"Will!"
Gwen's voice was shrill and infuriated as she pounded angrily on the brittle front door of the old Caster home - where she had found him in the first place. She had thought having dinner with Bryce would be helpful, that she would somehow feel better after receiving some kind of answer. Bryce had been a source of answers, true enough - he was filled with answers about who Will Caster was, how his father had known him, what he had done. Gwen, however, felt no better about her situation after having heard them. She knew that the real Will Caster should not have been the thirty-year-old man from the screen of the Psi - he was a man about the same age as Mr. Waters. He had been the cause of the Great Collapse.
"Doctor Caster, open this goddamn door!"
Will emerged, pulling open his front door and being immediately met with the sensation of Gwen's palm colliding with his face. His head snapped to one side, and it took him a brief moment to stop seeing stars, and to process the idea that he was actually feeling pain again. Pain.
"You didn't tell me who you were," Gwen hissed angrily, her chest heaving with each furious breath as he slowly turned his head to face her again with a dumbfounded expression. "You - you -"
"This isn't safe," Will said through gritted teeth, gently grabbing a hold of her petite forearm and pulling her inside. "We have to talk in here, alright?"
Gwen yanked her arm away, but obliged nonetheless, crossing her arms and facing away as she followed and Will shut the front door behind them. The house was dark, old and in disarray, and a single old mattress had been pulled out into the center of the floor to be used as a bed. She felt a pang of pity for his situation - guilt, even, for the fact that he wouldn't be in it if it were not for her experiment on Duggan. There had been so many other options - so many more logical options - but even then, her curiosity and ambition had gotten the best of her.
But it didn't matter, she reminded herself. She hadn't come up with any of this on her own. She wheeled around and glared at the man in front of her, who for nearly a month she had regarded as her confidant, even though she wasn't even sure he was real.
"The whole time, you could've told me who you were - what you did -"
"If you knew about me, you might've thrown away the data card with my consciousness on it -"
"Maybe I should have," Gwen retorted darkly. "Maybe we'd all be better off, but instead, you're stuck here, and I'm stuck trying to cover up why a man is missing."
"Because of you, I have a chance to continue my work -"
"Because of us, a man is dead!" Gwen said - her voice, already shrill and quavering, cracked mid-sentence, and she walked a few paces before shaking her head and looking out the covered window. Will exhaled with his hands clasped over his lips, unable to respond immediately as his mind attempted to reason through this - it wasn't like before. The last feeling he remembered - if one could call it remembering - before Gwen found him in the garden was the sense of immediately knowing and processing anything. Compared to that feeling, to that capability, the limitations of being only human seemed to wear him down in more ways than one.
"He's not dead. He's just me," he said, garnering a shocked expression from Gwen. Will grimaced as well at the clumsiness of his own words, of his poor communication. "Listen - I'm still Milford Duggan, he wasn't destroyed -"
"No," she interrupted sternly. "You are not Milford Duggan. You're living in his cells, you've taken over his body, but you will never be him, and I don't know where he is. It's probably like you said. He has ceased to exist," she said, her voice heavily dripping with bitterness. She nearly felt the impulse to cry at the realization that this was the perfect crime - the perfect way to make a man disappear without any evidence - except for the fact that her conscience wouldn't allow it. What was worse is that now that she had vented out some of her anger and allowed rational thinking to return, she realized that Will didn't necessarily consciously choose this either. That was the problem - the question of whether he had been sentient, whether he had been self-aware, was one that even he couldn't answer. He could swear up and down that he was, he could swear to the moon and back, but he could never really prove it.
Gwen looked again at Will Caster with a mixture of fury, fear, and sadness before rushing out the door and back to her car.
The entire drive home, Gwen wanted only to force herself to forget this - eventually, they would all forget, and she could have her life back. She could have her career back. But she knew that she could never really forget what was happening, nor could she forget the part she had played in it. There was no way of forgetting the fact that she had, as revenge for a slight against her, she sentenced a man to non-existence. She had to stop and cry alone for a few minutes when she pulled up in front of her own house, and only when she stepped out of her own car did she realize that her father was home as well. Facing him, she realized, was something that she had not in the least prepared herself to do. But when it was time, she conceded, it was simply time.
In her head, Gwen was coming up with what to say to her father - what she could possibly do to start mending the chasm that had formed between them since she accepted the position with Project Generativity - she was prepared for him to be furious, to say that he told her saw. Donald Buchanan had warned his daughter many times that her rosy outlook on what moving up in the ranks of the Gatekeepers would be like was misguided, that she was just going to be hurt, and Gwen had dismissed it every time. He had every right to say he told her so.
However, when she opened the door and found him sitting on the couch just waiting for her, not distracting himself with dinner or the evening news, or even the radio, Gwen found words lacking. She simply hurried over and sat on the sofa next to him, wrapping her arms around his midsection and nestling into to his shoulder as if she was a child again.
"Gwen. Gwenny," he said, running a hand over her hair - and if Gwen had thought she was done crying in the car, she was quickly proven wrong as the affectionate petname only served to open the floodgates again.
"I'm so sorry, Daddy," she said, shaking her head and clenching her eyes shut. "I should have listened - I didn't mean -"
"They've told me about what happened - shh," he said, wrapping an arm protectively around his daughter's shoulders. In some ways - in most ways - she was a mature grown woman. Gwendolyn May Buchanan - who, by the way, loathed her full name - was exceptionally bright, and wise beyond her years. But perhaps it was because he had done such a thorough job of protecting her that at times, she was still just like a child. She was smart, yes, but she wasn't brave.
"You don't need to explain anything to me. We're going to fix this," he assured - and now, like in years before, Don Buchanan's word was enough for his daughter as she nestled into the couch and cried herself to sleep. This had all gotten out of hand, she thought as she dozed off. All she had wanted was to live her dreams, to fulfill all of her lofty ambitions, and it had come to this.
She couldn't even tell her father the truth, she thought as her eyes drifted shut. If Chairman Donald Buchanan's daughter was found to have killed a man and in his place, brought back the man responsible for the Great Collapse, they would both be ruined.
Gwen woke the next morning to find herself wrapped in a blanket with a few too many pillows placed under her head while she still remained on the couch - since she was a child, her father had always given her more pillows than she needed, as though he feared she needed the extra protection. For a time, she had come to find it crowded and smothering, but now, it was possibly the only source of comfort she had. He had already had to leave for work, and Gwen felt a pang of guilt when she realized that he had probably needed to come in early to start figuring out what to do about Duggan.
Feet dragging, she got dressed and made her way to work again, only to find everyone gathered outside the entrance - all behind a ribbon of yellow police tape. Gwen waded through the crowd until she spotted a familiar head of blonde hair, waving to get Bryce's attention so that they were able to meet halfway in the throng of people.
"What happened?" Gwen asked shakily. "Is this - is this because -"
"No - hey, this isn't about you, alright? You don't have anything to worry about," he said, placing his hands on her shoulders with an encouraging smile, even though he knew that saying she had nothing to worry about wouldn't stop her from doing so anyway. "You look a little better today."
"I managed to get a little bit of sleep in," she shrugged weakly, dismissing his comment and refusing to change the subject. "Bryce, what's happening?"
"Break-in," he said simply, his brow furrowing at her insistence on answers. "The directors are saying that RIFT is behind it, they're keeping us all outside. They have detectives, a bomb squad - no one knows what to expect in there -"
"RIFT?" Gwen asked in disbelief. "I thought they disbanded a long time ago - there's no reason for them to exist anymore," she defended, tense with indignation. "That's what the Gatekeepers are for, to keep anyone from becoming too powerful, like…" her voice trailed off, and she shook her head to dispel the cloud of guilt that came with even thinking Will Caster's name. But even that paled in comparison to the idea that RIFT felt like it had to step in and intervene in her father's organization.
"That's the point - there've been whispers of them regrouping for the past year," Bryce explained, holding Carmen by the forearm and protectively pulling her away from the large crowd. "They think the Gatekeepers are becoming too powerful now -"
"But why a break-in?" Gwen asked, shaking her head and crossing her arms over herself. "They were known for killing, not stealing."
"We don't even know if anything's gone missing - I've been here for hours and I haven't heard a thing," Bryce admitted. He groaned and glanced around before pulling Gwen away towards the parking lot where there wouldn't be crowds. Even if she wasn't the pressing issue, he could tell easily that every time she passed, Gwen was receiving stares and whispers. The Gwen Buchanan he knew would never have tolerated it - she would have spoken up, defended herself, proven them wrong. But instead, she seemed to be continually shrinking in spirit, becoming pale and fearful and small. "Gwenny," he said in a doleful voice before he was able to stop himself. "You've been really different since - well, you know since when. And I understand," he added quickly. "But I'm worried about you. Everyone is. You used to tell me everything."
The last statement was said with such sadness that Gwen almost felt her shoulders sag with the weight of it. Bryce dug his hands into his pockets and shook his head, looking down at his feet as he realized he might as well continue talking.
"Ever since they moved you into Generativity, you've been distant - like everything is one big secret," he said honestly. "And you're my best friend, I wouldn't say this if I didn't - if I didn't care. I don't like what it's done to you. This was supposed to make you happy."
Gwen gave a humorless laugh and crossed her arms over herself. That had been the intention once, to be happy. "It just isn't what I thought it would be," she admitted, not yet able to look Bryce in the face because of how much she was failing to tell him. "It's not what I expected at all."
"You could always asked to come back," he said hopefully. Gwen shook her head and shot him a brief, sad smile.
"I don't think going back is an option anymore."
Bryce frowned, scoffing and lifting his gaze to look off to the side - for the the first time, Gwen felt like Bryce was, for some reason, angry with her.
"Gwen, come on - please don't keep secrets from me," he said sternly. Gwen was unfamiliar with this Bryce, who was not easygoing and full of humor, but rather forceful and demanding. He seemed almost bitter. "First my dad, now you? I know I'm not as smart as my dad, or as you, or -"
"Bryce, it's not that!" Gwen said - and they both froze when they realized that out of reflex, Gwen had reached out and grabbed a hold of his hands, squeezing them tightly. Bryce looked down at their intertwined fingers, then back up at his best friend's face which had gone slightly red. "There's just a lot going on that I'm not ready to talk about. We all have secrets," she shrugged, gently releasing his hands and dropping her hands to her sides. And Bryce couldn't help but agree - he, too, was keeping a secret from his best friend after all that very much involved her. "I just - I couldn't cope with dragging you down too, Bryce. Okay?"
"Okay…"
The pair shared a strange awkward silence - a new experience for both of them in the other's company - until they heard a voice from the entrance to the large high-rise building. "We're all clear, there doesn't seem to be any danger here," the officer said as he stepped out of the revolving door and began removing the police tape. "You can all go on inside."
Gwen and Bryce glanced at one another again, and she attempted to give him another smile. "Can we… at least act like everything's normal? Please?" she asked gently. He laughed quietly and nodded before gesturing for them both to go inside.
By the end of the day, however, even pretending to be normal was supremely exhausting. Gwen managed to get home and enter her empty house - her father was still likely at the office. However, moments after coming in the door, she found herself too exhausted to even drag herself upstairs to bed and instead, she flopped tiredly onto the couch. She closed her eyes to rest when there was a sound from the door - she was jolted fully awake when she realized she hadn't locked the door behind her.
Gwen leapt to her feet, but found that the person turning the doorknob was only Mr. Waters, wearing a large brown coat. He wordlessly shut the door behind him before walking over and handing her something sealed inside a plastic bag - film.
"I only took enough of the footage to make sure no one would see when Duggan became Will," Mr. Waters said in a low voice, stumbling over the latter half of the sentence, as even he struggled to describe what had happened. Gwen's mouth hung slightly agape. Much like their written records, the footage on the security cameras in the lower floors did not retain anything in digital form for fear of it falling into the wrong hands. Max Waters had been the one who broke into the Gatekeeper Headquarters - and he'd done it because of her. She let out a shuddering breath as she took the bag from his hand, shaking her head incredulously. "This is very dangerous, Gwen. You know that you could be in a lot of trouble, right?"
"I know," she said, hanging her head in shame. "And I understand if - if you want me to stay far away from Bryce, to leave him out of it -"
"Gwen, he needs you," Mr. Waters said, shaking his head and placing a hand on the girl's shoulder, which garnered an expression of complete surprise from her for what felt like the hundredth time lately. "Ever since you two were tiny, he's been at his best when he's with you, and I want the best for my son. All of this will pass -"
"What if it doesn't?"
"It's going to."
Gwen drew a few shuddering breaths and looked Max Waters directly in the eyes, seeing for the first time that he didn't seem like an old man at all. He was set on something, though what it was, she couldn't quite say. It hit her then that there was something she had yet to ask him.
"Did you mean for me to find Will Caster when you sent me to the old house?" she asked, her chest feeling heavy as she anticipated an answer, but she received now. Mr. Waters simply hung his head and shrugged.
"He and his wife, Evelyn, were… dear friends," he admitted vaguely. "And I had a feeling they were there somehow. I was sentimental. I hoped you would find something. But Gwen, I didn't think there was a way to bring either of them back, not the way that you've managed to."
Gwen saw a strange flicker of something in the older man's eyes when he mentioned Will Caster's wife, and she was briefly silent until she took a deep breath and eyed him questioningly.
"What happened to her, then? To Evelyn Caster?"
Max paused and tensed visibly for a moment before releasing a deep breath from his chest, shaking his head and nodding towards the sofa.
"We should sit down," Max said simply. "This isn't going to be a short story."
A/N's
I guess I'm breaking my resolution to no longer muddle my story with author's notes, but hopefully this is unobtrusive. I received a private message in response to my last update, and the sender asked me to publicly respond like it was a review:
"I feel like it's really inappropriate because technically there is a huge age gap (Will is bound to be at least almost 60 technically even if he is in a younger body) but I am really shipping young!Will/Gwen in this story. Do you have any plans on them being a couple?"
To be honest, while I definitely want them to have a deep connection, I don't feel very enthusiastic about making this story centered around a romance. I guess the best way to put it is... if there is supposed to be a romantic aspect of Will/Gwen, my writing has not brought me to a point where it feels natural for the characters. I'm not completely opposed to the idea, but I'm not going to force it if it doesn't feel like a natural, organic progression. It's not all written yet (understandably, because I only saw the movie when it came out, just like everyone else), so nothing is set in stone, though I do have a rough outline of the direction I'd like to take.
Also, to jseah, I'm happy to have a biologist onboard! I'm a nurse, so my knowledge is limited to the really minimal material I had in school, but I'm definitely interested in learning more! I was trying to brainstorm something wherein the combination of reverse transcriptase and the nanotechnology from the film could somehow have the capacity to "hijack" an organism - but I realize it's a big stretch. There are a couple other instances where there's a little bit of fanta-science (as I like to call it) behind the virus/nanoparticle hybrids that plays a role in the story, but I hope you can forgive me for it!
Thank you again for all of your feedback, it is seriously amazing to have this story so well-received, even though the movie itself has not received such a warm reception. (Also, I thoroughly encourage everyone to check out Amber Entropy's story in the Transcendence fandom if you're enjoying mine!) I'm going to continue to strive to keep things fresh and interesting for all of you, and I hope to continue hearing from you all in return. So, until next time, cheers!