CHAPTER 6
Not Good
(Matherne's home)
"Is this really necessary?" Matherne frowned. "The break-in was at the office, not here."
"You have a company laptop, right?" Walter spoke up from behind Paige.
"Yes but…"
"Then we need to look at it to determine if there is an additional risk. The company's Consent and Acknowledgement form covers all of this." Toby took a step closer to Matherne.
Paige noticed the tired and mostly bewildered look on Matherne's face as he stepped back to let them in.
"Uhm, my home office is right this way." He led them down the hall to a set of small French doors.
He reached into his pocket and with a jingle pulled out a set of keys. He unlocked the door and went to his desk where he unlocked a drawer and pulled out his laptop. He set the laptop on the desk and with a nervous glance at everyone watching him he typed in his password.
"We'll need you to unlock your personal computer as well." Walter pulled a tablet out of his bag and waited until Matherne moved away from the desk before he took a seat in front of the screens.
"This may take a while." Parker smile and turned a little toward the door that they'd all come through.
"That's fine." Paige arched an eyebrow at Matherne like he was misbehaving. "We need to talk for a moment anyway."
Matherne looked at Walter and Parker. "If there's anything else you need, please let me know." He gestured for Paige and Toby to follow him.
It wasn't until they'd walked back down the hall toward a living room area that Paige noticed Quinn standing just inside the front door. She hadn't noticed he was missing until just then. The way that he stood invited people not to notice him and somehow warned people away from approaching him as well. It was a much colder aspect than what she'd seen in the garage.
"Right this way Ms…" Matherne gestured Paige into the living room.
"Franklin." Paige responded absently. "You can call me Ms. Franklin." She was already feeling a little like her mother doing this job, so she didn't see any reason not to use one of her aliases.
"Can I get you folks anything to drink?"
"That would be nice." Toby answered. "Anything you have on hand will be fine."
Matherne walked to his liquor cabinet but checked his watch and turned for the kitchen. It was an open floor plan, so they were able to watch him as he turned the stove on under the kettle.
"You can ask me whatever questions you need to. This might take a minute."
Toby whispered to Paige and via the earbuds the rest of the team. "He's not displaying any markers of a man that's about to be caught hacking multiple banks. His body language is way off."
"Mr. Matherne, what can you tell us about the break-in at your office last night." Paige scowled at him.
"Nothing really." He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I didn't know about it until the police called me. And they didn't really tell me anything. Mr. Layhern, my boss, called me and told me to stay home today and that the board would be in touch. I'm guessing that's why you're here?"
"Something like that." Toby leaned back a little in his chair and crossed an ankle over his knee.
"Ask him about the wear pattern on the carpet in front of his credenza at the office." Parker instructed over the earbuds.
"Do you have any idea what the thieves would have been looking for in your office specifically?" Paige asked as she accepted a cup of tea that she had no intention of drinking.
"No." Matherne handed a cup and saucer to Toby before he sat on a chair opposite them. "I haven't handled anything that would have anyone this upset. I haven't received any threats of any kind. And no, I haven't been freelancing on company time."
Paige watched as the man seemed to sink into himself. "The police noticed wear marks on the carpet in your office. Can you explain that?"
"Really? You want to talk about the carpet in my office?" Matherne leaned forward. "Fine. You can check the work request I turned in two months ago. John Caldwell had the office before me and when I moved into that office, I noticed the mark on the floor. I turned in a work request, but no one has gotten around to it yet."
"We aren't finding anything on his computer to show that he's involved." Walter updated everyone as he started packing up his equipment.
"He doesn't have any kind of external drive at all and no safe in his office either." Parker sounded disappointed.
"Wrap it up guys. We've got company coming down the driveway now." Quinn had been keeping an eye on their exit.
Walter and Parker hurried to the living room.
"You didn't find anything?" Paige looked up at them.
"No. Mr. Matherne is clear." Walter smiled politely.
Paige and Toby both rose from their seats and shook Matherne's hand.
"Thank you for your time today." Paige smiled as they all moved to the door.
"Guys, something is going wrong with the other team." Sly's voice came across the earbuds.
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(Building complex basement)
"It's okay let's not panic." Cabe's voice was still calm and reasonable. "We don't know that anything is really wrong."
Eliot could hear the tromp of boots in the hallway. "I think we're about to have company."
"Fine. Whoever's coming can let us out and then we'll see about the power." Cabe started to move blindly toward the door.
"I don't think they're here to help." Eliot put a hand on Cabe's chest to stop him from getting any closer to the door. "Hardison, do you have security footage from just before the power went down?"
"Already on it." The glow of Hardison's tablet screen lit up the small room. "Looks like the head of security got a fax and a phone call right after we got to the front desk."
"And what does that mean?" Happy scowled.
Hardison turned his tablet around so that they could see the image. There was a wanted poster that had Eliot's picture on it.
Eliot frowned. "That wasn't a legit poster the first time we saw it. How'd it end up here?" Eliot's frustration was clear in his tone.
Hardison shrugged.
"So we're blown." Eliot growled and looked back at the door to the hallway.
"The wanted poster was an internal fax. It's not from the police." Hardison tapped a few more times at his tablet.
"Well, that changes things a little doesn't it?" Cabe smiled like he was preparing for trouble.
"If we get out of here now, will you be able to do your thing later or somewhere else?" Eliot looked at Hardison.
"No." Hardison shook his head. "I don't think we'll get a second chance at this."
"Alright then." Eliot nodded. "Cabe, you stay with Hardison. Happy you're with me. I'm going to clear the hall and then you and I will get the power back on. Wait 'til I give you the all clear."
"That door is locked." Cabe mentioned with an arched eyebrow.
Eliot kicked hard right next to the door handle. They could all hear the wood snap and crack. Before the door stopped shuddering from the force of the blow Eliot reached forward and yanked the door handle toward them. With another snap of splintering wood, the entire mechanism came loose, and Eliot dropped the mess of bent metal and splintered wood to the side. "It's not locked anymore." Eliot stepped into the hall closing what was left of the door behind him.
"Yall might want to step back here while Eliot does his thing." Hardison winced at the sound of someone getting hit hard.
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(Leaving Matherne's home)
"What do you mean something's going wrong?" Parker demanded as she hustled everyone back to the town car.
"The power is out and there's a wanted poster and … I don't know just wrong." Sylvester stammered.
"Let me hear them." Parker needed to hear for herself what was going on instead of waiting on Sly to give her information. She held a hand up and Quinn tossed her the keys.
Walter held the door for Paige who hurried into the middle of the backseat. Walter quickly followed Paige in, and Toby jogged around to the other side.
"You should buckle up and close your eyes." Quinn looked at Paige, Walter, and Toby in the back seat. He tightened his own seatbelt as Parker started the car.
Parker sped past the two cars that were pulling slowly up the drive. "Hardison, what's happening?"
"We were trapped in the server room with no power but…" Hardison paused as the sound of breaking bone was broadcast from Eliot's earbud to the rest of them. "Yah, we're not trapped exactly but I think Eliot still has a couple of guys to work through."
"Clear." Eliot called with a grunt.
"Or not." Hardison chuckled.
"Are you guys on your way out?" Parker asked.
"No. Hardison still hasn't done his thing yet." Eliot grunted as he hit someone again.
"We've got to get the power back on so that Hardison can access the servers." Happy clarified.
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(Building complex basement)
Happy took a look into the hallway using the flashlight on her phone. She flinched when the light reflected off of Eliot's eyes like a cat's. "Whoa." Happy shown her light over at least eight security guards that were laying in various combinations of broken and unconscious.
Eliot waved her closer. "Come on. Let's see about that generator." Eliot took a left at the T in the hallway.
"You know where you're going?" Happy followed Eliot into the maze of dark hallways and she felt goosebumps prickle across her arms when she thought about how his eyes had reflected the light in that split second.
"Yep. Studied the layout before we came." Eliot could smell Happy's nervousness over the situation tipping toward fear and he supposed that was a normal reaction to following a guy like him through dark corridors. He used an arm to keep Happy behind him as they moved down the hall. Her pace and been picking up in time with her building fear.
"What's it going to take to make it clear to you that I don't need your protection?" Happy growled at him. She felt much more comfortable pretending to be mad than she did admitting to herself that she was scared.
"I ain't protecting you."
Happy glared at his outstretched arm in front of her.
They found the generator just where Eliot knew it would be. "Where do you want to start?" Eliot looked over his shoulder at her and squinted when she flashed the light in his face again.
She'd purposely fumbled with the light and watched to be sure this time that his eyes really did reflect the light. She swallowed hard. She gave herself a little shake to get her mind back on task. "Start with the obvious." Happy rolled her eyes. Working with a non-genius was always so frustrating. "Make sure everything is hooked up like it should be and turn it on."
Eliot snorted. "Yah, well you're the mechanical prodigy. Tell me if I'm wrong but doesn't that cable need to be attached to something?" Eliot pointed to the huge cable running from the generator toward the wall of breaker-boxes. The cable had obviously been cut.
Happy hurried over to the cable to see if she could repair the damage. "Whoever the moron of an engineer was that put this together didn't leave any extra cable at all. Even if I could splice it; and I can't without the right tools, the cable will be too short."
Eliot saw her eyeing the generator in a speculative way. "Don't even think about it. Busting through that door back there would look like a child's party trick next to moving this thing." Eliot estimated the generator to weigh in at over five tons. He'd need Hardison and probably Quinn as well to move the generator and that wasn't something they'd be doing around Scorpion.
"Happy, There's a two-forty outlet on the other side of the generator. Depending on where they cut it maybe you could reach that." Sly offered.
Happy hurried around to the other side of the generator. "Yah, I think that will work." She looked underneath the generator and knew that she would have enough cable to reach the outlet. "Eliot, can you feed the cable under the generator?"
Eliot grabbed the cut end of the cable and drug it to the generator. He started pushing the cable toward Happy. As the cable snaked its way across the cement floor the rubber casing started to tear and snag. Happy could see the cable but it was at least a foot away from her grasping fingers.
"It's stuck and I can't reach it!" Happy slammed a fist against the ground in frustration.
"I saw a big wrench near a service panel. I'll be right back." Eliot hopped up and jogged down the dark hallway.
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(Driving across town)
Quinn glanced at the speedometer as Parker took a corner at a speed that threatened to tilt the car up onto two wheels. "I'm sure it won't matter to you but the speed limit here is only twenty miles an hour."
Paige had a death grip on her seatbelt and looked like she might be sick. "Where did you learn to drive?!"
"I was a getaway driver when I was ten." Parker smiled with a glint in her eyes as she whipped around a bus and dodged a minivan.
"Babe, we're okay." Hardison's voice came across the earbuds. "Don't get hurt getting here."
"I'm being very careful." She gripped the wheel a little harder as she drifted through an intersection.
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(Building complex basement)
Eliot had to go past the intersection in the hallway to get the wrench. He'd just picked up the wrench when he heard a quick footstep behind him. He turned in time to see someone big turn the corner into the generator room. He supposed it was a maintenance man and hoped that he'd come down the stairwell that was between there and the server room. It would be hard to explain their way out of several beaten security guards.
He was jogging down the hall when he heard Happy scream. He sprinted the last few yards and was there in time to see the man make a grab for Happy. "Hey!" Eliot yelled and threw the wrench when the guy turned to look at him.
The man dodged and the wrench struck a glancing blow to the man's shoulder. Eliot and this new assailant started to exchange blows. He didn't know if the name tag on the guy's shirt was correct or not but the white patch on the dark uniform shirt caught his attention. Joey was stitched in a cursive font on the patch. Eliot blocked a jab from the man's right but couldn't block the jab from the man's left and it rocked Eliot's head back. Eliot smiled and licked the blood off of his lip. He curled his hands in a 'come on' gesture and waited.
Joey lunged forward with an upper cut and a right cross. Both failed to connect, and Eliot smiled. In the dark hallway he'd taken out the guards as fast as possible since there wasn't anyone to see. But here the room was lit by Happy's flashlight and not only Joey would see him, but probably Happy too. So, he slowed down to a more human speed. He his reflexes and his speed were still there but something about the restraint of humanly-possible always made a fight feel more like a dance. Bob and weave, duck and spin, block and jab. They were all familiar moves, but performed slowly, giving the other person time to respond.
Happy could see the giant monkey wrench laying near the corner of the room and she decided to take advantage of the fight and make a grab for it.
Eliot hoped it wasn't his face that had given Happy away, but he knew he'd looked her direction when he'd heard her scramble for the wrench. Either way Joey used that second of distraction to hit Eliot hard in the diaphragm.
Joey turned away from the fight and managed to beat Happy to the wrench by a split second. He shoved her shoulder rolling her back as he picked up the wrench.
Eliot couldn't help it, he'd dropped when the air had been driven out of him. Being a werewolf helped with a lot of things, but it couldn't stop his body's natural reaction to being hit the right way. Staggering to his feet he tried to hurry to close the distance between him and Joey. When he saw Joey lining up to hit Happy with the wrench, he pushed for werewolf speed since it was his only chance at saving Happy.
Happy made it to her feet just in time to see the man line up to swing at her with the wrench. The traditional fight or flight reflex abandoned her, and she was left frozen watching as the wrench came right toward her. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere Eliot appeared between her and the wrench. She could hear the sound as the wrench drove into Eliot and the odd pained sound that he made as he dropped to the floor, curled around the wrench.
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(Driving across town)
Toby noticed the simultaneous pained looks on Parker and Quinn's faces. They'd all been able to hear the sounds of the fight and they'd heard Happy whisper her intention to get the wrench while Eliot kept some goon busy. And while the pained sound that Eliot had made, had been something they'd all reacted to with some level of sympathy or concern the reactions Toby observed from Parker and Quinn were more intense and intimate than made sense to him.
Parker put a hand low on her belly for a second before she stomped on the gas gunning the engine. Quinn nodded at her and laid a hand on her shoulder. A moment later they both looked a little pale and both breathed shallowly for a few breaths.
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(Building complex basement, server room)
Cabe had flinched a little now and again as he listened to the sounds of the fight. The pained sound Eliot made had Cabe starting to move for the door, but he noticed the sudden ashen cast to Hardison's face and the way the man was gripping his belly.
"You okay son?" Cabe set a hand on Hardison's shoulder.
Hardison nodded. "Yah, yah, I'm fine." He straightened up breathing carefully for a moment.
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(Building complex basement, generator room)
Happy looked up to see the violent intent in Joey's eyes and she started to take a step back. Eliot slumped a little to the side and Happy sprang forward grabbing the wrench. She swung up and away like a golfer and caught Joey under the chin. The man dropped like a sack of rocks.
Happy bent down and ran quick hands over Eliot. "Toby! Toby, I think Eliot's really hurt."
"Where was he hit?"
"Low in the abdomen." Happy tried to roll Eliot to his back but he resisted her and curled a little more tightly. "He was hit hard with a nineteen-pound pipe wrench."
"You could be looking at internal hemorrhaging even a shattered pelvis. Is he conscious?"
"Conscious enough that he doesn't want me to touch him."
"So internal bleeding is still likely, but a hemorrhage would have already left him unconscious."
" 'm okay." Eliot moaned. "Gimme a minute."
"No, you're not okay. You are in shock. You need to hold still. Any movement could make the bleeding worse." Toby did his best to sound calming and authoritative.
"Uhm, Doc, he's not listening to you." Happy tried not to panic as she watched Eliot turn and push up to hands and knees. "Hey pal, you should listen to Toby. He knows what he's talking about." Happy set a hand on Eliot's shoulder.
Eliot could feel Happy touching him and his wolf wanted to growl at her. "Dammit Happy. Just fix the generator." Eliot felt a sudden pain and spasm, and couldn't help it as his body jerked tight for a moment, and he puked. He coughed and spit trying to rid himself of the taste of his own blood and bile.
He felt Happy's cool fingers on the back of his neck and something about the sensation set off the pain in his belly again and he heaved, but there was nothing left to come up. "Dammit, just fix the generator!" He couldn't help the growly pained tone to his words. Something inside was very wrong and his wolf was drawing hard on his pack. Between the pain of the injury and the way his wolf was relying on his pack Eliot felt vulnerable and weak. He needed a little space while his control was feeling so shaky.
"Alright." Happy stood up with a frown.
"Happy, he's right we need you to fix the generator. Once you've got power restored, we can get him to a hospital." Cabe encouraged Happy.
Everyone could hear a low growl rumble over the earbuds but none of the Scorpion team could tell whom or what was making the sound.
Parker used her control of the bonds to pull power from Hardison and Quinn and push it to Eliot. His wolf had been drawing on the pack and Eliot was trying to slow that down, but it left him fighting his wolf and the pain of his injury and Parker was afraid it might cause him to shift.
Happy took the wrench and went back to the generator. Laying on her belly she reached under the generator with her wrench and caught the end of the cable and with a yank she was able to reach the cable and drag it out from under the generator.
She tried to pull the rubber sheathing back with her fingers, but she was making no progress. She patted her pockets and was shocked to find no pocketknife or multi-tool. She thought back over her morning; she'd felt sick earlier that morning and having puked for no reason she'd felt foggy afterwards. She realized she must have forgotten to pick up the last of her things when she'd left the apartment.
"Happy. Happy." Eliot called. He'd scooted around so that he was sitting with his back pressed against the wall. He tried to pull the knife out of his pocket, but his fingers weren't cooperating. "Knife. Left front pocket."
Happy reached carefully trying not to touch Eliot's belly as she pulled the small steel pocket knife out of his pants.
She went back to the cable and cut the rubber sheathing and insulation away exposing the wires. She used the wrench to twist the wires together so that she ended up with two hots and a ground. She used the back of the wrench as a hammer and flattened the ends of the wires. She tried to shove the wires into the slots of the outlet, but she couldn't get them far enough into the outlet to make contact inside.
Eliot's warm calloused hand slipped over top of hers. "Here let me." He gave her a closed mouth grin, so that she wouldn't see his teeth looking less than human, and nodded his head toward the generator. "See if you can get this thing running." With grunt and a shove Eliot forced the wires into place. That last push of power that Parker had sent had made the difference and his wolf wasn't in such a panic anymore. The wolf was still drawing on the pack, but it didn't feel as desperate. Eliot still felt shaky, so he leaned back against the cool wall.
A moment later they all heard the rumble turn to a roar as the generator came to life.
Happy held a hand over the ear that had the earbud in it as she yelled over the noise. "I'm backfeeding power into the system. It means that We've bypassed the breakers and there's nothing regulating the power."
"Hardison, you need to hurry. That kind of unstable power flux could overheat the servers." Walter advised.
