The Elevator Pitch

A/N: I own none of these shows or characters. Just a desire to throw them all into one universe and shake well.

Chapter 1

It was dark. Not that pre-dawn dark where you could still identify shapes; no, this was the pitch black of a deep cave or a sealed tank. He gulped, knowing the second option was worryingly close to the truth.

"D…D…Danny?" He whispered, wincing at his stutter. When there was no response, he repeated himself a little louder. "Danny?"

A groan came from his left, but he was focussed on his right side. "Danny?" This time he squeaked a bit at the end. He fumbled in his pocket, digging for his phone.

"What!" A voice answered his call, but it wasn't from the expected location.

Not finding his phone in his jeans, he felt along the floor. Fingers brushed the wall first and then his phone. He found the flashlight option with shaky fingers and pointed it in front of him and towards the voice.

"Couldya point that in a different direction?" A scowl appeared below a hand held up to block the light.

"S…sorry." Dammit the stutter was back. He moved the phone down and took a breath. "I'm just trying to find Danny."

"Well you found him." A shrug that moved his whole body was apparent in the shadows thrown by the phone's indirect light.

"A different Danny?"

"Yeah, I'm here." Another voice came from the left. This one sounded like it originated from the same place as the groan.

"Wha…no. Not you either." A bit of frustration edged into his voice. Annoyed, he flung his hand out to the right, "he should be right here…" his hand made contact with a body.

"Hey! Whachadoin'?" There was the clipped speech he was looking for.

"Danny, there you are." He said, relived to have the right one finally.

"Now that we've found the correct 'Danny', can we move on to figuring out what just happened?" The scowling Danny was back in the conversation.

"Hold on." The groaning Danny was shifting around. A box was torn open. "This should help."

A beam of light shot to the ceiling. He fiddled with the settings, changing it from flashing to a red light and then to more of a flood light instead of a pointed beam. Leaning forward, he set it at his feet. The light pooled around, throwing everyone into odd shadows. "Extenuating circumstances so I'll open my partner's birthday present."

"That's a nice flashlight." Scowl-Danny sounded a little less scowl-y.

"Tactical Lite; it'll attach to a rifle and is waterproof up to 30 feet."

His Danny asked "why do you need a rifle-mounted flashlight to be that waterproof?"

A seemingly well-practiced sigh that sounded like it originated from the base of his spine came out followed by: "Because my partner's an idiot." He said it with such finality, there was a moment of silence.

"Well, that's great for him." Scowl-Danny broke the silence. "How about we introduce ourselves." He seemed to be used to taking charge.

"Danny Williams. HPD." Flashlight-Danny started.

"HPD? You're from the Hamptons? I think you're lost, this conference is supposed to be for cities." Scowl-Danny scoffed.

Williams huffed. "Honolulu PD."

"Okay…then, this is the City Policing conference, East Coast Division. And you don't sound like you're from Hawaii." His Danny pointed out.

A repeat performance of the sigh. "One, I'm originally from Jersey which is, in fact, on the east coast. Two, I came for the special session on Policing in Ports."

"Fine. I'm Danny Reagan. NYPD." Take-charge-scowl Danny now had a last name.

He was mutely listening to the introductions, but that made him gasp – quietly, but it was loud in the small space they occupied. Reagan? As in Commissioner Reagan? Everyone knew he had sons on the job, there was the detective and the patrolman. If he was one of them, then they were in the presence of NYPD royalty. He suddenly had the urge to straighten his clothes and attack the piece of hair that refused to stay down.

"Don't get excited. I won't be signing autographs." Reagan bit out.

So he was the detective. He had a reputation of being…difficult…to work with.

"Right. Danny Messer. NYPD crime lab." His Danny jumped in. "Also from the crime lab, this is Adam…"

"What I'd miss?" A new voice came from the corner. "Ah man, feels like I got locked in a trunk again. Shit, what's that digging into my back? If I broke my phone again, boss'll kill me. Wait…that's just my knife. Oh hey, s'up guys?" The rambling man grinned as he edged into the circle of light.

"…Ross. This is Adam Ross. Who're you?" Messer finished off.

"Wild man! I'm Adam too! Adam Ruzek from Chicago PD, Intelligence Division."

Adam heard Williams beside him mumble "Doubtful" under his breath.

"Great, now that we've all been introduced, anybody know what's going on?" Reagan took charge again.

Messer elbowed Adam. He shifted away, knowing what was coming.

"Adam…uh…NYPD Adam should be able to answer that." Messer supplied.

Adam coughed, "Nah, ju…just a gu…guess." That stutter was back again. He tried to avoid looking directly at Reagan, as if he would tell his Dad about Adam's lack of confidence and it would somehow land on his next performance review.

Reagan's face softened. "Well that's a good place to start, right?"

"Right." Adam sat up a bit straighter. "Uh…There were rumblings online that this conference was going to be a target for hackers. There's a special session focussed on cybercrime and the rumors are that it's actually a cover for setting up a multi-city taskforce. Supposed to be a pretty big deal so some groups put up ads on the dark web for hackers to find out what's actually going on." Adam paused and looked around at the elevator car they were all crowded into. "These elevators are run mostly by computers now so you can override a lot of the safety features. But you can't override the counterbalance. All a hacker had to do is set the cables to free-run and we started to pick up speed as we dropped. What floor was everyone on?"

Messer answered for the two of them, "We were on 29."

"32" from Williams.

"33" Reagan answered with a smug look at Williams.

There was a pause and they all looked at Ruzek. He shifted uncomfortably.

"44" Ruzek answered quietly.

"Wait." Adam blinked. "Rumor around the conference is they put all the cybercrime participants on the top two floors and posted guards in the stairways."

"There's only 45 floors in this building." Messer pointed out.

All eyes turned to Ruzek who coughed and then blinked really hard. "What's so important about what floor we're on?"

"Ross, why did you ask? But Ruzek, we're coming back to you later." Reagan shot a hard look at the fidgeting CPD detective.

"Because, uh, sir, you were the last one on and then the lights shut off so we freefell from floor 33 until the counterbalance reached the cushions. That caused the sudden stop which I know knocked me around pretty good." Adam gave a tense chuckle.

"Are we safe to move around?" Williams asked.

"It depends if the brake set." Adam was finding himself a bit more comfortable answering technical questions. "It depends on how much damage the hack did."

"Why would a hacker go after an elevator?" Ruzek shifted carefully.

"They know the hotel is full of cops. They could've found what they were looking for and decided to have some fun or they can't find the information and are taking their frustration out. It could even be boredom." Adam shrugged.

Messer tapped at his phone. "I texted Mac, figured he was faster than calling 911."

"Great. Trapped in an elevator in Philly thanks to a bored basement troll." Reagan sighed.

"Why, got somewhere you need to be, princess?" Williams joked.

Reagan's face darkened. "No. I'm good."

"I'm not. Guys, honestly, I'm not a huge fan of small spaces." Ruzek rolled to his side, shifting his legs. "Anything we can do to get out of here faster?"

Four sets of eyes turned to Adam who could only gulp and shake his head.

A/N: Anyone else notice the plethora of Dannys on cop shows? I did, and thanks to all of them this story will be updated montly-ish.