Title: Transhuman
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Characters/Pairing: Garcia-centric, team - gen
Genre: Science-fiction/Drama
Summary: In a dystopian future, hacker Penelope Garcia finds herself being hunted by a corrupt organization. Fearing for her life, she must search for help in the strangest of places.
Author's Notes: Betaed by Windy City Dreamer.

Chapter Three

Emily Prentiss tapped her fingers against the solid mahogany table.

Board meetings were the ninth circle of hell; of that she was sure. The Corporation – the Corp – never did anything by halves; not world oppression, and not seven-hour long board meetings. Emily was there representing the Department of Transport, a position she had, admittedly, been handed on a silver platter. The fact that her mother was the Deputy Director helped somewhat in that respect. But what the board members didn't know, what her mother didn't know, what no-one else knew was that Emily had a secret.

This particular secret was the main reason – hell, the only reason – she had accepted the job in the first place. Because a Department head had better access to classified information than a lackey does. The kind of classified information that could bring the Corporation down. Of course, the situation was two-fold. It meant that she had that much further to fall.

Ten years ago, she would have been surprised to see what the future held. Never had she seen herself rebelling against the organization that had all but raised her. She'd lived in a Corp home, studied at a Corp university. It was only after having actually entered the Corp had she realized just what they were doing. From there, it had been a dangerous game of making contacts and collecting intelligence.

What no-one ever mentioned – what was rarely ever seen in any of the classic spy movies – was that covert operations could be so dry.

As the head of the Department of Health Services rambled on about cutting hospital funding, Emily resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Even from across the table, she could feel her mother's gaze burning into her. Reprimanding her for the indiscretion of not paying enough attention in this agonizingly boring meeting. All she really wanted to do was find a quiet, unmonitored place, log into her secured laptop, and find out whether or not her contact had managed to rescue those two hackers from the slums. Admitting that here would be tantamount to the death sentence.

Luckily, she had always been able to compartmentalize. There was a difference, though, between conspiring to bring down the major power of the city, and sitting through another treatise on why speculums were unnecessary for critical care patients.

She almost sighed in relief as she heard the treatise come to a close. It was almost at the point where she seriously considered falling asleep right there, consequences be damned.

'Agent Prentiss?'

Oh.

Right.

Ignoring the looks of derision from both her mother and Director Strauss, Emily launched into her own report; a budget review of Glamrail.

In her own humble opinion, the Greater Lassiter Metropolitan Railway was running smoothly, both north and south of the river. There had been a few incidents at some of the slum stations, but nothing worth making drastic changes over.

That attitude wouldn't fly with Strauss, though. It was bad enough that the railway went through the slums in the first place. Most of those who lived north of the river were quite happy to pretend that the south didn't exist at all.

And that was a misconception Emily was hoping to change

***

Twenty minutes later, she found reprieve as they broke for lunch. Emily resisted the urge to get the hell out of there, knowing that it would be pretty damn suspicious. Instead, she went to the nearest bathrooms, walking straight past the sandwich buffet that the members of the board now milled around. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught her mother's glare, and casually ignored it. Reprimands could wait.

No sooner than she had pulled the cubicle door shut, she slipped the tiny palm-held computer from her coat pocket. Her go-to guy in IT had pretty much guaranteed that it would be safe from prying eyes, and his advice hadn't failed her yet.

In flashing green text, the words 1 New Message popped onto the screen. A few taps revealed the contents of the message. It was a simple code that Emily managed to translate without any significant conscious effort.

Montana: Retrieved targets, taking them back to AT. Pilgrim.

Emily sighed with relief.

Good.

Fantastic.

The news that Pilgrim had managed to get to them before the Corp agents was almost enough to make up for the crappy day she was having thus far. It meant that the resistance was just one step closer to bringing the organization down.

She was almost surprised to discover that her fingers were shaking as she typed out a reply in the same code.

Pilgrim: Sit tight. Will contact tonight at 1900 hours. Be safe. Montana.

She gave a short smile when she received his reply just seconds later.

You too.

***

On her way back to the conference room, Emily found herself caught in an ambush by the person she least wanted to see. While they were from the same bloodline, there was nothing motherly about Elizabeth Prentiss' feelings towards her daughter.

'You need to work on your attitude, Agent Prentiss.'

This time, Emily didn't quite manage to resist that urge to roll her eyes. The gesture served only to make the Deputy Director even angrier.

'Your insolence is only hurting you, Emily. You know you're only in this position because of my influence.'

What Emily really wanted to say was "Fuck you, mom." Instead, she said. 'You do realize that the 95% citizen approval rate had absolutely nothing to do with "your influence?"'

Instead of praising the status of the department, Elizabeth only sighed. 'One day you'll thank me, Emily,' she said, and walked back into the conference room, leaving Emily to wonder exactly what she was supposed to be thankful for.