A/N: Hi guys! So, firstly I come bearing apologies for the long wait between this chapter and the last. There was a near-apocalypse, a mountain of tissues and a dead bunny-rabbit somewhere to blame. hopefully, you'll never have to wait this long for an update. I also want to say THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR AWESOME-SAUCE REVIEWS. Cause really, they're like the tastiest thing since Nutella.
So, enjoy this chapter and the next one should be up within the week :)
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Oscar Wilde
Chapter 5 - Truth
The first thing she runs into is Charlie's scowl. "Livvy, I thought we covered this. You're off field duty."
She holds up her hands in mock-surrender. "I'm just here for the briefing, I swear. I want to pursue a lead and since you're heading up this investigation in my absence, I wanted to officially request permission to follow it."
Charlie takes her elbow and leads her into her own office. "What lead?" he asks once they're inside.
"William Bell," she states simply.
"What the hell does the CEO of Massive Dynamic have to do with this?"
"I'm not sure yet, exactly." She looks at him with a sheepish expression, "I have a…source."
"A source?"
She presses her lips together tightly and nods while Charlie stares at her expectantly.
"And does this source have a name?"
"Y-yes" she begins hesitantly, "although he prefers to remain anonymous."
"He does huh?" He pinches the bridge of his nose, "Okay, I'm gonna need another cup of coffee."
"Look, Charlie," Olivia's tone softens. "I need you to trust me. I think I may have something with this."
And, despite the vagueness of it all, Charlie does trust her, implicitly so. If there's one thing he's learnt it's that Olivia Dunham's instincts are very seldom wrong.
So he sighs and says, "Okay, but you're writing a full case report on this."
Her mouth quirks to the right, "Sure thing, boss."
She sits among the rest of the agents while Charlie briefs them. He's sending Lincoln and Astrid to Philadelphia to find Lucy Gates while he and the rest scout for Ferelli. She wants to tell him about what Peter said, but she's not sure if she even understands half of it and explaining her source would be a whole other matter. So she keeps her peace during the briefing, and nods gratefully to Charlie once he dismisses them, her eyes hold his gaze for a minute, silently thanking him, and his mouth flicks into a tiny smile.
...
It's nearly 2am when she leaves Boston on route to New York. The drive is long, but gives her time to think. She replays the last few hours through her head like an old movie reel - from the moment she stepped into her apartment to the moment she stepped out of it. Everything in between seems like one surreal dream, yet she knows it happened. She wouldn't be driving the four hours to New York City if it didn't. She still has no idea what she's actually going to say to William Bell once she reaches him. All she knows is that Peter told her that Bell was the key to all of this and for some unfathomable reason, she trusts Peter. And that's the thing that scares her, not the fact that mere hours ago she was convinced he existed solely in her mind. She's been around Walter Bishop long enough to know that the world's a crazy place and being a sceptic just makes everything a lot more work. She trusts her instincts – there were times when they were all she's had. And yet the fact that they're so urgently drawing her towards this man, who is, for all intents and purposes an absolute stranger, disturbs her somewhat. She drives into the dawn. The sky turns gold and she sighs. There's something about sunrise…
Massive Dynamic is huge. The centre piece on a game-board on New York. She's been here before and dealt with William Bell's assistant and rumoured lover, Nina Sharp, not that Olivia pays much heed to the rumours. This morning, Nina offers at Olivia a cat-like smirk. "Agent Dunham, always a pleasure. What business brings you all the way to New York?"
Olivia smiles tightly and holds Nina's gaze. "I'm here to see William Bell."
"Oh," the older woman's eyebrows shoot-up. "Well, that might be-"
Nina's hand hovers over her phone, but she makes no effort to pick it up. "Dr Bell is a very busy man, as I'm sure you're aware, Agent Dunham. Perhaps if you arrange an appointment."
"Actually, I was hoping to speak with him now."
Nina's smile withers. "Of course." Does eventually pick up her phone and pushes a bright red button on the lower right corner. "William," she says after a few seconds. "Agent Dunham's here to see you." Her gaze flickers up to Olivia. "Olivia Dunham, yes."
Olivia stands with her hands behind her back as she waits for Nina to finish. With a raised brow, Nina lowers the receiver and directs her gaze at the agent. "You may proceed to the elevator, Agent Dunham. Dr Bell will meet you in his office. Floor 23."
Olivia nods her head once. Then promptly leaves the clinically white office.
She's known Nina sharp for as long as she's worked under the Fringe division and she's never felt entirely comfortable in the older woman's presence. Admittedly, they interacted primarily through Broyles and when they did talk it was about Massive Dynamic's involvement in whatever case she was working on, which didn't necessarily lead to the friendliest of feelings. William Bell remained the enigma, pretty much untouchable except when forced to come out of hiding during the Bridge Project. It was revealed that he and Walter had started the war by crossing over and thus causing the first of the tears in the fabric of the universes. Bell put all his resources behind the project, but remained somewhat distant, choosing to send representatives to act on his behalf. Olivia remembers a Time article once referring to him as 'The Man Behind the Curtain', a title which she thinks particularly apt. She knows that he was involved in the Cortexiphan trials as well. She knows that he headed up the Ohio trials while Walter focused on those in Jacksonville. She knows that he knows more about her that he's willing to admit. But quite honestly, she wants as little to do with the man as possible. His over-familiarity makes her uncomfortable. He's not Walter and it's difficult to forgive a sane man for his crimes.
She's surprised when Bell himself greets her at his door. "Olivia," he says in that deep cadence. "How lovely to see you again."
She offers him a nod. "Dr Bell."
"Please," he says, holding his hand out as gesture for her to enter his office, "Call me William."
"Dr Bell," she says pointedly, "I'm here because I have reason to believe that you might have some information regarding a case."
Bell circles her and makes his way to the small table beside his desk. "Can I offer you some water? Tea perhaps?"
Olivia frowns, wondering if he's being deliberately evasive. "No, thank you. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions."
"You know," Bell says, sinking down into his chair opposite her, "I was wondering why it's taken you so long to come and see me."
She's taken aback. "Excuse me?"
"Well, after the conclusion of the bridge, I assumed you'd have questions. Walter certainly couldn't answer all of them."
Olivia frowns. She wants to get this interrogation underway, not discuss riddles. "Dr Bell, what do you know about shape-shifters?"
The change in Bell's face is subtle but perceptible and for the first time since she walked into Massive Dynamic, Olivia wonders if she's made a mistake.
"Agent Dunham, I'm afraid I don't know what you're referring to."
So it's Agent Dunham now, she thinks and feels confident that she's onto something. "Dr Bell, for the past few months, we've been tracking a murder suspect named Eryan Ferelli. We have reason to believe that he's a shape-shifter." She looks him straight in the eye and hopes that he can't tell that she has no idea what she's talking about. All she knows is that Peter mentioned something about Bell creating the shape-shifters. God, she doesn't even know what exactly a shape-shifter is. All she knows that if she can get Bell to think that she does, she might be able to get him to talk.
"How much do you know?" Bell asks, his eye brow raised, he stares at her intensely.
"Enough." Olivia says tersely. "What I want to know, is how much you know."
He sighs and stands up, his long body makes its way around the desk and he pours a finger of bourbon into a tumbler. "Are you sure I can't offer you a drink?"
She shakes her head.
William Bell brings the glass to his lips and closes his eyes as he savours the liquid. "I created the shape-shifters as…insurance," he says finally settling on the last word.
"Insurance?"
"When Walter and I first crossed over," he began, "we had no idea the kind of devastating consequences it would render. We were scientists, explorers," he says this with an almost ironic smile. "So when we discovered that we had unwittingly caused the destruction of their universe we knew it was only a matter of time before they would want retribution."
"The ZFT," Olivia murmurs.
"Correct. It took them a while to discover the source of the degradation. At first, they had no idea that we'd been coming and going through the fabric of our universes. They had no idea our universe existed. By the time Walternate's scientists figured it out, their universe was substantially worse off than ours. I knew that if they attempted to retaliate, we would need to be prepared."
"Many warriors of the inevitable confrontation are among us now - but before they can be considered soldiers, they must be regarded as recruits." Olivia quotes the passage from the ZFT manuscript from memory. She'd read it cover to cover during the Jones incident and again during the Bridge Project. "You were preparing."
"After Walter was sent away," Bell takes another sip of his whiskey. "I knew the responsibility lay on me. And so, I created what I envisioned to be an army of fighters should it ever come to that."
"An army of shape-shifters," Olivia deduces.
"They never went beyond the experimental phase." He digs a key out of his jacket pocket and inserts it into a drawer below his desk. "I postulated that by creating an organic-synthetic hybrid that could quite literally take on the form of any human being I would be able to use them as spies and possibly assassins in the event of a war with the other side." He pulls out a file and tosses it lightly on the glass table in front of her. "The specific details are in there." He gives her a curious glance. "Not even Walter knew about my work with the shifters. I'm curious to know who your source is, Agent Dunham."
Olivia looks at him sharply, "You say it never went beyond the experimental phase, yet we've got one of your…things out there right now, killing innocent people. How is that possible?"
Bell sighs. "When I heard about The Bridge, I was wary. After all these years, I suppose I wanted to make sure that if it ever came down to it, we'd have the necessary resources. I admit, I had hoped that you, Olivia would still have control over your…abilities. That perhaps it would be you, out of all the Cortexiphan children that could be our greatest weapon."
She swallows and breaks eye-contact. He's referring to the Brayson Place Hotel. Her breath catches in her throat but she wills herself to look back at him.
"I'm grateful it didn't come down to that," he continues.
"Why is there a shape-shifter out there?" she asks bluntly.
"Two escaped." Bell swallows down the last of his drink and lowered his glass. "Just before the closing of The Bridge we decided to destroy them. A few of the earlier models, the more developed models…rebelled. Two escaped," he says again. "We put one down, but the other-"
"-is still out there." Her voice is tight. She wrings her hands and lets out a breath. "And it's killing."
"It wants to survive. It's switching bodies."
"Which means that Eryan Ferelli-"
"Was most probably replaced by the shape-shifter."
"And now it's Lucy Gates." Olivia says softly. She stands up abruptly, "Dr Bell, you can expect to hear from us very soon."
"Olivia," Bell says as she walks towards the door, "I never meant to hurt anyone."
"And yet you keep doing so," she mutters softly before exiting.
She's barely at the elevator before she has her phone to her ear. "Charlie, it's me. Any word on Gates?"
"Astrid just sent me a link to the security tapes from 30th Street Station. Gates took the Acela Express. So far, we can't tell if she's gotten off yet."
"Charlie, she's dangerous," Olivia says in a low voice. "We're not looking for Ferelli anymore, our suspect is Gates."
"Livvy? What are you talking about?"
"I can't explain everything now. You have to trust me."
She hears Charlie's sigh on the other end. "Lincoln's at Penn Station. If she's as dangerous as you say she is, then we can't wait around."
"What are you going to do?" The elevator pings for her to enter and she holds her finger against the 'open door' button.
"See if we can smoke her out."
She looks at her watch. "Tell Lincoln I'll see him in twenty."
...
Olivia drums her fingers against the steering wheel as she drives. She briefly considers turning on the siren to get through the early morning traffic, but she doesn't want to alert the shifter that they're on to it. She's already made sure that Charlie's called-off the back-up teams. Any attention, any chance that this thing could escape and just shift into someone else, just take over another life is intolerable. She glances at the clock. Seven minutes before the train arrives at the station. She's got seven minutes to get inside and finish this. Tires squeal as she stops outside of Penn station. Olivia parks at a rough angle, ignoring the angry calls from the backed up traffic behind her and sprints through the doors and down the steps.
She meets Lincoln at Track 18. She wonders if she imagines the way his face just lit up at she approaches. "Agent Lee," she says, slightly out of breath.
"Agent Dunham," he counters and offers her a slight smile.
"Where are we at?" She surveys the platform. There are a dozen or so people milling about, in a minute, there'll be hundreds.
"Security's been put on alert. We've got guys at every entrance. If she's on that train, we'll get her."
She's not sure if he's optimistic or resolute, but she nods. "I'll take the 5th Avenue."
He jingles his walkie at her. "I'll be here."
She's barely at the exit when she hears Lincoln's voice over the walkie. "Olivia, we've spotted her at the 7th Avenue Exit." Olivia takes off without a thought, the weight of her gun firmly at her side. She's panting when she gets to the exit and sees Lincoln running ahead of her, obviously chasing something.
Damnit! She thinks. If they lose Gates now, she'll slip into another body and that would be it. Olivia can't let that happen. Pulling out her gun, she sprints to catch up with Lincoln and eventually sees what he sees. Lucy Gates – or the shape-shifter assuming the role of Lucy Gates, snaking through the crowd, very much aware that she's being tailed. Olivia watches in horror as the figure slowly gets smaller and she disappears into the masses.
There's a scream and chaos surrounds the station concourse.
She forces herself to stop running, stop breathing, stop everything, for one second and just look. Her eyes scan the crowd, searching for the dark-haired woman they needed to find. Her gaze falls on a man, standing against the elevators. His suit-slate grey, a fedora pulled over his head. She's seen him before. Olivia doesn't forget faces, and his is particularly memorable. The man raises his eyes and locks gazes with her and suddenly, she feels queasy. The static on her walkie buzzes and Lincoln's voice comes through. "Men's bathroom. Security cameras picked it up a few seconds ago."
Pushing herself to go further, Olivia throws off her inertia and fights through the crowd to make her way into the men's bathroom. It's empty and Olivia holds her gun tightly in her right hand which is resting on her left wrist – it throbs painfully in memory of the last time she was running through a station after this thing. She moves to all the lavatory doors, kicking against them and her breath stills for second at the sight of the body in the last cubicle. Olivia takes a look at the dead man for a split second, her brain recording his aged face, his work-suit, his sandy hair. And then she's running, running past Lincoln who has just reached the bathrooms. Past the two guards who are still looking for Lucy Gates, past the scared-looking commuters…until she sees him. The walking body of the dead man. He's moving with confidence, as if he has nothing to fear, nothing to lose. With two steps, Olivia raises her gun and shoots.
Two bullets.
Straight in the head.
The crowd screams, the guards run towards her and Lincoln's confused face meets hers. As far as they know, she just gunned down an innocent man. But he's not innocent. Neither is that silver trail of blood oozing from the hole in his head. She looks down at the dead, annihilated thing lying, bleeding on the ground and for the first time in a long time, Olivia feels like she can breathe.
...
It's nearly twelve hours before she trudges towards her apartment door. Question after question, report after report. The body of the last man the shifter had changed into corroborated her story and William Bell's file was currently in evidence. Olivia doesn't care about the details at this point. All she cares about is that it is over. And the image of those two little girls, murdered so callously, can finally be put to rest. She doesn't realise that her hand is trembling as she inserts the key into the key-hole. Her heart is pounding in the strangest way and she feels…anticipation.
He's in there, she realises as she turns the key. In all the action she'd forgotten about the source of her information. She'd forgotten about him. But now there is no case, no shape-shifter, no phone call from Charlie. Only that kitchen table to separate them. Olivia walks into her apartment and scans the room.
She wants to tell him that he was right. She wants to tell him that she couldn't have done it without him. She wants to tell him that she trusts him. Mostly, she just wants to see him, to prove to herself that she didn't make it up, that those piercing blue eyes, that cocky smile wasn't a fantastically fabricated delusion.
"Peter?" she calls out, the sound of his name tasting both strange and familiar on her tongue.
But all that answers is silence and the sound of her heart, still pounding in her ears.
.