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.

Chapter Seventeen

Morgan paced the length of the small apartment. The sun was just rising when they'd made it through the Eastern Tunnels; it had been a while since he'd been down there, and they were forced to back-track several times, but all in all, it could have gone a lot worse. The fact that there were six of them in the group meant that any adversaries lurking in the shadows were less inclined to attack.

Morgan was fairly sure he would have shot anyone that did try. He was in no mood for people trying to screw around with him. The Corp had to have found their location somehow. Still – keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. If any one of the group was a traitor, then he preferred to keep them within the circle of knowledge so to speak, if only to feed them false information. First, though, he had to find out who, if any of them, had been the betrayer.

JJ and Hotch he'd known for a long time – he wasn't inclined to believe that either of them could be a spy, but then, he'd trusted Elle too. If either Garcia or Kevin were the spy, then surely one of them would have made a move, intercepting the data before it got into the hands of the resistance – unless, of course, the plan was to bring down the resistance. If Spencer was a Corp agent, then he'd have to be psychic, because there was no way he could have known they were going to be at that particular safehouse.

Montana was another possibility – probably one of the more logical ones – but he wasn't quite ready to throw her to the wind yet either. For that moment, the only person he could fully trust was himself.

And he wasn't even really sure about that part either.

He looked at his phone worryingly. Upon reaching the slums, the phone had been the first thing he'd picked up – the thing had been stashed at a dead-drop, a back-up number in case the primary contact method was lost to them. The second thing they'd picked up was food, because, thanks to their middle of the night awakenings and walk through the sewers, they were all starving.

They were at an old apartment of Kevin's – one he assured them would be safe. Unsurprising – it was pretty bad, even for a place this side of the river. The rats were the size of small dogs, and none of the doors locked. Still. Better than wandering the streets.

He kicked out at a rat that was trying to steal his breakfast – he would have much rather shot it, but now they were on the run, bullets were a rare commodity. It wasn't as though black market trading was uncommon in the slums – it was dangerous though, and would attract more attention than they could afford.

More than anything, he wanted this to be over with.

He wanted to win the fight that he'd been fighting his whole life; the fight against the Corp. It seemed so close, and yet, so far away.

The loud beep from the phone scared the crap out of him.

Morgan was pretty sure that everyone else jumped at it too; they were all on edge after all. He only saw their reactions at the periphery of his vision, though, his attention focused on flipping the phone open and reading the message before he dropped the damn thing.

Floyd and Oldfield. 1 hour.

He frowned. The message was a little more blatant than he was used to, but things were coming to a head, and he figured that whatever Montana was doing, it was chaotic enough without having to worry about cryptic messages.

He strapped his gun to his hip.

'I think you should take Garcia and Spencer with you,' Hotch said in a low voice, and Morgan raised an eyebrow in question.

'Why?'

'If someone attacks here while you're gone, I can't protect all of them.' He stole a quick glance in JJ's direction. 'And I'd prefer if JJ stayed here.'

Morgan nodded, but he wasn't entirely sure. 'If it's an ambush…' He sighed. It was a lose-lose situation – if someone had been following them, they could show up at the apartment, but if Montana had been compromised, then the danger could well have been at the rendezvous.

'Okay,' he relented, finally, thinking that at the very least, he could arm the two, for intimidation purposes, if nothing else.

'Alright,' he said, turning to Garcia and Spencer. 'You two are coming with me.'

* * *

Elle Greenaway watched as her fellow agent kicked the unconscious woman in the stomach. Emily Prentiss was a higher-up – a department head, no less, which proved that pretty much anyone could fall victim to the throes of the dark side.

That's what the videos said, anyway.

By the time they'd put the third disc in the player, she'd no longer resisted against the cuffs that held her to the chair. If you can't beat them, join them.

Or, as it had been in her case, if you can't beat them, get kidnapped and then tortured into working for them. And as soon as they think you're trustworthy, get recruited for an experimental medical procedure.

And then beat them.

'So what about my fifty-thousand?' the Tunnel-runner, Viper asked. Elle turned her head slightly as the shot fired, and his body fell to the ground.

Because the moment they think they're unbeatable, infallible, they're weak. Beat them at their own game. Kick them while they're trying to kick someone else. Literally and metaphorically, she realized, as one of her colleagues laid yet another kick into the unconscious Agent. Their orders hadn't been particularly specific beyond "alive" – the woman's mother was the Deputy Director, which meant that someone probably had some creative punishment in mind to make an example, to show that not even family was above the Corp. It was either that, or spiriting her away without further mention. Denying that she'd ever even existed. Not a single blot on their record.

Whatever the decision, it wasn't something she was about to let happen. She'd been too late to stop them from taking the unconscious Agent's phone and sending a message through to the contact whom she knew to be Derek Morgan. She'd regretted the need to take down the two hackers, but they were watching her closely then, and that was before she'd known about the files.

She wasn't about to make the same mistake twice.

There was no going back.

'Stop.' She felt the power flowing through her – the powers bestowed upon her by the Corp. Not as good as the ones some people had, but it was enough to get Agent Prentiss out of this alive.

The agent's boot froze mid-stride. The only part of him – the only part of any of her colleagues – that was still moving was the eyes. They went quickly from confusion to anger.

She pulled Prentiss up, half dragging, half carrying the woman towards the daylight.

It wasn't over yet.