"The Face with Two Skeletons"
By: Tropicwhale
Disclaimer: Not Mine I Promise NMIP
Author Talk: Okay so started classes and am in tech week for "King and I". I've learned to change my clothes while driving, live without food or sleep and do homework in the dark of the catwalks. Be glad I'm updating at all and I'm sorry there's no smut in this chapter. There's random smut in "Sometime Around Midnight" if you really need it. But this chapter is all plot. (I'm SORRY!) (PS: this was written a month ago, I'm now getting ready to go into tech for the play I'm acting in "A Better Man", the rest of it's true though :) sleep, I wish, forgoing in order to show you all that I'm alive and writing, appreciate and don't yell, my psyche is rather fragile at the moment)
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Zack had a morning free. The night before Booth had returned from his walk and they ate spaghetti in silence. After dinner Zack automatically did the dishes and Booth took a shower then disappeared into his room. Zack made his bed on a couch and went to sleep.
In the morning Zack woke up to the sound of the front door closing. He took a shower and made himself breakfast. He then called Agent Marsters to check on whether or not the federal coroner was finished the autopsy of the body. Marsters told him that it would be transferred to the Jeffersonian that afternoon. Zack thanked Special Agent Charles Marsters and hung up. A morning of doing nothing did not appeal to Zack so he looked on the internet and found a symposium on burning plasma diagnostics. It sounded interesting so Zack looked up bus routes from Booth's neighborhood to the convention center. The next bus would pass by in ten minutes so Zack grabbed his wallet and Booth's extra keys. He locked the door on his way out and raced to the bus stop. It was good to get out of the apartment. Ever since Anne's body was found Zack's orderly life was…torn to shreds….like a piece of sailcloth on an old wooden tall ship in a hurricane. Although, with all this turmoil in his life, it appeared that Zack's skills at metaphor were improving.
As Zack rode on the bus to the symposium he considered all the good that had come out of the bad situation he currently found himself in. He was working a murder case as the primary "squint" or, at least, without the aide and guidance of Dr. Brennan and the others. Dr. Goodman once told him he had a first rate mind and that it shouldn't be wasted playing assistant for the rest of his life. Experimenting meant that he needed to try multiple times to find a solution. Obviously, identifying bodies of mass slaughter victims in Iraq while bombs went off all around him was not an effective use of his talents. It wasn't that he didn't take issue with being given orders, at least orders that were rational and logical. Dr. Brennan and Dr. Saroyan gave logical orders and had rational expectations of Zack. The several squads he was cycled through seemed to take issue with Zack and, out of some irrational reasoning, made demands of Zack that he couldn't possibly attend to…like handling a gun. Zack knew exactly what guns did to people. He knew that it was similar guns that caused the deaths of the remains that he was pulling out of mass graves and identifying. He was there in a private sector. He shouldn't have to be able to handle a gun. Zack hadn't wanted to kill anyone or even be placed in a situation where that was a possibility. Zack wasn't a murderer. Labs were safer. In a lab was where Zack belonged.
Zack took a deep breath. This was an opportunity to make Dr. Brennan and Booth proud of him. With Zack's help Agent Marsters would be able to discover the identity of the murder victim and the murderer and bring about justice. It was a good opportunity. And there was also the matter of having had sexual-having s-doing-Zack's mind stuttered when he thought about the activity he and Booth had become involved two weeks ago. The fact he and Booth engaged with each other physically metagrobolized Zack's mind. He knew that it would never happen again but to give up on something so completely and then receive exactly that. Maybe there was a God and maybe He did have a plan that Zack would have a part in. Maybe there was such a thing as getting exactly what you wanted. Either that or it was a nice, unexpected fluke in the data. Zack got off the bus and paid for his ticket to the symposium.
It was interesting. Burning plasma, in theory, was cleaner than nuclear fuel and had the potential to completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels almost completely. Diagnostics of burning plasma would give insight on how to measure energy output. It was a step in the direction of what was colloquially known as cold fusion which, of course, was the ultimate goal in replacing finite resources like fossil fuels with cleaner, more efficient technology. Zack sat more or less in the back few seat of the current lecture and took notes in a spiral notepad he had bought from the Rite Aid across the street from the convention center. A man slipped into the seat next to him and gave him a tight closed mouth smile. Zack nodded back and returned his attention to the professor of applied physics on stage.
Apparently, there were new techniques being developed in the fields of lost and confined alpha particles, tile erosion, and tritium inventory and retention; all of which was very excited and any of which could lead to a sudden advancement in not only the application of burning plasma but also in how we understood the physical world. "Fascinating." Zack glanced over at his rowmate.
"Yes." Zack turned back to his notes.
"It'ss a sshame that none of thiss will ever come to fruitation." The man had a slight lisp. Zack looked up, confused.
"How so?" The m an gave another tight-lipped smile
"The world'ss governmentss would use any advancementss from this research to create weaponss and not any technology that would benefit ssociety."
"History has shown that wars create opportunities to advance society and to wean out the population." It was that sort of talk that the first squad Zack was stationed with that had him quickly transferred and the next CO made sure Zack understood that talking about weaning out populations in front of men and women ready to defend each other and him was disrespectful and cruel. Zack had promised not to mention it in front of soldiers again.
"Of course, ssacrificess are alwayss made to advance culturess. It iss more of a matter of when ssacrifice iss necessary and when it isn't…most people don't know the difference." Zack smiled. Here was a rational man. Zack didn't meet many rational people. Zack turned his attention back to the speaker.
After the speaker finished there was a short break to set up the projector for the next speaker and to allow the audience to stand and stretch and discuss the ideas presented by the professor. Zack stood and walked back out into the lobby. The man followed him out and disappeared into the crowd. Zack walked out and over to the Starbucks on the corner. He ordered a decaf coffee and biscotti. As he exited the coffee shop he saw the man who sat next to him during the lecture. The man nodded and Zack walked over to him. "Hello"
"Hello." The man gave another tight-lipped smile. "I recognize you now."
"Am I recognizable?"
"I was reading about Dr. Brennan's team in the paperss last year. You were described asss robotic but wildly intelligent."
"Yes. I remember."
"I do not think anyone that iss wildly intelligent could be robotic."
"No. It's true. I have trouble reacting as normal person might to most situations. I'm hyper-rational. It is sometimes more of a hindrance than an endowment."
"Only if you are placed in ssituationss that do not make use of your intellect which iss a hinderance to the rest of the world…not to you. I think you are one who is greatly unappreciated in his life."
"I never thought of it as being unappreciated."
"You are." Zack looked at the man. "Of course…if you worked for ssomeone like me….you would change the world….saave ssociety from that which would destroy it."
"How?"
"By ssacrifice." Zack's mind kicked into overdrive.
"You're Gormogon." The man smiled a toothless grin.
"Gormogon? How quaint. Dr. Hodginss made the connection, I'm ssure. I am the Master…and I have found myself in need of an apprentice. The Apprentice before you…he wass unworthy of the mission….and I knew from reading that article and seeing you in The Vault. How meticulouss…how focussed…you would do more good-"
"How did you see me in the Vault?" Zack wanted to know. Gormogon smiled.
"If you are truly asss intelligent asss you are ssuppose to be then you'll figure it out. I ssee everything in the Vault. I know everything. I know you."
"It is impossible to know everything. You kill people and eat them ritualistically. And you tried to kill Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth. I should call them and have you arrested."
"You haven't because you know that if you try I'll kill you…I also happen to know you left your cell phone at Agent Booth'ss apartment. Besidess, I would not have approached you had I not known you would have been at least slightly receptive to my way of thinking."
"I'm not."
"You're a rational man. You know that ssecret ssocietiess penetrate every level of our culture and how can the many thrive with the few controlling every known advancement for their own gain? You, yourself, have felt the pressure of having your thought processesss and actions dictated to you instead of choosing for yourself the right and rational course of action. What about Bradley Oscarmann? Was his death not a result of unnatural and rooted bigotry? His own father is ssubjugated to the forcess that compel society. It their biasss that killed your friend and lover…not hiss father'ss. Why wouldn't you want to relieve any of that hegemony?"
"How do you know about Bradley?"
"I know also about James Zerbrowski as well. Hiss wife and her ssister. How ssmall our world really iss, Zaddy. Why wouldn't you want to ssave them?"
"Did you kill Anne and Mrs. Oscarmann?"
"Do you wish I did?"
"Why?"
"You deserve to be free, my Apprentice. Free to love whomever you love and to serve a higher purpose…to be altruistic in the truest sense. But you don't have to answer now….after all, you have a murder victim to identify and worth to prove. I wouldn't want to make you late and missed. I'll give you…two weekss? A fortnight to decide if you want to be free to sserve ssociety on your own or be a sslave to the greed of otherss for the rest of your life; for a man of your intelligence that is time and a half to make a informed decision." With that the Master disappeared into the crowd leaving Zack with a lot to think about.
Author's After Talk: I wanted to see this scene in the real show...so I wrote it here to serve my purposes and to give you a timeline within the series when this takes place. I feel I have to explain this to all of you or some of you will yell at me...and that, I just can't take at the moment. More incoming.
Tropic
