Chapter 2
Missions never go completely smoothly. There's no way to predict every detail that could happen and no way to prepare for every eventuality, no matter how hard they tried and how diligently they planned.
Clive had taken Robert to the secure server room where the tech was to do his magic on the system, the last step of their mission. They had been discovered (luckily, after Robert had completely corrupted the system and sent out viruses to infect the rest of the criminal network) and escorted by armed men to a dimly-lit, windowless room with concrete walls. Typical.
Clive had expected the kid to react as any civilian would: trembling, nervous, terrified glances all around the place, uneven breathing, maybe even some tears and begging - it was normal and expected, especially for someone so young and untested.
The kid had obliged, at least to the extent of showing his nerves and fear at being captured. His eyes had widened at the sight of the handcuffs; he had likely never even seen a real set. He'd still put up a brave front, though, which made Clive slide his mental approval scale half a notch higher.
There was one chair in the middle of the cold dungeon-like room where their captors tossed them. The men secured Clive with heavy metal chains and a large padlock after they'd confiscated his weapons and even the watch with the tracker built in, which they crushed.
The boy, however, was merely handcuffed and thrown into the corner after being given a quick pat-down. They did make sure to bounce him off of the wall hard enough to knock his glasses off and onto the floor.
The kid crumpled to the cold concrete floor with a cry of pain and lay on his side breathing ragged breaths with blood running into his frightened eyes. He looked younger than ever, and the guilt tugged at Clive's heart at the sight of him.
The metal door slammed shut with a bang and the kid flinched and curled into a ball with a whimper.
"Hey," Clive said calmly, reassuringly, "it's going to be okay. I'm going to get you out of here, okay?"
Myopic green eyes blinked up at him.
The boy licked his dry lips. "Do- Do you think they're watching us?" he said in a wavering voice.
Clive glanced around the room, looking for cameras. "No," he replied. "No one's watching. It's okay, kid."
"You're sure?" This time, there was something in the kid's expression that made the agent in Clive sit up and pay attention.
Clive checked again, more thoroughly this time. "Yes," he said firmly. "No surveillance."
"Okay," Robert said, sitting up easily, "that's good. Makes this easier." There was no trace of the shivering, scared boy left as he squinted at the floor around him, looking for something.
As Clive watched in amazement, the younger man scooted himself over to his glasses and grabbed them with his hands, which were cuffed behind his back. Then he untwisted one of the plastic arms to reveal something small hidden inside it.
What it was soon became apparent when Robert stood up with his handcuffs dangling from only one wrist, which he soon freed.
"Lockpicks in your glasses?" And the kid's acting skills weren't bad either. Clive moved his approval meter up to nearly the top.
Robert shrugged with a small, proud smile as he made his way over to let Clive out of his bindings. "I took this opportunity to try them out in the field. I thought they might be useful to agents in the future."
"You're just full of surprises, aren't you, kid?"
"Not a kid," Robert replied with a prim, pleased look.
. . . . .
Long story short, they got caught again, and this time, their captors separated them and took Robert back to the server to make him fix the mess he had made of it at gunpoint. When the young man continued to prove stubborn after four days, they brought Clive in and began to torture him while they made Robert watch.
Clive fixed Robert with a glare that said, 'Don't you dare give in, kid,' and so Robert didn't.
Instead he began making comments as to the effectiveness of their technique: "Did you know that a recent study found that rapport- and relationship-building interrogation techniques consistently prove to be more effective in achieving goals over confrontation techniques and torture? For example-"
Clive growled under his breath as one of the men, the leader, hit Robert across the face, splitting his lip.
"Shut up! Get to work or your friend dies," the man said, pointing at Clive, who made sure to bare his teeth at them all.
The boy shook it off and continued his lecture, for that was what it essentially was. "You're not listening to me," he huffed impatiently, "As evidenced, you are less likely to get a positive response out of me if you persist in antagonistic behavior. Furthermore-"
Robert got another fist to the face.
"There will be no 'furthermore,'" the man said, looming over the slim young man, who leaned back in his chair and insolently made eye contact with Clive, who was sitting tied up behind the man with two henchmen guarding him.
"Furthermore," the boy continued in a contemptuous tone of voice, "You should really pay attention to what's going on behind you." The smug smile was enough to make the leader turn quickly around to look at Clive, who grinned sharkline at him from his chair, where he was still very much tied up.
The man turned back to the boy, or rather, where the boy had been sitting (not tied up or secured in any way, the idiots), and instead had his legs swiped out from under him and got a fist to his face in quick succession. The gun he had been holding instantly found its way to the hands of his young attacker, who finished the job by knocking the butt of the gun against his skull.
In the meantime, Clive had made quick work of his two guards using the distraction provided by his young friend.
"Nicely done, Frobisher," Clive said admiringly. "Have you been trained for field work?"
All he got was a self-satisfied smile and a snarky "Not past the normal mandatory training they make everyone do. I'm not a field agent, after all."
Clive snorted as he led the way out. "There is nothing normal about you, kid."
"Not a kid."
Clive turned back again when the kid stopped following him. "What are you doing now?"
Robert was examining some car and airplane parts that had been left in the warehouse they were passing through. "I'm going to need salt and sugar. Can you get me some? I'll go look for the weed killer."
Clive stared.
"I was promised explosions," the kid explained, hands on his hips like a schoolmarm scolding a misbehaving student. "We've been in the field for over a week and I haven't gotten to blow anything up. Besides, it's the best way to destroy the server, now that my virus has done its work. It will also tell HQ where we are, at the very least, since we've lost contact with them."
Clive sighed and rubbed his head. He had the feeling that he wasn't in charge of this mission anymore. "How much salt and sugar?"
The kid beamed and told him.
. . . . .
They set the homemade dynamite to blow up the villain du jour's headquarters in a most spectacular fashion with the help of airplane fuel as an accelerant and stole a small plane to get out of there before it blew.
"It's a Dassault NGF F20!" Robert enthused with admiring eyes. "How did they get their hands on one of these? I didn't even know that they were fully developed!"
Clive rolled his eyes as he bundled his young friend into the aircraft. He couldn't blame him; it was a beautiful piece of aeronautical engineering. "Doesn't matter. Get in. Let's go."
Robert chattered nonstop as they started out with Clive in the pilot's seat. "It's supposed to be equipped for UCAV and ATGMs and can fly at altitudes of- Whoa! Do you even know how to fly this?"
Clive had made a wide swerve to avoid the gunfire from the plane behind them. "Yes, I do. Please shut up."
"They're shooting at us."
"Yes, they are."
Robert pushed his nose up against the window, looking worriedly at the side of the plane. "They'll ruin her! She's so beautiful. I can't believe I'm in a Dassault NGF F20. I'm so lucky. Wait 'til the guys at work hear this! Oh no, am I allowed to tell them? This isn't classified, is it?"
Clive spared a look of disbelief at the little nerd, who was actually beaming with a manic look in his bright eyes. "They're shooting at us, kid."
. . . . .
They'd nearly made it.
Their pursuers had followed them out into the middle of the desert before Clive had managed to down both of the enemy planes with the various missiles and weapons their Dassault NGF F20 had been equipped with.
However, they too had taken too many hits to remain airborne, so Clive sent Robert to the back to get the parachutes out while he guided the plane on a course that wouldn't result in a fast and fiery death on the rocks.
"Clive. Problem."
The kid's voice sounded calm, but there was an undercurrent of strain that put Clive's teeth on edge.
"What is it?"
"I can't find the parachutes."
Clive swore. "Did you look under the-?"
"I looked everywhere," was the tense response. "They're not here. We must have taken the plane before it was ready to fly."
That did make some sense, since some of the buttons on the dashboard had not worked when Clive had tried to use them. Still…
"Let me take a look."
The kid gave him a look that plainly said, 'I told you so' when Clive also came up with nothing.
Clive went back to the pilot's seat. At least the way in front of them was clear of any life-threatening rock formations. It was sand - white, uninterrupted sand - all around them.
Right then.
He returned to the back, where the kid was suddenly looking a little green, and popped open the back door after warning Robert to "hold on."
"What are you doing?"
Clive fixed the kid - damn, he was just a kid - with a steady look. "We're getting close to the ground," he shouted over the noise of the rushing air around them. "That means we can either crash while in the plane or risk a freefall landing. We might have a better chance with jumping out if we're far enough from the plane when it hits the ground and explodes."
"Clive," Robert said, his lips set in a hard line, "I hate to break it to you, but humans can't fly unassisted."
"Roll," Clive replied, watching the ground get closer. "It's sand. Should be soft enough to give us a chance."
"Clive," the kid said again, narrowing his eyes against the eyewatering wind. "Physics doesn't work like that. We're going to die."
Which was really what Clive was thinking, but he had wanted to give the kid a bit of hope.
He sighed and gave his companion a sad smile. "I'm sorry, kid."
Clive watched the young man - eighteen, just eighteen - swallow hard and look straight down at the white sand rushing up towards them, the wind whipping his unruly dark curls into a frenzy. He drew a deep breath, then said calmly, "Jump and roll?"
"Jump and roll," Clive replied, nodding at his partner. "On my mark."
Robert Frobisher went up in Clive's estimation again when he held out a steady hand to Clive and said, "It's been an honor working with you, 002."
Clive took the proffered hand with the respect the young man was due. "It's been an honor working with you, too, Robert Frobisher. Truly."
They watched their death fly up towards them in silence. Then…
"3...2...1. Jump!"
. . . . .
Notes:
On the science in this fic: I did some quick Wikipedia-ing and patched together a likely-sounding name for the plane. I know nothing about planes except that they magically fly in the air. I took the car battery-salt-sugar-weed killer recipe from MacGyver. I also know nothing about computers, so I throw words like server and virus around willy-nilly. Same goes for criminal organizations. If my descriptions somehow resemble actual secret organizations, then it's just a coincidence and that's all I'm going to say on that topic.
Also, please do not jump out of planes without the proper safety equipment and training. Do not do what the characters in my fic did. As He-Who-Will-Someday-Be-Q said, "Physics doesn't work like that." To that I would like to add: "except in fiction."