Author: Brent Dax brentdax@cpan.org
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: "William" now; future chapters may include later episodes.
Keywords: William, future; future chapters may add other keywords.
Summary: William Scully finds himself in an FBI school-crime department,unaware of his powerful allies and even more powerful enemies.
Disclaimer: I don't own the people you recognize. Maybe some day when I'm rich I'll buy them and license them to fanfic writers (and then I 'll bankroll my own Presidential campaign *rolls eyes*). The people you don't recognize probably belong to me. You can use them, but please mention me and don't do anything age-inappropriate with them.
Archiving: Go for it--just send me a link.
Feedback: *PLEASE*! I have no idea how good this is or if I should continue it. Praise, constructive criticism, and advice should be sent to brentdax@cpan.org or posted as a review of this story; flames should be sent to the bit bucket.
Dedication: to Darci, as always.
2. Quantico
June 29, 2014
"Are you sure about this?" the social worker asked. "This is a nearly irreversible decision, William..."
"Very sure. I have no reason to want to stay in the foster care system--and every reason to want to leave."
The social worker sighed. "Okay." She took out a form and set it in front of him. "We both need to sign this."
He read the title--Petition for Adult Status--and scrawled his signature on the paper, then gave it to her. She wrote her neat signature on the paper and set it aside.
"This one too." Employment Contract (Federal Bureau of Investigation/School Security Department). He skimmed the contract and signed.
"Okay. Congratulations William, you're now a federal employee."
As he left the orientation, William looked over his Quantico class schedule.
MATHOT, WILLIAM 1013-42 COZENS, DANIELLE 1121-42 T I M E S START END ROOM COURSE Monday, Wednesday, Friday 8:00 9:30 T-31 Technological Investigation 10:00 11:30 G-60 Field Investigation 1:00 3:00 G-81 Forensics Tuesday, Thursday 8:00 10:30 W-03 Weapon Usage 12:00 2:30 G-19 SSD Special TrainingThe first half of his summer would be spent at Quantico; the second half would be as a sort of intern in some department of the FBI. They had asked for a list of departments he was interested in; he included the Technology Crimes Department, the Violent Crimes Department, the Counter-Terrorism Department, and the Unexplained Cases Department.
His entry exams indicated that he was good with computers (no duh--he'd been programming for years) and weapons (one of his foster homes was inner-city, so he knew how to use a gun). His schedule was identical to his partner's, apparently to teach them to work together. That was a good thing--Field Investigation and Forensics would be difficult.
William walked down the hall of the dormatory building. He was looking for his assigned room.
307...305...303. He opened the door and set down his suitcase.
A girl about his age looked up from a couch. "William Mathot?"
He nodded. "Danielle Cozens?"
"Yup."
He would be sharing the dorm room with her--and she would most likely become his partner. They preliminarily matched people based on complementary skill sets (no use having two musclebound agents working together in a department that required such versatility), similar internship requests, and similar personalities. When possible, they tried for opposite-sex partners--it was easier to cover a boy and a girl being together a lot. If they couldn't stand each other, they would be rematched.
"Nice to meet you." He shook her hand, considering her appearance. She was about an inch shorter than him, but noticably more muscular. Brown hair to his red, blue eyes to his brown. He knew from the little information he'd been given that she was the same age as him, and about twenty pounds lighter. He noted with an almost clinical detachment that her body was relatively mature for her age. Her background was not dissimilar to his, but not identical either; her parents had disappeared under mysterious circumstances when she was seven and she had been through the foster home system ever since. They had also said that her skills were primarily in scientific work and general investigative technique.
"You too."
"So," he said, looking around the common room, "which departments did you sign up for?"
The common room had a couch, a TV, and five doors. One led to the bathroom, the other four led to bedrooms. The dorms normally held four people per common room, but they apparently hadn't recruited enough people to fill the dorm building up, so he and Danielle had a common room to themselves. Each bedroom had a bed, a desk, a chair, a keyboard, a mouse, and a screen. Most students had their own computers, and those that didn't could borrow one from the Academy.
"DNA Lab, Anti-Fraud, Anti-Corruption, Unexplained Cases."
William nodded. "Then we'll probably be in UCD. That's my only overlap."
Danielle smiled. "Great--that was my top choice. And call me Dani."
"Then I'm Will."
The T building was designed for classes on computers. William stepped into the entry hallway. One of the walls was glass; behind the glass was the mainframe room. A sign on the wall explained that there had once been a giant PDP-11 in there, one of two computers the FBI owned at the time. It had been replaced several times; the room's current occupant was a Cray Q40-II, a 40-qubit quantum computer. These were some of the most powerful computers in the world, about a hundred times as powerful as the Department of Energy's awe-inspiring ASCI White had been ten years ago. They were used for dozens of things, from comparing DNA samples (finding anyone in the DNA database took about 0.31 seconds) to cracking encryption codes (3.6 seconds for the encryption used to protect credit-card numbers, a month or two for some of the world's most powerful encryption algorithms). Once again, the FBI had two. They costed roughly $500 million each.
William wouldn't be using that computer, however. His class was basically about hacking for investigative purposes. He walked in to T-31 and took a seat. Each desk had a ten-inch flat panel, a keyboard, a mouse, a sync port, and a DVD-RW drive.
Ten inches wasn't big, but it was more than twice the size of the screen on the handheld William plugged into the sync port. William knew that there wasn't too much that had changed in handhelds since he was born. The same companies made them--William's was made by Handspring; they were roughly the same length and width; and the handwriting-recognition software was more or less the same.
The thing that had changed most was what they were used for. More than half the population had their ID on handhelds, since it was easier to verify and harder to steal; some places in upscale neighborhoods no longer accepted old-style IDs. Credit card and debit accounts now were often done via handheld--short-range radio communication came in handy there. Cell phones had long since been consolidated with handheld computers. And they often carried data from place to place.
Like the notes William was about to take in his first class.