"You're making the right decision, Chairman Buchanan," Bree said, taking a sip from the glass of white wine in front of her. She hadn't honestly been sure whether or not to expect cooperation from the man so quickly when she demanded a secret meeting with him at a small restaurant near his hotel in Amsterdam, but when it came to anything that concerned his daughter's well-being, Donald Buchanan was capable of becoming quite the wild card.
"I wouldn't normally consider making deals with you, you know that," he said calmly, drinking from his own glass as well. "But I have to agree - the Gatekeepers have gotten out of hand. The organization has grown into something I can no longer control, and Gwen is suffering because of it."
"I will make your daughter's safety my personal responsibility," Bree nodded calmly - though she did not divulge that she took a personal interest in the girl, whether he agreed to her terms or not. "But - only if you uphold your end of the bargain. The Gatekeepers and RIFT should be partners in preserving humanity, and they clearly have not been -"
"And, as promised, those changes will be made once my daughter's safety is assured," Don said. In truth, he didn't trust Bree or any of her ilk, and he knew his daughter felt the same way - but they were not the type of people you desired to have as enemies, and as such, entering into a partnership with them was the best protection he could offer his daughter. Donald Buchanan had long felt that the Gatekeepers had grown unwieldy - the use of his daughter as their sacrificial lamb was simply the breaking point.
"Where is she?" Bree asked for perhaps the third time that evening.
"I don't know," Don answered. While he was leaving out crucial details - including his knowledge that his daughter was hiding from RIFT specifically - it was at least a partial truth. He had no idea where Max Waters had taken his daughter, or how long she planned on staying there. As long as Bree was willing to believe it was Hadley and the other Directors behind Gwen's disappearance, RIFT would for once be an asset to Buchanan.
Seemingly appeased, Bree picked up her glass and took another sip before getting to her feet. "Then, Chairman, I believe we have a deal," she said, nodding with gently raised eyebrows. "We'll speak again when you're back stateside."
Bryce Waters knew that he wasn't necessarily as intelligent or as savvy as his father had been in his prime, but he knew that he was competent. It didn't take him a great deal to find out how far his father had gone. He had made sure to check the odometer before Max left, and now was able to see how many miles he had traveled. From there, he had been able to draw a radius from their house and see what fell within it.
He knew about the old cabin in Capay - they had stayed out there for fishing trips once or twice, many years ago. More importantly, he knew that Capay was the one place that RIFT respected enough to leave alone.
Max had insisted that Bryce couldn't know where Gwen had gone, and Bryce was adamant in demanding to know why - the request was never granted, except for the explanation that it was too risky. Unwilling to accept it, Bryce knew that if he wanted answers, if he wanted to see Gwen, he would have to figure it out on his own. He would have to find her on his own.
The drive to Capay was drawn out, accompanied by the gradual disappearance of the radio stations into static, and by the time Bryce had reached the dilapidated road signed that welcomed him to the town, the sun was high and at its warmest, when it had only just risen when he left home. He realized, as his stomach gave a slight pang, that he'd left in such a hurry and not eaten - he could pick something up from the small general store.
However, after parking in front, he hadn't even needed to enter when he realized as he peered in through the glass panes of the front door that the young woman at the register was Gwen. His Gwen. Practically tripping over himself, he stumbled out of his car and through the door, stopping just a few paces inside as she looked up and met his gaze.
"What are you doing here?" she asked in a highly disbelieving voice. Emerging from the backroom, Lorna glanced at the young man in the doorway with severe concern, her brow furrowing.
"Is he one of them?" she asked carefully.
"No. No, he's - he's my friend," Gwen nodded, stepping out around the counter and rushing over to him, hugging him tightly. "Bryce, you can't be here," she said, though she still embraced him and buried her head in his shoulder for a moment before stepping back about an arm's length, shaking her head. "You - you can't be here. What if someone followed you?"
"They didn't - I'm nobody, remember?" he chuckled with a lopsided grin. "You're always the one who gets noticed. I just had to make sure you were safe -"
"You can't be here," Gwen repeated, still squeezing his hands. "It's dangerous, for both of us. It's better that no one else knows that you and your dad know where I am."
Reluctantly, Bryce stepped back and released his best friend's warm hands, holding his own arms stiffly at his sides and forcing a calm smile. "I just - you're right," he shrugged. "I'll be more careful, but I'm not going to stay away. I can't -"
"Bryce," Gwen insisted, raising her eyebrows slightly. "We can't see each other like this, okay?"
Wounded, Bryce tried to conceal the fact that he flinched as though it had been a physical blow. He needed and reached out to squeeze her hand one more time. "One bad feeling about anything, and I'm going to come running. You can't stop me from worrying about my best friend," he added with a weak smile before walking out of the store. Letting out a heavy sigh, Gwen turned around and saw Lorna back at the counter, who stared at her with gentle questioning but didn't say a word.
"It's… complicated," Gwen said weakly, and thankfully, this seemed to be good enough. When she returned to the cabin, however, Will was standing at the door with crossed arms.
"The view from this cabin is spectacular," he deadpanned. "I can see absolutely everything from here, including a certain visitor who came into town. I hope you told him -"
"I told him that he couldn't just come parading in here without taking everything into consideration," Gwen said shortly, striding into the house past Will and heading into the kitchen area to the small ice chest where she stored some of the supplies Max had left her. "I know you're the genius between the two of us, Will, but I'm not a Neanderthal."
Brow furrowed, she brought over the set of swabs and vials she had been using to collect cheek swabs on Will for the past few days to study, setting them down on the coffee table with a slighter louder clatter than usual in her annoyance. Will sat on the old sofa as he always did out of reflex - it seemed he'd been conditioned at this point to follow their set routine - but did not desist.
"If this is going to stay a safe place for us," Will said, his voice slow and pronounced - Gwen noted that he sounded more and more condescending lately and wondered if perhaps these were more of his true colors than anything he'd shown her before. "We need to make sure everyone keeps believing that we're actually settling down here - and you're on the right track," he conceded. "But eventually, if you have him running in and out of town to see you and you're living here with me, people are obviously going to wonder what's going on."
"So now we have to justify living here together is what you're saying?"
"Not explicitly," Will said. "But the possibility has to be there for them to believe that you and I -"
"Are involved."
"Something like that."
Gwen rolled her eyes - though she didn't outright refuse - and began preparing the supplies to take the daily cheek swab. Will complied as he always did, with an inert hope that somehow, even with rudimentary supplies and nothing to go on, Gwen Buchanan would discover something.
Max Waters didn't need to turn around at the sound of the front door opening to know that his son had returned home - and judging by the amount of time he had been gone, it wasn't difficult to determine where he'd run off to. Bryce stood silently in the doorway as though awaiting the earful he was going to receive, but instead, Max Waters continued to face the television screen.
"I'll deal with you later, Bryce," he said stonily. "This is important."
Bryce paused and looked up at the screen and realized that Gwen's father - Chairman Buchanan - was on the screen at a podium preparing to speak. Bryce barreled over and sat in front of the television as well, resting his elbows on his knees as the microphone came to life with a crackle.
"As Chairman of the International Summit of Gatekeepers, I have called this conference to announce," he began, his voice tight and his gaze focused, lacking the warmth Bryce was so accustomed to seeing when Chairman Buchanan was addressing his daughter, "that we will be conducting an organization-wide audit and overhaul. We have lost sight of our mission. A mission of maintaining the public's safety as developing a world where mistake of the past - namely, placing the future in the hands of machines and abandoning the endeavor of personal, human growth and knowledge - are not carried into the future."
"Chairman," one reporter in the front row managed to bellow over the buzzing throng. "What does this decision have to do with recent reports about your daughter's assault -"
"Is it true that Gwen Buchanan is missing -"
"Do you have any suspicions as to who is -"
"I am currently… unaware of my daughter's whereabouts," Buchanan said, his jaw tightening slightly to that his words lost a small amount of clarity. The emotion did not go unnoticed as the reporters seemed to be scrawling and typing away. "She was placed on leave by Director Hadley of the Biological Sciences Division in Berkeley, and beyond that, I have yet to hear from her. That is all the detail I'm able to give at this time - but I will not pretend that her attack was not a factor. As a father, it has enlightened me. My daughter, Gwendolyn, has been a diligent employee of the Gatekeepers for over three years. She has refused any special treatment and has started as any other employee with her credentials would. She entered the organization with ambitions of giving people better lives through knowledge and research - because that is what I have told her the Gatekeepers stood for. Now, she is employed in a culture that is punishing her for being attacked, and this is culture I cannot tolerate in my organization -"
"Is it true that you've been in talks with RIFT? Is -"
"I am not in a position to align myself with any group in my leadership of the Gatekeepers," Buchanan replied. "I am simply a decisionmaker, and I am deciding to raise the standards to which I hold myself and my employees. That's all I have to say, thank you."
The reporters roared with additional questions that would go unanswered as he stepped down from the microphone and now, Bryce tore his gaze away from the television set to face his father.
"They think Hadley had something to do with Gwen disappearing?" he asked, his brow furrowed. "Why can't Gwen come out of hiding? You heard what those people in masks said, Dad - if she plays along, RIFT will protect her -"
"No. RIFT can't be anywhere near her," Max insisted. "RIFT can't -"
"Dad, it's not like before!" Bryce said, standing up and throwing his arms out wide in exasperation. "What if RIFT isn't -"
"You don't understand RIFT, Bryce. You don't know them - and you and Gwen shouldn't ever know them," he said darkly, standing up and walking away to the stairs, leaving his son alone in the living room.
A/N's
Sorry for the long wait for an update! I've been incredibly swallowed up in job hunting, as well as the process of self-publishing my second original novel, Portraits of a Massacre. It's a completely different beast from fanfiction so it's really refreshing to be back. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far and gently prodded me to update.
I did receive one review with constructive criticism that Will was out of character, and I hope you'll still stick around to read regardless. What I have been trying to portray is that he is a crushed man, after having for some time been all-knowing and all-capable and then being relegated back to being 'just a man' again. I will work on portraying this more effectively, and I'm happy that it was pointed out to me!
Also, I've gotten feedback in both directions about how people feel about Will/Gwen becoming a romantic pairing. I've drafted upcoming chapters both with and without a romantic angle, so you'll just have to wait and see which one wins out! Until next time - and I hope this time, it won't be too long - cheers!