Age(s) of the Geek, 7/7 - Leverage / Heroes crossover
It's finished! This series started out as a simple Leverage / Supernatural fic, developed into a "5 times Alec Hardison crossed paths with other geeks" multi-crossover, and wound up as a 28,000 word epic.
Thank you to everyone who provided concrit and encouragement during the writing and posting of this 'verse. I have made improvements to all chapters in the series on the basis of your helpful feedback.
Age(s) of the Geek, chapter 7: Leverage / Heroes, part 2.
Summary: back in 2006, Alec Hardison couldn't work out how Nathan Petrelli won his Congress race. Seven years later, thanks to a chance encounter at ComicCon, he finds out.
Genre: AU crossover future!fic. Gen, with mentions of Parker/Hardison.
Rating / Warnings: PG-13 for swearing, and non-graphic references to canonical character death.
Word count: 3,800 words.
Spoilers: for seasons 1 and 2 of Heroes (this story goes AU after that). Also minor spoilers for seasons 1 and 2 of Leverage (again, this story goes AU before season 3). Minor spoilers for the Supernatural season 2 finale as well.
Author's notes: this is the last in my series of interconnected Leverage crossovers, all focusing on Alec Hardison and his encounters with fellow geeks from various TV shows. It won't make a lot of sense unless you read the previous installments (or at least Chapters 4, 5 & 6) first:
Chapter 1 (Buffy crossover)
Chapter 2 (Veronica Mars crossover)
Chapter 3 (Doctor Who crossover)
Chapter 4 (Heroes crossover, part 1)
Chapter 5 (Supernatural crossover, part 1)
Chapter 6 (Supernatural crossover, part 2)
***
Alec Hardison and Micah Sanders, 2013
At age 30, Alec Hardison would describe himself as being pretty contented with his life. He was rich, he loved his job, and he had an awesome girlfriend.
But there were many mysteries that still bugged him. Why had a demon chosen him and his twin brother, Jake, when they were babies? Did that yellow-eyed bastard kill their mom deliberately, back in 1983, or was the deadly fire just an accident? And after Jake was abducted by the demon, was it his own free will or the demon's brainwashing that set him on the path to a violent death?
...on that scale of things, the mystery of how Nathan Petrelli had achieved a landslide win in his 2006 Congress race was way down the list.
***
Alec met a guy called Micah when they grabbed adjacent seats for the Marvel panel at ComicCon 2013. They were lucky to get seats at all, because it was the most anticipated event of the entire con: Joss Whedon was due to reveal some juicy details about his next film. Joss really had changed Alec's negative opinion of comic book adaptations. He'd started off incredibly strong with The Avengers the previous year, and Alec couldn't wait to see what he was going to do with the sequel.
Alec was wearing his faded old "Joss Whedon is my Master now" shirt with great pride. He was far from alone in expressing such devotion - many audience members wore similar T-shirts. Plenty of others were dressed as characters from Joss's first and most successful TV show, Firefly.
After the brilliant and hilarious Q&A session, both Alec and Micah joined the long line to get Joss's autograph. As the line slowly inched forward, they got talking. It turned out that Micah was studying computer science at MIT, as Alec had a decade before him. He was a real baby-faced kid - even at the end of his freshman year, he was still only 17.
Micah reminded Alec of a younger version of himself, in a lot of ways. But he seemed sadder and there was a definite wariness about him. Based on what little he revealed about his past, Alec could understand why. Both his parents had died when he was 11, Micah said, and he'd been raised by distant relatives since then.
Alec really felt for the kid. Though he himself was also an orphan, he'd lost his mother too young to actually remember her (and he'd never found out who his father was). But he still grieved for Jake and his foster-mother Nana, who had both passed away in 2007.
After two hours of waiting, the two of them finally got their Firefly boxsets signed. Alec embarrassed himself by gushing at Joss like a teenage fanboy, while the actual teenage fanboy was much more restrained.
Micah and Alec had both come to the con alone, but they ended up wandering around the stalls and displays together for the rest of the day. They talked about comics, and computers, and the greatest pranks ever pulled by MIT students.
For Alec, who spent most of his offline time with people who didn't share his interests, it was a real treat. Parker had gotten much better at listening to him since they'd finally started dating a couple of years back (it had been a long wait, but totally worth it). Sometimes she was even willing to watch Alec's favorite shows and movies: she elbowed him in the ribs if he recited the dialogue out loud, but tolerated him silently mouthing along.
He loved being with Parker, of course, but it wasn't quite the same as hanging out with a real geek.
***
It was a nice evening, even by SoCal standards, so Micah and Alec left the con venue and walked around San Diego for a while. A couple of hours later, they wound up in a mostly deserted 24-hour diner in a run-down part of town.
Alec was a multi-millionaire, but he didn't go for gourmet food unless Eliot was cooking. And he'd discovered, years ago, that most 5-star hotel kitchens were incapable of producing a decent cheeseburger. The menus in this joint were stained, the waitress was unfriendly, and there was a tang of stale grease in the air, but the food was fantastic.
As they ate, Alec and Micah continued to talk about superheroes. When they'd exhausted the Batman vs. Superman argument, the conversation turned to the ethical use of special abilities. Feeling pleasantly relaxed and deciding that he could trust Micah, at least a little bit, Alec offered a personal example.
"See, these days I'm one of the good guys," he said. "I use my skills to help people. But I've done some very dodgy things in my time."
Micah swirled a French fry through his leftover ketchup. "Did you do the dodgy things because you wanted to, or because you were forced to?"
"Mostly it was for money, or just for fun," Alec admitted. "But sometimes it was to help my Nana or my siblings."
"Yeah, I did things for my family too," Micah said softly, still looking down at his plate. Something about his tone of voice gave Alec goose bumps, despite the warm evening. "When I was 10, I was taken to New York by some seriously bad people. They kept me locked up, and said I could only see my mother again if I did something for them."
"Jesus, that's awful," Alec breathed, his mind suggesting lots of nasty reasons for criminals to kidnap a little boy.
"Oh, they didn't hurt me," Micah assured him quickly. "They just knew I was the only one who could solve their problem."
"Huh," said Alec. "OK, now I'm really curious. You don't have to tell me, but: what was the job?"
Micah hesitated for a moment, then described how he'd altered the outcome of one race during the 2006 midterms. He'd simply placed his hand on a single voting machine, and ordered it to register a vote for his kidnappers' preferred candidate. As all the machines were networked together, Micah had spread the message through the entire district's computer system. Result: instant landslide!
Having told his story, Micah slouched down in his seat and folded his arms, a resigned look on his face. He was probably expecting that Alec would either start laughing or freak out, and no wonder. Even to your average geek, manipulating electronics with a mere thought would seem like something out of sci-fi: an awesome concept, sure, but still impossible in the real world.
But Alec believed him, without question.
First of all, what Micah had said tallied perfectly with his own impression of Nathan Petrelli's upset victory 7 years earlier. Though Micah had been careful not to give specifics, Alec was certain that the unnamed candidate he'd gotten elected was Petrelli. Alec had figured that the race was rigged, at the time, but he'd never found any proof. Now it all made sense.
Secondly, Alec had come across all kinds of weird shit over the years. After vampires and witches and time-traveling aliens, not a lot surprised him anymore.
But most importantly, he himself had once possessed extraordinary power over technology, thanks to the yellow-eyed demon. Although it had faded after the demon's death, Alec still vividly remembered the feeling - like an organic connection between his mind and his computer.
***
So it was curiosity rather than doubt that made Alec lean forward and say, "Man, it sucks that you had to do that. But your power sounds totally cool...can you show me?"
Micah looked surprised, but then quirked an eyebrow and smiled. "Give me your MP3 player," he replied, "and name any track that's on it."
Alec laid his iPod on the table, and chose a Hall & Oates classic he hadn't listened to for ages. Micah placed a fingertip on one corner of the device, and closed his eyes. Two seconds later, he passed Alec the earbuds. Alec was amazed to hear the song start playing, even though Micah hadn't moved the scroll wheel or touched the screen.
Alec put down the earbuds, sat back in the booth, and blew out his breath. He'd thought that he was pretty gifted, but this kid was truly in a class of his own. Speaking of which...
"So why are you bothering to get a computer science degree?" Alec asked. "With a talent like that, you could just walk into any IT company and name your starting salary."
Alec, trained by Sophie to read body language, saw Micah relax a little. He seemed relieved that Alec wasn't asking the more obvious questions about his past or his power.
"Well, I did try applying for jobs last year, after finishing high school early. But things are different these days, compared to when you were a kid," Micah replied (ignoring Alec's indignant "Hey, I'm not that old!"). "Almost everyone grows up computer literate, so self-taught teenagers aren't so special anymore. The industry now prefers well-trained graduates to unmanageable prodigies."
Alec could understand that. If he'd been hired right out of high school, he probably would have been incredibly arrogant. Hell, he'd had a major insubordination problem even after four years of college; his attitude had gotten him fired from three graduate jobs, before he'd given up on respectability and turned to crime.
Micah stopped to sip his soda. "So with no work history or references, the only interviews I got were at electronics stores - selling laptops to old ladies for minimum wage. Honestly, I'd rather sit through CS 101."
"I'm guessing you didn't demonstrate your ability in the job interviews," Alec said.
"No way; it's far too risky to show just anyone. There are people who'd want to use me as a guinea pig...or make me do far worse things than rig an election."
Touched by Micah's implied trust in him, Alec recognized that there was still a lot that the kid wasn't saying - so much pain and bitterness behind his calm expression.
Alec knew better than to push for more, though, especially since he wasn't ready to reveal his own secrets. And his brief brush with a superpower made him even more sympathetic to Micah's predicament. After all, the demon hadn't given special talents to Alec and the other 1983 kids out of the kindness of his non-existent heart. He'd had an evil plan in place, and almost all of them had wound up dead because of it...including Jake.
"There's a practical problem, too," Micah continued, wrenching Alec's attention back to the present. "Whether you're programming or fixing problems, you're supposed to document the process. But nobody else can replicate, or reverse, or even understand what I do."
Alec nodded his understanding. Finishing a tricky job in minutes rather than days would certainly impress people, but might soon lead to very awkward questions (especially if there was no trail of coding to follow).
"So you're learning the usual way to control computers, as a cover," he said approvingly. "Like Superman, hiding in plain sight behind a meek geek persona."
Micah grinned. "Pretty much, yeah. Anyway, at MIT I get to hang out with people who love technology, argue about superheroes, and quote Firefly at each other. And I'm actually learning some stuff, even if it all seems so slow compared to what I'm used to."
"So are you going to aim for programming jobs once you graduate?"
Micah made a petulant face, reminding Alec just how young he was. "I probably should, to stay under the radar. But I might get bored pretty fast. And the temptation to take shortcuts could become overwhelming."
"Not to sound patronizing or anything," Alec said, "but I'm impressed that you're even considering an honest career. With very little effort, you could steal more money than you could spend in a lifetime."
"I've definitely thought about it," Micah confessed. "I raided ATMs a few times as a kid when we were desperate for cash, and both my parents spent time in jail. But my dad went straight and became a firefighter, because he wanted to help people. He even got a medal for bravery! And my mom died while she was saving someone's life. So I feel like I'd be letting them both down if I just took money without working for it."
Micah rubbed at his eyes, sniffing quietly, and Alec felt a powerful surge of sympathy that he didn't know how to express. To give his new friend a moment of privacy, Alec went over to check out the diner's dessert selection. The pecan pie looked good, so he ordered two slices and headed back to their booth. He pushed one plate across to Micah, who managed a small smile of thanks, and then ate his own serving in silence as he thought about his next move.
***
Micah's desire not to abuse his extraordinary ability made Alec want to reveal his own altruistic efforts. But years of working with Eliot, professional paranoiac, had made him a lot more cautious. He wasn't lone-wolfing it anymore; he had to protect the others by treading carefully here.
"You don't need to make a black-or-white choice between boring IT work and outright theft," he finally said. "There's a middle path, which can often involve thrilling heroics!" Micah smiled, recognizing the Firefly quote, and Alec continued.
Without naming names, he told Micah about his crew - how they'd started as a bunch of criminals and one honest man who'd joined forces for a one-off job, then decided to make it a more permanent arrangement. Together, they worked to punish powerful individuals and corporations who victimized ordinary folks.
Alec and his friends hadn't exactly gone straight, though. They still committed crimes - often multiple felonies during any given job - and ran significant risks. But they did it all to help people who were out of options.
Micah seemed fascinated by the idea of putting his talent to use in such a way, and he prompted Alec for examples of the team's work.
Keeping all his references vague, Alec described some of the cases they'd handled: fighting political corruption, preventing companies from selling dangerous products, and taking down organized crime bosses. Having lived in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Micah was especially pleased to hear about their exposé of crooked construction firms involved in the rebuilding effort.
"With your ability," Alec concluded, "you wouldn't even need to work with anyone else. You could find victims online, verify their stories, drain the finances of whoever caused the problem, and transfer the money to an untraceable offshore account in the victim's name. And you could probably do it all in your PJs, sitting on the couch."
"Yeah, I probably could," Micah said, "but it sounds very isolated. I'd prefer to be part of a group, like you."
As they kept talking about Micah's options, Alec couldn't help remembering how envious he'd been of his friend Willow's "Scooby Gang" as a teenager. He'd dreamed of being the tech guy for such a tight-knit crime-fighting crew one day. With the Leverage team, he'd achieved that goal for himself; now, he was encouraging another lonely young geek to follow his example. It felt kinda good, in one way - the passing of the torch and all that. But God, he felt so old.
Alec got a shock when he next checked his watch: they'd been at the diner for hours, and it was nearly 4am. He had to be at the airport by 8am for a flight back to Leverage HQ.
On the way back to their hotel, Alec gave Micah his contact details and suggested that they should stay in touch. He didn't know how much he could really offer Micah, in terms of contacts or career guidance. But he figured that the kid might just need to talk to someone who knew the truth and could empathize.
Alec's motives weren't entirely selfless, either. He'd never told any of his teammates about the demon and the ability he'd once possessed, even though sometimes the secret felt like too huge a burden to carry alone. Parker was the only one who knew that he'd had a twin - Alec had revealed his loss several years ago, after she talked about the death of her own brother when they were children. Even then, all he'd said was that Jake was killed while serving in Afghanistan. It was technically true, but far from the whole truth.
But he felt a strange kinship with Micah. Maybe this 17-year-old genius, who had such power but had lost so much, could understand better than anyone. Maybe he and Alec would be able to help each other.
***
In a cab heading for San Diego airport, a few hours later, Alec closed his eyes and thought about how his oddly nomadic life had almost come full circle.
He was on his way back to Chicago, the team's 4th home base in 5 years. Boston had become too hot for them, after that whole mess with the crooked mayor and the Feds, so they'd moved down to Washington. The location was handy for dealing with political corruption cases, and sadly there had been no shortage of work.
But their endeavors had made them some powerful enemies inside the Beltway. A few had been put behind bars, while others had threatened revenge after public scandals (carefully choreographed by Nate) cost them their seats in 2012. Getting the hell out of Dodge had seemed wise, so they'd relocated to Chicago following the election.
The Windy City was where the team had originally joined forces, back in 2008. Alec's feelings about returning were mixed. He liked Chicago (despite the cold winters), but he'd also been stalked and attacked by the yellow-eyed demon while living there. So he'd chosen a building on the other side of town from the apartment with all those negative associations.
Alec hadn't just moved away from his old life...he'd moved up. His new place was the penthouse suite of a deluxe lakefront development. He and Parker could lie in bed and watch the weather roll in across the water. She still had her own base - a converted warehouse which Alec was rarely allowed to visit - but she stayed with him most nights.
Parker had gradually become used to sharing a bed, and to the everyday compromises that went with cohabitation. It felt a little bit like domesticating a wild creature, sometimes, when Alec had to explain regular things such as loading the dishwasher and sorting the recycling.
But mostly it felt like being in love with an unpredictable but amazing woman.
He hadn't seen his girl for a couple of weeks now, and he really missed her. The team had taken a well-deserved summer break, scattering to the four winds. Parker had said something about Swiss bank vaults being the ultimate challenge for a thief, kissed Alec goodbye, and hopped on a flight to Zurich. Within a week, a number of safety deposit boxes at Switzerland's most secure banks had been breached.
The Swiss authorities were baffled: why would someone go to all that trouble, just to take a single small item from certain vaults? But Alec knew why, and it made him so proud. Parker had resisted the overwhelming temptation to steal everything in sight. Instead, she'd targeted the accounts of seriously bad guys - like dictators and warlords - and limited herself to one souvenir from each (a large diamond here, a miniature Egyptian statue there).
More importantly, she'd left messages telling the vault owners to start redistributing their ill-gotten wealth before she came back and did it for them. It was a real measure of how far Parker had come from her days as an amoral thief who stole indiscriminately. And if the warning didn't prompt a surge in charitable donations, the threatened follow-up gave Parker something to look forward to on her next European vacation...
Alec had used his time off in a more traditional kind of way, visiting family and friends. He'd spent a week in Atlanta with his sisters and niece - he couldn't believe little Becca was in first grade already - and paid his respects at Nana's grave.
Then he'd headed out to California for ComicCon. He'd detoured via Silicon Valley to see his old friend Mac, who was fulfilling her long-held dream of working for Apple. There was apparently only one downside: she had to go by her long-disused real name (Cindy) at the office, because "Mac" was too common a nickname at Apple HQ. Alec found that hilarious, and didn't stop laughing until she threatened to create a specially tailored virus that would fry his iPhone.
Alec left northern California $200,000 poorer, after Mac persuaded him to provide venture capital for her friend Wallace's engineering start-up. He'd met the guy a few times, and found his mechanical aptitude very impressive. So if Wallace thought he could design an individual jetpack that ran on biofuel, then Alec wanted to help him try.
Though he personally hated heights, Alec knew that Parker would be ridiculously excited by the prospect of flying. As a key investor, maybe he could get her an early prototype for some future birthday.
Alec had also wanted to catch up with Willow, still a close friend although they rarely met in person. She now lived in London, where she and Buffy ran the new improved Watchers' Council for the worldwide network of vampire Slayers. But she visited Los Angeles several times a year to liaise with a highly successful evil-fighting team there. The crew was headed, bizarrely, by a 250-year-old vampire and a Slayer who'd served time for murdering innocent people. Alec guessed they were proof of Nate's maxim: sometimes bad guys made the best good guys.
Unfortunately Alec's stint in California wouldn't coincide with one of Willow's trips, but she'd promised to see him the next time she was in the States. If she came to Chicago, then he really would have circled back to the beginning. The two of them had first met there, some 15 years earlier, at the National Science Fair.
It was strange to realize just how much that chance encounter had shaped his life. He'd been a nerd whose social skills lagged behind his technical know-how, but meeting Willow had made him feel less alone. She'd shown him how to hack, then taught him about the supernatural. And she'd encouraged him to use his talents to help other people. It had taken 10 years, but he'd finally taken that advice after joining forces with the Leverage crew.
Alec opened his eyes as the cab neared the airport. Grabbing his phone, he made a note to look up the organizers of that 1998 fair. If he could find out who had allocated his and Willow's exhibits to adjacent tables, he'd send them a thank you present. They'd inadvertently done him a huge favor...so really, a nice gift basket was the least he could do in return.
Thank you to everyone who provided concrit and encouragement during the writing and posting of this 'verse. I have made improvements to all chapters in the series on the basis of your helpful feedback.
Age(s) of the Geek, chapter 7: Leverage / Heroes, part 2.
Summary: back in 2006, Alec Hardison couldn't work out how Nathan Petrelli won his Congress race. Seven years later, thanks to a chance encounter at ComicCon, he finds out.
Genre: AU crossover future!fic. Gen, with mentions of Parker/Hardison.
Rating / Warnings: PG-13 for swearing, and non-graphic references to canonical character death.
Word count: 3,800 words.
Spoilers: for seasons 1 and 2 of Heroes (this story goes AU after that). Also minor spoilers for seasons 1 and 2 of Leverage (again, this story goes AU before season 3). Minor spoilers for the Supernatural season 2 finale as well.
Author's notes: this is the last in my series of interconnected Leverage crossovers, all focusing on Alec Hardison and his encounters with fellow geeks from various TV shows. It won't make a lot of sense unless you read the previous installments (or at least Chapters 4, 5 & 6) first:
Chapter 1 (Buffy crossover)
Chapter 2 (Veronica Mars crossover)
Chapter 3 (Doctor Who crossover)
Chapter 4 (Heroes crossover, part 1)
Chapter 5 (Supernatural crossover, part 1)
Chapter 6 (Supernatural crossover, part 2)
***
Alec Hardison and Micah Sanders, 2013
At age 30, Alec Hardison would describe himself as being pretty contented with his life. He was rich, he loved his job, and he had an awesome girlfriend.
But there were many mysteries that still bugged him. Why had a demon chosen him and his twin brother, Jake, when they were babies? Did that yellow-eyed bastard kill their mom deliberately, back in 1983, or was the deadly fire just an accident? And after Jake was abducted by the demon, was it his own free will or the demon's brainwashing that set him on the path to a violent death?
...on that scale of things, the mystery of how Nathan Petrelli had achieved a landslide win in his 2006 Congress race was way down the list.
***
Alec met a guy called Micah when they grabbed adjacent seats for the Marvel panel at ComicCon 2013. They were lucky to get seats at all, because it was the most anticipated event of the entire con: Joss Whedon was due to reveal some juicy details about his next film. Joss really had changed Alec's negative opinion of comic book adaptations. He'd started off incredibly strong with The Avengers the previous year, and Alec couldn't wait to see what he was going to do with the sequel.
Alec was wearing his faded old "Joss Whedon is my Master now" shirt with great pride. He was far from alone in expressing such devotion - many audience members wore similar T-shirts. Plenty of others were dressed as characters from Joss's first and most successful TV show, Firefly.
After the brilliant and hilarious Q&A session, both Alec and Micah joined the long line to get Joss's autograph. As the line slowly inched forward, they got talking. It turned out that Micah was studying computer science at MIT, as Alec had a decade before him. He was a real baby-faced kid - even at the end of his freshman year, he was still only 17.
Micah reminded Alec of a younger version of himself, in a lot of ways. But he seemed sadder and there was a definite wariness about him. Based on what little he revealed about his past, Alec could understand why. Both his parents had died when he was 11, Micah said, and he'd been raised by distant relatives since then.
Alec really felt for the kid. Though he himself was also an orphan, he'd lost his mother too young to actually remember her (and he'd never found out who his father was). But he still grieved for Jake and his foster-mother Nana, who had both passed away in 2007.
After two hours of waiting, the two of them finally got their Firefly boxsets signed. Alec embarrassed himself by gushing at Joss like a teenage fanboy, while the actual teenage fanboy was much more restrained.
Micah and Alec had both come to the con alone, but they ended up wandering around the stalls and displays together for the rest of the day. They talked about comics, and computers, and the greatest pranks ever pulled by MIT students.
For Alec, who spent most of his offline time with people who didn't share his interests, it was a real treat. Parker had gotten much better at listening to him since they'd finally started dating a couple of years back (it had been a long wait, but totally worth it). Sometimes she was even willing to watch Alec's favorite shows and movies: she elbowed him in the ribs if he recited the dialogue out loud, but tolerated him silently mouthing along.
He loved being with Parker, of course, but it wasn't quite the same as hanging out with a real geek.
***
It was a nice evening, even by SoCal standards, so Micah and Alec left the con venue and walked around San Diego for a while. A couple of hours later, they wound up in a mostly deserted 24-hour diner in a run-down part of town.
Alec was a multi-millionaire, but he didn't go for gourmet food unless Eliot was cooking. And he'd discovered, years ago, that most 5-star hotel kitchens were incapable of producing a decent cheeseburger. The menus in this joint were stained, the waitress was unfriendly, and there was a tang of stale grease in the air, but the food was fantastic.
As they ate, Alec and Micah continued to talk about superheroes. When they'd exhausted the Batman vs. Superman argument, the conversation turned to the ethical use of special abilities. Feeling pleasantly relaxed and deciding that he could trust Micah, at least a little bit, Alec offered a personal example.
"See, these days I'm one of the good guys," he said. "I use my skills to help people. But I've done some very dodgy things in my time."
Micah swirled a French fry through his leftover ketchup. "Did you do the dodgy things because you wanted to, or because you were forced to?"
"Mostly it was for money, or just for fun," Alec admitted. "But sometimes it was to help my Nana or my siblings."
"Yeah, I did things for my family too," Micah said softly, still looking down at his plate. Something about his tone of voice gave Alec goose bumps, despite the warm evening. "When I was 10, I was taken to New York by some seriously bad people. They kept me locked up, and said I could only see my mother again if I did something for them."
"Jesus, that's awful," Alec breathed, his mind suggesting lots of nasty reasons for criminals to kidnap a little boy.
"Oh, they didn't hurt me," Micah assured him quickly. "They just knew I was the only one who could solve their problem."
"Huh," said Alec. "OK, now I'm really curious. You don't have to tell me, but: what was the job?"
Micah hesitated for a moment, then described how he'd altered the outcome of one race during the 2006 midterms. He'd simply placed his hand on a single voting machine, and ordered it to register a vote for his kidnappers' preferred candidate. As all the machines were networked together, Micah had spread the message through the entire district's computer system. Result: instant landslide!
Having told his story, Micah slouched down in his seat and folded his arms, a resigned look on his face. He was probably expecting that Alec would either start laughing or freak out, and no wonder. Even to your average geek, manipulating electronics with a mere thought would seem like something out of sci-fi: an awesome concept, sure, but still impossible in the real world.
But Alec believed him, without question.
First of all, what Micah had said tallied perfectly with his own impression of Nathan Petrelli's upset victory 7 years earlier. Though Micah had been careful not to give specifics, Alec was certain that the unnamed candidate he'd gotten elected was Petrelli. Alec had figured that the race was rigged, at the time, but he'd never found any proof. Now it all made sense.
Secondly, Alec had come across all kinds of weird shit over the years. After vampires and witches and time-traveling aliens, not a lot surprised him anymore.
But most importantly, he himself had once possessed extraordinary power over technology, thanks to the yellow-eyed demon. Although it had faded after the demon's death, Alec still vividly remembered the feeling - like an organic connection between his mind and his computer.
***
So it was curiosity rather than doubt that made Alec lean forward and say, "Man, it sucks that you had to do that. But your power sounds totally cool...can you show me?"
Micah looked surprised, but then quirked an eyebrow and smiled. "Give me your MP3 player," he replied, "and name any track that's on it."
Alec laid his iPod on the table, and chose a Hall & Oates classic he hadn't listened to for ages. Micah placed a fingertip on one corner of the device, and closed his eyes. Two seconds later, he passed Alec the earbuds. Alec was amazed to hear the song start playing, even though Micah hadn't moved the scroll wheel or touched the screen.
Alec put down the earbuds, sat back in the booth, and blew out his breath. He'd thought that he was pretty gifted, but this kid was truly in a class of his own. Speaking of which...
"So why are you bothering to get a computer science degree?" Alec asked. "With a talent like that, you could just walk into any IT company and name your starting salary."
Alec, trained by Sophie to read body language, saw Micah relax a little. He seemed relieved that Alec wasn't asking the more obvious questions about his past or his power.
"Well, I did try applying for jobs last year, after finishing high school early. But things are different these days, compared to when you were a kid," Micah replied (ignoring Alec's indignant "Hey, I'm not that old!"). "Almost everyone grows up computer literate, so self-taught teenagers aren't so special anymore. The industry now prefers well-trained graduates to unmanageable prodigies."
Alec could understand that. If he'd been hired right out of high school, he probably would have been incredibly arrogant. Hell, he'd had a major insubordination problem even after four years of college; his attitude had gotten him fired from three graduate jobs, before he'd given up on respectability and turned to crime.
Micah stopped to sip his soda. "So with no work history or references, the only interviews I got were at electronics stores - selling laptops to old ladies for minimum wage. Honestly, I'd rather sit through CS 101."
"I'm guessing you didn't demonstrate your ability in the job interviews," Alec said.
"No way; it's far too risky to show just anyone. There are people who'd want to use me as a guinea pig...or make me do far worse things than rig an election."
Touched by Micah's implied trust in him, Alec recognized that there was still a lot that the kid wasn't saying - so much pain and bitterness behind his calm expression.
Alec knew better than to push for more, though, especially since he wasn't ready to reveal his own secrets. And his brief brush with a superpower made him even more sympathetic to Micah's predicament. After all, the demon hadn't given special talents to Alec and the other 1983 kids out of the kindness of his non-existent heart. He'd had an evil plan in place, and almost all of them had wound up dead because of it...including Jake.
"There's a practical problem, too," Micah continued, wrenching Alec's attention back to the present. "Whether you're programming or fixing problems, you're supposed to document the process. But nobody else can replicate, or reverse, or even understand what I do."
Alec nodded his understanding. Finishing a tricky job in minutes rather than days would certainly impress people, but might soon lead to very awkward questions (especially if there was no trail of coding to follow).
"So you're learning the usual way to control computers, as a cover," he said approvingly. "Like Superman, hiding in plain sight behind a meek geek persona."
Micah grinned. "Pretty much, yeah. Anyway, at MIT I get to hang out with people who love technology, argue about superheroes, and quote Firefly at each other. And I'm actually learning some stuff, even if it all seems so slow compared to what I'm used to."
"So are you going to aim for programming jobs once you graduate?"
Micah made a petulant face, reminding Alec just how young he was. "I probably should, to stay under the radar. But I might get bored pretty fast. And the temptation to take shortcuts could become overwhelming."
"Not to sound patronizing or anything," Alec said, "but I'm impressed that you're even considering an honest career. With very little effort, you could steal more money than you could spend in a lifetime."
"I've definitely thought about it," Micah confessed. "I raided ATMs a few times as a kid when we were desperate for cash, and both my parents spent time in jail. But my dad went straight and became a firefighter, because he wanted to help people. He even got a medal for bravery! And my mom died while she was saving someone's life. So I feel like I'd be letting them both down if I just took money without working for it."
Micah rubbed at his eyes, sniffing quietly, and Alec felt a powerful surge of sympathy that he didn't know how to express. To give his new friend a moment of privacy, Alec went over to check out the diner's dessert selection. The pecan pie looked good, so he ordered two slices and headed back to their booth. He pushed one plate across to Micah, who managed a small smile of thanks, and then ate his own serving in silence as he thought about his next move.
***
Micah's desire not to abuse his extraordinary ability made Alec want to reveal his own altruistic efforts. But years of working with Eliot, professional paranoiac, had made him a lot more cautious. He wasn't lone-wolfing it anymore; he had to protect the others by treading carefully here.
"You don't need to make a black-or-white choice between boring IT work and outright theft," he finally said. "There's a middle path, which can often involve thrilling heroics!" Micah smiled, recognizing the Firefly quote, and Alec continued.
Without naming names, he told Micah about his crew - how they'd started as a bunch of criminals and one honest man who'd joined forces for a one-off job, then decided to make it a more permanent arrangement. Together, they worked to punish powerful individuals and corporations who victimized ordinary folks.
Alec and his friends hadn't exactly gone straight, though. They still committed crimes - often multiple felonies during any given job - and ran significant risks. But they did it all to help people who were out of options.
Micah seemed fascinated by the idea of putting his talent to use in such a way, and he prompted Alec for examples of the team's work.
Keeping all his references vague, Alec described some of the cases they'd handled: fighting political corruption, preventing companies from selling dangerous products, and taking down organized crime bosses. Having lived in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Micah was especially pleased to hear about their exposé of crooked construction firms involved in the rebuilding effort.
"With your ability," Alec concluded, "you wouldn't even need to work with anyone else. You could find victims online, verify their stories, drain the finances of whoever caused the problem, and transfer the money to an untraceable offshore account in the victim's name. And you could probably do it all in your PJs, sitting on the couch."
"Yeah, I probably could," Micah said, "but it sounds very isolated. I'd prefer to be part of a group, like you."
As they kept talking about Micah's options, Alec couldn't help remembering how envious he'd been of his friend Willow's "Scooby Gang" as a teenager. He'd dreamed of being the tech guy for such a tight-knit crime-fighting crew one day. With the Leverage team, he'd achieved that goal for himself; now, he was encouraging another lonely young geek to follow his example. It felt kinda good, in one way - the passing of the torch and all that. But God, he felt so old.
Alec got a shock when he next checked his watch: they'd been at the diner for hours, and it was nearly 4am. He had to be at the airport by 8am for a flight back to Leverage HQ.
On the way back to their hotel, Alec gave Micah his contact details and suggested that they should stay in touch. He didn't know how much he could really offer Micah, in terms of contacts or career guidance. But he figured that the kid might just need to talk to someone who knew the truth and could empathize.
Alec's motives weren't entirely selfless, either. He'd never told any of his teammates about the demon and the ability he'd once possessed, even though sometimes the secret felt like too huge a burden to carry alone. Parker was the only one who knew that he'd had a twin - Alec had revealed his loss several years ago, after she talked about the death of her own brother when they were children. Even then, all he'd said was that Jake was killed while serving in Afghanistan. It was technically true, but far from the whole truth.
But he felt a strange kinship with Micah. Maybe this 17-year-old genius, who had such power but had lost so much, could understand better than anyone. Maybe he and Alec would be able to help each other.
***
In a cab heading for San Diego airport, a few hours later, Alec closed his eyes and thought about how his oddly nomadic life had almost come full circle.
He was on his way back to Chicago, the team's 4th home base in 5 years. Boston had become too hot for them, after that whole mess with the crooked mayor and the Feds, so they'd moved down to Washington. The location was handy for dealing with political corruption cases, and sadly there had been no shortage of work.
But their endeavors had made them some powerful enemies inside the Beltway. A few had been put behind bars, while others had threatened revenge after public scandals (carefully choreographed by Nate) cost them their seats in 2012. Getting the hell out of Dodge had seemed wise, so they'd relocated to Chicago following the election.
The Windy City was where the team had originally joined forces, back in 2008. Alec's feelings about returning were mixed. He liked Chicago (despite the cold winters), but he'd also been stalked and attacked by the yellow-eyed demon while living there. So he'd chosen a building on the other side of town from the apartment with all those negative associations.
Alec hadn't just moved away from his old life...he'd moved up. His new place was the penthouse suite of a deluxe lakefront development. He and Parker could lie in bed and watch the weather roll in across the water. She still had her own base - a converted warehouse which Alec was rarely allowed to visit - but she stayed with him most nights.
Parker had gradually become used to sharing a bed, and to the everyday compromises that went with cohabitation. It felt a little bit like domesticating a wild creature, sometimes, when Alec had to explain regular things such as loading the dishwasher and sorting the recycling.
But mostly it felt like being in love with an unpredictable but amazing woman.
He hadn't seen his girl for a couple of weeks now, and he really missed her. The team had taken a well-deserved summer break, scattering to the four winds. Parker had said something about Swiss bank vaults being the ultimate challenge for a thief, kissed Alec goodbye, and hopped on a flight to Zurich. Within a week, a number of safety deposit boxes at Switzerland's most secure banks had been breached.
The Swiss authorities were baffled: why would someone go to all that trouble, just to take a single small item from certain vaults? But Alec knew why, and it made him so proud. Parker had resisted the overwhelming temptation to steal everything in sight. Instead, she'd targeted the accounts of seriously bad guys - like dictators and warlords - and limited herself to one souvenir from each (a large diamond here, a miniature Egyptian statue there).
More importantly, she'd left messages telling the vault owners to start redistributing their ill-gotten wealth before she came back and did it for them. It was a real measure of how far Parker had come from her days as an amoral thief who stole indiscriminately. And if the warning didn't prompt a surge in charitable donations, the threatened follow-up gave Parker something to look forward to on her next European vacation...
Alec had used his time off in a more traditional kind of way, visiting family and friends. He'd spent a week in Atlanta with his sisters and niece - he couldn't believe little Becca was in first grade already - and paid his respects at Nana's grave.
Then he'd headed out to California for ComicCon. He'd detoured via Silicon Valley to see his old friend Mac, who was fulfilling her long-held dream of working for Apple. There was apparently only one downside: she had to go by her long-disused real name (Cindy) at the office, because "Mac" was too common a nickname at Apple HQ. Alec found that hilarious, and didn't stop laughing until she threatened to create a specially tailored virus that would fry his iPhone.
Alec left northern California $200,000 poorer, after Mac persuaded him to provide venture capital for her friend Wallace's engineering start-up. He'd met the guy a few times, and found his mechanical aptitude very impressive. So if Wallace thought he could design an individual jetpack that ran on biofuel, then Alec wanted to help him try.
Though he personally hated heights, Alec knew that Parker would be ridiculously excited by the prospect of flying. As a key investor, maybe he could get her an early prototype for some future birthday.
Alec had also wanted to catch up with Willow, still a close friend although they rarely met in person. She now lived in London, where she and Buffy ran the new improved Watchers' Council for the worldwide network of vampire Slayers. But she visited Los Angeles several times a year to liaise with a highly successful evil-fighting team there. The crew was headed, bizarrely, by a 250-year-old vampire and a Slayer who'd served time for murdering innocent people. Alec guessed they were proof of Nate's maxim: sometimes bad guys made the best good guys.
Unfortunately Alec's stint in California wouldn't coincide with one of Willow's trips, but she'd promised to see him the next time she was in the States. If she came to Chicago, then he really would have circled back to the beginning. The two of them had first met there, some 15 years earlier, at the National Science Fair.
It was strange to realize just how much that chance encounter had shaped his life. He'd been a nerd whose social skills lagged behind his technical know-how, but meeting Willow had made him feel less alone. She'd shown him how to hack, then taught him about the supernatural. And she'd encouraged him to use his talents to help other people. It had taken 10 years, but he'd finally taken that advice after joining forces with the Leverage crew.
Alec opened his eyes as the cab neared the airport. Grabbing his phone, he made a note to look up the organizers of that 1998 fair. If he could find out who had allocated his and Willow's exhibits to adjacent tables, he'd send them a thank you present. They'd inadvertently done him a huge favor...so really, a nice gift basket was the least he could do in return.