Author Note: Yay! Good reviews! Thanks! In other news, though: I would do a crossover if I thought it made sense, but the only other shows I know/like well enough would be The West Wing and Grey's Anatomy, and I really can't think what President Bartlet would have to do with the storyline. McDreamy maybe could get in there somewhere (what with the neurology and everything), but I think that's pushing a little too far. Anyway, read on!
It was the second day. Perhaps not the second day since his capture, but the second day since he woke up.
Reid knew it because, like so many others with a high IQ, he had a fairly good sense of time. He also knew that this ability, like a clock in his head, would soon become as disoriented as the rest of him. He held on to it as long as he could.
He cast his mind back. All right. He wants what I have. He wants to know the things I know--- or at the very least, learn to learn the way I do. What can I give him? What do I know?
His body was beginning to heal, but he knew it would only be a matter of time before the first questions began--- and the repercussions he would face if he didn't answer satisfactorily.
With that in mind, he began to plan.
Miles away from Reid's as yet unknown location, Morgan and Gideon walked into Reid's apartment building.
Reid had spent all of his available funds on other aspects of his life, purposely not wasting them on things like apartments and vehicles. After his father's death, the inheritance went towards his mother's subsequent commitment, and when she entered the sanitarium, her money went towards Reid's education. Gideon knew this. He wasn't sure if anyone else did.
As a result, Reid's apartment building was low-end and small. Paint peeled in some corners, and harsh light made dingy white hallways look yellow and angular. The apartment itself was on the end of one such hallway. Curiously, it had a green door.
Using the key he'd gotten from the super, Morgan opened the door, and the two of them entered.
True to Reid's personality, not much extra work had gone into home décor and appearance. His loft apartment was built with no inner walls; the perimeter was brick. All available wall space was taken with bookshelves, crammed to overflowing. On the far wall, three large windows gave a spectacular view of the alley and street below, consisting of not much more than other brick buildings and first-floor businesses. Inside, the opposing wall was a long counter of a kitchen, with an old-school curved refrigerator. It was neat and tidy. A few magnets hung on the refrigerator--- they held up a bill that was due, a library fee, and a piece of paper with his work schedule, written by hand. On the counter sat nothing of notice, except a coffee maker and a loaf of bread, half gone already. The fridge contained little more than bachelor provisions, and a few bottles of beer. On the near end of the counter, near the door, sat a small green basket, full of extra keys, pencils, a pad of paper, and the charger for his cell phone.
Between the kitchen and the windows, Reid had created two small rooms. On one end was a dining area--- a small table, with a fruit basket as a centerpiece (its contents steadily being eaten; the accompanying note read "Thank you for your patronship!", with the logo from the local library), and three chairs. A hanging light provided illumination for the table.
On the other end, Reid had grouped together a long, low, brown couch, and two mismatched chairs. Between them sat a broken coffee table, its fourth leg held with duct tape. Books lay scattered on the table, full of hand-written notations and dog-ear bookmarks. If one sat on the couch, one could see what appeared to be the only over-expense in the whole apartment: the plasma screen, bolted between two of the windows.
A small curtained doorway led into the rest of the apartment: a narrow hallway, with two doors on either side (one to a closet, one to the bathroom), and his bedroom.
Like the rest of the apartment, his bedroom was sparse. There were no windows here. An unmade bed with black, scratchy sheets sat unmade in the corner. Its end table was a neat, but crowded array of a desk lamp, alarm clock, glass of water, and several books. A closet opened the wall at the foot of the bed. In classic Reid, it was full of sweaters, wrinkled dress shirts, and plain tees.
The other half of the room was given to his computer desk, another bookshelf, and an acoustic guitar.
"There's nothing here," said Morgan. "Nothing to indicate that he knew or suspected anything."
"Maybe," said Gideon. "Start looking through the bookshelves. Look for Carl Saga, Stephen Hawking, Stephen Jay Gould. Books on intelligence, books on the psychology of genius. I'm going to check out his computer."
"Did you know he played guitar?"
"He doesn't--- he's learning," Gideon said, motioning towards the open book on the stand. It was a beginner's book; it looked new, and Reid was about halfway through it.
Morgan sighed. This was Reid's life. How much of it, apart from his small hobby of learning to play the guitar, was spent at the office?
Looking for an answer, he glanced at the calendar, the only art on the walls. It was from last year, left up because the picture was interesting: it was a photograph of two old men playing chess.
Most of it, he thought.
A couple of hours passed. Both men kept notes. Reid had used his computer more as a source of information than a source of amusement, Gideon discovered. The only personal site bookmarked was a Star Trek fan site. On another note, he'd been involved briefly with a group online, made up of highly-academic Ivy League alumni, but it appeared that when they discovered who he was, they'd shunted him out of the group. He'd not been involved since. He did not show a preference or an interest in putting himself out on the Internet in any real way. That rules out the theory that Essex found him that way, Gideon thought.
His books ran the gamut from purely intellectual (Stephen Hawkins's "A Brief History of Time") to somewhat bizarre (Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything") to downright frightening (a coffee table book, "Car Crashes and Other Sad Stories", with statistics and photographs of car accidents). He had whole shelves devoted to criminology, others devoted to Gothic crime novels. Some stacks were all about psychological illness in general; others were solely about schizophrenia. He had three shelves worth of encyclopedias and almanacs, and Morgan understood that Reid had nearly memorized their contents.
Currently he seemed to be on an aviation jag; the library books he'd rented, the books piled on the table, revolved around airplanes, flight, and the history thereof.
Nothing in the apartment pointed to an over-zealous quest for information regarding genius itself, save a handful of books in the corner of a shelf. They numbered no more than his books on any other subject; they had not been bookmarked or highlighted any more than any other book. While Reid undoubtedly knew about his own intelligence and its extent, he wasn't overly concerned with it.
Two hours after they began, both men met to compare notes. They really had nothing more than they started with, except a deeper insight to Reid's interests: reading, studying, working, and a hint of Star Trek.
"Bupkes," Morgan said into his phone, as they left.
"Don't bring the Yiddish unless you know what you're doing," responded Garcia. "Anyway, I've got really nothing from that tape. It's Green's basement. He's dead. Period. No distinguishing sounds, characteristics, or conflicting timestamps. It's very straightforward and very well-done."
"All right, thanks, Garcia. How's the research going?"
"Pretty much as you would think," she said quietly, her voice suddenly sounding a good deal less bright. "High-level equipment requires both training and funds. Application of such equipment results in nothing more than a few pinpricks here and there if done correctly--- but if not, it would result in some very serious pain."
"Life threatening?"
"Possibly."
Morgan hung up. Gideon, having heard his end of the conversation, knew without having to ask.
A few hours later, as they re-entered the conference room, they ran headlong into JJ. Along with the rest of the department, she'd cased the henchmen's homes.
"There's nothing there, guys," she briefed quickly. "We were in and out. They'd locked up the apartments and returned the keys before they took Green. No furniture, no clothing, no nothing."
"They've disappeared," said Gideon.
"Yeah," JJ agreed disheartedly.
After a few moments of exchange, including Elle's reiteration of what Garcia had essentially found out, they came to the conclusion that they'd managed to uncover very little.
Finally, as Gideon was about to call him, Hotch came into the room.
"Well?"
"All right, guys," he said by way of opening. "This is Dr. Meg Walker."
Dr. Walker was, apparently, the five-foot-nothing brunette who entered the room behind him. With her dark, exotic, angular curls piled on top of her head, it made her petite face seem even smaller; this was further accentuated by her very large, dark green eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips.
Dressed in scuffed black Converses, blue jeans, and a tight black t-shirt, she looked to be about sixteen. A wallet chain hung between her left pocket and hip; she had at least six piercings in each ear. What appeared to be a tattoo peeked from the neck of her top.
"Hi," she said, shaking hands with all of them. Different silver rings and bracelets clinked on each hand, and each nail was long and painted a glittering purple. Her voice was low and contralto; her eyes sparkled with a purely intelligent humor. "Call me Meg," she continued. "I apologize for my appearance; Hotch had the misfortune of pulling me out of an... artistic session," she explained. It was then that they noticed the small patch of gauze inside her right wrist--- it didn't cover a wound, but a tattoo.
"How old are you? And what are you doing here?"
Elle's voice came out a little sharper than she had intended, but she didn't care. "Hotch, who is this girl?"
"Dr. Walker is twenty-four years old, and she works in the New York field offices. She graduated from a New York City public high school at age twelve. She has degrees from Stanford, Harvard, and Yale, in that order--- the last two being pH. Ds in psychology and criminology, achieved when she was twenty. She lobbied hard for a position in Quantico, was shunted down and sideways due to her age and circumstances, and to Quantico's surprise, wound up excelling, quite spectacularly, in the NY offices."
Hotch motioned for her to sit. She sat.
"Anyway, her subsequent success meant that it was obviously much easier for Quantico to hire Reid. They didn't want to make the same mistake twice."
"Does Reid know?" asked Gideon.
"No," answered Meg. "It was proposed that we should meet following the commencement of his work here; I decided against it. I wanted him to understand that he had been hired on his own merit, not Quantico's mistake." Now that the shop talk had begun, Meg's voice was all business.
"So what do you know about what's going on?" Morgan asked.
"All that you know," said Meg. "Your coworker has been abducted, undoubtedly by an ex-military officer who went off the reservation, and took three men with him, all for his own personal enjoyment. For whatever reason he has deemed men like Green and Reid to appropriate subjects for his sick games. But quite evidently, as proven by his attitude and style, he does not view his work as a 'game'... he views it as an assignment."
She stood. "I imagine you've done some work with the tape and found nothing. I'm willing to bet that the addresses you've been able to find came up cold. These men are unique in their sophistication and well-informed of our procedure. Rifling through Reid's belongings has netted you little more than you had before. How am I doing so far?"
"Very well," said Gideon. "Honestly, I'm surprised I haven't heard of you."
"Quantico believed very strongly that I was not apt for the job," she responded. "Due to my age, my gender, and my... appearance (at the time, my hair was pink), they declined my application. When I went on to do quite well, they decided to keep that success under wraps. Who needed to know that they had made an error of judgment?"
Despite her words, her tone harbored little sarcasm; only a small, quiet disappointment.
"Anyway, I'd like to know everything you know about Reid. Speaking as a genius myself, I believe I can offer some pointers on what he is going through."
Elle opened her mouth, thought better of it, and closed it. Meg met her eyes and grinned. The made her features seem both wicked and beautiful. Her eyes shone. "His and my IQ differ only by a point or two. Spatially, he outranks me; intrapersonally, I outrank him. We're roughly equal in both verbal and mathematical intelligence (as well as interpersonal relations) due to our professions and training. I undoubtedly have a better kinesthetic awareness, but Reid has a better rhythmic one. I've seen his charts."
"They have charts?"
"Indeed," said Meg, her grin widening at Morgan's obvious surprise and discomfort. "You, Agent Morgan, would undoubtedly score high on both the artistic and interpersonal graphs, but perhaps not quite so high on the ones dealing with objectivity. It makes you a truly wonderful agent and friend, but not someone I'd want to meet in a dark alley if I'd stolen your wallet."
She winked at him, then readjusted her tone. "Okay, as long as we're all of a general accord, I would really like to get started. May I see a picture of Reid?"
"What--- you haven't seen him?" asked JJ.
"No," Meg answered, turning her gaze to JJ. She liked the blonde's face, and her sense of style, she realized. Women like JJ always struck her as visually perfect and eloquently accessorized. Not like herself, she noted, with a twinge of familiar shame. "I haven't," she continued. "I saw his charts when he was hired and heard about him through the grapevine, but I've never actually met him in person, nor have I seen his photo."
"Here," said Elle, stepping forward and handing Meg a 4 x 6. It wasn't the stock FBI identification photo. It was a photo taken of him on the jet, when Morgan had bought a new camera and wanted to try out a picture. He had looked up from his reading and smiled slowly, his eyes polite and curious, as if feeling both happiness and latent uncertainty. It was an excellent picture.
When Meg's eyes fell to the photo, something strange occurred. She seemed to squint, blink, and inhale, all at the same time. It lasted no more than moment, before she adjusted her composure and returned the photo.
"What was that all about?" Gideon asked gently. "Are you okay?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine," she said, her tone almost informal. She felt intimidated by Gideon's soft eyes. "Yeah. It's just... he's more attractive than I thought he would be. Anyway, we should probably be..."
"Of course," agreed Hotch immediately, sensing her discomfort. "While we start putting this together, I'll have the rest of the department keep at it. One of us will come up with something soon."
Wow... that was a longish chapter. I hope I didn't lose anyone's attention! ;) I'm excited to keep writing this story... I hope you're excited to read the next part. Soon, very soon! But first, a little explanatory note on some of the terms I used:
Spatial intelligence: Visuals, shapes, construction; those tests where you were asked to find out where a hole would end up if you punched it in a folded paper were designed to measure this.
Intrapersonal intelligence: Knowledge/awareness of one's inner self.
Verbal/mathematical intelligence: Self-explanatory, methinks.
Interpersonal intelligence: Knowledge/awareness of others.
Kinesthetic: Physical/bodily awareness.
Rhythmic: Rhythm and music. (Remember he was learning the guitar?)
Anyway I hope that might be of some assistance. (I know I would be confused if I hadn't looked it up.) Thanks for reading... more chapters soon!
