August 27: Ninja Prowess [K+; Eureka]
Title: Ninja Prowess
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Rating: PG-ish
Challenge: twistedshorts: August 27
Crossover: Eureka
Spoilers: Post-series for B:tVS; Eureka Season 4ish?
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Notes: Turning out old scrapfiles again. (Yet another fic where I assume Buffy finished her degree.)
Summary: There was something about the petite woman that set all the hairs on the back of Jack's neck on end. 750w.
Jack Carter shook his head as he stepped out of the behavioral scientists' lab at GD, leaving the visiting psychologist-- a woman named Buffy Summers-- packing up her belongings. Unless the missing artifact somehow turned up in the next few hours, her time in Eureka was going to be a bust, and she'd have to head back for Los Angeles without completing the research she'd come for. And like all the scientists he'd met since coming to Eureka, she was very vocal about the interruption of her schedule.
Unlike those scientists, however, there was something about the petite woman that set the hairs on the back of Jack's neck on end. She sounded angry about the artifact being missing, and talked a good game about the creepy effect it had on the perceptions of anyone who spent more than a few hours in its presence and how helpful it would be if they could prove the strange patterns on its surface actually altered people's physical senses rather than just affecting their moods. But he couldn't shake the fact that she looked more relaxed now than she had when she'd arrived, not less.
"But unless Ms. Summers was somehow in two places at the same time...." he suggested, glancing at his former deputy and current head of Global Dynamics Security.
"No; I checked," Jo Lupo replied with a sigh. "She isn't a twin, she never got near the cloning project, teleportation research is still illegal, and the hologram systems are all safely locked up. So unless she somehow snuck all the way across GD, lifted it, stashed it, and got back in no more time than the time the video shows her spending in the bathroom, there's no way she did it."
"And the fact that I work in a town where anything other than the first option is even possible will never stop blowing my mind," Jack said dryly. "But seriously, barring some kind of technologically enhanced ninja prowess, she couldn't have stolen the latest missing artifact herself."
"I can't believe you just used the phrase ninja prowess," Jo snarked back, eyebrows arched bemusedly in Jack's direction. "Spent a lot of time playing video games with SARAH, lately?"
Jack scratched at the back of his neck and gave her a sheepish smile. "It, uh... does wonders for hand-eye coordination?"
Jo huffed a laugh. "You just keep telling yourself that, Carter."
"Right, right. You say that, but if I just so happened to ask SARAH how many games you played when you were rooming with us...." he teased back.
"C'mon now, focus," she grinned. "There have to be other suspects."
He sighed, letting the smile fade. "I only wish. No one else gives a damn about the artifact, and the security systems in the storage area don't record anyone entering through the door in the timeframe where it disappeared."
As he spoke, the door of the lab opened again, and Ms. Summers stalked through it, carrying two duffel bags brimming with cords and laptops and the private collection of artifacts she'd said she brought to test in conjunction with the one secretly unearthed at the Vortex last month.
"Don't leave town just yet," he reminded her as she walked by. "If nothing else, you'll want to set aside some time for your exit paperwork."
"More paperwork?" she threw over her shoulder. "Can't I just get out of here? It's not like I even learned anything to not tell anyone about."
"Sorry, it's procedure," he shrugged, not feeling particularly sorry about it. Something was just strange about that woman.
It wasn't until she disappeared out of sight around a corner that Jack realized Jo was still staring after her, too. "Problem?" he asked, frowning.
"It's... it's probably nothing, but... how heavy would you say those bags are?" Jo replied, wrinkling her brow. "You helped her put a few things in them while you were talking. Could you lift all that one-handed? While carrying another one just as heavy in the other?"
Jack thought about that just for a second, adding things in his head... then shared an alarmed look with Jo and took off down the hall. But Ms. Summers was nowhere to be seen when they rounded the corner; and she'd have to have vanished through a wall or run faster than humanly possible for that to happen.
"Technologically enhanced ninja prowess," he scoffed to himself as he reached for his radio. "You just had to say it."
-x-
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Rating: PG-ish
Challenge: twistedshorts: August 27
Crossover: Eureka
Spoilers: Post-series for B:tVS; Eureka Season 4ish?
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Notes: Turning out old scrapfiles again. (Yet another fic where I assume Buffy finished her degree.)
Summary: There was something about the petite woman that set all the hairs on the back of Jack's neck on end. 750w.
Jack Carter shook his head as he stepped out of the behavioral scientists' lab at GD, leaving the visiting psychologist-- a woman named Buffy Summers-- packing up her belongings. Unless the missing artifact somehow turned up in the next few hours, her time in Eureka was going to be a bust, and she'd have to head back for Los Angeles without completing the research she'd come for. And like all the scientists he'd met since coming to Eureka, she was very vocal about the interruption of her schedule.
Unlike those scientists, however, there was something about the petite woman that set the hairs on the back of Jack's neck on end. She sounded angry about the artifact being missing, and talked a good game about the creepy effect it had on the perceptions of anyone who spent more than a few hours in its presence and how helpful it would be if they could prove the strange patterns on its surface actually altered people's physical senses rather than just affecting their moods. But he couldn't shake the fact that she looked more relaxed now than she had when she'd arrived, not less.
"But unless Ms. Summers was somehow in two places at the same time...." he suggested, glancing at his former deputy and current head of Global Dynamics Security.
"No; I checked," Jo Lupo replied with a sigh. "She isn't a twin, she never got near the cloning project, teleportation research is still illegal, and the hologram systems are all safely locked up. So unless she somehow snuck all the way across GD, lifted it, stashed it, and got back in no more time than the time the video shows her spending in the bathroom, there's no way she did it."
"And the fact that I work in a town where anything other than the first option is even possible will never stop blowing my mind," Jack said dryly. "But seriously, barring some kind of technologically enhanced ninja prowess, she couldn't have stolen the latest missing artifact herself."
"I can't believe you just used the phrase ninja prowess," Jo snarked back, eyebrows arched bemusedly in Jack's direction. "Spent a lot of time playing video games with SARAH, lately?"
Jack scratched at the back of his neck and gave her a sheepish smile. "It, uh... does wonders for hand-eye coordination?"
Jo huffed a laugh. "You just keep telling yourself that, Carter."
"Right, right. You say that, but if I just so happened to ask SARAH how many games you played when you were rooming with us...." he teased back.
"C'mon now, focus," she grinned. "There have to be other suspects."
He sighed, letting the smile fade. "I only wish. No one else gives a damn about the artifact, and the security systems in the storage area don't record anyone entering through the door in the timeframe where it disappeared."
As he spoke, the door of the lab opened again, and Ms. Summers stalked through it, carrying two duffel bags brimming with cords and laptops and the private collection of artifacts she'd said she brought to test in conjunction with the one secretly unearthed at the Vortex last month.
"Don't leave town just yet," he reminded her as she walked by. "If nothing else, you'll want to set aside some time for your exit paperwork."
"More paperwork?" she threw over her shoulder. "Can't I just get out of here? It's not like I even learned anything to not tell anyone about."
"Sorry, it's procedure," he shrugged, not feeling particularly sorry about it. Something was just strange about that woman.
It wasn't until she disappeared out of sight around a corner that Jack realized Jo was still staring after her, too. "Problem?" he asked, frowning.
"It's... it's probably nothing, but... how heavy would you say those bags are?" Jo replied, wrinkling her brow. "You helped her put a few things in them while you were talking. Could you lift all that one-handed? While carrying another one just as heavy in the other?"
Jack thought about that just for a second, adding things in his head... then shared an alarmed look with Jo and took off down the hall. But Ms. Summers was nowhere to be seen when they rounded the corner; and she'd have to have vanished through a wall or run faster than humanly possible for that to happen.
"Technologically enhanced ninja prowess," he scoffed to himself as he reached for his radio. "You just had to say it."
-x-