Warnings: First fic EVER. Unbeta'd. Don't hate me if it makes your eyes bleed. Based on my experience working in a software company. I may have exaggerated it a little bit but yes, it's was that easy to get in and out, yes the devs looked like that and yes we had tons of goodies lying around. If you don't know what "RC" stands for, have a look at this Wikipedia article: /bX4ucg
Nate had decided he needed a break, to try and get sober again. Living above a bar when he was clean was may be a very catholic thing to do but staying in his condo after having another taste of what he was missing so much was just stupid. So he'd packed a bag and left Parker, Eliot and Hardison a short note, asking them not to trash his place.
That was two weeks ago and Parker, Eliot and Hardison were getting restless. Well, Parker and Hardison were getting restless, and that got on Eliot's nerves since hiding from them seemed to be impossible.
So when Hardison called up an impromptu team meeting for "a quick easy tiny job, just to pass the time" it sounded like a good idea.
Truth is, Hardison had been planning this one for a while now. He just never brought it up to the whole team because he knew there was no chance in hell they'd help. But now that it was just the three of them, it could work. Parker was up for stealing pretty much anything, anywhere, anytime so getting her on board wasn't even an issue. As for convincing Eliot, he had a three step plan all set up : Step 1 : Soften Eliot with his big brown puppy eyes – when that doesn't work, Step 2 : Soften Eliot by using Parker, cute little Parker who definitely needs Eliot's protection, and then finish him with Step 3, which consists in promising him any and every favor he can come up with, from cleaning his car every week for a year to setting him up with all the sports channels in the world.
Turned out he didn't have to use the three step plan at all. His presentation was enough to sell them the job. Hardison always did make good, convincing presentations. But he felt a little guilty, maybe he shouldn't have presented himself as a victim, in need of help, and made it sound so important.
But now wasn't the time to dwell on that, since the plan was now in motion.
As he said, it was a pretty simple retrieval job. Get in. Pick up a DVD. Get out. Parker was almost offended Hardison made Eliot come along. The security in this place was almost inexistent. Get in, find the item, get out: 25 seconds. Well, a little more if you count the time it took her to set up and check her line. Especially since Hardison nagged her until she triple checked her harness. Twice. Man, he really can be a pain in her ass when he's running a job.
Eliot was on stand-by, waiting in case Parker needed his help. It was the middle of the night but there was still a bunch of employees working very late. Hardison had made him wear huge geeky glasses and a Linux t-shirt with a penguin on it. A penguin, for God's sake. He had also prepared a whole cover story but as he entered the building Eliot wondered why he had even bothered. As Parker had pointed out earlier through the comm: the security was a joke. And all the guys he had seen so far were so scrawny he'd actually feel bad if he had to hit them. He had to reckon Hardison was spot-on with the outfit tho: glasses, long hair and ugly shirts from brands he had never heard of seemed to be the standard uniform.
Hardison was in the van, as usual, and he was positively drooling at what he was seeing on the monitors. This place was geekland. There were computers and monitors of all shapes and sizes everywhere. Chips, drives and motherboards were scattered everywhere. It looked like the place had exploded, been ransacked and exploded again. Except nothing was broken, just taken apart.
As Eliot progressed in the building, the images he got thanks to the button cam the hitter was wearing made him squee. Litteraly. Like a girl.
"Hardison? What? What's going on? "
"Nothing Man, just…er…nothing. Can you just turn a little to the left? Yep, right there "
Props. Dozens of props from his favorite video games. Posters, toys and life size characters and weapons. Plastic weapons but still…
"Dolls? What the fuck is this place?"
"They're not dolls Eliot, they're… nevermind."
"Hardison, I think I'm in the right place. I found 2 discs tho, one that says Beta and one that says RC, which…"
"RC? There's an RC already? Oh man, this is good! The RC Parker, grab the RC"
"Done. Going out."
"I think you can use the door"
Parker turned around. Eliot was now in the room with her.
"How did you get here?"
"I walked. This place is weird, I'm telling you. People barely glanced from their computers when I walked by."
"Oh. Ok, cool."
Parker closed the window. It had started raining, the building would be all wet and slippery, better take the stairs.
Eliot was right. Going out through the front door was definitely too easy. Except Parker didn't exactly go as unnoticed as Eliot. As soon as she started crossing the open-space all the employees raised their heads to stare at her, mouths hanging slightly open, as if they were trying to decide if the little blonde in the tight black outfit was real or just a collective hallucination.
"Hardison, they're being all creepy."
"Keep going Parker, they're probably just not used to seeing actual girls in there"
"Well that was boring" Parker said, plopping down on the couch. "What is on this DVD anyway?"
Hardison didn't even hear her. Has was too busy loading the DVD in his laptop and setting everything just right for the full-on geek night that was ahead of him.
He was in the kitchen, retrieving a fresh bottle of orange soda from the fridge when he heard the growl.
"What the… Hardison! Did you just make us steal a fucking videogame?"
"Not just a game man, the new expansion pack of Wow, collector edition, won't hit the shelves before another month at least…"
The hacker tried to hide behing the fridge door as the hitter was making his way into the kitchen
"Hardison !"
"I just really really wanted it and err… it was easy, it's not like there was any danger. Please don't hurt me!"