Author: Milady Dragon
Disclaimer: I don't own anything really…
Author's notes: Thanks again for reading. You really make my day!
Chapter Nine
Cameron barely had time to react to her surroundings before a weight landed on top of her. It was Paul, being jaunted in.
"Where's Ellie?" he demanded, tumbling off Cameron's lap, almost knocking House over, and finally coming to rest at the foot of the Lab's main jaunting pad.
"I attempted to jaunt her as well, however she did not arrive," Tim's voice echoed throughout the room. He was panicked.
So was Cameron. She jumped up, leaping over Paul as she automatically made her way to the link table. The other Tomorrow Person was right behind her; as she was taking her place, laying her hands on the lighted top of the table, Paul was doing the same opposite her, the tips of his middle fingers touching hers.
She felt the familiar sense of contact, as she, Paul, and Tim all linked together. "Elena?" she called urgently, her mental voice much more powerful than it would have been without the other two lending her their strength. "Elena, can you hear me?"
They waited, listening for their friend's comforting mental voice.
They heard nothing.
"She's not dead, though," Paul sighed, finally breaking the link. "We'd know if she was."
He was right. Cameron could still feel a slight echo in her mind: Elena's presence, there but silent. It was very much like John's had become, in the time she'd been near him while he was unconscious. "She must have been knocked out before the jaunt."
"Her belt might have been damaged," Tim replied. "That is why I was unable to jaunt her back with you."
"Damn." Cameron slumped back in her chair.
"We need to go back and find her!" Paul headed back toward the jaunting pad, almost knocking over House in his haste.
The doctor grabbed him by the arm. "You can't go rushing back in there."
"Just watch me!"
"Dr. House is correct, Paul," Tim replied.
"We need to come up with a plan," Cameron put in. "Besides, we don't even know if she's still there. The aliens might have decided she'd make a good hostage."
"That's what I'd do, if I were looking for something and couldn't find it," the older doctor added.
Paul glared at him, but didn't stay mad for long. He sighed. "You're right. Sorry."
"No need to apologize," House answered gruffly. "I know how I'd feel if it was one of my friends…"
Was House sympathizing? Cameron wondered if the world was going to end now… "Tim, I got a pretty good look at the aliens. Think you might be able to find out who they are from the image in my mind?"
"If they are in either my database or the Galactic Federation's, then I shall find them."
She placed her palms flat against the tabletop again, closing her eyes in concentration. A picture of the amphibian-like being came to the front of her minds' eye. "Can you see it?"
"I can. Excellent, Allison."
"Thank you, Tim." She opened her eyes, sighing. "Let us know when you find anything," she finished, out loud.
"I shall."
"So, this is the secret hide-out?" House asked, that old familiar snarkiness in his voice.
Cameron wanted nothing more than to lay her head down on the table. "Why on Earth did you jaunt us here, Tim?"
"Haste was indicated, therefore I took the initiative and brought you all to the Lab."
"Of course you did." She turned to House. He was looking around with much more interest than was good for her psyche. "This is the Lab," she said.
Tim made a throat-clearing noise.
"And this is Tim." Cameron indicated the computer, by pointing toward the ceiling.
House followed her finger. His eyes grew wide, as he realized that the glowing structure up there was, in fact, the person he'd spoken to. "Well," he replied, after two attempts, "I had suspected you were some sort of computer…"
Cameron was a little surprised by the admission. "Really?"
"Sure. Makes sense, doesn't it?" He didn't elaborate any further.
"Technically," Tim said, the light strobing slightly in time with his words, "I am a biotronic artificial intelligence."
"I'm impressed."
"Thank you, Dr. House." There was a touch of humility in Tim's cultured voice.
"You're welcome."
"Excuse me," Paul butted in, "but while we're all playing happy families here, those aliens are getting away with…with whatever it is they're doing! And do I have to remind you that Ellie's missing?"
"I know!" Cameron snapped.
"Children." House put himself between them. "Before you start taking chunks out of each other, why don't we try to work this through? Tim, have you got a whiteboard?"
"Yes, of course." There was a humming sound, and a folded-up whiteboard and marker appeared on the scanning table next to House.
To his credit, he didn't jump out of his skin at the sight of something teleporting in at his request. Instead, he pulled the whiteboard off the table. "Someone care to help me out here?"
Cameron got up, and together they set up the board. She handed him the marker with mocking solemnity.
He nodded with equal mockery, popping the cap off. "Now. What do we know?"
"What the hell…?" Paul asked.
"It works. Trust me." Cameron was so used to working with House this way it was almost second nature.
"I'm not getting any younger here! Cameron, you know the routine. What do we know?"
"We know that Intellex had their hands some sort of alien technology – " she began.
"And how do we know that?" he interrupted.
"Because they came looking for it –"
"But before that! How did you find out?" He was challenging her.
"I know because Tim told me!" she answered defensively.
"And how does Tim know? Well, how did you know?" House turned his eyes up to the computer in the ceiling.
"Four months ago," Tim explained, "an Intellex employee named Martin Sawyer was fired from his position in their research and development department. While this normally would not have been important to us, six weeks after his firing Martin Sawyer began posting a weblog, stating that he worked with alien technology while employed by Intellex."
"And what was different about this particular crank?" House asked.
"The difference being was that he was found murdered in his apartment two weeks after the first post appeared online."
"Ah."
"Exactly."
House wrote on the board: ex-Intellex employee – weblog – murdered; with the word "murdered" underscored twice. "What else?"
"When it came to our attention that this was, indeed, serious," Tim continued, "John decided that investigation was in order. We did attempt to penetrate security within the Intellex complex, to no avail."
"So you tried B and E?" House asked.
"If you mean 'breaking and entering,' you would be correct. Although, by jaunting in we are not technically 'breaking' anything."
"But you are 'entering'."
"Yes."
"You mean to say," Cameron interjected, "John couldn't jaunt in?"
"He could jaunt in," Tim said, "however security was…well, as John put it, 'paranoid to the extreme'. Even with my unique skills, we were unable to get very far."
"You mean you couldn't bollocks up their computer system," Paul snickered.
"That is rather rudely put, but correct." Tim didn't want to admit he'd failed.
"The last time I checked," Cameron said, "you were the most powerful system on Earth…and in quite a few other solar systems."
"Thank you for the compliment, Allison. However, we did discover the reason for this…"
"Let me guess: the aforementioned alien technology."
"Yes, Dr. House. You are correct in your assumption. In fact, John and I both took that as final proof that we were dealing with a technology beyond that of Earth's current level."
Next on the whiteboard went: security – impenetrable, followed by alien tech, underscored three times.
"I'm beginning to get this," Paul sent.
"Told you it works," Cameron answered.
"Especially if it gets Tim to open up!"
She had to agree. Of course, none of them had actually asked Tim what had happened to put him and John onto Intellex, but then they'd really had other things on their minds. Like John lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to all sorts of machines…
"What else?" House prompted.
"Three weeks ago," Tim went on, "word went out on the official Intellex website that the company had developed a new technology, that would 'increase the standard of living one hundred-fold'."
He leaned on the edge of the whiteboard. "That sounds impressive. If it can be done."
"As of yet, we have no proof either way."
"And whatever proof there was," Paul said, "went 'bang' with everything else in the building."
"Back it up." Cameron leaned over the link table, resting her elbows on the lighted surface. "I think we're making an assumption here that we don't have the facts for yet."
"And what it that?" Tim inquired.
"We're assuming that this breakthrough was actually made with the help of the alien technology. What if it wasn't? What if it was made independently of whatever they had their hands on?"
Everyone was silent.
"It would be a whacking great coincidence if it had been," the younger TP finally answered.
"And coincidence is something we do not usually find in this sort of situation," Tim added.
'But look at the timeline," Cameron urged. "It takes years to work up a viable technology. Even if they reverse engineered something alien, how can you go from security applications – and I'm not doubting you and John when it comes to that supposition – to something that's supposed to make living so much better? I mean, that description would almost imply something medical, wouldn't it?"
"Or maybe they came up with a new way for all the Saps to kill each other," Paul said sarcastically.
"If it were weapons tech, I don't think they'd make an announcement like that."
"And," Tim said, "from our experience weapons technology is usually developed by government contract, so I would doubt Intellex would have announced it publicly."
House went back to writing on the whiteboard, putting "breakthrough" at the top of a new column. "So, if we assume that Cameron's right, then the announcement wasn't an actual symptom. Until we know more, I think we should set that aside for the moment. What else is there?"
"John decided to go to the actual Intellex press conference," the computer went on. "He had been a journalist many times, and we still had the original credentials. It was easy for him to infiltrate the complex, once he had been invited, so to speak."
"And, on the day of the press conference, the entire building goes up," Paul finished.
House added "explosion" to the first column, which was filling up quickly.
"What I don't get," the young man said, "is why the explosion on that particular day. I mean, the one thing you don't want is a pack of journalists wandering around your complex and being witness to your work destroying itself."
"And do we know if it was an accident?" Cameron asked darkly.
'This is getting wayyy too convoluted," Paul muttered.
"Well, Cameron is either really paranoid," House replied, "or she has some valid points."
"Tim, do the authorities have any leads on what just caused the explosion?" she inquired.
"No," the computer reported. "There has, as yet, been no conclusive found to determine the exact cause."
"And it's been a week." Cameron chewed the inside of her mouth absently.
"There's something else," House added, leaning once more on the board.
"Not another complication!" Paul groaned.
"Afraid so."
"What is it, Dr. House?" Tim asked.
"What I want to know is this: why have these aliens come here…now?"
Cameron shivered. She could guess where this was going.
"I mean, if they knew they were missing some of their technology, why hadn't they been able to track it down before now?"
The light dawned on Paul, as well. "Because something signaled that it was here?"
The older doctor pointed the marker right at him. "Exactly. And what would that signal be?"
"The explosion," Cameron supplied.
"Jackpot."
"As I said: wayyy too convoluted." The younger man threw up his hands.
"I have been attempting to discover just when the aliens infiltrated Earth's atmosphere," Tim said. "So far, I have had no success, however I have been unable to concentrate on any specific period of time. Now I have somewhere to pinpoint my search."
House turned and wrote "aliens" on the whiteboard, but he left enough of a gap in the row for other steps. "I think we're missing some things here, and until we have them there's no certain way to diagnose this."
"The main question being: what caused the explosion," Cameron put in.
"No," her boss countered. "The main question here isn't what caused it…but who."