Dialectic 101: Disagreement
Title: Dialectic 101: Disagreement
Characters: Gary/Rachel
Genre: Friendship, Pre-Ship
Fandom: Alphas
Word count: ~ 1600
Rating: PG
Summary: Safe spaces for discussion are sometimes found and sometimes made.
I. Premise
Gary ran Bill’s instructions through his head one more time.
“Hicks and Nina are downstairs with the guards. I’ll be in the seventh floor lab. You two just get what you need from the system administrator’s desktop and get downstairs by midnight.”
Simple, except that the sysadmin’s office was all big windows and a locked door in the middle of the server room. The door had a keypad lock, so Rachel would need to do a visual scan. While she squinted at the lock, Gary looked around the server room to make sure everything was okay. It was just the two of them and she wouldn’t be paying any attention right now, so he had to pay attention.
It was always a strange reversal for him, physically watching out for his team with his real eyes instead of watching the frequencies and signals. There were so many gaps in the security camera coverage here, though, that he had to do it. Bill and Hicks had taught him how, just in case things like this happened. Look for people moving in groups, wearing the same clothes or sunglasses, black SUVs-though not a lot of that applied on the fifth floor of an office building.
“Got it. Kind of. 1-2-3-4-5, but I’m not sure of the order.” He heard Rachel straighten up with a huff that sounded unhappy. “Beyond the obvious.” She pressed some buttons and the long, high-pitched tone told Gary that it wasn’t right.
He turned his head over his shoulder slightly to get another look at the keypad. It was pretty standard looking, like the kind he’d seen in hospitals. “Most of the time you get three attempts before it locks you out. Sometimes they call security automatically, but most of the time they don’t.” He turned back to the room, which was still dead quiet.
“I don’t know if I want to chance that here, Gary.”
“Try the odd numbers first, then the even numbers. If it’s not that it’s probably evens, then odds.”
There was another series of beeps and the door clicked open.
Gary smiled. “Gotcha.”
II. Hypothesis
Rachel eased the door shut behind them. The whir and click of the lock was loud now that the hum of the servers was shut out. Inside the fishbowl of an office, Rachel let herself take a deep breath and released it slowly. They weren’t that much safer, but at least they could talk normally while they did what they came to do. She fished around in her purse for the USB drive while Gary logged into the desktop with passwords the DoD had stolen. She didn’t want to think about where or how.
“Do you have the flash drive, Rachel? Agent Sullivan gave it to you. She trusted you. I don’t think she trusts me yet, which is weird because I am very trustworthy.”
Her purse wasn’t that big-how had she crammed so many things into it? After feeling past a book of matches and some peppermints, her fingers closed around the memory stick. “You are trustworthy, Gary, and-” she pulled out the drive to wave it at him, “-I have it right here.”
“Yeah, I am trustworthy,” he said, turning to look out the windows. “And you are, too,”
Rachel plugged the drive into the desktop. A little download bar appeared and started a slow crawl across the screen. “Do you trust Agent Sullivan?”
“Yeah. I-Why?” Gary angled back towards her slightly. “Don’t you?”
Rachel thought about the agent-her stylish-yet-practical pant-suits, her stacks of folders, the gun she never seemed to pull out, even when unknown gunmen were bearing down on the office. “I’m not sure.”
“You like her. You didn’t like Don Wilson.” Gary side-stepped towards her. His eyebrows furrowed as he considered it.
“I didn’t not-like Don Wilson, either-“
“No,” he interrupted. “No, you didn’t like him. You always frowned a lot and you frown when you’re unhappy.”
Caught. “Okay, so I didn’t really like Agent Wilson.” She thought back to her earlier days with Dr. Rosen, long before Cameron had shown up. There had been less spy work then and more therapy sessions with scared and confused Alphas that they found on their own. She had spent most of her time testing their abilities with Dr. Rosen. How many shades of blue could the art restorationist differentiate? (More than Rachel). How far across a room could the Brooklyn cop detect which one of them was lying? (Dr. Rosen at twenty feet). Don Wilson didn’t ask them to do things often. About once a month he’d give them a specific name to investigate. Sometimes they got less information than that. Her favorite had been when Wilson had called with “Fake psychic in Cleaves Mills, Maine. Figure it out.” He’d been a nice guy with a bit of a limp. Rachel still wasn’t sure what his ability was.
Now, with Agent Sullivan, their missions felt different. For one, she saw a lot more of Nathan Clay than she ever wanted. Their orders were strangely specific, but she rarely understood what exactly they were doing. Dr. Rosen acted like he did, so it was probably okay, but other times even Bill looked a little uncertain. That was usually when Nina would drag Dr. Rosen off and they would discuss things-and boy, could Nina ‘discuss’ loudly.
The chirp from the computer brought her out of her reveries. Gary was watching her out of the corner of his eyes. Nervous adrenaline spiked through her bloodstream-daydreaming on the job. She had to keep it together. “I don’t know. It was different with Don Wilson.” She ripped the memory stick out and shoved it in her purse. “It felt safer, somehow.”
Gary turned away and looked out the window. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “Well, if you don’t trust her, why are you here? Why are you doing this?” Gary’s flat tone made it almost impossible to tell if he was concerned or just curious.
“She said it would help us find out who kidnapped you, Gary. I want to know who it was.” So they can never hurt you-or any of us-again.
III. Counterargument
The stupid kidnapping! He was fine and his mother made him promise to never take out the trash again. He had done everything right; Bill had even told him he’d done everything right. It wasn’t a problem. He was gearing himself up to tell Rachel that it was fine, he was fine, he was a government agent-when she grabbed his arm and pulled him down to the ground.
Rachel pushed the radio headset closer to her ear. “Hicks says security knows something is wrong and called for back-up. They’re searching floor by floor. We can’t stay here long.”
He peeked over the window sill at the room. It was silent and still, so he opened a violet and blue wavelength to look at the nearby stairwells-also quiet and still. “Mmm. That’s a bad strategy. They should come to the server floor first, or the labs. Those are the most vulnerable places.”
Rachel gasped behind him. “Gary! Don’t say things like that.”
“They can’t hear like you can,” he said with a laugh. “You don’t have to worry.”
He saw her rolling her eyes, so he must have said something wrong. Before she could say anything else, red static flashed through the colored frequencies. “Ahh!” Gary winced and pulled his hand back. “Thunderstorm. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand-“ A crash of thunder interrupted his count.
“How did you know?”
“Lightning strikes let off electromagnetic waves.” The lights went out. The blinking LEDs on the servers, the recessed track lighting on the floors, even the ambient light from the street outside-all dark. “Huh.”
The sound of rain on exterior windows filled the room-quiet at first, but quickly intensifying to a full storm. Rachel grabbed his jacket sleeve and squeezed tightly.
“What-Rachel?”
“I think I saw a movie like this once.”
“I’m not allowed to watch those kinds of movies. Maybe you shouldn’t watch them, either.” He glanced back at her. “Yeah, you definitely shouldn’t watch those movies, Rachel.”
Rachel sighed loudly, in that exaggerated way she did just for him so he’d know she was annoyed. He smiled a little, because she wasn’t squeezing his shoulder quite so hard. “We should go,” he whispered, “But I can’t see anything.”
She patted her hand down his arm and grabbed his hand. “Okay. Follow me.”
She tugged him forward, but he held his ground while he tried to organize what to he wanted to say. It finally just came tumbling out of his mouth, like these things always did. "I feel safe with you. I want you to feel safe with me, too."
He felt her turn back and place her free hand on his shoulder. "I do feel safe with you, Gary." She paused for a moment. "We're-we're not like Bill and Cameron, but we take care of each other. We're the ones who watch out for them, when they can't see for themselves. What I said before-I just felt like Agent Wilson watched out for all of us, especially Dr. Rosen."
That made sense, somehow. "You don't think she's strong enough."
"I don't know her well enough to know that yet. It scares me." Her hand left his shoulder and there was a soft, familiar sound as she pushed her hair behind her ear. "You ready?"
"Yeah. Okay. Let's go."
And we're going to stop that here, where it is not a cliffhanger. Part 2, Resolution, will be written someday, probably.
Characters: Gary/Rachel
Genre: Friendship, Pre-Ship
Fandom: Alphas
Word count: ~ 1600
Rating: PG
Summary: Safe spaces for discussion are sometimes found and sometimes made.
I. Premise
Gary ran Bill’s instructions through his head one more time.
“Hicks and Nina are downstairs with the guards. I’ll be in the seventh floor lab. You two just get what you need from the system administrator’s desktop and get downstairs by midnight.”
Simple, except that the sysadmin’s office was all big windows and a locked door in the middle of the server room. The door had a keypad lock, so Rachel would need to do a visual scan. While she squinted at the lock, Gary looked around the server room to make sure everything was okay. It was just the two of them and she wouldn’t be paying any attention right now, so he had to pay attention.
It was always a strange reversal for him, physically watching out for his team with his real eyes instead of watching the frequencies and signals. There were so many gaps in the security camera coverage here, though, that he had to do it. Bill and Hicks had taught him how, just in case things like this happened. Look for people moving in groups, wearing the same clothes or sunglasses, black SUVs-though not a lot of that applied on the fifth floor of an office building.
“Got it. Kind of. 1-2-3-4-5, but I’m not sure of the order.” He heard Rachel straighten up with a huff that sounded unhappy. “Beyond the obvious.” She pressed some buttons and the long, high-pitched tone told Gary that it wasn’t right.
He turned his head over his shoulder slightly to get another look at the keypad. It was pretty standard looking, like the kind he’d seen in hospitals. “Most of the time you get three attempts before it locks you out. Sometimes they call security automatically, but most of the time they don’t.” He turned back to the room, which was still dead quiet.
“I don’t know if I want to chance that here, Gary.”
“Try the odd numbers first, then the even numbers. If it’s not that it’s probably evens, then odds.”
There was another series of beeps and the door clicked open.
Gary smiled. “Gotcha.”
II. Hypothesis
Rachel eased the door shut behind them. The whir and click of the lock was loud now that the hum of the servers was shut out. Inside the fishbowl of an office, Rachel let herself take a deep breath and released it slowly. They weren’t that much safer, but at least they could talk normally while they did what they came to do. She fished around in her purse for the USB drive while Gary logged into the desktop with passwords the DoD had stolen. She didn’t want to think about where or how.
“Do you have the flash drive, Rachel? Agent Sullivan gave it to you. She trusted you. I don’t think she trusts me yet, which is weird because I am very trustworthy.”
Her purse wasn’t that big-how had she crammed so many things into it? After feeling past a book of matches and some peppermints, her fingers closed around the memory stick. “You are trustworthy, Gary, and-” she pulled out the drive to wave it at him, “-I have it right here.”
“Yeah, I am trustworthy,” he said, turning to look out the windows. “And you are, too,”
Rachel plugged the drive into the desktop. A little download bar appeared and started a slow crawl across the screen. “Do you trust Agent Sullivan?”
“Yeah. I-Why?” Gary angled back towards her slightly. “Don’t you?”
Rachel thought about the agent-her stylish-yet-practical pant-suits, her stacks of folders, the gun she never seemed to pull out, even when unknown gunmen were bearing down on the office. “I’m not sure.”
“You like her. You didn’t like Don Wilson.” Gary side-stepped towards her. His eyebrows furrowed as he considered it.
“I didn’t not-like Don Wilson, either-“
“No,” he interrupted. “No, you didn’t like him. You always frowned a lot and you frown when you’re unhappy.”
Caught. “Okay, so I didn’t really like Agent Wilson.” She thought back to her earlier days with Dr. Rosen, long before Cameron had shown up. There had been less spy work then and more therapy sessions with scared and confused Alphas that they found on their own. She had spent most of her time testing their abilities with Dr. Rosen. How many shades of blue could the art restorationist differentiate? (More than Rachel). How far across a room could the Brooklyn cop detect which one of them was lying? (Dr. Rosen at twenty feet). Don Wilson didn’t ask them to do things often. About once a month he’d give them a specific name to investigate. Sometimes they got less information than that. Her favorite had been when Wilson had called with “Fake psychic in Cleaves Mills, Maine. Figure it out.” He’d been a nice guy with a bit of a limp. Rachel still wasn’t sure what his ability was.
Now, with Agent Sullivan, their missions felt different. For one, she saw a lot more of Nathan Clay than she ever wanted. Their orders were strangely specific, but she rarely understood what exactly they were doing. Dr. Rosen acted like he did, so it was probably okay, but other times even Bill looked a little uncertain. That was usually when Nina would drag Dr. Rosen off and they would discuss things-and boy, could Nina ‘discuss’ loudly.
The chirp from the computer brought her out of her reveries. Gary was watching her out of the corner of his eyes. Nervous adrenaline spiked through her bloodstream-daydreaming on the job. She had to keep it together. “I don’t know. It was different with Don Wilson.” She ripped the memory stick out and shoved it in her purse. “It felt safer, somehow.”
Gary turned away and looked out the window. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “Well, if you don’t trust her, why are you here? Why are you doing this?” Gary’s flat tone made it almost impossible to tell if he was concerned or just curious.
“She said it would help us find out who kidnapped you, Gary. I want to know who it was.” So they can never hurt you-or any of us-again.
III. Counterargument
The stupid kidnapping! He was fine and his mother made him promise to never take out the trash again. He had done everything right; Bill had even told him he’d done everything right. It wasn’t a problem. He was gearing himself up to tell Rachel that it was fine, he was fine, he was a government agent-when she grabbed his arm and pulled him down to the ground.
Rachel pushed the radio headset closer to her ear. “Hicks says security knows something is wrong and called for back-up. They’re searching floor by floor. We can’t stay here long.”
He peeked over the window sill at the room. It was silent and still, so he opened a violet and blue wavelength to look at the nearby stairwells-also quiet and still. “Mmm. That’s a bad strategy. They should come to the server floor first, or the labs. Those are the most vulnerable places.”
Rachel gasped behind him. “Gary! Don’t say things like that.”
“They can’t hear like you can,” he said with a laugh. “You don’t have to worry.”
He saw her rolling her eyes, so he must have said something wrong. Before she could say anything else, red static flashed through the colored frequencies. “Ahh!” Gary winced and pulled his hand back. “Thunderstorm. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand-“ A crash of thunder interrupted his count.
“How did you know?”
“Lightning strikes let off electromagnetic waves.” The lights went out. The blinking LEDs on the servers, the recessed track lighting on the floors, even the ambient light from the street outside-all dark. “Huh.”
The sound of rain on exterior windows filled the room-quiet at first, but quickly intensifying to a full storm. Rachel grabbed his jacket sleeve and squeezed tightly.
“What-Rachel?”
“I think I saw a movie like this once.”
“I’m not allowed to watch those kinds of movies. Maybe you shouldn’t watch them, either.” He glanced back at her. “Yeah, you definitely shouldn’t watch those movies, Rachel.”
Rachel sighed loudly, in that exaggerated way she did just for him so he’d know she was annoyed. He smiled a little, because she wasn’t squeezing his shoulder quite so hard. “We should go,” he whispered, “But I can’t see anything.”
She patted her hand down his arm and grabbed his hand. “Okay. Follow me.”
She tugged him forward, but he held his ground while he tried to organize what to he wanted to say. It finally just came tumbling out of his mouth, like these things always did. "I feel safe with you. I want you to feel safe with me, too."
He felt her turn back and place her free hand on his shoulder. "I do feel safe with you, Gary." She paused for a moment. "We're-we're not like Bill and Cameron, but we take care of each other. We're the ones who watch out for them, when they can't see for themselves. What I said before-I just felt like Agent Wilson watched out for all of us, especially Dr. Rosen."
That made sense, somehow. "You don't think she's strong enough."
"I don't know her well enough to know that yet. It scares me." Her hand left his shoulder and there was a soft, familiar sound as she pushed her hair behind her ear. "You ready?"
"Yeah. Okay. Let's go."
And we're going to stop that here, where it is not a cliffhanger. Part 2, Resolution, will be written someday, probably.