He had had enough.

The humming was slowly but surely driving him insane!

Gary rubbed his temples in annoyance, knowing that just sitting there and doing nothing wasn't going to stop the humming. He was autistic, not stupid (no matter how many times people said otherwise).

He couldn't ask his team; they'd just laugh at him and call it a 'Gary thing'. Hicks had probably only helped him because of the 'team talk' they'd had that day. Bill would—no, he didn't even want to think about Bill. He kind of wanted to do that thing that the freaky lady had done in 'Kill Bill' (His mother told him never to watch that movie, but he just couldn't help it. He thought the fake blood was really funny). Except without all the super martial-arts skills. Maybe just a machine gun. One of the really big ones. Or a car.

The problem was, none of the others really understood his hatred of the humming—the need to get rid of it. And they probably never would, unless he showed it to them, but that was impossible. He couldn't really show anyone else the signals yet, but he'd been practicing, he really had. In fact, the other day he'd been trying to show his mom one of the cell-phone signals, and she'd told him there'd been a slight shimmering in the air—but then his concentration had been broken, and it hurt his head a lot afterwards.

Maybe…

He made sure the door was locked, before concentrating hard.

Gary focused on the humming, bringing it forward in his mind, trying to make it visible to others, like he'd done with the signals and his mom. The low drone of the transmitter across the street slowly got more and more…solid, if that was possible, and suddenly, he knew he'd done it. He knew he could do it again.

And he knew exactly how to get the team to understand.


The next day, Rachel was the one who noticed it first.

At first it was a gentle humming noise in the back of her head, kind of like a gentle prodding. But it kept getting louder, and more annoying as the minutes passed; finally, she looked up, and listened hard. It seemed to be coming…from Gary's office. What was he doing?

She peered out into the hall, and walked into Nina's office.

Nina looked up and leaned back into her chair, smiling. "What's up, Rachel?"

"Do you hear that humming noise?"

She stopped and listened, frowning a bit. Finally, Nina opened her eyes. "Now that you mention it…"

"I've been hearing it for a few minutes now—it keeps getting louder." Rachel nibbled her lip anxiously, and nodded down the hall. "It's coming from Gary's office, which is pretty strange."

After a moment of contemplation, Nina got up and walked out of the office, Rachel trailing close behind.

Meanwhile, the humming got continuously louder.

Now, the humming had driven even Bill from his office, and he had an annoyed expression plastered on his face. "Where is that humming coming from?" He demanded, catching sight of his two female teammates.

"Rachel says it's coming from Gary's room. I was just about to see what was happening." She rolled her eyes, before reaching for the door handle.

"Wait, there's a lock." Rachel pointed out the electronic keypad; Bill stared at it in surprise.

"He has an electric lock?" He didn't even bother to hide the surprise in his voice. Bill had always assumed Gary didn't know a thing about security, or anything of the sort. The fact that he had actually installed the lock was…it kind of went against everything Bill had ever thought about Gary.

Now even Hicks had been driven out of his office by the annoying humming, which was steadily getting louder. He noticed the gathering outside of Gary's door, and walked over. "Hey. What's that humming?"

"We don't know, but Rachel says that it's coming from in here."

"Gary's office?" Hicks frowned, and scratched his neck.

"Wait…" Rachel interrupted, and pointed to a small note on the inside of the door. "Look! Look at Gary!" She pointed towards the transducer, who had his eyes clenched tight and appeared to be concentrating hard. "Gary is doing this?"

They all flinched when the hum rose sharply in volume.

"Someone go in there and talk reason into him!" Bill growled. "Or turn the humming off!"

"Get Doctor Rosen. Gary's got such a hard head; he's not going to listen to anyone else." The others nodded at Hicks suggestion, but before anyone could react Doctor Rosen himself walked out of his office, rubbing the side of his head in annoyance.

"Is it just me, or is there a humming noise?" He asked; then his eyes traveled over the group around Gary's door, and he frowned. "Oh, so it's not just me…?"

"Yeah, Doc. We think that Gary is doing this." Hicks nodded towards the door.

"Doctor Rosen, why would Gary do this?" Rachel asked, sounding and looking confused. "It's like he's purposefully trying to be mean."

Doctor Rosen was quiet for a few seconds, obviously thinking; then, he gave them all a very serious look. "Now, do we all remember that while Gary is autistic, he's still a human being?"

The team nodded, though Bill let out a tiny snicker. Nina sent him an annoyed look.

"Now, you wouldn't have expected him to do this—it's even a bit of a surprise to me. But I believe that Gary learned." At the team's confused looks, he elaborated. "What happened whenever he complained about the humming?"

Bill had the decency to look guilty, while Nina and Rachel sent Hicks a questioning look. Finally Nina spoke up. "But…Cameron got rid of the humming for Gary. Wouldn't he have…?"

"Gary probably assumed that the only reason Cameron helped him because we had a discussion on teamwork, and it was right after a traumatic experience." Rosen nodded to himself, verifying the statement in his head. "Anyway, he decided that showing you why he wanted to get rid of the humming would make you take him seriously. And promote quick action."

Before Doctor Rosen could finish the statement, Bill and Cameron had already strode outside—no doubt to smash the radio-wave transmitter into bits.

Meanwhile, Doctor Rosen stopped analyzing Gary's behavior and was currently commenting on the fact they could hear the waves at all.

"…Amazing! Not years ago he couldn't even control his powers, but to somehow make other people hear the humming –"

There was a collective sigh of relief when the humming suddenly disappeared.

Seconds later, there was a soft click, and Gary, the perpetrator, poked his head out into the hall, and gave them all a very self-satisfied smirk.

"Thank you." He said, before shutting the door.

I couldn't help it. I know Gary would probably never do anything like this, but...

Gary is my favorite character. :)

IceEckos12