If you're wondering - there's not actually any overall story to these, they just come to me, usually late at night, and I write it up and send it off to my beta, Uroboros75. Usually later that same night. I have ideas for at least two more in my head right now, and we will learn whose monkey it is, at some point.
Oh, and thank you all my readers, and have a Happy New Year.
Lincoln Lee crouched beside his roommate with his gun raised, trying to ignore the rat licking his ankles. Peter Bishop was hunched over a blocky device whose topside panel had been forced open, digging at the insides with his multi-tool.
The blinking green L.E.D on the front of the contraption currently read 02:43.
"So..." Peter's voice sounded tinny over the radio. "Could anyone remind me how I ended up in the sewers with Lincoln defusing a pocket nuke?"
The other members of Fringe Division were crammed into a communications van outside the sewage treatment plant on the outskirts of Boston. Technically, the bomb wasn't a nuke, but calling it an antimatter catalyzed fusion warhead would just be pedantic.
Lincoln twitched his leg, throwing the rat off his ankle. He glanced at the device, sweat rolling down his forehead. The display now read 02:34.
The rat returned to lick his ankle some more.
"Uh..." Olivia spoke up, using a teasing tone despite the tension. "You volunteered, remember?"
"Oh, that's right!" Peter pulled a set of alligator clips linked by copper wire out of his tactical vest, then hooked them to two wires inside the device.
"And you said you've done this before," said Lincoln.
"Yeah, about that," Peter said. "I kind of lied."
Peter smirked at the dead silence that followed. Lincoln was glaring at him, angrier than he'd ever seen him before.
"Wait..." said Olivia over the radio."If you lied about that, what else are you lying about?"
"You do have a doctorate in physics from MIT, right?" asked Astrid.
"Uh, no," Peter replied. He used the knife blade on his multi-tool to strip the insulation off a yellow wire. "I've never even graduated from high school."
Lincoln glanced at the display; it read 02:11. He gave the rat licking his ankle a murderous glare.
"You're not a world chess champion, are you?" asked Olivia.
"Nope!" Peter replied with a smile. The bomb started beeping frantically.
Lincoln kicked the rat down the tunnel. It landed with a splash, and then came scurrying back to lick his ankle some more. He sighed. At least if the bomb went off, he wouldn't have to endure the damn rat.
The display now read 01:59.
"You didn't tour with Wynton Marsalis?"
That was Broyles, surprisingly.
"Well, actually..." Peter began. He paused dramatically for ten seconds as he rearranged some wires and clipped two more together. The beeping stopped. "...No."
Lincoln sighed. He wondered if he should name the rodent getting intimately acquainted with his lower limbs.
The display now read 01:33.
"And you don't speak ten languages," accused Olivia.
"Nope." Peter tied the ends of two sparking wires together, wincing at the painful jolts of electricity in his digits. "Only five."
Lincoln tried petting the rat. It snapped at his fingers before returning to licking him. When he looked over, the display read 01:17.
"So, Dunham," Peter said, wetting his singed fingertips in his mouth before stripping another two wires. "If I manage to disarm this thing and save us and the northern half of Boston, will you be impressed enough to let me take you out to dinner?"
In the van, Olivia glanced at her colleagues and shrugged. "Sure, why not?"
"Don't sound so thrilled," Peter chuckled. "It just so happens that I've just managed to disarm my first nuke."
He smiled at the cheering that erupted over the radio link.
Peter exhaled and rocked back on his heels, stretched his arms over his head to relieve the tension in his shoulders. He looked at Lincoln and grinned.
Lincoln noticed that the display read 00:59...
...And was continuing to count down.
"Uh..." Lincoln stuttered. "Uh!"
Peter frowned at him. "What?"
Lincoln flailed in the general direction of the bomb, still making incomprehensible noises. Peter looked down the corridor in the direction he was pointing, but couldn't see anything but sewage and more tunnels.
The display continued to count down.
...00:47...00:46.
"Clock! Clock!" Lincoln gasped. Peter looked at his watch. Finally, Lincoln lunged forward and tapped loudly on the L.E.D. Panel.
"Oh!" Peter said. "Don't worry, Linc; I disconnected that first thing. It's meaningless."
Peter started putting his tools away, sliding pliers and screwdrivers into various pockets on his vest. Then a loud gunshot startled him, and echoed through the tunnel. Peter fell backwards into the waste flowing past them.
Lincoln clutched his smoking pistol, glaring murderously at the soggy pile of meat that lay at his ankles.
"Damn rat," Lincoln Lee said in a tone of victory.