Brilliance on Display

It was time to come out of mourning for the loss of my favorite show and finish something started long ago. Many more chapters to follow, but I usually lose steam at about 18,000 words. Much of this chapter takes place as Ruth is making plans on how to handle traveling 10 years back in time, with no one to tell.

Should timelines be altered? This was the question she pondered, as she once again found herself tripping into the meeting room mumbling to Tom Quinn, "You weren't expecting me." Harry cut her off and said introductions could wait he wanted her up to speed on the threat. Suddenly, it all came back. She would find an Algerian agent, but they'd not save him or the youth who wanted to be a suicide bomber.

"Am I late?" Ruth asked innocently, "You're our analyst you should know," said Harry then adding his peculiar laugh that seemed to belong to a cartoon character, and she smiled. Ruth actually liked the joke, and remembered liking it. Was this the beginning of their cat and mouse relationship? How was she going to get her timing right this time? Did it matter? Should she just walk around the table kiss him and tell him she'd sort it all out within 24 hours? No. That's not the way it should be. She'd bide her time, wait and hack into the French security services, produce the picture and then warn Tom about what might happen. Tom. She hadn't thought of him in years. In the beginning everyone seemed to have a mild crush on him. She admitted to it, but then she also recalled her attraction to Zaf, who was a few years away from arriving on the Grid. Just how is Harry going to fall in love with me, she thought.

"Bugger the Home Office," she said, as she remembered when to insert the remark, but the rest she might have to play by ear. Her analysis of intel would send her into the stratosphere of respected analysts. After all, she has 10 years of memories to draw upon. Maybe this time she can avoid Cotterdam as well and she and Harry will have so much time together. Then she thought of Danny as she laid eyes on him, and his death. Can I prevent it? Then she saw Zoe, could exile be avoided for her. Looking around the table, so many tragedies were awaiting in the future, but she couldn't tell them. She could only hope to prevent them.

After the meeting, she started to set up her desk. She had almost put together her lamp when she remembered she was supposed to drop it in pieces and yell, which she promptly did. She's overheard them talking, Zoe, Danny and Sam, "Bonkers but Brilliant." It would be something she would play to her advantage. She had far more confidence, but was less naïve; still she needed to play the naïve junior officers Harry had hired. Junior officer, odd to be thought of that after all this time, she was anything but junior mentally. She could probably out do Colin and Malcolm both with technology knowing what was coming. Still, she decided she would pick and choose her moments until the past merged with the present. She definitely was going to avoid being kidnapped every time she stepped off the grid. In fact, she might turn into a field agent modeled after Callum, but with more personality.

She laughed to herself thinking of Callum, and again drew the looks of members of the staff who were still on the grid. Ruth knew the intel on the Algerian would be coming in within a couple of hours, and if she found it a bit earlier, things might change for the better, however, the more mature Ruth knew operations could go pear shaped very quickly. She would hope for the best, and add a bit of intel only she knew about but make it look as if someone had provided through the mosque membership.

It was approaching 10 p.m. She was at her desk. Harry was still on the grid. The intell was there and she had it all ready to go. She wouldn't wait until the next day. There would be no need for Tom to contact Tessa. Ruth didn't know Tessa, but what she knew about her, she felt it best not to travel down that path, and it might save the female victim in the cartel operation that had ended with death, and possibly sent Tom Quinn over the edge. Ruth knew she was already too late to save so many that had died hideously before her time, but maybe in this reality she could make a significant difference.

Harry's door was open. As had been her way, she didn't knock but barged in. Harry looked up surprised, used to everyone knocking on his door, as he was about to comment on this rude action, she handed him the information. When she told him how she's acquired it, he first looked shocked she'd hacked into the French security services, and then there was admiration. As he read the documents quickly, he said, "Red Flash the team." By rights she shouldn't know how to that so early in her indoctrination, but she did it automatically.

Harry paused briefly and wondered how she'd learned that information so quickly, but let it pass from his mind as he recalled she was an Oxford graduate even if she did major in Classics. Harry shook his head amazed at how much she had put together. Now instead of being behind in this classic terrorist scheme, they were actually about to assume the lead. He looked up at her again working at her computer and smiled. Harry was sure she was sent there to spy on them by GCHQ, but it didn't matter if she kept providing information of this quality. For a moment he let his eyes linger on her profile, and found he was admiring not only her mind, but the shape of her face, her hair, and her scent that lingered in his office after she left. Then he shook himself and remembered she was 17 years younger, and he couldn't consider a relationship with a junior officer. Still, that smile when she delivered the documents, her beauty. These images were not fading quickly from his mind as they should. After all he isn't the young field agent having flings with any attractive woman that he fancied. Harry picked back up the papers and found the information fascinating including the potential deadly alternatives should the Algerian find the bomber alone. Ruth had inserted a plan for such an action. It was fascinating reading, much more mature than that of a junior officer. He again look out of his office as she was leaving thinking he had possibly just hired the most superior junior intelligence analyst ever to serve any service much less MI5.