A/N: WOW! Look at me go! Another update. We have some Caitlyn Reid moments in here, small but they'll get there. I got off work early and have the next two days off so I decided to take a crack at another chapter- an hour later and here it is. Thank you to those who have reviewed and such, please please review, I like them and it'll bring updates sooner ;)
Oh and if it ever says Hitch, and not Hotch, that's the beautiful handiwork of my autocorrect. Sorry.
"Yeah, I think that this may be some form of anti-robotics movement, we're heading back to the station now." Reid finished, hanging up his phone and sliding it into the pocket of his messenger bag as Caitlyn unlocked the black sedan.
"Mind if I drive?" she asked, even though she was already opening the door to the driver's seat, "I may need directions though-"
"All you have to do is take the I-45 west, you can get off at Ridgewood and then go under the overpass and onto the 210 East and we'll arrive to the station in fourteen minutes if you maintain a speed of 45 miles per hour and we only hit two stop lights."
"Alright, so exactly how smart are you? With all this robotics tied in with the case I'm worried about your safety doctor, are you a robot?" Caitlyn joked pulling her seatbelt across her waist, the young doctor cracked a small smile.
"I have an eidetic memory, an IQ of 187 even though I don't think intelligence can be quantified and can read 20,000 words per minute."
"Well, I can juggle."
Reid turned in his seat to look at her, not being able to keep a smile from his lips
"Can you really?"
"Yep, and I can saber a bottle of champagne but I don't think that's something that I can show you in the field or in the office." Caitlyn smiled.
"I can do magic but I was never able to juggle." he finally smiled openly for what seemed to be the first time she'd ever seen him do it directly at her.
"But you're not going to be pulling quarters out of my ears are you?" Caitlyn smiled back, looking him directly in the eyes. Yet again he quickly turned his glance away from her. Maybe he didn't like when people looked him directly in the eyes, or maybe he didn't like it when she did it specifically. Pulling onto the road, Caitlyn reached for the radio to fill the silence.
"Any kind of music that you like to listen to?" she asked, desperate to find some common ground and get him back to that hint of warmth that he turned on and off.
"I'm particularly fond of classical music, helps me concentrate." Caitlyn was flipping through the station as the young doctor began to rattle off facts about classical music. After six minutes had passed she spoke,
"Well I don't really think we're gonna find that on the radio so I-" she was cut off by the sound of The Next Episode, by Dr. Dre "-oh, now listen this is a doctor whose work I've studied."
"Oh, joy."
"This is good stuff, Spence." The young doctor pretended to be annoyed as he opened a book, hiding a small smile on his face as he quickly read through it.
Their sedan pulled up the same time as Morgan and some of the other agents. Derek's head started bobbing up and down as he heard the muffled sound of music before Caitlyn shut off the sedan.
"Dr. Dre," Morgan chuckled, "you got Reid to rap?"
"Definitely not," the young doctor answered, "but we have information that we need to go over." All of the others followed him into the station where Hotch was standing infont of a board with scenes from the crime sorted amongst it. Gideon was looking over the pictures of the pipe bomb and related files that Garcia had sent over.
"Let's deliver the profile." Hotch said, Caitlyn following the rest of the agents as they entered a room filled with police officers, eager to hear about the unsub.
"This un sub resides in Seattle, all of the acts including property damage have taken place here, which shows he has knowledge of the area. Even though he escalated and killed today, we don't believe that was his intention." Hotch began.
"We believe fear was the larger motive seeing as though those around the bomb only received minor injuries," Morgan continued.
"So he's a terroist?" An officer asked.
"He is, but that's too vague of a description for our purposes," the young doctor spoke up, and Caitlyn looked in his direction as if it was some kind of instinct, "there are many different types and we believe he is a personal cause bomber."
"And personal bombers are driven by an underlying personal conflict." Hotch continued. Reid then stood up and began rambling on facts about the unibomber, Caitlyn could feel eyes on her as she watched him and made eye contact with Morgan who was watching her watch the young doctor. She looked away quickly and then down to her feet.
"This un sub is a male, he lives alone and is probably self employed."
"He's…" Caitlyn began, still somewhat unsure of herself and never giving a profile before somewhat nervous. "He's highly organized, meticulous and very smart."
Hotch gave her an approving nod,
"This is the kind of guy that his neighbors wouldn't be surprised if they found out he was the bomber, he's angry, prone to fits of rage."
"His target appears to be technology, the kind of technology we're surrounded by." Gideon stated. At that moment the phone rang, and the whole office went silent.
"Agent Gideon, you have a call on the tip line." At that time Gideon went into a small room, leaving the rest of the agents to wait.
Caitlyn found herself what seemed to be seconds later in the aftermath of an explosion that took place in a car in a gas station. She recognized a smell in the air.
"Do you smell that?" she stated, "he used the same explosive just a lot more of it." She tip toed towards the car carefully, "it seems like he even used the same detonation device."
"The gas station attendant left 15 minutes prior, so no one was here for the explosion." Reid confirmed as Caitlyn carefully tried to look at as much of the remainder of the bomb fragments as possible.
"An increase in the explosion and a decrease in the number of victims, we need a grid search as soon as possible. He said his message would be here when we arrived." Gideon commanded. All the agents began looking around as Caitlyn still tried to get a better look at the bomb fragments.
"Over here!" the bomb tech called from inside the gas station, which in turn got all the agents running towards her voice. Once they got into range she continued again, "it's a book." Reid jumped after it quickly, Caitlyn wanted to reach forward and tell him to stop, but it was as if the pages were magnetized and he couldn't get to it fast enough. What if the bomb tech didn't look good enough, what if- Caitlyn. Stop. This is a case, get a grip on yourself.
"It's some sort of manifesto." He said, already reading it, his mouth mouthing the words quickly.
By the time the agents were back at the station, Reid had already finished the manifesto. Twice.
"So his manifesto is extremely unrealistic, he wants to get rid of all existing technology in a ridiculously short amount of time." Hotch started.
"And if we don't then more bombs will be set off." J.J finished.
"He calls himself Allegro." Gideon sighed, staring at the board.
"What?" Caitlyn and Ried both said at the same time, the same light bulb going off in their head.
"He said he was Allegro." Gideon repeated.
"Of course!" Reid started,
"Allegro like…" Caitlyn began but was interrupted and over ran by Reid.
"It's a book called,"
"Empty Planet!" Caitlyn cut back in.
"You've read Empty Planet?" Reid asked looking over at the blonde agent.
"Yeah, I did when I was a teenager it's awesome and makes a lot of sense now." she answered.
"Okay and for those of us who DIDN'T," Morgan cued.
"Sorry," Reid responded, "It has everything technoids, all that stuff is in there! Robots that take over the world when they learn how to reproduce with humans, essentially humanity is lost to technology and the hero of the book is a 12 year old boy named Allegro who builds an army for the humans."
"Morgan have Garcia get as much information on the author as possible."
"There was someone named Dr. Cook on the bus that was far from the umbrella." J.J stated.
"Yeah, he's basically a master of artificial intelligence." Reid answered.
"Alright, Caitlyn and Morgan you stay here, me and Reid are going to talk to Dr. Cook."
"So it turns out that the author is a teacher at the University of Seattle." Morgan told Caitlyn who was looking over pictures from the crime scene.
"This is all connected then. So he's probably targeting the sources of technology, even people." Caitlyn said, holding up the photos in her hand.
"I'm going to let Gideon and Reid know, who probably is an interest of yours." Morgan said, raising an eyebrow. Caitlyn dropped the pictures on the table,
"Why would you think I'm interested in Gideon?" Caitlyn said trying to make a joke and divert the handsome agent.
"Nice try, Cait. I'm talking about Reid."
"R-R-Reid? No. I'm not interested, what makes you think that? I like just met him and there's a bomber and he didn't say anything did he?" she asked.
"No but now you're my source. And pretty boy is your target."
"Nice word play but no he doesn't…. I don't-" she started, but Morgan was already out of the room. How would he know about something that she didn't even know about herself?
"I don't like you Derek Morgan. You're a target for a kick in the ass! " she called out into the hallway.
"It looks like a compression bomb." Caitlyn said, looking at another blown up vehicle. "The second he moved… boom." She said to Morgan and Hotch. Reid and Gideon were talking to the author of the book. Hotch stepped away to take a phone call as Caitlyn pretended to be extremely intrigued with the bomb fragments in order to make it seem like she was busy and so that Morgan wouldn't bring up the whole Reid thing.
"You heard me back at the station, I know you know that bomb and could make it yourself, don't avoid the subject Cait." Morgan prodded.
"I don't know what you're talking about Morgan, as far as I'm concerned we have a bigger problem and he doesn't even talk to me. I think he hates me."
"So you ARE interested in him." Morgan laughed with an air of success knowing that he was right.
"I didn't say that! I just, even if I was he doesn't…" Once again she was saved by Hotch, who let the agents know that they got note of another bomb. That afternoon her and Morgan and Hotch were going from location to location, getting increasingly frustrated as they chased the bomber around, picking up the bombs he left as if they were breadcrumbs. Notch's phone rang yet again but this time the conversation was short and he was heading to the car as he was talking. "We know who he's targeting next,"
"There could be a compression bomb under her car too," Caitlyn started, running after her unit chief. They were in dead silence as they sped up to the location all the agents running up the stairs to the parking structure.
"How long ago did her assistant say she left?" Morgan yelled back, Caitlyn right behind him and Hotch on her heels.
"Minutes." he answered.
"Good, maybe she's not in the car yet." Caitlyn's heart sank as she saw the woman in the car and driving away. She strengthened her sprint to get next to Morgan all three of the officers running towards her vehicle.
"Stop the car, stop the car!"
The woman slowed down, cellphone still to her ear and a look on her face that was a mixture of annoyance and confusion.
"Ma'am, please put the car in park and don't touch the ignition."
"I'm gonna have to call you back," she said to the unknown receiver on the other side of the phone and hanging up. "What's going on?"
"Dr. Braiser?" Morgan asked.
"Yes! What is going on?"
"Don't worry we're FBI." he answered. He gave Caitlyn a nod and she slowly opened the driver's side.
"Hi, my name is Caitlyn. I need you to be very still and not to move, okay?" she said as sincerely as possible as she peeked her head under the seat. When she got a glimpse of the bomb she shut her eyes tightly "damn." Giving herself a minute to compose her facial features before looking into the eyes of the woman sitting on the bomb.
"Listen… I need you to stay as still and as calm as possible, okay?"
"Why! Tell me what's going on."
"There's a bomb under your seat."