The Other Side: An Alternate Universe, Similar But Not Identical to Our Own
September 22, 2014
"Walter? Walter? Are you listening?" A woman's voice pulled Paige Dineen's attention to the booth behind her. Paige looked up from her sketchpad. She was seated at her regular table in a local diner that she frequented several times a week on her way to work.
The woman's companion answered, "Yes, you said 'I didn't see this coming at all.'"
Paige had intended to return her focus to the figure on the sketchpad. She was on a deadline, but the conversation going on behind her was just too ridiculous to ignore. She had to know what would happen next. She shifted slightly so she could see the woman out of the corner of her eye, an attractive blonde in a doctor's lab coat. The woman spoke again. "I can't believe you're breaking up with me."
Paige was dying to get a look at the man in this conversation, but he was seated directly behind her. She wouldn't be able to see him without giving away her interest in what was obviously a private conversation. "I'll admit you have been patient." Patient? What had she needed to be patient for? Paige was surprised at how invested she was getting in this breakup.
"Longest three months of my life." The woman appeared to hesitate, choosing her words with care, "Mmm. You're not easy, Walter." What the hell does that mean? Paige wondered. To go by the sound of his voice, she was willing to bet he was easy, very easy on the eyes.
But 'Walter' was already speaking again, "I thought this might help." Oh no! Paige had almost missed what he said in response to that bomb drop. This was about to get really good! Paige heard the sound of shuffling papers. "Throughout our relationship," he continued, "you've accused me, correctly, of being unable to connect with your emotional states. So... I mapped out what I anticipate you'll experience over the next few minutes." So totally not what Paige had expected the response to being told that dating him had been the longest three months of a woman's life.
Paige took a sip of her rapidly cooling coffee and regretted it almost immediately. She clapped her hand over her mouth to avoid spewing the beverage over the remains of her salad. "You wrote a document to connect with me - emotionally?" Paige felt as confused as the woman obviously was.
Walter did not notice the uncertainty of the woman in front of him, nor that the woman at the booth behind him was slowly sliding to the edge of the bench getting closer to the window. "Mm-hmm." he sounded impressed that his now former girlfriend grasped his intention so quickly. "Now, this is a decision tree. This is just to help you through the…"
Paige had almost moved far enough to see the man without calling attention to herself, but just then the conversation was interrupted by an irate Nemos, the diner's owner. "Hey! I pay you to fix wireless, not talk."
Walter jumped in surprise, giving Paige a chance, finally, to get a good look at his face. He was most definitely easy on the eyes.
The woman's eyes flashed with irritation but not surprise. "You scheduled our breakup on a job?!" Deny it, deny it, deny it, and save yourself. Paige thought towards him as if somehow Walter could hear her.
Walter answered, "To be more efficient." He definitely didn't get Paige's message. She slumped in defeat. The man had torpedoed his own breakup!
The woman summed Paige's thoughts up perfectly. "You may be trying, Walter. But you're still a million miles from normal."
Walter shrugged and gathered his decision tree pages, shoving them into his backpack, and then climbed out of the booth, leaving a confused former girlfriend behind. He slung one strap of his pack across a shoulder and crossed the diner toward the wifi router. Walter had switched from breakup mode to work mode without missing a beat.
Meanwhile, back at their table, the woman gathered her purse and other belongings. She and Paige made brief eye contact as the woman passed her, she paused just for a moment and said, "And he's the genius?" Not knowing how to react to that bit of information, Paige just raised her eyebrows as if to say "What can you do?" as the woman continued on her way out of the diner.
The fact that Walter was still in the building a few yards away meant Paige was definitely not getting any more work done anytime soon. She really wanted to know what would happen next. She needed some context. Did he even know how to fix the diner's wifi? Was he an actual genius? Would the woman come back? Would he chase after her?
"Get it together, Dineen," Paige told herself. "You have a deadline and you need a Zany Zoey 2.0 mockup before your 3 PM with Mitch. He's going to be expecting something amazing, as usual." She glanced at the drawing on her sketchpad, wrinkling her nose at her latest attempt staring back at her. Part of the Galactic Toys' superhero universe or not, Zany Zoey 2.0 was most definitely not looking amazing.
The breakup show appeared to be over. The woman hadn't returned and Walter hadn't chased after her. Paige picked up her favorite pencil and started sketching out another attempt at an update for Zoey, the cartoon superheroine in her sketchpad.
Walter stood on a stepladder, his laptop in one hand as he prepped the router's adjustable antenna for an update with his other, his computer connected to the device with several wires in a complex configuration. The download was going to take a couple of minutes and his attention wandered from the screen in front of him. He immediately noticed a beautiful brunette sitting at the table adjacent to the table where he had just sat to break up with his girlfriend. Walter felt relieved even though he knew that was the wrong emotion to feel. He had enjoyed her company, just not as much as he should have. Walter watched as the waitress approached the woman.
"Hi," the waitress spoke softly, barely above a whisper. Paige looked up at the waitress with the coffee pot in her hand. "Did you want a refill?" Paige looked in confusion between the nervous waitress and her full coffee cup. "Oh," the waitress stammered, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you, this seemed like a good excuse to ask…" she trailed off. Her eyes darted to the young boy seated a few feet away at the counter. Paige's eyes followed. She was starting to lose patience, but kept a smile on her face, even if it didn't quite meet her eyes.
"Is there something I can help you with…?" Paige's voice trailed off.
"Brittany," the waitress supplied.
"Is there something I can help you with, Brittany?"
"You're-you're Paige Dineen, right? You're a lead artist for Galactic Toys and creator of Zany Zoey." Paige smiled, sincerely this time. She knew where this was going. She wasn't a celebrity, not in L.A., of all places, but among a very small niche of fans of the Super Fun Guy comics, she was known.
"Yes, I am."
Brittany smiled in relief at Paige's reaction. She pointed to a small boy seated a few feet away at the counter, "That's my son, Gray. We went to your comic book signing event at the Wizard's Chest a couple of weeks ago. He really likes Super Fun Guy. Like, really likes it. But all the people, all the noise, it was just too much and we had to leave before we got to the front of the line." Brittany took a deep breath as if gathering her courage before she spoke again. "I was hoping you might talk to him for a minute, maybe sign his Super Fun Guy comic book. He takes it everywhere with him."
Paige nodded at his mother before she made fleeting eye contact with Gray. His gaze skittered quickly away from Paige's. But she did see the small smile that appeared at the corners of his mouth. She took notice of her empty lunch dishes as she gathered her purse and notebook to go sit next to the boy. Paige pressed three $20s into Brittany's hand as she stood to sit at the counter as well.
The waitress eyed the cash for a moment before shaking herself and looking up at Paige, "This is way too much for your meal." She tried to push the cash into Paige's hand, but Paige waved her off.
"No, it's really not. My stepmom works hard raising my little brother, Ralph. I know what it's like to be raising an enabled child."
"A-A what?" Brittany asked as she started gathering Paige's lunch dishes.
"Your boy, Gray, is it?" Brittany nodded. "I can see by the way he observes, well, literally everything, he's got more going on behind his eyes than most of us will ever dream of, you know, enabled." She could tell that Brittany had no clue what she was talking about. Paige wasn't surprised. It had taken her dad and stepmom a while to figure out what had been going on with Ralph when he was little too. "I'd still really like to sit with him for a few minutes."
Walter, who was only paying cursory attention to his work with the diner's wifi, watched with great interest as Paige dropped her sketchpad, jacket, and purse on the seat next to the boy, and put her hand on the back of the stool, one seat over. "Do you mind?" she asked Gray.
Gray's gaze darted over her quickly, noting her Super Fun Guy t-shirt and the Zany Zoey sketches in her drawing pad. She could see him weighing the variables. Finally Gray approved and curtly nodded his head once.
Paige pulled out her sketchpad and opened it to a blank page. She started absentmindedly doodling as she spoke. "Thanks. Hi, Gray, I'm Paige, nice to meet you. I wanted to let you know your mom invited me over here. She told me that she took you to the Wizard's Chest when I was there a couple of weeks ago, but I missed getting to talk to you. I'm sorry to hear that. Meeting all the cool people who really love Super Fun Guy is one of my favorite parts of my job. I spend a lot of time drawing Zany Zoey and I like her a lot, but Super Fun Guy is my favorite too." Paige often felt that more than half of the reason she had been promoted to be a lead artist for the Super Fun Guy comic books was because she loved meeting the fans and was good at engaging with them.
Gray watched her carefully. So did Walter, from across the diner. She felt his eyes on her and her cheeks flushed at his attention.
"Do you like hanging out at the diner with your mom?" Gray shook his head. "I get it, probably kind of boring. But I know a kind of cool way to pass the time. Have you ever heard of a game called 'chess'?" Gray shook his head again. "No problem. I can teach you a little about it and how to play. The rules are pretty simple." Paige waited a moment for the boy's reaction. He appeared interested so she continued. "They make super fancy chess sets you can buy. You can play online against a computer or even other players around the world. They even make a Super Fun Guy version." Gray's eyes perked up at that fact. "Maybe if you enjoy the game I can get you a Super Fun Guy set for your birthday or sometime. If it's okay with your mom." Gray's eyes lit up. "I see that piqued your interest. I'll talk to her about it. But you really don't need any of that fancy stuff to play. All you need is the stuff around you. Let's see," Paige started gathering items from the counter. "The matches are the king, the jelly is the queen, the sugar packets are the knights, and…" Paige and Gray spent the next few minutes in silence as they assembled their chess pieces.
Once they had both sides set up, Paige took a few moments to explain what each piece did and how it could move on their makeshift board on the diner counter. With each piece explained Paige showed Gray a few opening moves. "Got it?" He nodded. Within a few moves, his confidence and understanding of the game improving constantly, young Gray trounced Paige. "Another game?" Gray smiled and nodded, this time looking Paige in the eyes. She showed him another series of opening moves. He beat her in ten moves. She was a decent chess player, not a master by any stretch of the imagination, but the weight of Walter's gaze on her scrambled her thoughts and Gray took easy advantage of her distraction.
Walter made a few keystrokes on his computer as the necessary download was completed and began the installation process. He continued to eavesdrop on the conversation between the beautiful brunette and the young boy. He was fascinated by the way she interacted with the boy and her smile made his stomach do flips.
"Hey, kid, take it easy on me." Paige cried out as Gray beat her at chess once again. "Do you have a Super Fun Guy comic book I can sign? Get a little of my dignity back?" Gray nodded and pulled one out of his backpack. "Ah, one of the classics." Paige pulled a black Sharpie marker out of her purse and was signing the book when Nemos spotted Gray. He was at the far end of the counter, and hurried toward Gray and Paige, yelling the whole way. "Hey, kid! You're making a mess! Brittany! Again your boy's all over with the shakers!"
Hearing the way that the diner's owner yelled at the waitress, set Walter's teeth on edge. He was tempted for just a moment to fry the diner's wifi router and leave no trace of how it happened. But he didn't. He knew that would just make the diner owner angry and he was likely to take his short temper out on the waitress and her son.
The waitress hurried over, to defend her son. "I know, he knows, I know. He's just having a hard time adjusting in school. He'll be back next week. Promise." Nemos lost interest in the boy and his mother as new customers walked into the diner. He moved to greet the pair of businessmen who had entered. The waitress stooped down in front of Gray so they were eye to eye, "Hey, honey. It's okay. Mr. Gianakos just likes to keep things neat. Remember we talked about that kind of thing before? Doesn't mean there's something wrong with you, okay?"
Walter finished the wifi router upgrade, disconnected his cables, and snapped his laptop shut. He placed his equipment carefully into his backpack as he listened to the woman's conversation with the waitress about her son.
Paige blushed, "I feel so bad, I wasn't trying to make trouble for Gray, just show him something he might enjoy."
Brittany waved her off. "It's not you, it's him. It's this job. It's the best one I could find. It will get easier once Gray starts school again." Paige wasn't sure if the waitress was trying to convince Paige or herself.
"Hey, Brittany, let me give you my number. You can bring Gray by Galactic Toys sometime and we can do a little private tour." Paige turned her attention to the boy. "Maybe you can even meet my little brother, Ralph. Something tells me the two of you will get along quite well. He beats me at chess all the time, too." She winked at Gray. He smiled and turned to his mom, "Please?"
Walter crossed the short space between where he had been standing on the stepladder and the counter where the two women and the boy were. Brittany blinked back tears from Paige's kind words as the man who had been at the other end of the diner fixing the wifi suddenly appeared at her elbow. "Excuse me? Can I help you?" she asked with some irritation.
His dark brown eyes penetrated straight into her soul, it was as if he was judging her worthiness as a mother. "No, but you should help him." He continued past her, brushing Paige's arm with his on his way to where Nemos stood next to the cash register, ringing up a customer. Paige couldn't stop an involuntary gasp at the brief contact. Who was this man? Walter stopped in front of the diner's owner. "Wireless is up. Don't yell at that boy." Walter told the man then turned on his heel without another word. He opened the door and disappeared into the bright California sunshine.
That woman, Paige, had seen the same thing in the boy, Gray, that he had. The boy was a genius. He wondered what she would see if she observed him as carefully as she did the boy. Brushing off such an uncharacteristic thought, he got behind the wheel of his ancient Datsun, and after a few moments of trying, he got his car started and headed for home.
Paige and Gray played a few more games of chess, each defeat more humiliating than the last. "Hey, Gray, I'm having a really fun time hanging out, but I need to spend some time with these Zany Zoey drawings. I need some new ones to show my boss in a few hours."
"Can I help?" Gray asked earnestly.
"Sure, why not," Paige gave him a couple of sheets of paper from her sketchpad and placed her pouch of colored pencils on the counter between them. She tried to empty her mind of all distractions and let muscle memory take over as she sketched out an updated costume for Zoey. To her surprise several minutes later Gray had made some remarkable sketches of his own. Giving Zoey a helmet with her stylized 'double-z' logo was beyond inspired. "Hey, Gray, can I take this aspect of the stars you put on her helmet and do this to it?" she shaded the star's shape a bit differently and placed it on Zoey's belt. "What do you think?" Gray nodded. "Cool, thanks, Gray. I'm really glad I met you today. I was having a hard time with these designs, but you've really inspired me."
Paige continued working on her designs for a while longer. Brittany was always nearby and always making sure Paige had plenty of hot fresh coffee. Feeling like she had gotten as much done with Zoey as she was going to before the meeting, Paige decided to relax a bit.
Now that he had helped Paige with her drawing, Gray had moved on and was quite engrossed in some kind of pattern he was drawing with her colored pencils on one of her sadder attempts to give Zoey a bit of an upgrade. It was something she normally would have just tossed, but Gray had asked if he could have it and she had agreed. She hadn't realized that he had wanted it for drawing whatever pattern of color he was creating, obscuring her drawing of Zoey. This was why she loved kids and kids like him in particular. There was nothing fake or manipulative about them. Unlike…
Paige shook off unwanted thoughts of her mother, the kind of thoughts that crept in whenever she thought about manipulative people. Her mother had been a con artist for Paige's whole life. Fortunately, Paige and her father had eventually gotten away from her and he had even met Elizabeth, her wonderful stepmother, and mother to Paige's own favorite miniature genius, her half-brother, Ralph.
Paige smiled as she sent Elizabeth a quick text, telling her about her encounter with Gray at the diner, teaching him to play chess, and then being soundly trounced by him (several times). Elizabeth sent her a laughing emoji, followed by a suggestion that maybe the two boys would like to meet.
Paige texted back "Great minds think alike, I said the same thing to her. I gave his mom my number, maybe I should give her yours too." Elizabeth hearted the message. She could see the animated dots indicating that Elizabeth was typing something else when she saw two black government-issue SUVs screech into the diner's parking lot.
As agents in mirrored sunglasses climbed out of the car, followed close behind by Walter, the guy who broke up with his girlfriend at this diner earlier, Paige knew that this day was only going to get even more interesting from here. She typed a quick text to Elizabeth "Give Ralph my love, I gotta run. Dinner tonight?" She didn't wait for a reply before she shoved her phone into her jeans' back pocket. She watched as Homeland Security agents burst into what moments before had been a sleepy little diner.
The leader of the trio of agents spoke, "Owner! Agent Gallo, Homeland Security. We need to commandeer your diner for a national emergency." Gallo tossed an envelope stuffed with cash onto the counter in front of its owner. "You can stay. But that's it. Everybody out! Come on! Everybody out! Come on, come on!" customers and staff began nervously gathering their things, heading towards the exits. This was obviously some kind of trouble no one wanted to be a part of.
One customer dallied, "No, no, no, no, no. You-you pay tomorrow. Come on." Nemos was in a hurry to get out himself, away from the federal agents currently occupying his diner. "
Agent Gallo meant business and the diner wasn't emptying fast enough for his liking. "Come on, out! Out! Out!"
Nemos hollered at the stragglers of his almost empty diner. "Come on!"
Walter and his team entered the diner and began setting up their computers and equipment.
The waitress was still trying to convince her reluctant son to leave with everyone else. Nemos grabbed her arm and told her, "No, no, no, no, you stay."
Brittany shook her head, "Uh, Nemos, no customers, no tips, and I cannot leave Gray here with…" she gestured to the unusual assortment of people who had commandeered her place of work.
"Listen, my immigration status makes me not so comfortable around Federal agents. You lock up." Brittany shook her head more forcefully this time. Paige had been watching the entire scene, reluctant to leave, somehow drawn to the man who had fixed the wifi only an hour earlier.
"Nemos," Paige called to him as she approached the owner. "Can't you see she and her boy are scared? Let them leave!"
"I need someone to watch the diner, to make sure these riffraff don't damage my kitchen."
"Is that seriously what you're worried about?" Paige asked incredulously. "Look at them, it seems highly unlikely." She gestured to the young man in glasses frantically wiping down the counter. Nemos grunted his disagreement. Paige sighed in irritation. "Fine. Maybe someone should stay, but don't make Brittany do it. I'll stay."
"You? Why should I trust you?"
"I've been coming here a few times a week for the past five years. You know me. Besides, I don't see how you have much of a choice at this point." Paige gestured to the wall of windows along the front of the diner and the view of the waitress and her son running through the parking lot. They had slipped out while Nemos' attention had been on Paige.
"Fine, but I am holding you responsible if anything happens."
"Got it."
Nemos handed Paige his ring of keys to the diner, then turned and hustled out the back himself, leaving Paige alone with the federal agents and who else she didn't quite know. She bit her lip and just watched the group for a few moments.
Paige approached the youngest member of the team, the young man with glasses and an apparent desire for cleanliness. "I remember you. You were at the Wizard's Chest for the Super Fun Guy signing a couple of weeks ago." the young man blushed.
"I'm surprised you remember me, Ms. Dineen. I'm even more surprised to see you here monitoring the diner with the owner gone."
"I guess you heard all that, huh?" The young man nodded. "It seemed like the least I could do so he would let that poor waitress and her son go. And please, no Ms. Dineen. Call me Paige." Paige snapped her fingers, "Sylvester… Sly, right? I knew I would remember it if I just thought for a second."
"That's right, I can hardly believe you would remember." Sly smiled.
Paige tapped her index finger on her temple. "Mind like a steel trap, for the important stuff, like the Super Fun Guy and Zany Zoey fans I meet. What about your friends?" she gestured to the rest of the team spread out over the diner.
"That's Toby, in the hat. That's Happy, punching him in the shoulder for saying something dumb. Agent Gallo, from Homeland. And Agents Bates and Chandler." Sly turned and pointed to the man who had upgraded the diner's wifi earlier. "And that's Walter."
Paige watched Walter carefully for a moment as he started setting up his computers on a nearby table. "I'm familiar with him– with Walter. He was in here a while ago, breaking up with his girlfriend." And driving me to distraction whenever he looked at me.
"You saw that?" Sly asked, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Paige nodded. "How did it go?"
"Not great."
Sly was about to ask exactly what went wrong, though he could easily imagine several likely scenarios when he was interrupted. Gallo, satisfied that the diner had been cleared hollered, "Roughly eighty-nine minutes until the first plane goes down. Their lives are in our hands."
Paige turned to Sly once again. "Is there something wrong at LAX?"
"It's top secret," he replied uncomfortably.
"How can it be top secret if the guy who set up the wireless is working on it?" Paige asked, gesturing to Walter.
Walter, who had set up his laptop and extra monitor at a table on the far side of the diner, barked orders to the rest of his team. "Happy, Sly, Toby! Let's get on this now!" The group was obviously a well-oiled machine, despite their snark and odd comments, they worked with a speed and synchronization that impressed Paige greatly. It only took a few minutes of observing them to realize what she should have noticed while Walter was in the diner earlier. They were geniuses, all of them.
Walter attempted to talk an air traffic control supervisor through a reboot of the system since apparently several dozen flights in the air had downloaded corrupted software and were unable to communicate with the ground. Walter's first idea didn't work and he decided to send Toby, an incorrigible smart aleck, and Happy, the long-suffering object of his attention, to attempt to retrieve backups of the software before the backup copies were rewritten. It seemed like a long shot to Paige, but she was fascinated by the drama unfolding before her. She could see how she could take elements of this experience and write them into a new Super Fun Guy comic. Suddenly grateful she had come into the diner today, she texted her boss, telling him she would need to push their 3 o'clock to tomorrow at the earliest.
As the pair left the diner with a reluctant agent in tow, Paige decided to get to know the players in this drama a little better. She poured a glass of ice water and offered it to Walter. "Here, I thought you might be thirsty." Anything, even the flimsiest of excuses to be nearer to him.
Walter glanced at the glass, before returning his gaze to what he was ferociously typing on his computer, "Thank you, Paige." he emphasized her name slightly to let her know that he had overheard her conversation with Sylvester. His fingers never hesitated as he typed, despite the warmth in his chest that exploded as he said her name.
"Mm-hmm."
Walter stopped typing and turned his attention back to Paige, "What are you doing here? The diner owner kicked everyone out. But you stayed. Why?"
"Maybe I can help."
"Doubtful." Walter frowned at her.
Paige smiled sweetly, even though she was feeling irritated by his condescending tone, "You never know."
"Actually I do."
Paige chuckled at that remark. "Okay. I don't recall asking, Einstein."
"Einstein had a 160 IQ. Mine's 197."
Paige had figured this group for geniuses already, but she was genuinely shocked at Walter's assertion of his IQ. "Wow. So you must know everything about me if you're that smart."
Walter squirmed internally at her frank assessment of him. No one had ever spoken to him like that before. In a strange kind of a way, he enjoyed it. "You're wearing designer sneakers and wearing a $500 blazer, but your jeans are from a big box discount store. You have money, but you're uncomfortable with it. And trying not to let it show. You're a woman wearing a Super Fun Guy t-shirt. I'd make calculated assumptions in the realm of you are an artist there, but a frustrated one, feeling like you sold out your love of painting for a paycheck." He gestured to the paint streaks on her right forearm, Paige self-consciously yanked her blazer sleeve lower on her arm to cover them.
"You don't have to be a genius to figure that out. I remember where I'd seen you before. You were outside the comic book store waiting in your car when I left the signing that day. You were Sylvester's ride. But you wouldn't even come in with your friend, support him in something important to him, but also kind of overwhelming. What does that say about you?" As magnetic and attractive as he was, he was also kind of annoying and condescending, and Paige wouldn't let that slide.
"We weren't talking about me. But you are still a frustrated artist. I got you on that one."
"You called me a sellout. That-that hurts my feelings. Do you understand?"
Walter had the good sense to appear chagrined. "Yeah. I recognize that. I've been told things like that a lot before." But never by anyone as beautiful as you.
"And I took the job at Galactic Toys after art school to pay off my student loans and to help my stepmom with my little brother. He has some unusual challenges. Have some empathy." She wanted to smack him upside the head or maybe kiss him, she hadn't quite decided, but she reined in both impulses.
Walter sighed, "Your little brother is challenged. How so? It seems as if you make enough money to pay for any number of interventions to help him."
"You know, you could have some empathy if you wanted to. I know, because my little brother, Ralph, who is capable of that emotion, is a genius like you."
Walter chuckled. "Like me? I highly doubt that."
"I saw you watching me earlier when you were fixing the wifi. You saw me teaching chess to the waitress' little boy. Don't tell me you didn't notice he was enabled."
Walter was insulted. "Of course I did."
"You saw me teaching him to play chess with the matches and the jelly and the sugar packets. You saw the opening moves I showed him. Moves I learned from my genius little brother. Do you really think someone as… as… human as I am would know those chess strategies?"
"Probably not. Okay, maybe you do know what you are talking about. I'll stipulate to the possibility that your little brother could be a genius. But I still have the fifth highest IQ ever measured."
Paige huffed, she longed to wipe that smirk off of his handsome face. "Do you do that often, just retreat into your tired old schtick about having an IQ of 197 when you don't have anything useful to add to the conversation?"
"No," Walter told her.
"Uh, yes," Sly disagreed under his breath. Paige heard him and stifled a chuckle. This Walter was a character. She wasn't surprised that his girlfriend from earlier hadn't known how to be in a relationship with a genius, especially one like this with so much attitude. Normal people didn't understand how different from the general population individuals with exceptionally high IQs were. Fortunately for everyone here, Paige was not one of those humans. She'd been dealing with one since the day he was born.
Just then Happy's voice came over the radio, and she wasn't happy. "Walt? We got a problem. No one's home."
"You're the mechanical engineer! Pick the lock!" Walter ordered her.
"I have my tools," Happy replied, "but it'll take a lot longer than the six minutes we have before the bad software backs up onto the servers."
There was a bit of a scuffle at the data center as the Agent that went with Happy and Toby tried to open the door using the force of a bullet.
Paige saw Sly calculating the odds of success in his head. It didn't look good, Paige crossed to him and put what she hoped was a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "We're down to a four percent chance of success," told her sadly.
Agent Gallo grabbed the radio. "Five minutes from now, the software we need disappears forever. If that happens, twenty thousand people die."
After a few seconds of calculating the variables, Walter made a decision. He stood. "We got to abandon the data center. We got to pull the team back, get four minds working together at once, and then, maybe within an hour, we'll be able…"
Paige gasped at Walter's assessment. Agent Gallo turned to Walter, "By then, the first two planes will be out of fuel. Do you really think you can come up with an option by then?"
Paige was angry. What the hell? She thought this was a group of geniuses! And this was the best plan he had? Let's regroup and think about this some more? "Hold on. You're just accepting two planes going down."
Gallo nodded, uncertain why the woman in the weird t-shirt was still here, but he didn't have time to worry about it right now. "We lose two planes to save fifty-four. That's a trade we're gonna have to make." He scribbled a few words on a scrap of paper, then turned to his junior agent in the diner, handing the man the note. "Contact the FAA and tell them these two flights are terminal."
Walter didn't particularly like his options either. But what choice did he have? He pulled Paige over to one side and spoke quietly to her. "Agent Gallo is implementing the greater good theory. Loss is acceptable as long as the resulting gain is large enough."
Paige put her face right in his so he wouldn't miss a word she said, "No, it isn't. You save everybody. Normal people save everybody."
"I'm not normal."
Like this was news to her? "I don't care! Use that 197 IQ of yours. Take a deep breath and reset." Paige stomped over to the counter and sat on one of the stools, not wanting to look at him right now.
Walter didn't react to her movement or the acceleration of his heart rate at her proximity, instead, he just mumbled to himself, "Reset. Reset, reset." Then louder so the radio would pick up the sound of his voice. "Happy, we need to reset the door lock. We need to brown out ten blocks around the data center."
Walter explained to the agent that they could gain access to the data center by resetting the electronic locks with a brownout. Gallo was unhappy with the idea and wanted the team to focus the power surge more specifically to the data storage building only. But he finally consented to let the team try when Walter explained that such precision was impossible given the time constraints.
The trio at the data center got busy looking for a municipal junction box to short out while the team at the diner scrambled to calculate the kilowatts needed to cause the power surge that would open the door to the data storage center.
Sly approached the diner's menu board to make his calculations, but first, he started to rearrange the various sized and colored pieces of chalk resting in the tray into some semblance of order. He needed order before his brain could stop worrying about it and focus on the problem at hand. "No, no, no, no, no." Walter warned him. "Ooh. Not now, Sylvester."
Gallo was confused, "Wait, wait, what are you doing?"
Sly explained, "I can't calculate without order; it's my process."
"My process involves my foot in your ass." Agent Gallo threatened.
Paige realized that Sly was going to need some help if they had any chance of getting the other part of the team into the data center before the backups were rewritten. "Hold on." she crossed over to Sly where he stood at the chalkboard, sweating. "Here. One piece. It's the biggest and the smallest, so it's in order." She knocked the rest off of the tray and onto the floor and kicked them out of Sly's sight. Walter didn't know if he had ever seen anything sexier in his life than this woman, Paige, and her ease at wrangling a genius.
Sly grinned at her, "That works." He began erasing the diner's daily menu and once enough of it was cleared, started jotting calculations according to a formula that only he seemed to know. Paige watched him work in awe.
Walter wasn't as impressed, "Uh, Sylvester, I don't want to hurry your process…"
Finished, Sly cried out triumphantly, "500,000 kilowatts!"
Walter felt the burden of being responsible for saving twenty thousand people ease just a little. "All right! We need exactly 500,000 kilowatts."
With the information from Sly's calculations, Happy was easily able to create a brownout in a ten-block radius, including the data storage center. Happy and Toby rushed in as the doors opened to find the servers linked to LAX. Fortunately, it only took a few moments, because that's all they had. Toby successfully removed the servers they needed just before the backup protocol was engaged. With backups in hand, they headed back to the SUV. From there, it would be simple to drive back to the diner, give Walter the backup drive, and let him work his computer magic. Every one of the waiting planes would be saved.
As the group in the diner waited for the arrival of the backups, the mood lightened considerably. Sly approached Paige. "Did I hear you say earlier that you had a little brother named Ralph, who is a genius?"
Paige smiled at the thought of her little brother, "Yes, he's my half brother, my stepmom has been raising him on her own since our dad passed a few years ago. It's rough enough to be thirteen, let alone as a genius, and to not have your dad."
"I'm sorry for yours and Ralph's loss." Sly paused unsure if he should continue with his original question. "Do you and his mom find that you have trouble connecting with him?"
Paige considered the question, it was one she hadn't been asked before. "I think that we would if it was just up to us. But Ralph is such an amazing kid, it's more like he sees that we need help and he connects with us. He has an incredibly high IQ and he's skilled at understanding emotions. Plus, Elizabeth, my stepmom, never stops trying to be a better mom for him."
"Ralph's lucky then, few parents meaningfully engage with mentally enabled children." Sly sighed wistfully.
"How did your parents handle it?"
Sly seemed taken off guard by her question and answered without thinking, "Oh, I-I haven't spoken to them in ten years." Paige blinked in surprise, grateful once again for Elizabeth and everything she had brought to their lives.
Gallo looked up from the beeping device he held in his hand, "NSA satellite link failed." He turned to Walter, "Where the hell are your people? That kid Toby doesn't exactly fill me with confidence."
Walter was tired of listening to Gallo's intense dislike of everything he and his team seemed to do even though he was the one who had come to Scorpion for help. At this point, even his mystery interest in the artist–Paige wasn't enough to soften his irritation with Agent Gallo. "Toby grew up penniless, gambled his way through school. Even then, he got his doctorate at the age of seventeen." Gallo looked vaguely impressed. But Walter wasn't done, "Sometimes people like us need… repair... before we can fit into your world."
Agent Gallo and Walter both knew he wasn't only talking about Toby. "I know the aftermath was devastating." Walter flinched at the agent's words."I did keep tabs on you."
Thankfully, Toby and the rest chose that moment to burst triumphantly into the diner with the backup drives in hand.
Walter carefully took the drive from Toby's hands and sat at his computer, speaking to the chief air traffic controller once again. "Mr. Brooks, in a moment, you'll receive a bug-free version of the software. All you have to do is open your email and click a link." Everything proceeded exactly as it should until it didn't. The file just stopped uploading. It only took Walter a few moments to ascertain that the files were corrupted. The last remaining bug-free copy of the files the air traffic control tower needed was useless.
Gallo got the word that the FBI team had failed as well. Without a word, Walter disappeared out the back of the diner to the delivery area, and Gallo followed right behind. "You know what I'm going to tell you."
Paige appeared in the doorway just as Walter spoke. "There was a fourth team. Tracking the planes via radar. Circling over the ocean… fighter jets…"
Paige held in a scream of horror. "You'll shoot them down?"
Walter nodded. "Same protocol was activated on 9/11 to prevent possible ground casualties."
Paige wanted to run, run away, run anywhere but this diner, learning the fate of thousands of innocent people was to die because of a computer bug. But she couldn't, she couldn't move. She had told Walter that she could help. There still had to be a way to help. She just couldn't see it yet.
"Can you think of anything we can do?" Gallo asked Walter desperately. Walter shook his head. Gallo dialed his phone and spoke when someone on the other line answered, "Contact Director Merrick. Tell him we need to activate the fourth option." Gallo walked, defeated, back inside.
Walter paced back and forth agitatedly. "Hey… Walter. I know what's going on." Paige put a soft hand on Walter's forearm.
He shrugged away from her touch, even though that was the last thing he wanted to do. "Actually, uh, there's only a hundred people in the world who really know anything and unfortunately, you're not one of them."
"You know very well that's not what I meant." Paige let a glimmer of irritation show through. If Walter and his team wanted to save the lives of those airplane passengers, genius pity parties weren't going to be the key to solving the problem. "Hey, look at me. You're doing what Ralph does when he doesn't understand how to fix a problem. He panics and shuts down." Walter frowned at her. "When you don't know something, you feel like you don't know anything."
He started pacing, "For all practical purposes, I have no right brain. People with high IQ tend to have low EQ. That's emotional quotient. So these big speeches, pep talks… they don't work on me. They work on athletes, they work on children, they work on artists. They don't work on people like me."
Paige wanted to argue with him. He had more EQ than most people she knew. Why else was he here at this diner, wracking his brains to come up with a way to save everybody, if he didn't have emotions? But she knew that now was not the time to teach Walter a lesson in the art of self-reflection. He needed to get past this moment of feeling helpless as quickly and painlessly as possible so he could think of a way to save the passengers. "Oh, I get it, I'm the dumb normal."
Walter looked insulted, which Paige took as a step in the right direction. "I never called you that."
She waved off his protestation. "But I'm smart enough to know that you're scared. You don't know how to solve the problem and you're terrified because people will die."
Walter looked pained for a moment as if he wanted to agree with her assessment. He shrugged off the impulse and turned impassive again, "Well, they won't die because of me."
"And they won't live because of you, either, because you're just giving up and walking away."
Walter wasn't stuck in self-pity anymore. He was angry and in pain. "Don't lecture me about how people dying will make me feel." He sucked in a ragged breath. "I already know!"
Paige was surprised at the vulnerability in his voice. She hadn't expected this reaction, "What does that mean? Walter… what does that mean?"
It was obvious that Walter wasn't going to explain his outburst to Paige. She was out of ideas, she hadn't expected him to have some kind of similar trauma of a failure to save innocent bystanders in his past. Unsure of what to do next, Paige turned and looked up as the sound of one of the doomed planes circling overhead captured her attention. She watched the plane for a few moments before going back into the diner.
Inside the diner, Gallo spoke on his phone, "Yes, sir, I understand. I'll draft an alert for the Emergency Broadcast System ASAP.
Suddenly Walter appeared inside the diner beside them, "Don't hang up. Tell them there's still a chance."
Gallo eyed Walter uncertainly, but reluctant to give up hope, he spoke into the phone again, "Put a pin in that, sir. We may have something here."
"Software's on the planes. They use a duplicate copy to communicate with the tower. Now, if they took off before this morning's update, like a flight from Australia or New Zealand, they'll still have the bug-free software on board." Walter's excitement was palpable.
"Okay. But we still have the same problem. What we need is seven miles over our head and there's no way to get in touch with the people who have it." He wondered if he had pushed the younger man too far this time and he was losing touch with reality.
"Yes, there is." Walter moved to address everyone in the room. "Klemmer Airfield is twenty minutes away. Get me there in ten, and I can download that software."
As Walter and Gallo debated road closures, Paige heard her phone ring. It was a special ringtone, the one she used for Ralph's phone. "Ralphy, love. Can you hang on for a second?" She meant to put his call on hold, but her thumb slipped and she put her call on speaker.
Gallo disagreed with Walter, loudly. There was no way to get Walter to the airfield in time, let alone what a low flyby by a plane capable of transoceanic flight would do to the nearby neighborhood. Walter accused Agent Gallo of shooting down his idea just to cover his bureaucratic backside. The agent bristled, "I don't put protocol over lives."
"Lives?" Walter barked out a laugh. "Suddenly you're worried about lives?"
Insulted, Gallo shut down this conversation, "We can debate the past later." He turned away from Walter, pulled his cell phone out, and started making calls to see if he could shut down the streets between the diner and the airfield in time.
With a new plan, Walter started issuing orders to his defeated team. Happy would monitor the traffic lights and make sure she could get them switched to green for the route from the diner to Klemmer. Sly and Toby would make their way through the passenger manifest, finding someone, anyone, with their phone still powered on so they could make contact with the plane's pilot. Walter would upgrade his laptop's antenna software on the fly, so to speak.
Sly offered his driving services to Walter, for the team. But as Sly put it, he's more of a bus guy. Paige felt her heart rate speed up at the thought of where this conversation was going. Next Walter was going to ask her to drive at breakneck speeds through the streets of L.A. She was turning the thought over in her mind when she heard Ralph's voice through her phone. "Damn, wrong button." She cursed as she lifted the phone to her ear, shutting off the speakerphone as she did.
"Language, Paige." Ralph reprimanded her. Paige grimaced, she had called him out on his language, a lot. "I heard what that man said. It's all over the news that something's going on at LAX, no planes are landing. Are you somehow involved with the rescue efforts?"
"Yeah, I'm here, I'm here with the team that's trying to help."
"How did that–? Nevermind. Can they, can they actually help?"
"I think so."
"It's probably going to take a genius to figure it out. I'm assuming the problem is partly with being unable to communicate with the landing planes."
"Yes, how did you know?"
"Genius, big sis, genius, remember?"
"Well you're never going to believe this, but the team is a team of geniuses, four of them to be exact."
Ralph processed that information for a moment. "I heard the plan. It's solid. But they need someone to drive while Walter is upgrading the antenna's software. You need to do it. You can do it, Paige."
Paige gulped. She was uncertain, but also a kind of thrilled at the prospect of racing through the streets of L.A., saving those people. She still felt uncertain, but if Ralph believed in her, maybe… "Ralph, this is a big deal."
"I know, but they need you."
Paige had never backed down from a challenge, she wasn't going to start now. "Okay, Ralphy, I'll do it, just don't tell your mom." She disconnected the call, fished her car keys out of her purse, and approached the team, keys dangling off of her fingers. "Uh, driving through L.A. with nothing but green lights… it's kind of always been a fantasy of mine."
"At high speed? No." Walter dismissed Paige's offer immediately, images of her broken body and twisted metal and shattered glass making his stomach churn.
"Somebody's gotta drive." Still unconvinced that it was a good idea, Walter acquiesced. There was something about her, something he couldn't explain, that made him want to have her at his side, and he did need somebody to drive after all.
Paige dropped the keys Nemos had given her earlier on the counter. She made brief eye contact with Sly, Toby, and Happy before she spoke. "In case I don't make it back today, lock up when you're done, would you?"
Gallo was on the phone with local PD trying to get the roads cleared for this crazy plan when he heard the squealing of tires and saw Paige and Walter barrel past him in her little silver car. He couldn't do a damn thing now to stop them, but he was going to do his best to help them succeed, so he raced over to his black government-issue SUV.
"Okay, Walter," Happy was communicating with Walter on the Homeland radios they had commandeered. "I'm tracking you on the traffic cams. They should start changing... now."
Paige whooped in delight as the red light at the first intersection changed to green, "It's working! Hold on!" Paige swerved in and out of lanes, keeping her foot on the gas. The rush of adrenaline was amazing. "We're at 100. Good thing this car has airbags."
Walter continued to type furiously on his laptop and didn't even break his rhythm to answer her, "Well, you know, at these speeds, they're useless." Paige blinked at that information and he felt her slight release of the gas pedal. "Go faster." Paige gritted her teeth and floored it. The heightened color in her cheeks as she did so made her even more lovely to him as if that were even possible.
Paige glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed a black SUV coming up hot behind her. "I think that's agent Gallo."
"Keep driving," Walter ordered.
At the next intersection, the light wasn't changing to green. Happy was working her hardest to change the traffic light patterns, but nothing she tried was working. Paige knew she had no choice but to keep going or thousands would die. She kept her foot on the accelerator, hoping for a miracle. What she didn't expect was a miracle in the form of mirrored shades and a gruff demeanor. Gallo saw the light wasn't changing as well and floored the accelerator, coming up on the side of Paige's car. The truck that was entering the intersection plowed straight into the SUV and both cars spun out as Paige and Walter hurtled through.
After a moment Gallo climbed out of the mangled vehicle unscathed. He picked up his radio, knowing Walter would have one in the car. "Now just get to that airfield and don't make me regret this!"
Toby and Sly managed to find a passenger on the flight from Sydney who had an analog phone with a strong signal still powered on. The call from Toby connected and the man got his phone to the pilot. The pilot's voice came through Walter's radio just as they successfully turned into the Klemmer Airfield parking lot.
"Captain Pike," Walter spoke calmly to the man who may well be the last chance for a safe landing for fifty-six flights. "You're carrying an uncorrupted version of control tower software. Now, you need to e-mail it to me so it can be downloaded at LAX." Walter explained.
"Copy. But our onboard wireless only has a limited reach. What do you want me to do?"
Walter instructed the captain to engage in a low flyby at the Klemmer Airfield tower as he and Paige raced to the small control center. He slapped his laptop down on a space at one of the desks. "I've linked my computer up to LAX, so as soon as I get the download, they'll have it as well."
"Here it comes." Paige pointed to the rapidly arriving plane.
"Captain Pike, maintain at one hundred feet. I should be able to catch your wifi signal and download your software." Walter spoke as he typed furiously on his computer.
As the plane ascended once again, Captain Pike asked for confirmation, but unfortunately, Walter couldn't give it to him. The plan hadn't worked despite his best calculations.
Walter looked so defeated. Paige needed to keep his head in the game. "Let's try again."
"Doing the same thing but expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. It won't work." he snapped.
Paige and Walter stared at each other hotly until the Captain's voice broke in, "Mr. O'Brien, I've got two hundred and forty souls onboard. Please tell me there's something else you can do."
Walter's mind whirled. He hadn't come this far, put this much effort, put his team at risk, put Paige at risk only to fail now. There was something that he had missed, in all the chaos of the emergency, even the chaos earlier in the day when Gallo showed up. Everything had been running at twice its normal speed. The only thing about this day that hadn't felt like it was racing out of control had been his interactions with Paige. But even she had managed to speed everything up as she had driven like a maniac through the streets of LA. Paige had sped up…
"I just solved the speed differential problem," Walter muttered to himself. Grabbing Paige's hand he memorized exactly how her hand felt in his as he pulled her with him and ran toward the airfield's parking lot, finding what he was looking for among the cars parked there. He radioed the team once again. "Happy, I need you to get me into a Ferrari 458."
Happy didn't even look surprised, of course, Walter had a plan, "Force the gas cap open. There's an engine cover emergency release." Walter followed her instructions, "Left-hand side of the engine bay. Pull out the ECM chip." The engine roared to life.
Walter got back on the radio with the airline pilot, "Can you get that plane about eight feet off the ground?"
The pilot blanched at Walter's instructions, "Eight feet? What for?"
"Can't risk missing the wireless signal again, so we're gonna have to hardwire it into the computer," Walter informed him.
Paige stood by in shock, "You're the world's smartest computer guy, and this comes down to plugging something in?"
Walter just shrugged as the pilot's voice came through the radio again, "How exactly do you plan on doing this?"
Walter grinned at Paige and she didn't know how she would ever breathe again with the power of that smile directed at her, "We're gonna be driving 200 miles an hour underneath you."
"What?" Paige exclaimed.
"Yeah."
The pilot radioed back in reply. "You'll only have seven seconds to receive that file. Any longer, we're not gonna get this plane back up, and we will crash."
"On top of us?" Paige asked.
"That will not happen… most likely," Walter reassured her as he watched the blood drain from her face. "Do it in one minute," Walter commanded the pilot.
The pilot exchanged glances with his copilot, "Roger that. Good luck."
Paige stood next to the Ferrari. "You-you expect me to sit in this car while a plane is right over us?"
"No, you're gonna be standing up through the sunroof." Walter chuckled.
"Oh, okay. "
"All right, okay, okay. You-You're gonna have to trust me now. I will not let anything happen to you." Walter hoped he was being reassuring, he was going to need Paige if this crazy idea was going to work. He took her silence for hesitation. "You're the one that said you wanted to save everyone. This is our only chance."
Paige bit her lip and nodded as the pilot's voice from the radio came through the speaker. Paige and Walter climbed into the waiting sports car. "Preparing for second approach."
Randy the intern from the control tower at LAX, confirmed that they were ready on his end, "Okay, we're in sync with Mr. O'Brien's laptop. Let's hope this works."
Walter revved the Ferrari's engine as he sped down the open runway, shifting gears as the car gained speed.
"Oh, my God." Paige cried, watching the landscape fly past on her right.
"You ready?" Walter asked her.
Walter and Paige exchanged a look of hopeful excitement. "As I'll ever be…" she told him with a wink. Walter's heart did a flip that had nothing to do with the speed of the car he was driving.
"Hit the roof panel."
Paige took a deep breath and stood, popping the roof panel off as she pressed the palms of her hands into it using the full strength of her body as it propelled upward. The panel went sailing down the runway behind them as Paige stood on the passenger seat of the Ferrari. She laughed as the wind sailed around her whipping her hair and her t-shirt around her body. She looked down at Walter who grinned as he shifted gears and urged the vehicle ever faster as the belly of the airplane came to hover above them, the copilot climbing out onto the landing gear, wifi cable in hand.
Paige stretched higher and climbed onto the seat as the co-pilot urged her to grab the cable. "Come on! You got to reach it!"
"I can't reach it!"
The co-pilot groaned at her words and climbed lower, trying to come closer to her outstretched hand, "Come on, reach for it. Just try!"
"Okay." Paige stretched toward it once again.
Over the roar of the engines, Walter yelled, "Drop the cable! Drop it now!"
"Come on, you got to get it! Now! Reach!" the co-pilot yelled over the roar of the jet's engines.
Stretching further than Paige thought was humanly possible, her fingers curled around the end of the cable and she pulled it toward herself as she slowly lowered herself to the seat below. "I got it!" Seated on the passenger seat once again, Paige dexterously plugged the cable into the port on Walter's laptop. "I got it! Okay, it's in." She watched with excitement as the progress bar showed percentages downloaded, climbing rapidly, "It's downloading, it's downloading!"
The car roared as the plane began to pull up slightly, pulling the cord to its maximum length. "What's it say?" Walter cried.
"I don't know, uh, a few seconds; it needs a few seconds." Paige's eyes focused on the almost complete progress bar.
"We're running out of road!" Walter warned her.
"Still loading!" Paige rose out of the seat as the laptop began to ascend along with the plane. "Just a few seconds! Almost!" she held firmly to the laptop as she climbed to stand on the passenger seat once again, the laptop still rising with the plane, "No, hold on! Walter!" Paige didn't know if calling his name was a call to him for help or a prayer to an unknown deity to strengthen his resolve. "Walter! It's done! It's going!"
Walter didn't know how much longer the car could keep this pace, how long before the plane had before it all ended in a fiery crash. But for some reason, he could not explain, he had faith in this beautiful and surprising woman who had happened into his life.
After what felt like an eternity, Paige saw that the download was complete. She smashed her finger into the enter key to send the data to LAX, "Got it!" she screamed as she let go of the laptop that went flying backward, tumbling end over end as it smashed to bits. Paige slumped into the passenger seat as the plane roared above them, trying to gain altitude as quickly as possible. "Look out!" Paige screamed as the end of the runway loomed before them. Walter slammed on the brakes, driving like a professional stunt driver to avoid ramming into the barriers at the end of the pavement. Tires squealed and the car drifted until it came to a stop a few inches before certain death by high-speed impact. They sat in the Ferrari for a few moments, trying to catch their breaths. "How did you learn to do that?" Paige asked.
Walter gave a half shrug, "YouTube videos." Paige dissolved into a fit of laughter. Walter joined her not quite sure what the joke was.
"We're back on." Randy the intern informed the control tower crew as well as everyone listening in on the radio.
Mr Brooks in the LAX control tower broadcast to all the circling planes, informing them that communications had been restored and all the planes would be landing shortly. The control tower broke out in cheering and applause as the reality of the successful resolution started to sink in. Meanwhile, back at the diner Scorpion and the federal agents celebrated as well. Sly even let both federal agents high-five him without the use of hand sanitizer before or after.
Walter let his head fall back on the Ferrari's headrest in relief as Paige's eyes widened at the announcement. She jumped from her seated position to her knees, leaning across the center console. She looked at the sheer joy and relief on Walter's features as he sat with his eyes closed. She knew exactly how he felt. She felt alive on a level she hadn't known was possible until this moment. She'd always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie, black diamond ski runs in Tahoe, skydiving, and rock climbing in Yosemite. But this, this was another level.
Without stopping to consider what would happen next, she leaned her face towards him, placed a hand on each cheek, and kissed him. His eyes flew open and their gazes met. Intense, hot, overwhelming. She kissed him again. Still processing the first kiss, his lips didn't move. Undeterred, Paige continued her hot assault on his lips. His brain finally catching up, Walter found his own lips exploring hers, his hands curling around her hips. Just as quickly as she'd pressed her lips to his, she pulled away. Walter reluctantly opened his eyes and saw the sparkle in Paige's and a grin on her lips. She patted his cheek as she pulled away and climbed out of the car. "Do you always know how to show a girl this good of a time?"
Walter shook his head mutely. "This may make for Zany Zoey's best Super Fun Guy comic adventure yet." She shut the door of the Ferrari and turned back to look at Walter, holding out her thumb and pinkie finger by the side of her face, "Call me," she mouthed, turned, and started walking back to the airfield control tower.
Walter just sat in the car, unable to believe he and his team had just achieved a highly favorable, but statistically unlikely outcome: all fifty-six planes would be able to land safely. No, not just he and his team, a less than one percent chance of success that would not have been possible without a surprising and unforeseen addition, Paige Dineen.
Later, as the sun was about to set and everyone had landed safely back on terra firma, Agent Gallo approached Walter. He had waited at the Airfield until all planes and everyone aboard them were safe, in case he needed to assist with any more heroics. "Deal's a deal." Agent Gallo handed him an envelope with a check for each member of Scorpion as promised.
Walter took the envelopes. "Paige… she deserves a share."
"I'll see to it." Agent Gallo assured him. "When we worked together, that didn't pan out the way either of us wanted. I was hoping, moving forward, things could be different."
"Moving forward?" Walter asked.
"I came to L.A. to start a strategic response team," Gallo explained. "At any given time, we deal with everything from stolen nukes to missing kids to counterfeit cash so good it can collapse our economy in less than a month. The bad guys are getting smarter. And I can't train my agents to think like you do. I have the full resources of the U.S. government. I need your help, and I think you and your team need a home."
Walter made a noise of agreement in the back of his throat and stepped forward, a slightly worse for the wear piece of folded notebook paper in his hand. He held the paper out to Agent Gallo. "Here."
Gallo took the paper and unfolded it, scanning the words before him, "'Fixed salaries, cars, research lab'... You saw this coming."
Walter shrugged his shoulders slightly as the older man grinned, "It was your only logical move."
Walter walked toward his team waiting for him only a few meters away. "Okay, lips are parted, leaning slightly forward. You have something to tell us." Toby quickly analyzed Walter's body language.
"He offered us jobs." Walter could still barely believe it himself.
"Me too?" Toby asked nervously.
"We're a team, aren't we?" Walter slapped his old friend on the back as Happy and Sly grinned at each other like little kids.
"The artist just left to visit her stepmom and little brother, and tell them all about her adventure today. You just missed her."
Walter hesitated. Toby tossed Walter the keys to the Datsun.
"My car? Is here?"
"Yeah, I brought it over. I knew you'd need it to get home… or wherever it is you wanted to go after this." Toby winked.
Walter stared at his friend for a moment. "I'll see you tomorrow. We'll go over all the details, but I think this thing I've… we've been trying to do is really going to work."
"Get out of here, moron." Happy smacked Walter on the shoulder. "Go talk to her. There will be plenty of time to look at Toby's ugly face later." Walter glanced over at Sly, he smiled and gave a thumbs-up sign.
"Okay, okay, I'm going." Walter raced to the public parking area and easily spied his beat-up Datsun. He unlocked the door and climbed in. Before he could even leave the parking lot he received a text from Sylvester, Paige's address. Definitely going to need that!
Walter arrived at the front door of Paige's condo in record time. He rang the doorbell and knocked several times with no answer. He remembered that Toby had told him she had gone to see her family. But she would have to return home eventually and he would just wait.
Minutes passed and eventually, Walter slid down the wall, sitting on the floor across from her front door, knees pulled up to his chest. What was he doing? Paige was a beautiful, successful, normal human woman. And he was… well, he was Walter O'Brien, decidedly not normal. But there had been something between them, something more than her being a huge part of the success of the mission today. He only hoped she had felt it too, that he hadn't deluded himself into seeing something that wasn't there. Walter was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't even hear Paige approach him in the condo hallway.
"Walter," she spoke his name softly, not wanting to startle him. "Come in." She put her key into the lock, twisted it, then opened the door.
Walter stood up from his position on the floor awkwardly. How long had he been sitting there? "I know it's, uh, late. I'm sorry. I just wanted to, um, say thank you for your help today." He followed her into her living room.
Paige snapped on a light as he spoke. "You're welcome." Amusement at his words colored the tone of her voice as she spoke, "You came all the way over here to tell me that? Surely you could have called or texted. If you found my address, there's no doubt you already know my number."
Walter made a noise of discomfort in the back of his throat and stared at the floor, "No, I also wanted to offer you a job. Government-funded problem solvers."
Paige felt confused, "Uh... why? I'm-I'm not a genius. And I already have a job… at Galaxy Toys, doing artwork for your friend Sylvester's favorite comic books."
"No, but you have experience with helping to raise one, your little brother, Ralph. That takes, uh, someone smart, brave…" Walter's words trailed off in embarrassment, it felt as if he'd said more than he meant to say. Steeling his resolve, he continued, "Now, our work requires, uh, interaction with people. It's not our strength."
Paige watched him carefully, wondering where this was going.
Walter continued. "We can help you and your stepmom understand Ralph, help him grow up knowing that people like him exist."
"While you… while you help us navigate the normal world. Sometimes we get too lost in our own thoughts, we need someone like you to make sure that we come back down to earth. It's, um… salary… plus benefits."
"I have a job. A good job. A job I like. Why would I want a job with you?"
Walter paused, he was going to need to make sure Paige understood this next part without offending her. "I saw you today. I know you think I barely noticed you, that I was too preoccupied with saving the planes, that all my focus was there, but I saw you. I saw how you loved helping Sly with his process, how you spoke to me to keep me focused on the task at hand, how you connected with the team, and how much you enjoyed helping both the team and those airplane passengers. I saw how you came alive at the adventure and adrenaline of saving those planes today. I know you like your job, but given the chance you jumped at the chance for more. Working with me, working with my team can give you that more. I can give you a second chance to have the kind of life you long for."
Paige took in his words and considered everything he said. "For you, too."
Walter looked puzzled. "A second chance for what?"
"With you and Cabe," Paige explained.
Realization dawned at her words. He should have expected that she would have noticed the tension between them, "When I was sixteen, Cabe asked me to develop tracking software to drop military aid packages. So months later, I, uh, I turned on the TV, and I saw bombs falling on Baghdad. They were using my system, and I designed it for speed over accuracy. So two thousand civilians died."
Paige couldn't hold in a gasp of horror. "Walter, you… you were just a kid." Walter shook off the memories that he generally kept locked well away and rarely looked at them.
Paige saw that Walter was done talking about his past. To lighten the mood, she changed the subject. "I'd offer you something to eat, but I didn't have the chance to get to the grocery store today." They both laughed and the earlier tension was broken.
"That's all right, I didn't come here for dinner. But there is something I've wanted to do since I first laid eyes on you in the diner this afternoon."
"Oh, what's that?" Paige asked with laughter in her voice, a sound more beautiful to Walter's ears than anything he had heard before.
Walter closed the inches between them, pulled Paige into an embrace, and kissed her until she worried that her knees might buckle if he released her. Breathless when their lips finally broke apart Walter saw something in her eyes he'd never seen before. A level of desire for him that he never knew existed before. "Oh yes," Paige breathed, "This is much better than dinner." Walter captured her lips once again and Paige clung to his shoulders. She had never, in her entire life, been kissed like this before and if this was what 'a million miles from normal' meant, she'd take it any day of the week.
Author's Note:
I used a good deal of dialogue from the Pilot episode in this story. The movements of the team members when they speak are not identical to the episode, and sometimes someone has a line of dialogue that was spoken by someone else in the actual episode. I am aware of this and I have done this on purpose. I am trying to show that this is an alternate reality, similar to ours.