Chapter 35
.
-The Courtyard Hotel
Peter woke with a start, staring wildly around in the darkness of the hotel room, confused about what had awoken him. Rubbing at his eyes, he squinted at the alarm clock across the room, trying to make out the time. It was almost two am. He'd been asleep for almost four hours.
What the hell? he thought groggily. He could have sworn he'd heard something, a tapping sound maybe?
He sat up on the couch, scratching at a spot on the back of his head and looking around the room again. Walter's jagged snoring, which reverberated in fits and starts, was not the noise that had woken him. His father's snoring had faded into background noise in recent weeks. Thinking that he must have been dreaming, he started to lie back on the couch.
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP!
The loud knocking on the hotel room door brought him fully awake at once, as a rush of adrenaline energized him, a parting gift from not-so-old instincts which recognized the noise immediately, and interpreted it as danger. Only cops knocked on doors like that; he'd always thought it must be part of their mandatory training. With a groan, Peter swung his legs off the couch and got to his feet. He only knew one cop who'd have a reason to be knocking on his door in the middle of the night. Did the woman never sleep?
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP!
"I'm comin!" he said loudly to the door, then let out a curse as he stubbed his toe on the coffee table. "Shit!" Hopping toward the door on one foot, he massaged his big toe with hand.
When he reached the door, he peered out through the peephole, grinning despite his throbbing toe and the late hour at the fish-eyed view of Olivia, standing impatiently in the corridor. Unable to help himself, he gazed at her unashamedly for a moment before opening the door. His throat tightened as he took in her heart-shaped face and full lips, which she moistened with the tip of her tongue as she waited with a hand on her hip. Christ, she's lovely. She was not beautiful in the classical fashion of supermodels or some movie stars, but uniquely in her own way, which was only magnified by her inner beauty. Her hair was still pulled back in a ponytail, and he frowned as he realized she was wearing the same clothes she'd had on when he'd last seen her. Had she been working the whole time since they'd parted ways?
She leaned forward suddenly, her eyes narrowing on the peephole. Peter leaned back, shaking his head at her perception. He unlatched the chain, and pulled open the door, squinting at the bright light of the hallway.
Olivia stared up at him anxiously, their eyes meeting for a moment and then her gaze dipped to his bare chest for an instant, before rising back to his face. Her lips dropped open as if she were going to say something, but instead she looked past him, into the hotel room pointedly.
Peter stepped aside, allowing her to enter, and noticed that she was blushing faintly as she brushed past him. Closing the door behind her, he flicked on the light and she crossed the room to his couch. Olivia stared down at it, then glanced over at him and sat down, tossing his white sheet on top of his pillow. She'd been carrying a manila file folder which he'd missed before, and placed it down on the coffee table in front of her, her hands fidgeting with the hem of her suit coat as she kept her eyes downcast.
He studied her from his place near the door. She seemed discomfited and out of sorts, words he would not normally associate with Olivia Dunham. The fact that she had yet to say anything about why she was at his door in the middle of the night, or say anything at all spoke volumes about her current state of mind. Had something happened?
"So..." he began, moving closer to the couch uncertainly. "Can I...get you anything? Coffee...or coffee?" He chuckled self-disparagingly. "We don't really have anything else...unless you want a shot of whiskey?"
Olivia glanced over at him awkwardly, then back down at the coffee table in front of her, the redness returning to her cheeks. "Uhh...coffee would be nice, thanks." she said, and ran her hands across her hair uneasily.
Peter looked down at himself, feeling his own cheeks getting hot. He did have on nothing but a pair of boxers, after all. Put your clothes on, you imbecile! he scolded himself. He grabbed the pair of jeans he'd discarded earlier and slipped them back on, then moved to the dresser, and pulled out a gray t-shirt. He watched Olivia through the mirror above the dresser, and had to look away hastily when she glanced up at his back as he slipped it on.
"Sorry about that." he said, turning around. "I'm not really used to having women show up at our door in the middle of the night." He flashed her a broad smile. "Though, in your case...I guess I should be by now."
Olivia lifted her head, relief passing across her face briefly, before it was replaced by the same disconcerted look she'd been wearing when she'd entered. "It's...uh, it's..." She shook her head once, glanced over at Walter and swallowed, licking her lips. "...We should probably wake your father."
Peter nodded, but didn't make any movement toward Walter. "Is everything okay, 'Livia?" he asked, leaning back against the dresser. "You seem a little...I dunno, not quite like yourself." he said, watching as the grip she had on her knee tightened, whitening her knuckles.
"I'm fine...just...a little tired." she said breathily, not quite meeting his eyes. "It's...been a really long day."
"I'm sure." he said, faking a laugh. "There's this thing called sleep; you might wanna give it a try sometime."
Olivia chuckled, "It's never really been my style." she said, relaxing back on the couch.
"Yeah, so I've noticed." he said, giving her a genuine smile, which faded as he considered their exchange.
Peter wasn't sure why she would lie to him, but he was fairly certain that she had, for whatever reason. He supposed that they all had their secrets; at least he'd gotten a laugh out of her. Covering his melancholy with motion, he crossed the room to their small kitchenette and started preparing a large pot of coffee, easily enough for the three of them, plus some.
"Hey, can I help with anything?" Olivia called from the couch, twisting to look back at him.
He shook his head, "It's just coffee, Olivia." he said with a grin. "I think I can manage. You just sit tight." He looked over at Walter, lying spread-eagle out on his bed, thankfully under the covers. The odds of him being nude were fifty-fifty, or greater depending on the day of the week. "Hey, Walter!" he called over to the sleeping form on the as he turned on the coffee maker.
Walter stirred in his sleep, muttering unintelligibly, but did not wake. He rolled on to his stomach, snuggling deeper into his pillow. Peter moved to the side of the bed.
"Walter!" he said again, bending down to give his shoulder a shake. "Walter, wake up!" He punctuated the statement with another, more insistent shake.
His father jerked awake, rolling on his back and staring around the room frantically. "Peter!" he said, his eyes coming to a rest on him. "Are you injured? Sick? Is it your head? Perhaps I should check-" He reached up, trying to take Peter's head in his hands.
Peter batted his hands away, "Stop it, I'm fine." he said, straightening up and thrusting a hand toward Olivia, who'd been watching them from the couch with an amused smile. "We have a visitor."
"A visitor?" Walter sat up slowly, looking over at the blond-haired agent. "Oh..." he said slyly, looking back and forth between them lewdly. "Agent Dunham...have you come to see Peter then?"
Peter stepped between them, giving his father a glare of warning. Walter looked back at him, his face as innocent as a babe. "She's here about our case, Walter." he said, glancing back at Olivia for confirmation. It occurred to him that she had yet to tell him why exactly she was there.
Olivia nodded, picking up the file folder. "Yeah, I uh...found something that I thought you two should see." she said cautiously.
Narrowing his eyes at her guarded tone, he moved back to the coffee maker, pouring a cup for her. After dumping in a spoonful of sugar, he stirred it in and carried it over to the table in front of her, while Walter slipped out of his bed, thankfully wearing pajamas, and pulled on his red robe.
"Okay, so what did you find," he asked to Olivia, moving back to the kitchenette, "that was worth a two am visit?" He poured himself a cup, keeping it black, the way he preferred. "It sounds important." he said, walking back to the coffee table and dropping down in the chair next to her.
Walter poured himself a cup, more creamer than coffee, and began pacing a path through the room, bobbing his head to some internal beat.
Olivia opened the file folder on the table. "Well, I was going through the data that the building engineer, Simmons, sent us and I noticed a discrepancy with the report on the victims from the medical examiner's office." she said, and pushed a printout from the in front of him on the coffee table.
Peter picked up the sheet, running his eyes over the rows of numbers as she went on.
"There were weight sensors in the elevator." she explained. "So, the last reliable sensor reading was just as the elevator started its descent, with the car weighing 1,440 pounds." She leaned forward, pointing out the relevant data to him, and then pulled out the report from the medical examiner. "The combined weight of the victims, 1,275 pounds." She handed the report to him and wiped at her forehead anxiously as she watched him read through the data.
He shuffled through reports, checking her math, though he knew it to be unnecessary. She undoubtedly had double-checked it herself before coming to them. "Ahh..." he said, after a moment, dropping the paper back on the table. "So your discrepancy is a missing 165 pounds."
"Yeah." she said, nodding her head. "Meaning, somebody walked out of there alive."
Peter shrugged. "Okay, I'll bite." he said, playing devils advocate. "Somebody got really lucky. So what?"
Olivia face screwed up into a frown as she shook her head. "Walter's theoretical test subject." she said. "I think he's real, and that this could be him." She put her finger on the elevator weight data set.
Scratching a finger at his temple, he glanced over at her. "The only problem with that scenario is that it doesn't really make sense." he said, hesitating for a moment at her raised eyebrow. He felt bad bursting her bubble, but it just didn't add up to him. "If he was in the elevator car, he should've been electrocuted just like everybody else was. And that's if the impact didn't kill him first."
"Not necessarily." Walter said, speaking for the first time on the subject.
They both glanced back at him. He was still shuffling around his corner of the hotel room, sipping at his coffee.
"What do you mean?" Olivia said.
"If this person is both the source, and the conductor of a large amount of electrical current," Walter said, gesturing with his coffee cup. "Then it could well induce a form of electro-dynamic levitation."
Olivia cast Peter a questioning glance, wanting an interpretation.
"That's basically the technology behind maglev trains." Peter said, waving his hand vaguely as he tried summarize the concept. "They...essentially float, on an electromagnetic cushion."
"So he...floated." she said doubtfully. "Like my necklace did in the elevator?"
"Um...no, not exactly," Peter said, glancing up at Walter, who appeared to be paying them no attention again. "But...it is possible that he could've, maybe...levitated long enough to escape the brunt of the impact."
"But that still doesn't make sense." Olivia said, leaning forward on her elbows. "If you can sabotage machines, you wouldn't sabotage one you're in."
"Very true." Peter agreed with a chuckle. "So we're looking for a below average intelligence electro-man who..." he broke off as another thought occurred to him. "Unless...unless it was unintentional. An accident." he said, clasping his hands together. "Maybe whoever we're looking for isn't in control of their abilities. Maybe they don't even know what they're doing."
Comprehension dawned on Olivia's face as she nodded her head with increasing confidence. "Then we shouldn't be looking for big events." she said. "We should be looking for small ones, unintentional ones."
Peter was about to agree with her, when Walter, who had shuffled close to the two of them, suddenly reached and touched the side of his head, giving him an unexpected shock of static electricity.
"Ow! Come on!" he said, touching the spot on his head. "Damnit, Walter!"
"That was just a small discharge, Olivia." Walter said, moving out of Peter's reach and bending over the agent, measuring the air in front of her with thumb and index finger. "Negligible compared to the voltage coursing through that elevator. I say we need to find this person, and soon, before he finds out exactly what he's capable of." He pointed down at his socks, sticking out from underneath his robe, and grinned merrily. "Wool socks."
Peter rolled his eyes and glanced at Olivia, who grinned back at him. He leaned back in seat, clutching his hands together behind his head. "What even gave you the idea to crosscheck the weights of the victims with sensor data, anyway?" he asked curiously. "It would have never occurred to me."
"Indeed," Walter said, nodding his head approvingly. "That was quite clever of you, Agent Dunham."
Olivia's face paled, and she visibly floundered for a moment before stammering out a reply. "Oh...I…it…it just came to me." she said, smiling weakly, and then abruptly stood and gathered up the file folder, hastily shoving the data sheets and medical examiner reports back inside. "I'm gonna head back to Federal Building," she said all at once, "I…I need to call Charlie…we should get started on a search right away." She moved quickly toward the door, throwing them an uneasy look over her shoulder at them as she grabbed the door knob. "You two can drive yourselves into the lab, right? I'll meet you there later."
Without waiting for a response, she pulled open the door and left, closing it behind her with a thud which echoed loudly in the hotel room. Peter glanced at his father, who seemed startled by Olivia's sudden departure, and then back to the door, wondering what in the hell had just happened.
Walter took a loud sip of his coffee, breaking the shocked silence left behind in the hotel room. "That was rather odd, wouldn't you say, son?" he asked.
Peter nodded his head slowly, not taking his eyes off the door. "Yes…it was." he said distractedly.
Something was going on with her, he was certain of it now. He turned the last few moments of their conversation over in his mind. The nervous, jittery behavior she'd displayed before fleeing, and that was the only word that fit the description of her swift exit, was not the Olivia Dunham he knew. The Olivia he knew jumped off buildings without batting an eye, and was utterly fearless in the face overwhelming odds, like she'd been the other night in the cemetery, saving his ass.
And yet she'd fled after a seemingly innocent question. He would have to keep a close eye on her. He owed her that much, at least.
"Get dressed, Walter." he said, getting to his feet. "We're going to the lab."
Olivia leaned back against the wall a short way down the hall from Peter's door. She held the file folder under one arm and rubbed her hands over her face, trying to wipe away her fatigue and the near panic that had driven her from the Bishop's hotel room.
Way to go, Olivia, she said to herself. If they didn't think something was wrong with you before, they do now.
Peter's question had caught her completely off guard, and she'd had no answer prepared for him. In her rush to get to their hotel, she'd sort of...pushed John's appearance to the back of her mind. All she could think of as she stumbled over her inane response, was that she had to get out of there, that she couldn't let him see her like that, have him witness the fracturing of her mind. Part of her longed to tell someone the truth, but who could she? Going back to Charlie was out of the question. What had happened at the Federal Building was more than just a case of dealing with suppressed emotions as he'd hinted at. John Scott appearing in her apartment to say hello was one thing. John appearing at the Federal Building, and then advising her on the case she was working was something else entirely. Charlie would say she needed to seek professional help, for her own good.
She pushed off the wall and made her way toward the hotel elevators. Pushing the call button, she resumed her introspection on her splintering sanity as she waited the elevator to arrive.
Did she need help? Was she a danger to herself or to others? Not yet. Then she thought of how she'd been stalking her floor at the Federal Building, ready to draw her weapon and reconsidered. Had the power even really gone out? It had been back on when she'd returned to her desk. If it had all been some kind of hallucination…
Oh god…what if someone saw me? The thought made her stomach curdle, and Olivia suddenly felt like she might vomit. She'd been waving a flashlight around like a…crazy person, staring into corners, searching for what wasn't there. Anyone who'd seen her would have thought she was a madwoman.
DING!
The sound of the elevator arriving made her jump, and she half expected to see John standing there when the doors slid open. The car was empty, fortunately, and she stepped inside, jabbing the lobby button repeatedly, and then leaned back against the metal handrail.
She wasn't crazy. You keep insisting that like you have control over it, a small voice in the back of her mind told her. Olivia suppressed the voice, not wanting to hear any more of that line of thinking. If she could do her job, didn't that mean she was okay? It had to, because she didn't know what else to do about it, other than hope that the visions stopped on their own.
Trying to keep her job first and foremost on her mind, she was out of the elevator before the doors could slide all the way open, after it finally reached the lobby. The hotel clerk on duty, a weaselly looking middle-aged man sporting a graying mullet that might've looked good back in 1985, looked up at her from his desk as she approached, licking his lips obscenely and she could feel him undressing her with his eyes as she drew near. She looked over at him sharply as she past his desk, stabbing him with her eyes. The man flinched and dropped his gaze at once, as if the magazine he was reading was the most important thing in the world to him. What was it with hotel clerks? It seemed like every one she came in contact with lately was a slime.
Pushing the annoying man from her thoughts, Olivia exited the hotel, looking up at the cloudless night, as dark mood settled over her. There was a slight chill to the air, with a stark wind blowing in from the east, but not too cold considering the time of year. Looking either direction down the sidewalk, Olivia moved in the direction of her suv, finding the vacant streets calming. The silence fit her mood like a glove, as if it empathized with her loneliness, offering subtle support against the emptiness threatening to drown her. She moved softly over the concrete, trying to camouflage her passing under the cover of the gusting wind, her old habit returning as is it tended to when she was feeling particularly stressed, like she was at that moment. Try as she might to not think about her worsening condition, it was a futile effort.
What would she do if the visions or hallucinations didn't stop on their own? Her analytical mind kept returning to the prospect, and she tried to fit her head around the possibility that what she was experiencing was a mental breakdown. The kind of splintering of self that resulted in padded rooms and forced injections, along with restraints and white dressing gowns. Maybe they'll save Walter's old room for me in St. Claire's, she thought bitterly, then wiped at her eyes angrily with sleeve of her jacket.
She took a few more steps and then stopped, staring blankly down the sidewalk to the next block and beyond. There was a man in dark clothing several blocks away, standing under a streetlight and observing her approach, but she ignored him for the moment as an idea formed, a possible source of succor.
Walter.
Walter might be able to help her, or at least offer his advice; he had firsthand experience, after all. And she thought he could be discreet, if she asked it of him. Maybe he could tell her what it felt like to lose one's mind. It was a long shot, but she was getting desperate for help. And as simple as that, she made her decision. If John appeared to her again, she would go to Walter, and ask his opinion on the matter. Having made a decision to do something, she immediately felt her bleak mood begin to lift, and she started to plot out how she might go about it.
The only problem would be cornering Walter alone somehow, without Peter's presence. Olivia felt somewhat guilty hiding things from him, but…for reasons she wasn't entirely sure of, it was important to her that his image of her not be shattered. He had displayed a quiet confidence in her and her abilities, and she wasn't prepared to see that disappear from his face; to see the looks of…respect he often gave her replaced by doubt, or unease at working with her.
Olivia glanced down at her watch, cringing at the time. It was nearly three am. She looked around, and spotted her suv half a block away, behind her. Apparently, she'd walked right past it in her contemplation. Looking back the other way, the man she had seen in the distance was gone. She scanned the storefronts and buildings that had separated them, but there was no sign of him. Glancing back once more over shoulder, she thought uneasily of the Observer for a moment, before scoffing at the idea. Why would the Observer observe her? She was no Pattern event. She hurried back to her suv, pulling out her phone call Charlie, who was none too happy at being awoken.
"Francis." he said grumpily.
"Hey, Charlie." she said, wincing at his irritated tone. "It's me." She unlocked her door and climbed in, starting the vehicle but not pulling out of her parking space right away.
"Dunham," he groaned, "You do realize it's almost three in the morning, right?"
"Yeah…Charlie," Olivia said regretfully. "Sorry to do this to you, but-"
"Lemme guess," he said through a yawn, "you've got a lead…and it can't wait."
"It can't wait." she agreed, leaning tiredly on her elbow against the center console between the two front seats.
She heard a woman's tired voice, questioning in the background.
"It's Olivia." Charlie said away from the phone, and then he was back on the line. "You've just had your dinner invitation revoked, Liv." he said testily.
"Really?"
"No, not really." Charlie quipped. "Now, what's this about?" he said with a grunt, which she guessed was him getting out of bed.
"Well..." she began slowly. "We're looking for someone whom we think has an ability to control electronic devices, possibly unknowingly."
"An ability to control electronic devices, huh?" he asked wryly.
"Yep."
"You come up with that all on your own?"
"Well…it's a theory Walter proposed." Olivia said defensively, despite knowing that he was messing with her. "But there is circumstantial evidence supporting it."
There was a pause, and then he spoke again. "All right, then. What do you need from me?"
.
After making a pit stop at a twenty-four hour coffee shop she knew of relatively near the Bishop's hotel, Olivia drove the long route back to the Federal Building, avoiding I-90 and taking back streets the entire way from Cambridge. She was aware that she was just putting off the inevitable, but the possibility of someone having seen her in the midst of her hallucination made her reluctant to rush back to the scene of the incident.
In the end though, her moment of panic seemed to have been for nothing, as no one even batted an eye at her as she stepped diffidently out onto the landing of the short set of stairs down to the main office space. Not one look of alarm or sideways glance, questioning her fitness to be there. She let out a sigh of relief and descended the stairs, looking around for Charlie. He appeared to have been busy in the time it had taken her to get back. There was a buzz in the air from the handful of agents he'd called in to help assist in the search for the suspect.
Olivia had asked him to contact all local fire and police dispatches, utility companies, and security service providers, looking for any called in any anomalous electrical activity that might have been reported or picked by their systems recently. It was the only way she could think of to narrow down the area they were searching. If Peter was right, and the individual wasn't aware of what he or she were doing, then it stood to reason that the elevator incident wasn't the first or last instance of their ability working unintentionally.
Stepping down onto the recessed floor, she spotted over a cubic wall, straightening up from a desk he'd been bent over. He looked her way and nodded, moving down the row of desks to meet her. He was dressed in a light blue shirt with a dark red tie, looking impeccable as always. She wondered how he'd managed it so quickly, while at the same time having called everyone in. He was carrying a brown file folder in one hand as he approached, his face all business.
"Charlie," Olivia said with a smile. "Thanks for waking up the team. I imagine that wasn't fun." Actually, she knew it wasn't fun, having been the bearer of bad new many times before. It was one of the few things she hated about her job.
Charlie shrugged indifferently. "Sure, no problem. Part of job, they knew that when they signed on." he said, handing her the file folder. "Now, check out what we've got so far. Reports of anomalies clustered around the outlying parts of Worcester and the Herndon Building. Parking garage, gates, automatic doors, a few CCTVs." He gave a little laugh, "There's even a report from several auto security outfits, Onstar, and other firms like them, of multiple car alarms going off in the garage around the same time as the elevator incident. But I figure that's probably the shock of the elevator falling, you know how sensitive car alarms can be."
"Maybe," Olivia said, opening the folder and flipping through the first few sheets. "Or maybe it was our suspect fleeing the scene. How many car alarms?" she asked, though it didn't really matter much. It was just more circumstantial evidence.
"I don't know," he replied, "it's all in there." He nodded at folder in her hands.
"Well, we need more than that, either way." she said, moving to her old desk and sitting down. "Enough to discern some kind of a pattern." She slid her reading glasses over her nose, preparing to get started.
"You know," he said quietly, sitting down on the edge of the desk and leaning toward her. "Bishop's theory that someone's doing this...You do know that's crazy, right?"
No, Charlie, she thought, staring up at him for moment before replying. Crazy is hallucinating your dead, traitorous lover, having a conversation with him, and then plying him for information about a case as if he were more than a just figment of your imagination.
"Well, if it weren't crazy," she smirked finally, "we wouldn't be looking for him. Welcome to Fringe Division, Agent Francis."
"Yeah, yeah, Dunham." he said with a perturbed look and moved away from her, shaking his head.
Olivia watched him go for a moment, enjoying the moment of normalcy, when things were like they'd been before. The moment was over quickly though, and she returned to the task at hand of finding their suspect.
Spreading out the reports from the file Charlie had given in front of her on the desk, she looked over them briefly, before logging into her old terminal and bringing the up the mapping software. There was nothing to do but plot the locations of all reported incidents on the map, and hope that she could detect some kind of pattern to the suspect's movements. Maybe the perp had some kind of daily routine they followed on regular basis that she could detect.
With a grim determination to prove to herself that she was still all there mentally, Olivia focused her attention on the task and began plotting out the data points. It was tedious job, but important, and about an hour later, she was finished. She leaned back in her chair, stretching out her back tiredly. She took a sip of her office coffee; the good stuff from the coffee shop being long gone, and stared with dismay at the results of her handiwork.
If the anomalous reports were indeed their suspect's calling card, then they had been a busy bee in the last few days. After she'd finished inputting all the data, the map of Worcester resembled a pincushion, with the markers for each report dotting the map seemingly at random. As far as she could tell, there was no rhyme or reason to them, other than that most of the reports were of power outages or brown-outs, which the local power company had been unable to pinpoint the source of. An engineering firm's burglar alarm had gone off in the middle of the day while the space was occupied. An auto repair shop's hydraulic lifts had gone haywire, and begun rising and lowering at random, before the power went out for several minutes. Luckily, no one had been injured in that one. There several reports from gas stations' whose pumps had all stopped working for several minutes over the last few days, all unexplained.
Olivia took a closer look at the gas station reports. There were more than several, she realized, and counted five gas stations in the last week with similar incidents reported. Feeling like she might be on to something, she brainstormed for possible occupations which might require frequent stops at a service station, and jotted them down on her pad of paper. The list she came up with was depressingly short.
Delivery truck driver
Pizza/food delivery
Highway Patrol / Cop
She was sure that she was missing many, but in her tired state she was drawing a blank. Rubbing at her eyes under her glasses, she looked up as Charlie sat down on the front edge of her desk, talking into his phone.
"We're looking for anything unusual." he was saying. "Systems going offline, random power surges, anything at all out of the ordinary."
Olivia watched him for a moment, nibbling on one of her fingernails, glad she wasn't on interview duty.
"Hey, I've got another incident." a voice called out behind her. "From earlier today, after the elevator accident."
She turned toward the voice, and saw Agent Rodriquez looking toward them, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece of his phone.
Charlie looked over at him, "Hold on." he said into his phone, and then nodded at the agent to proceed.
"BiCoastal Parcel." Rodriguez told them. "Some guy lost his hand in a conveyor malfunction."
"BiCoastal Parcel?" Charlie said back to him, his tone curious.
"Yeah."
"I gotta call you back." he said, and ended his call. Putting the phone down, he moved away from Olivia's desk, and toward his own on the other side of the room.
Olivia hurried after him, "What is it?" she asked as he picked up a folder off his desk and turned to her.
"I was looking over the Herndon Building security sign in sheet a little bit ago." he said, opening the folder and shuffling through its contents. After a moment, he found what he was looking for and pulled out a sheet of paper. "BiCoastal Parcel." he said and ran a finger down the list of company names, before coming to a stop near the bottom of the list. "There. Joseph Meegar." He pointed the name out to her and the sign in time.
10:05 am.
It was just before the elevator malfunction.
"This could be who we're looking for!" she said, feeling a surge of adrenaline. "What is BiCoastal Parcel?"
Charlie shrugged, "Shipping, receiving…that kind of thing." he said, then added, "I…uh think they may run a local courier fleet also."
"Couriers?" Olivia gasped.
Of course.
"What?" Charlie, raising an eyebrow.
"Couriers drive around all day, Charlie!" she said in rush. "There were at least five gas stations in the last week that reported malfunctioning pumps…and strange power outages." She paused, collecting her thoughts. "If this Joseph Meegar is our guy…then it would explain the randomness of all these anomalies! They're happening while he's out on his deliveries!"
Charlie turned to Agent Rodriguez. "I want an address for a Joseph Meegar, ASAP." he told the younger man, who nodded and began accessing the Massachusetts DMV database.
Less than five minutes later they had the address and Olivia headed for the exit. When she noticed she was alone, she stopped, and looked back at Charlie. "You coming?" she asked, nodding her head toward the door.
"So you're not ditching me today?" Charlie asked, grabbing his coat, and pulling it on as he followed after her.
"Ditching you?" she scoffed, pushing the door open. "When have I ever ditched you, Charlie?" And when had be become so…whiny? It didn't suit him.
"All the time, lately." he said, walking beside her. "When was the last time we did any field work together, just you and me?"
"Probably about the time I got transferred out of your unit." Olivia said dryly, eyeing him confusedly at first, and narrowing her gaze on him as they toward the parking garage. "Is this about Peter? And your weird issues you have with him being my partner?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Dunham." Charlie insisted. "I don't have any issues with Bishop."
"Are you still jealous?" she asked, fighting back a grin.
"There's nothing to be jealous of."
"You are!" she exclaimed with mock-surprise. "Aww…that's so sweet."
Charlie's eyes popped, and he was still spluttering about it as they pulled out of the Federal Building's parking garage. Olivia smiled to herself, thinking of how good it felt to laugh after the stress of the last few days, even at her friend's expense.
.
They made the drive to the address listed for Joseph Meegar in slightly under an hour, with the sun just beginning to rise in the east as they pulled up to the curb, a few houses down the street from his house number. He lived in a rundown neighborhood on the southwest side of Worcester, the sort of neighborhood where belongings which were left outside at night, had better than fify-fifty chance of being gone in the morning. It brought back memories of her childhood neighborhood back in Jacksonville, after they'd been forced to leave the military base when her mother had remarried.
Looking around distastefully, Charlie opened his door and got out, with her following him a moment later. They moved down the sidewalk toward the Meegar residence, stopping at the corner of an overgrown hedgerow running along the sidewalk of the house next to his.
"What do you think, Liv?" Charlie said, parting the shrubs to get a better look at the property.
Olivia peered around the edge of the bushes, letting her right hand fall to the weapon at her waist. Joseph Meegar lived in an old single story home with a basement garage, and was clearly not one for maintenance. The paint on the white wooden siding and on the dark window shutters was peeling badly, and the small roof over the front porch was sagging to the side in a drunkenly manner. There was an old basketball goal lying on its side in the tall weeds near the edge of the driveway, its black paint having long gone to rust. The garage door was fitted crookedly in place, and she didn't think it had been opened in ages, and was probably incapable of opening. There was a large oil spot on the broken concrete of the driveway, indicating a regularly used parking spot for a vehicle that was nowhere to be seen.
"I think we're clear." she said, looking at closed blinds covering the windows. "Let's go."
Charlie nodded and took the lead, stepping around her and rushing to the corner of the house, crouching down low. He looked back at her and nodded, motioning with one hand for her to go to the front door, while he would cover the back.
Olivia nodded her understanding, and then walked calmly around the hedge and down the driveway, turning onto the pavers leading to the front porch. She approached the sagging roof, glanced up at it doubtfully, and then stepped under it, onto the porch. Pulling open the white storm door with its screen hanging loosely in the frame, she knocked loudly several times, and then stepped back, listening closely for any movement inside. She was going to attempt to try talking to him first, but if Meegar tried to flee at the sound of her knocking, Charlie would surely be able to catch him at the back door.
After waiting several moments and hearing nothing, she knocked again, louder this time, using the side of her fist. She held her ear close the door, listening again, and hearing only silence from within. Reaching down, she twisted the doorknob, grabbing it through the sleeve of her jacket. The door was open to her surprise, and swung inward with a creak of hinges in need of oil.
Stepping to the side of the doorway, she pulled out her phone and texted Charlie a quick message: Front door open, going in
He responded almost immediately: Gotcha
She slipped her phone back into her pocket, and then drew her weapon, holding it with both hands as she moved through the doorway and into the house. The smell of stale cigarette smoke greeted her as she stepped into a small foyer which was dimly lit by an overhead light. There was a narrow bench along one wall, with old magazines stacked high and covering the entire surface. Straight across from the front door was another doorway, leading into a formal living room, the couches and chairs lining the wall covered in clear plastic. In the middle of the room a largish coffee table, also covered in a stacks of magazines. She glanced down at them, recognizing the yellow borders of National Geographic and the red and white letterhead of the oversized Life magazines. The lamps on the end table were on, their shades casting a murky yellow light around the room.
Olivia moved through the living room and through a wide doorway into a dining room, with the table pushed close against the window, making room for more chairs and another couch, blocking the doorway and angled to face an old tube television on a stand against the wall to her left. There was another doorway on the right side of the room, which led into the kitchen, judging by the cabinetry she could see through it. An ashtray packed with cigarette butts was sitting on the table, the only obvious source of the overwhelming smell.
Keeping her gun leveled, she stepped around the sofa blocking her way, and spotted a crumpled form lying on the carpet. It was an older woman in a flowered gown, and from the way her face was contorted in a frozen grimace of pain or horror, it was obvious that she was dead. The woman's right hand was resting on her chest, her fingers clenched like a claw around the fabric of her gown. Her left was outstretched toward the front door as if beckoning, or in supplication.
Keeping her gun drawn, Olivia moved past the dead woman, and toward the door to the kitchen. She heard the creak of a floorboard in the next room and froze, listening intently.
When she heard the noise again, she called out her presence. "Federal Agent on the premises!" she said loudly. "I am armed and will shoot!"
"It's just me, Liv." Charlie's voice came through the open doorway. "It's clear back here."
Olivia exhaled a loud breath, and holstered her weapon. "Only the dead in here." she said looking around the room.
"What have you got?" he said, entering the room.
She turned back toward the dead woman and crouched down next to her. "White female, mid-sixties, I'd guess." she said, pulling on her latex gloves from her pocket and slipping them on. "No obvious cause of death." She attempted to turn the woman's head to the side but her flesh was stiff, frozen in rigor mortis. "Been dead for a while, though." she said, glancing up at Charlie who was gazing down at the woman with regret.
"I'll call it in." he said, pulling out his phone. "...get a forensics team out here." He moved out of the room, heading toward the kitchen.
Olivia pushed off her knees, getting to her feet. There was a small table she hadn't noticed before, sitting next to the television in the corner. Crossing over to it, she picked up a stack of mail sitting in front of a small boom box radio. She shuffled through the envelopes, reading the name on the majority of them.
Flora Meegar. The mother.
Olivia glanced back at the body on the floor, and then set the mail back on the table. She needed to know more. With that in mind, she moved from room to room exploring the rest of the house, building a profile in her head of Joseph Meegar.
Astrid pushed through the door into the lab, surprised to find the door unlocked and the lights already on. She stepped inside, a smile forming on her lips as the sound of a piano playing softly reached her ears.
Closing the door behind her, she glanced toward the piano in its corner near the tank. Walter in his white lab coat, was leaning on his elbows over the back talking to Peter, who was hunched over the keys, playing a jazzy tune which her father would love to hear. She set her things down on a table and walked over to the two men. She would give them their surprise in a bit.
"Hey guys." she said, joining Walter at the back of the piano. "You two are here early."
Walter turned toward her with a start. "Ahh! Agent Farnsworth!" he said happily. "When did you arrive, my dear?"
Astrid was pleasantly surprised that he'd called her by her name. Her last name, but still, it was a start. She still hadn't deciding if Walter's continual screwing up of her name was on purpose yet.
"Obviously, she just got here now, Walter." Peter said, looking up at her from the keys. "Hey, Astrid."
His face was still showing heavy bruising, and she winced despite herself, wondering again what he'd gone through to receive such punishment. She was curious to find out if he'd told Olivia what had happened to him during his abduction.
"Where's Olivia?" she asked, glancing over toward the agent's dark office.
Peter grunted, "Still working, as far as I know." he said, glancing up at his father. "...from yesterday."
Astrid frowned. If working the hours that Olivia put in was how one achieved the Special Agent moniker, she was going be spending her career as a junior. "You mean she hasn't slept?" she asked. "Why? What happened?"
"She came to the hotel late last night!" Walter jumped in excitedly. He leaned toward her conspiratorially. "To visit Peter!" he whispered.
"Really." she said, cocking an eyebrow at the younger Bishop. It was highly amusing that Walter had noticed Peter's propensity for Agent Dunham.
Peter shook his head and rolled his eyes at his father. "Walter..." he said crossly, then looked up at her. "She found some discrepancies with the medical examiner's report and the elevator sensor data." he explained. "Apparently, there was a survivor...and...they may have the ability to control electronic devices."
Astrid's jaw dropped. "Say what?" She was sure she hadn't heard that last bit correctly. Control electronic devices? "You mean like they got a superpower?" It had amazed her that she'd just uttered those words in serious conversation as part of her job. How had she gotten so lucky?
"Yep. A bona fide electro-man." he said with toothy grin, and played an ominous sounding string of notes.
Walter face creased into frown. "That's utter nonsense, Peter." he sniped reproachfully. "This individual's abilities are no more super than that actor who plays Superman in the theater. That tall fellow...what's his name?"
"You mean Christopher Reeve?" Peter said.
"Yes, of course!" Walter said, nodding his head. "I've always loved his portrayal of the man of steel."
"I think he might've died." Astrid said, looking over at Peter. "Didn't he?" She was sure she remembered hearing about that a while ago.
Peter nodded, launching into a mournful dirge. "That he did. A few years back."
"Oh…I…I didn't know." Walter said softly, turning away from, his face crestfallen. "That's dreadful news."
"You didn't know that because you were in the nuthouse, Walter." Peter said acidly, studiously ignoring his father's reaction. "See how that works?"
Walter turned and moved away from them without a word, his shoulders sagging in depressing manner as he headed toward one of the counters on the far side of the lab. Astrid cast Peter a disapproving glare, which he also ignored, and then followed after his father. She didn't know what exactly had happened between the two of them all those years ago, but sometimes he was just downright mean to his father, which she thoroughly disapproved of. Maybe Walter was deserving of it, and maybe not, but she had not been brought up that way.
"Hey, Walter." she said, patting him on the back as he scrubbed severely at his hands over the sink. "Are you okay?"
Walter glanced over his shoulder at her. His lips were pinched into a sad frown. "I'll be fine, dear." he said, shutting off the faucet and then drying his hands.
"Well, I've got something that might help cheer you up." she said persuasively, nodding her head over toward the table where she'd dropped her things. "It's a surprise."
"Oh?" Walter said, his curiosity evidently piqued as he turned around. "I love surprises!" he said, rubbing his palms together in his excitement.
Astrid grinned and led him over to the plastic-ware container she'd brought in. "Here we are." she said, pushing the flat, square container in front of him.
Walter reached out and pried up a corner of the lid, bending down to take a peek inside. He let out gasp as he saw the contents, and looked up at her. "Is that a pie, Agent Farnsworth?" he said eagerly. He bent down again sniffing loudly. "An apple pie, is it?"
She nodded, and explained. "It's my father's birthday," she said. "I always bake him a pie. And… as my mother used to say, if you you're gonna bake one pie-"
"Then you might as well bake two." Walter finished for her, smiling wide.
And sometimes three of four, she thought to herself, thinking of her pie making tendencies.
Walter straightened up, holding his hands behind his back as if her were restraining himself. "May I?" he asked, eyeing the container.
She nodded. "That's what I brought it in for. Let me get some plates."
"Peter!" Walter called over to him, waving frantically with one hand. "Astro brought in apple pie!"
Grabbing several paper plates and plastic forks from Olivia's office, she returned to find Walter bending over the pie, examining it critically, and brandishing a large knife in one hand. Peter had joined him, and was staring down at the cake just as eagerly as his father, his earlier irritation no longer evident when presented with food.
"Did you make this from scratch, Astrid?" Peter asked, licking his lips like a child.
"Of course it's made from scratch, Peter." she replied tartly. As if she would use the store-bought crusts or fillings. Her mother would roll over in her grave. "Now hand over the knife, Walter." she ordered, holding her hand out.
Astrid cut each of them a piece, and maneuvered them onto the paper plates, keeping them more of less intact, and then cutting a slice for herself. Watching their faces closely as they began to eat, she grinned at their reactions after their first bites. She didn't bake for anyone other than her father often, and it was nice to see she hadn't lost her touch. Her father couldn't necessarily be trusted to giver her an honest opinion on her baking.
Peter eyes went wide after his first mouthful. "You're good." he mumbled as he scooped up another fork full and shoveled it in, and then another without pause.
Walter's eyes closed and he let a groan of pleasure, rolling the pie around in his mouth. "Mmmm..." His eyes opened to a slit, staring up at the ceiling. "This is simply delightful, Agent Farnsworth." he said, and then narrowed his eyes on her. "What is that flavor I detect, young lady?" He took another bite, chewing slowly. "Citrus? Orange zest?"
"Cardamom." Astrid said, taking a bite. "My mother's recipe."
"Ahhh...cardamom...that explains the citrus." he said, and then dug in with gusto, mirroring Peter as they scarfed down their pieces with huge mouthfuls.
She shook her head at the sight. It must be a man thing to eat so fast. Her father was the same way.
The ringing of Peter's cell phone brought them back to reality. Back to work, she thought, and began cleaning up the empty plates. She listened with one ear as Peter moved away from them, answering his phone.
"Hey, Olivia." Peter said, then paused. "Really? I was right? Well, that's a first." He leaned back against the piano, listening again. "His mother?" he asked, making a face, which Astrid could only categorize as disturbed.
"What?" Astrid mouthed, getting his attention.
"Olivia thinks they may have found our guy." he said, holding the phone away from his mouth. "Apparently, he may have accidentally killed his own mother; her pacemaker malfunctioned late last night."
Walter, who had perked up at the news, began to pace the space around him, twirling his hands out in front of him. Astrid recognized the behavior as the manic, sort of trance he would go into when he was thinking deeply.
Peter listened again, his eyes unfocusing. "Huh...that long ago?" he said after a moment. "The guy could be anywhere by now."
"Ask her what's visible in the event perimeter." Walter said suddenly, moving to Peter's side. "Electronic devices, specifically."
"Walter wants to know what's in the apartment." he said into the phone. "What kind of gadgets are there...specifically electronics."
Peter waited a moment, and then began listing items. "Answering machine...telephone," he said, counting them off with the fingers of one hand. "A boom box, a fan-"
"A boom...a boom box?" Walter said, looking excited. "That's a device for playing music. Cassette tapes, yes?"
"Yes," Peter grunted to his father, shaking his head. "but now's not really the time." he said, and then spoke into the phone again. "Anything else there, Olivia?" He waited, and then began listing again. "Television, some lamps...Walter. Walter!"
Astrid looked back at the old doctor. He'd left Peter's side and was frantically searching through the belongings that had been found on the victims of the elevator crash. She moved closer, trying to see what he was looking for.
"Pay attention, would you?" Peter said testily, waiting for him to respond. "We're doing this for you!"
Walter spun around suddenly, holding up a burnt-looking rectangular box. It was small, about the size of an old walkman. Astrid looked closer at the object, surprised to see that it actually was a walkman, one of the cassette types.
"Tell Olivia to come home." Walter said, giving the device a shake. "I believe I know how to find him."
Peter stared at his father open-mouthed, then shrugged. "Okay...well...Walter's now claiming he knows how to find the guy." he said into the phone, and then laughed at something Olivia said. "I know. He wants you to come back here." He waited, then spoke again. "Okay. We'll see you in an hour or so." He ended the call and looked over at Walter. "Olivia will be here in an hour. Now how do you plan on finding this guy?"
"I will explain when Agent Dunham arrives." Walter said. "In the meantime, I think I'll have some more of that delicious pie." he said, then added, looking over at her, "If...that's okay with you, dear?"
Astrid nodded, "Eat up, Walter." she said, grinning at his hopeful expression. "I can't eat more than one piece." She looked over at Peter, who was eyeing the pie as well. "You too, Peter."
.
.
.
.
.
.
Here's the third part of 1x05. :-) I hope its readable, and interesting! I'm hoping to wrap this up in another chapter or two. This episode is not one of my favorites, to say the least. I'm really looking forward to starting The Cure, which is one my favorites, but I'm trying not to rush things too much. Leave me a review if you can spare a moment, and let me know if it's any good or not. Thanks for reading!