Disclaimer – If I owned Eureka, the plot would have been slashier.
Teaser – In an effort to help Allison cope with the arrival of Nate, the organic computer clone of the late Nathan Stark, Jack brings in his ex-wife, Abby. Meanwhile, there is a sudden outbreak of drowning victims and Nate puts up with Dr. Manlius, who's methods for obtaining the data from Nate's cells seem suspect.
Pairings – eventual Jack/AI!OrganicComputer!Nate
A/N – "You Don't Know Jack", the episode following "Shower the People" is going to have two reduxes. That's right people: two. One is going to be a continuation of this Nate universe. The other story will be by Kit and will feature the real Nathan Stark. "You Don't Know Jack" was a flashback episode and, as such, I had low expectations for it. I was thus pleasantly surprised to see that Eureka managed what Stargate never did; the flashback episode had an actual plot! Whoo-hoo! (I dreaded flashback episodes in Stargate. They were sooooo tedious.)
Anywho, I meant to get this posted earlier in the week, but after rereading it, I started getting a little iffy on the flow in some places. Kit told me to either post it as is or fix it, but to stop waffling on the subject because it was somewhat irritating and making her want to pull out her waffle iron and have breakfast for dinner. (That was Thursday night, I believe.) So I went through and rewrote some scenes and felt better enough about the story that I resent it to her and asked for beta/feedback on the changes. Normally this takes her a few hours. But I waited all day Friday and all day Saturday. There was no reply and I was getting a tad worried. Then, Saturday evening, I received a short note that wasn't entirely coherent telling me that Kit had a bad cold and was incredibly fuzzy from taking Tylenol Cold. Anyway, I got the beta/feedback stuff from her on Sunday and feel confident enough to post this version. The moral of this story is that I'm useless without my beta reader...
Unorthodox: A 'Shower the People' Redux
Chapter One – In Which A Cheerless Party is Thrown
They had the bunker to themselves, which was pretty awesome... or it should have been. Tess and Lexi (who had recently moved into a house with her boyfriend who's name Tess couldn't quite recall) had worked together to throw this baby shower for Allison in an attempt to both cheer her up and cushion the fact that she'd been forced onto medical leave by Henry, Zane, Fargo, and two of the infirmary doctors.
Earlier that week, the spaceship Columbia, created by Henry and his lost love, Kim Yamazaki, had landed in Eureka. Inside it had been an organic computer clone of one of the interns who'd worked on the ship: Nathan Stark. Seeing the clone, Nate, had been the start of a swift, downward spiral for Allison, who'd been repressing instead of grieving since the death of the real Nathan on what should have been their wedding day.
Tess hadn't been there for Allison's wedding or the aftermath of Nathan's death, something she truly regretted. But she was here now, to help pick up the pieces as Allison finally began to fall apart and could hopefully begin to make up for what she'd missed. And there could be no denying that Allison was falling apart.
Since arriving at Eureka, Tess hadn't seen much of Allison outside of work because, more often than not, Allison would be working long hours. At first, Tess had thought that Allison was acting that way out of worry over the signal from the Columbia, which they had thought was alien in origin at the time. Tess had gone to see Kevin a few times and the kid still remembered her as Aunt Tess; he'd been so excited to see her, but kept asking where his mother was. It had taken Henry and Jack talking to her to make her realize that Allison had barely seen Kevin in some time. She had Pilar, one of the local teens, babysitting Kevin after school everyday until Allison came home, which was often around eleven or twelve at night after Kevin had gone to sleep. In other words, the only time she was around her son was on weekends and in the mornings when she dropped him off at school on her way to work.
Now Tess knew that Allison adored Kevin more than anything and hated overworking, so this behavior was a little frightening to see in her friend. When Jack had told Tess about his plan to bring in his ex-wife, a psychiatrist by the name of Doctor Abby Carter, to see if she could help Allison, Tess had jumped at the chance to be the distraction. She tracked down Jack's sister, Lexi, who seemed to be the fun sort and they plotted out a very short-notice baby shower.
The problem was... nobody was in a good mood, except Lexi... who was on her way to joining the ranks of fake smiles any moment now.
Tess' problems had started earlier that day when the neural networking specialist arrived. They'd called him in the day before when Zane's SDS scanner still wouldn't work. Tess had spent most of that day with Allison and Kevin (while surreptitiously contacting Lexi and making plans for the baby shower) and come to work on Saturday annoyed with Henry and Jack for taking Nate out of GD Friday evening for the meteor shower. It was a nice gesture, but they should have arrested themselves for it.
Nate might act like a person, but he was a piece of fancy hardware. He was GD property and... oh well, that was a rant for another day. They meant well and nothing bad happened to the data.
Anyway... the neural networking specialist was an old 'friend' of Tess'. That is, if you used the term friend in a very loose manner. Dr. Bruce Manlius had known Tess back in her 'Tess the Mess' days and had been the sort of person who was nice to her face and mocking behind her back. So she smiled at him and introduced him around a little, and then fled to the steam room to fetch the people Lexi had invited to the baby shower. Lucky for her, Jack had already gathered them outside for her before he left.
That's where the second problem came in.
Allison knew a lot of people and they liked her. But none of them were actually what you would call close friends, except for Tess, Jack, and Henry. Only, Jack was off picking up Abby from the airport in the closest city to Eureka and Allison was royally pissed off at Henry for the medical leave.
So Lexi, Tess, and Zoe were at the party – Jo ducked out halfway through the party by using the excuse that she was on duty since Jack was gone – and SARAH had gone silent after being rudely insulted by someone who Tess intended to dock pay from the next day. Lexi had also invited some of the researchers from GD that were developing baby-related products. This would have been fine... if they hadn't been fighting with one another over research funds in the steam room when Tess went to gather them up.
Monroe, Draper, and Bell... they were more infantile than the infants they researched for. Tess had taken Lexi and Zoe aside a few minutes into the party and thanked them for putting up with the bitchy ladies on Friday for her. They were behaving for Allison's sake, but Lexi and Zoe still deserved major kudos.
There were a handfuls of others, who were all looking to impress Allison with high-tech gadgets and expensive gifts. None of it was really lifting her spirits and no one could manage to get her to really smile. All in all, the party was a bust.
As she took another drink from her mimosa bottle, Tess sincerely hoped that Jack's drive back to Eureka with his ex-wife was infinitely less awkward than this party.
-=-=-=
The drive to Eureka was less awkward than Abby had feared. They'd chatted about Zoe's boyfriend, Lucas (hair boy), and her upcoming play. Abby's attention hadn't been all that great at the time. She'd been reading over the confidentiality agreement that Jack had handed her when she'd gotten into the car. Reading in the car wasn't something Abby particularly excelled at and she'd been glad for the distraction of talking to Jack whenever she started to feel a little car sick.
Once she'd signed everything and stuck the sheaf of papers into the glove compartment of the jeep, Jack began to explain to her just what was going on with Allison. He started from the beginning with what had happened on the day of Allison's wedding to Nathan, the time loops, and Nathan's death. From there, he told her about how quickly Allison had returned to work, the incident with the message in the necklace, and the way Allison had thrown herself into work and obsessed over the idea that Eva Thorne was a danger to Eureka. From there he moved on to what happened when he got fired and how Allison had been politely disinterested in his plans to get a job working for Homeland Security; she'd seemed more unable to grasp the fact that he might be going away then uncaring that he was leaving.
Then Jack started in on the signal from outer space that they'd thought might be aliens. Allison had called in Tess Fontana, a friend from school, to help facilitate communications with the possible aliens. But the closer the ship came, the more Allison had grown afraid; eventually she'd gotten to the point where she'd wanted to destroy the plasma generator the signal had directed the townsfolk to build and the ship itself. Her fear had been completely out of character for her, but was overshadowed by Fargo showing up and revealing the truth about the plasma generator's purpose; it was a space jump landing pad.
From inside that ship had come Nathan Stark's organic computer clone and the glass house that Allison had built to protect herself from dealing with her life had shattered. The organic techno-virus had simply made it apparent that Allison could no longer function properly as the head of GD until she sorted through her problems and let herself grieve.
The thing was, hearing about all these problems made Abby doubtful that Allison could heal so long as she stayed in Eureka. There was too much of Nathan Stark in this place, especially with Nate in the picture.
-=-=-=
Nate was currently hiding in Henry's GD office. He didn't like Doctor Manlius, hence the hiding away in Henry's office instead of in his lab where he was supposed to be. It wasn't that hard to figure out the code for unlocking the door to the lab and Nate remembered the location of Henry's office from two days before when the two of them had worked on a solution for the techno-virus together.
Dr. Manlius was the specialist that Henry had called in to unlock the data in Nate's DNA, but he was... condescending to an extreme. He directed all his comments at Henry, kept calling Nate an it, and, no matter how pissed off Nate got with the man, he refused to acknowledge that Nate had any say in what happened.
Of course, had Dr. Blake still been in charge, Nate had no illusions as to just how much say in things he'd have had. She didn't like him – didn't see him as a person – and wouldn't care what his final fate was. Having Henry in charge was a guarantee that his rights, such as they were, wouldn't be violated.
Still, the memory from that morning, when Dr. Manlius arrived, still rankled.
"This is genius," Doctor Manlius circled Nate like a hawk... or a vulture, as he praised Henry. "A self-replicating mainframe with who knows how much storage in each cell. It has follicles and pores... a denser mass in the skeletal frame..."
"I am not an 'it'," Nate snapped. "I'm a 'he' and I can hear you perfectly fine."
"I meant no offense," Manlius assured him smarmily while Henry looked as though he was regretting the decision to bring in this neural networker.
"I'm sure you didn't," Nate drawled, the sarcasm clearly lost on Manlius.
"This is a remarkable piece of technology you've created, Dr. Deacon," Manlius continued, oblivious to the great dislike Henry was developing towards him.
"Kim Yamazaki and I were the designers," Henry corrected.
Manlius just smiled. "Well, let's see what it can tell us."
"I can tell you that you're an ass," Nate muttered, glowering at the man. He'd learned quite a few new words lately – most from Zane – that were likely inappropriate in polite conversation. Henry's smirk at hearing Nate's comment let him know that he was using this particular new word correctly.
Though Manlius twitched, he pretended not to have heard what Nate had said. "I need to test the data extraction process before we proceed to the full download." He pulled out a small, razor like knife.
Nate hopped out of the chair and glared at him. "You need to learn how to ask nicely," he growled as Henry took a step forward.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm just trying to get a sample of its hair to test the process on," Manlius protested.
Henry sighed and nodded, giving Nate a significant look. Reluctantly, Nate sat back down on the chair and shut his eyes as some of his short, curly, dark hair was cut away. He kind of liked his hair the way it was and hoped that he didn't look ridiculous now.
Tess came walking in looking frazzled. "Everything's clear, Henry. The test can start whenever Manlius is ready. The laser has been hooked up to GD's hydroelectric cooling system."
"It uses radiation," Nate concluded uncomfortably.
Nodding in affirmation, Tess said, "Manlius' technology can temporarily alter the shape of an organic computing cell so an electrical impulse can duplicate the data that is locked within it's structure. If this works, we'll be able to copy you without damaging you."
"And if it doesn't work?" Nate asked worriedly.
"You'll stay safe," she responded confidently, but not really answering the question.
"Doctor Fontana, would you assist?" Manlius asked. Though she followed after him, Tess looked unhappy to do so.
Manlius turned on the charm as soon as he thought that no one but Tess could hear him, but she politely blew him off. Then the radiation hit the hair sample in the form of a bright, red laser and Nate stopped eavesdropping on Manlius.
The data started rolling in and Manlius muttered, "and that's just a lock of hair. Imagine what's inside that thing."
Nate shuddered as he watched the hair inside the petri dish. It was smoking a little.
Henry seemed to think that it was safe enough, though he wanted to run a few more tests before putting Nate through the experience of being hit by a radioactive laser. Nate, however, didn't want to try it out at all. There was something about Doctor Manlius that rubbed him the wrong way and it wasn't just the man's refusal to stop referring to him as an 'it'.
There was something else that was making Nate feel... itchy around Manlius and that laser. There was simply no other way to describe how he felt.
Itchy... like he'd fallen into a spider's web just moments before the kill.
A/N - Okay, so this is partially a 'who-done-it' story. The crime will be revealed in the third chapter, along with a handful of suspects. You, my dear readers, will be kept guessing until Chapter 6 as to who the guilty party (or parties) is (are). I'm curious to see how good I am at misdirection.
Who done it? Only time shall tell... Muahahaha...