Disclaimer: Wow, lets see. I don't own High School Musical. I don't own Saved. I don't own 24. I don't own Life with Derek. I don't own Hannah Montana. And I don't own Coupling. I do, however, own Gabriella's crazy personality.


Deductive Reasoning

Stepping through the glass door, Troy hastily glanced around the eclectic, hole-in-the-wall coffee shop. This was where Troy had taken Gabriella on their first date. 'Isn't it ironic?' he thought bitterly. Finally, he spotted her in the far corner, slightly hidden behind an ornamental hanging lamp. She was sitting on a faded purple arm chair absentmindedly sipping a frozen latté as she watched a small group of men dressed entirely in black as they furiously debated in hushed tones. Troy's heart started to beat a little faster and his palms dampened with a thin layer of sweat. Nervously wiping his hands on the sides of his pants, he took a deep breath and started to approach her. It wasn't until he was sitting in the seat opposite her that her attention was pulled away from the dark men.

"Thanks for, uh, meeting me here, Gabriella," he said in a voice slightly higher than its regular pitch. Clearing his throat, he tried to restore his voice back to normal. Unfortunately, as soon as his next words came out it was clear that he had been unsuccessful. "We really need to talk," he timidly continued.

Gabriella met his gaze and easily returned his anxious expression with a reassuring smile. "I agree," she chirped, perching herself on the edge of the armchair cushion attentively.

Troy took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself for what he was about to do. As much as he needed to break up with Gabriella, he was not in the least thrilled about going through the actual formality of breaking up with her. In fact, the last time he'd done this was in the fifth grade. Her name was Casey. Casey MacDonald. They had gotten married under the jungle gym during afternoon recess. It was a beautiful ceremony; all his friends had been there. Unfortunately, by the time the school day was over, Troy had been much more interested in putting fake worms in Sally Waller's sandwiches. The subsequent conversation with Casey did not go well. Let's just say, Casey certainly doesn't punch like a girl and Troy's nose was the first to figure that out.

Shaking his head in an attempt to remove that unpleasant memory, Troy cleared his throat before saying, "Listen, Gabriella–"

"I think we need to break up," Gabriella blurted out, interrupting Troy's practiced and articulated words. Startled, Troy threw his hand protectively in front of his nose and squenched his eyes shut before he even attempted to comprehend what Gabriella had just said. Taking a moment to let her words sink in, he slowly lowered his hand and opened his eyes in astonishment. "What?" he gasped in dismay, "But, why?"

In a patronizingly compassionate manner, Gabriella placed a steady hand over Troy's and said, "It's just that we haven't been the same for a while now. It's like we were only together out of habit and not because of any feelings. Also," she continued flippantly with a toss of her hair, "there's this thing that God wants me to do that I can't perform until we're broken up."

Troy stared at her in utter confusion. "Are you becoming a nun?" he asked accusingly.

Gabriella laughed, "If only! But no, they don't allow us to make that decision for a couple more years."

"But you're breaking up with me for God." It wasn't a question, though Gabriella still nodded in affirmation.

"I'm so sorry," she sighed, not sounding remotely sorry. "I hope this hasn't come as too much of a surprise. The last thing I want to do is hurt you!" Eyebrows furrowed in feigned concern, Gabriella decided to stop talking and instead watch Troy's reaction.

He sat in his chair lost in thought as his gaze fell on the still arguing group of men. Suddenly, as if awoken by a silent alarm, his thoughtful gaze dissipated and he started to laugh. Still adopting a concerned expression, Gabriella tried to comfort Troy as he was obviously delirious with heartache. "That's right," she said soothingly, "just get it all out of your system." Troy knew she was taking the wrong impression from his reaction but he couldn't seem to stop himself. Not only had she been the one to break up with him but she blamed God for it!

Calming down enough to control his laughter, Troy looked Gabriella dead in the eyes and with a small grin replied, "Gabriella? I feel exactly the same way."


Turning to Morris with a quizzical expression, Jack's intense frustration was evident in his eyes. Morris simply shook his head in response before averting his gaze to the same computer screen that he'd spent the past three day's staring at. Defeated, Jack released his posture as he slumped back into his uncomfortable plastic chair. Glancing at the clock mounted on the wall, he saw that it read seven o'clock. He didn't know whether that was morning or night and, frankly, he no longer cared.

Standing to stretch his cramped legs, Jack approached the photos of Ashely – er – Sharpay, or...well, whoever this girl actually is, and studied them in search of any missed clues. Unfortunately, he and Morris had already spent hours studying these pictures and by this point he could recreate them flawlessly in his head. If there were any missed clues, they were invisible to him.

Annoyed that they had been working on this case for so long without making any headway, Jack turned his back to the pictures and took a moment to glance around the small office that they were currently camped out in. There were empty food wrappers crumpled on the floor around the trash bin and littering the already cluttered desk. Half drunken coffee cups were strewn about, residing on every available surface. The door was bolted securely shut and the blinds were drawn, dimming the room dramatically. And the smell. Dear Lord, the smell! If there was one discovery made from this experience, it was that locking two men in an enclosed space with nothing but vending machine meals and an overabundance of coffee resulted in an odor that is bound to be toxic to small animals and children.

"So, what do we do now?" Morris asked, forcing Jack out of his wandering contemplation.

With a frown, Jack replied grimly, "We use the girl."


The sun outside was slowly making its decent, causing the light inside Sharpays bedroom to gradually dim to an eerie gloom. Feeling it fit her mood perfectly she decided to not turn any lights on. Instead, she threw herself onto her bed in a fit of self-pity.

She'd hardly been lying for five minutes before a knock sounded at her door. Rolling over so that her back faced the door, Sharpay refused to answer. Hopefully, whoever is knocking will think she's asleep and leave her alone. She wasn't so lucky.

When she didn't respond, Ryan callously swung her door wide open and barged right into her room. Reaching down, he flicked on her lamp and cheerily proclaimed, "Time to get up Shar!"

Sharpay groaned in disgust.

"Oh, get over it. So what, he hasn't called? You are a strong, independent woman who never needed a man – or boy, in Troy's case – to maintain your self-esteem. Now, get your ass up, we are going to practice some memory techniques!" Grabbing her arm, Ryan forcibly pulled his sister to a sitting position. Holding her chin in his hand, he leaned down to be eye-level with her. Giving her the kind of encouraging nod that only seems to work coming from a brother, Ryan intuitively convinced her to forget about any social problems that were currently plaguing her mind and instead focus on what was truly important. Her memory.

Without saying another word, Ryan stood and left the room knowing that Sharpay would follow shortly. Just as she was standing up to leave, the sudden blare of her phone ringer caused her to hesitate.

'Bop bop bop

Bop to the top...'

Looking at the I.D. screen uncertainly, Sharpay saw Troy's name clearly displayed. Her breath caught in her throat. This was it. This was the moment she'd been waiting for. But now that it had finally come, her thoughts were scourged with doubts as to his intent. Surely he'd have called earlier if he had meant what he'd said in the auditorium. This was probably a guilt phone call to inform her that he'd made a fatal error and was not, in fact, going to break up with Gabriella. "Jackass," Sharpay muttered as she silenced her ringer and walked out of her bedroom in pursuit of her dependable and true to his word brother.


Sitting on her front porch, Gabriella double checked the phone number she was about to call and hastily punched it into her phone. She listened as it rung once. Twice. 'Please don't answer, please don't answer, please don't answer,'

"Hola, mis amigos! You are calling the phone of the fabulous Ryan Evans."

Gabriella threw her hand up in triumph. "Excellent result!"

"I'm obviously not here right now so leave an interesting message and maybe I'll get back to you!"

Taking a deep breath, Gabriella looked at her sheet of notebook paper on which she'd written exactly what she wanted to say. She had not expected to feel this nervous but if God's tasks were easy, anybody could do them. Right?

Hoping her voice would sound steady despite her overexcited nerves, Gabriella took one last glance at her sheet of notes before deciding that it would be better to speak from the heart. Crumpling the paper in her free hand, she squeezed her eyes shut and started to record her message:

"Ryan! Hey, I was just, uh, just wondering, um, d-do you, do you ever go out? Because I go out! Sometimes. Now and then. Heh, um, out I go." Gabriella paused, completely horrified at what she was saying. It was like somebody else had control over her tongue, she just couldn't stop talking!

"I'm, uh, I'm awful at asking people out, though. I say the stupidest things, I put people off. Nobody will get near me for all the crap I'm talking! I'm an impregnable fortress and you're full of sperm!" Just as the word came out of her mouth, Gabriella froze. What on Earth possessed her to say that? Gabriella's breath started coming in jagged gasps as the horror of her situation kept growing.

"No, sorry, I-I didn't mean – I meant what I said before. I'm, uh, terrible at asking people out. Thank God I'm not asking you out! Heh, thank God . . . Good ol' God. Yeah, OK! See you later." Gabriella quickly hung up her phone with a dazed expression. Did she really just do that?

Disgusted, Gabriella dropped her head into her hands and moaned at her own stupidity.

It was at this exact moment that a black Escalade came barreling down her street and screeching to a halt directly in front of Gabriella's house. Looking up in surprise, Gabriella didn't have any time to comprehend her surroundings before two men, each wearing bullet proof vests and pointing guns at the ground, came running over to her. Grabbing hold of her arm, the stronger of the two yanked her into their SUV, ignoring her screamed protests.


"Um, four?" Sharpay asked, knowing she'd get yet another question wrong.

Ryan sighed and threw down the card. "No," he quipped. "Sharpay, go listen to that message. I can't stand working on this with you when all you're doing is obsessing about something else entirely."

"No!" Sharpay adamantly protested. "I'm not an insecure girl who needs a boy – I mean, man, because Troy's a man – to make me feel good about myself!"

Ryan rolled his eyes, "No, but you are a curious girl who wants to know what sort of message was left on her phone." Ryan gave her an assenting nod to let her know that he wasn't judging her. Besides, he had his own message he wanted to listen to.

With an excited squeal, Sharpay clapped her hands and ran back to her room to grab her phone. Dialing the code to her voicemail she waited with baited breath for the message to run. About half-way through the memory exercise that she and Ryan were working on she had decided that Troy's message was actually going to be a good one. There was no logical reasoning behind this new decision, of course, it just fit with her better mood. But, ever since that decision had been made, she hadn't been able to focus on anything but his message; still lingering in her voicemail, unheard by anybody except possibly the government, depending on whether or not she decided to believe those claims.

"Hey Sharpay!" Troy said into the phone, breathless with what Sharpay hoped to be excitement. "Great news! I finally did it! Well, sort of. Ok, not technically, but that's a long story. The point is, Gabriella and I are no more. Kaput. Finite. Finished. Done. And any other synonym that you can come up with. Anyway, I was hoping you'd meet me in the park tonight. Say, around ten? I've got a surprise for you. Hopefully you get this message. Later."

Sharpay looked at the clock. It was nine. She had an hour to get cute. That was not nearly enough time! Shouting down the hallway to Ryan that she was going out, she slammed her door shut and swung her closet open. What to wear, what to wear?


"You mean to tell me that two highly trained government operatives who have spent the past few weeks tracking and observing terrorists, operatives who have found and studied the terrorists website no less, are still unable to figure out what their main objective is?" Gabriella asked in bewilderment. She'd had so much more faith in her government before she met these two men.

Jack and Morris had been the two men who'd kidnapped her from her front porch. It had taken them almost the entire drive to get Gabriella to stop screaming, but once she remembered who Jack was she was as pleasant as ever. The three were just arriving at the temporary CTU headquarters that Jack and Morris were working out of as they finished explaining to Gabriella their situation. Their temporary headquarters was actually an abandoned office building that they had broken into and set up surveillance equipment. Not the standard that they were used to, but good enough for now.

"Ah! Not exactly," Morris protested her accusatory statement, throwing a finger up as though he'd thought of something clever. Unfortunately, his thoughts ended there.

Jack rolled his eyes. "It's slightly more complicated than that," he explained condescendingly, as though he were talking to a child. The threesome had entered the office through the back door and were now settling into the room where Jack and Morris had the computer set up. Gabriella scrunched her nose at the subtle odor of sweat and sugar. Jack continued talking, "We know their main objective. To find and kill Ashley Tisdale. That is stated plain and simple on their website. Many times, actually. But this website has actually confused our understanding of their situation. You see, it appears as though the terrorists report to two different leaders–"

"Yes," Morris interjected while animatedly typing the terrorist's webpage address into the computers browser. "There is The Boss, which seems to be the main person they report to. This person directly communicates with them through this webpage and assigns them individual tasks. But they also appear to be working with a terrorist who was not originally in their group–"

"The agent, as they call him," Jack said, taking over the explanation once more. "It seems that, once they had followed Ashley or Sharpay here to Albuquerque, they found out that a terrorist from a different organization was already stationed here but not on active duty."

"So they made contact with this agent and activated him while, at the same time, integrating him into their own terrorist group." Morris concluded. He had the webpage pulled up, so he stood to allow Gabriella prime seating in order to study it.

"Right now," Jack said, putting his hand on Gabriella's shoulder and effectively passing off all the pressure of discovering these uncertainties unto the fragile-minded girl, "we need you to study this webpage and help us figure out the next piece to the puzzle." Gabriella audibly gulped as she returned her gaze to the computer screen in front of her.


Troy grabbed the bag of necessities that he'd just packed and ran out the door. He severely hoped that Sharpay had gotten his message. Jumping in his truck he went through his mental check list as he drove toward the park. Metal table and chairs? Check. Baguette? Check. Grape juice that is substituting for wine? Check. It looks like this is going to be a perfect first date.


Gabriella finally sat back in her chair. Both Morris and Jack noticed this and instantly came to attention. "Well?" they asked in unison, another unfortunate result of spending three days holed up in the same room.

"The way I see it," Gabriella began, speaking slowly and making sure to choose her words carefully, "we have three options for why the terrorists are here and targeting Sharpay. One," Gabriella held up one finger, "the Sharpay that I know and Ashley the pop star are one in the same and Sharpay actually leads a Hannah-Montana-like double life.

"Two," she held up another finger, "Sharpay conveniently claimed to have amnesia to cover the fact that the real Sharpay and Ashley have actually switched places.

"Or three," she held up a third finger, "the terrorists made a mistake, Sharpay does have amnesia, she and Ashley haven't switch places and they are in fact two separate people. Now, the only thing causing me to hesitate about this option is that these terrorists are smart. It seems unlikely to me that they would make such a mistake. I'm sorry I couldn't give you a more definitive answer but at least we've got it narrowed down to those three choices, right?" She finished optimistically.

"Absolutely. You've done well," Jack replied distractedly. He was already formulating a plan to figure out which of the three options is the truth. He stood for a moment, deep in thought. Gabriella simply watched him curiously. Suddenly, his face lit up and he announced, "The boy!"

"I'm sorry?" Gabriella asked, confused.

"That boy in your school. The one who talked to you. He could tell the difference between Ashley and Sharpay!"

"Yeah, that was weird, wasn't it?" Gabriella snorted, not understanding the point that Jack was getting at. Jack gave Gabriella a brief look of disgust but quickly transferred his gaze to Morris who was following the same train of thought.

Gabriella noticed the look pass between the men. She didn't like this sense of exclusion. After having provided them with such valuable information, Gabriella figured it was just right for her to know what was going on. Looking between Morris and Jack she timidly asked, "So, what do we do now?"

With a malevolent grin, Morris replied, "We use the boy."


Troy was just placing the candles on the small, wrought-iron outdoor table when a loud screeching of wheels caught his attention. Seeing a black Escalade stopped half on the grass, Troy's stomach flipped. 'This is never good' he thought with a sinking feeling as he watched two men, both very sweaty and weary looking, jump out of the Escalade wearing black, bullet proof vests. They were carrying guns pointed at the ground and they were shouting at him to come peacefully as they hurriedly approached. The sturdier of the two reached him first and unceremoniously grabbed his arm, yanking him toward the SUV. Troy fancied himself a relatively strong guy but, after considering the size of this man, there was no way he was going to resist.


Sharpay ran out the front door and down her driveway with exhilarated energy. Unfortunately, her heals caused this energy to run out by the time she reached the curb but her exhilaration was still there. Pausing to allow a speeding black SUV to pass, Sharpay crossed the street and approached the park where Troy had told her he'd be.

Walking along the path, Sharpay quickly came upon a small outdoor table, fully set with plates, cups and silverware. There were even two candles sitting in the middle, though one had toppled over. Sharpay smiled to herself as she picked up the fallen candle and replaced it in the center of the table. She then sat in one of the chairs, happily expecting Troy to show up at any moment.


Troy sat in the same seat that Gabriella had previously been sitting in. Now it was his turn to listen to and digest the facts about the terrorists. He did not take the information quite as calmly as Gabriella had.

"There are people trying to KILL Sharpay?!"

"Well, technically, possibly no. But that's why we have you here," Jack replied irritatingly unperturbed. "Evidently, you are the only person who can see the physical difference between Ashley and Sharpay and that will help us narrow down our situational options."

Troy took a deep breath. "Ok, fine. Can we do this quickly? Give me the first option again."

"Why is that, by the way?" Gabriella piped up from her position in the far corner of the dark, small, smelly room.

"Um, so that I can help you guys narrow this down," Troy replied derisively. Honestly, Gabriella was the last person he wanted to be locked in a tiny room with at the moment and he was not in the mood to answer her stupid questions.

"Well, duh! I meant, how can you tell the difference between them?"

"Oh!" Troy exclaimed but quickly paused to think it over. 'What is the difference between them?' he wondered. "I don't really know. It's like they have slightly different airs about them and I can somehow detect it in the picture," Troy shrugged. "Or maybe it's just because Sharpay uses Dove conditioner and it makes her hair a whole lot shinier than Ashley's." he added, more as an afterthought.

"Enough chitchat," Jack bellowed. "We need to figure this out!"

Gabriella snorted again. She didn't know what it was, but something about Jack's behavior just seemed so ridiculous to her. She pushed the thought out of her head and made herself focus on the issues at hand. The first option, "Option one," she said to Troy, holding up one finger, "the Sharpay that we know and Ashley the pop star are actually the same person and Sharpay leads a Hannah-Montana-like double life."

"Well, that obviously can't be it," Troy said bluntly. "First, as we've already said, I can tell the difference between the two. If they were the same person, why would there be a difference? And second, it's just physically impossible. Sharpay was at Lava Springs, in our presence, at the same time that Ashley was at movie premiers and getting photographed by the paparazzi while grocery shopping. Maybe she's a good actress, but even she can't be in two places at once."

"So that rules out option two, as well?" Jack asked. "That, at some point around Sharpay's fall to amnesia, the two girls switched places?"

"I definitely would have noticed that. No, Sharpay and Ashley have never switched places."

"So that leaves us with option three." Gabriella said softly, more to herself than to the others in the room. "But that doesn't make sense. How did these terrorists make such a mistake?"

"I don't think they made a mistake at all." Troy said, looking at the computer screen once more.

"What do you mean?" Gabriella asked defensively.

"Well, this says that they were following a lead to Disney World when the informant diverted them to Albuquerque. There is no explanation for this abrupt alteration, just that the informant's information seemed to override their own. I think this informant knows exactly who Sharpay is and that she isn't Ashley. I think this informant is intentionally directing the other terrorists towards Sharpay, wanting them to think that she's Ashley in hiding. I think that this informant has an ulterior motive that the other terrorists are unaware of."

Troy's assumptions were followed by a brief silence as the other three considered what he'd said. Then, "Wow! Have you ever considered a job with the government, son? That was some fine deductive reasoning right there." Jack marveled. "Now all we need to do is figure out who this informant is."

"Well, according to the website, it's somebody in our school," Gabriella mused. "Who do we know at East High who arrived in October of last year?"

Troy's grip on the arm rest of his chair immediately tightened as he battled to keep calm. Face turning red from the anger that was so rapidly welling up inside of him, he looked at Gabriella and growled in a low whisper, "Zeke."


Oh my gosh, this turned out super long, didn't it?

I tried really hard to explain everything so that it now makes sense and is all out in the open. Just so you know, all the conclusions that they came to are true. This isn't going to be them following some crazy assumption that turns out to be false. If it doesn't make sense, please let me know in the:

Review!!