A/N Here we go...


Harry's finger stabbed down on the button marked No, disconnecting the call before he heard anything more. "Grimes!" He stalked away from the desk to the back room.


Outside, in the bad guys' van...

"You all know your assigned positions," said Decker. "Let's make this happen."

They left the van in pairs. Delgado and Gruber, followed by Laszlo and Thing. Sasha had her own assignment, with Vincent and Decker himself bringing up the rear. In clumps they moved in on the Buy More, and Bartowski somewhere inside.


Outside, in the good guys' car...

"Crap," said Rye. "Seven of them. Call Graham."

"Why?" said Anna, checking her tranq pistol. In a crowded store they didn't dare carry any heavier artillery. "You know what he'll say."

"Live to fight another day?"

"In person, maybe," scoffed Anna. "Over the phone, everything on record? Nope. We do our jobs."

"Nice knowing you," said Rye, making sure his own tranq pistol was ready. "We'll take the four. No matter what happens to us Bartowski can handle the rest."

They opened their doors together.


Inside the Buy More...

Jeff saw them first. Feds. He could tell a Fed from a mile away, and here four of them just walked into the store. He grabbed the store intercom and shouted one word, before he ran to the break room.


Thing and Mahnofsky had barely cleared the doors before they heard the word shouted over the store speaker system, "Pineapple!" Obviously a code, but not a code they knew.

The green shirted employees knew it, though, herding the customers toward the doors, and them. They were being attacked! No. The store was being evacuated, the noncombatants being moved out of the fire zone. Good, the fewer casualties the better.

"Follow him," said Gruber, spotting a guy in a white shirt running to the rear of the store. They fought their way through the mob as Jeff disappeared through the swinging doors.


Inside the Home Theater room...

Sarah peeked out from between the louvered drapes of the Home Theater room, to see the crowds moving toward the front of the store. "What's pineapple?" she asked, as Chuck worked over the phone, kneeling by the low table while Morgan practiced his work-avoidance skills.

"It's the store emergency code," said Morgan, knowing Chuck was too deep into his work to say anything. He got off the couch. "I'd better go out and see what's happening." He checked the curtains first, and unlocked the door when no one was around.

Sarah locked it after he slipped out. With two doors to watch, she took up a stance in between, a knife in each hand.

"Sarah?"

"Keep working, Chuck," she said. "No one and nothing will be allowed to harm you."


Outside the building, agents Wu and Rye ducked down behind some cars as the bad guys still outside broke left and right to avoid the crowd of customers and employees streaming out of the store. They moved around the crowd in time to see their targets slip inside the hopefully-empty building, and ran after them.


Jeff ran into the break room in a panic. He opened the refrigerator and grabbed a sealed lunch container, dumping its contents in the sink. From his locker he took his supplies, a big bottle of ether-took one quick hit right out of the bottle, managing to not close it quite enough-and some other items with interesting chemical properties but no resale value. He threw them all into the container, sealed it up again, and threw it into the garbage can as he raced out the other door to the loading dock.


Sasha, looking for Lester at the Nerd Herd desk, saw a white-shirted form run out one door and into another. Tommy and Gruber went into the room, with their backup outside. She followed the man, giving the glass door with the louver drapes a tug, but it was locked.


Anna and Jim came up to the Nerd Herd desk, watching their targets at the doorway, two inside with two waiting outside. Jim spotted the other door down a cross-aisle and motioned his partner toward it while he threw a stapler across the room to distract the watchers. In the aisle, they took up stations on either side of the door. Rye looked in the little window, and held up two fingers. Anna held up three, counting down slowly. On one, they kicked it open, getting the drop on the two bad guy spies, who already had their guns out, so it was a four-way standoff. "Ah, ah," said Rye, a finger to his lips.

Behind the bad guys, the garbage can rocked a bit.


Decker and Vincent ducked behind the checkout counter as Harry Tang stalked out of the back room. "Who said pineapple?" he snarled. "Jeff?" He tugged on the glass door to the Home Theater room but it was locked. He moved further into the store. "Grimes? Where is everybody?"

In his wake, Decker and Vincent crept ever closer to the back room.


Bang!

The sealed container in the garbage can exploded, spewing ether-scented fumes, but no one noticed. Jim fired at Gruber, Tommy fired at Jim, and Anna fired on Tommy, leaving Anna the last, and shortest, agent standing, until the fumes got to her and she sank to her knees. The other two bad guys ran in the other door, spotting everyone down, and stood puzzling over it a little too long. Anna, hidden beneath a table and out of the fumes, shot them in the legs and listened to them fall. She crawled toward the door behind her, and fresher air. Outside she saw a switch for a heavy-duty ventilator conveniently set at just the right height for someone crawling out of the room, and turned it on high. She sat back against the wall, breathing deeply.


Harry Tang ran into the break room by the nearest door, stopping when he saw all the fallen agents, guns drawn. "Um…" No one jumped out at him. No recorders clumsily hidden.

He stepped back out of the room, letting the door swing. After a second it swung open again, as he took another look.


"Lester!" shouted Jeff as he spotted his partner in grime in the Nerd Herd cage, working on his program.

"Is doing nothing too much to ask of you?" said Lester. "You can't just shout 'pineapple' for the fun of it. Did anybody listen this time?"

"Feds, Lester," said Jeff. "The store's been invaded." He jumped with a shout as Sasha came up behind him.

"Jeffery, Jeffery, this is Sasha-Bitch, I mean Lazer-Sasha," said Lester. "She's not a Fed."

Sasha shrugged. "Well, technically..."

"She's not?" said Jeff.

"Of course not," said Lester. "You played against her last night. She cosplays as LazerBitch herself."

Jeff focused his bleary, leery gaze on her. "I cosplay as Colonel Dread." He drew himself up to the character's usual stance, minus the flowing hair or six-pack abs.

Sasha's eyes went wide. "Now wait a minute..."

Jeff pulled her into a firm embrace, pressing his lips against hers.

"Hm-hmm! Hm-hmm-hm," said Sasha, her arms working spasmodically, desperately seeking her freedom. "Hmm-hmmmm," she hummed, her hands going limp. Her body slumped in his arms. "Hmm-hmmm-hmmmmm-hm-hmmmmm."

"That's new," said Lester, as she became still. "Usually they vomit."

"I tried mixing some ether with my toothpaste," said Jeff. "It didn't seem like it did anything."

Lester slapped him on the shoulder. "You are a man among men, my friend."

Jeff looked down at her. "What do we do with her now?"

"What would Colonel Dread do at a time like this?"

Jeff pondered. "Carry her off?"

"Exactly," said Lester. "And I will help you, even though it's out of character, because, uh, legs! Even a man among men needs help with the damsel's legs."

"Thanks, Lester," said Jeff, shifting his grip. "Loretta-I mean, my roving battlestation is out back."


Harry Tang ambled toward Big Mike's office, wandering down the aisle in a daze. As he neared the door it opened, and Morgan Grimes came barreling out, nearly running into Harry. "Terribly sorry, quite all right, not at all," said the two men in unison, before they were even aware of who they were talking to.

"Today's not a good day, Harry," said Morgan. "Tomorrow's not looking much better." He pushed past.

Harry turned around. "There are five dead men in the break room."

Morgan came back around. "What?"

"I was looking for you," said Harry in a strange monotone. "I was going to shoot you, but I don't have a gun. So then I thought about firing you, but I don't have that authority. Then I thought about making you eat all the leftovers in the refrigerator, but there were five dead men in there." He could see doubt in Morgan's expression. "Go and see."

Morgan went to see. "You do know Jeff eats everything that's left in the refrigerator more than a week, right?"

Harry followed. "I know that you've been making a fool of me behind my back. You and my wife, in that delivery truck. I would have thought that beneath even you."

"But I didn't..."

"Get in there, Grimes."

Morgan went in. The room was empty, the tables and chairs in their usual state of disarray.

"Okay. What am I looking at?"

Harry peaked in. "I don't understand. There was an explosion."

"An explosion?"

"I heard it."

"Sure you did, Harry." Morgan nodded agreeably. "Like you heard me and Poppy in a truck yesterday. And saw five dead men in here just now."

Harry stared at the floor. "It looks bad, doesn't it?"

"I'm no doctor, but..." Morgan patted Harry's back. "Look. You just sit here, take a load off, maybe get some water. I have to check on something."


In the back room...

"Vincent, are you there?" said Decker into his watch, prowling around in the back room. Lots of shelves and junk, a caged repair station with some kind of program running, but no people. He spotted some drawings, and recognized Sasha.

"Yes, sir," came Vincent's calm steady tones twice, over the earpiece and in person.

"I can't raise anybody else," said Decker. "It's like the building swallowed them. We've only been in here a few seconds."

"We heard the explosion."

"Too small. It's Bartowski. This whole place is a death trap."


Morgan went to the Home Theater room door and started tapping out the Imperial March on the door. The door flew open and a strong hand grabbed him and pulled him inside. "What news?" said Sarah.

"The store's been evacuated," said Morgan, sounding surprised. "Except for Harry."

"Shouldn't they have?" asked Sarah. "You said it's an emergency code."

"Well, yeah, I guess," said Morgan. "It's just that they never have before."

"How often do you use that code?"

"What day of the week is it?"


In the break room...

Harry got up to get some water. The sink looked liked someone had thrown up their lunch in it. "Typical," he muttered, getting a cup. He filled it and drank, but that didn't help. In fact it made things worse, as the sound and feel of running water often does.

He shuffled out the back door and into the bathroom across the hall. He looked at himself in the mirror, but he didn't look deranged, which was encouraging. He pushed open the door to the stall that wasn't broken.

A dead man sat on the toilet.

Harry backed up, letting the door close. He continued backing up, out of one room and back into the other. Settling himself into a chair cautiously.

Morgan came back into the room, moving much to fast. "Hey Harry, I'll be right with you, but first I gotta hit the can." He disappeared out the other door.

Harry listened. No screaming. The sound of water running. Morgan came back into the break room wiping his hands with a paper towel that he threw into the garbage can. "So how are you doing?"

"I'm not well, Grimes. Not well at all."

"You look sick," said Morgan. "Hold on a sec, I have to go check something again."


In the back room...

Vincent considered his boss' suggestion. "There has to be a control station. Manager's office-"

Decker shook his head. "Defensible, but too out of the way. Not easy to see or be seen."

"The Nerd Herd desk? No, too exposed."

"That leaves the Home Theater room we passed. The door was locked."

"Glass walls, probably bullet-proof. Centralized location, good views, plus wired into building security. Defensible."

"According to the building schematics it has two doors. You go that way, click me when you're ready. In a few minutes this will all be over."


Harry held on for a sec, but that was about all he was capable of holding on for. When Morgan didn't instantly return he got up and went after him.

Standing in the hall was an armed man, not dead. Harry froze, until the man twitched the gun, directing him back into the break room. Harry backed up and kept backing up as the man followed him into the room. "Don't sit down," he said in a dead, flat voice, as Harry's legs bumped a chair. "Come closer."

Harry shuffled closer.

"Turn around."

Harry turned around. "Like this?"

"That's fi-"

Blackness swallowed the rest.


Vincent left the unconscious agent where he was, and went back to his assigned position, outside the other door to the glass room. Ignoring the frame, he put a small charge on the glass, as he expected Decker was doing on the other door. He clicked his communicator once.


Inside the Home Theater room...

"Done!" said Chuck. He raised his arms in triumph. "I am invincible!"

Both doors exploded inward, showering them all with pellets of safety glass. Chuck dove for the floor, shoving the phone under the sofa as Sarah had carefully coached him to do. Sarah, seeing a gun pointing toward Chuck, immediately threw a knife toward it, hearing a bellow of pain from the person holding it.

She heard a voice from behind her shout, "Stop!"

Turning, she saw Morgan, his neck held in the firm grip of another man, with a gun pointed at his head. He looked past her at Decker, holding his injured hand. He looked at her, holding a second knife ready to throw. "Who are you?"

Sarah saw the faintest flicker of motion behind him as someone shouted, "Ha!" A booted heel connected with the side of Vincent's head, slamming him sideways and pulling Morgan off his feet. Both men fell but only Morgan sat up. The female half of the pair that been watching over Chuck for the last day stepped over Vincent's legs to take in the whole scene, Chuck in some cover between the sofa and the coffee table, and Sarah standing over him with a knife ready to toss.

Decker went for his gun with his off hand. Sarah saw the motion and spun, kicking the gun from his hands with one foot and following that up with a kick to the side of his head with the other. Decker went down in a crumpled, slightly bloody heap. Sarah came back around to face the only person other than herself still standing.

The agent stopped, raising her empty hands. She jerked a thumb at the body of the man behind her. "What he said. Who the hell are you?"


A/N2 This was a nightmare of pacing. I had no idea up until I was writing it what would happen to anyone. Hopefully it worked. Please tell me it worked.