in my life. How was I supposed to just give all that up and go back to—

"Elizabeth?" Dr. Tillman said. She stood in the doorway. She had a cell phone in her hand. Holding it up, she said, "Phone call for you."

"Oh," I said. "Thanks." She handed me the phone and stepped out of the room. I held the phone up to my ear and said, "Hello?"

"Hello, Ellie," came John's croon. "How are you feeling this morning?"

"Sore and sleepy," I said, rubbing my aching shoulder. "I just woke up."

"Ah," John said. "Maybe you should go back to sleep."

"I don't wanna," I said, picking at the edge of my sheets. "I'm fine."

"If you're having trouble sleeping, Dr. Tillman might be able to help."

"I'll ask her later," I said, although I had no such intentions at all. I changed the subject. "What's up?"

"I have a question for you," John said.

I grinned. "That sounds mysterious," I said. "Shoot."

John sounded very casual as he asked, "How many people at the college would want to kill your teacher?"

I blinked and sat up. "What?" I said, wondering if I had misheard him. "Could you say that again slowly?"

#####

The library printer finished chewing its last page and spat it into Harold Finch's waiting hand. Finch carefully straightened the edges of the three photographs he had just collected from the ornery device and turned around to see John Reese walking down the library corridor towards him.

"Good morning, Mr. Reese," said Finch. He peered around the operative; the corridor behind him was empty. "Where is Miss Shaw? I was under the impression that she was with you."

"She's getting donuts," Reese said. "She'll be along soon."

"Ah. Good." Finch limped over to the cracked pane of glass in the corner of the room and said, "I've been researching our new number. Meet Dr. Meridith Goodwin." He taped the photographs to the glass. "She's a tenured professor and computer science researcher at NYCU."

Reese moved closer to the glass to examine the photographs. In the first one was an older white woman, perhaps forty years old. She wore a fine gray suit and low black pumps. Her long, dark brown hair had very tight curls and she wore small, round silver earrings. She was standing at the front of a computer lab. Her arms were crossed and a playful smirk graced her thin lips. In the next picture over, the same woman—somewhat younger, but in a similar suit—stood next to a lecture hall podium as she spoke with a student. In a third photograph, the woman was seated at a sleek desktop computer with the FBI logo splashed across its monitor. She was looking at the camera over her left shoulder. Flanking her were two men in suits, both grinning awkwardly and waving.

"Uh-oh, Harold," said Reese. He turned to face Finch and grinned. "You've got competition. All she's missing is the hankie with the weird patterns on it and the fancy wire-rim glasses."

"You mean the glasses with the embedded GPS trackers? Yes, I hear they're all the rage these days in the fashion world." With a small smile on his face, Finch shuffled over to his computer desk and sat down. "Dr. Goodwin is quite accomplished," he said. "She researches malware and other forms of unsavory programming—a very interesting field of research, I might add. She also teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at NYCU." Finch glanced up at Reese. "As it so happens, one of the good Doctor's students is our very own Elizabeth Ruben."

"Elizabeth?" John said, eyebrows raised. His eyes flickered to the photographs. "Huh. I'll call her later, see if she's noticed anything odd about her professor lately."

"So much for giving her time to decide if she wishes to continue assisting us," Finch said.

"It's just information, Harold," Reese said. "She doesn't need to make a life-changing decision to tell us if her teacher's been acting up."

"Right," Finch said. He organized several web browser windows across the many monitors before him with quick, confident mouse gestures. "Although I don't have access to her most current research, it appears that most of Dr. Goodwin's efforts have been directed towards finding creative ways to detect computer viruses via their network signatures. In fact—" Finch opened another window—"this paper is particularly interesting: Identifying Malware Through Analysis of Network Traffic Timing Patterns. The approach that she uses is unique, to say the least, and if I might say so, it is quite clever. Her heuristic algorithm utilizes a—"

"I'll take your word for it," Reese said, smothering a grin. He sat down next to Finch at the computer desk. "I'm guessing you're not gonna have me go undercover on this one."

"Given your debilitating disadvantage when it comes to your knowledge of computer security, I would be inclined to agree," Finch said. "It seems that I will be running point on this case. Fortunately, NYCU has a pressing need for an assistant professor. It appears that the impressionable young man that teaches their Computer Organization course has taken ill..."

"Mr. Wren to the rescue?" Reese said. He couldn't keep the grin down.

"That's Professor Wren," said Finch.

Reese rolled his eyes.

"I meet with my class later this afternoon," Finch said.

"I hope the guy didn't give them busywork," Reese said. "But hey, you never know. Maybe there's another Caleb hiding among the unwashed herd of geeks."

Finch merely raised an eyebrow at that.

"So, what else do we know about Dr. Goodwin?" Reese asked. He motioned towards the monitors.

"As of two years ago, she's divorced; it appears to have been an amicable parting. Her husband, Martin Reed, moved to Delaware, remarried, and currently makes a modest living as a hardware store manager." Finch brought up a new window with a photograph; Martin Reed had tanned skin, thick arms, very little neck, and a wide smile hidden beneath his black mustache. "I'm still digging through his finances. Dr. Goodwin had her name legally restored to her birth name shortly after parting with her husband. She has no children. Her job as a researcher affords her a steady income and she owes only a nominal amount on her credit card—singular. She leases a small apartment near the campus and owns no vehicle. She also maintains a blog."

On one of the monitors, Finch opened yet another web browser window. He said, "Dr. Goodwin occasionally posts about her projects and hobbies; she sometimes links to interesting news articles for her students and makes the occasional post to raise awareness of the gender gap in the tech world. According to her blog, she enjoys traveling, French culture, and Dixieland music. She has a ham radio callsign—operating her radio equipment must be a unique challenge in an urban environment—and dabbles in amateur packet radio networking. She also runs her own dial-in BBS. Judging by her recent online purchases, she is a voracious reader of urban fantasy and buys herself between twelve and twenty books per month—eBooks, sadly." Finch looked whimsical. "I estimate she has read several thousand novels in the past five years."

"It's not a contest, Harold," said Reese. "But don't worry—even if it was, you'd be winning. You own a library."

"Four of them, actually," Finch muttered.

Finch paused, leaned back in his chair, adjusted his glasses, and added, "According to her credit card history, Dr. Goodwin is otherwise conservative with her money, although she indulges herself in a surprising number of rather, ah, sybaritic purchases from time to time."

"You sound so judgmental, Harold," Shaw said. Finch jumped in his chair. Shaw was standing behind Finch with a donut box in her hands; neither of the men had heard her approach. "Don't be a prude. Maybe you shouldn't be looking through peoples' credit card histories if vibrators disturb you."

The tips of Finch's ears had turned red. Reese smirked.

"Erm—glad you could join us, Miss Shaw," he said. "Moving on..."

Shaw dropped the box of donuts on the desk, sat next to Reese, and crossed one leg over the other as Finch spoke.

Finch said, "Dr. Goodwin publishes several papers per year and occasionally collaborates with local law enforcement agencies—including our dear Agent Donnelly—to consult on cybercrime cases."

"That sounds interesting," Reese said. "Cybercrime is big business. Maybe her research is making somebody mad."

"So far, I've found very little information on her work with law enforcement," Finch said. "Perhaps one of the detectives could be of use in this regard."

"Donnelly still follows Carter around like a little boy," Shaw said. "Maybe she could get something out of him." She looked at Reese. "Did you and Carter kiss and make nice yet?"

"Not yet," Reese said. "It's not something to be rushed."

"Yeah, you might want to get on that," Shaw said. "Just buy her a shitload of chocolate and tell her you'll keep Elizabeth on a tighter leash from now on."

"You don't know Detective Carter very well, do you?" Reese said. He looked very amused. "You can't buy her goodwill with anything. That's why she's such a good cop." He tilted his head and said, "Okay, the chocolate might help..."

"Take her out shooting at the range," Shaw suggested. "She can borrow my Barrett and even the SAW if she wants it."

"I dunno," Reese said, grinning. "Putting that kind of weaponry in her hands when she's mad at me might not be the smartest—"

"At any rate," Finch said hurriedly, "perhaps we should get started. I'll find out what I can about our good Doctor from her colleagues at the university. Perhaps one of you should follow Dr. Goodwin herself to ensure her safety while I associate with her coworkers."

"He can do it," Shaw said, nodding towards Reese. "I'll check out her place."

Finch tapped his fingers nervously on the keys, pressing just lightly enough to make them rattle. "Actually, Miss Shaw," he said, "you would be somewhat less obtrusive than Mr. Reese on the campus. Your relative youth and university experience would allow you to blend in more easily with the student population, especially in the computer science department, where older students are a statistical rarity." Finch glanced sidelong at Reese. "No offense, Mr. Reese."

"None taken," Reese said lightly. "I'll search Dr. Goodwin's apartment."

"Fine," Shaw said. "Just as long as Reese here isn't as freaked out by sex toys as you are."

Finch said, "I'll contact the Detectives and see if they have any knowledge of Dr. Goodwin's work with the police. I do hope Detective Carter is in an amiable mood..."

"Let me handle it," Reese said. "I'll call Ellie too." When he saw the look on Shaw's face, he added, "Just to see if she's noticed her teacher acting up."

"Whatever," Shaw said.

"Let's get to work," Finch said.

#####

John sounded like he was smiling, although it was kinda hard to tell—Dr. Tillman's cell phone had a very quiet speaker in it, or maybe my right ear was still making everything sound muffled. John said, "I asked, 'How many people at the college would want to kill your teacher?' It's a serious question, by the way. Dr. Goodwin just popped up on our radar."

I was shocked. "I—nobody would want to kill her!" I said. "Why would somebody want to kill her?"

"I don't know. That's why I'm asking you."

"We're talking about the same Dr. Goodwin here, right? Curly hair, fierce 'tude, nicest lady ever, can silence chatty students just by staring at them really hard?"

I tried holding the phone in my left hand, although my fingers had a hard time getting the phone in a good position with my wrist splinted. It was worth it; when I put the phone up against my left ear, I could tell immediately that John's voice was louder.

"I haven't met her yet," John said. "I'm sure I'll have a better idea of what she's like after I break into her apartment and go through all her stuff."

I really wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"You're going to break into my teacher's place," I said.

"Yep."

I scoffed and chuckled. "That is just so you."

"Has she been acting unusual lately?"

"Uh..." I trailed off. How was I supposed to have noticed something like that when I hadn't been showing up to half her lectures for the past month? "I don't think so," I said slowly.

"Why the hesitancy?" John asked.

"I haven't been paying much attention in class," I said quietly. Technically, it wasn't a lie. Technically. Louder, I said, "Is somebody trying to hurt her?" With a quiet little groan, I sat up and dangled my legs off the side of the bed.

"That's what we're trying to find out," John said.

"I want to help," I said. Moving with care, I felt around for my slippers with my feet and stood up, clutching the IV stand for support. I needed to move around. I walked over to the window and drew back the drapes, peeking down into the clinic's central courtyard, which was shaded by a large maple tree. There were a few people eating breakfast at the tables below. My stomach rumbled.

"No, Ellie, you need to be resting," John said.

"John, this is my professor we're talking about here." I turned away from the window. "Hell, she's my adviser and research mentor too."

"You've got busted ribs, a fractured wrist, and a torn ligament in your shoulder," John said. "You won't be able to help much in that state. Also, you really should be thinking about what we talked about yesterday."

I grumbled.

"Don't worry, Elizabeth," said John. "We're gonna make sure she's safe. Okay?"

"Okay," I said, feeling very glum. "You'll call me if something happens, right?"

"I'll keep you in the loop," John said. He abruptly switched topics. "Now, is there anything in her research that somebody would want to kill over?"

"Well..." I paced back and forth as much as the IV tubing allowed. "The stuff she's been doing recently—I've only heard bits and pieces—has something to do with botnets. Those are cool. Totally illegal, but cool. I mean, we're talking tens of thousands of zombie computers controlled by one person, or maybe just a few people."

"Criminals?"

"Yeah. But they're really hard to take down. She's been working with the FBI to research some of the big ones. I dunno how far she's gotten."

"Hmm. Sounds promising. Anything else?"

"Nothing worth killing over," I said, appalled.

"You never know," John said. "People do bad things for strange reasons."

"Right," I sighed. "Look, you sure there's no way I can help?"

John thought about that for a few seconds.

"I have a guy looking through her research papers," John said, "But an extra pair of eyes could help—"

"I'm on it!" I said. "I can read all her stuff in the library database online."

"—as long as you don't forget to study," John said. I groaned.

"John, if she gets killed, all the studying goes to waste," I said.

"We won't let that happen," John said firmly.

"Good," I said. "'Cause she's an awesome teacher. Even if her tests have been a pain in the ass this semester."

"I gotta go for now," John said suddenly. "I'll call you later."

"Bye," I said, and he hung up. I stared at the phone.

Somebody wants to kill Dr. Goodman? I thought. Huh. Maybe I'm not the only one with a bad grade in the class. I giggled over that thought for a second before I realized how awful it sounded, even as a joke. I exhaled, long and loud, and stared out the window until Dr. Tillman came back into the room.

"Oh, you're up," she said.

"Yeah. Thanks for bringing me the phone." I offered it back to her, but she wouldn't take it.

"Actually," she said, "that one's yours. It was shipped here for you."

"Oh," I said. Gee, I wonder who it's from...

"Are you feeling better?" Dr. Tillman asked. She looked concerned.

"Yeah," I said, smiling. "My wrist barely aches now."

"I meant about...whatever had you crying yesterday."

"Oh," I said. I could feel the smile slipping right off my face. "Yeah. I'm fine."

Dr. Tillman gave me a skeptical look but didn't push the matter. "If you say so. Now, that's the second time I've heard your stomach grumble since I came into the room. Let's get some breakfast in you..."

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

Dr. Goodwin lived in an apartment a mere five minute's walk from the campus. The park-like complex was idyllic and sleepy. Wide, leafy trees cast welcoming pools of shade between the buildings, which had been built along a loose quarter-circle arc. Goodwin's apartment was near the end of the arc. Reese lounged in a nearby park bench beneath a maple tree. He was pretending to read a newspaper, but every so often, he glanced up over the top to keep an eye on his surroundings.

"You're clear," Shaw's voice whispered in Reese's earpiece. "She just arrived on campus. I'll warn you if she leaves."

"Great," Reese said. Looking around, he tucked the paper under his arm and casually made his way down the curving sidewalk to Dr. Goodwin's apartment. There were a few people walking about a hundred yards away, but they paid Reese no attention.

"I've taken control of her alarm system via her security provider," Finch said. "It's disabled now."

It took Reese less than ten seconds to pick the lock of Dr. Goodwin's ground-floor apartment. He glanced at the alarm panel as he entered to make sure that it was really off.

"I'm in," Reese whispered as he closed the door behind him. His first impression was of disorganization. The front door opened onto a small living room containing a couch, a coffee table, a television cabinet, and an end table. The coffee table was covered in messy stacks of paper, as was half of the gray fabric couch. A dirty plate speckled with crumbs rested haphazardly atop one of the stacks on the coffee table. A half-full coffee cup sat on a coaster next to a stained-glass lamp on the end table.

Most of the walls were taken up by bookshelves that rose up to Reese's shoulder. Reese estimated there were several thousand books and academic journals in the shelves.

"I dunno, Harold," said Reese. "I think the competition is neck-and-neck. There's a lot of books here."

"Real books, Mr. Reese?" crackled Finch's voice.

"Don't let the Machine hear you say that," Reese said. He picked a book at random from the shelf and examine the cover: Vows and Honor, by Mercedes Lackey. "It might get its feelings hurt. Just 'cause it's digital doesn't mean it's not real, you know."

A wide tile counter separated the kitchen from the living room. There were more thick stacks of papers on it, as well as a charging tablet computer. Reese noticed that there was a second charger plugged into the wall but not connected to any device—probably for Dr. Goodwin's cell phone, he reasoned. There were a few dirty plates in the sink and the toaster oven was in dire need of a de-crumbing, but otherwise, the kitchen was clean.

Reese plugged an infiltration flash drive into Dr. Goodwin's tablet, then went about and peeked at the papers in several of the stacks as he waited for the flash drive to finish its work. As far as Reese could tell, the papers were homework assignments and exams—some graded, some not.

Once the flash drive had compromised the tablet, Reese yanked the drive and proceeded down the hallway.

"This is a two-bedroom apartment," Reese noted. "Doesn't Dr. Goodwin live alone?"

"She does," Finch verified.

"So, why does she need two bedrooms?" Reese pushed open the first door he came across and peeked inside.

"Ah," he said.

Three of the walls were covered in bookshelves, and all of the shelves were full. The books that hadn't fit in the shelves had been stacked three feet high in the corners. A long, sturdy wooden workbench sat beneath the window. Dr. Goodwin had placed a staggering amount of equipment on top of it. On the left was a stack of radio equipment in boxy, silver metal chassis. Two wireless routers sat atop the uppermost radio, and on the workbench next to the radio equipment was an old-fashioned radio microphone next to a large headset. A little further over were a number of circuit boards and electronic components, along with an unplugged soldering iron in a stand, spools of solder, and a tray of electronic components. The middle of the workbench was occupied by a lonely laptop charger, which was unplugged, and several pages of scrawled notes. On the right side of the workbench was an ancient beige computer with a boxy dial-up modem on top, and next to it was a single monitor. The computer hummed softly.

Reese went back to the hallway and checked the remaining two rooms of the apartment—the bathroom and Dr. Goodwin's bedroom—to make sure they were clear. Then he returned to the radio room.

"I think this is her workshop," Reese said. "More books, an old computer, radio equipment—looks like she builds her own. Wonder where she hid the antennas?" Reese paused for a moment to admire a tiny, half-assembled radio transmitter before peeking under the workbench. A small wire rack lurked towards the right side of the workbench. There were a dozen small electronic devices arranged on it. Wires trailed between them, and green and amber LEDs blinked like a constellation in the dark beneath the desk.

"I have no idea what I'm looking at," Reese said. He enabled his phone camera's flash and snapped a picture, then sent it to Finch.

"Looks like a number of small embedded computers," Finch said. "With the possible exception of a cooling fan, none of them have any moving parts. She has a page on her blog dedicated to them. Apparently she uses them for algorithm testing on low-power CPUs. I do believe the second one from the left, top shelf, is an eight-core little|BIG device, whereas the one at the bottom right is a Titanium Quantum, one of the newest low-power quad-core offerings from mTech. A very capable device for its size. I must say, our Dr. Goodwin's collection is somewhat impressive."

Shaw's smug voice crackled on the line. "So, Harold," she said, "you think it's okay for a woman to collect electronic devices,but only as long as they're computers? Kinda hypocritical, if you ask me. Hey, I know—what about a computer-controlled vibrator? Would that count?"

"I—believe that would qualify as an...external peripheral," Finch said, sounding very awkward.

"How's it going, Shaw?" Reese said as he rifled through the pages on the desk. "Anything exciting yet?"

"Nope," Shaw said. "Goodwin's in her office doing office-ey stuff and talking with students. I'm loitering with intent in the corridor. I'm gonna crash her lectures later. She's got two classes this afternoon—same room, fortunately—then a faculty meeting." Reese heard a dramatic sigh. "Reese, look, if I start talking like Finch or develop an irrational fear of sex toys after listening to technogeek for three hours straight, do me a favor? Smack some sense into me."

"I don't think you'd transform right away," Reese said. He took pictures of each page of notes. Some of them looked like they were covered in programming pseudocode; another had ham radio callsigns, and a third had a to-do list. "Pretty sure it takes a full moon, too."

"Right, prolonged exposure, permanent damage and all that. Got it."

Finch said, "You never know, Miss Shaw. Perhaps a little technical knowledge would improve your character."

"Not at the expense of hanging around with the geeks," Shaw said. "Look, Finch, you're a pretty okay guy, but the compsci students here? Zero social skills. I can feel them grabbing my ass and boobs with their eyes. And they smell. Also, try not to look at anybody when you're teaching today. It makes a bad first impression when a substitute teacher faints from fashion deprivation. When did Crocs become acceptable to wear in public? And if you're gonna wear flip-flops, you should at least keep your toenails clean."

"Alas," Finch said, "when faced with the choice between fine tailored suits and payments towards massive, crippling college debt, most students choose the latter..."

Reese listened to the two bicker as he finished his sweep of the workshop. When he got to the humming computer on the workbench, he searched high and low for a USB port so he could plug in the flash drive.

He didn't find one.

"Finch?" he said, cutting off yet another of Shaw's snarky comments regarding geeks and hygiene. "I don't think this computer has a USB port."

"Unlikely, Mr. Reese. Have you checked the back?"

"Yes, and the front, and everywhere else. I think it's old."

"How old? USB 1.1 was widely adopted by hardware manufacturers in 1998."

"Elizabeth was probably chewing on keyboards when they built it."

Reese heard an amused snort over the line. If he'd had to guess, he would've said it had come from Shaw.

"Ah!" Finch said. "Does there happen to be a modem connected to it?"

"Yep. 56k."

"I would wager that you're looking at Dr. Goodwin's BBS server. I'll try dialing in to it momentarily. You should probably see if there's any more, ah, modern computer equipment to examine."

"I'll check her bedroom next," Reese said. He went out into the hall and proceeded down to the door at the end.

Compared to the rest of the apartment, Dr. Goodwin's apartment was spartan and minimal. A queen-sized bed, decked out in light blue sheets and white pillows, occupied the center of the room. A silver analog alarm clock stood sentinel on the bedside table next to another stained-glass lamp. The dresser top was bare and free of dust. There was a small desk with a tiny desktop computer—much more modern than the one in the workshop—and a simple keyboard and mouse.

The flash drive took an unusually long time to compromise the computer. Reese let it run as he peeked into the closet, looked beneath the bed, and examined each dresser drawer.

He raised his eyebrows when he got to the wooden case in the back of the top drawer. Sighing—he couldn't not look, what if there was a weapon in there?—he opened it.

"You know, Harold," he said playfully, "looking through peoples' dresser drawers wasn't part of the job description when you hired me."

"Are you asking for a raise, Mr. Reese?" Finch said.

"I was thinking more like hazard pay," Reese said, eying the objects inside the box.

"Did you find something interesting?" Shaw asked. "Maybe you should give us a running commentary. Finch would love to hear it."

Reese examined one of the items in the box, then carefully put it back. He said, "As long as she doesn't kill or hurt anybody, what Goodwin does in her free time is really none of our business."

"Right," Shaw said. "And there's nothing wrong at all with an active sex life. It's beneficial to both physical and emotional health."

Reese considered a particularly ominous looking item and said, "On the other hand, some of these do look like weapons..."

"We had a guy come into the ER once with a concussion," Shaw said. "Turns out, he had a spat with his girlfriend and she threw a glass dildo at him. It was heavier than it looked. That was an interesting diagnosis to write..."

Finch didn't respond. Reese wondered if he had disconnected.

After several more minutes—and several more awkward discoveries by Reese, especially in a box under the bed—the flash drive finished its work on the desktop computer and presented Reese with the files on its hard drive.

There was disappointingly little to be found. Dr. Goodwin's email client was set to view messages on the college mail server rather than to download them to the hard drive, and she didn't appear to have her passwords saved anywhere on the disk. There were a few assignments and exams on the computer, as well as a class roster. Curious, Reese opened it. His eyes skimmed the page until they landed on the grade book entry for Ruben, Elizabeth J.

"Finch?" Reese said slowly.

"Yes, Mr. Reese?"

"Why did you tell me to tell Elizabeth to study for her exams?"

"Because the Machine told me to tell you to tell her," Finch said.

"Do you know what grade Elizabeth has in her class with Dr. Goodwin?"

"No, but I suspect that it's an A, like every course she's attended since junior college..." Finch's voice trailed off. "Has her academic performance been suffering?"

"It looks like Goodwin curves her class, but..." Reese sorted the list by grades. "She's barely at the 30th percentile."

"What?" Shaw and Finch said simultaneously.

"Oh, that simply will not do," Finch said. "She needs to pass to graduate this May!" In the background, Reese heard frantic typing. "I still haven't gotten past the college's firewall, but once I do, I'll be certain to access the student database and—"

"Finch?" Reese grinned. "Are you thinking about hacking the school's grade system?"

"Yes," Finch said.

"Don't you think somebody with straight As would prefer to earn their grade?"

"...yes," Finch said, sounding sullen. The typing had ceased.

"Maybe we should wait to see how she does on the test," Reese said. "After all, she's studying for it right now."

"I suppose you're right," Finch said. "In addition, it would be easier to insert the change after Dr. Goodwin submits her final grades..."

"Hey," Shaw said, "anybody else flunking the class? Maybe one of her students is willing to kill over bad grades."

"There's a few. I'll send Finch the list."

Reese spent a few more minutes examining the computer for interesting files, but found nothing. He yanked the flash drive and then surveyed the room.

"You know what's missing?" he said, crossing his arms.

"Explicit descriptions of whatever's in Goodwin's dresser drawers?" Shaw suggested.

"Dr. Goodwin's research," Reese said. "There's nothing on her desktop computer and no notes or manuscripts."

"Nothing research-related so far on her BBS server either," Finch said. "Working remotely over a dial-up connection is...nostalgic. I'll download all of the files to examine locally."

Reese said, "I'll check some of these papers again, but as far as I can tell, it's all classroom work."

"She has a laptop case," Shaw said. "Maybe she keeps her research with her, or on the school's servers somewhere."

"I'll redouble my efforts to breach the school's firewall," Finch said. "Do you think you can gain access to Dr. Goodwin's laptop, Ms. Shaw?"

"I don't think she's the type to leave it lying around," Shaw said. "But she's got that faculty meeting later today. If we're lucky, she'll leave the laptop in her office so Mister Lockpick and I can say hello..."

#####

Later that afternoon, Finch found himself limping across the NYCU campus towards Marietta Hall, which housed the college's computer science and engineering departments. Finch noted the varying architectural styles of the buildings he passed. The campus had a feeling of newness to it, despite the fact that it had been in operation for twenty-two years.

It hasn't had time to develop its character yet, Finch thought. The buildings are too new, too clean; too modern, reflective, and overbearing. Give them five decades and a hundred-year storm—then, perhaps, this campus will have its own unique idiosyncrasies.

In a peculiar way, Finch was pleased to see that Marietta Hall was more run-down than the rest, having been one of the first buildings constructed on campus. It stood six stories tall and was much longer than it was wide. It had plain, weather-stained concrete walls and wide dark windows shaded by deep green overhangs. Angular support columns flared out into large buttresses near the base of the building. The upper three stories were terraced; the topmost floor ran only half the length of the building. As Finch neared, he could see that the concrete was cracked and worn in places. The front doors squeaked when he opened them, to be greeted by a puff of cold air from the overworked air conditioners.

Despite there being two lifts, it took over a minute for one of them to arrive at the ground floor. Finch stepped inside the cab and pressed the button for the fourth floor, where the computer science department office was located. The lift rattled its way up the shaft, stopping once at the third floor to allow a student to embark. Finch smiled awkwardly at the student, who promptly ignored him. Finally, the lift rose to the fourth floor and allowed Finch to exit.

Time to meet my employer, he thought. Following the helpful laminated signs posted in the hallway outside the lift, Finch made his way to the computer science office to introduce himself.

The Dean of Computer Science was a cheerful sort. Her name was Dr. Anita McKinley and she was barely taller than Harold Finch, even with the extra inch or so afforded to her by her heels. She had light brown skin, curly gray hair cropped close to her head, and a wide smile. She wore a long red dress and a blue lanyard around her neck.

"So good to meet you, Mr. Byrd," said Dr. McKinley. She had a faint Spanish accent. She shook Finch's hand firmly. "I am pleased that you are here. Ordinarily, it is difficult to get qualified professors on such short notice. Your CV is quite impressive."

"Thank you, Dr. McKinley," Finch said. He smiled awkwardly. "With luck, my services shan't be needed for long. Let's hope Professor Edison has a speedy recovery. "

"Yes, yes," said Dr. McKinley. "His doctor tells us he should be back with us in two weeks. In the meantime, however, we welcome your services. You have already signed up for an account through our ePortal, yes? Excellent. You will have access to our course management system within the hour." She motioned towards the door to the hallway. "Please, let me show you around our department..."

For the next half-hour, Dr. McKinley and Finch toured the building, visiting various classrooms, computer labs, and server rooms.

"This is our security networking lab," said Dr. McKinley. She fiddled with a key fob at the end of the lanyard and held it close to a small black plastic box mounted to the wall near the door. With a click, the door unlocked. Finch made a mental note to make cloned keys for Shaw, Reese, and himself.

The lab was sleek and modern, all black plastic and white walls and polished raise floor panels. The computers slung under each desk looked to be reasonably recent models from IFT and the widescreen monitors were large enough for students to multitask comfortably.

There were two students seated at separate desks. Both of the students were young men. The one closer to the door wore a white dress shirt (slightly wrinkled), a maroon tie, and slacks. He had dark brown skin and long black hair that had been carefully formed into fine dreadlocks. The other student, who lurked near the back of the lab, was lanky and tall even while sitting; he had sunburned white skin and short blond hair. He wore a Pink Floyd T-shirt decorated with the album cover from Dark Side of the Moon.

Dr. McKinley smiled and waved to the nearer of the two students, the one dressed sharper. "Mr. Madison!" said the Dean. "How are you?"

"I'm doing well, ma'am," he said with a shy grin.

To Finch, Dr. McKinley said, "This is David Madison, one of our bright student researchers." As Dr. McKinley spoke, David looked coyly down at his hands.

"Mr. Madison, meet Professor Byrd," said Dr. McKinley. "He's our substitute for Professor Edison. Perhaps you could describe your research project to him?"

"Of course," said David. He looked up at Finch. "I do privacy research. My current project involves finding ways to mitigate wireless device location tracking through the MAC address emitted when searching for wireless networks."

"Interesting," Finch said. "I presume you are referring to the hardware address embedded in probe request frames?"

"Yes," David said. "Some retailers are tracking customers' location in their stores through the customers' smartphones, even when the phones aren't connected to a wireless network. Randomizing the device's MAC address for active scans is looking hopeful for handling this. It confused my test equipment pretty well."

"It sounds very promising," Finch said with a small smile. "I look forward to seeing the result of your research in the near future."

With a nod to David, who was now beaming, Finch followed Dr. McKinley further into the lab. The back wall of the lab was given over to large windows onto a darkened server room. Dr. McKinley described the building's network to Finch, but he listened with only half an ear. The other student in the lab was seated just behind him. Finch could see his monitor via its reflection in the window. One of the applications the student was running looked very familiar.

Dr. McKinley, after describing the high-performance server cluster in the room beyond the windows, motioned back towards the lab doors. Finch followed, but when he passed the student, he paused and said to him, "You're running IRSSI, are you not?"

Startled, the student looked up and said, "Uh—yeah. I like the interface."

"Good choice for an IRC client," Finch said. "If you want to customize it more, I highly suggest the advanced windowlist and nicklist scripts. They will make things more manageable."

"Oh, thanks," the student said. He didn't meet Finch's eyes. "You're, um, a new professor, right?"

"Just here temporarily," Finch said, smiling politely. He held out his hand. "I'm Professor Byrd, filling in for Professor Edison."

"Hi," said the student. "I'm Branden." They shook hands. Brandon's grip was weak and sweaty. "I remember his class. Interesting stuff."

"Indeed," Finch said. He tried to see what IRC channels Branden had joined, but he couldn't see the screen clearly from where he stood, especially with the small font size Branden had chosen. He considered moving to get a better view, but decided that prying into a student's affairs with the Dean hovering next to him wouldn't make a very good first impression. So he smiled and said, "Good luck with your studies, Branden."

"Thanks," said Branden, and he went back to chatting on IRC.

Dr. McKinley nodded towards the door and said, "I will show you the downstairs lab, then your temporary office. That should leave you enough time to eat before your class starts. I hope you are prepared to answer questions on assembly language programming—I believe Professor Edison has an assignment due soon..."

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

Reese liked the coffee shop. It was dark, in a sort of moody, melancholy way, with warm little spotlights focused on the counter and the menus. Faint shadows danced across the back wall, larger than life, as people walked in front of the tinted streetside windows. The place was filled with the scent of roasted coffee beans and aging wood. There were only five patrons in the room. Reese was sitting at the table in the rear corner, both so he could keep an eye on everything and so he could escape through the emergency exit in the back of the building if necessary.

There were two coffee mugs on the table before him.

The bell over the door jangled as Detective Carter entered the establishment. She looked around, seeking a certain suited pain-in-the-ass. When she spotted him, she strode over to the table and sat down. She glanced him over once. As usual, John Reese wore his usual ominous black suit, but with one notable difference—the white shirt had been replaced by a lilac one.

The top two buttons were unfastened.

Carter chewed her lip and glared.

"It's not gonna work," Carter said.

"What's not gonna work?" Reese said.

"The bribery." Carter tapped the mug with her fingertips. "That innocent face of yours isn't gonna get you very far either."

"It's just coffee, Joss," John said. His usual croon was even softer than usual. He raised his eyebrows. "I buy us coffee all the time."

"Uh-huh." Carter took a sip and swirled the rich, bitter beverage around in her mouth before swallowing. A strange but pleasant taste tickled her tongue. "Is that chocolate?" she asked, peering in the mug.

"A touch of dark chocolate," Reese affirmed. "Gives it a smoother taste. Do you like it?" The corner of his mouth quirked upward.

Carter sighed. Damnit—he knew just the kind of treat she liked to add to her coffee. "Look," she said, "we're not talking unless you tell me you spoke with our girl."

"I did," Reese said.

"And?"

"And she's going to think about it," Reese said.

"Tell me what you told her," Carter said.

"I told her a lot. I told her that she could get killed if she keeps doing what she's doing, and when that didn't get through to her, I told her that it could get her mother killed too."

"Ah," Carter said. "Did that make her listen?"

"I think so."

"Good. I'm gonna ask her today, you know. So you'd better be telling the truth."

Reese looked Carter in the eyes and said, "I would never lie to you, Joss."

"Nah, you'd just bend the truth, that's all." She averted her eyes, because that gaze of his made it so damn hard to stay angry at him. She took another sip of her coffee and said, "Okay. 'Bout that woman, Goodwin..." She lowered her voice and leaned in closer towards Reese. "I did some asking around. One of the techs at the real-time crime center said she's done some work for them in the past. A little advising on hard drive encryption, some advice on cyber-crime cases involving computer viruses...most of it was a few years ago, but I sent Finch info on all the cases I could find. Then I went to have a chat with Donnelly. Who, by the way, is still looking for you—not that you care."

"I care," Reese said. "But he's not that important right now. Dr. Goodwin is."

"Right. According to Donnelly, your Dr. Goodwin has been helping the FBI track down a botnet for the past three months. It's a big one—four hundred thousand computers infected by a virus that allows them all to be controlled by a single entity."

"That's a lot of computers," Reese said.

"I didn't get why it was such a big deal at first. I'm not Finch—the biggest virus I have to deal with is a cold, you know? Turns out, each computer in the botnet can be made to do pretty much whatever. Spam e-mails, harvesting users' passwords and banking info, mining cryptocurrency, all sorts of stuff. Donnelly is pretty sure most of the computers were used in a denial-of-service attack against the Department of Justice a few weeks ago. And the people that own the computers probably have no idea that they're under somebody else's control."

"Sounds like it's pretty lucrative."

"Donnelly estimates the operators rake in about twenty grand per day. Maybe thirty."

"And Goodwin is trying to help shut it down."

Carter nodded. "Donnelly says botnets are hard to kill—but Goodwin is good at it. She's taken down two large botnets in the past year. In one of the cases, she helped put away the operator for twenty-five years."

"How close is she to taking down the big one?" Reese asked.

A shrug. "Donnelly thinks one, maybe two weeks. They're really close."

"Sounds like a good reason to kill somebody," Reese said.

"Yep. But there's hardly any leads on who's operating the thing, so no suspects yet. All Donnelly knows is that they're probably in New York—a few days ago, Goodwin found some sort of backup system the bots were using to communicate, and it led back to an IP address at an Internet cafe. They're still pouring over the computer back in the lab. It's encrypted."

"Of course it is," Reese said.

"I got the address of the cafe," Carter said. She handed Reese a business card. The address and business name had been penned neatly on the back. "Donnelly thinks the computer there was compromised over the Internet, but I think that if I was a cyber-criminal, I'd want a backup system I could access in-person. Just for emergencies."

"Sounds wise," Reese said, pocketing the card. "I'll check it out. Thanks, Joss."

"It's looking like your professor is poking at a hornet's nest," Carter said. "You guys made any progress yet?"

"We're working on it," Reese said. "Shaw is following Dr. Goodwin around right now. Finch is undercover at her school as another professor."

Carter snorted into her mug. "I'm having a hard time picturing that. Finch and college students?"

"It's worked in the past," Reese said. "If he can take high school students, he can handle college."

"Tell him good luck," Carter said.

"I will," Reese said.

Carter expected Reese to leave then. That's what he always did when they had a case to solve—chat a little, flirt a little, get the information, and leave, not because he didn't want to stay, but because there just wasn't time to stay and talk when somebody out there wanted somebody else dead. But Reese remained seated. For the next minute or so, neither of them talked. Reese alternated between doing his soulful-zen-gaze thing and looking around the coffee shop whenever someone entered.

"Huh," Carter said finally. "You don't got no place to be? Nobody to rescue from an exploding warehouse?"

Reese smirked and leaned back in his seat. "Nobody needs saving right now. So I thought I'd enjoy the rest of my coffee with my favorite detective."

"Flattery isn't gonna work either," Carter said, rolling her eyes. "I'm still mad at you. Mostly."

Reese just stared at her. Carter sighed and added, "...but it's a start."

"I'm sorry, Joss," said Reese. "I'll make it up to you after this case."

"You'd better," Carter said. She tilted her head. "You know what might make me less angry at you?"

"More chocolate?" Reese said, quirking an eyebrow.

"You not dropping any bodies this case. Kneecaps?—fine, I get it, people shoot at you, you need to shoot back. But nobody dies. Got it?"

"I'll see what I can do," Reese said.

"And no explosions."

"No explosions," Reese promised.

"And nothing that will land Elizabeth back in the hospital."

"Cross my heart," Reese said. "She's not going to get involved."

"Good. Here's to no explosions and nobody getting dead." She raised her mug. Across the table, Reese did the same. "Keep it up long enough and we'll call it even."

#####

Around two-thirty in the afternoon, Shaw followed Dr. Goodwin to a food court in one of the campus' more modern buildings. Fast-food restaurants lined the perimeter of the expansive room and a bubbling water fountain occupied the center. Sunlight filtered down through the massive skylights above and was diffused into a warm glow by curved plastic panels suspended by cables strung between the walls.

Dr. Goodwin stood in line at an Indian restaurant. Shaw kept an eye on her from the burger joint next door. She was happy, in a dull sort of way, to finally be able to enjoy a real meal on a case...at least, until she sat down three tables away from Dr. Goodwin and started eating.

"This is the shittiest cheeseburger I've had in months," Shaw said between mouthfuls. "Tastes like cardboard with rubber cheese and plastic lettuce. Cost five dollars. No wonder college is such a ripoff."

"Look on the bright side, Shaw," came Reese's voice in her earpiece. "You're not paying for it."

"Should've gone with what Goodwin had," Shaw grumbled into her burger. She eyed Dr. Goodwin's plate. She could smell the curry even from where she sat.

"Boring day so far," said Shaw. "I hope you're having more fun than I am."

"I am," Reese said, sounding very casual. "Or rather, Detective Stills is. I'm checking out the Internet cafe now. Nothing exciting on your end?"

"Goodwin locked her laptop in her office when she left to get lunch," Shaw said. "After her class, I'm gonna go up there and borrow it."

Dr. Goodwin finished her meal, then stood and deposited her paper plate in a trash can. She set off towards one of the exits. Shaw waited some seconds, then followed her outside into the afternoon. Dr. Goodwin moved fast, but fortunately for Shaw, she also stood out in a crowd—not many people on campus were wearing nice suits, and Dr. Goodwin was on the tall side. For several minutes, she followed the sidewalk along one of the main roads that ran across the campus, then she turned onto a shaded avenue that ran between two low buildings. Leafy trees arched overhead, turning the road into a tunnel of greenery. Few people were around. Shaw kept her distance from her target, but she needn't have worried; Dr. Goodwin appeared focused on getting wherever she was getting and never once turned around or looked behind her.

Soon, Dr. Goodwin had reached Marietta Hall. A group of four students lingered near the rear entrance. All of them were young white men. Shaw guessed they were under twenty-five years old—thirty, tops. They gave Dr. Goodwin a wide berth when she passed between them without a word. She stepped into the building and the door eased closed behind her. But when Shaw tried to pass between the students as well, they moved in closer.

"Oops," one of them said as Shaw pushed past.

Shaw felt something touch her butt.

"Hey!" Shaw said, rounding on the men. "The fuck was that?"

A chuckle went around the group.

"Sorry," one of them said. He had tight, curly black hair and a stupid grin on his face. "I tripped, and my hand went like this—"

Shaw pushed his hand away.

"Touch my ass with that hand again and I'll feed it to you," Shaw said, stepping closer and leveling her finger at the student's face. Her voice sounded very cool and dangerous—not that the average bystander would've been able to tell. Clearly, the guy that had groped her didn't believe the threat. He crossed his arms and chuckled.

"Jeesh," said one of the others. "What's her problem?"

"Must be that time of month," said one of the other guys.

Shaw's earpiece crackled. "Shaw," Reese warned, "you need to stay calm."

Shaw would've been willing to let it go. Really, she would've turned and marched into Marietta Hall without another word, leaving Mr. Curly-Top and his friends to guffaw—if only the guy hadn't reached out to touch her again. He didn't even bother pretending to trip. He simply reached out, as if Shaw's breasts were an open invitation.

Two seconds later, he was on the ground. Shaw pried his arm up at an unusual angle behind his back as he writhed on the cement.

"Oww!" he yelled. "Let go! Bitch is menstrual."

"FYI?" said Shaw. "I'm like this all the time. I don't restrict myself to being a bitch about my personal space just a few days out of the month."

Someone sighed over her earpiece.

Shaw let the guy moan a few seconds longer—his friends were still too shocked to move—and then said, "I'll let you up if you tell me you're sorry."

"Oww, oww! I'm sorry, okay?" the guy gasped.

Without further ado, Shaw dropped the guy's arm, gave his pals a tight (and thoroughly insincere) smile, and headed into the building, leaving the stunned group of students behind.

"Shaw," Reese said, "I think you've lost your touch for low-profile operations."

"That was low-profile," Shaw said. "High-profile would've landed him in the hospital." She looked up and down the main corridor that ran the length of the ground floor. There was no Dr. Goodwin in sight. Shaw sighed and pulled out her cell phone. She glanced at the clock; it was five minutes to three.

"I lost her," Shaw said, pocketing the phone again. "But she's probably headed to class. Reese, come on, do I really need to sit through two computer science lectures? Who's gonna attack her in the classroom?"

"You never know, Shaw," said Reese. "One of her students might be mad at her."

"I could be going through her office right now," Shaw said.

"But then who would be watching over Dr. Goodwin?"

Shaw growled. "You owe me a real hamburger after this."

She took the stairs up to the fourth floor and forced her way through the crowd of students that had gathered in the hallway outside of a classroom. Several seconds later, Dr. Goodwin came around a corner further up the corridor and strode towards them. The students parted for her like fish around a shark as she made her way to the classroom door and unlocked it. She pulled the door open and stepped inside, clicking on the lights as she did so. Moving quickly, Shaw slipped into the classroom just behind the professor and made haste for a seat in the back row, intent on making it appear as though she had been sitting there all along. By the time Dr. Goodwin had reached the front of the classroom and turned around, Shaw had bowed her head, adopted an appropriately disinterested expression, and now appeared to be completely absorbed in her cell phone.

Let's see if Elizabeth's professor freaks out at a new face in the classroom, Shaw thought.

She didn't. Aside from a wary glance, Dr. Goodwin paid no attention to the newcomer lurking at the back of the room. Instead, she consulted a sheet of notes and then began to lecture on a subject that Shaw quickly decided that she had absolutely no interest in.

Shaw tuned the lecture out and kept her eyes on the students instead, glancing up whenever Dr. Goodwin had her back to the class to write on the whiteboard. Most of the students seemed tired. A few students, mostly towards the back of the room, weren't even paying attention. Every so often, they peeked up at the clock mounted high on the left wall, as if they were counting the minutes until the class was over. Shaw couldn't blame them. Although Dr. Goodwin seemed excited about the material she was presenting, it didn't change the fact that it sounded incomprehensibly mathematical.

But by and large, the majority of the students were paying rapt attention to Dr. Goodwin. They lapped up her every word. Whenever she paused or asked a question, they leaned forward in their seats.

Shaw wondered what in the hell Dr. Goodwin was talking about so passionately.

She sent Finch a text message.

WTH is a Turing machine? Goodwin talking about them. Anything to do with our Machine?

A minute later, Finch responded.

No. A Turing machine is a theoretical model for the act of computing itself. A Turing machine can compute any problem a physical computer can.

Below that, a link to the Wikipedia article on Turing machines appeared.

tl;dr, Shaw wrote back immediately. She smirked.

Finch didn't respond.

The fifty-minute lecture passed surprisingly quickly...with the help of a few web comics and sites devoted to stupid captioned cat pictures. Dr. Goodwin dismissed the class. A few students went up to the front of the room to ask her questions as the rest of the students filed out of the classroom. Ten minutes later, a new group of students had migrated into the room, and the whole thing started over again.

There is a hell, Shaw thought as Dr. Goodwin started talking about finite state automata and who knew what else. It's called Computing Theory.

After another fifty minutes of technobabble, Dr. Goodwin concluded her lecture. No one stopped to ask her questions this time. She cleaned off the whiteboard, pocketed her notes, and headed towards the rear of the classroom. At first, Shaw thought Dr. Goodwin was headed for the door, but it soon became clear that she was coming over to talk with her.

"I saw you in my class today," Dr. Goodwin said with a polite smile. "But I don't believe I've ever met you before."

"I was hanging out," Shaw said. It didn't take much effort for her to sound lazy and disinterested. "Trying to find a place to study where my friends couldn't distract me. Hope you didn't mind."

"Not at all," said Dr. Goodwin. "It's the chatterboxes that I have a problem with."

"The lecture was interesting," said Shaw. "But most of it went over my head."

"Are you a computer science major?" asked Dr. Goodwin.

"Nope. Nursing."

"Ah, yes." Dr. Goodwin laughed, sounding very cheerful. "There's not much overlap between my course and your major, I'm afraid." She glanced up at the clock and said, "Uh-oh. I have a meeting in five minutes—I need to run. It was nice meeting you!"

Dr. Goodwin rushed out of the classroom. Shaw stretched and moseyed to the door. She reached the hallway just in time to see Dr. Goodwin enter the stairwell.

"I'm out," Shaw said. "Goodwin is headed for the meeting with Finch. I'm headed up to her office to take a peak."

When she entered the stairwell, Shaw heard Dr. Goodwin's footsteps on the landing one floor below, then the squeak of a door opening and closing again. Shaw followed the professor just far enough to make sure she reached the computer science department office unharmed, then reversed course and leisurely made her way up the stairs to the fifth floor of Marietta Hall, where the faculty offices were located. The hallways there were arranged in a lopsided figure-eight with the lifts located along the center hallway. Shaw searched the outer corridor until she found a door with a small black sign beside it: Dr. Meridth Goodwin (CS).

Glancing up and down the deserted corridor, Shaw withdrew a lockpick from within her jacket and set to work on the door lock. It opened with hardly a click. Shaw pushed the door open, looked up, and stared.

The office's occupant stared back, frozen mid-motion.

Shaw stepped inside the office and closed the door firmly behind her.

"Okay," she hissed, keeping her voice as low as possible, "what in the hell are you doing here?"

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

Breakfast was oatmeal and tea. At least, I think that's what it was—I ate so fast I didn't have time to notice what it looked or tasted like. Dr. Tillman made a few playful remarks about how there must have been an Uncle Hoover in my family, or maybe an Aunt Dyson. I shooed her out of my room and finished eating. As soon as I was done, I logged on to my laptop, connected to the college's online databases, and downloaded every article Dr. Goodwin had written within the past two years. There were seven.

I spent the next few hours skimming through the papers. I had read most of them before. The ones I hadn't were easy enough to understand. I was disappointed—I didn't see anything in here that looked like it would be worth murdering somebody over. I mean, sure, the paper on malware detection through network traffic heuristics probably would put a dent in some hacker's profits, but not until somebody improved Dr. Goodwin's algorithms (which were, by her own admittance, rough) to reduce the 8.27% false positive rate, and then made a practical real-time scanner that could handle more than a few megabytes per second without introducing unacceptable latency. As for the paper on cracking encrypted URL generators embedded in viruses, it was a new approach with a better success rate than other methods for certain types of viruses, but it wasn't something that was going to bring some cybercriminal's empire to its knees.

I smiled when I got to the paper on WPS vulnerabilities in router firmware. The authors were listed as Goodwin, M. L. and Ruben, E. J. That had been afun project...even if it had pissed off the director of campus IT services.

Lunchtime rolled around. I vacuumed up the sandwich and went right back to work.

By mid-afternoon, I was feeling very bummed. There was nothing in Dr. Goodwin's published research that seemed murder-worthy, which meant that anything putting her in danger probably involved whatever she was researching now. I'd lost track of her current projects, what with the whole Batman and Robin gig. If I wanted to help John figure out who was trying to hurt my professor, I'd need access to her current research.

For a brief moment, I considered e-mailing her, or maybe giving her a call. Then I realized how strange that conversation would sound—"Whatup, Doc? Listen, I know I haven't been showing up very often to your lectures for the past three months, and I'm failing your class, but I'm suddenly really interested in your current research project, can you describe it and tell me how likely it is to make somebody want to murder you?"

No; that wouldn't do...

Sighing, I swung my legs down to the floor and stood up. I was feeling more and more restless with each passing day in this place. Being tied to an IV stand was starting to really get on my nerves. I was tired of seeing the four walls of the clinic room. I felt fine now. I wanted to be home. No, correction—I wanted to be out there helping John, and to hell with the consequences.

—your mother could be the next Mary MacTaggart—

But what about Dr. Goodwin? She was in danger too, and unlike the vague what-if scenario with Mama, it seemed like the threat to Dr. Goodwin was very real and very immediate. John wouldn't have gotten her case otherwise. (I still hadn't figured out how he knew people were about to be in trouble, but I did know that when he said somebody was in danger, they were really in danger...or about to do something bad.)

What if she got hurt because I didn't get involved?

What if she died?

I want out, I decided firmly. I want out of this place. At least for a few hours so I can be useful!

I started concocting a plan. First, I needed to figure out where I was. And I was pretty sure I knew how to find that out without bothering to ask.

I went to my laptop and noted the name of the clinic's wireless network, HWKPATIENTS. I was willing to bet that there weren't a lot of wireless networks with that name in New York City. Sure enough, when I plugged the name into the WiGGLE SSID search engine, it showed exactly one hit in an uptown neighborhood.

I looked up the address in an online map database and soon found photographs of the clinic's exterior. It looked familiar. It took me several seconds to realize that it was the clinic that John had taken me to after he'd rescued me from the cargo container. It was a rambling three-story brick townhouse along a sedate New York street. Huge maple trees stood guard out front, shielding the building from direct sunlight.

Examining the streets nearby, I noticed that one of my alias' apartments was barely three blocks away from the clinic—perfect. Some of my fake IDs would be there, and money, and clothing too. (Not that I was complaining about the hospital gown. It was very comfortable and far more substantial than most, but it probably wouldn't be very good for blending in anywhere but the clinic.)

Once I was on the street, it would be smooth sailing. I just had to find a way down to ground level and outside without being detected.

To do that, I needed to be mobile.

To be mobile, I needed the damn IV out of my arm.

For a moment, I contemplated yanking it out myself, but the very thought made me woozy. So instead, I reached over and pressed the call button, then sat down on the edge of my bed and put on my best poker face for when Dr. Tillman showed up a minute later.

"What's up?" she said.

"The IV is starting to really freak me out," I said, trying my best to sound like I was going to have a spontaneous needle phobia fit at any minute. (It wasn't very hard.) "How much longer do I have to have it in?"

Dr. Tillman thought for a moment. Then she said, "Well...it's about time I took you off the drip." She crossed over to a supply cabinet and came back with a cotton ball. "Hold this," she said cheerfully, "and don't look at your arm. If you punch me again I'm going to spit in your dinner."

I scoffed and looked away as she unwrapped the gauze from around my arm. Then she plucked the cotton ball from my fingers. A moment later, I felt the needle pop out. I winced. Dr. Tillman put the cotton against my arm where it had been jabbed and told me to hold it there as she got rid of the needle. When she came back, she tapped the cotton ball to my arm and said, "You'll probably be feeling sore in a few hours. When you do, it'll be good ol' fashioned ibuprofen to the rescue."

"No more needle," I said happily. "Now I can move my arm without worrying about stabbing myself and bleeding all over the carpet.

"Uh-huh," Dr. Tillman said, sounding very dry indeed. "You need anything else?"

I shook my head. Dr. Tillman said, "Okay. I'll be back in an hour or two to check on you, all right?"

I nodded. She headed for the door. I gave her five seconds, then grabbed my book off the bedside table and darted after her, walking a little ways down the hall.

"Oh, Dr. Tillman?" I said. "You wouldn't happen to have another book I could read, do you? I finished this one." I held up the book and wiggled it for emphasis, but what I was really doing was looking past her to see if there was a staircase or something. I saw a T-intersection about twenty feet down, but I couldn't see around the corner.

"Uh, I have a few paperbacks at my desk," she said. "There's a few CSI novels and I just finished Fifty Shades if that's the kind of thing you like reading."

Eww, I thought, that book was one of the dumbest things I've ever read. I've read erotic fan fiction that was miles better. But I smiled and said, "Yeah, would you mind? I'm really bored."

"Sure!" Dr. Tillman said. "I'll be right back." I watched her walk down the hallway to the intersection and turned the corner. Then I started counting. I got to twenty-two before she came back.

Okay, I thought, I'm probably not going that way.

"Thanks so much," I said, accepting the book from her, although I had zero intention of reading it again.

I went back into my room, waited sixty seconds, pocketed the burner phone, and grabbed the slippers, though I didn't put them on yet. I poked my head out the doorway. Looked both ways. The hallway was deserted.

Grinning, I turned and jogged down the hall, headed the opposite direction from the intersection. My bare feet made no noise on the carpet. Every so often, I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Dr. Tillman hadn't seen me.

When I got to the corner at the end of the hallway, I slowed and peeked around it. The hallway beyond was empty. Even better, there was a door with an exit light overhead. I opened the door a crack and peered through to make sure nobody was waiting on the other side. Pushing it open just far enough to pass, I closed the door softly behind me and moved on until I got to the stairwell. I moved as quietly as I could, taking one step at a time even though I really wanted to move. Some of the steps creaked. I winced each time I stepped on one. When I got to the stairwell door at the bottom, I opened it just far enough to see into the next room.

It was the reception area. The wide windows let the afternoon sunlight flood into the room, making it feel light and airy. A number of comfortable upholstered chairs were scattered throughout the room; some around a small table, others against the wall. A hallway opposite the carved wooden front door led further back into the building. The only person I could see was the receptionist at the front desk. She had blond hair and narrow shoulders. She smiled and hummed to herself as she worked at the desk computer.

Unfortunately, she could see both the stairwell door and the front entrance, which meant I needed a distraction of some sort.

Great, I thought. How am I going to get past her?

I took inventory. A hospital gown—check. Good for not running around in my knickers, but otherwise not very helpful at the moment. A pair of slippers—check. I considered throwing one, but I discarded the idea as ridiculous. Neither of those were very useful right now. A cell phone—

I grinned. A cell phone. More specifically, one of John's cell phones, which meant it had his fancy little collection of spyware utilities on it. Tapping the screen, I browsed to the menu and selected one of the apps.

It took less than twenty seconds to infect the receptionist's cell phone via Bluetooth.

I peered through the gap again, then back down to my cell phone. I told it to access the contact list of the receptionist's phone. It obligingly gave me a list of names and numbers. One number had several thousand chat messages associated with it. The contact's name was Wayne O'Brien. Judging by the content of their text messages, they were dating. At least, I hoped they were.

Somebody doesn't sext very well, I thought to myself as I opened the text messaging app on my own phone. I carefully typed out:

need to talk w/ you ASAP babe.

meet me in courtyard, i have something for you!

only take a minute.

I put in a few random kissy smiley faces for good measure. I was ready to send the message, but my finger hovered over the send button. I mean, really, this was kinda mean. Wayne obviously was not in the courtyard garden. The receptionist was probably gonna be annoyed at the least, and the boyfriend was gonna be confused, and that was assuming things didn't go badly.

But Dr. Goodwin is in danger...I thought. I need out of here so I can help. I don't know how else I can get the receptionist away from the door.

Sighing, I pressed the send button and waited, watching through the gap.

Several seconds later, I heard a cell phone buzz. The woman at the front desk looked down, quizzically at first, and then her eyebrows went up. She glanced around the room to make sure nobody was watching, then stood and darted into the hallway, moving out of sight.

Heart pounding, I waited five seconds before I eased the stairwell door open and crept forward. I peered down the hallway; it was deserted.

The front door was unguarded. It was right there—just waiting for me.

Now or never! I thought.

I ran forward and shoved the front doors open. I burst out into the afternoon sunlight like a cannon ball, barreled past the landing for the wheelchair ramp, and bounded down the front steps three at a time. When I reached the sidewalk, I spared several seconds to orient myself, and then I took off running up the sidewalk, feeling freer than I had in weeks.

#####

I made it to the apartment building in ten minutes. I had stopped only twice; once, to put on my slippers, and then again to take the battery out of my cell phone in case Dr. Tillman discovered I was missing too soon and siced John on me. I was surprised (and thankful) that no one had stopped me or even raised an eyebrow at the young woman running through the streets of New York wearing a distinctive maroon hospital gown.

I guessed weirder things happened in New York.

By the time I made it to the apartment, my chest was aching—damn ribs. I slumped against the wall of the lift as I rode it to the third floor, then walked down the narrow hallway to my apartment. I didn't have the key, but I knew there was a keypad around here somewhere—all of John's safehouses and apartments had them. I eventually found it in a nearby electrical box. I entered a code that I had long ago memorized and a moment later I heard the door latch click.

I turned on the lights before I stepped inside the apartment.

The apartment was typical of the places John had set up for my aliases. All the amenities were squeezed into three rooms: a small bedroom, a bathroom about the size of a closet, and a large main room, which served as the kitchen, living room, dining room, and den. The kitchenette was set off in the corner next to the washer and dryer. The flat-screen television occupied the opposite corner, and the dining table and computer desk had been sorta squeezed in wherever there weren't bookshelves along the walls. The floors were polished hardwood and the walls were the color of a good mocha.

There was a camera up in the corner. It was looking right at me. Damnit, I had forgotten about the camera—there was always a camera.

Well, not much I can do about it now, I thought. I just hope nobody's watching. So, I'm here. Now what?

I decided that I really wanted a shower, even though it would take precious time. So I wrapped my splint in a plastic bag to keep it dry and showered as quickly as I could. I didn't bother to wash my hair. Ten minutes later, I was refreshed and dressed. It was nice to be able to wear real clothes again. I wore muted colors so I'd stand out less at the campus: a dark green skirt, a creme-colored blouse, and a brown cardigan with sleeves long enough to cover at least part of the bright blue splint over my wrist. I stuck a few bobby pins in my hair, applied the bare minimum amount of makeup to be presentable, and collected the wallet from the nightstand. The IDs inside claimed my name was Alison Clark. I struggled to remember the details associated with the name. Alison Clark was twenty-nine...she grew up in California and had a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from UCLA...her father had died at a young age and her mother worked from home as a programmer for IFT in Washington. She liked PC video games and specialized in network security. Or was that distributed computing? No—definitely network security.

There was more than that to the identity—far, far more—but it was enough for now. It wasn't like I was gonna be flashing my driver's license around or applying for a job or anything. I would've rather used my real identity, since Alison wasn't a NYCU student, but I didn't know where my wallet was—

Hey, wait a minute, I thought. Where is your wallet? What happened to your purse? I faintly remembered having it when I'd been attacked at the warehouse, but I wasn't sure if it had been inside when the bombs had gone off or if Hardy and his pals had taken it with them. I hoped they hadn't left it someplace where the cops would stumble onto it.

Come to think of it, what had happened to my car?

Ask John about it later, I thought. Right now, worry about Dr. Goodwin...

I put the wallet in my skirt pocket, buckled on a pair of dark brown shoes waiting by the door, and glanced at the clock on the microwave. It was 4:31PM. Dr. Goodwin's afternoon office hour was coming up soon. It'd be the perfect time to talk with her.

I took the subway to the NYCU campus. By the time I made it to Marietta Hall, it was 4:57PM. Dr. Goodwin's latest class was over. If I was lucky, she wouldn't have too many stragglers at her office hour.

As usual, I took the stairs instead of the evil, unpredictable lifts. It hurt. By the third floor, my ribs were aching, so I forced myself to take it slow, quite literally one step at a time.

The fifth floor was very quiet. The only interesting things up here were the faculty offices and the graduate student computer lab and workshops. Dr. Goodwin's office was way out at the end of the building, tucked out of sight in one of the shorter corridors that ran parallel to the narrow axis of the building. I came around the corner to find that her office door, which was usually wide open during her office hours, was shut tight.

What? I thought. That's not right. Is she late? She's never late for her office hour.

I pursed my lips and knocked on the door. Nobody answered. I put my ear to the door—nothing. I knocked again. "Dr. Goodwin?" I called. Nobody answered. The hallway was deathly silent.

Oh, damn, I thought. Is this one of her meeting days? Damnit, it is! She's not even here! I broke out of the clinic for this?

Unbelievable.

I stared at the door, wondering what in the hell I was supposed to do now. I knocked one more time for good measure. Jiggled the door handle, just to make sure it was locked. Exasperated, I stomped my foot and ran my fingers through my hair. I stopped when my fingers met something thin and metal.

Oh, no, I thought to myself. No, no, no. No. That is a horrible idea.

Naturally, I did it anyway.

I plucked the hairpin from my head, bent it into shape, and got to work. The door lock was surprisingly easy to pick. I mean, I'd been expecting some stronger security from the campus, especially with all the fright about school shooters these days. But Dr. Goodwin's office door yielded quickly.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open to find...nobody. Dr. Goodwin's office—a very familiar place—had all of the usual things in it except for Dr. Goodwin herself. There were several floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with all manners of textbooks and periodicals. One wall was taken up by a long, L-shaped desk, where Dr. Goodwin always invited students to sit beside her, rather than across from her. On the desk was a charging laptop and an old ham radio, which Dr. Goodwin often used as a conversation starter when talking with nervous students. There was a compact whiteboard on the wall, along with a half-dozen posters of microprocessor dies and other complex integrated circuits. A little table had been sequestered in the corner, and on it were stacks of paper—homework assignments, probably.

I peeked around the door, as if Dr. Goodwin had somehow squeezed herself into the narrow space behind it. Satisfied that the office was empty, I slipped inside. I clicked on the lights on my way in, because the glow from the shaded window was just not gonna cut it for me.

If she catches you, you're probably getting an F no matter what, I thought as I closed the door behind me. Even if you do manage to figure out who's after her.

I had no idea where to start looking, or what I was actually looking for. I peeked at a few of the papers, but all I saw were homework problems and quizzes from one of Dr. Goodwin's other courses. I checked the desk drawers but found nothing more interesting than office supplies. So I turned to Dr. Goodwin's laptop.

It was a newer IFT IdeaBook, all elegant lines and silky black plastic. I'd seen her with it many times. It ran a Linux distribution for its operating system; Dr. Goodwin was a Debian fan. I approached the laptop with trepidation. I was afraid to touch it—I mean, this was Dr. Goodwin's computer we were talking about here. It was a holy artifact. I wasn't worthy to touch it, but I did anyway, running my fingers along the edges of the lid. It was pretty sure she had an encrypted hard drive. At the very least, she probably had a long login password.

Sighing, I opened the lid. I was startled when the laptop whirred to life on its own—Dr. Goodwin had put it into sleep mode instead of shutting it down. A moment later, it presented me with the screensaver's password screen.

It was asleep, I thought. That makes life easier. Sleep mode was good news for me if Dr. Goodwin had a hard drive password—the hard drive only asked for the password on cold boot, not when waking. It also was good news for me if she had encrypted partitions, because most Linuxes kept the decryption key in memory when in sleep mode, which meant that whatever encrypted partitions Dr. Goodwin hadn't bothered to unmount before closing the lid were still accessible.

Assuming I could get past the screensaver's password prompt.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I had no idea what to do. I didn't want to start typing in random passwords—I knew her screensaver warned about failed login attempts. I switched from the GUI to the virtual consoles to see if she had left one of them logged in—I did that sometimes myself—but she hadn't. I switched back over to the GUI and scratched my head, wondering what in the heck I was supposed to do now.

As I thought, a notification popped up in the lower-right hand corner of the screen.

It looked like one of those information bubbles that appeared whenever I got a new email on my netbook. For some reason—probably a bug in the window manager—it had appeared on top of the screensaver's lock screen...which meant I could probably click on it. But it disappeared a second later.

That gave me an idea.

I pulled out my phone, put the battery back in, turned it on, opened the email client, and quickly composed a short message asking Dr. Goodwin if we could meet to discuss "something important". I sent the email and crouched over the laptop, waiting. Sure enough, a few seconds later, the bubble popped up again as my e-mail arrived in her inbox. Before it could vanish, I double-clicked it.

The lock screen faded into the background, to be replaced by Dr. Goodwin's email client.

I stared.

I can't believe that worked, I thought, feeling numb. That is a horrible bug. Does it give me access to just her emails, or did it bypass the password screen entirely?

I clicked the Applications menu on the task bar and the screen immediately re-locked again. So I sent another email, gained access to the email client a second time, and this time, I tried a keyboard shortcut that would allow me to quick-run a Linux application. I told it to start a terminal and pressed enter.

A second later, I had my terminal. I used it to kill the screensaver process, and then I had access to her entire computer.

You are so getting a F, I thought, but I couldn't help but feel just a little bit proud at the same time. Hell, you're getting worse than an F. You're getting a G, for 'God, this is a stupid idea.' Or maybe you'll get an A+ for saving her life. Could go either way.

I opened a file manager and began exploring, but before I could get very far, the door knob jiggled.

Dozens of thoughts ran through my head even as I jammed my fingers down on Alt+F4 and closed the laptop lid. Oh my God came first, and then you are so getting flunked and then maybe you can talk your way out of this, say the door was open when you got here; show her your wrist so she'll sorry for you! I jumped painfully to my feet and backed away from the computer as somebody opened the door. I was expecting—dreading—Dr. Goodwin's arrival. But it wasn't her.

It was Shaw, and that really wasn't all that much better.

When she caught sight of me, she twitched. She stepped into the office and closed the door behind her.

"What in the hell are you doing here?" she demanded. She was whispering, but the venom came through regardless. "You're supposed to be in the clinic."

I took a deep breath to try and calm my thudding heart. My chest ached. "Dr. Tillman said I could go home early." I said, hoping that Shaw was distracted enough to believe it.

Shaw looked at me funny, then stepped closer. "You're favoring your left side," she observed. "Your ribs are bothering you." She stopped in front of me—just outside of my personal-space danger zone—and looked me over. "Does this hurt?" She reached out and poked me in the ribs.

"Oww!" I gasped. I slapped her hand away and cradled my chest. "The hell, Shaw?"

"You need to be resting at the clinic," she said. "Soon as we're done here, I'm taking you back."

"Shaw, I'm fine."

"You're stubborn."

"You mispronounced 'fine'."

Shaw crossed her arms and said, "You say 'fine', I say 'I'm going to tie you down to the hospital bed if that's what it takes to get you to stay put.'"

My face suddenly felt warm. Now there was an interesting mental image...

"Threat or promise?" I said.

"Are you still high?" Shaw asked. "Because now you're flirting with me."

"Not flirting!" I said quickly. "Just snarking."

"That sounds worse." As I tried to come up with a sarcastic response to that, Shaw motioned to the laptop. "Okay, kiddo. Since you're already here, do your Matrix thing. Hack it. Open sesame and all that."

"Oh, I already did," I said, grinning. I sat down in front of the laptop. It was more painful than I had expected. A quiet groan escaped my lips. Damnit, I thought, cracked ribs suck. I opened the laptop. It woke up and displayed Dr. Goodwin's emails.

"She didn't have a password?" Shaw asked. "What kind of computer security expert doesn't have a password?"

"I killed off the screensaver process once I got past the lock screen," I said proudly.

"Nice. Anything fun so far? Emails, research drafts, weird porn?"

"I haven't had time to look yet...I was thinking we should copy as much as we can to a flash drive. I dunno how long her meetings usually last."

"Great idea. You're not doing it right now because...?"

"I—uh..." It occurred to me then that I had come woefully unprepared. "I don't have a flash drive."

Without a word, Shaw reached into her pocket and withdrew a flash drive. When I tried to take it from her, Shaw tugged it back.

"You're going back to the clinic after this," she said slowly.

"Got it," I said. I tried pulling the drive out of her grip, but she wouldn't let go.

"You're going to stay at the clinic for as long as Dr. Tillman thinks is appropriate."

"Okay, Mama," I said, but she still didn't let go of the drive.

"If you pull something like this again, I am going to tie you to the bed, and trust me, it'll be a lot less sexy than whatever scenario your perverted mind is conjuring up right now."

"I got it, I got it!" I said. Finally, she relinquished the drive. I plugged it in to the side of the computer.

I told the laptop to copy everything in Dr. Goodwin's home folder to the flash drive. It didn't take long—most of the files were very small. While I waited for the process to finish, Shaw went over to the old desktop computer beneath Dr. Goodwin's desk and booted it up.

"She never uses the desktop," I pointed out. "The campus wouldn't let her configure it the way she wanted."

"Picky," Shaw said.

"Hey, it's annoying not having all your favorite applications set up just the way you want them."

"I'll take your word for it," Shaw said. She rifled through the papers on the desk. "Anything exciting here?"

"Do you consider right-linear grammars with their corresponding non-deterministic finite state automata to be exciting?"

Shaw looked up just long enough to lock eyes with me and said, "Yes."

"Really?" I said, surprised.

"Nope," she said as she went back to the papers.

The laptop finished copying its files to the flash drive. I re-enabled the screensaver, yanked the flash drive, wiped the history entries I had left in the command-line buffer, and closed the lid. When I opened it again, it presented me with the password prompt again. It was just the way I had found it.

"Nothing in her papers," Shaw said.

"She really likes working on her laptop," I said. "Her handwriting is kinda terrible."

"We have what we need. Gimmie the drive. Let's get out of here so I can take you back to Doczilla."

"Fine," I grumbled, handing over the flash drive.

Shaw peeked out into the hallway, then said, "Coast is clear. C'mon." She clicked off the lights as we went out. She waited until we were out into the main hall before she started reading me the riot act.

"You're smart, but you're also an idiot," Shaw said as we walked down the hall. "Do you know how long it takes cracked ribs to heal?"

"No," I admitted.

"Four to six weeks," Shaw said. "You shouldn't be running around playing hacker. You shouldn't be running around at all. You should be resting. In bed."

"I know," I said, rolling my eyes. Shaw couldn't see it. She was staring straight ahead.

"No, seriously—do you know what kind of damage you could be doing to your body right now? Do you want a punctured lung?"

"That sounds bad. Think I'll pass."

"If you don't want an even longer stay at the clinic with another needle shoved up your arm, you're gonna need to start taking your health more seriously. I mean it."

Shaw continued to talk, but I wasn't paying attention anymore. The door to the grad student computer lab was coming up. It was just around the corner from the lifts and it was locked by a keypad. I slowed down as we neared. Shaw kept on walking and talking and went right on around the corner without me. Smiling, I stopped at the door and tapped in my code, feeling very thankful that the keypad didn't beep whenever I pressed a button. With a tiny click, the door latch unlocked. I yanked the door open and slipped inside before Shaw even realized I was gone.

Sucker.

#####

Note: Oh heck, I went way over my usual word limit. And you're getting a chapter a day early! And it has snarky Ellie and Shaw and Tillman! (I need to get them all in a room together.)

Finch and Goodwin will be in the next chapter. No, really. I just didn't mean to make this one go on so long. Heh.

Chapter Text

April 2012

"Hi," Carter said to the blond-haired woman at the clinic's front desk. "I'm here to visit a patient—Elizabeth Ruben."

The receptionist smiled. "You must be Detective Carter. We were told you might be dropping by today. Go on up to the 2nd floor. I'll tell Dr. Tillman that you're coming."

Carter rode the little hydraulic lift up and disembarked. Dr. Tillman was waiting for her in the hallway. After they exchanged pleasantries, Dr. Tillman led Carter around a corner and several meters down the hall to a tall wooden door. She knocked gently twice and pushed it open.

"Elizabeth," said Dr. Tillman, "You have a visitor. Elizabeth?"

The hospital bed was empty. The adjoining bathroom was unoccupied. Elizabeth was nowhere to be seen. Carter sighed.

"Let me guess," she said to Dr. Tillman, who was becoming more and more horrified by the second as she searched the room for her wayward patient. "'She was just here', right?"

#####

Harold Finch paused with his hand on the door handle. Beyond the door, twenty-eight fledgling computer science students sat waiting for their CS35 professor, or rather, for his temporary replacement, Professor Byrd. Finch could hear their muffled chatter through the door.

Finch was having trouble working up the nerve to open the door.

Come on, Harold, he thought. Unlike teaching math at a high school, many of these students are here because they want to learn Computer Science. If there is one subject you are capable of teaching, this is it!

Sighing, Finch pushed open the door. The chatter quickly died down and twenty-eight pairs of eyes tracked Finch as he walked across the front of the classroom to stand before the whiteboard. He looked out over the classroom.

"Good afternoon," said Harold Finch. Even to his own ears, his voice sounded timid and uncertain. "My name is Harold Byrd. You may call me Mr. Byrd or Professor Byrd, or even Harold, whichever you wish. I am here as a substitute professor for your Assembly Language Programming and Computer Microarchitecture course."

Towards the back of the room, a young man grinned and piped up, "Oh, you've got the wrong room. That's, uh, over in Samson Hall. Really."

Somebody snickered. Finch realized that the student was joking. He smiled and said, "Oh, dear. Then why have you all congregated here?"

Another student said, "We're here for, uh..."

"—sombrero weaving 101," finished the first student. Laughter ran through the classroom. Finch allowed it to patter out, and then said, "Well. I am scheduled to lecture computer science today. Perhaps you sombrero-weavers should stay, especially since, if I am not mistaken, there is a homework assignment due soon."

The atmosphere in the room suddenly shifted. Students clicked their pens and sat up straighter in their chairs. The ones behind their laptops glanced up towards the front of the room.

"Professor Edison said we didn't have to do that," somebody said from the back of the room. "Really!"

"Dear me," said Finch. "I suppose that means you'll all be woefully unprepared for the final examination, since three-quarters of the exam is on that topic. Oh well."

"...can we talk about it anyway?" said the student, and people laughed again.

"Yes," Finch said. He was feeling more confident now, more at ease. "We most certainly can. Now, the topic of the day—and of your homework assignment—is the call stack. Can somebody describe to me the concept of a stack? Please tell me your name when you answer."

Several hands went up. Finch pointed at a young Asian man sitting in the second row. He wore tan shorts, a gray T-shirt with NYCU printed on the front in blue letters, and flip-flops.

"I'm James," he said. "Uh—a stack is like—it's like a stack of plates. You can put something on top of what's already in it or take something off the top, but you can't touch the stuff in the middle or on the bottom."

"Very good," Finch said. "What sort of 'stuff' goes on the stack?"

"Return addresses," James said. "And sometimes local variables and parameters too."

Finch nodded, pleased. "And what is this information used for?"

"It's so the computer can keep track of what it's doing," said James. "When a function finishes running, it needs to know what part of the program called it in the first place, so the computer can go back and continue on from there. That's the return address."

"Excellent. Can anyone give me an example?"

More hands went up. Finch picked a young white woman sitting in the front row. She was wearing gray shorts, a blue tank top, and black sneakers.

"I'm Andrea," she said coyly. She ran her fingers through her short brown hair. "It's like—maybe you're running Office and you want to print something. Office has to stop whatever it's doing so it can call a function that displays the print dialog. But the function to display the print dialog calls other functions to do specific things; maybe some of them draw the buttons and one of them draws the list of printers. But then printer draw function has to call another function first to discover all the printers attached to the computer before it can draw the list. We want to make sure the computer knows where to go back to after it's done finding the printers. It needs to go back to the printer list draw function, and then the dialog draw function, and then back to whatever you were doing before you told it to print." Andrea started motioning with her hands, manipulating an invisible stack of dinner plates before her. "So, each time a function gets called, it pushes a record of the previous function's location onto the stack—" she placed a new invisible plate on top of the other plates—"so the program knows where to go back when the function is done." She removed the top plate.

"Very good," Finch said. "And the functions in the middle of the stack—the printer dialog display function, for example—why would it be bad if we could access them while there were records on top, such as the printer discovery function?"

"Well..." Andrea said, thinking. She leaned back in her seat and gazed off towards the corner of the room. "I guess you wouldn't want the main draw function to finish until you were done with all those little functions to draw the buttons and printer list and all that. And the printer list draw function shouldn't finish until all the printers are found. So the functions in the stack under the current running function have to wait until the top one is done."

"Yes," Finch said. "Although, you will learn in future courses that we would like certain operations—such as network printer discovery—to happen simultaneously with other operations, such as updating a list of printers. In addition, a GUI program is often performing many tasks at once—while your web browser is waiting for you to select a printer, it may be loading another page in a second tab and playing a music video in a third. We will not cover such things in this course, as it is more appropriately discussed in an operating systems paradigm lecture. But for those of you that are curious: look up threading and event-driven programming."

Finch was happy to see several students write down the phrases.

"But for now," he said, "let us turn to a simplified CPU model and discuss how the stack might be used in a small program that calls a function to multiply two arbitrary numbers and return the result..."

#####

By the end of the class, Finch was enjoying himself. Some of the students in "his" class were really quite bright. It was refreshing for him to be able to discuss technical concepts in depth with people who understood them—or at least, were striving to understand them. The class went four minutes over. Nobody even noticed.

After the class, several students came up to talk to Finch. Many of them echoed the same sentiment: Professor Byrd was way more enthusiastic about computer science than Professor Edison. Some of the students tried to find out more information about Professor Byrd; Finch brushed them off gently but surely by saying he had a meeting to attend—which he did.

He took the elevator up to the fourth floor. The conference room for computer science faculty was just down the hall from the elevators. The room was cramped and stuffy, especially with twenty-some faculty gathered around the long table, and the window shades were drawn. Recessed fluorescent lights provided illumination.

Finch chose a seat near the door so he could leave unobtrusively if necessary. He sat down several chairs away from Dr. Goodwin, who had arrived sometime before him. Soon after, Dr. McKinley sat down at the head of the table and the meeting began. Finch, who was more interested in keeping an eye on Dr. Goodwin than participating, quickly zoned out.

Several minutes later, Shaw's voice crackled in Finch's ear.

"What in the hell are you doing here?" she said. "You're supposed to be in the clinic."

Faintly, in the background, Finch heard a familiar voice.

Oh, dear, Finch thought. That is not good.

A moment later, Reese's voice came on the line as well. "Is that Elizabeth?" he said in disbelief. "Shaw, get her back to Tillman. I'll keep an eye on Goodwin after she's out of the meeting."

Finch listened to the conversation between Shaw and Elizabeth as Dr. McKinley spoke passionately about the software engineering industry and its influence on the computer science program curriculum. Only a few people seemed to be paying attention. Some of the professors were even playing with their cell phones or staring blankly off into space. No one looked particularly prone to committing murder—not that Finch considered appearances to be an accurate predictor.

"...and you're going to rest," Shaw was saying. "If you keep pulling shit like this, a few busted ribs are gonna be the least of your worries. Are you even listening?" There was a short pause, and then Shaw swore.

"Shit," she said. "You are fucking kidding me. Reese, our little schoolgirl just gave me the slip."

Finch fought very hard against the urge to raise his eyebrows.

"Really?" Reese said. His voice held equal parts amusement and disbelief.

Shaw was cursing under her breath. "She was right behind me, and now—fuck. She's a grad student, right?"

"I think so," said Reese. "Why?"

"She went into the grad student computer lab. Door's got a keypad and an electronic lock. Damn, that little b—" Shaw hesitated, as if she wasn't sure what word to use. "—bratty schoolgirl," she finally grumbled.

To Finch's trained ears, it sounded as though Shaw was pouting. He was finding it exceedingly difficult to resist the tug at the corners of his mouth.

"That 'little bratty schoolgirl' just managed to sneak away from a highly trained ISA operative," Reese cheerfully reminded Shaw. "Don't feel bad, Shaw. Even I have off days."

"Yeah, remember when Leila got away from you and almost blew the library sky high? Fun times, Reese. Fun times."

"Touche."

Finch couldn't help but chuckle. He quickly disguised the sound as a cough.

"She'll be sorry when she gets a punctured lung," Shaw said. "She'll be sorry when she has to spend a month in the clinic—goddamnit. I just found the other entrance to the lab. It's right by the back stairwell. Dollars to donuts says she's gone. Even if she's not, I'm not breaking into the computer lab—chances are everybody knows everybody in there."

"She turned off her cell phone, too," Reese said. "Or else she disabled the tracker. Finch might be able to reactivate it remotely."

Taking the cue, Finch coughed again, carefully stood up, and edged slowly towards the door, mouthing I'll be right back to the few people that looked his way. Once he had made it out to the hall, he moved a short distance away and pulled out his cell phone.

"I must say, Miss Shaw—" he began, but she cut him off.

"Save it, binary breath," she said. "You can get in your giggles later. Do your magic and tell me where she is. I want to catch up to her before she turns her chest to Swiss cheese."

"Delightful mental imagery," Finch muttered as he opened a management app on his phone. He sent a wake command to the firmware on Elizabeth's burner cell. He waited, but the status indicator for the phone remained dark.

"Her phone is not responding," Finch said. "Either its signal is blocked or she removed the battery."

"Smart," Reese said.

"Fucking Einstein," Shaw said. "And yet we still have to save her from herself."

"Uh-oh," Reese said. "Phone call from Carter. Be right back." There was a click as he switched lines.

"I'm sure that's gonna go well," Shaw said.

Finch went back to the conference room.

Forty-six minutes later, the meeting adjourned. Dr. Goodwin waited until most of the people had exited the room before standing. But instead of walking out, she came over to Finch, who immediately started panicking.

"Hi," Dr. Goodwin said, smiling. "I don't think I recognize you. Are you our substitute teacher?"

"Ah—yes," said Finch. He smiled shyly. "It's Dr. Goodwin, is it not?"

"The one and only," she said.

"I've read your research papers on malware analysis," said Finch. He stood stiffly and shook Dr. Goodwin's hand. "You might say I'm something of a fan."

"Why, thank you!" said Dr. Goodwin. "Sometimes I forget that my work is visible outside of my little educational community."

"Your approach to malware analysis through network traffic timing is very unique," Finch said. "It looks promising for network IDSes. Have you considered using some sort of self-learning algorithm to improve the detection rate?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. I'm experimenting with a neural net right now. The challenge I'm facing currently is finding enough relevant training data for it."

Someone switched off the lights in the conference room. Dr. Goodwin and Finch followed the last few stragglers in the conference room out into the hallway.

"So how about you?" said Dr. Goodwin. "Dr. McKinley said you've done some security research. What's your field of interest?"

"Network security," Finch said. "Pentesting, embedded device security, vulnerability scanning, that sort of thing."

"Ah, a white-hat," said Dr. Goodwin. "You should meet one of my students. She loves anything to do with embedded device security, especially wireless devices."

As they talked, they walked slowly down the hall. They paused near the elevators at the center of the building. The elevators were located down a short cross-hall that joined both sides of the looping outer corridor. Opposite the elevators were a pair of wide doorways that led to the main stairwell.

"Eventually, I'd really like to put my algorithm on consumer routers," said Dr. Goodwin. "The problem is, the algorithms use up so much CPU time. If I could optimize them, they could be adapted for today's routers without hardware modification, but as they are now, they'd bog down the CPU. Having multiple cores would be optimal, but most manufactures still opt for a single-core SoC and..."

Dr. Goodwin continued to talk, but Finch was no longer listening. At the end of the hall behind Dr. Goodwin, Elizabeth Ruben had suddenly come around the corner and was now rapidly approaching.

Oh no, Finch thought. Oh no, no—I mustn't let her see me!

"Ah, I'm so sorry," Finch stammered, cutting Dr. Goodwin off mid-sentence. He pulled out his cell phone and motioned towards it. "My friend—he only calls if there's a problem—"

"Oh, sure," said Dr. Goodwin. Finch turned his back and limped frantically down the hallway, even as Dr. Goodwin exclaimed behind him, "Elizabeth! What happened to your wrist—?"

"Miss Shaw, she's here," Finch whispered.

"Where's here, Harold?" said Shaw.

"Fourth floor, near the elevators. Get here quickly, before she recognizes me!"

A sigh. "Damnit, I went all the way to the ground floor for nothing. Stop panicking, Harold. She doesn't even know what you look like."

"She does now!"

"Oh, no. Now she knows you're a soft-spoken, well-dressed, middle-aged computer science professor that likes to talk to himself and has immaculate posture. That's bad, Harold. Real bad. Look, try to keep her there. I'm coming up the main staircase."

"Right," Finch said, wide-eyed. He turned and limped down the hallway towards Dr. Goodwin and Elizabeth, who were by now deep in conversation. Both women ignored him.

"...but it's scary, you know?," Elizabeth was saying. "I mean, did you hear about Krebs? I was just reading about him while I was waiting for you. One of the authors of the botnet he was analyzing ordered heroin sent to his house through a darknet site and tried to get him framed for drug trafficking. That's not very far away from getting somebody hurt bad or killed. I didn't realize what you did was so dangerous."

"It has risks," Dr. Goodwin agreed. "But the people behind these botnets are doing a lot of damage, both to individuals and to the Internet."

"Don't you ever worry?" Elizabeth said.

"Sometimes. But the rewards are worth the risk. If nothing else, I get to analyze fascinating obfuscated software and communication protocols that few people will ever see or understand. And how many people can say they've helped neutralize a botnet of nearly half a million computers?"

"Right, but—"

Down the side hallway, an elevator chimed once. Finch saw one of the battered brown sets of doors trundle open. The up arrow on the wall flickered weakly once and then darkened. Elizabeth turned her head at the sound of the elevator's arrival, but as she did so, she caught sight of Shaw, who was just now coming up the stairs. Elizabeth tensed and then said, "I'm so sorry, but I—I promised my doctor I'd be back by six—"

Without waiting for a response from Dr. Goodwin, Elizabeth turned and ran for the open elevator doors. They began to groan shut as she approached. Moving surprisingly fast for someone injured, she slipped between the sliding panels just as Shaw made it to the hallway.

"Hold the elevator!" she called, but the doors snicked shut in front of her. Shaw skidded to a halt and pounded the call buttons. They lit up, but the doors did not open. "Damnit," Shaw swore. She ran to the stairwell and headed back downstairs.

Dr. Goodwin's head pivoted back and forth between the elevator and the staircase. "That was odd," she said.

"Very," Finch said, trying not to smile. "Ah, where were we...?"

"I am so tying her to the fucking bed," Shaw complained in Finch's ear. She was panting now. "I don't care how hot and bothered she gets. And then I'm going to treat myself to a real hamburger. Maybe I'll eat it in front of her and not let her have any."

"Zero for two," Reese noted. "Shaw, I think you're getting old."

"Eat a dick," Shaw said. "She's snuck out on you twice too, grandpa."

Finch wondered if he should've informed Shaw that the elevator had been heading up...

#####

"So much for your little talk," Carter said as soon as the line connected. She stormed down the front steps of the clinic with her cell phone jammed tight against her ear. "Your girl checked herself out."

"I know," Reese said. He sounded very glum. "She popped up in Marietta Hall at the NYCU campus a few minutes ago. Shaw found her in Dr. Goodwin's office."

"One of you had better be driving Elizabeth back to the clinic right now. I don't hear a car or anybody saying 'I'm fine' in the background right now, so I'm assuming she's with Shaw."

Uneasy silence. Carter pinched the bridge of her nose.

"All right, John," she sighed. "Where's Elizabeth?"

"We're, ah, not sure where she is," John said.

"How can you not be sure where she is?" Carter hissed. "We're talking about an injured twenty-something computer geek who almost got blown up a week ago. Not some magician with an invisibility cloak!"

"Elizabeth gave Shaw the slip when she tried taking her back to the clinic."

Carter scoffed. "What'd she do, rappel down the building when Shaw had her back turned?"

"She ran inside a computer lab that only the grad students can access, apparently."

Carter yanked open the door to her Crown Vic, got inside, and slammed the door shut.

"I'm heading over there," Carter said.

"Joss, I really don't think that's necessary. We'll find her—"

"Nu-uh," Carter said. She started the car and pulled away from the curb, accelerating hard. "You clowns let an injured civilian run off while your heads were up your asses. Shaw doesn't have the backbone to deal with Elizabeth and I know you don't either. So now, she has to deal with me."

#####

My heart pounded at Warp 9 as the lift doors grumbled shut just in front of Shaw. I clenched the handrail at the back of the cab, hoping like hell that the lift would get moving before Shaw could reach the call buttons.

The cab jerked beneath my feet. For a moment, I felt heavier. I breathed a shaky sigh of relief—and I realized that Shaw could probably run up the stairs faster than the lift could move, which meant that there was a good chance she'd be standing outside the doors when they opened again.

My eyes were glued to the level indicator above the doors. The 4 light was lit, but as I watched, it went dark and the 5 lit up, then the 6. The lift slowed. I winced as a chime sounded. The doors grumbled open, and I braced myself to face an irritated Shaw—but the corridor beyond was empty.

Moving tentatively, I stepped out of the lift and looked both ways. There was nobody around.

Okay, plan B, I thought. She probably went down instead of up, which means she's probably in the main staircase somewhere. So I ran to the outer corridor and headed towards the north end of the building. There was another staircase there, a smaller one with a ground-level exit that opened outward into a little grove of oak trees. There was no way Shaw could watch that exit along with the main staircase and the lifts all at the same time.

I held my breath and pushed the door open. It squeaked, and the squeak echoed like a banshee's wail down six stories of concrete stairs. But there was no other sound. No one was in the stairwell. Taking one last look over my shoulder, I started my way down the stairs. It was easier than going up, but it still hurt. I had to stop around the third floor to clutch my chest and catch my breath. When I reached ground level, I peeked outside to make sure Shaw wasn't lurking nearby, then I stepped out onto the rough concrete sidewalk that wound through the oak grove. I was already planning my next destination. Calloway Hall was maybe a hundred feet away, just across the street past the grove, and if I made it there, I could go through it and then hop-scotch my way between buildings back to the subway station.

With that goal in mind, I began to jog through the grove towards the street, but I soon had to slow to a walk. The painkillers were on their last legs, if they hadn't evaporated from my body entirely.

As I walked past one of the oak trees near the road, a guy said, "Hey there."

I turned to see who had spoken. A young white man was leaning against the tree. He had short, curly black hair and an angular, narrow face. He was wearing jeans, the kind that had holes pre-worn in them for "fashion". His red T-shirt had illegible words printed on it in distorted white font and he wore chunky white sneakers. He was tall and skinny—and unfortunately, he was familiar.

Oh, great, I thought. Why did I turn around?

"Hi," he said.

"Fuck off," I said. Just to make it really clear that I didn't want to talk to him, I turned my back and started walking again. Unfortunately, he didn't get the hint. I heard footsteps on the sidewalk behind me.

"C'mon, don't be like that," he said. "I'm just trying to see how you're doing, that's all. How'd you get your arm all messed up?"

I forced myself not to respond. He followed me out of the grove and onto the little road that ran between the two buildings.

"Wait," he said, and then he grabbed my uninjured wrist.

Growling, I turned and yanked my arm out of his grasp. "You remember what happened the last time you dared lay a hand on me?" I snarled.

"Yeah, you spent the afternoon talking to the campus police," he said, grinning. I gathered the smile was supposed to make him look charming, or suave, or something. All it did was make me more pissed off.

"I got a warning," I said. "You got a black eye. It was worth it. Want another one ? It'd go great with that nice bruise on your forehead." For emphasis, I balled my left hand into a fist and held it up. "What'd you do, walk into a pole 'cause you were too busy staring at boobs?"

"C'mon," he said, rolling his eyes. "Don't be like that. Look, all right, I get it. You're being bitchy 'cause you're in pain." He motioned to my splinted wrist. "I'm just trying to be friendly here."

"You're way more of a pain than my wrist," I said. I turned again, but a second later, I felt his hand on my shoulder. I pulled out of his grasp and pushed him away. He stumbled back.

"Well, fine," he spat. "Get well soon, ya bitch."

A split-second later, he slapped me in the butt.

Gasping in fury, I spun and popped him right in the nose. It felt good. I didn't care if it meant I had to explain myself to the campus police again. I didn't care if I got in trouble. I just didn't care.

He went down. The look of shock on his face was great.

"Stay the fuck away from me," I said as he groaned. "I am so sick of you groping us!" He picked himself off the ground. He looked pretty pissed-off. For a split second, I wondered if I'd have to do something drastic, like go for his eyes, but before I had to make that decision, somebody else made it moot.

"Woah, woah, woah," came a welcome voice. "Break it up."

Detective Carter came walking up in full cop-mode; powerful gait, strong voice, and all. She wasn't in uniform, but she didn't need to be; you could tell right away that she was in charge. Just to drive the point home, she pulled out her badge and said, "Carter. NYPD."

"You're a cop?" the guy said, rubbing his nose. "'Cause I wanna report this crazy whore for assault!"

"You mean the young woman you couldn't keep your hands off of?" Carter said.

"She started it!"

"Didn't look like she started it to me," Carter said. "Looked more like you got some personal space issues."

"I've got issues? Look what she did to me!" He pointed to his forehead.

"I didn't do that!" I yelled. "He had that damn bruise before he started groping me, and by the way, it's an improvement."

"Assault," the guy said, crossing his arms. "It's assault! Crazy bitch hit me!"

I'd had enough of being called a bitch. As he yammered, I stepped forward and swung again with my left fist. I hit his cheek. He stumbled backwards, tripped on the curb, and landed on his ass. He was on his feet again within seconds, but Carter stepped between us, holding up her hands.

"Hold it," she said. Her voice was as cold and hard as iron. She pointed at me and said, "You calm down." Then she pointed at the guy and said, "Don't you ever touch her again. Consider it a final warning."

"Oh, I'm the one getting in trouble?" he said, pointing at himself. "Look at my face! Look what she did!"

"You tripped," Carter said. She grabbed my uninjured wrist and held tight—clearly, she wasn't taking any chances here. "C'mon," she said to me. "Let's go."

Detective Carter led me away, leaving the guy to sputter.

When we were out of earshot, Carter said, "You okay?"

"Yeah," I said, taking a deep breath. The movement made my chest ache. "Just fine."

"You know that guy?"

"William Dunkel," I said. "He's a creep. We call him 'Fingers' because he can't keep them to himself. I don't get how he hasn't been expelled—he never gets in trouble no matter how many women report him."

"I know his type," Carter said. "Rich boys—they think they're entitled to a woman's body like they think they're entitled to everything else."

"What?" I said. "He's not rich. He's always whining about how the financial aid department screwed him out of a few hundred dollars."

"Really? Did you see the shoes he was wearing?"

"I'm not a big fan of sneakers."

"They're Air Jordans—rare ones. Each one probably costs as much as one of your computers. And that T-shirt is probably worth more than all the clothes you're wearing right now—not that you dress cheap. But rich or poor, that kind of behavior just isn't right. I think I'll have a little chat with the campus police chief later. Now, let's talk about you and your little jailbreaking habit..."

I felt a lecture coming on.

"I know, I know," I sighed. "I was just trying to help! My professor is in danger."

"And what kind of help are you gonna be with busted ribs? You shouldn't be walking around, let alone punching people. Nice left hook, by the way."

"It was worth it," I muttered. "It hurt, but it was worth it."

"Come on," Carter said. "I'm taking you back to the clinic. And unlike Shaw, I'm not turning my back on you. So you can forget about making another escape."

"Fine," I sighed.

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

For the first few minutes, the car was quiet. Detective Carter didn't talk and I didn't either—talking made my chest twinge. So I just sat as still as possible and watched out the window as the city rolled on past.

After awhile, Carter said, “I heard you and John had a little chat. Tried to scare you straight.”

“It didn't work,” I said.

“I can see that,” Carter said. She sounded amused. “You're just as stubborn as he is.”

I shrugged. “My professor's life is in danger. I needed to do something.”

“No, you need to rest,” Carter said. “You don't want those ribs poking into a lung.”

“It's not that bad,” I said.

“Then how come you're clutching your chest?”

I glanced down; I hadn't even realized my arm was wrapped around my chest. I let it drop to my side, trying not to look too guilty about it.

“Thought so,” Carter said. “You need to take care of yourself, Elizabeth.”

“But somebody's trying to off Dr. Goodwin!”

“You keep this up and one of these days, you're gonna off yourself. You're not invincible.”

I shrugged. “I should've been dead a year ago.”

Carter frowned and shook her head. Suddenly, she flipped on the turn signal and pulled the car to the curb. Cutting the engine, she yanked the keys out of the ignition and turned to face me.

“What are you doing?” I said, confused.

“We need to settle this,” Carter said. The intensity of her gaze reminded me way too much of Mama. I felt like I was a little girl again—with her hand deep in the cookie jar.

“Settle what?” I said.

“You and us,” Carter said. “You running around doing your own thing with a gun and a martyr complex.” Carter sighed. “Look,” she said. She sounded more than a little fed-up. “You wanna be part of what we do? Then you're gonna need to cut out that suicidal I-shouldn't-be-alive crap, 'cause the only thing it's gonna do is get you killed faster.”

“But—“

“I'm not saying you shouldn't be grateful. You got another chance, that's great. But whenever you get a chance you don't think you deserve, you should be smart about how you use it. Running off alone when you're injured? Not smart, Elizabeth. I know you can do better than that.”

“But Dr. Goodwin is in trouble!” I said.

“That's why John and Shaw are following her around while Fusco and I work our angle from the precinct.” Now Carter sounded like she was patiently lecturing a young child. “Elizabeth, we're a team. We depend on each other. You might think you're okay playing fast and loose with your own skin, but it's not just your life on the line here. If somebody like you goes off half-cocked and alone to play Catwoman, it means one of us has to come pull your ass back out of the fire—and that puts everybody at risk, not just you. Get the picture?”

I stared down at my feet and shuffled my shoes on the floor mat.

“I hadn't really thought about that,” I said quietly.

“You want to help us—fine. 'S your life. No matter how much I want to go all Mama-bear on your ass and tell you what you can and can't do, I don't have that right. But if you're gonna be playing Wonder Woman on the streets with us, you're gonna have to start using that big brain of yours, 'cause your life isn't the only one at risk. Got it?”

“Got it,” I said.

“Elizabeth, look at me." I really didn't want to, but I did. Carter's face looked just like Mama when she was giving me a lecture—stern and focused, but at the same time, concerned. Her voice softened. “Somehow, you were in the right place at the right time, and things happened, and now you're here. That's a miracle. But just because you got a second chance doesn't mean you don't deserve to live anymore. Your life is worth something, Elizabeth. You get me? There are people that care about you—me, John, your Mama, hell, even Shaw cares about you. You're not some coin you stick in a Life machine to pay off a debt. You're a living person, and even if you don't know why you're alive, you deserve to be. You got that?”

“Yes,” I whispered. I looked away again, stared down at my lap, and I didn't dare look up until I heard the engine start again.

“That's not the end of it,” Carter said as she pulled away from the curb. “And I'm gonna remind you when you forget. But it's enough for today.”

The rest of the car ride was very quiet.

Several minutes later, we arrived at the clinic. Detective Carter had to help me out of the car and up the steps; my chest ached like hell. Dr. Tillman was waiting in the reception area. She appeared simultaneous relieved to have me back in her clutches and irritated that I was within fifty meters of her.

“You got an ankle bracelet I could borrow?” Dr. Tillman asked Carter. “Or maybe a tracking collar with dog tags: 'If found, return to Dr. Tillman'.”

I rolled my eyes. “I'll be good this time. Promise. No running off.”

“Uh-huh,” Dr. Tillman said. She shook her head. “You're the most exciting patient I've had in months. But I'm not sure if that's a good thing.”

Carter said to me, “If you pull something like this again, I might just arrest you.” I was having a really hard time telling if she was joking. Given the serious and somewhat terrifying Mama-esque stare she was giving me, she probably wasn't. I wasn't looking forward to being in handcuffs again so soon, so I resolved to be on my best behavior until Dr. Tillman decided to let me go.

“I'll behave,” I said quietly.

“Good. If something happens, I'll let you know. Don't worry 'bout your professor—we'll keep her safe.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Think about what I said. See you later.” And with that, she opened the front door and walked out into the evening.

“C'mon, Elizabeth,” Dr. Tillman said. She held me by the arm; her grip was surprisingly strong for someone so petite. “Let's get you back in bed.”

“No IV, right?” I said as we stepped into the lift. “It really freaks me out. I won't go anywhere, promise.”

“I think we can manage that,” Dr. Tillman said. “For now, I'll give you ibuprofen and we'll see how grumpy your chest is feeling in a few hours.

#####

Ten minutes later I was back in a hospital gown and laid up in bed. Dr. Tillman pulled back my gown and looked over my bare chest with a critical eye. There were bruises, but they didn't look any worse than they had just after the explosion. In fact, they had receded.

“I don't see any new bruises or lumps,” she said slowly. Her warm gloved hands moved ever so carefully over my chest as she examined my ribs. “I'll check again in a few hours, but I think you got lucky. Again.”

“Yay,” I said, pulling the gown back over my chest.

“We'll hold off on another X-Ray,” Dr. Tillman said. “Keep up the breathing exercises, and I don't want to see so much as a toe touching the ground unless you're going to the bathroom. That bathroom.” She pointed at the nearby door. “Not the one in your apartment, or at school, or at work. Got it?”

“Got it,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Jeesh, I break out of this joint once, and everybody treats me like some hardened criminal.”

“Uh-huh,” Dr. Tillman said dryly. She gave me two ibuprofen pills and a glass of water to wash them down. “Don't make me post a guard outside,” she said, smiling, and she left.

I made myself comfy in bed and sighed. Soon, I found myself thinking about the little incident with Fingers. It had taken me by surprise; ever since I'd given him that first black eye, he'd been avoiding me, slithering off to the nearest dark corner like a cockroach whenever I was nearby. How could he have possibly thought that trying his little butterfingers act on me again would result in anything but trouble?

And if Carter was right, how on Earth was he affording those ridiculous clothes?

There's something weird going on with him, I thought.

I wondered if anyone else on campus had noticed. Fortunately, I had a way to find out without leaving the confines of the hospital room. I reached for my laptop on the beside table. The movement hurt, but a moment later, the laptop was balanced on my thighs and the operating system was loading. Once logged in, I opened a secure connection to one of my computers at home and attached to the running terminal session there. One of the programs running in the terminal session was my IRC client, which was connected to several different chat networks, including one hosted at the college by some of the computer science students. Two of my friends, Gabrielle Brady and David Madison, shared administrative access to the server; they kept the server updated with security patches and offered shell accounts to the students that didn't have their own Linux systems at home.

I was disappointed to find that my IRC client had disconnected from the school server several days ago, probably from a server reboot. I told it to reconnect, and once I had authenticated, I joined a private, password-protected channel.

-!- elev [elev @ undernet-BD14E533] has joined #athena

-!- Topic for #athena:

< jaz> I am so wet right now. < jaz> and it's all elev's fault

< elev> @.o | Ask Gabbie for chan key | what happens in

here STAYS in here, share logs/key and get banhammered!!!

-!- Topic set by jezebel [] [Tue Mar 30 23:01:10 2012]

[Users #athena]

[@[Goddess]] [+esquith] [+jaz] [ elev]

[@jezebel ] [+GLaD ] [+wu ]

-!- Irssi: #athena: Total of 7 nicks [2 ops, 0 halfops, 4 voices, 1 normal]

-!- Channel #athena created Fri Jan 13 19 12:07:52 2012

-!- Irssi: Join to #athena was synced in 6 secs

-!- mode/#athena [+o elev] by [Goddess]

<+jaz> and that's how elizabeth ended up tied to a chair.

<+jaz> ohcrap she's here, quick stop talking about her o.o

<@elev> Hi everyone!

<@jezebel> ELIZABETH!!!

<+GLaD> omg it's E

* jaz tacklesnuggles elev

<@elev> Haha

<@elev> Everybody's happy to see me. :P

<@jezebel> E! We haven't seen you in forEVAR.

<+wu> back

<+wu> GLaD, I tried using calloc() but I think I'm doing it wrong.

<+wu> Are you sure he doesn't want us to use malloc()?

<+wu> also hi elizabeth!

<@elev> Hello wubby :)

<@elev> Gabbie, I've been *sooooo* busy...

<@elev> And I'm in the hospital. :(

<@jezebel> @.@

<+GLaD> The hopspital?!?!!?

<+jaz> D: is my darling elizabeth sick?

<@elev> No no no, I'm fine. I just tripped and busted my wrist, but the doc says I'll be up and running in no time.

<@elev> On top of that I've had so much stuff going on...haven't had time to visit anybody at the lair in weeks.

<@jezebel> Well, get well soon! :)

<+jaz> yeah, it's so booooooring around here without you!

<@elev> I'll be around soon, I promise.

<+GLaD> we miss you, E :(

<+jaz> elev girl I swear without your dirty mind it's like the Mr. Clean family chatroom in here

<+jaz> we tried having a conversation about ball gags last week but nobody showed up

<@elev> Haha Jasmine—which one of us has the dirtier mind again? ;)

<+wu> Nobody showed up because we were all panicking over the CS60 test

<@elev> Ugh, CS60.

<@elev> Well ugh for you, not me. Hah!

<@jezebel> Says the girl who got 98% in the class *eyerolls*

<+wu> I still think that's an urban legend

<+wu> NOBODY can get that high in CS60.

<+jaz> elizabeth ruben can!

<@elev> D'aww, you're making me blush.

<+jaz> say the word and I'll make you do more than that. ;)

<@elev> Pervert.

<+jaz> :D

<@jezebel> So elev which hospital you at? Can we come visit you?

<@jezebel> I'll bring cookies! (They're not as good as yours, but...)

<+GLaD> oh sorry wu, I didn't notice your message...

<+GLaD> wu, pretty sure Dr. Preston wants us to use calloc()...the only real difference is that it zeros the memory before it gives back the pointer, but you can do that yourself if you really really want to.

<+GLaD> Yeah, let's all visit elev! I'll bring sodas and tea.

<+wu> I'll bring chips and salsa

<@jezebel> I'll make sandwiches! elev your fav is swiss + turkey + extra pickles, right?

<@elev> Aww, thanks guys, but it's no big deal--I should be out in a day or two.

<+jaz> elev do we need to smuggle things in for you? books, chocolate, toys...

<+jaz> you know I'm good at hiding things on my person ;)

<@elev> jaz, you're like the secret agent lady who shows up in a skimpy dress and surprises everyone by pulling out a gun from you-know-where.

<@elev> “Now where were you hiding THAT?!"

<@elev> Don't worry, I'm fine! I have a book and a laptop and the food is pretty good.

<@jezebel> uh-oh, everyone back away slowly and don't make eye contact--elev has a laptop!!!

<+wu> RUN FOR THE HILLS

<+esquith> back. o.o elev is here!!!

* esquith reads backscroll

<+GLaD> RUN AWAY

<+jaz> she's got HUGE--she has great big--!!! what, come on, haven't you peeps watched Monty Python before?

<@elev> hi esquith!

<+esquith> D: elizabeth is in the hospital

<+esquith> :D elizabeth is getting out of the hospital soon and is going to visit us!

<@elev> Yes. Yes I am.

* elev cackles with glee.

<+GLaD> yay!

* GLaD is glad

<+GLaD> Oh. That turned out redundant.

<+wu> lol

<@jezebel> hahaha

<@elev> Anyway...I got a question for everybody.

<+jaz> :O mistress elizabeth is asking a question instead of answering one!

<@jezebel> ALERT THE MEDIA. THIS IS CAPSLOCK-WORTHY NEWS.

<@elev> Oh hush.

<@elev> Has anyone noticed Fingers acting odder than usual lately?

<+jaz> fingers? Really, hun, you wanna talkabout him?

<+jaz> you sure you didn't hit your head or something when you tripped? :P

<@jezebel> "Odder?"

<@elev> Yeah, I had a run-in with him recently. (Gave him another black eye too!)

<@elev> (and I didn't have to explain myself this time either!)

<@jezebel> Hahaha! That's our girl!

* wu ^5s elev

* elev ^5s wu

<@elev> But...you know how he's always whining about financial aid and all that?

<@elev> The shoes he's wearing now are worth like $500. Apiece.

<+jaz> whaaaaaat?! elizabeth is talking about sneakers now?

<+jaz> who are you and what have you done with our fearless leader :(

<@jezebel> $500?!!!

<+esquith> holy sneakers, batman!

<+wu> I saw him yesterday...didn't notice his sneakers though.

<+wu> But he was acting kinda cocky. (cockier than normal)

<+wu> He knows to leave me alone though. :D

<@jezebel> well...he does seem more aggressive these days. he tried making another pass at me.

<+GLaD> He's hanging out with Branden too. Shame. Branden used to be nice. :(

<@jezebel> yeah, I almost invited him in here a few months ago.

<@elev> Eh.

<@elev> I was wondering how Fingers could afford those shoes.

<@elev> If you see him again, see if he's wearing the same white sneakers or different ones.

<+jaz> you're the one all obsessed about ugly kicks now elev, not us

* jaz shakes her head sadly

<+jaz> what happened to the girl who wears patent mary janes and saltwaters?

<@elev> Oh hush, you know I hate sneakers. It's just weird that he's all of a sudden got expensive clothes, don't you think?

<+GLaD> He's weird in general, and a nasty little ass on top of that. I don't like the way he looks at us.

<+GLaD> He's literally the reason I carry pepper spray...

<@jezebel> I carry a mini-tazer for him and people like him. But mostly just for him :P

<+jaz> elev's talkinbout sneakers...everyone better watch out, soon our girl is gonna be wearing jeans and combat boots!

<@jezebel> and a leather jacket!

<+jaz> oh, I'd pay $$$ to see elizabeth in leather...

<@elev> You wouldn't be able to afford my price, dear. ;)

<+jaz> but yeah that is sorta weird that fingers can suddenly afford stuff like that.

<+jaz> anybody heard him say a single thing about his income lately?

<@jezebel> well, seeing as how we all try to avoid him as a rule...:P

<@jezebel> probably not

<+esquith> i feel lucky, he never messes with me. :o

<+jaz> that's 'cause you could bench press his skinny ass, girl!

<+jaz> and he knows it.

<@jezebel> nay, esquith could bench press THREE of him.

<+esquith> and thus, three shall be the number of the counting...

<@elev> Five is right out!

<@elev> Anyway, Fingers is probably just trying to be "cool" or something.

<@elev> Because nothing says "cool" like sexual harassment! </sarcasm>

<+esquith> lol

<+jaz> we don't need that kind of "cool" around here. we got our girl elev!

<@jezebel> elizabeth is the very definition of cool.

* elev blushes again.

<+jaz> who else can make an entire computer lab beep out tunes from sonic the hedgehog?

<+jaz> who else can hack the department ftp server and replace dr preston's lecture videos with lesbian pornos?

<@elev> I thought we agreed that that never happened. >_>

<+jaz> c'mon, hun, you should be PROUD! :D

<+jaz> trust me, it really improved his lecture, I was there when he played them in class!

<+jaz> he just stared at the projector for like a whole minute.

<@jezebel> hahahahaha I remember hearing about that

<@jezebel> elev is our very own Ananke.

<@elev> Psh. C'mon, I'm not *that* awesome.

<@elev> I'm *more* awesome.

<@elev> ananke is a hacker urban legend. I, on the other hand, am real.

<@elev> Which makes me 5000000000000000% as awesome.

<@jezebel> and modest!

* jaz rolls her eyes

<@elev> Anyway, my coolness has become too much for this channel.

<@elev> Er I mean, the doc is here, I should go...I'll see you all soon!

<@jezebel> you'd better!

<+jaz> if you don't, we're gonna come kidnap you and bring you to our lair!

<+jaz> i got the chloroform and the rope and the comfy maximum fun chair all ready for you.

<@elev> Threat or promise? ;)

<@elev> Bye all. Talk to you later.

“How do you type so fast?” Dr. Tillman said as I closed the laptop lid.

“I'm secretly a cyborg from Pluto,” I said. “I have nanobots in my fingers for extra dexterity.”

“If I had nanobots in my fingers, I don't think I'd be using them for typing. How's your chest?”

“Better. It only aches when I move.”

“That's why you're not supposed to move,” she said, smiling.

She doted over me for a little while longer and then, just before she left, she made me promise not to go anywhere again.

“You want me to pinky swear?” I said.

“If it makes you stay put, sure.”

I shooed her away and settled back into bed to ponder over Finger's odd behavior and clothing.

You should tell John, I decided. Even if it's just some fluke, he'll be able to sort it out, because he's not the one with busted ribs.

So I reached painfully for my cell phone, which was on the beside table. John answered on the second ring.

“Hello, Elizabeth,” John said. His voice was even lower than usual—I guessed he was tailing somebody or something. “I hope you're at the clinic.”

“I am,” I said, putting as much pout into my voice as possible.

“It's really for your own good,” John said playfully.

“Don't you dare try that on me.”

“I'm daring. Why are you calling, Ellie? Have you cracked the case?”

“I dunno,” I said, chewing the inside of my lip. I stared up at the ceiling of my room. “I just have a gut feeling. Did Carter tell you about William Dunkel?”

“You mean the guy she says you decked twice?”

I laughed, even though it made my chest complain. “Yeah. Him. Did she tell you about his clothes?”

“No. Why?”

“It's probably nothing, but...Carter said that the clothes he was wearing are worth more than some of my computers.”

“And?”

“The only reasons William Dunkel can attend NYCU are because the administration is too inept to can him and because he depends on financial aid. I mean, last semester, he was just about yelling to some of his pals about how he got a few hundred dollars less than usual.”

“And now, suddenly, he has expensive clothing?”

“That's what Carter said. I'm pretty sure he didn't have clothes like that last time I saw him, which was about, oh, three weeks ago, but I'm not exactly good with men's fashion and—”

“Hang on,” John said.

“Huh?”

“Call you back,” John said quickly, cutting me off. “Somebody's trying to kill your professor right now.”

He hung up. Horrified, I stared at the phone.

I hadn't felt so useless in months...

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

Reese didn't like this part of the campus.

Dr. Goodwin walked down a wide service alley between the massive theater building and the facilities services warehouse, a much shorter path than walking all the way around the buildings at the edge of the campus. Reese trailed a few dozen feet behind her. The alley was otherwise deserted. Massive, rattling air conditioning units and empty dumpsters hugged the buildings, and the doors on either side opened outward into the alley with no way to open them from the exterior. It was the perfect place to stage an ambush.

Dr. Goodwin didn't seem to notice, or to care. She walked with confidence, but she wasn't paying much attention to her surroundings. Doubtlessly she had walked this path many times before. Maybe she was overconfident; maybe she didn't believe any ill will could fall her way while she was on campus. (She was wrong.) Maybe it hadn't even occurred to her that she'd managed to piss off someone enough for them to send a hitman after her.

Reese increased his trailing distance by another dozen feet or so when Elizabeth called. Shortly after, a bulky man wearing a gray hoodie stepped out from behind a dumpster once Dr. Goodwin had passed his hiding place. A long blade dangled from his fingers. Reese wasn't surprised at all. He hung up and moved in closer.

The goon didn't even bother looking behind him, which made Reese's job much easier. Dr. Goodwin spun about in alarm when she heard the commotion, but within seconds, the scuffle was over.

“Hello, Doc,” Reese said, grinning. He motioned to the unconscious body at his feet. “Sorry about the excitement.”

Dr. Goodwin stood motionless, dumbstruck, and stared at him— until he stepped towards her.

“Stay back,” she said, raising her hand. Her fingers were clenched around a small cylindrical object. Reese decided he really didn't want to get pepper-sprayed, so backed up a step and showed the professor his empty hands.

“I did just save your life,” he said, motioning to the man sprawled on the ground. The knife had landed near Reese's left shoe; Reese kicked it over by one of the dumpsters.

“My knight in shining armor,” she said. “Thanks.” Her voice was two parts dry, one part sarcastic—Reese was not surprised that Elizabeth liked the professor.

“The police can handle this guy,” Reese said. “We need to get you someplace safe.”

Dr. Goodwin looked unimpressed. “'We' need to work on 'our' introductions,” raising her eyebrows. “I'm not going anywhere with someone I don't know. Especially since you just stated in essence that you aren't a police officer.”

“My name is John Reese,” said Reese. “I help people. You're Dr. Goodwin. You just almost died.”

“So I see,” said Dr. Goodwin. She eyed the body at Reese's feet.

“You seem pretty unphased about that,” Reese said.

“I find that adrenaline gives me a certain clarity in my thinking,” she said. “One of my biggest eureka moments happened during an emergency landing at LAX.”

“That's great,” Reese said. He glanced around, his eyes cautiously probing their surroundings. “We really should go, there could be more—”

“Who's this 'we' you keep referring to? I don't know you.” Dr. Goodwin took one hand off the pepper-spray canister and pulled a cell phone out of her jacket pocket. “I'm calling the police.”

“Look, Doc—” He took a step towards Dr. Goodwin, who immediately took a matching step back and brandished the pepper-spray canister.

“Don't get any closer,” she said. “If you're as helpful as you claim, you can help by staying away, keeping your hands where I can see them, and waiting until the police get here—or skedaddling.”

“That's a very unscientific term for a professor,” Reese said, holding out his empty hands.

“I'm old-fashioned,” Dr. Goodwin said.

In Reese's ear, Finch said, “Detective Carter is on her way; she will be there in several minutes. In the meantime, try not to get assaulted by a computer science professor. Bear in mind that, if she does pepper-spray you out of exasperation, I'll have a rather inglorious recording of the incident from the security camera behind and above you. I'll be certain to play it over and over the next time you or Miss Shaw make another disparaging remark about nerds.”

Reese couldn't help but chuckle.

“What's so funny?” Dr. Goodwin said.

“Nothing, nothing,” Reese said, but the little smile persisted on his face.

After several tense minutes, which Reese divided between keeping an eye on the unconscious attacker and trying not to alarm Dr. Goodwin further, Carter and Fusco arrived, parking their squad car at the mouth of the alley. Carter took one look at the body sprawled in front of Reese and sighed.

“He's not dead, Detective,” Reese said defensively. “He's even got both knees still.”

“Small favors,” Carter said. Fusco leaned down to check the hitman's pulse and nodded at Carter, pulling out his cuffs.

“Uh,” said Dr. Goodwin to Carter, “do you who this man is?” She tilted her head towards Reese.

“He thinks he's Batman,” Carter said.

Fusco smirked and added, “But he's really a joker.” He stood up, dusting off his trousers.

“That hurt,” Reese said. He turned to Dr. Goodwin. “Doc, we really need to talk. Someone just tried to kill you and we need to figure out who.”

“You can trust him,” Carter said.

“Are you two really cops?” Dr. Goodwin said, suspicion in her voice.

“Yep,” Carter said. She and Fusco pulled out their badges. Dr. Goodwin held out her hand.

“Can I see those, please?”

“Certainly, ma'am,” said Carter. Carter and Fusco handed the professor their badges, though not without rolled eyes from Fusco. Dr. Goodwin pulled out her cell phone and, using its camera, took a picture of the badges.

“What'cha doing with that thing?” Fusco said.

“Looking up your badge numbers,” she said.

“There's an app for that?” Reese said.

“Yep. A citizen-run website that rates interactions with law enforcement professionals. The numbers are verified by the site staff. Hmm. 'Sarcastic, but a decent sort.' This is Detective Fusco, by the way. 'After taking my statement, he went straight across the street to Howard's Bakery.' How stereotypical. You could've done better; Howard's doesn't use real butter anymore.”

“What? Really?” Fusco said. He sounded like he'd been betrayed.

“Yes. Try the little store across the street from the Atlantic Theater; the name escapes me at the moment. 'Patient interviewer. Terse. Respectful, if not sardonic. Offered me a soda.' How sweet. All right, Detective Fusco. Now, let's look at you. Detective Carter...”

“I can't believe there's an app for that,” Fusco muttered.

“Could I see that?” Reese asked Dr. Goodwin, motioning for the phone. At Dr. Goodwin's dubious look, Reese added, “Don't worry, Detective Carter here will kick my ass if I try anything funny.”

Dr. Goodwin snorted, but handed Reese the cell phone.

“4.1 out of 5.0 total,” Reese noted. “Not bad, Lionel. You're a good cop.”

“I try,” Fusco said gruffly.

Reese's eyebrows went all the way up when he got to Carter's page. “Wow,” he said. “Most people gave you a five-oh, Joss. And look—they even gave you a chili pepper.”

“A what?” Carter said.

Reese turned the phone so Carter could see.

“That means the majority of raters think you're attractive,” Dr. Goodwin said.

“What?”

“Look, they even broke it down by statistics.” Reese had a sly grin on his face. “Apparently, 81% of men think you're attractive—and 73% of women. They're not wrong, Joss.”

“What can I say?” Detective Carter said. “People got good taste.”

Reese handed the phone back to Dr. Goodwin, who in turn handed the Detectives back their badges.

“Now what about him?” Dr. Goodwin said, jabbing her thumb at Reese. “Something tells me I won't find Sir Lancelot here in this database.”

“He's one of my CIs,” Carter said. “I trust him, so you can trust him.”

“And I did save your life,” Reese pointed out.

“A web of trust, hmm?” Dr. Goodwin eyed Reese, who was doing his best to look innocent. “All right, fine, if it works for PGP, it works for me. Let's go somewhere more comfortable to talk. How about my apartment? I live just a few minutes away.”

“I don't know,” Reese said. “It might not be safe—”

Dr. Goodwin gave him a look.

“Okay, yeah, your apartment could work,” Reese said.

“Mmm,” said Dr. Goodwin. To Fusco and Carter, she added, “As long as at least one of you accompanies us.”

Carter and Fusco looked at each other.

“Don't look at me, hot stuff,” Fusco said. “I handled the perp last time.”

“You start calling me that, we're gonna have a problem,” Carter said.

“Fusco has a pepper too,” Reese said as innocently as he could manage. He had taken out his own phone to visit the site.

“What?” Carter and Fusco said simultaneously.

“Yeah,” Reese drawled. “67% of women and—” Reese stopped and squinted at the phone screen. Surely that was a smudge over the number?

“All right, all right,” Fusco said gruffly, “enough of that, you clown.”

“Whatever you say, hot stuff.” Reese pocketed his phone.

Carter grinned and shook her head. “You two help me get this lug in the car. I'll see if I can't get some information out of him at the precinct.”

“Be gentle,” Reese said. “Or he might put a bad rating on your page. Wouldn't want anything to happen to your chili pepper.”

Carter rolled her eyes.

#####

Ten minutes later, the three of them were safely ensconced in Dr. Goodwin's living room.

“Coffee?” Dr. Goodwin offered. Reese declined, shaking his head slightly, and so did Fusco. Dr. Goodwin sat down on the couch opposite the two men. She folded her hands in her lap.

“So,” she said calmly. “What now?”

“Someone's gunning for you, Doc,” said Reese. He leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees. “We think your botnet research pissed off somebody pretty powerful.”

“Hmm,” Dr. Goodwin said pensively. “Maybe that last email was for real.”

“Last email?” Reese asked.

“I get death threats often,” Dr. Goodwin said. “I tend to ignore them these days. I got yet another one a few days ago—anonymous email through Tor, as usual.”

“Probably not coincidental timing.”

“None of the senders have ever tried carrying through before, although they did attempt a SWATing a year or so ago. Fortunately, the police called before they tried kicking in my door. In the end, they knocked with their fists—not with their boots.”

Finch's voice sounded in Reese's ear. “Ms. Shaw just returned with the flash drive. I'm looking through Dr. Goodwin's emails now.”

“Somebody really doesn't want you to take down that botnet,” Reese said.

“Understandable. It's quite lucrative. What are my options?”

“Gotta admit,” Fusco said, “you're taking this way cooler than most folk. It's kinda disturbing.”

Dr. Goodwin laughed. “I don't scare easily, Detective Fusco. And as I told John here before you showed up—I work best in dire situations.” She gazed levelly at Reese. “So. What are my options?”

“You could stop trying to bring down the botnet,” Reese offered. “But I'm guessing you won't.”

“First, I'm not trying to bring it down—I will bring it down. Second, you're quite correct.”

“Then you're gonna need to hang tight for a few days while we figure this out. We'll hole you up in a safehouse.”

“You want me to go into hiding.” It was a statement.

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“These kinds of things usually don't take more than two or three days. A week at most.”

“Hmm.”

Reese was gearing up for an argument. He could see it in Dr. Goodwin's face; she wasn't happy about this. He was already planning tactics to sway her—if you're dead, who continues your research? Elizabeth, your prize student? Do you want her exposed to the same threats? (He was ignoring the fact that Elizabeth was already in much worse danger by mere association with Reese.) What about your other students; what will they do if you got killed because you were too stubborn to—?

“Is there Internet access?” Dr. Goodwin asked suddenly.

“Uh—yes?” he said, blinking. “Top of the line wifi.” At least, he assumed it was top of the line—it was Finch, after all.

“Excellent,” Dr. Goodwin said. She smiled. “I can continue my algorithm project there. It's settled. Give me ten minutes to pack some necessities.”

Fusco followed her as unobtrusively as possible as she stood up and headed down the hall. Reese handed him a tiny plastic bag as he passed the couch. Once they were out of the room, Reese grinned and shook his head. Dr. Goodwin was quite the character. She might've been on the oblivious side, but she knew how to make smart compromises when necessary.

Ten minutes later, Dr. Goodwin came out with a gym bag slung over her shoulder and a laptop case nestled under her arm.

“If it's less than five megabit,” Dr. Goodwin said pointedly to Reese, “or there's data caps, or especially if the latency is above fifty milliseconds, the deal's off. I'd rather deal with hitmen than poor Internet connectivity.” Fusco rolled his eyes.

No wonder Dr. Goodwin and Elizabeth get along so well, Reese thought as they headed outside. They're both geeks to the core.

A moment later, his phone buzzed with an incoming text message.

From: Det Fusco

Bugs planted. 1 on laptop, 1 in bag.

Reese glanced at Fusco and gave a single nod. Fusco returned it and they continued to the car without a word.

#####

As soon as they stepped inside the safehouse, Dr. Goodwin set her bags down, withdrew the laptop, and asked for the wireless network credentials.

“You haven't even seen the rest of the place,” Reese said as she sat down at the kitchen table.

“Doesn't matter. Plenty of time for that later. Username, password?”

He chuckled and gave her the credentials, which had mysteriously appeared on his phone via text message just seconds earlier. Her laptop connected without issue. With deft keyboard shortcuts, she brought up a web browser and several terminal windows.

“Hmm,” she said. “Fiber connection; nice. Low latency. Strong wireless signal—excellent throughput even in a dense urban environment.” She sounded impressed. “What kind of router are you using?”

“Uh—” Reese said.

Finch helpfully provided the specifics in his ear: “Two mTech WR600N simultaneous dual-band 3x3 wireless access points connected to an IFT EdgeWire 400 gigabit router, all running custom firmware.” Reese detected a trace of pride in his voice. “You can see one of the units on the desk by the phone.” He tried to repeat what Finch had said and got to “dual-band” before trailing off. It was enough to make Dr. Goodwin happy.

“Very well,” she said, only now looking around the room. She spotted the access point across the room and smiled. (Even Reese was slightly impressed; it looked like a tiny stealth bomber with all of its angled surfaces and its three fin-like antennas sticking up out of the back.) “This will do. I'm assuming I should have no contact with the outside world and all Internet activity is to be anonymized as best as possible for now?”

“That would be ideal,” Reese said.

“So be it. The world can survive without me for a few days. Is there anything I can do to help you further while you investigate?”

“Stay put.”

“I was assuming that was part of the bargain. I won't leave.”

“Good,” Reese said. “I mean it. We've had a problem with people running off on this case.” He wrote down a phone number on a post-it note and handed it to Dr. Goodwin. “Now, this is for emergencies only. Emergencies like 'there's armed hitmen outside that armored door trying to break in'.”

“And not emergencies like 'the Internet is down, come fix it'. Got it.”

Reese smiled and clapped her on the shoulder. “There's plenty of food in the kitchen; eat as much as you want. We'll call you as we find out more about the hitman.”

“I would appreciate that,” Dr. Goodwin said. “To be honest, one of my biggest pet peeves is not knowing what's going on.”

“You know about as much as we do right now,” Reese said. “But we're working on it.” He bade her goodbye and left.

Fifteen minutes later, Reese arrived at the Library and ascended to Finch's computer chamber. Finch, as usual, was sitting in front of the computer monitors, while Shaw lounged in a desk chair next to him.

Reese sat down without a word on Finch's opposite side and reached for the Chinese take-out containers on the desk.

Finch cleared his throat and scooted one of the boxes another inch or two away from his keyboard. “I believe I've found the death threat Dr. Goodwin was referring to,” he said. “Anonymous, as she said. It's very vague, and aside from it being the most recent, there's little to distinguish it from the other, ah, one hundred and fifty two death threats she's received via email in the past year.”

“A hundred and fifty?” Reese asked, surprised.

“Dr. Goodwin is a woman in the tech industry,” Finch said sadly. “Worse, she's a woman in the tech industry working deliberately to weaken predominantly male criminal organizations. To be honest, I'm surprised she hasn't received more threats against her life, although there might be more of them on her blog and other social networking sites.”

“No wonder she doesn't take them seriously anymore. She'd burn out trying to handle them all.”

“Tech is a shitty place for women,” Shaw said. “I don't know why Elizabeth bothers. I'm glad I chose a career with guns and cute guard dogs.”

Shaw used her chopsticks to carefully pluck a piece of chicken out of her take-out container and casually flicked the morsel over the side of her chair towards the floor. From below the desk came the sudden rattle of a collar and the snapping of jaws.

Reese doubted it reached the floor. Finch did not approve.

“Ms. Shaw,” Finch said sternly, “if this keeps up, I'm afraid I'm going to have to put Bear on a diet.”

“Psh, he's fine,” Shaw said, reaching down to pet the dog at her feet. “Maybe you should exercise him more.”

“He begs at the table any time we eat.”

“That's your problem if you can't handle his puppy eyes.”

Reese made a tiny smile and said, “Guns and dogs are a fun career path. We should get Harold in on the action more often.”

“At any rate,” Finch said, “I am still searching through Dr. Goodwin's numerous emails. Did you have any luck at the cafe today, Mr. Reese?”

“Got a few weeks' worth of security footage,” Reese said, pulling an external hard drive out of his jacket pocket. “The cafe has a very nice camera system. The computer the FBI took is visible in frame, but a lot of people used it before it was confiscated.”

“I'll sift through it,” Finch said, accepting the drive. “In the meantime, I've asked Detective Carter to alert us if our Agent Donnelly finds out anything about the computer.”

“Hope he does soon,” Shaw says, picking at her food. “We don't have a lot of leads and I don't think Dr. Goodwin is going to be much better about staying put than Elizabeth...”

“That's what the GPS trackers in her stuff are for,” Reese said.

“I still think you should've put a few on Elizabeth,” Shaw said. “Or in her shoes—she's funny for those Mary Janes. Just to, you know, keep her safe.”

“You mean to keep her from sneaking away from you again.”

Giving Reese a dirty look, Shaw “accidentally” dropped another piece of chicken for Bear.

“Oops,” she said.

Finch sighed.

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

#####

It was John's turn to bring donuts to the Library. He stopped at a bakery—one of Shaw's favorites, although they took care not to visit it too often, lest they set up a pattern—and ordered two boxes, one for him and Finch and the other for Shaw. He carefully inspected Shaw's box, ensuring there were at least two large apple fritters, before accepting it. He paid and left, ambling down the sidewalk.

As he neared the Library, his phone rang. The caller was Detective Carter. Reese balanced the boxes on one arm and tapped his earpiece to accept the call.

"Good morning, Joss," Reese said, his voice a croon.

"Hey," Carter said. "Got good news and bad news. Bad news is, the perp lawyered up."

"Wasn't expecting much else," Reese said.

"No, but a confession would've been nice. He's a real charmer—just got out early after a stint for manslaughter. Got sprung for good behavior."

"A model citizen."

"Yeah. Anyway, good news: Donnelly found something." She lowered her voice. "He got something off that computer from the cybercafe. Way I overheard it, it tries to talk to some kind of server on the NYCU campus. IR—something. IRS? IRT? He's trying—"

Finch's voice cut in on the conversation, loud and startling. "IRC, Detective?"

"Didn't your Mama teach you not to interrupt?" Carter complained. "It's creepy when you do that."

"Apologies," Finch said, in a tone that implied he wasn't actually very sorry at all. "Internet Relay Chat is an aging but still popular mode of communication, especially among hackers and open-source developers."

"Sounds about right. I heard somebody say 'chat'."

"I was not aware the campus was running an IRC server. We'll investigate. I'll scan their address space for common IRC ports."

"Better hurry. Donnelly's trying to get a warrant for it now."

"Does he know you overheard him?" Reese asked.

"No," Carter said. "Why?"

"We might be able to snag the server first," Reese said. "Shaw and I will head over to NYCU, try to find it before the FBI does."

"Elizabeth might know where it is," Shaw said, joining the conversation.

"No," Carter said firmly. Reese could hear the scowl in her voice. "You are not getting that poor girl involved again so soon. She needs to heal up."

"It's just a phone call, Joss," said Reese. "She doesn't even have to get out of bed."

He heard a static-laced sigh. "If it turns into anything more than that, I'm coming after you."

"She'll stay put," Reese said. "Tillman can be pretty scary when she gets riled up."

"Yeah," Shaw said, entering the conversation. "And if Elizabeth tries anything funny, I am going to tie her to the bed."

"That might backfire," Reese said. "I think she's into that kind of thing."

"Really?" Shaw said. Her voice sounded livelier now, if only by a small amount. "So that wasn't just her being flirty while high?"

"You've never looked in the box under her bed?" Reese asked.

"There's a lot of boxes under her bed," Shaw said. "They're all filled with circuit boards and computer crap."

"One of them isn't..."

Carter's voice, exasperated: "Do you three have any sense of privacy at all?"

"Not really," Shaw said. Reese just smiled.

"How I put up with this, I'll never know," Carter said.

"I make up for it with my charming personality?" Reese offered, his smile widening.

"Sure, we can go with that," Carter said. Reese got the impression she was smiling as well, if only a little bit. There was a pause, and she added, "I gotta go. Remember, John: no dead folk. Got it?"

"Cross my heart," Reese said. "And thanks, Joss."

"You're welcome. Talk later." She hung up.

For the next minute or so, no one spoke. Reese arrived at the Library service tunnel entrance and headed inside to drop off the donuts.

"So..." came Shaw's voice, "that box under Elizabeth's bed...what was in it?"

"If I tell you, she'll probably punch me," Reese said. "I'm sure you can find out for yourself after this case. Ready to head to NYCU?"

"Yeah," Shaw said. "Meet you at the car, party pooper."

#####

This is what it must be like in jail, I thought as I poked at the oatmeal Dr. Tillman had brought me. All the days are blurring together. It seemed like it had been so long ago that I'd been able to wake up in my own comfy bed, surrounded by books and computers and no snarky doctors. Aside from my exciting jailbreak, my life was a monotony of studying for Dr. Goodwin's exam, worrying about Dr. Goodwin's wellbeing, and watching stupid cat videos on the Internet.

John's phone call was a very welcome break from a morning of trying to memorize the concepts behind context-free grammars, pumping lemmas, and recursive descent parsers.

He called about nine o'clock, right after Dr. Tillman came in bearing a bowl of oatmeal topped with a generous helping of brown sugar. I held the phone up to my left ear—the right one was still muffled and ringing.

"Hey John," I said. "Is Dr. Goodwin still doing okay?"

"Yeah," John said. "Finch says she's definitely taking advantage of the Internet connection at the safehouse. She's happy. Listen—do you know anything about IRC?"

"IRC?" I asked. "The chat system?"

"That's what Finch says."

"I use it all the time. I'm on a couple of different networks. Mostly Freenode and zNet, but a few others too."

"How about the one on campus?"

"Uh, yeah," I said. I wondered how John knew about that one, then quickly decided I was probably better off not thinking about it. "I'm on that one too. It's a private hangout for a few compsci students. Some of my friends set it up—Gabbie's a lab tech, so she's got access to the department server room."

"The server room behind the glass on the second floor of the computer science building?"

"Yeah. Uh, why?" I was suspicious. Why was John suddenly interested in our private server?

"Great," John said. "I'm looking in there right now. What's the server look like? Is it the shiny new one?"

I scoffed. "I wish. You think we could afford that? It's an ancient SabreBlade rack server, kinda beat up, but—what's with all the interest in our server?"

"The FBI has a warrant for it and I want to steal it before they do."

I blinked and stuttered. "You—they—what?"

"I only see a few SabreBlade servers," John continued calmly, as if he hadn't casually told me that the FBI was looking to seize a server I used on a near-daily basis. "That one looks pretty beat up. Bottom of the leftmost rack?"

"John!" I hissed, sitting up in bed. "You can't just go steal our server!"

"Yes I can," John said playfully.

"No you can't!"

"Yes I can." His voice turned serious. "Would you rather the FBI get ahold of it?"

"...no," I admitted sullenly, scratching my neck. "We have some kinda embarrassing conversations on there." Not to mention some very explicit RP sessions. "Plus some things that aren't really legal—keygens and pirated textbook PDFs and stuff."

"Explains your easy descent into delinquency."

"Shut up. Why do they even want the server?"

"Because a computer from the botnet was communicating with it."

"Oh," I said. I leaned back into the pillows and tried to process this revelation. "Well. Wow, that...really sucks. All the people who have access are friends of mine. Do you think...?"

"We can figure out who's behind it after I grab it."

"I could get you remote access..." I offered.

"No time for that. FBI will be here soon. Is it the one in the corner?"

"Yeah," I said, sighing. "The one with the Metallica sticker on it."

"Last question: is it encrypted?"

"No," I grumped. "I keep pestering Gabbie to set up dm-crypt but—"

"Great, I'll go grab it then."

"Look, are you really going to just yank it and walk out?"

"I'm not," John said. "FBI Agent Raynes is." He raised his voice. "Excuse me! Miss? Yes, you. I have a warrant for a server located in this room..."

#####

"John Raynes" easily blustered his way into the server room. While the hapless lab tech read over the copy of the fake warrant, Reese unceremoniously yanked the power and network cables from the server and hauled it out of the rack, tucking it under his arm. It was heavy, but not unmanageable; Reese had hauled guns that were heavier.

"Thank you for your cooperation, ma'am," Reese said. "Feel free to call the office if you have any further questions." And he walked off, strolling down the hallway towards the elevators.

"Got the server," he said quietly, tapping his earpiece. "Heading out now."

Elizabeth's plaintive voice whined in his ear.

"I can't believe you just yanked our server," she complained. "There go all our SSH sessions."

"We'll give it back," John promised. He shifted the server under his arm. The warmth of the metal seeped through the sleeve of his "borrowed" FBI jacket. "This thing is pretty hot."

"Jasmine was probably running her data mining code again. It pegs all the CPUs if she forgets to set its affinity. And those old SabreBlades have crap fans."

"Right—"

Up ahead, the corridor widened into a curving balcony that looked down onto the entryway at the ground floor. John peered over the railing and casually turned away from the balcony, walking back the way he had come.

Down below, a small gaggle of FBI agents were just entering the building. Agent Donnelly's prominent forehead and the drooping circles beneath his eyes were unmistakable even from a distance, as was his deep voice.

"Finch?" Reese said sotto voice. "Got a problem. FBI got here early. Need another way out."

"Go back past the server room," Elizabeth's voice came immediately. "Two doors down. Go into the lab—code is 3692, it's usually empty. There's a door at the back that goes to a staircase that opens outside."

Finch's voice came a second later. "I concur with Miss Ruben's recommendations. Do hurry, Mr. Reese."

"Got it."

Reese fought the urge to glance over his shoulder as he ambled back down the hallway, passing the windows of the server room. A little further down was a wide double-door with a keypad. Reese punched in the code and slipped inside, breathing a sigh of relief when the door clicked shut behind him. A few curious students looked up from their workstations.

"FBI business," Reese said casually. "None of your concern." They all quickly ducked back behind their monitors.

"'This isn't the server you're looking for', huh?" Elizabeth said. Reese smirked. He passed through the lab without incident, peeking out the back door before stepping into the hallway. The stairway was only a few feet away.

"Found the stairs," Reese said. "Shaw, pull the car to the south side of the building."

"Already there, grandpa. Pick up the pace."

Reese jogged down the stairs, taking care not to bang the server against the handrails, and stepped out into the sunlight. Shaw was waiting in a small brown sedan by the sidewalk. None of the pedestrians paid even the slightest attention to either of them.

"Your ride, sir," Shaw said when he neared, her voice blasé. "You cut that kinda close." She waited just long enough for him to slide into the back seat with the server before she gunned the engine, accelerating hard and pushing him back against his seat.

"Maybe," John said mildly. "Thanks for the assist, Ellie."

"That was kinda tense," came Elizabeth's voice.

"It was," John said. "But now we have the server."

"Gabbie is gonna be so irritated when she finds out it's missing," Elizabeth said.

"Just imagine how the FBI is feeling right about now..." Reese said.

#####

FBI Special Agent Nicholas Donnelly was feeling pretty good about his morning as he strode towards the computer science building. The weather was absolutely lovely; mild but with the slightest gasp of wind muttering through the wide oak trees lining the campus roads. Earlier that morning, the brand new coffee machine at the FBI office (provided by a generous donor) had produced coffee that was both plentiful and strong. The traffic on the way to the NYCU campus had been unusually light.

And the judge had been unusually quick about signing the warrant for the server.

Yes sir, Agent Donnelly was feeling good about his morning—and he felt that way right up until he tried serving the warrant.

"I'm Special Agent Donnelly," he said, holding out his badge towards the wide-eyed young white woman in the office next to the server room. "I have a warrant for a server at the following—"

"Another one?" the woman asked incredulously. She stared at Agent Donnelly with an expression that encompassed a single exasperated word: really?

Agent Donnelly paused and collected his thoughts. "What do you mean, 'another one'?"

"Your other guy—Agent Raynes—he yanked one of our servers like five minutes ago."

Agent Donnelly stared. "Agent Raynes? As in, a FBI agent?"

"Yeah. I have the warrant right here." She reached for a paper on the messy desk. "Trade you."

Agent Donnelly looked over the warrant. It looked official. In fact, it was almost identical to the one he had just given to the lab tech.

His confusion was quickly being replaced by unease and irritation.

"Oh," the lab tech said as she read over the new warrant. "This IP belongs to the server Agent Raynes took."

"It's gone?" Agent Donnelly said.

"Yeah. The guy unhooked it and left. You just missed him."

I've never heard of an Agent Raynes, he thought. A suspicious voice began to whisper in the back of his mind. I don't know everybody, but...who do I know that would be audacious enough to impersonate a FBI agent?

"What did he look like?" It came out angrier than he had intended. The lab tech leaned back fractionally in her seat.

"Uh—"

"What did he look like?" Taking a deep breath, he added, "Please. This is important. Every detail you can give me."

"Uh—tall white guy," the woman said, motioning vaguely with her hands. "Thin-ish. Older. Graying hair. Blue eyes. Kinda handsome. Chiseled face, like—oh, who's that movie star...?"

"Was he wearing a suit?" Agent Donnelly's attention was focused intently on the woman.

"He had a nice shirt and tie beneath the FBI jacket. A FBI cap, too."

"Great. Just great." Agent Donnelly put his hands on his hips and turned to the agents behind him. "You—get campus security. Set up roadblocks at the entrances and get as many people searching the campus as possible. I want security footage from this building and surrounding streets so we can get a better description. You, call Davidson. I want to know if this Agent Raynes exists. I don't think he does."

He turned back to the woman. "You're absolutely sure the server is gone?"

"Yeah," she said. "I just double-checked; I can't ping it anymore. I saw him walk out with it. What's going on?"

The Man in the Suit, Agent Donnelly thought. That's what's going on. I'm almost certain of it.

"Okay." Agent Donnelly chewed the inside of his lip in frustration. "Okay, let's back up. First, what's your name?"

"Bessie McKendra, sir," she said uncertainly.

"Okay, Bessie." Agent Donnelly pulled out a little notebook and a pencil. "What can you tell me about the server itself?"

"I...think that was Gabbie's server," she said, her eyebrows furrowing. "Let me check the database." Reaching for the keyboard, she pulled up a web browser and typed the IP address into a search box. "Yeah. Wo-oow, she's gonna be pissed. She gets upset if anybody even breathes funny on her server."
"Gabbie?"

"Gabrielle Brady," said Bessie. "She and David Madison run the thing." She gulped and said, "Uh, are they in trouble?"

"It's too early to tell. Now, if I understand correctly, it was some sort of...chat server?"

"Well, kinda. I mean, she had an IRC daemon running on it. It had Apache and MySQL running too. Uh—that's web and database. But she also gave shell access to some of her friends, and they could run their own programs."

"Others had access?"

"Yeah. Uh, you should probably talk to them about it...I don't have an account."

"Thank you for your help, Bessie," Agent Donnelly said tightly. He handed her a business card. "If you think of anything else, please call me right away."

"Okay," she said, but he was already walking out of the office, his agents in tow.

He was itching to get his hands on that security camera footage.

#####

The traffic light turned yellow. Shaw floored the pedal and just managed to squeak through the intersection before the light turned red.

In the rearview mirror, she saw campus police cars screech to a halt, blocking the intersection two lights behind them.

"Looks like we made it just in time," Shaw said to Reese.

Reese rapped on the metal casing of the server. "It's not wood," he said, "but it's close enough."

"C'mon, you know how I like to drive," Shaw said. Anybody else would've called the smile on her face disturbing. "I was hoping for a chase."

"I'm sure Finch would appreciate us not making the evening news."

"Fine," Shaw said. She drove aimlessly for some time to ensure that they didn't have a tail, then headed to the safehouse where Finch had requested to meet them. When they arrived at the dilapidated brick building, Reese carried the server inside and up to the second story workshop. He set the server down on the spacious workbench.

"Excellent," Finch said. He held a curious device in his hands; it had a long antenna attached to a circuit board and small LCD screen. It looked very homemade. He waved the device over the server, muttering to himself. Apparently satisfied, he plugged a fat power cord into the server, popped the cover latch, and swung the metal cover open on squeaking hinges. The server fans whined into life. Finch repeated the scanning process on the electronics within.

"No bugs," Finch said, yanking the cord. "I believe it's safe for us to head back to the Library. But first, Mr. Reese, perhaps you should inform Dr. Goodwin of this new development."

"I'll swing by to see how she's doing," Reese said. "I'll pick up lunch on the way back."

"Thank you, Mr. Reese."

"And don't forget the extra beef this time!" Shaw called after his receding back.

Finch looked over the components of the server with a critical eye. It was a fairly standard configuration; four hard drives laid out horizontally at the front in quick-release cages. Behind them was a row of three flat blowers that forced air back over the dual CPU heatsinks and the half-dozen RAM slots, all of which were populated.

Finch plucked a large wad of dust off the leading edge of one of the heatsinks, a frown of disapproval on his face.

"So what's the plan?" Shaw asked.

"The best course of action would be to remove the drives and examine them independently of the server," Finch said. He pointed to the server's fans. "Bear would not appreciate the incessant noise this type of cooling fan produces."

"And what are you looking for?"

"Miss Ruben tends to keep good company," Finch said. "If this server is involved with the botnet, I suspect it has been compromised in some way, possibly through malware or a legitimate account that has been taken over."

"The alternative is one of her friends being an asshole."

Finch rotated slightly to glance at her, one eyebrow raised, before returning his attention to the server.

"I suppose so," he said.

"So this means we'll probably be consulting her," Shaw said. She crossed her arms and leaned back casually against the edge of the workbench. "Since she seems to know a lot about the server and who uses it."

"Yes, she does," Finch said.

"Who's talking to her?"

Finch hesitated. His gaze didn't meet Shaw's eyes. "As Mr. Reese knows our Miss Ruben the best, I thought it wise that he—"

"Reese doesn't know a millionth of the technical stuff you and Elizabeth know," Shaw said. "If he has to relay everything you two say, we're not going to solve this case until next year."

"Be that as it may, it is simply not wise for me to communicate directly with—"

Shaw grabbed the server cover and slammed it closed in a single, economical movement.

"Ms. Shaw—!" Finch protested.

"She nearly died, Finch," Shaw said, her voice low and deadly. She leaned into his personal space. "Elizabeth's lying in the clinic right now, bored out of her mind, with fucked-up ribs, fucked-up ears, and a fucked-up wrist, because she risked her life to try singlehandedly saving somebody she doesn't even know. All because some rich dude couldn't find it in himself to answer the phone when she was clearly calling for backup. The least you could do is talk to her."

Finch looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Ms. Ruben's actions are commendable, but—"

"But what?" Shaw leveled her finger at his face. "'She might be in harms' way by association with you? That train left the fucking station months ago, Harold. Or maybe she hasn't earned your trust by nearly getting turned into shredded beef for a total stranger. Is it that one?"

Shaw glared at Finch, who, credit given when due, did not look away. His mouth parted several times, but he could not seem to make up his mind on what he wanted to say.

"What do you think?" he asked eventually, raising his voice.

"What do I think?" Shaw said disbelievingly. "I just told you what I fucking—"

She fell silent when Finch took out his cell phone. He stared at it for a long, long time, before finally setting it on top of the server.

On the screen was a single, simple word.

hit.

Finch let out a long, slow breath. For some seconds, he did not speak, until:

"I will talk with her," he said quietly, averting his eyes. He seemed to have deflated. "Thank you." Shaw wasn't sure if he was talking to her or to the Machine.

"It'll make her day," Shaw said. "Really. She needs somebody geeky to talk with."

"I'm certain. Now, please, Ms. Shaw—help me load the server into the car."

The ride to the library was awkward and very, very quiet.

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

When Reese arrived at the safehouse, he found Dr. Goodwin in practically the same position he had left her: sitting at the kitchen table, pecking away at her laptop with a look of mild concentration on her face. The only change was her attire; she was wearing sweat pants and a T-shirt instead of her suit. She hardly even spared him a glance until he set the paper bag next to her.

“If you're anything like my friends,” Reese said, “you probably forget to eat when you're computering.” He rustled the bag. “I picked up sandwiches.”

“Thank you,” Dr. Goodwin said, looking away from her laptop with visible reluctance. “And yes—I am a workaholic.” She pulled a sandwich out of the bag and attacked its wrapping. “Do you bring news?”

“Yeah,” Reese said. “The FBI pulled something from that computer at the cybercafe.”

Reese watched Dr. Goodwin closer, gauging her reaction. Dr. Goodwin's eyes widened in surprise. A moment later, she grinned. “What did they find?” she asked excitedly, leaning in closer. The sandwich lay on the wax paper, forgotten.

“It was communicating with a server on the campus,” Reese said.

The grin slipped. “On the campus? NYCU?”

“Yeah.”

Dr. Goodwin leaned back in her chair, looking pensive. “Did they find the server?”

“An IRC server in the computer science department's server room—”

“No,” Dr. Goodwin said immediately. “I know that server—I pulled the students a favor to allow access through the school's firewall. There is no way anyone with access would be involved with something so dangerous as a botnet.”

“How can you be so sure?” Reese asked.

“They're my students!” Dr. Goodwin said. She crossed her arms. “Every one of them has gone through my network programming course, and most of them have taken my computer security courses as well. They're all curious, dedicated students—not the kind of people that would have anything to do with such illegal activities.”

“And you'd be willing to bet your life on that?”

Dr. Goodwin opened her mouth fractionally, hesitated. “Perhaps someone gained unauthorized access,” she said. “Or one of the admins created an account for a less trustworthy friend.”

“Do any of them hang around friends like that?”

“Not that I know of,” Dr. Goodwin said. She frowned. “What happened to the server? Did the FBI seize it? Some of them are graduating this semester—I hope an FBI investigation doesn’t put them off track.”

“Ah, no,” Reese said, putting on his best disarming grin. “They won’t need to worry about that. I stole it.”

Dr. Goodwin's eyebrows went up. “You—you stole it,” she repeated.

“Well, yeah,” Reese said. “I have somebody looking through it right now...”

#####

I held my breath and clicked the submit button. The server thought, paused, thought some more, and finally decided to spit out my practice quiz score: 75%.

Survivable.

I was making good progress on studying for Dr. Goodwin's class. On a scale of “I'm gonna flunk out of graduate school” to “I know absolutely everything,” I felt like I was at a comfortable “I probably won't fail the class but there goes my GPA” level of preparedness for the final exam, and that was enough for me. I only had two chapters left to read and then I was all caught up. Rubbing my eyes, I set the laptop aside and reached for the textbook, but before I could complete the motion, my cell phone buzzed. I snagged it and answered the call.

“Hey John,” I said. But it wasn't John at the other end of the line. In fact, it didn't sound like it was anybody at all.

“John?” I said. “Hello?”

“I...am not Mr. Reese,” came a voice that was very obviously not John's. My heart began to thud. Who was this? Was John in trouble? Had he gotten himself kidnapped? Had he died?

“Who is this?” I asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.

Another pause.

“This is Harold Finch,” came the peculiar voice, and the bottom dropped right out of my stomach.

“Harold Finch?” I parroted dumbly.

“I do believe that is what I said,” came the voice, this time with a hint of amusement.

Holy cow. Harold Finch, the Harold Finch, hacker demigod and mysterious mission controller for John and Shaw, had just called me. But before I could get too excited, suspicion began to take hold. How did I know this wasn't some trick by somebody to get information out of me? I'd never heard Finch's voice before. For all I knew, this could be some FBI agent who'd confiscated John's phone.

I considered my options.

“Prove it,” I said coyly, lying back in bed.

“Trust, but verify,” Harold Finch said. He sounded pleased, in a sort of restrained, secretive way. “Excellent. Earlier today, you helped John identify and acquire a server in the NYCU computer science department server room, and then helped him evade capture by the FBI.”

I chewed the inside of my lip. “Why was he interested in the server?”

“Because it was in communication with the botnet that your professor, Dr. Goodwin, is researching, and—what?” In the background, I heard voices. One of them sounded suspiciously like Shaw. “Oh, very well,” Finch said, sounding crossed. “Miss Shaw has asked me to take this opportunity to remind you that sneaking out of the clinic will result in you being...restrained. This reminder has the dual purposes of verifying that I am acquainted with Miss Shaw while also delivering her threat.” His voice sounded strained.

“You mean her promise,” I said, amused.

“I—I don't think—”

A moment later, Shaw's voice came on the line. “Oops,” she said, “I think we broke him. Don't worry, Elizabeth—it's really Finch. He's a bit of a prude.”

I laughed. “So, really—was that a threat or a promise?”

“Step outside and find out. Uh-oh, he's giving me the angry owl look. I should go.”

Finch's voice returned. “Does this satisfactorily establish my identity, Miss Ruben?”

“I guess,” I said. “I mean, if Shaw says you're okay, then I guess you can't be too bad.”

“Indeed,” Finch said. “Now that we've established I am who I say I am, I was hoping we could discuss the contents of the server we recovered.”

“You mean stole,” I corrected. My mind spun. I had a million questions I wanted to ask Harold Finch, but I knew that discovering and stopping Dr. Goodwin's attacker took priority—for now.

“While Mr. Reese's methods are unorthodox, I must admit that they are effective. I've mounted the hard drives on my workstation. A preliminary scan shows no rootkits or other form of malware.”

My heart sunk. “Meaning, either one of my friends is involved or their account got compromised.”

“Precisely. I believe we should start with the user accounts. How many users are supposed to have root access, either through knowledge of the password or via sudo?”

“Officially? Just Gabbie and David.”

I heard the sound of keystrokes in the background. Either Finch typed really hard or he had a nice mechanical keyboard.

“jezebel and dmadison?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“And unofficially, you also have access, ah, 'elev'?”

I chuckled. “Yeah. They kinda keep it on the down-low...the campus doesn't know.”

“The user accounts seem to be in order,” Finch said. “There are only nineteen accounts total, including the system daemon accounts.”

“What daemons do they have running on there these days?” I asked. “I know Gabbie really wanted to switch to lighttpd for the web server, but I talked her into nginx instead.”

“openssh, nginx, mysql, postfix, ntp...”

We delved deep into a discussion about the various applications that had been running on the server. Aside from the usual suspects—SSH for remote access, MySQL for database hosting, nginx and PHP for server-side dynamic websites—there were some oddball ones, like the IRC server, the Minecraft server, and the old text-based MUD Gabbie had set up years ago on some 486 box in her basement and gradually migrated to newer and newer hardware over the years. The server was our hub, our nexus, our digital water cooler; we used it to share and stash files, to talk to each other, and to post our research on our WordPress blogs.

Speaking of...

“Hmm,” Finch said.

“Hmm what?”

“Do you keep WordPress up to date on this server?”

“David does,” I said. “He set up auto-updates for us so we wouldn't have to keep playing catch-up with all the security bugs in Wordpress. I think we should use a different blogging app, but Peggy has some weird plugins she just can't live without, so...”

“ WordPress is indeed reporting the latest version...” Finch said slowly .

“We weren't born yesterday, you know,” I said playfully.

“...but the file timestamps in the webroot have not been updated for at least the past two months.”

“ Wait, what?” I scowled. “You mean the auto-update r hasn't been working all this time?”

“It appears not. Internal version numbers report a WordPress installation that has several serious CVEs associated with it, including one that allows arbitrary code to be executed on the server and another that allows cross-site request forgeries.”

I groaned. “Really?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

I facepalmed. Why not just post the passwords right on our blogs while we were at it?

“Can you compare the list of files on the server to the original WordPress distribution?” I asked.

“Doing so now.” Finch fell silent for a moment, giving me time to reflect on the fact that I was talking with freaking Harold Finch. There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but I still held my tongue. Dr. Goodwin was more important.

“ There you are,” Finch said softly.

“ What is it?” I asked eagerly. “What'd you find?”

“A backdoor,” Finch said. “ Highly obfuscated. It will take time to analyze . However...the file was c reated by the user dmadison.”

I gasped. “ David ? No way. He'd never get involved in anything like this. ”

“ Most likely his account was compromised with one of the vulnerabilities I mentioned,” Finch said. It made me feel a little better, but not by much. “ I suspect this is not the extent of the damage . I've generated a list of files on the server that were created around the same time as the backdoor. Can you tell me which one of these serve a legitimat e purpose?”

The list was long. Some of the files and folders I didn't recognize. Others, however, I did.

“Uh, hey, don't go exploring too much in that directory, ” I said, blushing. “That's private stuff.”

“Miss Ruben, I am hardly interested in your group's casual piracy of textbooks and video games —”

“Not those,” I said. “I meant the folders with the chat logs and stuff. And a couple of us might have, uh, uploaded some porn. That we, you know. Made. Ourselves.”

I could hear Finch's shocked expression over the line. It took him a few seconds to regain his voice.

“Yes. Well. Fortunately, none of the subfolders were modified the day that the exploit was uploaded, so perhaps we should skip those for the time being.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” I said.

Awkwardness averted (mostly), we continued to work our way through the list of files. We didn't find anything unusual. I wasn't too surprised—the timestamps could've been forged, or maybe further exploits had been uploaded some time after the first one had been established. I was guessing the latter, since the WordPress timestamps hadn't been changed.

“ I suppose it's time for a more thorough inspection,” Finch said after we had checked off the last file on the list. “ I will do so this afternoon. Thank you for your assistance, Miss Ruben.”

“Sure,” I said. Hesitantly, I added, “Hey, uh...you don't think David's actually...involved, do you?”

“You would know Mr. Madison better than I, Miss Ruben,” Finch said. “ To my knowledge, there is nothing untoward about him. But I will look more closely, if only to clear him from our investigation. ”

“ Okay,” I said morosely . But I quickly brightened. “Hey, now that we're done going through that list, can I ask a few questions about you? What kind of security work do you specialize in? Do you do any programming on—? ”

“ I'm afraid there's quite a lot to do, Miss Ruben,” Finch said quickly, cutting me off . “I will email you any further questions.”

“Aww, but—”

But nothing, because he had hung up. I grumbled and put my phone on the nightstand, then laid back in bed and stared up at the ceiling. My irritation gave way to concern. I mean, there had to be some explanation. David's account must've been compromised. I mean, I'd only known him for about a year, but still—he was a nice person. Everyone in the department loved him. There was no way he'd get involved in anything like this.

...was there?

#####

Detective Carter found Agent Donnelly pacing back and forth near the precinct coffee machine, his shiny leather shoes clacking against the aging linoleum. He grasped a paper cup firmly in one hand and his cell phone in the other. His eyes were focused on the screen, but he looked up at the sound of Carter's footsteps.

“Carter,” he said, pocketing the phone. “Good to see you.”

“Agent Donnelly,” she said, nodding in greeting. Now that he was facing her, she could see that the bags under his eyes were deeper than usual. “I got your call. What’s got you bothered?”

Donnelly looked around furtively, as if he was worried about being overheard. When he was satisfied that no one was near enough to hear him, he lowered his voice and said:

“He showed again. Stole a server we were about to confiscate right out from under our noses.”

Carter had a pretty good idea who this mysterious he was, but just to make sure, she said, “Who? Man in the Suit?”

“Yeah,” Agent Donnelly said. “Slipped out from under us—again.”

“Owch,” Carter said evenly, but behind her facade of feigned disinterest was relief. She poured herself a cup of coffee and motioned to a nearby table. They sat. “What’d he want with this server?”

“Don’t know yet,” Donnelly said. He looked away, resting his cheek on his hand. “It’s related to the botnet control system we talked about a few days ago.”

“Cybercrime's a bit of a break from rescuing kittens and old ladies,” Carter said. “You think he’s running it?”

Donnelly pursed his lips and shook his head. “No. But chances are, somebody dangerous is involved. You know this guy's MO. He only shows up when there's trouble. I think we can use that to our advantage.”

“Oh?”

“We follow the bad guys—we find the Man in the Suit. And even if that doesn't happen—maybe we'll be able to put someone else dangerous behind bars.”

“Sounds like a win-win,” Carter said, although she definitely did not feel that way about the possibility of John being captured. “What do you need me to do?”

“I have a list,” Agent Donnelly said. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out two folded sheets of paper. “All the people who had access to the server. I've got a few guys knocking on doors, but we're moving too slowly. Think you and your partner could help out this afternoon?”

“Sure,” Carter said. “Can I see that?”

A few of the names on the list were circled or crossed out. She skimmed the list, looking for one name in particular, and held back a frown when she found it: Elizabeth Ruben. Fortunately, her name was towards the bottom of the list, and none of the names there had been circled yet.

“Mind if I take the last few?” Carter said. “Never been a big fan of going in order.”

“Be my guest,” Donnelly said. “I can give you what we have on them. One of them popped up on our radar awhile back—the girl, Elizabeth Ruben—she reported three separate security holes in our public-facing website using our responsible disclosure program. Some kind of security researcher.”

“Sounds like somebody I want to talk to,” Carter said.

“Great,” Agent Donnelly said. He tipped back the dregs of the coffee and tossed the cup into the trash as he stood. “Thanks, Carter. I appreciate this.”

“No problem,” Carter said. She gave Agent Donnelly a pleasant smile as he said goodbye and walked away. The smile persisted until he was out of sight.

Seconds later, Carter was on the phone.

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

“I'm afraid there's quite a lot to do, Miss Ruben,” Finch said rapidly. “I will email you any further questions.” He hung up before Elizabeth could get a word in.

“Smooth, Finch,” Shaw said, leaning back in her chair and putting her boots up on the library desk. “Real smooth. Great way to get a girl off the phone. You probably just broke her heart. Aren't you supposed to be a master of social engineering or something?”

Finch gave Shaw a brief, irritated look before he went back to analyzing the files dumped from the server. “I'm afraid I don't have time for Miss Ruben's enthusiastic questions,” he said. “I'm quite busy.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. Maybe you should close some of those IRD windows then.”

“IRC,” Finch corrected. “And those particular discussion channels serve as a useful source of information.”

“Whatever.”

“Miss Shaw, don't you have someplace to be?”

“Nope.”

“Maybe you should join Mr. Reese and investigate Mr. Madison while I finish examining these files.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me too?”

“Perhaps I am being more subtle this time,” Finch said with amusement.

“Fine,” Shaw said, rolling her eyes. She took her boots off the desk. “You think Elizabeth's friend is really a perp?”

“He seemed pleasant enough when I met him at the campus,” Finch said. “But our experiences have proven time and time again that first appearances are not a reliable indicator.”

“Yeah, no shit. All right, I'll go find Reese.” And with that, she stood up, snagged the car keys off the desk, and walked off.

“Ms. Shaw,” Finch called after her, “you do realize you have taken my keys? I can call for one of your vehicles from the garage if you wish.”

Her only response was an obnoxious jingling noise as she rattled the keys.

Well then.

Turning back to the desk, Finch settled into his work, concentrating on the server files and the security footage from the cybercafé. The latter of the two was currently being processed by his custom facial identification software suite, working backwards from the current date. It was a slow process. The Machine had thousands of servers, massive arrays of GPUs, and petabytes of memory at its disposal for near-real-time processing, but Finch was limited to a half-dozen desktop towers networked together with 10Gb Ethernet. It took hours to analyze a single day’s worth of footage, and the hard drive Reese had recovered had several months of data stored on it. Finch had set up SMS alerts to notify him as soon as the system recognized anybody within two relational hops of the individuals they’d discovered over the course of the case—persons of interest, their friends, and their friends-of-friends.

Assured that the system would alert him if it found any familiar faces, Finch let it work in the background and focused on trawling through the files on the server.

#####

“David drives like an asshole,” Shaw said, eying the slate-gray WRX stopped two cars ahead of her with a mixture of distaste and respect.

“It’s New York, Shaw,” came Reese’s voice over the phone. “Everyone drives like an asshole, especially you.”

“Yes, but he’s really being an asshole. It’s hard to keep up with him. Why does he get a nice car while I’m stuck in this shitbox?”

“What’d Finch put you in?”

“A fucking Buick. Doesn’t even have a stick. How am I supposed to keep up with Zoomy McTurboface up there with a slushbox and a rinky-dink I-4?”

There was a crackle, and a second later, Finch’s voice came on the line.

“Might I remind you, Ms. Shaw, that you are using my personal vehicle of the day because you were too impatient to wait for the driver to retrieve your vehicle from the garage and, instead, grabbed my keys off the desk on your way out in a childish attempt to annoy me.”

“You do sound annoyed, so.”

“As do you.”

“Because I didn’t know you drove a fucking Buick with a slushbox!”

“The funds to cover your speeding ticket and lawyer from last week had to come from somewhere, Ms. Shaw.”

“You know what, I’m going to get a bag of chips and eat them in your car--”

“Please don’t.”

“--and spread the dust everywhere—”

“Ms. Shaw--“

“And then point it at a cliff and wedge a brick under the accelerator. I’ll be doing you a favor. Can’t you at least drive an Audi or something?”

Finch’s only response was a long-suffering sigh.

Several blocks away, at a dorm complex near the college, Reese smiled at the banter as he made his way up the hallway to David's third-story apartment. He waited until no one was watching and then opened the door with the master key he had...appropriated...from the downstairs office.

“I'm in,” Reese said quietly as he closed the door behind him. It was a decent set of digs as far as student housing went; the room was spacious and relatively clean despite the wrinkled laundry tossed on the back of a plush recliner. Most of the mess was on David's computer desk: an untidy stack of papers placed perilously close to the mouse pad and several mugs with thin layers of cold coffee at the bottom of each.

Reese cleared the room and adjoining bathroom before seating himself in front of David's computer and plugging in Finch's “hacker-in-a-stick”. It took a little longer than usual, but after several seconds, Reese was logged in.

He started the script to analyze the drive and explored the apartment, opening drawers and cabinets and closets.

“I don't see anything unusual,” Reese said as he peeked in a shoebox, which, not entirely unexpectedly, contained a pair of neatly polished leather shoes. “David looks like he's a pretty straight-and-narrow guy.”

“One could say the same thing about you, Mr. Reese,” came Finch's wry response. “If they judged by your appearances alone, that is.”

“Fair enough.”

“Yeah, you know that Reese guy,” Shaw said. “Handsome in the streets, a freak in the—”

“Ms. Shaw,” Finch said, “have you perhaps caught up to Mr. Madison yet?”

“No thanks to your shitty car, yeah. He stopped at a comic store. I'll follow him in.”

Reese chuckled and went back to the computer. He started exploring some of the files revealed by the scanning script. So far, most of the files flagged by the script as “interesting” were IRC chat logs. He opened a few, skimming them.

An idea came to mind.

“Finch.” Reese said, rubbing his chin absentmindedly. “When was the server compromised again?”

“About two months ago, Mr. Reese. February 20^th, to be exact.”

Reese filtered the logs by date and looked for conversations around that time period, reducing the number of files down to three. The first one was a group chat full of idle chatter about classes and professors. Reese's hunch paid off when he examined the second file—a private conversation.

“Check out these chat logs.” Reese took out his phone and snapped a picture.

Private Conversation with [parad0x]

---- Feb 21, 201 2 10:15AM ----

parad0x: thx again for the spare desktop btw

parad0x: it came in really handy for my latest project, esp the big hard drive

parad0x: don’t worry I dban’d it first ;)

David: Glad you found it useful.

“Didn’t you tell me once that DBAN is a disk-wiping program?” Reese asked.

“Yes,” Finch said. “Why? One moment—your picture is downloading.”

“Look at you, Reese,” Shaw said. “Learning those technical terms. Soon you’ll be saying words like ‘peripheral’ and ‘firmware’ and ‘dongle’, just like Finch.”

“I listen, on occasion,” Reese said lightly, while Finch coughed politely and ignored Shaw.

“Most interesting,” he said. “You’re suspecting that Mr. Madison inadvertently leaked his private key, session token, or other credentials to this ‘parad0x’ user by giving away one of his computers with this private information cached on an unwiped hard drive?”

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Reese said.

“If true, it would be a logical explanation for the compromise of his account on Ms. Ruben’s server,” Finch said. “I’ll pull the rest of the logs from Mr. Madison’s computer and analyze them to ascertain the identity of this ‘parad0x’. It may be a red herring, but I will investigate all the same.”

“Sounds good.”

#####

At the Library, Finch's fingers flew over the keyboard, like a pianist effortlessly playing a cadenza. The flash drive Reese had plugged into David's computer had already set up an encrypted tunnel to a server Finch controlled; now he entered a command to enumerate the various flagged files and organize them by type, compressing them into an archive; now he entered a command to stream them over the tunnel to his workstation, to be decompressed and analyzed. He hummed softly to himself as he worked.

His first order of business was discovering the host that “parad0x” used to connect to the IRC server. Finch searched the server logs for the nickname and soon came up with a list of a half-dozen hosts connecting from wildly varying subnets. Several of them Finch recognized as belonging to the address space of foreign ISPs. It would take time to analyze them all.

“I'm done at David's place,” Reese said.

“Good, because he's heading back,” came Shaw's voice. “He bought a few comics and left the store. Didn't really talk with anybody. Also, I'm pretty sure the guy at the front desk has never seen a woman before.”

“Please tell me that you didn't cause him grievous injury,” Finch said.

“I might've given him some choice words about his sex life. Not sure if his pride will recover.”

“I suppose that is acceptable,” Finch sighed.

“What should we do next?” Reese asked.

“Mrs. Shaw, continue to tail Mr. Madison. Mr. Reese, perhaps you should return to Dr. Goodwin. She may have knowledge of this 'parad0x' user.”

“Sounds good,” Reese said, right as Shaw's exasperated growl came over the line.

Finch sent out a few automated queries to the IP addresses he'd collected from the IRC server. As expected, none of them were home or university connections; all of them were in commercial address spaces, and were probably compromised machines being used as proxies.

He was midway through setting up a port scan when the text message came through from his video analysis cluster.

Match found!

He quickly switched workspaces, bringing up the results. In the isolated surveillance clip from the Internet café, a young man sat down in front of the computer with the backdoor installed. He looked around furtively before inserting a flash drive.

He was wearing sunglasses and a ball cap in an obvious attempt to not be recognized, but the disguise was no match for Finch's facial recognition software. His name and information was displayed in a column next to the video.

William Dunkel.

“Oh my...” Finch said. He quickly brought up the Internet café's administrative login page, hacking into it with ease and pulling up the visitor logs for that computer. William had used a fake name: “Bill Jones.” And he had used the same name every time he had used that particular computer—on a very regular basis.

“Mr. Reese, Ms. Shaw,” Finch said. “I have a hit from the Internet café surveillance footage. It appears William Dunkel has been logging in under an alias every week for the past two months. You have one guess as to which computer he used each time.”

“Dunkel?” Reese said. “Isn't that the handsy punk Elizabeth punched in the face?”

Shaw added, “Isn't he the overgrown man-child that thought it was open season on my boobs?”

“Elizabeth said he was suddenly wearing fancy clothing that he couldn’t afford before,” Reese said thoughtfully.

“You know what makes a lot of money?” Shaw said. “A botnet.”

While they were talking, Finch was searching for William's home address.

“It appears Mr. Dunkel lives in an apartment quite close to the campus,” Finch said. “You two should meet there and see what you can find.”

“I hope he's home,” Shaw said. “I really do.”

“I'm sure he'll be happy to see you again too,” Reese said playfully.

#####

He was not, in fact, happy to see Shaw again.

“I said I was sorry!” William yelled, circling the coffee table to keep it between him and Shaw. The video game controller lay abandoned on the couch, buzzing angrily as his character went down under a barrage of laser fire on the TV. He hadn’t even had time to pause the game.

“You did,” Shaw agreed. “But much as I’d like another apology from you, that’s not why I’m here.” She casually walked around the table, forcing William to back away. His retreat was blocked when he backed into the tall, handsome, and unyielding presence that was John Reese.

“Hello, Willy,” Reese said, grinning down at the young man. “I hope you’ve been keeping your hands off my friends.”

“Hey man, what the fuck? Who are you?”

“He’s your worst nightmare,” Shaw said, taking pleasure in the panic on William’s face as he realized he was trapped between the two of them. “So I suggest you don’t piss us off any more than you already have.”

“The fuck do you want?”

“Let’s talk about the CyFi café a few blocks from here. Know the place?”

William would’ve made a terrible poker player. “No!” he said defensively.

“Oh really?” Shaw looked around the apartment and spotted a sleek gaming laptop sitting on the kitchen table among an impressive collection of dirty dishes. “Nice laptop. Looks expensive.” She moseyed over to the table to inspect it.

“Yeah, it is,” William said. “Hey! Don’t touch it, you’ll probably break it.” Shaw had picked it up to examine it front and back. Looking unimpressed, she held it out with one hand high over the linoleum floor of the kitchen, balancing it like a tray. It took William a second to realize her intentions.

“No, wait!” He took a step forward, but Reese’s hand clamped down tightly on his shoulder.

“You sure you don’t know about CyFi?” Shaw said, letting the device wobble dangerously. “Uh-oh. My arm’s getting tired.”

“Okay, okay!” He looked nervously between Reese and Shaw. “I’ve been there a few times.”

“And by a few times you mean once a week.”

“...sure.”

“I think my shoulder’s about to give out.”

“Yes, I go there once a week, okay? I get paid to plug in a flash drive and look busy for ten minutes.”

“Who pays you?”

“I don’t know.” Shaw let the laptop wobble again, nearly dropping it (or so it appeared). “I mean it!” William all but squeaked. “He gives me instructions on Skype and leaves the flash drives around campus for me to find. Then he sends me Bitcoin. That’s all I know, I swear. Can you please put that down now?”

“Wow, look at that, Reese. He’s got some manners after all.” Shaw shrugged and, without warning, tossed the laptop in William’s direction. He made a dive for it and barely managed to catch it before it hit the ground.

He found himself looking at Shaw’s boots.

“I want the flash drives,” Shaw said, her hands on her hips. “All of them.”

“Okay,” William gulped.

Reese followed William around the apartment as he collected nearly a dozen flash drives from various drawers. “Here,” William said, thrusting them at Reese. But instead of accepting them, Reese just smiled and pointed at Shaw. Gulping, the young man hesitantly approached and dropped the drives into the plastic baggy she held out.

“Thanks,” she said, pocketing the bag. “Now, for the Bitcoin you got. You’re going to donate half of it to the Anita Borg Institute and the rest to the SWE chapter on campus.”

William scowled and crossed his arms. “You can’t tell me to do that!”

“I just did.”

“It’ll leave me broke!”

“I guess you’ll have to sell your laptop and your shoes. And your gaming console. And your...whatever that is.” She motioned to an object on his computer desk that was probably a fancy desktop computer, although it looked more like a movie prop.

“I need my computer for my programming classes!”

“Maybe you should’ve thought of that before getting into sketchy deals that pay in Bitcoin.”

“Come on, can’t I keep at least a little?” William pleaded.

Shaw considered. “I dunno. You’re a whiny little turd with no respect for women. Why should I give you any respect back?”

“I...” He opened his mouth and shut it again, at a loss for words.

“Tell you what,” Shaw said. “If you say you’re sorry, I’ll let you keep a few thousand worth.”

“Fine. I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“...trying to touch your ass.”

“And?”

“...and your boobs?” William looked genuinely confused.

“I meant ‘and’ as in, ‘and, why was that inappropriate’? I mean, these are mine.” She gestured vaguely towards her body. “Not yours. How’d you like it if people kept grabbing your balls when you were trying to get to class?”

William looked like he was about to make some smart-ass remark, so Shaw cut him off and said, “Rhetorical question, don’t bother answering. Just think about it. You can keep two grand. The rest goes to charity.”

William gulped but, apparently recognizing that was as good as it was going to get from the woman who was pissed off at him, quickly nodded.

“...as long as you write an apology letter to Elizabeth.”

“Oh come on!” he complained.

“Take it or leave it.”

“If I were you,” Reese said, grinning widely, “I’d take the deal...”

#####

“Well, that was unproductive,” Reese said as they walked down the sidewalk.

“What do you mean?” Shaw said. “I found our little conversation to be very productive. I think we properly scared the shit out of him. You sure I shouldn’t go back and kick him in the balls? I really want to. Why did we let Finch talk us into being nice?”

“Because we have other things to worry about—we still don't know who's after Dr. Goodwin.”

“Speaking of the good Doctor,” Finch's voice came over the earpiece. He sounded concerned. “Her laptop has disappeared from the safe house wireless network.”

“This might surprise you, Harold, but not everyone leaves their computer on 24/7.”

“I bet Windows made her reboot for an update,” Shaw said.

“Or Harold’s fancy router crashed.”

Finch sounded perplexed. “Perhaps, but her laptop has been in constant communication with the campus servers for the past day—she even left it running overnight. But now I see nothing on the—oh. Oh, dear. We have a problem.”

“What is it, Finch?” John asked.

“I’m checking the cameras. Dr. Goodwin left the safe house ten minutes ago and got into a cab. She took her laptop with her. ”

“Oh, so that's where Elizabeth learned to break out of jail,” Shaw said, rolling her eyes.

Reese ignored her. “Any idea where she’s going?”

“I'm getting a good signal from both her cell phone and the tracker Detective Fusco planted on the laptop. She just disembarked at Marietta Hall. You two had best get over there.”

“We’ll be there in ten,” Reese said.

“Five, if I drive,” Shaw said to Reese. “C’mon, grandpa. I saw the Audi in the parking lot. Hand over the keys...”

#####

Chapter Text

April 2012

            Shaw and Reese managed to make it to the campus in four minutes, thanks to Shaw’s lead foot. They parked as close as they could get to Marietta Hall—chances were the car would get towed from the faculty parking space, but that was Finch’s problem to deal with, not theirs. They had more pressing matters to attend to.

            “It appears Dr. Goodwin has left her laptop in her office,” Finch said. “I’ve tracked her phone to a facilities maintenance building nearby.”

            “Let’s go,” Reese said.

            They hurried down the narrow road between two squat buildings, passing a steady stream of unconcerned students and faculty. A few of them gave Reese odd looks—how often did a man in a suit jog through campus?—but other than that, the pedestrians paid the duo no mind.

            “Take a right and head down the service alley,” Finch directed.

            “Creepy alleys again?” Reese said. “Dr. Goodwin should know better by now.”

            As they jogged down the alley, they become aware of a humming sound, soft at first, but soon loud enough to feel through the ground. They emerged near a massive building surrounded by mechanical equipment—ventilation fans, cooling towers, and transformers.

            “It appears Dr. Goodwin entered the building through a side door past the pumping station,” Finch said.

            “Keep your eyes peeled,” Shaw said to Reese. “It’s loud as fuck here.”

            They crept along the wall, stepping over weeds growing from the gravel, and found the side entrance. It had a card reader, but it obviously hadn’t been used in some time; the electronic latch next to it was broken open and rusted. With a nod, Reese unholstered his pistol and nudged the door open. Shaw was close on his tail, sweeping the room within for threats.

            The space they found themselves in was taken up by pumps, boilers, and piping for the school’s heating and air conditioning system. The cacophony was deafening. Moving with care, they headed for a set of double-doors that had been propped open at the end of the room. The noise fell off sharply as they emerged into a large warehouse area. On one side of the room was a series of shelves that reached all the way up to the rafters several stories above them; on the other was a large, open space with boxes and pallets scattered throughout.

            Voices drifted from a nearby aisle between the shelves. They crept in that direction.

            “Look, how much do you fucking want?” Branden said, his voice unusually high. “I can make you rich. All you have to fucking do is look the other way.”

            “I’m sorry, Branden, but I can’t do that,” Dr. Goodwin said.

            “Wrong answer.”

            On cue, Shaw and Reese stepped around the corner to see Branden menacing Dr. Goodwin with a nasty-looking switchblade.

            “Just put the knife down,” Dr. Goodwin said calmly, holding her hands peacefully up in front of her. “Let’s talk about this like rational human beings. Give me my hard drives back and I won’t go to the police.”

            He shook his head, grinning manically. There were huge, dark circles beneath his eyes—it looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “Sorry, no-can-do, Doc!”

            “Drop the knife!” Shaw yelled, but Branden had spotted them and, instead, grabbed a startled Dr. Goodwin and held her body against his, the knife glinting dangerously against her throat.

            “Go away!” Branden screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. His voice echoed throughout the warehouse. “Or I'll fucking slit her throat!”

            “Easy,” Reese said. He kept his voice calm and soothing. “No one needs to get hurt here. Just let the Doctor go and we can talk.”

            “Yeah right! Soon as I let her go, you'll fill me with lead. I'll kill her! I'll fucking do it! Get back!”

            Reese glanced at Shaw, who shrugged.

            “We're not going to shoot you,” Reese said. “We just want Dr. Goodwin.” To prove his point, he took his finger away from the trigger and aimed the gun away. Moving slowly, maintaining eye contact, he bent down and put the pistol on the ground, casually kicking it off to the side.

            “Yeah well, what about her?” Branden said, tilting his head angrily towards Shaw, who was still holding her gun.

            “Just making sure you don't poke a hole in my partner,” Shaw said. Her aim was unwavering. “Keep the pointy things to yourself and everything will be fine.”

            “Yeah right, man!” Branden was trembling hard enough to make Dr. Goodwin shake as well. His voice was creeping up through the octaves, getting higher and higher pitched by the second. “It's the end of the line for me. Game over, man, game over! If you don't walk out of here in ten fucking seconds—”

            He didn't get the chance to finish his threat. Dr. Goodwin, who by that point was looking less scared and more annoyed, raised her foot and drove her heel straight down on Branden's foot. Apparently his tattered sneakers weren't all that great at protecting his feet, because he howled in agony and loosened his grip on her throat. She pushed his arm away and followed up with an elbow to the gut, and an instant later, Reese intervened, charging in like a bowling ball and knocking Branden to the ground.

            “You okay?” Shaw asked Dr. Goodwin. She had her hands to her throat. “No, move them—let me see.” A thin, dripping line of red marred her neck, but it appeared superficial at worst. Shaw sighed and said, “That was a pretty big risk, Doc.”

            “Too much talking; not enough doing,” she said. “Besides, I know my self defense. I was trying to talk him down before you got here, but if I had to, I would've fought back.” She looked down at Branden, who was haplessly being handcuffed by Reese, and raised an eyebrow. “What's going to happen to him?”

            “Detective Fusco will be over shortly to take him into custody,” Reese said. He stood, dusting off his pants. “Didn't I tell you to stay put?”

            Shaw muttered something that sounded like “bad role model”.

            Dr. Goodwin looked entirely unapologetic. “One of my research servers hung this morning. I needed to reset it.”

            Shaw raised her eyebrows. “And then you went to a creepy warehouse loading area in a place no one would come looking for you because...?”

            “Because this...individual...stole three of the SSDs from it, and left me a note in one of the drive bays telling me where to find him. They have critical data on them. Can you check his pockets, please?”

            Branden gave John a filthy glare, but otherwise didn’t resist. A quick search turned up several SSDs, still in their drive sleds. He handed them to Shaw, who handed them to Dr. Goodwin. After a brief examination, she put them into her handbag, clearly satisfied.

            Shaw, on the other hand, was not. “And you didn’t call campus security because...?”

            “Because he told me, in his note, that he would destroy the drives if I did.”

            “And you don't have backups because...?”

            Dr. Goodwin finally had the sense to look bashful. “It—er, is a lot of data. This is part of a four-terabyte array. It can only handle two drive failures, not three. And my backup is scheduled to run only once a month.”

            Shaw looked unimpressed. “Even your students have better backups than that.”

            “I...may not always do as I preach.”

            “Obviously.”

            Reese cut in smoothly. “We're just glad you're safe, doc.”

            “As am I,” Dr. Goodwin said. She looked uncertain. “I, er, wish to thank you two both, but I don't know how I can properly do that. Your intervention has undoubtedly saved my life.”

            “You're smart, doc,” Reese said. “Just use a little more common sense from here on out...”

#####

            They met that night at Addison’s for burgers—John, Shaw, Finch, and Carter. (Fusco had bowed out, saying he had “a thing”. Reese had given him a rare smile and told him to enjoy the softball game with his son.)

            As they waited for their food to arrive, they filled each other in on the happenings after Branden had been arrested.

            “Elizabeth was very happy to hear the news,” Reese said. “She’s been worried sick about Dr. Goodwin.”

            “Isn’t Elizabeth about to flunk Dr. Goodwin’s class?” Shaw asked. “If I’d been in her shoes, I wouldn’t have been worrying too much. Maybe I’d get to take the final with someone easier.” When Finch gave her a disapproving look, she added, “What? I’m just saying. It would’ve been win/win either way.”

            “I’m sure Elizabeth has been studying hard,” Reese said. “When she’s not sneaking out of the hospital, of course.”

            “And now we know where she gets it from.” Shaw rolled her eyes. “She needs some better role models.”

            “What, like you two?” Carter said, and chuckles went around the table.

            “Well,” Carter said, clearly pleased with herself. “Speaking of bad role models...we got a full confession out of Branden. Didn’t take five minutes.”

            “Hah!” Shaw said. “No surprise. He was pretty wimpy.”

            “He was crumbling before I even got in there,” Carter confirmed. “And when I told him we had gotten access to his Skype records and Bitcoin wallet to tie him to William Dunkel and the computer in the cyber café...he spilled. Said Dr. Goodwin was getting too close to his botnet and tried to have her offed by the first hitman, and when that didn’t work, he lured her to the campus to try and kill her.”

            “So he was the botnet admin?” Reese asked.

            “Yep. He turned the keys over to Donnelly and Dr. Goodwin. The FBI is pouring over the botnet now.” 

            “Excellent work as always,” said Finch. “That goes to everyone involved. I propose a toast: to another successful case.” He raised his glass.

            “To nobody dying,” Carter said, raising her glass as well.

            “To giving Donnelly more gray hairs,” Reese said, smiling at the dirty look from Carter.

            “To these fucking amazing burgers,” Shaw said, eying the server coming their way with a tray laden with food.

            Glasses clinked, and they all settled in to eat.

#####

            Shaw waited just long enough for the lift doors to open before she dragged me out into the clinic hallway by my uninjured wrist. Her grip was implacable and more than a little frightening. I mean, I knew Shaw was strong for her size, but—

            “Oww,” I grumbled. “Shaw, loosen up a bit!”

            “No,” she said. She walked down the corridor, pulling me along with her towards a tall door that I was really getting tired of seeing.

            So maybe sneaking out on Dr. Tillman again had been a bad idea.

            “Come on,” I whined.

            “I warned you,” she said without turning around. “I told you, if you crept out on Dr. Tillman again—”

            “But I needed to go home and reboot my desktop!” I said. “It locked up and I couldn't get into it remotely anymore.” I pulled against Shaw, digging my heels into the carpet, but the effort was ineffectual—if I didn't keep walking, I was pretty sure Shaw was going to drag me by my arm back to the room.

            “No,” Shaw said. “You really didn't need to do that.”

            “I took the subway!” I said, exasperated. “I didn't even move around that much!”

            “Doesn't matter. I told you to stay put.”

            Shaw opened the door with one hand and pushed me into the room before her, releasing my wrist. I stumbled and turned to face her, crossing my arms. I didn't get why she was making such a big deal about this. I felt fine. My chest didn't even hurt anymore.

            Shaw looked...not exactly mad, but frighteningly intense. Her lips were drawn in a thin, flat line, but there was a fire behind her dark eyes that made me distinctly nervous.

            “Shaw, come on,” I said, resisting the urge to look away. “Stop acting like I just murdered a freaking puppy.”

            She stared for several seconds and then finally said, “Get in bed.”

            I sighed and rolled my eyes, making a few exasperated noises in the process, but I obeyed, sitting on the bed and lying back.

            “There,” I said. “Happy? You can go now.”

            Her expression changed. A tiny half-smirk appeared, playful and predatory.

            “No,” she said, and I groaned.

            Shaw closed the door behind her. Aw, great, I thought. Here comes the big lecture. But then, she did something unexpected.

            She locked the door.

            “Uh,” I said. An uneasy feeling had settled in the pit of my stomach. “Shaw? What are you doing?”

            “I warned you,” she said again. This time, her voice was silky, dulcet. “I told you what would happen.”

            I gulped. “What are you talking about?”

            “Fool me once, shame on you,” she said. She crossed the room to a supply cabinet and yanked it open. “Fool me twice...”

            She rummaged around in the cabinet and pulled out a bundle of leather cuffs and straps.

            “...get tied to the hospital bed,” she said with relish.

            My stomach dropped straight out from under me.

            Oh my God, I though. What the fuck. Why does Tillman even have those in there? Shaw sauntered towards me, dangling the straps from her fingers. And how did Shaw know they were there?

            “Woah, uh—” I stuttered as she stepped closer. “I—I thought you were joking about that!”

            “Nope,” she said.

            “I—” I wanted to shrink back against the bed, but I found I couldn't move—I was frozen in place. Shaw stopped next to the bed, one hand on her hip.

            Oh my God. This is happening. What the fuck.

            “I know you're into this kind of thing,” Shaw said, dangling the cuffs from her fingers. Her gaze was electrifying, like staring down a tiger, but I found that I couldn’t look away.

            “I mean—“ I squeaked, “I’ve never—not with anyone else yet, you know?”

            “You're just dying to try it out, aren’t you?”

            I gulped, trying desperately to ignore the flutter of excitement between my legs. “Yeah, but—but—not here! Tillman could walk in any moment!”

            “No, she can’t,” Shaw said. I blinked and suddenly she was on the bed, straddling me. “I locked the door and Finch sent her home for the day. It’s just you and me. So, I’ve got a question for you...”

            “W-what would that be?” I said. I was shaking, but not from fright—no, it was anticipation.

            “Should we poke the sleeping dragon, or let her sleep in a little more?”

            I blinked. “Uh, what?”

            “Let's wake her,” Shaw said. “It's past noon. Besides, she'll be really happy to get out of here.”

            I was very confused. “Shaw, what are you—”

            “Okay,” Shaw said. “Hey, Elizabeth. Elizabeth, wake up.” She tapped me on the forehead. Finally, the light bulb went on.

            “Oh, hell no,” I said, and I grabbed Shaw by the shirt and pulled her towards me. Shaw looked startled for an instant and then she leaned in eagerly.

            But just before our lips met, the world dissolved into a dim haze.

            “Elizabeth,” Dr. Tillman said. “Hey, sleepyhead.”

            “I'm gonna murder you,” I mumbled dreamily into my pillow. “I'm gonna murder you, and all the cake is gone."

            “What?” Dr. Tillman sounded puzzled.

            “Your death's gonna be really slow and painful. And Shaw's gonna help.”

            “I'm going to what?” Shaw said as I forced my eyes open. As soon as I saw her, I felt the blood rise to my face. I probably looked like a beet. Oh, hell, she was wearing the same outfit she was wearing in the dream—but, thank goodness, her hands were empty.

            “Hmm, someone didn't get their beauty sleep,” Dr. Tillman said. “How are you feeling this morning?”

            “Murderous,” I said. “Also, my ear’s still a bit muffled. But other than that, pretty good.” I sat up in bed. The movement made my chest twinge but nothing more.

            “It's like, noon, sleepyhead,” Shaw said. I glanced nervously at her, then quickly looked away.

            “Huh,” John said. He looked right at me and, goddammit, he knew somehow. “Did we interrupt a dream?”

            “I'm adding you to my shit list,” I told him.

            “Me, Tillman—but not Shaw. Huh. What do you make of that, Dr. Tillman?”

            She blinked in surprise. “I honestly couldn't say,” she said.

            “What's going on?” I said. I hoped that the irritation would mask the awkwardness.

            “Prison break,” Shaw said, and now she was looking curious too, or at least, as curious as she ever got.

            “Actually,” Dr. Tillman said, “I dunno. I mean, I have to clear her for checkout. She seems healthy, but she also wants to kill me, so I have doubts about her mental health. She might have to stay a few more days.”

            “What?” I snarled.

            “Kidding,” Dr. Tillman said with a wink.

            “Don't poke the dragon,” I grumbled.

            “I am concerned about your ear though,” she said as she did one final checkup. “I’ll let you go, but I’m expecting you back here in two weeks, just to see how you’re doing.”

            “Fine, sure, whatever.”

            For a jailbreak, we sure took our sweet time exiting the clinic. I got dressed in the comfy sweatpants and hoodie that John and Shaw had brought, and then spent the next five minutes standing around waiting while Dr. Tillman went over my ailments in excruciating detail and told John and Shaw, in no uncertain terms, that I was to take it easy for the next few days.

            “Hey,” I said, poking her shoulder, “I'm right here, you know.”

            “Yep,” Tillman said. “And I know you won't behave, either. You spend too much time around these two.”

            “I get the idea,” I said, crossing my arms. “No wrestling bears or scuba driving for the next two weeks. Got it, Doc.”

            “All right, all right. Let’s get you out of here.” With an amused little sigh, Dr. Tillman led us to the front door. I couldn't get out of this place fast enough. Don't get me wrong, Dr. Tillman was kind—if not endlessly sarcastic—but after a week and a half being cooped up in this place, I just wanted to be home. I gave Dr. Tillman a hug at the front door and then we left.

            The weather was moody, all overcast skies and hazy sunlight, but it was warmer than it looked. I took a deep breath and grinned, happy to finally be outside. John and Shaw led me down the front steps of the clinic to the sidewalk, and then to a familiar SUV parked at the curb—

            “My car!” I said, grinning. “I was wondering what'd happened to it.”

            “We got it out just before the FBI swooped in,” John said. “Found your purse, too. Not sure about your burner, but Finch says it’s untraceable, so don’t worry about it.”

            They helped me into the passenger's seat and Shaw slid gracefully behind the wheel. I couldn’t help but snicker when she had to move the seat a few notches forward.

            “I can’t believe you drive this thing regularly,” she said. “We need to get you a new car.”

            “Hey!” I complained. “I like my car!”

            “Stockholm Syndrome. What is this, a hundred and ninety horsepower? How can you tolerate this?”

            “Shaw...”

            She spent the entire drive home trying to convince me that I needed a new car. I remained unconvinced even as John helped me to my front door. At least, he tried to help—I batted him away and unlocked my own front door all by myself.

            John and Shaw dotted over me and made me promise that I wasn’t about to go bungee-jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. Once they finally left, the silence settled in. It was nice.

            The first thing I did was put on a kettle for tea.

            The second thing I did was run back to my bedroom and hug my desktop computer.

            “Oh, I missed you,” I said, running my hands over the mechanical keyboard. “We’ve got so many things to program.”

            It was wonderful to finally be home. I sprawled backwards on my bed—my own bed, finally—and spread out to take up as much space as possible. I sighed, content, and didn’t move until I heard the kettle whistle.

            #####

Chapter Text

April 2012

#####

The next day, I got a few interesting messages, via both e-mail and snail-mail.

I got the email in the morning (after waking up in my own bed for the first time in weeks, Hallelujah, and then fixing my morning tea). The email had been forwarded from one of John's burner accounts to mine, and was titled simply: "I'm sorry".

Elizabeth,

I'm sorry I tried grabbing your boobs and called you a bitch last week. It wasn't right for me to do it and I won't do it in the future. (I really don't want to get punched again.) I'm also taking the anti-sexual harassment training because I'll get kicked out of college if I don't.

Please tell your psycho girlfriend that I apologized to you.

Regards,

William Dunkel III

I was snickering throughout the blatant non-apology, but when I got to the "psycho girlfriend" comment I burst out laughing. Obviously Shaw had paid Fingers a visit, and it sounded like Carter might've had a word with the school as well.

But, "girlfriend"? Really? Shaw and I were most definitely not an item. She wasn't even on my radar, the dream at the clinic notwithstanding. (And that'd been just that—a strange dream, probably stress-related from too much studying and worrying about Dr. Goodwin.)

She wasn't even my type! She wasn't bookish or geeky. No glasses, not a redhead—

-but instead: dangerous, fit, playful, and snarky, with really nice legs, and even if she didn't know how to configure iptables from scratch or build a database schema, she was still pretty bright, and she knew how to shoot a gun-

...all right, so maybe I'd have to think about all that more. But later. Even after a solid night's rest, I still wasn't caught up on sleep, and I wasn't sure if such thoughts were from sleep deprivation.

The next items of interest came in the morning mail. Inside of a plain envelope with my name penned in flowing cursive was a "Get Well Soon!" card. It looked like it had been custom crafted, decorated with watercolor flowers on a colorful background. Inside was a neatly written message and a pre-paid credit card.

The message read:

Elizabeth,

I asked John to forward this to you. I hope you're doing well and will be out of the hospital soon.

This doesn't sound very good on paper, but I'm really sorry about tasing you. It was the only way I could think of to make the chaos stop. I thank the Lord that you made it out of the warehouse alive.

John says that your computer hacking prowess was instrumental in saving Bob and me from Richard. That guy was crazy. I think he was planning to kill me too at the warehouse, but you stepped in even though it put your life in danger. You are doing God's work. "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down her life for another." Bless you.

I have a line on some mTech computer hardware and phones at a steep discount—I typed up some model #s for you on the attached sheet, if you're interested. Bob and I also put a little something on the credit card as a thank-you.

I know it's not much in the way of thanks, but I owe you my life, and that I can never repay.

Love and God bless,

Anna

p.s. Please let me know if you ever need anything shipped in or out of the States (as long as it's not drugs!)

I smiled at the heartwarming message (okay, and at the offer of cheap computer hardware too) and carefully propped the card up on my kitchen table. Unlike Finger's half-assed "apology", Anna's card deserved a reply. I really wasn't sore about getting tased, and I didn't want her feeling guilty about it—sure, it'd hurt, but it'd also de-escelated things...sort of. Ish.

I skimmed the list of computer components she had attached and raised my eyebrows at some of the prices. An mTech GraFX card for that cheap? How could I resist?

Smiling, I got up and searched for a piece of paper and an envelope to write a response...

#####

Greer studied the images on the twin monitors off to his right. The screen on the left, displaying a status snapshot taken a week ago, presented a world map with countries highlighted in various pleasing shades of green. (The United States was particularly vivid, especially along the coasts, with the expected hotspots in California and New York, but eastern Asia was a hotbed of activity as well.) A summary of statistics along the side of the map showed that a healthy 83% of the network was operational.

The map on the right told a more dismal story. A live feed from the network, it purged nodes from the report as they grew stale and exceeded their report-in timeout. The readiness percentage for the network was down to 35% and dropping by tenths of a percent every few minutes.

Greer's eyes flicked from the monitors to the young woman sitting before him, then down to the dossier on his desk. Decima as an organization was much too large for Greer to know every member by name, especially the incoming data scientists, software engineers, and IT administrators that had been recruited from top universities worldwide. Fortunately, Greer had at his disposal the compiled dossiers of every entity associated with Decima, all stored in a massive database, and he had pulled Cassandra Rios' file well before she had stepped foot into the secured area that housed his office.

Knowing all there was to know about a person before he met them tended to be an unsettling effect, and he used it well.

"...as soon as our sources reported that the FBI had gained control of Titan, we set each node to wipe the encryption keys and partitioned the last two hops in front of the ingestion nodes off from the rest of the network," the young woman said. "There's no way for anyone to get anything useful off the remaining servers. To summarize, we've lost fifty-five percent of our scanning capability, but we're still operational with the smaller botnets."

"A most interesting report, Miss Rios," Greer said kindly. He folded his hands neatly on the desk between them. "Please tell me why this is a concern."

The woman looked startled. "We've just lost half of the Observatory with the collapse of the Titan botnet."

"The Observatory is a 'best-efforts' endeavor, given its dependencies on...third-party vendors."

"I know my project isn't a high priority, Sir," Cassandra said. She crossed her arms. "But you can't deny that it's produced valuable intelligence on the behavior of the Machine."

"I cannot deny that," Greer acknowledged with a tilt of his head. "Your division's efforts at compromising existing botnets have yielded quite an interesting glimpse into the distributed nature of the Machine, but—"

"Our efforts," Cassandra corrected.

"I beg your pardon?" Greer feigned surprise.

"Our efforts," Cassandra repeated. "JJ, Ari, and me. Just us."

"This would be Julianna Jabari in APT engineering and Ariadne Galvin in Data Warehousing?"

"Yes Sir," Cassandra said. She finally had the good graces to look nervous. Her foot wiggled.

"Continue."

"My division had nothing to do with it. The three of us have been working alone on the Observatory in our spare time. JJ wrote her thesis on compromising in-memory malware and Ari has the resources for setting up the shell companies and external routes to safely ingest the data. I do the analysis and machine learning algorithms. No pun intended. The Observatory is our baby."

"And you are all doing this outside of your work for your team? While meeting or exceeding your assigned deliverables, I hope?"

The young woman shrugged. "They don't give us very fun things to do."

"There is a reason it is called 'work', Miss Rios."

"Sure. And yes, we do all of our assigned tasks. We still have free time. Especially me."

"Idle hands are the tools of the devil," Greer said. "Or so some say. I presume there is a reason you haven't asked your superiors for more tasks to complete?"

Cassandra hesitated. "To be perfectly honest, Sir, I've been here four years, I have security clearance to know about some really fat whales, and I'm still doing the digital equivalent of swabbing toilets. All three of us are. I think this project is proof that we could be doing a lot more for the organization."

"And you presented your superior with this idea, I trust?"

"Er...no. I mean, technically yes, I guess."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning my boss is a jackass, okay? I'm sorry, but I have to say it. And JJ's boss treats her like a mop. And Ariadne's boss would sell her own mother to get ahead." She held up her hands and took a deep breath. "So like—my boss keeps taking my ideas and acting like they're his. And I figure, that means the ideas must be worth something at least. So I went to my skip-level, cause I trust her, and she approved our access to an external route so we could ingest the data."

Greer considered all this quite carefully. He stayed quiet, letting the silence build. Cassandra twitched and focused her eyes downward to the desk.

"Why are you here, Miss Rios?" he asked after some seconds. "And why are you alone? Where are your partners in this endeavor?"

"I thought it would be easier to get a meeting with you one-on-one. And if...you know." She looked down. "If you disapproved of the project, and there was...disciplinary action...I wanted to take full responsibility for it. I was the instigator."

"Come now," Greer said. "Instigator. Let's not use such negative terms. Leader would be more appropriate. Architect, perhaps. Mastermind, if you're feeling villainous."

Cassandra looked uncertain.

"Let's cut to the chase, shall we?" Greer said. "I have known of your little side-project since its inception."

Cassandra's face betrayed her surprise, but she stayed quiet.

"You are here because you want to form a dedicated team to study the Machine further, starting with your two co-conspirators. You're asking for more resources and my blessing for the continued operations of the Observatory, despite this recent setback."

"I...yes, Sir. Exactly."

"Consider it done, effective immediately. You will report to me, but work alongside our ASI clearinghouse. You may request additional resources as necessary. I may grant them, depending on your justifications. Does this suit you?"

She nodded quickly, looking faint.

"Good. I reward initiative when it is employed in a deliberate and careful manner."

"Thank you," she stuttered.

"I will take care of your transfers to your new organization personally. Please send my administrative assistant any requirements you have for your physical workspace and equipment, and she will make it happen. You may go now."

Cassandra rose to her feet, tottering unsteadily as she shook Greer's hand and then turned to leave.

"Oh, and Miss Rios?" Greer said. "Do be careful. I appreciate the initiative. Others may not."

She nodded and left.

Greer allowed himself a faint smile before he seated himself before his desk and returned to his work.

#####