Mind Games
Summary: What do you get when you cross a depressed emotionally ill-equipped genius with a logical acidic solution?
Disclaimer: This is a fan-fiction story of the TV Series: Scorpion, and is in no way affiliated with the actual story/series in any of the aforementioned media. All characters and other materials related to the show that are used are not intended to infringe on any Copyrights. Elemental-Zer0 takes sole responsibility for any mistakes or offence that may be taken but truly not meant. However, any characters that are not related to any copyrights are copyrighted to Elemental-Zer0, as are any adaptions/variations to the plot set out in the original author's story/plot.
Authors Note: Chapter twenty-four. Who's still reading? Have I killed you all off with heart-attacks yet? If I haven't, this chapter might finish you off...
No flames please. If you have any criticism to make please do it politely otherwise, I shall ignore your words. (It's happened before, I'm sorry to say, and I hadn't even posted any real chapters…)
Chapter Twenty-four: The Goblin King Part 4
The orders were clear and precise.
Just the way he liked them. No fuss, no messy complications. That's why he was in the business he was in. Nothing was simpler to him than a single target and a payment at the end of the job done. Half up front of course. It was no use doing the job and getting nothing if the client decided to pull out of the deal after the deed was done.
But, with his current client, things that should have been simple had turned out to be not so simple after all. His target, an African American doctor in a suburban hospital had been pretty difficult to track down after he'd lost sight of him in an elevator rush. And then to top things off, the 'men-in-black,' a moniker his colleagues had dubbed for the authorities that were a little stronger in force than the local police, had shown up looking for his target too. He wasn't sure who they were; CIA, MOD, FBI or what, but he knew he'd be hard pressed to carry out his agenda if they got to the doctor first.
He loved simple.
But he loved a challenge more.
Staying low on the radar, using his borrowed scrubs and face mask, he meandered through the halls where his target had been last seen. He kept his eyes on the men-in-black over the flip chart he'd procured from a stray patient's bed as they passed him after being directed a certain way down a hall. His ears worked hard as he picked out some chatter from them as they passed.
He heard the word pediatrics ward and was moving before anyone could recognise him. He'd studied the hospital for weeks, knowing the call would come in soon so he already knew a short cut to the mentioned ward.
He ghosted through a 'staff only' corridor, and down a set of steps befor emerging out into the cafeteria area. From here, he quickly passed unhindered through the kitchen hallway and found himself in another corridor that led to the pediatrics ward.
The sound of children's voices gave him no cause to pause. He'd done his job in front of countless children before and wasn't afraid to do it again.
He peered into the ward and spotted his target, he was stood at the end of a child's bed flipping through the chart, making more sense of the scratchy handwriting than was possible for the average human. He watched the target for a few minutes more, hiding his scrutiny behind a fake fixation on a post-it board of events where families with ill children could find counselling or a safe event to venture to, to hide from the monotonous life of hospital food and needles.
The target shifted his feet. That was the signal he needed to start moving. He walked toward the doctor, nose in a leaflet, eyes on his prize. The target turned to him, a smile on his face as he bid farewell to his young patient and her parents. The target stepped toward him, he prepared his weapon. A syringe with a deadly concoction of poisons. The reaction would be fast but slow enough to give him time to escape.
They were inches apart.
He barged into the target, making it look totally accidental. They toppled to the floor, just as he planned it. And as they hit the floor, he shipped the needle out and plunged the poison into the target's abdomen. In the tumble, the target didn't even feel it.
Several flailing limbs and apologies later he was walking out of a side door in his usual attire after having dumped the scrubs down a wash chute seconds beforehand. He ignored the cries of shock and terror in his wake as he let the door close behind him. He was already moving on to his next target, wondering all the way there, just what a centipede partnership could possibly be in the business of…
It took less time to back track than it had to move forward, which was probably because they'd taken every precaution when moving forward in case of traps. Knowing the path was clear, it was easier to move quickly and meet with Toby, Sylvester and their new entourage of agents at the maze entrance.
"Hey." She greeted as she emerged from the middle pathway and laid eyes on the group for the first time in what felt like a few hours but had really only been a few minutes. It was hard to keep track of time when so much was going on.
"Hey." Sylvester replied, adrenalin no doubt still giving him the jitters after all the excitement he'd just been through. Toby gave her a sweeping look, assessing her well being as though he didn't trust the Commander to keep her safe. His visual assessment complete, he nodded at her in greeting.
"How's the cheek?" He asked, apparently unable to switch his doctor mode off for the moment. Paige gave a half shoulder shrug as she approached the two men and their mini regiment.
"I'll live." She replied, "You?" She asked, piling so many more questions into that one query and she knew he'd catch all of them too. He just gave a tired nod and moved to stand up form his previously seated position. It was time to get to work.
Paige led them all down the narrow pathway she'd backtracked along to find them, all the while describing what they'd found and their current theories as to its purpose and how to solve it. Toby scrubbed at his face in a weary manner while he listened, while Sylvester seemed to be hurriedly going through mental encyclopedias that matched any data that she'd been able to share.
When Toby and Sylvester finally saw what had stumped them, they could understand why. The grid was four tiles wide by eighteen tiles long and had the numbers facing them starting with nineteen, thirty-seven, fifty-five, eighty-seven along the front four tiles then along the second row started at twenty, thirty-eight, fifty-six and eighty-eight. The pattern continued down to the end of the grid. It was clear to see that the tiles were lined to run numerically length ways, but it was unclear what the numbers represented. Clearly, they had to figure out a sequence with which to cross the grid safely but with no reference to abide by it was almost impossible to figure out.
And to top it off, if they got one wrong, the consequences were a dart filled with an unknown substance shot at high speed at the wrongly pressed tile.
"What on earth does this mean?" Toby grimaced as he wracked his brain for the answer. "Walter would have figured this out by now. If he can figure it out, so can we." Happy commented, no doubt vying for an inspiration quote but the growl in her voice gave a different perception entirely. Not that anyone was willing to point that out to her mind.
"Yes, but Walter had the highest IQ of all of us and he's better at thinking on his feet than we are." Sylvester commented, his own frustration clearly affecting his will to live if the glare he received from Happy was anything to judge by.
"You're right, we really need Walter for this." Toby replied as he stared at the meaningless tiles before them.
"Walter's not here right now Toby, he's who we're trying to rescue remember?" Sylvester argued but Toby ignored the stress induced frustration in his friend's voice as an idea struck him. For several years now there was one other person on their team who was just as smart, if not smarter than their missing boss.
"No, but Ralph is here. And he's just as smart." Toby replied; the spark was back in his eyes. "Ralph?" he called into the comms as he approached the edge of the table of tiles on the floor. "Can you hear me buddy?" He asked. He was positive the kid was already investigating something to help them.
"I'm here," Ralph's young voice echoed through the comms link.
"Ok, I need you to find out anything you can about a four-box tall by eighteen-box wide grid with the numbers running from nineteen to a hundred-and-eighteen lengthways, and starting from the top left." Toby asked and then all those in the maze collectively held their breath. The soft tapping of keys whispered in their ears like soothing promise of answers to come but gifting no promises yet.
The silence and the tension were palpable.
But the next sound to come over the comms wasn't the reassuring sound of Ralph with an answer. There was a scuffling sound, then the sound of rapid footsteps and an ear-splitting sound of a window shattering with a great amount of force. The next words sent chills through all who were present in the maze.
"Intruder! Get down!"
Bang!