New Kids on the Block // By dafnap
Author e-mail or LJ: lj user= dafnap
Rating: PG
Spoilers: N/A
Summary: Veronica Mars doesn’t take to usurpers too kindly.
Disclaimer: Characters belong to their respective creators, who definitely have nothing to do with me.
Pairing / genre: Gen
Warnings: None.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: N/A
Summary: Veronica Mars doesn’t take to usurpers too kindly.
Disclaimer: Characters belong to their respective creators, who definitely have nothing to do with me.
Pairing / genre: Gen
Warnings: None.
The memorial services for Lauren Benson and Rick Jones had been much like Lilly's -impassioned eulogies by teachers who barely knew them, tearful good byes by their less eloquent friends, and the idealistic sainthood granted by dying before their time. No one mentioned the fact that they overdosed on bad methamphetamine in the back of a house party that had raged for the majority of spring break. In fact, no one in Neptune High seemed to remember anything about that night no matter what questions Veronica asked -and she had asked a lot. One thing Veronica had managed to find out was that there was a new source aimed specifically at Neptune's rich kids, someone in the school was brokering the deal. Veronica had shook down every source she had, but nothing. No names, no places. It was frustrating, to say the least. And now, her final source, her final chance is dry too. The words "no dice, sorry" are scrawled on the back of a receipt stuffed into her locker.
Veronica Mars can't help but curse.
It is then, staring helplessly into the crowd of students heading towards class -trying to figure out another course of action- that she sees him.
He is an odd one. For one thing, he's wearing sunglasses. Inside. On one of not-very-many Neptune's cloudy days. Water is actually falling -on people- from the *sky*, that place where usually there is a great big ball of light called the "sun". The cheerleaders have forgone their short skirted uniforms for those velour pantsuited logo-clenched-between-two-ass-cheek numbers. Days like these in Neptune are so shocking for the general populace that it's almost sweet to see the rich brats and poor trash huddle together in the cafeteria like refugees from a war. And then here is this boy, in prep-school blues, strolling down the hallway, man-purse around his shoulders, wearing sunglasses, weaving between the shivering, moist masses like he knows where he was going. But he doesn't -shouldn't- because Veronica Mars had never seen him before, and that means only one thing: New kid.
But it wasn't just that. There was something else. If she hadn't been the daughter of Keith Mars she would have pegged him as a prep-school drop out --too slick for even his rich parents to bribe him back into any of the good private institutions. If she hadn't been the daughter of Keith Mars, she might have guessed that he was from the Bruce Wayne school of rich, slickly dressed, tutored in the ways of society, blithely ignorant of anything else that might be going on around him. Sunglasses! Inside! That was enough right there!
Unfortunately for Keith Mars, she was his daughter, and being as such, it only takes a few seconds to realize that he is not what he is supposed to be. Veronica Mars knows two things very, very well: other people, and people like her. And for the first time in a very, very long time she is looking at the latter.
Or she would have been, if he doesn't manage to duck out of her nosey line of sight in the few moments it takes her to realize that if a guy like that was here, then something *else* must be going on. Cursing under her breath, Veronica makes a bee-line for the admissions office. Wallace owed her a favor anyway and being the forward thinking girl she was she had made him promise to be her bitch in times of need, and this was as good a reason as any.
Sure, it might not have anything to do with her, but then again, when did anything in Neptune High ever have to do with her since Lilly Kane died?
**
"You are the neediest person I know, Veronica Mars." Wallace hands her the file, "Seriously girl, you have got to learn to have a life outside of investigating your fellow students."
"I'm bored," She gives him her cheekiest grin before tearing eagerly into the manila folder, glancing at the name. Alvin Draper. That might have been the ugliest name she's heard of in a long, long time. Passing quickly over academic records, teacher reports and, "Ooh. Citations. My favorite."
Trespassing breaking and entering, assault on a police officer, later dropped, and a truancy sheet a mile long. If Veronica didn't know better, Alvin Draper looked meaner on paper than he did in person. But Veronica always new better, and there was something more to this boy than simple delinquency. For one thing, he looked rich, and rich kids never had a record that lasted very long. A puzzle. One that Veronica was just bored enough to look into solving-
"You are so, so sad, you know that, right?" Wallace leans over the counter to check if Ms. Brunheller was back from her "special time", which, according to Wallace, roughly translated to smoking cigarettes behind the portables with the new substitute gym teacher, Mr. Carcaterra.
"You're one to talk, remember, you're friends with *me*."
"Not by choice. I can't help it that I'm too cool for this school. Remember, I just let you hang out with me."
Veronica laughs, "Yeah, that's it. I'm your pity case. Right, next time you get tied up naked with duct tape, I'll be sure to *not* encroach on your cool time." She makes a mental note of the kid's address. Her hunch was right, the kid *was* different.
"Seriously, what is this for? A case? You've got a crush?"
Veronica sighed, "No, just me being nosey."
"Same difference," Wallace laughs.
Veronica just gives him the look before handing the file back, "I need copies, Girl Friday, don't crease the edges, ok?"
Fluttering her fingers at Wallace's protestations, she hurried back outside; she had class after all, she wouldn't want to be late. She had seen Alvin's class schedule, the lucky boy had fifth period AP Bio with her and she couldn't wait to surreptitiously observe.
**
It is only a few minutes into class before Veronica is witness Alvin's first "I'm-a-Bad-Boy-No-Really" performance. He hits all the classic examples of the swaggering, egotistical rich brat he was obviously trying to emulate: propped feet, a disdainful sneer every time the teacher tried to vainly include him in class discussion, blatantly not taking notes while sitting in the front row. He was good, she'd give him that, but she wasn't fooled. She'd accidental seen his worksheet -every multiple choice question was answered wrong. Out of forty. A statistical improbability. She wasn't stupid, and obviously neither was he.
After the bell rings she gives Alvin Draper a few moments head start, just to make her ensuing bump-and-grab more believable. He had a wallet, and she wanted to see what was inside. It wasn't going to be hard. Just a few faux stumbles and then-
"Hello." Alvin is right in front of her, hitching his man-purse on his shoulder and giving her a look that Veronica thought only she had patented. This was...new.
What else does a girl say when her cover's blown? "Hi." I like, totally dig your rap sheet...
"You were watching me the moment class started."
"I was?"
"You were." He doesn't smile, and it's kind of creepy. Really creepy, actually.
"Huh. Imagine that."
"You were reading over my shoulder. Snooping." He smiles, almost in spite of himself, it seems.
"It's not snooping, it's carefully cultivated curiosity." She smiles back, trying to look convincing.
"Right." He pauses like he's going to continue, but then his eyes come back into focus, and there's 'Alvin Draper' back in front of her. His smile is like the one in class -more of a sneer than anything else. He changes his stance and his voice begins to fill with that prep school contempt that Veronica knows so well. "Right," he says again, and tips his head, "See you around."
Oh no, Veronica says to herself, stamping a foot against the ground in frustration as she watches 'Alvin Draper' walk away, "Oh no you didn't."
Whoever this kid was, he totally, utterly, wasn't.
**
"Don't you think you're a little paranoid?" Wallace asks her, propping a leg on her desk. She pushes his foot off with annoyance and goes back to staring back at her computer screen. Wallace is sprawled on the ground, a comic book raised over his face.
"He's not Alvin Draper, Wallace, that much I know." She taps the keyboard angrily, "Oh goddammit, there has got to be something. on this kid."
"Maybe you're just looking for an excuse-"
"An excuse for what? Oh COME ON." She hammers 'return' in a flurry, "When did the school update their server security?"
"Last week. It's not my fault someone didn't cover her tracks well enough. You really thought that work order for a school skeleton key was going to get through?"
"It was worth a shot. My lock-picking kit is getting old and Dad won't get me a new one until next week-" Veronica lets out a string expletives, "There has got to be *something* out there."
"Face it Veronica. You've got a crush." Wallace flips a page, "It would be cute if you weren't sublimating so badly."
Veronica glares at him from over her laptop's screen, "You aren't the best sidekick ever, you know?"
Wallace just laughs and flips a page, "Veronica Mars has got a crush-" he manages to get out before Veronica empties her bed of pillows in his general direction.
**
After Wallace leaves, Veronica stays up to dig deeper. The farthest she could date back this "Alvin Draper" is just two weeks prior. There were multiple Alvin's in the system though, and this would have thrown her for a loop if she didn't know a few tricks to creating alternate identities herself. For one, the ages weren't consistent, but where all within a three year span -meaning that the identity was flexible -if he needed to be 21, he could; if he needed to be 17 he could do that too. Using the same name wasn't all that stupid -never a mix-up in identity, only one name to respond to; use it enough times, and the response times don't arouse too much suspicion anymore. There was a poor 16 year old Alvin Draper in a Bludhaven public school, a rich 17 year old in a Brentwood academy, a middle class one in a Gotham suburb. This kid as all over the map.
But then it all stops three years into the records. He was nowhere else in the system, none of the birth certificates exist any farther than the paper they were printed on. Alvin Draper was an alias, one far more advanced than any Veronica had created for herself. Veronica was feeling an emotion she didn't know she could truly experience -jealousy.
She hated it. She hated it so, so much.
Tapping her fingers she stared at the pattern that was emerging -and sighed What in the world-
Her AIM pinged, and Veronica peered at the flashing, glaring "Accept Message?"
Her hand hovers over the mouse, thinking. Maybe it's just Mac trying out a new screen name after the last one got her in trouble-
"Stop."
Veronica Mars stares at her computer in disbelief.
"Oh no," She whispers, trying to type back before he signs off, "Oh no he didn't." The tell-tale door slam sound echoes from her computer and she's left with the flashing screen "User no longer available." blinking back at her.
So, so much.
**
She doesn't even bother to wait for class to finish before she grabs him by the shirt during lab and drags him to a less conspicuous corner by the door by the door, "Who do you think you're playing?"
"I heard you were easy but I didn't think-"
She pushes his shoulder, "You stop it. You stop it right now. I know what you are."
"What I *am*?" He laughs, that if she didn't know what he wasn't, she might have actually believed, "They also mentioned you were *crazy*, but I like that in a-"
"Listen bucko," She pokes him again, this time in the chest, "You do not play a player, and I am a player, a petite, pissed-off player with a camera and an uncanny ability to plant evidence where none existed before. So you speak, and you speak now -before my green thumb gets itchy."
She can actually *see* the 'Alvin Draper' personality slip off his face, but she is no longer impressed by his versatility. In fact she's no longer impressed with his extensive subterfuge and computer hacking skills. At all. No matter what Wallace said.
"If I told you I was tracking down a shipment of bad meth sold in a school in New Jersey that killed four teenagers, one who was the son of a city councilman, for a covert agency that employs kids like me with too much time on their hands to put their easily distracted minds to good use -would you believe me?"
Veronica Mars gives him the look that her dad employs on her on a regular basis -that "I am completely un-amused by you at this moment" look. 'Alvin' is un-phased in the least.
"No?"
She shakes her head slowly.
"Well, you asked." He gives her a smile that's a mixture between the two personalities, "And I tried."
The bell rings, and they get separated by the torrent of students flowing out of the room, "See you around, Veronica Mars." He gives her a little wave of his hand before disappearing into the crowd of students and leaving her clench her fists in frustration in a quickly emptying room.
Veronica Mars wants to punch a wall, but the closest one was brick, and she wasn't *that* angry. She opens her hand and smiles at the one good thing that's happened in her investigation so far: his wallet, worn leather and brimming to the rim with all sorts of traceable data.
**
"I'm telling you Wallace," Veronica slams her notebook shut and glares in the general direction of the object of her irritation, "He's hiding something and it's big and I want to know what it is."
"He's hiding something *big*?" Wallace gives her a knowing glance, but Veronica is to irate to notice, "Something...huge?"
"I just can't figure it out-"
"Maybe if you did a little more investigating-" He reaches over to grab a half of Veronica's neglected sandwich.
"-There's something I'm missing-"
"-In his pants. I'm sure you can find his big-"
"Do you *always* go for the obvious jokes?" Veronica turns her glare on Wallace, and tears a piece from her sandwich that he's eating, "I'm serious. You don't think there's anything fishy about a guy with multiple aliases, none of which stretches back more than three years, yet he's able to get into any public school without a hitch? That he's got five sets of driver's licenses, all of which check out at the state level? They aren't fake Wallace, they're *real*." She fans them out in her hand, "And there are more names here, not just Alvin Draper."
Wallace looks up from the sandwich, "Real fake IDs?"
Veronica nods, her eyes twinkling with that damn I've-Found-Something-I-Shouldn't-Have gleam that often scares the crap out of him.
"And you got these from his wallet?"
She nods.
"That you stole. From him."
She nods again.
Wallace shakes his head with mock sadness as he finishes her sandwich, "You are *so* crushing on him..."
**
It's Alvin that pulls her aside this time, in the middle of lunch out in the quad. He doesn't say anything, just holds out his hand.
"You have got to be kidding me. You think I'm going to just hand them over?" Veronica crosses her arms, "I want a fair exchange."
"You don't know what you're getting involved in." He glances around in the best Overtly Suspicious Secret Meeting tradition. Veronica can see Weevil watch the two of them steadily and Veronica waves at him brightly, causing 'Alvin' to tense up even more, "Look just give it back, and I promise to tell you everything." She can already see him formulating a lie in his head.
Veronica smiles at him and pulls out the wallet from her back pocket, "Here you go, *Alvin*." She says, as she places it in his upturned hand.
It's empty, obviously so, and 'Alvin' doesn't appear amused.
"Oh, I'm sorry, did I forget something?" Veronica fans out the IDs in her hand, picking through them one, by one, "Were you looking for these 'Alvin Draper'? Or is it 'Shane Mullens'? Or 'Doug Schiedt'? Or 'Tim Dra-" He grabs the cards from her.
"Thank you." He says stiffly, and walks away -heading towards the school's parking lot. Ditching. Bad, bad boy.
Veronica smiles and gives the go to Weevil. One nod, and he's already got the keys to his bike out. It wouldn't be long before she would have a little more to work on.
She was going to figure this out, that much she knew.
**
Sitting around waiting for Weevil to call. Veronica never thought she would find herself in such a position -almost breathless to hear his voice over the line -and then the phone rings, and the velocity that she throws herself at it almost makes her launch off the bed.
"Baby, the things I do for you-"
"What did you find?"
"Hey, nice to talk to you to-"
"Great, wonderful. What did you *find*?"
"Well, whoever he is, he's bad news. The part of town I followed him wasn't the cleanest, if you know what I mean."
Veronica stares at the phone dumbly. Drugs. You have got to be kidding me- "Did you get pictures of his car? What kind of drugs? The meth kind?"
She can hear Weevil sigh, "Yeah, I got the pictures. What's your interest in this guy anyway? The guys he's hanging with, bad news-"
"Were they into meth, Weevil? I need to know"
"Yes." They both fell silent. It is Veronica who finally speaks up.
"Did you do what I asked?"
Weevil lets out another breath, "Yeah. You were right. I put the tracer on when he was inside. How did you even know he would switch cars?"
Veronica couldn't help but pump her fist into the air. "Lucky guess." She said, collecting herself, "He knew I was already on his case. He probably figured I would have put something on the car he drove to school by now." He's smart, and she can't help but be a little happy that he might think the same.
Weevil doesn't sound as amused, "Those guys were bad news, Mars, I'm serious. That kid is getting into business that he shouldn't. And neither should you."
It's odd to hear such concern from a guy that prides himself on his misanthropy, and she can't help but temper her eagerness, "I can take care of myself, Weevil."
She can hear him sigh over the phone, "That's what I'm afraid of, Veronica. You actually believe it too."
**
Veronica finds herself in that part of town that Weevil told her expressly not to go. Wallace had refused to come with her, saying something about how she was "completely, utterly, insane" and that he was not going to entertain her "delusions of conspiracies" any longer. He was staying home and watching TV and not running around with a "…crazy white chick who can't come grips with the fact that she has a CRUSH. And rather than ask him out you run around making everything into an 'investigation' instead of facing the fact that you have a crush on a guy that you claim to abhor."
This left Veronica to her own devices, and what else better to track down expensive, illegal psychotropic drugs aimed at the young, rich, bored elite than the keys to daddy's beamer and a cultivated sneer? It didn't take much to convince her dad that she was just going over to Wallace's to hack into the school's network. He had kissed her on the forehead and warned her not to forget to cover her tracks.
And now she was in Daddy's car getting closer and closer to the steady beeping of her tracer. A few more blocks and she'll have the truth. A few more blocks and…she spots the car from Weevil's pictures. Parked in front of a dilapidated house at the end of a cul-de-sac, the car is empty -but the house isn't. Veronica slows her car until it comes to a stop next to a cluster of conveniently overgrown bushes. Pulling into park, she lets out a sigh, and then stretches her toes, letting each knuckle pop and snap. It was time to get ready. It was time to wait. Wait and see. It is what she does best. She is going to solve one case tonight, that much is certain. At least there's that.
And then what? A little voice inside her head asks, If what he says is true, he's going to solve the case for you. Veronica frowns. After all the work she put into this case only to be trumped by-
The knock on her window startles her to the point where she's already reaching for her pepper spray before she processes the fact that Alvin Draper, or Tim Drake, or whatever he is going by this time was outside, smiling at her expectedly, passing her tracer back and forth in his hand.
What can she do but roll down the window?
"Hi."
"Hi." What else can she say? What's up? Mind returning the tracer I put on your car?
"Here you go, I thought you might like this back." He tosses the tracer through the window and it lands in Veronica's lap. She looks down at it dumbly, "It's ok, you don't have to thank me. Just returning the favor."
Veronica looks back at him, her shock quickly wearing off to be replaced with minor frustration. Make that *major* frustration. Quickly, she reaches for the door handle but he beats her to it, pushing the lock mechanism down and bringing his face in line with hers.
"Listen, it's done, there's nothing else for you to do here but watch the cops come and arrest those responsible."
"Let me out-" Veronica struggles with the door handle, "-let me out I swear to God-"
The boy backs away from the door and runs towards his car, and by the time Veronica is able to sort herself out from the belt, the car door and the pepper spray, he's long gone. All that's left of his presence is her extreme frustration and… a small business card, taped to her rear-window.
"You have *got* to be kidding me," She shouts to no one in particular, yanking at it angrily. Turning it over, it says simply:
"He said you were good. I have yet to be convinced. If you can find me, then we'll talk. -Oracle."
Well, darn, she thought, there goes my weekend.
It is then, staring helplessly into the crowd of students heading towards class -trying to figure out another course of action- that she sees him.
He is an odd one. For one thing, he's wearing sunglasses. Inside. On one of not-very-many Neptune's cloudy days. Water is actually falling -on people- from the *sky*, that place where usually there is a great big ball of light called the "sun". The cheerleaders have forgone their short skirted uniforms for those velour pantsuited logo-clenched-between-two-ass-cheek numbers. Days like these in Neptune are so shocking for the general populace that it's almost sweet to see the rich brats and poor trash huddle together in the cafeteria like refugees from a war. And then here is this boy, in prep-school blues, strolling down the hallway, man-purse around his shoulders, wearing sunglasses, weaving between the shivering, moist masses like he knows where he was going. But he doesn't -shouldn't- because Veronica Mars had never seen him before, and that means only one thing: New kid.
But it wasn't just that. There was something else. If she hadn't been the daughter of Keith Mars she would have pegged him as a prep-school drop out --too slick for even his rich parents to bribe him back into any of the good private institutions. If she hadn't been the daughter of Keith Mars, she might have guessed that he was from the Bruce Wayne school of rich, slickly dressed, tutored in the ways of society, blithely ignorant of anything else that might be going on around him. Sunglasses! Inside! That was enough right there!
Unfortunately for Keith Mars, she was his daughter, and being as such, it only takes a few seconds to realize that he is not what he is supposed to be. Veronica Mars knows two things very, very well: other people, and people like her. And for the first time in a very, very long time she is looking at the latter.
Or she would have been, if he doesn't manage to duck out of her nosey line of sight in the few moments it takes her to realize that if a guy like that was here, then something *else* must be going on. Cursing under her breath, Veronica makes a bee-line for the admissions office. Wallace owed her a favor anyway and being the forward thinking girl she was she had made him promise to be her bitch in times of need, and this was as good a reason as any.
Sure, it might not have anything to do with her, but then again, when did anything in Neptune High ever have to do with her since Lilly Kane died?
**
"You are the neediest person I know, Veronica Mars." Wallace hands her the file, "Seriously girl, you have got to learn to have a life outside of investigating your fellow students."
"I'm bored," She gives him her cheekiest grin before tearing eagerly into the manila folder, glancing at the name. Alvin Draper. That might have been the ugliest name she's heard of in a long, long time. Passing quickly over academic records, teacher reports and, "Ooh. Citations. My favorite."
Trespassing breaking and entering, assault on a police officer, later dropped, and a truancy sheet a mile long. If Veronica didn't know better, Alvin Draper looked meaner on paper than he did in person. But Veronica always new better, and there was something more to this boy than simple delinquency. For one thing, he looked rich, and rich kids never had a record that lasted very long. A puzzle. One that Veronica was just bored enough to look into solving-
"You are so, so sad, you know that, right?" Wallace leans over the counter to check if Ms. Brunheller was back from her "special time", which, according to Wallace, roughly translated to smoking cigarettes behind the portables with the new substitute gym teacher, Mr. Carcaterra.
"You're one to talk, remember, you're friends with *me*."
"Not by choice. I can't help it that I'm too cool for this school. Remember, I just let you hang out with me."
Veronica laughs, "Yeah, that's it. I'm your pity case. Right, next time you get tied up naked with duct tape, I'll be sure to *not* encroach on your cool time." She makes a mental note of the kid's address. Her hunch was right, the kid *was* different.
"Seriously, what is this for? A case? You've got a crush?"
Veronica sighed, "No, just me being nosey."
"Same difference," Wallace laughs.
Veronica just gives him the look before handing the file back, "I need copies, Girl Friday, don't crease the edges, ok?"
Fluttering her fingers at Wallace's protestations, she hurried back outside; she had class after all, she wouldn't want to be late. She had seen Alvin's class schedule, the lucky boy had fifth period AP Bio with her and she couldn't wait to surreptitiously observe.
**
It is only a few minutes into class before Veronica is witness Alvin's first "I'm-a-Bad-Boy-No-Really" performance. He hits all the classic examples of the swaggering, egotistical rich brat he was obviously trying to emulate: propped feet, a disdainful sneer every time the teacher tried to vainly include him in class discussion, blatantly not taking notes while sitting in the front row. He was good, she'd give him that, but she wasn't fooled. She'd accidental seen his worksheet -every multiple choice question was answered wrong. Out of forty. A statistical improbability. She wasn't stupid, and obviously neither was he.
After the bell rings she gives Alvin Draper a few moments head start, just to make her ensuing bump-and-grab more believable. He had a wallet, and she wanted to see what was inside. It wasn't going to be hard. Just a few faux stumbles and then-
"Hello." Alvin is right in front of her, hitching his man-purse on his shoulder and giving her a look that Veronica thought only she had patented. This was...new.
What else does a girl say when her cover's blown? "Hi." I like, totally dig your rap sheet...
"You were watching me the moment class started."
"I was?"
"You were." He doesn't smile, and it's kind of creepy. Really creepy, actually.
"Huh. Imagine that."
"You were reading over my shoulder. Snooping." He smiles, almost in spite of himself, it seems.
"It's not snooping, it's carefully cultivated curiosity." She smiles back, trying to look convincing.
"Right." He pauses like he's going to continue, but then his eyes come back into focus, and there's 'Alvin Draper' back in front of her. His smile is like the one in class -more of a sneer than anything else. He changes his stance and his voice begins to fill with that prep school contempt that Veronica knows so well. "Right," he says again, and tips his head, "See you around."
Oh no, Veronica says to herself, stamping a foot against the ground in frustration as she watches 'Alvin Draper' walk away, "Oh no you didn't."
Whoever this kid was, he totally, utterly, wasn't.
**
"Don't you think you're a little paranoid?" Wallace asks her, propping a leg on her desk. She pushes his foot off with annoyance and goes back to staring back at her computer screen. Wallace is sprawled on the ground, a comic book raised over his face.
"He's not Alvin Draper, Wallace, that much I know." She taps the keyboard angrily, "Oh goddammit, there has got to be something. on this kid."
"Maybe you're just looking for an excuse-"
"An excuse for what? Oh COME ON." She hammers 'return' in a flurry, "When did the school update their server security?"
"Last week. It's not my fault someone didn't cover her tracks well enough. You really thought that work order for a school skeleton key was going to get through?"
"It was worth a shot. My lock-picking kit is getting old and Dad won't get me a new one until next week-" Veronica lets out a string expletives, "There has got to be *something* out there."
"Face it Veronica. You've got a crush." Wallace flips a page, "It would be cute if you weren't sublimating so badly."
Veronica glares at him from over her laptop's screen, "You aren't the best sidekick ever, you know?"
Wallace just laughs and flips a page, "Veronica Mars has got a crush-" he manages to get out before Veronica empties her bed of pillows in his general direction.
**
After Wallace leaves, Veronica stays up to dig deeper. The farthest she could date back this "Alvin Draper" is just two weeks prior. There were multiple Alvin's in the system though, and this would have thrown her for a loop if she didn't know a few tricks to creating alternate identities herself. For one, the ages weren't consistent, but where all within a three year span -meaning that the identity was flexible -if he needed to be 21, he could; if he needed to be 17 he could do that too. Using the same name wasn't all that stupid -never a mix-up in identity, only one name to respond to; use it enough times, and the response times don't arouse too much suspicion anymore. There was a poor 16 year old Alvin Draper in a Bludhaven public school, a rich 17 year old in a Brentwood academy, a middle class one in a Gotham suburb. This kid as all over the map.
But then it all stops three years into the records. He was nowhere else in the system, none of the birth certificates exist any farther than the paper they were printed on. Alvin Draper was an alias, one far more advanced than any Veronica had created for herself. Veronica was feeling an emotion she didn't know she could truly experience -jealousy.
She hated it. She hated it so, so much.
Tapping her fingers she stared at the pattern that was emerging -and sighed What in the world-
Her AIM pinged, and Veronica peered at the flashing, glaring "Accept Message?"
Her hand hovers over the mouse, thinking. Maybe it's just Mac trying out a new screen name after the last one got her in trouble-
"Stop."
Veronica Mars stares at her computer in disbelief.
"Oh no," She whispers, trying to type back before he signs off, "Oh no he didn't." The tell-tale door slam sound echoes from her computer and she's left with the flashing screen "User no longer available." blinking back at her.
So, so much.
**
She doesn't even bother to wait for class to finish before she grabs him by the shirt during lab and drags him to a less conspicuous corner by the door by the door, "Who do you think you're playing?"
"I heard you were easy but I didn't think-"
She pushes his shoulder, "You stop it. You stop it right now. I know what you are."
"What I *am*?" He laughs, that if she didn't know what he wasn't, she might have actually believed, "They also mentioned you were *crazy*, but I like that in a-"
"Listen bucko," She pokes him again, this time in the chest, "You do not play a player, and I am a player, a petite, pissed-off player with a camera and an uncanny ability to plant evidence where none existed before. So you speak, and you speak now -before my green thumb gets itchy."
She can actually *see* the 'Alvin Draper' personality slip off his face, but she is no longer impressed by his versatility. In fact she's no longer impressed with his extensive subterfuge and computer hacking skills. At all. No matter what Wallace said.
"If I told you I was tracking down a shipment of bad meth sold in a school in New Jersey that killed four teenagers, one who was the son of a city councilman, for a covert agency that employs kids like me with too much time on their hands to put their easily distracted minds to good use -would you believe me?"
Veronica Mars gives him the look that her dad employs on her on a regular basis -that "I am completely un-amused by you at this moment" look. 'Alvin' is un-phased in the least.
"No?"
She shakes her head slowly.
"Well, you asked." He gives her a smile that's a mixture between the two personalities, "And I tried."
The bell rings, and they get separated by the torrent of students flowing out of the room, "See you around, Veronica Mars." He gives her a little wave of his hand before disappearing into the crowd of students and leaving her clench her fists in frustration in a quickly emptying room.
Veronica Mars wants to punch a wall, but the closest one was brick, and she wasn't *that* angry. She opens her hand and smiles at the one good thing that's happened in her investigation so far: his wallet, worn leather and brimming to the rim with all sorts of traceable data.
**
"I'm telling you Wallace," Veronica slams her notebook shut and glares in the general direction of the object of her irritation, "He's hiding something and it's big and I want to know what it is."
"He's hiding something *big*?" Wallace gives her a knowing glance, but Veronica is to irate to notice, "Something...huge?"
"I just can't figure it out-"
"Maybe if you did a little more investigating-" He reaches over to grab a half of Veronica's neglected sandwich.
"-There's something I'm missing-"
"-In his pants. I'm sure you can find his big-"
"Do you *always* go for the obvious jokes?" Veronica turns her glare on Wallace, and tears a piece from her sandwich that he's eating, "I'm serious. You don't think there's anything fishy about a guy with multiple aliases, none of which stretches back more than three years, yet he's able to get into any public school without a hitch? That he's got five sets of driver's licenses, all of which check out at the state level? They aren't fake Wallace, they're *real*." She fans them out in her hand, "And there are more names here, not just Alvin Draper."
Wallace looks up from the sandwich, "Real fake IDs?"
Veronica nods, her eyes twinkling with that damn I've-Found-Something-I-Shouldn't-Have gleam that often scares the crap out of him.
"And you got these from his wallet?"
She nods.
"That you stole. From him."
She nods again.
Wallace shakes his head with mock sadness as he finishes her sandwich, "You are *so* crushing on him..."
**
It's Alvin that pulls her aside this time, in the middle of lunch out in the quad. He doesn't say anything, just holds out his hand.
"You have got to be kidding me. You think I'm going to just hand them over?" Veronica crosses her arms, "I want a fair exchange."
"You don't know what you're getting involved in." He glances around in the best Overtly Suspicious Secret Meeting tradition. Veronica can see Weevil watch the two of them steadily and Veronica waves at him brightly, causing 'Alvin' to tense up even more, "Look just give it back, and I promise to tell you everything." She can already see him formulating a lie in his head.
Veronica smiles at him and pulls out the wallet from her back pocket, "Here you go, *Alvin*." She says, as she places it in his upturned hand.
It's empty, obviously so, and 'Alvin' doesn't appear amused.
"Oh, I'm sorry, did I forget something?" Veronica fans out the IDs in her hand, picking through them one, by one, "Were you looking for these 'Alvin Draper'? Or is it 'Shane Mullens'? Or 'Doug Schiedt'? Or 'Tim Dra-" He grabs the cards from her.
"Thank you." He says stiffly, and walks away -heading towards the school's parking lot. Ditching. Bad, bad boy.
Veronica smiles and gives the go to Weevil. One nod, and he's already got the keys to his bike out. It wouldn't be long before she would have a little more to work on.
She was going to figure this out, that much she knew.
**
Sitting around waiting for Weevil to call. Veronica never thought she would find herself in such a position -almost breathless to hear his voice over the line -and then the phone rings, and the velocity that she throws herself at it almost makes her launch off the bed.
"Baby, the things I do for you-"
"What did you find?"
"Hey, nice to talk to you to-"
"Great, wonderful. What did you *find*?"
"Well, whoever he is, he's bad news. The part of town I followed him wasn't the cleanest, if you know what I mean."
Veronica stares at the phone dumbly. Drugs. You have got to be kidding me- "Did you get pictures of his car? What kind of drugs? The meth kind?"
She can hear Weevil sigh, "Yeah, I got the pictures. What's your interest in this guy anyway? The guys he's hanging with, bad news-"
"Were they into meth, Weevil? I need to know"
"Yes." They both fell silent. It is Veronica who finally speaks up.
"Did you do what I asked?"
Weevil lets out another breath, "Yeah. You were right. I put the tracer on when he was inside. How did you even know he would switch cars?"
Veronica couldn't help but pump her fist into the air. "Lucky guess." She said, collecting herself, "He knew I was already on his case. He probably figured I would have put something on the car he drove to school by now." He's smart, and she can't help but be a little happy that he might think the same.
Weevil doesn't sound as amused, "Those guys were bad news, Mars, I'm serious. That kid is getting into business that he shouldn't. And neither should you."
It's odd to hear such concern from a guy that prides himself on his misanthropy, and she can't help but temper her eagerness, "I can take care of myself, Weevil."
She can hear him sigh over the phone, "That's what I'm afraid of, Veronica. You actually believe it too."
**
Veronica finds herself in that part of town that Weevil told her expressly not to go. Wallace had refused to come with her, saying something about how she was "completely, utterly, insane" and that he was not going to entertain her "delusions of conspiracies" any longer. He was staying home and watching TV and not running around with a "…crazy white chick who can't come grips with the fact that she has a CRUSH. And rather than ask him out you run around making everything into an 'investigation' instead of facing the fact that you have a crush on a guy that you claim to abhor."
This left Veronica to her own devices, and what else better to track down expensive, illegal psychotropic drugs aimed at the young, rich, bored elite than the keys to daddy's beamer and a cultivated sneer? It didn't take much to convince her dad that she was just going over to Wallace's to hack into the school's network. He had kissed her on the forehead and warned her not to forget to cover her tracks.
And now she was in Daddy's car getting closer and closer to the steady beeping of her tracer. A few more blocks and she'll have the truth. A few more blocks and…she spots the car from Weevil's pictures. Parked in front of a dilapidated house at the end of a cul-de-sac, the car is empty -but the house isn't. Veronica slows her car until it comes to a stop next to a cluster of conveniently overgrown bushes. Pulling into park, she lets out a sigh, and then stretches her toes, letting each knuckle pop and snap. It was time to get ready. It was time to wait. Wait and see. It is what she does best. She is going to solve one case tonight, that much is certain. At least there's that.
And then what? A little voice inside her head asks, If what he says is true, he's going to solve the case for you. Veronica frowns. After all the work she put into this case only to be trumped by-
The knock on her window startles her to the point where she's already reaching for her pepper spray before she processes the fact that Alvin Draper, or Tim Drake, or whatever he is going by this time was outside, smiling at her expectedly, passing her tracer back and forth in his hand.
What can she do but roll down the window?
"Hi."
"Hi." What else can she say? What's up? Mind returning the tracer I put on your car?
"Here you go, I thought you might like this back." He tosses the tracer through the window and it lands in Veronica's lap. She looks down at it dumbly, "It's ok, you don't have to thank me. Just returning the favor."
Veronica looks back at him, her shock quickly wearing off to be replaced with minor frustration. Make that *major* frustration. Quickly, she reaches for the door handle but he beats her to it, pushing the lock mechanism down and bringing his face in line with hers.
"Listen, it's done, there's nothing else for you to do here but watch the cops come and arrest those responsible."
"Let me out-" Veronica struggles with the door handle, "-let me out I swear to God-"
The boy backs away from the door and runs towards his car, and by the time Veronica is able to sort herself out from the belt, the car door and the pepper spray, he's long gone. All that's left of his presence is her extreme frustration and… a small business card, taped to her rear-window.
"You have *got* to be kidding me," She shouts to no one in particular, yanking at it angrily. Turning it over, it says simply:
"He said you were good. I have yet to be convinced. If you can find me, then we'll talk. -Oracle."
Well, darn, she thought, there goes my weekend.