Eureka
Silence. Medic rubbed his chin as he studied the map and papers assembled in front of him. He glanced up briefly and his eyes met Spy's metallic-grey ones, before flicking back down.
"Well?"
"Let me seenk..."
"You 'ave been seenking for 'alf-an-hour."
"Vell, seenk viz me zen." Spy grunted and reached for his cigarette case. He stopped his hand when he saw Medic's frown. Medic disliked the smell of smoke, and Spy preferred not to anger the man who could or could not decide to let him die a painful death on a daily basis. In fact, Spy suspected that Medic only tolerated his habit most of the time because he was a conveniently close-at-hand pair of smoker's lungs to be experimented on.
Both men pored over the papers.
"Maybe if... no."
"Per'aps – ah, non, zat won't work."
They both jumped as a hideous, clanking cacophony burst into the room, battering their eardrums. Engineer strode down the hallway, half-buried under the huge, misshapen mound of spare parts he was carrying. It looked like the crushed remains of a car crash had sprouted Engineer's legs and gone for a walk. The legs paused, an arm was carefully extracted from under the pile – pieces of metal clattered to the floor around the feet – and Engineer unravelled about ten Egyptian mummies' worth of cotton wool from his ear.
"Hello? Is that you, Spy?"
"No, it's Pinocchio."
"Real funny. Sorry for the noise, I'm just movin' these..."
"I suppose zat dividing one big pile into lots of little piles is not something your brain is equipped for," drawled Spy, casting a disparaging eye over the Eiffel Tower's worth of scrapmetal.
"Sorry, what was that?" Engineer's voice echoed from somewhere behind the mound.
"Nothing."
"Hm. Sorry, ah thought ah heard you say something. What are you doing?" With difficulty, Enginner peered around his load and saw the papers spread on the table.
"Ooooh... Now that's a tricky situation... Interesting. Lemme have a closer look." He dumped his parts in a corner with a screeching crash (Spy clenched his teeth so hard he almost bit his cigarette in half) and joined his team-mates at the table, where he pondered, tapping two fingers to his lip.
"Have you thought of - "
"Yes."
"Or -"
"Ja, done zat."
"Hmmm..."
"Hey, what was that bloody ruckus earlier? Trying to sleep, here."
"Oh, just me, Snipes. Here, come and have a look at this and tell us what you make of it."
"What is it?'
"Come and see." Sniper moved closer to the table, rubbing his red eyes, and blinked blearily at the papers.
"Oh fer God's sake... I'm trying to sleep... Can't you clever blokes figure something out?"
"We're working on it, but nothin' yet." Grumbling, Sniper pulled a chair out from under the table and slumped onto it. Despite himself, though, he too began to gaze keenly at the pieces of paper.
Medic muttered under his breath.
"Dann kann ich... ne, das geht nicht... Aber vielleicht... Spy, if – Aaah!" Medic turned his head and shrieked, shooting out of his chair as if a geyser had erupted under his seat. Engineer jotted some notes down.
"Aaaand, that's five feet. New record, I believe."
"Huddah huh!" Pyro said cheerily as he emerged from the shadows behind Medic. The doctor – having descended to a civilized height again - gulped and patted his own chest.
"Mein Gott, Pyro, don't do zat! Ach, my heart..." Pyro patted Medic's head - the latter gingerly leaned away from him - then he saw the map and cocked his head for a moment. Suddenly he stabbed a gloved finger at a random spot on the paper.
"Huh!"
"No, ve can't do zat." Pyro stabbed his finger at another random spot.
"Huh!" Engineer laughed and slapped a hand down on Pyro's shoulder.
"Naw, haha, that won't work either, buddy. In fact you can prove that mathematically. For instance: take this line here as the hypothenuse to this area, draw this vector, then multiply these tangents by the square root of the perpendicular to..." Engineer's explanation was rudely interrupted. Pyro collapsed into a chair, trembling with relief.
"Watcha doin'?"
"Not now, Scout."
"Hey, I can look if I want an' none of you chuckleheads can stop me." He looked. "Looks boring."
"Piss off then."
"Naw, I decided I wanna sit here." Scout jumped into a chair and crossed his arms, daring them to argue. Spy sighed and massaged his forehead. The assembled mercs stared at the paper. Behind them, heavy footsteps apporached. So to speak.
"What is problem?" Heavy peered down over their heads. His small eyes scanned the papers, by now scattered all over the table, and he frowned.
"Oh. Is hard problem." Heavy pulled a chair out beside Medic and dumped his massive bulk onto it, causing its legs to bend dangerously and creak in a way that Medic didn't at all like. Ignoring this, the Russian leaned over the table, head resting on one huge fist, bottom lip protuding as he thought.
"Is very hard problem... You have been thinking a long time?"
"Ah'm sure we'll get there if we all put our minds to it."
"I am not..." Growled Spy.
"Hm. Haven't you got any information about this spot?" Sniper queried.
"No."
Scout popped some bubblegum into his mouth and tapped his foot, staring vaguely down the corridor while his teammates thought. He was regretting his decision to stay, but he couldn't honourably back out now. His team-mates thought and argued.
"Hm... Yeah, I can see -"
"Won't work."
"Maybe if you - "
"Tried it!"
"Is zis really necessary? I sink asking Scout to use 'is 'ead is dangerous. 'E might explode."
Scout tried to kick Spy under the table. His foot connected, but not with Frenchman.
"Ow!"
"What de -" Scout shrieked and leapt to his feet as if he had just spotted a tarantula on his trouser leg. Demoman emerged from under the table, woozy-eyed.
"Whass gon on?" He slurred. Scout yipped, horrified.
"You were underneath the table this whole time?! Are you frickin' kidding me?" Demoman shakily pulled himself up and stood, swaying gently. His eye focused on the map and papers. Eventually, a thought sluggishly worked its way through to his brain, and he frowned as he laboriously put it into words.
"Ei a-eee-ums..." Demoman frowned and tried to revise his statement. "Aeuaeee..." That wasn't working either. His puzzled team was looking at him with varying degrees of tolerance. Demoman made one last heroic effort. "Tuuuh... Try stickybombszzzzzz..." His voice dissolved into a snore and he slumped onto Spy. The latter shook him off with disgust.
"Atteeeeen-shun!"
"Oh fantastic. I knew we were missing somesing."
"Why are you maggots not on the obstacle course? What is this? ... Aha! I know! Attack from the left!"
"Can't you see the bloody mountain?"
"Attack from the right!"
"Is not possible."
"Attack the middle!"
"Nein! It. Von't. Vork!"
"Go backwards!"
"Now you're just being silly."
"I thought we had established that silly is his default setting."
Engineer had fished his notepad and pencil from his pocket and was drawing geometrical figures. He scratched his hardhat.
"How did you get into this situation?"
"Zis is turning into a monkey cage. Why did you all 'ave to come and look?"
"Attack from behind the enemy! Sun Tzu says you have to!"
"Stickyboooommbsss... *burp*"
"Oh, disgusting."
"All right, but maybe if -"
"Nah, that won't work, see -"
"Problem is too hard. Why do we keep trying to solve it? I am hungry. Maybe, I go, cook dinner?"
"Hang on, you can't just give up now we're all here."
"This is killing me. There has to be a solution!"
"Hudda mph mmmph huh!"
"No, you can't draw on it, get that crayon out of my face."
"Scout, you haven't said anysing. Quit blowing bubbles und help us." Scout was slouching against the backrest, with his arms crossed and foot tapping. He glanced at the map.
"Uh, whatever. Do dat." He jabbed the spot of the map closest to him and went back to staring at the wall, and wondering whether he could trick Miss Pauling into coming to the base.
He noticed that the room had gone silent and looked around.
"Hey, what? I didn't do anything."
Engineer stared at his drawings, then at the spot Scout had jabbed, then back again, unable to close his mouth. Heavy burst out laughing and slapped Scout's back so hard that the Bostonian's head smacked his knees. A look of happy incredulity dawned on Medic's face. He flung his cards aside.
"Yes, yes, yes, zat's it! Sank Gott for morons!" Spy groaned as the doctor gleefully moved his piece across the board.
"I vin!"
