The Past Affects

CHAPTER 1

On The Job

(Los Angeles, Scorpion's Garage)

Agent Cabe Gallo stepped through the grimy-used-to be-red door that served as the usual entrance to the garage-turned-headquarters and slid his sunglasses off. "Walter!"

"He and Toby went to Kovelsky's." Paige looked up from the stack of papers on her desk.

"Why?" Cabe frowned and checked the time on his watch.

The cussing from the back of the shop couldn't quite be understood over the sound of banging metal and the clatter as several small somethings scattered across the cement floor.

"Happy didn't get the parts for her motorcycle?" Cabe frowned.

"Amongst other things." Paige sighed and tried to put on a professionally happy face. "What have you got?"

"I think you better call everyone back in. This is going to take the whole team." He set a folder on Paige's desk.

She flipped it open and scanned over the first page. "Someone is trying to hack the banks in Los Angeles? All of the banks?" She frowned as she looked up at Cabe.

"I'm afraid it's bigger than that." Cabe stretched his neck side to side trying to fend off the stress headache he could feel coming.

"What's bigger than hacking multiple banks?" Happy wiped viciously at her own hands with a rag as she moved to lean against Paige's desk and read over her shoulder.

"Authorities and the FDIC are trying to keep things quiet because this information could cause a run on every bank in California and probably spark panic and bank runs on a lot of other banks all across the U.S." Cabe glowered at the papers. "And that's not even the worst of it. From what I've been told the code that's being used to perpetrate this hack is like a back door into each bank it's used on. And so far, no one has found a way to shut those doors. So sooner or later this could drain enough money to crash the economy and if the United States goes down we just might take the rest of the world with us."

"Who's coming with us?" Toby asked as he stepped into the garage with a box of doughnuts.

"Where are we going?" Walter asked looking face to face as he followed Toby in.

. ͽϿ Ѻ Ͼͼ .

(Los Angeles, Biltmore hotel)

The flight from New Orleans to Los Angeles took just over four hours and Eliot was ready for something to eat and a solid plan that hopefully didn't start before they got food.

Eliot tossed his bag into the back of the van Hardison had rented. "So what's the plan, Parker?" He snatched the keys out of Hardison's hand as he headed for the driver's door.

"Food, hotel, burglary." Parker counted down on her fingers as she hopped into the back with Hardison.

Quinn climbed in on the passenger side with a scowl. "Can we please get this show on the road?"

"He said please again." Parker commented with a grin.

Hardison snorted. "Yes, for a criminal he has excellent manners."

Eliot rolled his eyes and followed traffic away from the airport. "What kind of burglary are we talking about? Is this a smash and grab or do we need to be more sophisticated?"

"We'll be breaking into an office building not too far from our old offices. I think the office we're after is on the forty-eighth floor but I'm not absolutely sure yet. Like most tall buildings almost all of the security is on the bottom couple of floors." Most of Hardison's attention was still focused inside his computer.

"So smash and grab is out." Quinn glared at the traffic. "How long do you think this job is going to take?"

"Why? You got somewhere else to be?" Eliot asked with a raised brow.

"No. I just don't think I'll like Los Angeles."

~~o0o~~

Eliot was surprised to find parking close to the Biltmore, where Hardison had made their hotel reservations. He'd supposed that with the nightmare parking could be in that part of the city that they'd have to park much farther away, or Hardison would have to hack something to get them into a private parking garage closer to the hotel. So finding a place within sight of the front door of the hotel was a welcome surprise.

Quinn grabbed several of Hardison's bags in addition to the three bags that belonged to him. Eliot had grabbed Parker's second bag and Hardison's last bag. That left Parker with one bag to carry and Hardison with only his laptop and tablet in his messenger style bag.

Eliot and Parker had agreed that ordering their food to be delivered to the hotel was probably better than going out someplace. Eliot had watched Quinn pacing around their room and had sent him to the lobby to wait on the food that Hardison had ordered. The food was coming from a nearby steak house that Eliot remembered liking when they'd lived there.

Eliot had joined Parker and Hardison in their room while they waited.

"Why is Quinn so nervous?" Parker asked Eliot as he came in through their adjoining door.

"Don't know. He hasn't said and so far I don't think it has anything to do with the job." Eliot shrugged.

"It's not the law. There's no warrants out for him in California, at least that I could find." Hardison didn't look up from his computer.

"Do we ask him?" Parker bounced a little on the bed.

"Not unless it becomes a problem on the job." Eliot hoped that Quinn would talk to him before then.

. ͽϿ Ѻ Ͼͼ .

(Scorpion's Garage)

Paige had called Sylvester back to the office and had stressed the urgency of the situation. So, it was no surprise when he came in dressed in his cloak, pointy hat, and wizard's staff. Friday afternoons were when Sly's friends usually gathered at the Warlock's Chest. It didn't take long to get him up to speed and before long he was working out equations on his dry erase board to help Walter with his hack on one of the first banks affected by the malicious code.

"Why are they only focused on the first bank? Cabe sipped his coffee.

Paige was sitting at the kitchen table with him while she made sandwiches. "I have no idea." She spread mayo over a slice of bread. "I don't know how to help them, other than make sure they get something to eat and distract them enough that they don't get stuck in hyper-focus."

"They're starting with the first bank because it will have the most mistakes. As you do something more often, you get better at it. But the first time you try something there's likely to be a mistake. So they might find more to lead them to the hacker with the first bank than they will on the newest one." Toby had flipped one of the chairs around and sat down at the table.

"Sly, come look at this!" Walter pointed at his screen. "That's a signature. I know who this is!"

Cabe rushed to Walter's side. "You know who's behind all this?"

"Yes." Walter pressed a knuckle to his lip. "No. Well, maybe."

"Either you do or you don't son. Which is it?" Cabe looked back and forth between Walter and the code still scrolling on his screen.

"It looks like A H but there's something wrong. I mean the signature is his but this code is old. The first time I ran into him his coding looked like this but it's been years…."

"So what makes you think it isn't him?" Paige put a sandwich into Walter's hand.

"There's been a few times since then that I ran into code that I think belonged to him but it was more sophisticated, cleaner." The last word was said around a bite of sandwich.

Sly was still staring at Walter's screen his untouched sandwich in hand. "Was that the guy that went up against a Sterenko a few years ago?"

"Yah, that's the guy."

"I see what you mean. This has similar traits but it's rough. I saw code from that Sterenko and it was smooth, it flowed. This stuff is blocky. It's like pieces of that other code but more basic."

"Right!" Walter leaned forward and jabbed a finger at the screen. "See the way he set up this loop? It's like…"

Paige pushed the screen of the laptop down almost closing it. "Okay. Explain for the non-geniuses. Is this the same person, this A H, or not?"

Walter shrugged and finished his sandwich.

"Let's look at the most recent bank and compare the code." Sly set his sandwich down as he turned back to erase his board.

"Food first big guy." Paige patted Sly's shoulder and swapped the sandwich for the eraser that was in his hand.

He smiled his thanks as he bit into it.

. ͽϿ Ѻ Ͼͼ .

(Biltmore hotel)

The food had been delivered and everyone had settled in around the small table in Parker and Hardison's room. Eliot noticed the unusual quiet that had settled over the room. Quinn seemed a little more introspective and Hardison was focused on his hijacked code. Parker was focused on Hardison and Eliot was taking stock in the pack bonds.

After a few more minutes, Eliot looked at Parker. "So what's the plan?" He wiped his fingers on a napkin and tossed it into the to-go box his food had been in.

Parker rubbed off the barbeque sauce on her cheek with the back of her hand. "Hardison and I will hide in the top of the elevator shaft and wait until the building is locked down. Then Hardison can spoof the system to make it think the elevator isn't moving while we use it to access the forty-eighth floor." She took a sip of Hardison's orange soda. "I'll get him through locked doors and drawers as needed and serve as look out. You two will keep our exit clear on the ground."

"No." Eliot leaned forward a little. "One of us goes in as protection for you two and the other keeps the exit clear." His eyes flashed yellow.

"Told you." Hardison smirked.

"Fine Sparky." Parker smiled. "You two decide who's going in."

"I'll do it." Quinn volunteered with a pat to Hardison's shoulder.

Eliot didn't like not being right at Hardison and Parker's side as they pulled off a caper but he trusted Quinn and it was the first thing Quinn had shown interest in since they boarded the plane in Louisiana. "Okay. I'll keep the exit open." He leaned back in his chair.

"So what is the exit? Are we waiting until tomorrow to slip out with regular traffic or are we taking out the guards?" Quinn shoved his fries to the side.

"Burn scam?" Eliot mused aloud. "Maybe the Tennessee shuffle."

"I think we'll go with the burn scam." Parker shrugged. "There's a prop supply store around the corner. I'll pick up the things I need on the way there."

"Burn scam?" Quinn raised an eyebrow. When he saw the blank looks on his pack's faces, he explained. "I used to kill people. I never bothered with trying to trick them so I don't know all the scams by name."

"I'll apply makeup and silicone scars to make it look like I was recently burned. You and Hardison will guilt trip anyone who looks our way. If they're too uncomfortable to look at me they won't remember what we looked like exactly."

"Seems risky. Wouldn't drawing their attention make us more memorable?" Quinn frowned.

"Their brains won't be able to process shame and yelling men and still remember exactly what we looked like." Parker shrugged and took one of Quinn's fries.

"It's worked before." Eliot commented.

Hardison checked his watch. "Let's get to the prop shop and start getting things in place."

. ͽϿ Ѻ Ͼͼ .

(Scorpion's Garage)

Walter and Sly were still pouring over the code with occasional bursts of excitement or groans of dismay, and the rest of Scorpion was relegated to the sidelines.

Happy had finally put her tools to the side and came over to join Toby at the kitchen table. She rested her head against his shoulder and sighed. He wrapped an arm across her shoulder.

"So what's really going on?" Toby asked her.

Happy sat up and glowered at him. "Nothing's going on. I told you before. That moron in Sacramento promised me the parts I need for my bike and he didn't come through."

"You don't usually try to dismantle the entire garage over a late parts order. Late parts have happened before." Toby readjusted his hat.

"I don't know. I think it's …" She looked around. "I think it's Paige's fault."

Toby chuckled. "Really? She stole your special order and is secretly keeping your bike parts in a nefarious plot?"

"No." She batted at his hat. "She's still working on everyone's EQ points and it's…" She clenched her fists. "It's just getting to me."

"Are you having more human moments?" Toby teased. "Feeling your feelings?" He dodged as she slapped at his shoulder.

"I guess… maybe… I don't know." She leaned forward and rested her head on her crossed arms on the table. "Maybe I'm getting sick."

Toby slid a hand onto her forehead and she growled at him but he ignored her. "Temperature seems pretty normal. What makes you think you're getting sick?"

"Who's sick?" Ralph asked as he came through the door and dropped his backpack on the couch.

"No one." Happy sat up.

"We brought food. Maybe you guys could take a break and we could all eat together." Paige smiled as she dropped her purse by her desk.

Cabe followed her in with several bags full of to-go containers in them. "Food! Come on." He gave Walter's chair a kick on the way past. "Everybody gather 'round and get some grub."

Everyone settled in around the table, passing food around. Cabe eyed Walter but waited until he'd finished filling his plate before asking for a progress report.

"So where are we at on proving it's this A H guy behind the hack?"

"Absolutely nowhere." Sly answered for Walter while he tried to twirl a noodle onto a fork.

"You seemed pretty certain it wa couple of hours ago. What happened to all the code looking right? And didn't you say that he signed it or something?"

"The problem is the new code that we found." Walter prodded at a shrimp with his chopsticks. "The sniffer bots that are looking for the old code have A H's signature and the old code itself also has A H's signature. So it doesn't make any sense."

"Can someone explain that for the rest of us?" Paige asked as she scooped several more shrimp from a to-go container and placed them on Walter's plate.

Ralph smiled at his mom. "Sniffer bots are code that is designed to look for other code. If the bot finds code that matches what it's looking for then it usually starts another process." Ralph looked at Walter and Sly. "Can you tell what the bots were programed to do after they find the code they're looking for?"

"That's the part that really doesn't make sense. Both the old code and the bots carry A H's signature and I would have expected the bot to help execute the old code faster or cleaner but instead the bots have been designed to kill the old code. They bog the old code down with so many extra loops that cause structural damage to the original code that eventually the old code can no longer function."

"Why would A H or whoever want to slowly stop the code from working instead of just killing it?" Happy frowned as she ate her noodles.

"The first few times the sniffers were launched that's exactly what they did but whoever is using the old code just kept launching it trying to get past the sniffers but they launched it so fast that it basically created a denial of service attack. The IT department at that bank was able to shut things down long enough to stop the attack."

"That community bank that was in the news last week?" Toby asked.

Sly pointed at Toby with his fork. "Yep, that's the one."

"So they changed tactics. What does killing the code slowly get them?" Cabe asked.

"The script that the sniffer bots run when they find the code stops the old code from syphoning money but after that everything moves slowly. I think it supposed to stop the person who's using the old code from noticing right away that their code isn't working. It would look at first like it was running but if you don't know how long it should take or you aren't monitoring it, eventually it would just die without notice."

"So A H created the old code and created the bots that are killing it?" Paige summarized.

"That's what it looks like." Sly shrugged.

"Is there some way to find out where this person is at? I don't care what they call themselves as long as we get whoever is responsible."

"On the first several hacks you could tell the IP was being bounced all over the place but when the bots changed tactics whoever created the bots started tagging the code so bit by bit I'm following…." Walter looked at the confused looks on Cabe and Paige's faces. "It's like breadcrumbs. It's not a clear trail but it gives you an idea where to look and that breadcrumb leads to the next."

"So you are following another hacker that might be hunting the first hacker?" Cabe scowled. "That doesn't sound safe. What if he turns around and sees you following him? Couldn't he hack you back or something?" Cabe made a chopping motion with the side of his hand.

Walter smiled. "It doesn't really work like that. And even if he did 'see' me I'm not sure he would care. The way he set up his tags it's like he's trying to get attention."

"Just be careful son." Cabe went back to his chicken.

. ͽϿ Ѻ Ͼͼ .

(Building complex)

Eliot didn't like sending his pack in without him. He knew there would be things to get used to when they added Quinn to the pack, but he hadn't anticipated this. He pulled the van into the lane for drop offs and valet parking.

Parker leaned between the front seats gripping Eliot's shoulder. "I know you want to be growly, but this is a good plan. It's better because you are our safety net. You'll keep our exit available and you'll be there if something happens."

"Thanks, darlin'." Eliot patted her hand.

Eliot could feel Quinn's uneasiness building so he did his best to get a grip on himself. "Quinn…" He put a little power into his words. "do your best to keep all three of you safe."

"I will." Quinn's eyes flashed blue and he gripped Eliot's arm in reassurance.

Eliot felt his wolf settle when Quinn's did. He knew Parker was right. They'd have to park the van a lot farther away, or in a parking garage which wasn't a good option, if he wasn't there. This would allow him to circle until they needed him and they would be able to make a faster get away.

He knew that Quinn really would do his best to keep the others safe and not just because of the order but because it was his natural inclination. Maybe some of it was because of the pack bonds, but the way that Quinn had dealt with the team years ago before Quinn had any ties to them, told Eliot that Quinn would do a good job.

.

.

.

AN: The Biltmore Hotel was used in all of the outside shots of the team's headquarters in season one.

For any of you Scorpion fans reading this story… I am ignoring the final episode of the series and the existence of Florence all together. I'm also making the Scorpion team a tiny bit more law abiding than they were on the show. Hope this doesn't throw anyone off too badly.

EQ / EQ points = Emotional Quotient sometimes called emotion intelligence is a term used frequently in the Scorpion show. According to the show the more IQ a person has often means they have less EQ. A person with a high IQ and low EQ may have a harder time relating to average people. Lack of EQ makes them insensitive or seem insensitive.