Date of Expiration, Chapter 9/?
Title: Date of Expiration
Fandom/Pairing: Leverage/Global Frequency fusion, with eventual Eliot Spencer/Alec Hardison.
Rating: R (eventually)
A/N: Here's wikipedia's rundown Warren Ellis's Global Frequency. While knowledge of the story is helpful, and I heartily recommend the graphic novels, it isn't absolutely necessary.
Summary: The Global Frequency existed to save humanity from itself, and there was always another crisis coming. It was job security of a sort, if you managed to survive the bioenhanced supersoldiers, alien neuroprogramming, physicists who should know better, and the bureaucracy.
Previous chapters: AO3 // DW // LJ
Fri., April 11, 2014 00:24 CDT (GMT-5)
Eliot drove, careful to think of nothing but the distance he was managing to gain. Heading north, he hadn't settled on a destination. Going home seemed suicidally foolish, but it would be easier to blend into the traffic closer to the Cities than it would out here in the outer suburbs. Concentrating on mileage wasn't much of a distraction, however, from the issue at hand.
What the fuck?
---
Getting out of the plant had been easy- too damned easy, considering that he'd failed to achieve whatever objective he'd been assigned, and was still, somehow, miraculously, standing.
Back inside the facility, just a few scant feet from his apparent target, the guards had caught up to him. The fight had lasted only seconds, but when it had been over, he'd found himself several feet away from where he'd stood at the beginning, back in the corridor on the other side of the door they'd kicked in. He'd been back-stepping to avoid getting dragged down by the weight of the last unconscious guard, when it occurred to him that he was also, in effect, stepping back from his directed path.
Another step backwards, and no shocks had come.
The third step had been taken more deliberately. As consciously as possible, he'd concentrated his thoughts, focused on abandoning the mission.
And nothing at all had happened. The ODM had let him be. Somehow, it hadn't registered his behavior as an operational failure. It had let him go. Maybe it had finally broken. Maybe this entire mess had just been the death throes of obsolete tech in his head, wanting to take down his entire system with it.
He'd made it back to the stairwell, his pace increasing with what he'd hoped wasn't merely the illusion of freedom, though he hadn't been out of the woods yet. The ODM could've come back up online, but for the time being at least, his mind had been his own.
Limbs still aching, his first priority had been to get clear while the opportunity existed. He'd run back the way he came, taking out two more guards in the stairwell and avoiding the platoon that was priming for entry in the lobby, before slipping out through a fire escape. Staying close to the wall, he'd peered around the front of the building to find that further reinforcements- the National Guard, it looked like, were preparing to infiltrate and secure the building.
Another two minutes, and he would've had to deal with them.
There'd been a Jeep marked Prairie Island Security parked not to far from where he'd emerged, and true to form, it had proven to be the least secure vehicle on the lot. With all the activity being focused on the main entrance, it had been easy enough to slip inside, get it started, and make it the few hundred yards out to the parking. There'd been two more flashlight-armed guards walking through the lot, comparing license plates to a clipboard; they hadn't yet made it back to where he'd left his own truck, and hadn't noticed that Eliot wasn't one of their own until it had already been too late.
Clearing the main gate would've been impossible under the circumstances, not with the facility going into lockdown, but the employee entrance down the road was too busy checking the IDs of the network-emblazoned news van that had been pulling in to give his truck a second glance. He'd swiped the stolen keycard through the reader, and waited, heart in his throat, for the gate to open.
The relief he'd felt when it did had been so overwhelming that he'd found himself laughing.
---
He'd gained some ground, but Eliot wasn't getting his hopes up. He'd been caught on video, his truck had probably been logged the moment he'd gone through the gate. His head start wouldn't count for much once they called it in to Highway Patrol. Needing a moment to just stop and think, he pulled over at the first rest stop he found, bypassing the car-parking area where exhausted people were stretching their legs and blowing steam off of cups of coffee from the vending machine inside. Instead, he swung around to the back of the commercial lot, behind the semi trucks camped out for the night.
His cell phone was still on the counter back home. The GF phone, though, was in his pocket. Where it always was. It would be in his hand the moment he figured out what the hell he was going to say.
Odds were, though, Miranda had already sent out a team. This was definitely their sort of thing. He himself had hunted down more than a few maladjusted Big Wheel refugees while squashing the voice in his head that told him that, were he as well adjusted as he probably should've been, he'd see them not as targets, but as family. But he'd been trained out of sentiment at an early age, and he'd done his job, time and time again.
He was on the right side these days, he knew he was, but he'd been damned for years.
His own thoughts were useless, and he needed intel. He wasn't at all surprised when he turned on the truck's radio to find that they'd already started broadcasting.
"...described by witnesses as a mechanically enhanced supersoldier, possibly a cyborg, attacked the Prairie Island nuclear power plant in Welch, Minnesota just over an hour ago. The suspect gained entry, and though subdued immediately by the plant's security team, was able to escape. A manhunt is underway, as is the investigation into what the individual's goals were. A full review of the plant's security protocols is already underway, though the first priority of the officials has been to assure the public that there is no threat of a meltdown. However, until the suspect is apprehended, residents of the Hastings- Redwing area are warned to keep their doors and windows locked and exercise caution when traveling..."
Eliot sighed. Subdued immediately? Really? It might've been better, though, had it been true. He got out of the truck, wandering the dark corners of the lot; to anybody watching he was merely another tired driver trying to wake up. There weren't a lot of drivers out on the road, this time of night, but nobody was pulling into the lot. At least not yet.
Like it or not, he was a threat. Being in control of himself right now didn't change a thing. He didn't know why the commands stopped, or how he'd started receiving them in the first place.
Worse, though, there was no reason to believe that it wouldn't happen again. And if it did, it was unlikely that the connection would be broken so easily.
But worst of all? He had no idea who would be behind this. His identity was no secret- he'd been in the news for weeks after Kansas, and despite the contact lenses and synthskins and long sleeves, he still tended to stick out in a crowd. He'd done what he could to maintain a quiet civilian life after the Army. The guys he'd served with had been comrades, and though he hadn't remained friends, he didn't think he'd made any enemies, either. Outside of his job at the warehouse, he only really ever talked to Dr. Laroque or Aleph. Laroque might've been as close to a friend as he had, and Aleph had always seemed friendly, nothing more.
And he hadn't seen any of his brothers or sisters since Kansas. By the end of it, by the time he'd ordered the surrender and the six day siege had come to an anticlimactic end, he'd been the oldest and most obviously altered of them all, so he'd been the one the media had focused on. And though he wore contacts to mask the too-blue color of his electronic eyes when he remembered to put them in, his own face in the mirror was too much a reminder, sometimes, of things best forgotten. His siblings, scattered if not dead, weren't any more likely to seek him out than he was them.
Big Wheel, on the other hand, seemed extremely plausible. Maybe they wanted to bring him back in the fold, or test him out before coming at him more obviously, but whatever their motivations might be, they'd had their proof, tonight, that he could be controlled. There was no other good reason for them to have stopped where they had. If they'd wanted anything more from him, they probably could've got it.
This was getting depressing. Getting out of the truck- he was going to have to ditch it here. Jacking another car would only attract more attention, and he'd already made the news. Hitching wasn't going to be an option, but hiding out in the woods behind the rest stop until the inevitable patrol had been and gone would probably work. But that could take hours, maybe days, and it was getting cold already, and now that the adrenaline was crashing, he was exhausted.
And the Highway Patrol wasn't actually his main problem right now.
Back in Texas, Big Wheel had moved on from making soldiers of teenagers to using children, maybe even breeding them outright. He was old news, and there was no reason he could find for them to come crawling out of the woodwork after all this time. He'd carefully maintained a low profile. H'd gone civilian and gone obsolete, quite deliberately. If Miranda Zero hadn't stalked into his life, however, he might actually have managed it better.
Though the GF was the worst kept secret in the world, Miranda was careful to keep them out of the media entirely when she could. With most of the population running around with camera phones, it was amazing that their profile was as low as it was. But someone had managed to track him down, well enough to get into his wiring and control him. Eliot had to wonder. If the chip behind his eye hadn't been removed, would it have been easier for them? Would he, knowing what path to take from the beginning, have opted to spare himself the shocks and jolts that came from disobedience? Would he have gotten through that last door?
He shuddered, telling himself it was just the last of the adrenaline leaving his system that caused it.
The fact that he'd been able to pull out when he had was another mystery, and again, it all came down to that damned chip. Without understanding his exact orders, he couldn't begin to guess at their motivation. For all he knew, they'd brought him on to do a dry run at some new security update at the plant, though it seemed highly unlikely.
Eliot Spencer was never that lucky.
He saw the headlights slowing on the highway as the car- it wasn't the police, wasn't anything official, just a silver sedan- swung into the parking lot, slowing to a crawl. It was obviously searching for him.
Maybe the woods hadn't been such a bad idea after all, but it was too late now. Checking over his shoulder to check that the nearest semi truck was at the opposite end of the lot, he nodded to himself. This was as strategic a location as he could dare hope for, under the circumstances. He stepped out of the shadows and braced himself against the headlight's beam when it found him.
The car slowed to a stop a few yards in front of him, but the engine was still running. The glare was making it hard to make out the driver's face, but the passenger side door was already opening. There were a dozen ways he could neutralize the threat if he moved now, and as he began to move towards it, his eyes adjusted and he could just make out the blonde hair.
It was Parker. As crazy as she was, and whatever her orders were, Eliot realized suddenly that there was nobody else he'd rather be seeing. He raised his hands, not so far up that he couldn't use them if he needed to, but enough to indicate that he meant no harm.
She moved quickly, easing into his space more smoothly than anyone in this situation had a right to, but she was careful to hold back, stopping a few feet away. She regarded him with a wary expression on her face, one which, Eliot had to admit, wasn't at all surprising.
"Are you okay?"
Eliot was distracted from answering by the driver getting out of the car. He was tall, and moved with the precision of the well trained. He looked too young to be pointing a gun so unwaveringly. He might've been another Big Wheel kid refugee, for all Eliot knew, but now was not the time to ask.
"Miranda sent us," the man said, as if Parker's presence hadn't made it clear. "I'm Quinn." His apologetic shrug didn't disrupt his aim. "Sorry about the gun."
"We're on your side, Eliot," Parker's eyes never flinched, and with as bad as she was at lying- she'd never seemed the type to bother learning how- Eliot found himself put slightly at ease. Then again, she couldn't lie about what she didn't know, and Miranda's real motivations were usually played close to the chest. "Miranda thinks someone's messing with your head. We're here to help."
"Seriously? How?"
"The alert came in the moment you broke security at the plant. It would've looked less strange if you'd started dropping bodies. You've been compromised. But we can't help you unless you let us."
"And that's going to entail what, exactly?"
"Aleph's on his way with a doctor. Laroque?" Parker stumbled over the name, her hand suddenly shooting to the side of her face. A moment later, she was showing him her earpiece before wrapping it in her fist. "And seriously? If he came out here to find you full of bullet holes, he'd be really sad."
"What?" Eliot was still processing the fact that they'd dragged Laroque into this, though it wasn't, he supposed, surprising. Aleph showing up on the scene, however, didn't even begin to compute.
"Nothing," Parker frowned in sudden disappointment, sliding her earpiece back into place.
"So yeah," Quinn said, eyes darting confusedly between the two of them. "We come in peace. You okay with letting the geeks take a look at you, or are you going to fight us on this?"
Eliot rolled his eyes, mostly to cover the sudden drop in his adrenal levels. "You think I want to sit around here waiting for my brain to turn on me?"
Grinning, Parker took one step back, and Eliot followed, keeping his hands up as they stepped towards the car. Quinn was watching every step.
"You can cuff me if it makes you feel better," he offered Quinn, who contemplated it just long enough to glance at Parker.
"Nah. Got a feeling you'd be out of it in half the time it takes to put 'em on." He was wrong, of course, but Parker was smirking in approval, and finally Quinn lowered his gun, if only because of the inherent problems of aiming while climbing into a car.. Once they all were inside, Quinn turned around in the driver's seat and extended his hand.
"Anyway, fucked circumstances, but it's nice to meet you. Parker's been telling me stories." Quinn frowned, his eyes going suddenly distant; Miranda was probably shouting into his earpiece right then. Parker, also on the line, confirmed as much with a roll of her eyes.
"Yeah," Eliot shook the offered hand. "Nice to meet you, man."
Moments later, he was watching his truck swiveling out of view as they headed out of the rest stop and onto the highway. He hadn't even thought to ask where they were going.
"Did you bring your phone with you?" Parker was sitting sideways in her seat, her eyes distant as she listened to her comms unit. Flipping the gun's safety back on as Quinn passed it over, she hummed noncommittally once or twice.
"Yeah," Eliot answered, tensing against the order to disarm her that thankfully, didn't seem to be coming. The fact that it had been his first thought, as opposed to steeling himself against the flash that might come from even reaching for his phone, didn't bear close examination.
"You're about to get a call. Miranda."
That same instant, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He reached for it gingerly. Exhaled heavily when nothing happened.
"Eliot? This is Miranda Zero, and you're on the Global Frequency." He was Eliot now, not Agent 324. He wondered what it meant.
"Hey."
"Are you okay? What's going on?"
Even with Parker's warning, it was a little surprising to hear from her directly, since usually Aleph was the one who relayed all the calls. Being disappointed at the change-up was stupid, though. Completely beside the point. Even if he could've stood hearing from someone with a sense of humor right about now, for the most part, it was a relief. It meant that he could delude himself for just a while longer, let himself believe that Aleph hadn't seen the mess Eliot had made of things. He wouldn't have to analyze why it bothered him so much that he would.
"I'm fine for now, but I." It hadn't even occurred to him, before now, to feel shame. Zero, he figured, wasn't supposed to be the one voicing concern. It just didn't compute. "Someone hacked me, I think. And if they did it once-"
"They can do it again. Yes. We're going to make sure that doesn't happen. Aleph's on route with Dr. Laroque; they're going to get a handle on what happened tonight, but I'm going to want to hear it from you at some point. Thank you for cooperating, by the way. I'd be there myself, but I'm running damage control with the media right now."
"Look, I'm sorry about this-"
"I know you are. We'll fix this. It's what we do, okay? Now, as I was saying. I'm holding the journalists at bay for the time being, but the story's out. The only way we're going to be able to get ahead of this is to find the answers before they invent their own. Are you okay with that?"
"Yeah," Eliot said, closing his eyes and sinking back into the seat. He trusted Laroque, though the thought of Aleph coming out in the field was anomalous enough to be a daunting distraction. If he didn't ask Miranda the details, she wouldn't need to confirm them. "It's fine."
Chapter 10