The Hopeless Job
CHAPTER ONE
"Damn it, Spencer!" Quinn spat out. He was trying desparately to provide coverage for the renegade retrieval specialist by firing back at the well-trained security team that currently had them cornered inside their fancy high-tech building. The same high-tech building that Hardison had gotten them into, but suddenly was unable to get them out of. Probably because they no longer had contact with the hacker.
"Why, just once can't you learn to like guns? Because how in the hell are we gonna get out of here without your help here?!"
Eliot Spencer ignored the other man as he continued to stretch for the object that was lodged in the splintered clear plastic case. The case had ended up just beyond his reach after the explosion that Quinn had set off just before he was supposed to and which had blown the cube clean off its perch. Eliot was now struggling to grasp it before it became dislodged with the other debris and fell into the black hole created from said blast. "I told you Quinn, I don't need a gun... and you wouldn't either if you were better trained!" He grunted as the stretching caused his already broken ribs to dig into his side even more. "Damn it, Quinn! Why didn't you wait for the damn timer to go off?!"
"I'm trained just fine! And I didn't know the thing had a timer! With all those buttons Hardison built into the dang thing, who could tell what it was supposed to do?!" Quinn moved a little to his left so he could return fire just over Eliot's outstretched body. "If you don't hurry up, we won't be getting out of this one alive let alone with that stupid wizard ball Hardison wants so damned bad!" He moved back to the right just past Eliot to fire at a new soldier taking the place of the last man Quinn had taken out. "Hurry up! These guys are duplicating like crazy! I don't know how they got up here so fast!"
"I am trying! But the thing is lodged just out of my reach!" Eliot pulled his left hand back to reach down and unhook the rigging that was keeping him anchored to Quinn since the flooring had drastically tilted after the explosion; a relatively impressive explosion considering how small the device had been. Eliot hoped by doing so, he could gain those precious few inches between him and his target.
Eliot had his fingers on the case, then they were sliding off as he tried desparatey to grasp it; just a little bit more, he thought. Just has he got a solid grip on the small cube, his world tilted violently to his right. The wound to his left side rubbed hard against the debris and he couldn't help but cry out as he felt another rib crack under the pressure. The next thing he knew both he and the cube were falling over the edge and into a vast hole of nothing...
"Damn it Spencer!" Quinn ground out once again as he felt the rigging that was only now partially holding onto Eliot pull against his torso where he'd strapped it to anchor the other man. He lost his footing and his weapon as he too began falling over the edge of their world and into the same black abyss that Eliot had just disappeared into.
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48 hours earlier
"Look, it'll be an easy in and out job," Hardison began, as he tried desparately to get Eliot to understand how important this was to him. "It's a new gaming device that will revolutionize the world of gaming as we know it!" He added, smiling like a child trying to explain to his parents his need for the newest toy.
"Right." Eliot said from the other side of the breakfast bar where he was chopping up vegetables for their dinner that night. "Revolutionize your little dragons and elves world you mean."
Hardison gasped at that. "I keep telling you they're not elves! And besides, the newest one about to hit the market is The Last Overlord. The company is holding back on its release for more money. That's why we gotta steal it, so the world can have it at a fair price." Hardison shook his head at the hitter. "This company is holding out wanting to sell it for like 4 figures, and that ain't right you gotta know that Eliot. Kids don't have that kind of money, so only the rich kids'll get it and it'll be like chaos out there. Gaming is a big thing and all kids should enjoy gaming, not just the rich kids."
"And I should worry about this chaos, because why?" Eliot asked. He moved over to check his pan on the stove before dropping two handfuls of veggies to saute before adding to his stew. He loved the roasted flavor of grilling his vegetables first, but Nate didn't have a grill plate on his stove. He made a mental note to have Nate buy a new stove. "You know we only take on cases where the client has been injured, threatened or wronged in some way and I'm not hearing that here."
"Eliot, do you remember high school?" Hardison asked, his voice suddenly going quiet.
Eliot took note quickly of the tone of Hardison's voice and immediately turned from the stove to focus on the younger man. "Yeah..." He said slowly.
"I bet you were a jock, so you were pobably popular, right?"
Eliot thought back to his football days at his old High School. Kissing the most popular girl, Aimee... that had started out so great, and then it had ended badly. At least until he and the team had gone back to help Aimee's dad with Kentucky Thunder. Now he tried to keep closer tabs on the two of them. "What does that have to do with you wanting a new toy?" He asked roughly, but he tried to take some of the bite out of his words.
"Everything, El... I wasn't a popular kid. I was raised by my Nana and you know she wasn't my real Nana, but she raised me and she was great. But we didn't have money, Eliot. So I learned early on how to put together computers to do what I wanted." He paused as he took a deep breath. "I never told anyone this, but we were really poor, Eliot. That's why when my Nana got sick, I stole that money, to help her." Eliot listened as he watched Hardison fighting with his thoughts on what to tell him. "And all the other kids at school were playing all the cool video games, but I didn't have any, so I learned how to hack into companies and find what I wanted. I got good at it too, and not just at the hacking part, but at the playing games part." Another deep pause as Eliot reached over to flip his veggies before dumping the panful into the bubbling stew. "I promised my Nana that I'd do the right thing one day and pay back the money, which I did, anonymously, even though it's still on my record, cause I couldn't let them find me. I still had to take care of Nana for a long time after her treatments; but I always swore I'd figure out a way to let all kids have fun with gaming. I always wanted to help other kids who didn't have the money to be able to afford the same games and systems that the richer kids got. All kids should be able to have access to the same kinds of things like that." Hardison was looking at Eliot with his whole heart out there. He'd never told anyone that he'd actually paid the money back, nor had he ever told anyone just how hard things were for his Nana money-wise. She would never complain, but he knew.
Eliot listened to the other man's story and he felt for him on that. He'd always been a poor kid too, but he had taken to athletics and ended up using his body to get him the popularity he'd had. Whether on the field or off... Those where some great times, he smiled to himself. He sighed too as he took in Hardison's whole demeanor. He was going to regret this, he knew that the minute he made the decision. "Fine, how do we go about doing this job, cause I'd better not have to deal with any of your techy toys, or any conversations about overlords or elves while we're doing this, you hear me?"
Hardison smiled widely as he spoke. "Damn it, Eliot, I keep telling you they ain't elves!"
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"How in the world did you rope Eliot into doing this job?" Nate asked, his gaze focused on the middle monitor of Hardison's viewing screens; the one that was currently showing the Richmond Industries Tower map. Hardison had called him and Sophie back from their weekend in Denver because he'd lost contact with both Eliot and Quinn over ten hours ago. Nate couldn't believe that Hardison had managed to not only get Eliot to agree to this little plan, but that Eliot had been able to get Quinn to go along with it as well.
"Hardison, when does Parker get back?" Sophie asked, taking note of the young hacker's obviously troubled features. "And why didn't you have Parker help Eliot with this job, instead of bringing in Quinn?" She added. She knew Parker would have been able to find a way in and out of this building no matter how small an opening it was.
"I didn't want to bother you guys and Parker hasn't been to see Archie in a while, so I didn't want to interfer there." Hardison sighed, "she should be back sometime soon, though. I calledher after I knew you guys were on your way, and I've already briefed her. As soon as she's here she's willing to go in, but I don't want to lose her either." He struggled with his fear over losing contact with Eliot and Quinn. "That's why I figured I better call you; cause you know... I don't know what else to do. After the explosion the comms went out and I don't even know where in the building Quinn and Eliot are anymore, let alone how to get them out. I mean, I can hack the main computer if I can get access to it; to help them get out and all, but without knowing exactly where they are, I don't know what help they can use from me." Hardison paused as he felt the weight of this whole gambit going wrong from the get go was his fault. "I didn't think it would be this well fortified. I mean, the gaming industry is tooth and nail, but I just didn't think about how much they'd want to protect this one piece of technology when they have to have all kinds of other gaming things in there as well."
Nate sighed a little too loudly as he listened to the young man. "Okay, so you got both men in the door, and they were almost to the vault where the... the... what did you call it again?"
"The Last Overlord."
"Okay, so they were almost in the vault where the prototype was being stored and you had a mini detonator for them to blow through the vault, and it went off early, right?" Nate surmised, from what he'd been able to piece together.
Hardison nodded at the question. "Yes, but I don't know how it could have gone off early since I programed it myself. The only way it could have gone off early was if one of them messed with the timer mechanism, which is possible, I guess; but I told Eliot how important it was not to mess with it and you know Eliot, if you tell him exactly what to expect, he's got it down. So my guess is, somehow someone maybe surprised them and... well... you know..."
"Maybe Quinn had it instead of Eliot, or something went wrong with another signal crossing over yours? Is that possible, Hardison?" Sophie asked, keeping her voice level and pleasant. She knew how important it was for Hardison to stop blaming himself for this.
"I suppose it is, but it's not likely. I build my devices very carefully and for someone to take control over the timer would mean that person is either a genius or damn lucky; and I'm going for lucky, cause ain't no one smarter than me on my own inventions."
"Well, for now let's go with the assumpton that either Eliot or Quinn messed the timer up, but keep the 'not a genius guy' in the back of our minds just in case." Nate spoke easily enough, considering all the options available for them on this job. "For starters, I need to know exactly how you got them in and then I need to hear every word spoken between you and them up to when you lost contact. We can get a general idea then on how they proceeded to the vault and maybe something in the audio can be found to indicate what happened." He paused, eyeing the third monitor which was currently running a revolving image of the vault and the walls surrounding it. "I've got an idea, but it means Parker will be going in, but don't worry Hardison; she won't be alone. I want you to call Eliot's friend Shelly. He'll be going in with Parker." Nate focused in on the image when it stopped revolving for a moment; then he slowly grinned. "We're going to also need deep access to this gaming company and I want to know why they have a security system that is second only to a Steranko; this system is very similar to one I've seen before... And there is only one person who can give me that answer." Nate knew the man, knew his ego as he'd been subjected to it for endless hours on the job back in his IYS days, but he was the only one who'd actually seen this kind of system from the inside. Nate would have been happy to never have to see the man again, but he did owe Nate... and he owed Eliot even more.
Nate knew that if Eliot survived this, he'd be mad for what Nate was about to do, but he'd be alive and Nate could handle that. By bringing someone in to help Parker and Shelly find the two men, Nate was effectively opening Eliot up for possbly even bigger problems; but he really had no choice here. Nate decided it was better to have an angry live hitter than... well, than a no longer live hitter. "Hardison, you still have that number I gave you for emergencies?"
At the look of sheer disbelief on Hardison's face at the meaning behind Nate's request, Sophie knew instantly this wasn't going to be the best plan Nate had come up so far, but she understood desperate times called for desperate measures. "Hardison, it'll be okay, promise." Sophie had an ace up her sleeve too, so to speak.
This man owed all of them, especially herself and Eliot; and she knew just how to make sure nothing went wrong. She knew which buttons to push on the former IYS investigator. She'd just have to do some of the best grifting of her life to be sure that James Sterling knew exactly what was at stake here... and what would happen if he even tried to cart off their hitter for the bounty on his head.
The team had gotten Sterling's daughter safely away from her stepfather, but it was the fact that Sterling had drugged Eliot that was going to be his downfall... or his saving grace. Yes, she thought to herself, smiling inwardly; she had just the thing to keep Sterling in line. She was going to be able to turn the tables on him now. "Call him Hardison, and tell him he owes us; and remind him how much Eliot would just love to sit down and share another cup of coffee with him..." This could just be about the most perfect way to get Sterling's help than any other method in the world, because Sophie was the only person other than Eliot who knew exactly why such a paranoid retrievial specialist/renegade soldier would actually allow himself to be drugged; and by someone such as Sterling. Yes, Jim Sterling was going to regret even more what he'd done to her and to her team, but especially what he'd done to Eliot Spencer. Life was good, she thought with a grin.
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Quinn slowly roused to conscousness moving his head from side to side, and then wishing that he hadn't. His head felt like he'd just gone ten rounds with Spencer, and he was pretty sure that even though he was a good hitter, Eliot was far better. Which meant he'd suffer a lot at that man's hands; but then memory came flooding back and he realized he was on a mission with Eliot in which he'd been promised a large payout in the end. He quickly took stock in the fact he was pretty sure the only wounds he had were minor in comparison to his throbbing head. Probably gonna have another concussion to deal with later, he thought wearily.
Coughing out the dust he'd breathed in, he blinked several times to get his bearings. He quickly took inventory of his body mentally to be sure his assessment was on point, then he took in his surroundings. He'd come to rest in a small air pocket under the steel beams and girders of the large building. He could see and that was a plus; he could breathe as well, so another plus. Quinn figured that meant he was lucky, and he could only hope Spencer had been too. He really needed that payout, especially if he was going to have some recouperating to do after all this.
"Spencer!" Quinn was surprised at how weak and gravely his voice was. He coughed and tried again. "Eliot?" He felt this sickening feeling of dread fill him when he received no reply.
Quinn tested each of his limbs carefully and began to slowly move around in the semi-darkness looking for the man he'd been working with. He couldn't see Eliot anywhere, but then he heard the soft shallow breathing that came from a few feet in front of him. He carefully moved around the boulders and debris of the building's 18th floor that had now become part of the 17th floor, or maybe it was the 16th; he had no idea really. They could be in the friggin' basement for all he know; moving slowly, he reached the beam of light coming from the huge hole in the floor over his head.
The hole had been impressive in size when he'd first made it with the ill-timed bomb, but now that some of the building had collapsed from the weakening of the blast, the hole was big enough to drive a tank through it. If he had a tank... or felt like driving, which at the moment he did not. Quinn mentally shook himself as he realized he was not making much sense, even to himself.
He half-stepped half-crawled over the mound of debris between him and the sounds of the breathing, and just as he breached the top of the mound he saw the other hitter. Spencer's face was all he could see at first, and even though they weren't really friends, his heart sank at the sight. The man was practically buried under a huge chunk of concrete covering his lower half; and he didn't seem to be moving at all.
Quinn sucked in a quick breath as he let himself slide haphazardly down the other side of the mound to land near Eliot's head. He could have sworn he'd heard the man's shallow breathing, but now looking at him, Quinn didn't think he was even alive, let alone attempting to breathe.
He felt a tremendous sense of relief though, when he saw Eliot twitch slightly and let out a soft moan. Quinn reached a shaky hand out to check for a pulse at the base of Eliot's throat when out of the darkness, a hand snapped up from the rubble and grabbed his wrist, pulling him down beside Eliot. Quinn jerked in surprise and instinctively pulled at the restraining grip, thinking it might be Eliot at first who had a death grip on him; but he knew it wasn't; Eliot wasn't moving; and this hand... was too soft to be a man's.
Someone else had been brought down when the floor collapsed under them and the odds were telling Quinn that this person was probably not a friendly. This person, this woman, was most likely part of the security soldiers that had had them pinned just moments before.
Quinn stopped struggling like a teenage boy in a slasher flick about to get bitten by the werewolf when he stumbled into the animal's path, and twisted his wrist sharply to the left causing the grip on his hand to slide away. He watched as the hand dropped back down to lay across the chest of a rather small looking form. Quinn blinked as he took in the two bright green eyes staring up at him from a face covered in dirt and soot; and from what he could see in the darkness a rather attractive face.
The woman was half buried underneath Eliot's upper torso, but she was awake and alert. She blinked up at him as he tried to get his bearings before she finally asked, "Are you just goning to just sit there and stare at me or are you going to help me?!"
And with her slightly soft midwestern voice dripping with sarcasm, Travis Quinn knew he was a goner; he was so in trouble now.