Title: Transhuman
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Characters/Pairing: Garcia-centric, team - gen
Genre: Science-fiction/Drama
Summary: In a dystopian future, hacker Penelope Garcia finds herself being hunted by a corrupt organization. Fearing for her life, she must search for help in the strangest of places.
Author's Notes: Betaed by Windy City Dreamer.
Chapter Eleven
Derek Morgan found himself spooked by the appearance of his former friend. Elle Greenaway had been one of them. She had worked with them to bring down the Corp. Then, one day, she had betrayed them all, and Morgan still didn't know what had caused such a shift in her fundamental beliefs.
After the betrayal, they'd had a major upheaval; all of their old safehouses were useless, and the security of their homes questionable. The next six months had been haphazard at best, only some of their locations still safe. It was by some marvel that, though their foundations had been shaken, they still remained free. Why that had happened was as much a mystery as the reason for Elle's defection.
It had begged the question of whether she'd been forced into turning, or whether there was something bigger at play. Though they had attempted to find out, it was nigh impossible to gain entrance to the Corp database without an inside contact, or a back door of some variety.
Six months after that, he got a phone call. He'd spent the week tracking down an informant with no luck, and then someone had rung him, and given him exactly the information that he'd needed. They'd approached the situation with caution, wary of the trap that turned out to be not so inevitable. It was this contact that had helped them rebuild their organization.
And now it looked as though things were falling apart all over again.
Upon exiting the alley hurriedly, they smoothed their pace to a fast walk. Running would only draw attention. They headed south; it was less than five blocks to the nearest Glamrail station, and they could go almost anywhere from there. With any luck the street cameras wouldn't pick them up; the Corp specialized in intimidation through oppression, rather than outright omniscience.
Morgan pulled his phone from his pocket, not even bothering to look at the screen as he typed out the message. A few clicks, and commands later, the message had been sent to six hundred people. It was a safety precaution. Only twenty or so of those that received the message would actually understand its true meaning. The rest would read "Kath can't make dinner tonite – reschedule nxt Thrs?" and assume that it was a wrong number.
His phone bill was going to be ridiculous.
As long as they made it out alive, though, he'd pay the costs, providing that the account didn't get voided when the Corp decided that he was suddenly a "person of interest." It didn't make sense for them to not figure out that he was involved. The phone itself he tossed in a trash receptacle; he didn't want to be traced. There were secondary methods of contact for use in such circumstances.
'You have alternate ?' he asked, as they came within view of the Glamrail station. His I.D had been used in conjunction with theirs that morning; if they used those now, the Corp would be on them within minutes.
'Um.' The blond took the backpack from Kevin, emerging with two small plastic cards. 'Last spares,' she smiled. 'Winifred Eliot. Frank Moore.'
'Frank?' asked Kevin, somewhat distastefully. 'When do I get to be Jean-Paul again?' He put on a terrible accent that didn't sound particularly familiar to Morgan, saying, 'I like ze vay peeple look at me.'
'After that, I think it's safe to say you'll never be Jean-Paul again.' Garcia rolled her eyes at the pout on Kevin's lips, and Morgan found himself grinning, in spite of the circumstances. He found it admirable that these two had managed to stay positive on the run from the Corp. It made him think that maybe there was hope for the world after all.
The address they needed to get to was burnt into his memory; not listed in any of their computer systems. He bought three tickets from the machine on the platform; two using Garcia and Kevin's new , and one using a card that his contact had given him. The card fooled the machine into thinking that he had provided a valid identity.
They caught the train going east, the track snaking along the river, running parallel to the slums opposite. It was because of this that most of the windows were darkly tinted. Passengers wanted to forget that the slums even existed.
They got off half a dozen stops from the end of the line. There, the skyscrapers had thinned out. The buildings were mostly two to three-storey industrial and residential facilities. The tallest thing there was an EarthTech building, almost seeming out of place. Morgan found his heart racing at the sight of it; they'd tried going for EarthTech once, but had found the security too tight.
The EarthTech building, though, was not the most disconcerting thing to be seen from this side of town. To the average citizen, the most disconcerting thing was the wasteland that started at the city's boundaries. For miles upon miles, there was nothing to be seen but the dry, arid desert. A sharp contrast to the overabundance of concrete and steel that was the city itself. Experimental terraforming had been just enough to provide the city with adequate recreational facilities – north of the river, at least.
He led them to a low-set building that looked almost exactly like all the rest. It seemed a little more slummish down this end of the city, but nowhere near as bad as the actual slums. The halls were quiet, and Morgan might have thought that no-one else lived in the building. Then, they turned the corner, and he saw the young man at the end of the hallway, struggling to open his door.
It wasn't a surprise that he was having trouble; he was carrying several bags and a cage of some variety. Morgan found himself going over to help, even though he was supposed to be keeping a low profile.
'Let me give you a hand.'
He held two of the bags while the man clumsily typed in his keycode.
'Thanks,' he said, somewhat bashfully. 'I haven't seen you around before.'
'We're renting the apartment next door,' Morgan said. 'We've been on the lease for a while, but we haven't had the chance to move. We thought we'd check the place out. My name's Derek.' He held out a hand.
The young man seemed hesitant at shaking, but did so anyway. 'Spencer,' he said.
A/NII: Out of interest, if I were to start posting original fic at some location, would any of you be interested in reading it?