A/N: Hello! This is my first attempt at actually publishing something I've written. This short excerpt is loosely based off of a scene from S1E2 where Finch has a small engineering job working at his own company. I used this scene as exposition practice so there's nothing really new or different about the story but I would really love the feedback of other Irrelevants on how I did with the explanation! Any reviews are appreciated! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!
Hiding in Plain Sight
The streets of New York felt more crowded today than usual. Harold wasn't a big fan of large groups of people to begin with, but something about that day had him feel suffocated on the busy sidewalk.
He tried to walk as fast as he could to his office in midtown, although his stiff back and awkward limp made moving quickly quite difficult. There wasn't much he could do except fall in rhythm with the foot traffic surrounding him.
As he approached his office, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He fished it out to read the notification that lit up the screen. It turned out to be a news alert informing him that local police were still hunting for a vigilante known as "the Man in the Suit."
This wasn't a new development considering they had been tracking him for months, but it was worrying considering this so called "Man in the Suit" was actually working for Harold himself. Most of the vigilante work he was being hunted for was done because Harold had sent him to do it.
Oddly enough, however, the notification wasn't the reason Harold stopped dead in his tracks when he looked at his phone. No, the reason for his sudden stop was the day's date, February 25: the six year anniversary of the day he brought a god online.
Harold continued walking until he finally made it to his office building. He made his way to the elevator and pushed the "up" button. The doors slid open right away. With no one else around, he stepped onto the elevator in silence. As the doors shut, he could feel the emptiness of the elevator, but he knew he wasn't alone.
He couldn't help but look up at the security camera mounted above the elevator buttons. Knowing he wouldn't get a response, he still voiced aloud, "You're watching right now, aren't you?"
No response was needed for Harold to know that the answer was 'yes.' It was what he had intended when he built The Machine. Ten years ago, he set out to code one of the most complex surveillance systems known to man. It would learn to watch through every camera, listen through every microphone, and comb through every file on the planet.
Originally, its purpose was to stop terrorists before they could act. But it had become so much more powerful than Harold had planned. He needed to contain it - control it- or one day it might surpass humanity. So he sealed it in a figurative black box. When the system detected a threat, the only thing it would send was a social security number. Anything else would have been too much information- too much power- for one person to wield.
Eventually, The Machine started predicting the everyday crimes of ordinary people. No sinister terrorist plot or mass casualty event, just regular people doing irregularly violent things. They couldn't stop every small, petty crime that the system detected and the government sure as hell wasn't going to step in to save these people.
So he had to teach his machine the difference. Relevant versus irrelevant. Threats to national security were relevant; the crimes of normal people were considered irrelevant. Of course, Harold wasn't building this huge system alone, and this "irrelevant list" didn't sit very well with his partner, Nathan Ingram.
Nathan. Harold hadn't thought about Nathan or his death in a few days. Ironically, he hadn't thought about it because he was working to save the numbers on the irrelevant list.
The list that he originally deleted over a year ago. The list that Nathan programed into The Machine without telling him. The list that could have kept Nathan alive, had Harold allowed him to keep it in the system.
Sadly, it took Nathan's death for Harold to realize that his friend was right. If he had the chance to save someone, he was going to take it. As a matter of fact, the day Nathan died, his name had come up on the irrelevant list. He was killed in a pre-planned attack- the same attack that caused Harold's stiff back and awkward limp.
This attack was a bombing that The Machine had predicted hours before it happened, but by then Harold had already locked them out of the system, so there was no way for them to know.
As Harold's mind started to slip into the cycle of guilt he felt over what happened to Nathan, the elevator dinged and the doors slid open to the floor where his office was. It jolted him out of his train of thought and he started making his way to his cubicle.
When he got to his desk, he found an unexpected visitor sitting on one of his filing cabinets.
"Mr. Reese," Harold greeted, trying to act unsurprised. Otherwise known as the police's "Man in the Suit," Harold's vigilante waited patiently for his boss.
"Not exactly what I expected," Reese responded, referring to the quaint job and small desk. He pointed to a plaque next to the computer and added teasingly, "Software engineer of the month? It's very impressive. But it doesn't quite explain your private security, your unlimited funds."
"No. No, it wouldn't," Harold confirmed. And that was by design.
"I did some digging down in HR," Reese continued. "Seems you've worked here for 17 years. Only been promoted twice." Reese then leaned in close so he could whisper, "So how many of these people know you own the entire company?"
Yes, despite Harold's humble job as a software engineer, he was actually one of the richest and most connected business men in the country, not that he would have admitted it. After all, he was a very private person.
But it was these connections and funds that allowed him to hire Reese in the first place. Before he found his faithful watchdog, Harold was haunted by the names on the irrelevant list. He felt that if they didn't get saved, it was his fault.
The injuries he sustained as a result of the bombing didn't exactly make it easy to protect people, though. So he hired a partner. Someone with the skills to intervene. That 'someone' ended up being the man that sat in front of him now.
"None of them," Harold finally answered. "The best pace to hide, Mr. Reese- as you well know- is in plain sight."
"And if I speak too loudly? Say the wrong thing?" Reese suggested with a devious smile.
"Then the entire department would be overhauled," Harold admitted. "Some would be reassigned, promoted. Some would be fired."
"I'll make it quick then. I just came down to ask you if we had a new number," Reese wondered.
"No, we don't. And I thought I told you that I would contact you, Mr. Reese, not the other way around," Harold scolded.
"You did. But I was in the area, thought I'd save you the trouble," Reese joked.
"Very funny, Mr. Reese, but I know the real reason you're here," Harold said.
"I just told you the real reason I'm here, Finch" Reese weakly insisted. Clearly he was lying.
"You're trying to find out more about me. About how our 'mutual friend' communicates with me. And I'm telling you, you needn't worry about it."
"Wouldn't you want me to keep helping people if something happened to you?"
"And what could possibly happen to me, Mr. Reese?"
"How should I know? You refuse to share how we get sent on these little missions."
"There's no reason for me to tell you. Simply knowing could put your life in more danger. Besides, if anything were to happen to me I have… a contingency."
Truthfully, the contingency was Reese. He was the backup plan. If anything ever happened to Harold, he trusted that his vigilante could continue what they started without him.
"And what is that contingency, Harold?" Reese demanded.
"Please. Go do whatever it is you do when you're not working. I will tell you when the time is right."
"You mean when it's convenient for you?"
Harold didn't answer, he simply avoided Reese's gaze until his employee gave up.
"Fine, don't tell me. I'll be ready when the next number comes," Reese surrendered. He started to walk away before turning back and adding, "Oh, and Harold? Don't think this conversation is over just yet."
And he didn't. He knew that Reese wouldn't stop investigating until he knew just as much as Harold. He also knew that if Reese did ever find out the whole truth it would eventually get him killed.
Of course, he had warned Reese when he offered him the job that, sooner or later, they'd probably both end up dead. But they would try their damndest to save a few people before they did.
Thank you for reading the whole thing :)
I hope you enjoyed it! Since this was mostly just practice there won't be a chapter two but I am working on a new POI story that will add a twist to Reese and Finch's adventures so stay tuned! Happy reading my fellow Irrelevants!