On this morning, Parker and Spencer hadn't even reached the pullpen when they were called into the briefing room.

"Okay, this is from one of the security cameras inside the train," JJ began. "Five hostages in a car stopped on the tracks. We have one security guard dead from initial gunfire."

The recordings from the train compartment could be seen on the big screen. A man stood in the aisle with two guns, nervously aiming at the other people in the room.

"Is this going on right now?" Spencer asked.

"Yeah, in West Texas."

"Why they asking for us?" Derek wanted to know.

"Because of a particular psychological aspect of the hostage taker which we're especially equipped to handle," Hotch explained.

Spencer, who was looking at the footage at the time, seemed to have spotted something unusual.

"Can you back the picture up a few frames?"

JJ rewound a few frames to the moment the kidnapper's face appeared on camera.

"What is it, Spence?" Parker asked, standing next to their boyfriend.

"Tardive dyskinesia."

"Once more for those of us without an encyclopedic memory?"

"Severe facial tics. The kind that develop after years of taking antipsychotic medication."

"So this guy's a psychotic?"

"A psychotic with hostages," Hotch added. "And two guns."

"Hostage situation on a train?" Gideon said as he entered the room.

"Yeah, in Texas."

"A train in Texas," Gideon murmured, also looking at the screen. And he noticed something that everyone had overlooked until now.

"My God..."

"What?"

"Elle."

"Elle? What?"

Elle, who was on her way to an interrogation, was among the hostages. On the screen, she was small and slightly pixelated, but still easy to recognise.

And inevitably, Parker wondered in a way no one had noticed before- probably because everyone was focused on the kidnapper.

~~~~

Robert Oxton Bolt wrote,

"A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses, it is an idea that possesses the mind."

The team immediately made their way to Texas and discussed how to proceed in the car.

But Parker wasn't entirely focused. They were worried about Elle. Of course they knew that being an FBI agent was dangerous, but Elle wasn't on duty.

Spencer, noticing Parker's bouncing leg, placed his hand on theirs and lightly patted the back of Parker's hand four times.

"Local authorities have surrounded the train. Bureau Hostage Rescue Team snipers are in position, but they're hesitant to take action until negotiation is exhausted. The feed from the train's two video cameras are being routed to monitors on a mobile command center that the local Bureau office brought in," JJ summarized the situation.

"We need to know who on that train's going to be a help and who's going to be a problem."

"All right, let me get Garcia to work some magic on those video feeds," Derek said, and called Garcia, or Penny, as Parker called her.

"Have we had any contact inside the train yet?" Gideon wanted to know.

"Well, it took two hours just to convince him to allow a two-way phone. But he won't speak to anyone except what he calls the "Higher Authorities.""

"God?" Parker asked.

"No mention of religion thus far."

"Has Crisis Negotiation led claimed to be the Higher Authority?"

"The UnSub won't speak to him any longer."

"He gave a deadline of three hours to produce this Authority."

"Three... When was that?" Spencer asked.

"Two-and-a-half hours ago."

"Well, he wants to speak to the Higher Authority–"

"Then we better give it to him. Put the lights on, sirens, honk the horns. Make people get out of our way. Get as close to the barricade as possible. When we stop, we sit. We wait 30 seconds. Then we step out."

~~

As Gideon said, the team waited 30 seconds before getting out of the car.

"Don't look at the train," Gideon instructed them. "Ignore it. Higher Authority isn't concerned about losing a few civilians."

"I'll talk to the HRT commander," Hotch said, stepping away from the group as a man approached the other agents.

"I'm Frank Moretti. Dallas Field Office," he introduced himself.

"Hi."

"As near as we can tell, your agent is still all right," he reported directly.

"Has the subject asked for anything? Made any demands?" Gideon wanted to know.

"Not beyond wanting to talk to a Higher Authority. How do we negotiate with a psychotic who won't talk to us?"

"That depends on the level of his particular delusion," Parker explained.

"Some psychotics believe they're being sent messages by the government, God, even aliens. John Nash, he believed he was being recruited by aliens to save the world," Spencer added.

"I saw the movie."

"Actually, the movie is rather inaccurate in its portrayal of–"

"Okay, Doc, Doc," Derek quietly spoke to the young genius. "A movie review's not going to help us right now."

"You're right. Sorry."

The agents and Detective Moretti made their way to the control station without even turning to face the train. Well, almost everyone, Gideon turned to the train, contrary to his instructions.

Several monitors were set up in said base station, on which the recordings on the train could be seen.

"His delusions are important, because that's what we have to play to."

"So the question of the day... What's he believe is happening here?"

"Good luck," Moretti said. "I tried to convince him I was the Highest Authority, but he wouldn't believe me."

"Well, he's paranoid. He believes in secrets. If I'm the Higher Authority, I don't go to him. He comes to me. We have to help him ask the first question."

"Hey guys..." Spencer mumbled.

The young agent had noticed that the hostage-taker no longer ran back and forth aimlessly, but was now purposefully approaching a hostage.

It was a young woman sitting nearby with Elle. Parker realized Elle was talking to the guy– probably trying to persuade him to leave the other woman alone. But he didn't listen and pulled the woman by her short hair through the train compartment to the phone.

The woman picked up the phone and it rang in the command center. Gideon picked it up and put it on speakerphone.

"Yes."

"Ask him who they were, the ones who just arrived," they heard a voice say.

"He wants to know who you are. He wants to know who just arrived," the woman repeated, frightened.

"Tell him it's someone who can help resolve the situation," Gideon said.

"He says it's someone who can resolve the situation.... What... What part of the government do you work for?"

"I never said I was with the government."

Detective Moretti opened his mouth, but Derek stopped him.

"Wait," the agent said, hitting the mute switch so no one on the other side of the line could hear them.

"The less he says, the more mysterious we seem, the higher an authority we become," Derek explained, motioning for the detective to be quiet.

Moretti nodded and Derek took his fingers off the button.

"What part of the... What part of the government?"

They heard someone say something in the background and saw that the guy still had his gun trained on the woman.

"Are you FBI?"

"He can ask me himself," Gideon replied.

Parker saw the guy hit one of the seats and yank the phone from the woman's hand.

"Tell me who you are or this agent dies!"

"You know who I am."

"If you're the Higher Authority, then you can have it removed."

"It'll take some time."

"I want it removed now."

"You know... You know, it can't be done that quickly," Gideon tried to buy more time. "Goodbye."

"No! Wait! Okay! One hour. You have one hour to remove it. Or I swear to God. I'll kill every agent on this train."

Then the guy hung up without another word.

"'It'?" Moretti asked confused. "He wants 'it' removed? Do you know what 'it' is?"

"No," Parker replied.

"We just bought an hour, though, to figure it out."

~~

"We have 40 minutes left."

"Reid, is there a delusion more common than others to a paranoid mind in a psychotic episode?" Hotch wanted to know.

"Delusions are as varied as the people that have them. They're colored by personal experience."

More minutes passed before one of the hostages got up and said something in the direction of the hostage-taker. He didn't seem to like that and got up and walked towards the hostage.

Another female hostage intervened and tried to calm the guy down, which worked. The woman carefully grabbed his arm and turned it slightly so that he could be seen clearly on the screen.

"His arm," Parker remarked.

"What?"

"Look at his arm."

"What is that?"

"They look like scars."

"The places he tried to dig it out with a razor or a pen."

"Dig what out?"

"Maybe a microchip."

"Oh man," Parker mumbled. "It's almost as common as the delusion claiming to be the new Messiah. Why didn't we think about that?"

"Ralph Tortorici held an entire classroom hostage because he believed microchips had been implanted in his body."

"Wait a minute. This guy thinks he has some kind of device stuck in his arm?" Derek asked.

"Probably. And if we don't take it out, he's going to kill somebody."

~~

"Tell me about the hostages," Gideon asked after Derek spoke briefly to Garcia.

They gathered around the laptop where Derek opened the data technical analyst had just sent him.

"Okay, see, first we've got Harry Anderson. He's a paper goods salesman. Lived in a small home just outside of Dallas for 18 years with his wife. He's got no children. No investments, no company retirement portfolio," Derek continued.

"He doesn't take chances. Tell me about the kid," Gideon mumbled.

"Kid's name, Josh Patel. He's 20 years old. He just got expelled from Gillett University for driving his car into the library building drunk."

Josh was the one who had just stood up and said something to the kidnapper.

"He's drinking now. We don't need a drunk in there."

"Okay, the girl. We don't have a lot to go on. Nothing more than her driver's license. Her name's Elaine Curtis. She lives in a small town in West Texas. She's got no credit cards, no passport. Doesn' t look like she travels much at all."

Elaine was the young woman who was forced to make the phone call to the agents.

"This is Dr. Linda Deaton. She's a psychiatrist at Stokes Mental Health Center in El Paso. That's where Ted Bryar's been living for the last nine years."

Linda was the woman who managed to calm Bryar down a bit.

"His doctor?"

"I say probably. She's unmarried, lives in El Paso, she's written several books and papers, mainly published in medical circles. She's a popular lecturer. She's scheduled to speak several symposiums this year, and tonight in Dallas."

"Anything else," Parker inquired.

"No, that's it. That's all I got. Garcia is in the process of looking deeper, but I don't really see how this lineup is going to be much of a help to us."

"Well, let's just hope none of them makes the situation worse."

~~

"All right, how do we remove a microchip that's not there?", Hotch asked the question.

"His speech is lucid. There's no sign of neologisms, word salad or loosening of associations. As long as he can systematize, he'll be able to keep his thinking relatively organized."

"Organized enough to see through any game we try to throw at him?", Parker wanted to know.

"And if he's convinced it's in his arm, and not in a place like his lower back or his neck–"

"An incision means he's going to be watching."

"Maybe we can just convince him that he's been looking in the wrong place", suggested Derek.

"Or we could fake it," Spencer said. "Conceal a chip in the palm. A little sleight of hand."

He made the coin he was holding disappear.

"Come on, Reid, what are you talking about? A magic trick?"

"Yeah, I'm talking about a magic trick."

"No," Parker said simply.

They didn't like the idea of Spencer putting himself in danger. Spencer turned to his partner and looked at them with a mixture of confusion and disappointment.

"I used to do it during college exams. I can make it appear, I can make it disappear," he said, making the coin appear again.

"You know I can do it," Spencer added at the end.

Parker sighed and stood up.

"Of course I know, Spence," Parker assured.

They wanted to put a hand on his shoulder, but Spencer took a step back.

"They why–"

"We can't risk giving him another agent as a hostage," Hotch agreed with Parker.

"We have to do something," Spencer pointed out.

"All right, Reid, let's go teach it to me," Morgan said, standing next to Spencer.

"What? No."

"Look, if you can do it, I can do it. Show it to me."

"I've been practicing this my whole life. We have less than 30 minutes."

"Spence, Sweetie, we are definitely not letting you get on that train with an armed delusional man," Parker said, standing next to Derek.

"We don't have any other choice, do we?"

"No. We don't have any other choice," Gideon agreed.

~~

Their time was almost up. Spencer put on his bulletproof vest and Parker had a bad feeling about this.

The young agent sat next to Gideon in one of the chairs, tugging at the sleeve of their sweater.

"Reid, do not take this vest off", repeated Derek a third time. "In hostage situations, SWAT sometimes won't even tell the negotiator when they're deciding to go in. Do you know why that is?"

"Because the slightest change in tone of voice or choice of words can give the whole thing away."

"That's right", confirmed the older agent. "Don't make eye contact with Elle. You're a technician. You've never seen her before."

"Got it."

"And remember, play into the guy's fantasy", said Parker. "Believe it yourself."

They got up and stepped closer to Spencer.

"Actually," he began. "Did you know that dentists and surgeons have been recruited to secretly implant these during otherwise normal medical procedures? This has been happening on and off since the late 1930s."

Parker raised an eyebrow and looked at Spencer and the young genius shrugged, "Told me to believe."

Spencer's better half scoffed and shook their head slightly. The corners of the young man's mouth twitched up, too.

Parker didn't tear their gaze away from their boyfriend until Hotch opened the door and stepped into the room.

"All right. One government-issued microchip," he said.

The black-haired agent held up a small microchip. As far as Parker could tell, it was a chip that gets built into cell phones.

~~

The group of agents positioned themselves outside where Spencer first tried to make the small microchip disappear.

But since the chip was so small, it slipped between Spencer's fingers and landed in the dirt.

"You got to relax, man," Derek said.

Not only he, but also the other agents and especially Parker were getting nervous. If Spencer couldn't make this chip disappear, the plan would fail, and that would put some people's lives in danger.

"The chip's a lot smaller than I'm used to doing it with, all right?" Spencer replied.

He picked up the chip and tried again. During this attempt, the chip fell to the ground again.

"I'm pulling the plug on this," Gideon said.

"No, no. Hold on," Spencer murmured, quickly picking up the chip. "One more try."

The young agent tried a third time to make the chip appear in his hand and this time he succeeded.

"Take his chip out, then get off the train, you understand?" Gideon instructed Spencer. "Tell him you need to get back to the Higher Authority, say you have guidelines to follow, whatever. Do not stay in there with him. That's an order."

"Yes, sir."

Spencer started to turn around, but stopped moving and looked at the others.

"Can you guys do me a favor?"

"Anything," Parker assured.

"Could at least one of you look like you're going to see me again?"

Parker didn't know how to react and glanced at Gideon and Hotch.

"See you when you get back," Hotch said to Spencer.

Hotch and the other agents stepped aside, leaving Spencer and Parker alone for a moment.

"Are you mad?" Spencer asked softly.

Parker had their arms crossed across their chest and was looking at Spencer with a face other people wouldn't be able to read.

They looked straight into Spencer's brown eyes. His question was valid - was Parker mad?

"No, I don't think so," Parker replied. The young agent dropped their arms.

"Just– just come back safe. Or else you'll be on kitchen duty," Parker said, kissing Spencer on the cheek.

The young genius nodded and then made his way to the train.

~~~~

Spencer slowly opened the compartment door and entered. Ted had grabbed Elaine and was pointing a gun at her stomach.

"That's far enough," Bryar hissed as Spencer approached.

The young man stopped.

"Hello, everyone," Spencer greeted everyone.

Everyone looks at Spencer except Elle, who had her back to him.

"Here to remove a chip from Dr. Bryar."

"Take the vest off. I want to see you," Bryar said.

"I don't have any weapons," Spencer explained. "The Higher Authority doesn't authorize it for technicians."

Spencer hoped that would be enough of an explanation for Bryar, but he was wrong.

"Take it off!"

In order not to provoke Bryar, Spencer took off his vest. He knew exactly what Parker would tell him later and he's not going to like that.

"Come closer," Bryar instructed the young agent. "I want to see both of your hands at all times."

Spencer slowly walked towards the other man and only when Spencer was right in front of him did he let go of Elaine.

"You sit across from me."

The brown-haired young man slowly sat down across from Bryar. Bryar now had his gun aimed at Spencer as he reached into the small plastic bag he had brought with him.

"Why are you so nervous?" Bryar wanted to know.

Spencer, hands shaking slightly, was unwrapping the disinfecting wipe.

"I told you. I'm not used to being around guns," Spencer replied.

He disinfected a small spot on Bryar's arm before taking the scalpel out of the bag.

"This is going to probably sting a little bit," the young agent warned.

Then he applied the scalpel and carefully cut into the skin. Now came the tricky part - making it look like the chip was in your arm the whole time. And for a second, Spencer feared he would drop the chip again.

Luckily, his plan worked, and to everyone else in the compartment, it looked like Spencer was going to pull a real, working chip out of Bryar's arm.

"Whoa. Did you see that?" Josh mumbled.

"I knew it. I knew it", Bryar said and looked at his doctor.

"I've gotta go to the Higher Authority," Spencer explained, standing up. "I was supposed to..."

"Not yet!"

"Turn it on. Turn the chip on," Bryar ordered, still aiming his gun at Spencer.

"Excuse me?"

"Turn it on, or I pull the trigger."

"I can't turn it on," the young agent replied.

"Why not?" Bryar wanted to know. "Why not?!"

Spencer searched for an answer that didn't end with him being shot. But he couldn't think of anything right away.

"Because it has to be implanted," Elle answered the question to help Spencer.

"She's right. The chip derives its power from tiny electrical impulses fired between neurons. It has to be in your skin to work."

Bryar thought about it for a moment and seemed to be satisfied with the explanation for the moment.

"I really gotta..." Spencer started again and made another attempt to get up.

"Sit down! You're not going anywhere."

"See? Dude actually had a chip in his arm," Josh commented.

Bryar had just sat down when the phone started ringing. He made a move to get up and answer the phone.

"It's probably the Higher Authority," spoke Spencer. "I told you. I have protocols to follow. I was supposed to go right back out there. I have rules. I am probably already on kitchen duty."

Spencer stopped for a moment.

"You want me to stay, I'm obviously going to stay. But, I mean, you're going to be the one that has to explain it to the man."

"Why can't you all just leave me alone?" Bryar wanted to know.

"Leave you alone?" Joah repeated, stepping into the aisle

"Stay out of this," Spencer warned the other young man.

"No. The government does watch us. You got microwaves and satellites. I'm with you, man."

"Do not agitate him."

"Screw you."

"Dr. Bryar, answer the phone."

"My old man used to have tracking devices in his cars. He said it's for theft, but it's so he can find out where I go. And what about personal recordings in televisions? You don't think someone's monitoring everything you watch? You know how many patents are issued for devices to monitor people? Look it up, man."

"Answer the phone, Ted," Elle tried in a calm tone.

"Stop this," said Dr. Deaton and tried to push Josh back to his seat. "It's not going to help."

"What the hell do you know?"

"Ted, he doesn't know what he's talking about. He's just a kid."

"Who you calling a kid?"

"Sit down!" Elle instructed him.

"Oh, now you're going to tell me what to do? He'd only have one gun if you weren't here. I'm with you, man."

"Answer the phone, Dr. Bryar. It's the Higher Authority."

Josh squeezed into Dr. Deaton passed and stepped closer to Bryar. The man didn't know how to deal with the whole situation - the phone and the people who kept talking to him.

Rather out of reflex, he stood up, aimed in Josh's direction and pulled the trigger. Only he did not hit the young man, but Dr. Deaton.

The woman staggered back, falling into Josh's arms and he laid her on the ground and crouched next to her.

Bryar was just as shocked as the others and took a few steps back to the phone.

Crouching by the phone, Spencer took the opportunity and rushed over to Dr. deaton

"What?" Bryar answered the phone.

"What happened, Ted?" Gideon asked. "I did what you asked for."

"I'm tired. I've been fighting you for so long."

"You don't have to fight any more."

"I said it all ends today. Me, these agents. It all ends today."

~~

As soon as Bryar hung up, the phone rang again. The man chose to ignore it and sat back down in one of the seats.

"Ted, no one on this train is an agent but me," Elle addressed him. "No one else. I'm the only one. You can let everybody else go."

Bryar, nervously rocking back and forth, shook his head.

"Dr. Bryar, we need to get this woman help," Spencer said.

"Who's going to help me?" Bryar replied.

"The Higher Authorities can help you. They're not what you think. They're not the enemy. They can help you, Dr. Bryar."

Bryar didn't reply, got up and shot the ringing phone.

"Not any more."

~~

"It's not gone," Bryar murmured to himself.

The other hostages ignored him, but Spencer tried to understand if Dr. Bryar said.

"Well, you said when the chip came out, it would go away. It's... I still hear it... You said it was the only one, Leo. I can still feel the buzzing. The burning."

"Dr. Bryar?"

"What?" Bryar hissed, suddenly on alert.

He stood and aimed his gun at Spencer.

"Reid," Elle warned her colleague.

"It's all right, Elle."

"Is there another one?" Bryar wanted to know.

"You know there isn't. If there were, Leo would have told you."

"Make it stop!" the older man shouted, holding both hands to his head.

"I know what it's like," Spencer said.

"Make it stop!"

"I know what the voices are like. The voices. They won't stop. They've been talking to you since you were a child."

Spencer knew those voices very well. They had always spoken when he was a child – they sometimes still did today.

That changed after he met Parker. From then on they only spoke to him when he was alone.

And a few years later - as a teenager in love - he had other things on his mind than the voices.

"You're lying to me."

"That's Leo speaking. That's not even Dr Bryar."

"Why don't you let him think for himself, Leo?" Spencer asked, looking at a spot next to Bryar.

"You... Can you see him?" the other man asked in astonishment.

"Yeah, he's right there. Why don't you let him make his own decisions?"

Bryar was getting more and more confused, glancing back and forth from the point where he saw Leo and Spencer.

"The voices. They helped you, right? It's where you get your ideas from. While the other kids were outside in the playground, you were inside reading, studying, learning. The voices wouldn't stop. They helped you understand things that other people could never realize and... Then as you grew older, it became almost a responsibility. Right? A responsibility to use that ability. To use your knowledge."

"String theory. The theory of everything."

"Then M-Theory, encompassing all the strings, unifying the theories. You know what's funny? Most people say that M-Theory can never be proved because the mathematical tools do not yet exist."

Spencer simply spoke to distract Bryar.

"But you see it, right? Am I right? You can see the different strings unifying the dimensions. The gravitational infinities canceling each other out. You see them. Right, Dr. Bryar? You see them because you have the tools. Your mind is that tool. He's one of them, Ted.

"Shut up!" Bryar suddenly yelled.

The young genius assumed Leo had said something Bryar didn't like.

"And I have to believe that if you put your mind to it, you'll realize that only you can make Leo stop. You can make him stop by understanding him. By understanding that he is a liar and he only wants bad things for you. I need to believe that, Dr. Bryar."

Then Elle jumped forward as best she could since she was handcuffed to her seat. Bryar lost his balance and Spencer tried to take the gun from him.

It was all so chaotic that no one can say exactly how it happened. But a shot rang out and Bryar slumped in one of the seats.

Spencer took the gun from him while Gideon stormed into the wagon.

Now the agents could get an overview of the situation.

"I had to. He was going to kill us," Harry Anderson muttered.

He stood there, petrified, with a gun in his hand.

"I had to. God forgive me."

~~

"Reid, you probably saved my life in there," Elle said a short time later.

They were standing by one of the police cars and because Elle refused to drive to the hospital.

"Probably? I totally saved your life," Spencer replied. "And I'm pretty certain that it was caught on tape."

"You know what you said in there? To Bryar?" Elle changed the subject. "That you know what it's like..."

"The guy was a delusional psychotic. I was playing into his fantasy," Spencer said. "Go to the hospital. I'll see you there. All right?"

The young agent turned and walked over to Paker, who had helped make sure all the injured were taken to an ambulance.

"Are you mad?" Spencer asked directly.

Parker responded by simply hugging Spencer.

Albert Einstein asked the question that could drive one hazy,

"'Am I or the others crazy?'"