-12:34, an unprecedentedly ungodly hour, at an abandoned train station-
"Uh, Hardison . . . " Eliot didn't phrase it as a question. He made it sound like a weak warning.
Eliot doesn't do weak.
"Wha-wha-what's wrong?" Alec was on the alert, suddenly wishing he had a gun on him. And that he could shoot it.
"Bomb."
Harison's eyes bugged out for two reasons:
1) Eliot Spencer had just discovered a device made specifically for the detonation of human beings and 2) Despite, the slight shake in his voice, the hitter was being waaay too nonchalant about it.
Hardison squints, trying to find his partner in the blackness. Or at least his flashlight. He gulps. "What kind is it?"
"The kind that goes 'boom' and splatters our scorched guts across the floor, what other kind is there?!"
Okay, Mr. Calm, Cool, and Can Kill You In More Ways Than You Ever Imagined. No need to get touchy. Even though they were about to become part of the scenery.
"Where's it at?"
. . .
"Ceiling."
. . .
"Lemme guess, it's got a timer?" Alec hardly made it sound like a question.
"Yep."
A timebomb. On the freakin' ceiling. About to blow up the only place they could get damning evidence for their current job.
That's the only thing on God's green earth that could make Eliot go from slightly annoyed (his norm) to almost panicking in .5 seconds.
. . .
Why couldn't things go right, completely right, just this once?
"Okay, okay, okay . . . don't panic . . ." alright, so the Hacker's talking more to himself than to Eliot, but nevermind. "How much time is left on it?"
"Enough for us to book it out of here in one piece."
But without the evidence.
"Er, Eliot . . . um, sir. . .?"
The man growls into the com unit.
"Have you ever survived being under a complete collapse of a train station and the ground level of New York City before?" Hardison asks jokingly, taking com out before Eliot's yelling has a chance to deafen him.
"I guess I'm about to, huh?"
Hardison does a double take, and then some screaming of his own.
"Wait, WHAT?! Are you crazy, dude?! Uh-uh. No way. I am NOT letting you search down here alone, then have you squashed by a fallin' taxi. No. Way. Parker would kill me. And you do NOT want to be on Parker's Death List. That girl is SCARY, man . . ."
"Aaaw, thanks Hardison!"
"PARKER?!" "PARKER?!"
"I thought someone blew our coms out the second we stumbled down here? Hardison, is there something you didn't tell me . . ."
"Hold it, HOLD IT. Just stop right there. The black dude had nothing, are you hearing me bro? NOTHING to do with it. Parker must have gotten out of the . . . jammer's range . . ."
". . . And to do that she has to be down here with us . . ." Eliot took this short oppertunity to let out a long string of curse words, that were NOT in various languages. He eventually got quite creative, too.
"Yikes . . ."
"Yew bet yer &#%, yikes. Hardison, I want ya to find Parker and git her the *^ ( outta here!"
"Eliot, I ain't leaving you down he-YYYYAAAAAAAAAA!"
"HARDISON! HARDISON, TALK TO ME. WHAT'S HAPPENING?!"
The hacker was suddenly at a loss.
"Um, thanks for the worry Eliot . . . but, uh . . . Parker sorta jumped me . . . and I sorta paniced . . ."
"Almost causing me to sorta have freaking heartattack! DAMMIT HARDISON!"
"Oops . . ."
"Um, boys, before this place comes tumbing down around our ears, I have something to tell you."
"WHAT?!" "WHAT?"
"I've got the papers."
"Oh." "Oh."
. . .
. . . .
. . . . . . .
"Doesn't that mean we should get the !*{: outta here?"
And they did.
Just not quite fast enough.
Boom
It was low and muffled by the time they heard it, but still forboding. Parker was topside in a blink, Hardison right on her heels. But Eliot was having . . . dificulties.
It seems he forgot about being stabbed earlier, didn't mention it to anybody, and didn't even grunt when he got it. Well, now blood loss was getting to him . . . and, well, Spencer just didn't have the energy to make it out of the station before it collapsed.
The light at the end of the tunnel just dissepeared right before his eyes. He was surrounded by rumbling, falling rocks, and Hardison's screams in his ear. It was kind of surreal, and, almost confusing.
The boulder slamming into his leg was not.
Hardison's girl-screams weren't doing much for his newfound headache either.