They air was humid and warm in the garage. Five people were finally resting, after attempting to stop a hack. One person was still dutifully smashing his keyboard. Walter was adamant on not letting them escape. He was sure he would get them this time.
Even though they have never been able to out hack them, he had played the statistics and was sure this was the time for his moment to strike. With a carefully thought out plan he set it in motion, now alone and knowing he was better at this on his own.
Walter relied on his team and knew they were also geniuses in their own field. But hacking was Walter's specialty. He owned it. Heck, he might claim to even designing it (it was not true, but his ego liked to tell him that). He ignored the concerned stare of his wife and hardened himself for the scolding he was inevitably going to get later.
Paige was slightly pissed at her husband. She had to admit that this person was a tough cookie. Even though she had picked up a couple things in the past years, she would never reach their level. Paige never wanted too, but she still wished she was more useful in situations like these.
It took Scorpion months to get close to this person, but every time they almost got them, they slipped away. Almost like they never existed. They were good, but she had faith in her team.
Paige did wanted them to take breaks too. Everyone else, besides Walter, usually listened to her now if she sternly told them they had to take a break. Which left her with her husband.
The concern was painted on her face as she watched him aggressive type with a furrowed brow. This went on for about a half hour. She could tell that the rest of the team was also starting to get annoyed with how long it was taking them to find this person. It had never taken this long before.
Paige softly sighed and went to the small kitchen to grab a glass of water. She walked back to Walter with the full glass and set it down next to him. He spared it a small glance, but never stopped his fingers. Paige was starting to get annoyed as well.
"Walter – " she was abruptly cut off as Walter exclaimed and stood up.
"I got it!" the relieved look on his face was clear for all of them to see, as the team's attention all went to Walter.
"You got them?" Happy asked, her shoulders relaxing. Walter nodded, his earlier enthusiasm quickly dispersing for favour of grabbing his stuff and checking once more, just to be sure.
"Yes. They are close by at a motel." he answered, putting his laptop in his bag. The rest of the team started packing their gear as well and were about to run out of the garage, when Cabe walked in, from the direction of the toilet.
"What happened?" he gruffed, not really in the mood. Sylvester explained that they had found the person they were looking for and Cabe almost ran to the door himself.
They climbed into the van and raced towards the mucky motel.
She seriously couldn't believe it was that easy. Zilla was surprised and slightly disappointed by how Scorpion raced after her, when Walter cracked her code. Didn't they even find it slightly suspicious? I mean, she did make this code hard to crack, even harder then the ones she had sent out before, but still.
Nevertheless, she had resigned herself to this and was about to see it through. She knew they were good and that it was most likely her fault that they reacted like this. She did make them work to the bone and, considering their personalities, they were probably up for nights trying to catch her. Thus, they had almost no sleep.
Their GPS signals made it clear that they were close, so she packed up the last of her things, leaving her laptop on the cracked desk. She wanted to watch them through the motel camera's (how this crappy and mucky motel was able to afford that, she had no idea. Must have been the reason why it was so easy to hack).
She sat down at the desk and leaned on her hand. She observed how Scorpion went into the motel, all six of them as well. Stupid move. Walter checked his phone once more and pointed to the stairs. She sighed and switched to the camera's in the hall she was in and the one she installed herself that was at the entrance of her door, looking into the room.
She blinked as they stood outside the door and just kept staring at the screen, watching them intensely. The door to the room was forcefully kicked open, by the one and only: Cabe Gallo. He had his gun in his hands and pointed it at all the corners of the room. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her.
Scorpion moved into the room with Cabe and most of them did a double take, some more obvious then others. Zilla finally looked away from her screen, slowly moving her eyes towards the surprised adults. Her head was still leaning on her hand and her face, was void of any kind of emotion.
It took them a moment to form words. "You're the one who has caused us all this trouble?" Walter asked, getting his bearings back. Zilla gave a nod, standing up. Cabe had lowered his gun, but had not put it away. She inwardly rolled her eyes.
"Take me with you." she demanded. Scorpion blinked and the shock was back on their faces. Why did they have to be so expressive? What was the point in all that? Zilla didn't really get emotion, if you haven't noticed.
"And why would we do that?" Happy asked this time, her hands in her pockets, acting as if she was calm, but the slight tremor in her hands meant that she was still pretty shaken that Zilla was so young.
Paige calmy stepped forward, still behind Cabe, but closer to the young girl. "We can take you back to your family." she softly said. Zilla gave her a stare which made Paige more uncomfortable then she would like to admit.
"Why did you think I let you find me?" her voice was sharp, as it dawned on the team that it had been way to easy. She was always making them on edge. Giving them fake locations and codes that led to nowhere. Why had it been so easy to find her this time? Walter wanted to hit himself as he tried not to groan in frustration.
He had to give credits to her, though. Even though she was young, she was a genius. He should have known that it could have surprised them. But he was honestly way to relieved to actually stop thinking about it for a second. Which was something unusual for him. He noted that it made have been because of the fatigue.
"I'm not going back to the place where the people that brought me here are. I have never had a family." she spoke firmly. Paige inhaled sharply, and a look of pity crossed over her face. Zilla suddenly had the urge to slap it off of her. Weird.
"She's like a doll." Toby spoke up. He had been hyper focused, once he noticed that she was young. Hoping to catch a twitch of discomfort or any sign that she was hurt. But he got nothing. This actually put him on edge more, then it would have when he notices signs of abuse on people.
The snap was audible as Cabe stood up straight, the gun almost groaning under the pressure with how tight he held it, still pointed to the ground. He refused to point his weapon at a kid. "You are going back whether you want or not. A child should not be running from people that can help."
Zilla raised a brow, slow and calculating. "Help?" she tilted her head, as if the word was foreign to her ears. "I don't need help. I want to join Scorpion." she figured she had not been clear enough and by the other wave of shocked expressions, she guessed she was right.
"Have I not proved that I can outsmart all of you?" she added. "I have never wanted anything. This is the first time I am asking for something. So, take me with you." Scorpion flinched. She was right. She had outsmarted all of them, multiple times even. Walter was tempted. She was good. Really good and it was never a bad thing to have extra help.
He did wonder if she had ever asked anything. It had sounded more like she was demanding them. But he had already made up his mind.
"For now," he said, getting a glare from Happy and Cabe. "We will take you with us, for now. We can figure out what to do with you after." Walter was the first one to walk out of the room, Sylvester hot on his tail. He wanted to ask for Walter to reconsider, but halted. He knew his best friend to well.
Zilla hummed and threw her laptop in her backpack. That had been easier that she had thought. She put on her jacket and put the bag on one shoulder. The team had already stepped outside, except for Paige. The tender look in her eyes made Zilla uncomfortable.
"Stop staring," she snapped, a bit harsher then she had meant, but Paige got the message. Zilla walked past the woman and out the door. It was finally time to leave this dinky motel. She stopped in front of the team and stared at them.
"What are we waiting for?" she asked. Happy was the first one to walk away and Zilla followed. She could feel the rest of them following her as well. She could also feel the stare of hate on her back. She knew it was from Cabe. That man had a grudge against her for some reason.
Zilla suddenly stopped. She turned back around and muttered something. "I forgot something." the team had no choice but to wait for her, since they had to take her back no matter what. After a minute, she returned and just started to walk past them. Not saying a word anymore and hastily moving towards the exit.
The van was parked outside, very sloppy, she noted. Eh, her fault again. As she heard the click of the car unlocking, she opened the door to the passenger seat and stepped in. Cabe almost growled, but kept it in. He stepped in himself and froze as he noticed that the metal string that held his wallet had snapped and the leather binding was gone.
Before he had the chance to panic about it more, his wallet suddenly fell into his lap. Cabe looked over to the girl who was leaning against the window, not giving the old man a glance. The panic subsided inside of Cabe and he put the wallet back into his pants.
Zilla didn't know, but in his wallet was one of the few remaining pictures of his deceased daughter. It would tear him apart if he would ever lose it. This had made him like the girl a bit more. The snap earlier in the room, had probably been it, but he had been to angry to notice it falling out and breaking.
Paige saw the exchange and smiled softly. This gave her hope that Zilla wasn't lost yet.
The ride to the garage was silent, until Paige's phone went off. She accepted the call with a smiled. "Hey, Ralph. Are you done with school?" a muffled voice was heard on the other end and whatever was said, Paige's smile immediately fell.
"What?!" she exclaimed, getting the attention from everyone else. She put the phone on speaker, so everyone could hear.
"The garage is trashed." a young man's voice was heard, over the phone. "I went from school to the garage, but the entire place is a mess." the voice was slightly shaking and Zilla noticed that Scorpion was on edge in an instant.
"We are almost back, wait for us outside, bud." Walter said. Paige gave the boy, presumably her son, some words of encouragement and ended the call with an 'I love you'. Even before she had hung up, Cabe had picked up the pace and made a couple of dangerous manoeuvres to get back to this 'garage'.
The drive was short and quite frankly, Zilla found it amusing. The frightened screams that came from Sylvester were weirdly pleasing to hear. Huh. She might be a psychopath after all.
As Cabe stopped the car, not parking it correctly, Scorpion, plus Zilla, stepped out to meet a young man pacing in front of the door. He had light brown hair, carefully shaved at the sides and back, but a mop on the top. His eyes were a similar shade to his hair, round and large. He was tall and slightly muscular, if the way his science T-shirt clung to his arms had any indication.
"Ralph, are you okay?" she was cut out of her observing by Paige running over to the boy – Ralph. She brought him into a hug and Zilla noted that he was a few inches taller than the woman. Again, it looked amusing.
Walter also swiftly made it over to Ralph. "What happened?" he asked, letting Paige hover over him, while he settled for a hand on the shoulder. Zilla figured that he wasn't much for physical contact.
Ralph looked uneasy as he opened the door, instead of saying anything. It looked like he hadn't noticed her yet. Not to surprising. If they would stand in front of each other, Zilla would look at his collar bone. Scorpion stepped inside their base and the all simultaneously groaned at how it looked.
The desks were thrown over and moved to different places. The chairs were on the backs, and Zilla even caught two of them dangling from the stairs. An impressive feat, she had to say. Papers and electronics were scattered all around the floor as well, she was very curious as to how the loft would look.
"Huh, I thought it would be more…organized." Zilla couldn't help but let that comment slip from her lips. It was full of sarcasm. A pair of brown eyes landed on her and she felt Ralph staring at her weirdly. He elbowed Toby and point at her.
"Ah, the troublemaker we have been looking for." he said, whispering it in Ralph's ear. The young man raised a brow, with a look that asked Toby if he was serious. The man gave him a stare back and Ralph blinked. He looked back at Zilla who was poking a potted plant that had been knocked over.
"She wants to become a part of Scorpion, for some reason. I can't get a read on her at all. It's kind of freaky." he smirked, making the young man uneasy.
"What's her name?" Ralph asked, not keeping his eyes off of her. He noticed Toby faltering and reluctantly looked away. The behaviourist had a blank expression on his face and Ralph gave him a dead panned look. "You didn't even ask for her name?!" he whisper yelled.
Toby flinched and shrugged, quickly making himself scarce. While Ralph had the brains of a genius, his personality was more like his mothers. He could be quick tempered sometimes, especially after he started to express himself more. And the kind and caring nature that Paige always has, had been passed down to her son. No habits from his unnamed father at least.
As Ralph turned back around to catch another glimpse of the young girl, he noticed she had also moved and was now sitting at the kitchen table, typing something on her laptop. He was pretty sure that the table had been turned over, but it seemed like she had put it back in place.
He ignored the restless cleaning of the team and moved over to the mysterious girl. He pretended to clean the kitchen for a while, sneaking glances at the screen. He wasn't exactly sure what she was hacking, just that she was hacking something. There was a broken piece of some hard wear next to her, plugged into the laptop.
Not able to quell his curiosity any longer, he placed himself behind her and watched her work. It was impressive and he could finally make out what she was hacking into. It looked like it was a piece of the security camera's. How she was able to find it, he didn't know. But it was even more surprising that she was fixing it.
Paige looked around for her son and when she found him leaning close to the new girl, she wanted to come over and pull them apart. Not by much, but still a few inches. Toby saw this and stopped the worried mother. She gave him a glare, but the face reader shook his head.
The longer she seemed to watch, the closer to two were getting. Ralph had picked up a chair and sat down next to her. Zilla was slightly unnerved by the boy, but didn't let it affect her hacking. She had more pressing matters to attend to.
Like restoring the security camera's. She had to give credit to the people who did this. It had given her a slight sweat to crack it. But all to soon, she had recovered the footage and Ralph gasped as he watched the screen.
"She got the security camera's feed back!" he yelled out to the rest of the team, who all huddled closer to the two of them. Walter grinned and patted Zilla's head, a gesture he had picked up after raising Ralph these past few years. It felt weird to her and she felt an annoying pang in her chest, but otherwise let it slide.
The screen showed six men forcefully opening the garage doors and immediately looking for something. She even found out how they got the chairs stuck on the stairs, a small grin made its way across her face. It seemed like the men hadn't found what they were looking for and left. Not five minutes later, Ralph walked in and he stiffened slightly at having been so close to getting in their way. And maybe even worse than that.
"Good job…" Walter trailed off, finally realizing that they had never asked for her name. They weren't even able to look into it, since they had no idea who she was before meeting her in the motel. The rest of them team started to look guilty, but she didn't know that. Her face was still locked on the screen.
As someone with a photographic memory, you never forget a face. And the face she was staring at right now, gave her flashbacks to a time she wanted to forget. She had made a mind palace of that place to keep it out of her remaining memories, for fucks sake. And her not being prepared for this onslaught of memories, she started shaking. Something Ralph noticed.
"Hey," he turned to her and saw the panicked look in her eyes. The first emotion he saw her make. But not one he had wanted to see. "Breathe with me, come on." this caught the attention of the team as they noticed her shaking and taking short and shallow breaths.
Ralph had grabbed her shoulders and turned her to him. It looked like she didn't even noticed, but she had violently flinched at the contact. He didn't let go, though and continued to try and get her to come back to reality. He figured she was too much into her head and it would probably take a while before she was out of it. Having done this a few times himself.
"In and out," he took deep breaths. At first, she didn't really react that much, but after a couple seconds she unconsciously copied him. "That's it. You're okay. You're safe." he added, hoping that panicked and horrified look in her eyes would go away. He had seen it often in his new father. Sometimes he would have panic attacks and it always left him a bit hazy.
Toby didn't even had time to step in and was proudly watching his protégé. If Happy could read his mind, she would have just slapped him at the comment.
Walter and Paige looked at them with a caring expression. The latter more then the former, but they understood. Well, partly. What had triggered her panic attack was still a mystery, but if she had calmed down enough and was ready to talk about it, they would talk. Walter scanned the footage again, it having been playing in a loop. She panicked after watching the screen, so he might as well look over it again. Not that he could have missed something, he remembered it very well, but it felt like that was something he had to do.
After a long and shaky breath, Zilla had finally calmed down enough to get her senses back. Ralph had not removed his hands yet, and they had begun stroking up and down, softly and warm. It was something that she had also locked away in that part of her mind and she felt something she hadn't in a very long time.
A tear slipped out from her eyes and, to her confusion, more soon followed. Her face scrounged up and a sob passed her lips. Another and another and she was quickly hiccupping and sobbing uncontrollably. Ralph did the only thing he could think of at that moment and, while not having known her for more than an hour, he embraced her tightly.
He had never had sympathy for a stranger as much as he did to this crying and broken girl in his arms. It felt a bit strange. Even after all these years, he still had trouble controlling and recognizing emotions he seldomly had. So, this had also been a rollercoaster for him. He also noted that he didn't mind it much, comforting the mysterious girl. She was shaking again and she seemed so small, curled up in his chest, as if they were the only two people left in the world.
Ralph startled himself out of the trance he was in and realized that they weren't the only people left here. Everyone, sans Walter, stared at the two. Paige with a saddened eyes, Toby amused with a hint of sympathy, Cabe and Happy looked uncomfortable and Sylvester fiddled with his fingers, nervously.
The young man cleared his throat softly and avoided looking at the adults. Zilla had not stopped crying yet and he didn't really know what to do anymore.
Walter was still emerged into the laptop and had started searching the faces of the garage destroyers. Most of the people were off the record, but he did managed to find out the identity of one of the men. He searched further into the man's records and blinked twice once he found the family file.
He spared a glance at the girl, who was still buried in Ralph's arms, and Walter blinked again. When had that happened? He shook his head, too focused on what he had just discovered. He got the attention of Cabe and the old man was happy to get a distraction from the sympathy group.
"Look at this," Walter showed him the file and the agent took in a sharp breath.
"Shit, Walter," he muttered, not wanting the rest to hear them yet. "Are you sure?" 197 nodded and they both looked back at the girl, who was starting to calm down again.
Zilla sniffed and pulled herself from Ralph's embrace. Damnit. This was embarrassing. All the emotions and thoughts she had locked away were spilling out. She couldn't remember the last time she had cried and she didn't like how stuffy she felt. She glared up at the young man in front of her, who gave her a glare back with a raised brow. As if daring her to make a nasty comment.
"Lexie Kennedy," silence. And a slam. Zilla was in Walter's face, a dangerous look in her eyes as she killed him with her stare.
"Never say that name," every word was carefully said, with so much venom, that Walter and Cabe shivered. "She has been dead for years." she followed, a frown making its way over Walter's face.
"You're father is one of the men who trashed the garage," more looks of disbelief and confusion. It seemed as if the members of Scorpion put their emotions on their sleeves today. "You have been missing for years. Presumed dead by your parents." Walter continued, countering her icy stare. "And your IQ is that of 200, according to the last scans made when you were a child." he listed off the things that were in her personal file and Zilla started shaking again.
"Don't you fucking dare think that I have anything to do with those, humans. They were the ones who wanted me dead. I just gave them what they wanted." she trembled. Her words were sharp, but the wobble in her voice was clear. "And don't ever call me by that name again. It's Zilla." she added, making sure that was clear.
Zilla backed away and turned around. She walked up the stairs and disappeared from their views.