A/N: See, I'm not that mean. I didn't make you guys wait too long (which you should probably thank my beta Aislinn for since she likes to kick my butt from all the way on the other side of the country if I slack off...). Thanks for all the awesome reviews, btw! You guys rock!
"Clay, Aisha, we gotta get him out of there, now!" Pooch yells into his comm., breaking himself out his shock.
"Hold on Pooch, I'm coming," Clay orders, the urgency in Pooch's tone sending him down the hall at a dead sprint. He hardly takes notice of two soldiers running past him, dispatching them as quickly as their realization sets in that he shouldn't be there.
"Fuck!" Aisha yells as she continues to create havoc with the lights, alarms, and doors in the building. "Clay, I'm coming out!"
"No," he tells her sternly. "Remember what Jensen said, that lab door won't stay open unless you hold it."
She punches a fist into the side of the nook she's tucked away in, denting the metal. "If that little shit dies, you better save some of Max's hide for me."
"And me," Cougar growls, his finger twitching on the trigger of his rifle as he waits for his chance to reap his own vengeance.
Inside the lab, Max has his fingers in his ears and he lets out an annoyed huff. "My god, all the screaming and the sirens, it's going to…yes…yes, I think I feel a migraine coming on. Gentlemen, is there something we can do about all the NOISE!"
"Sorry, sir," the injured scientist working on the computer cringes, "but it appears someone is overriding the system. Until they're caught, there's nothing I can do about the sirens."
"Useless, I'm surrounded by useless idiots." Max looks at the man writhing in agony on the chair, his screams increasing in volume. "I suppose I can solve this problem, myself."
He pulls out his gun and points it at Jensen's chest, then cocks his head as he sees the blood dripping from the hacker's palms around embedded fingernails. A slight smirk tugs at his lips before it's wiped away by another ear-piercing scream, causing him to cringe against the sound. Sighing, he puts the gun away and yanks the tie from around the neck of the scientist manning the machine, stuffing it down into Jensen's open mouth.
"There, that's better," he grins as the makeshift gag transforms the screams into muffled cries.
Pooch slams a fist against the window. "Can't you cut the power in that room?" he asks desperately.
"Jensen told me not to," Aisha snaps at him. "Said it might short circuit the nanobots or some shit like that."
"Then, dammit Clay, hurry your ass up," Pooch urges.
"Almost there," the Colonel informs him as he takes down another soldier who is unlucky enough to cross his path. He turns a corner and races up behind Pooch, tapping on his shoulder without stopping as he rushes towards the door. "Get it open!" he orders.
"About damn time," Aisha grumbles as she punches in the code Jensen had given her, keeping her fingers pressed firmly against all four buttons.
Max and the two scientists spin around as the lab door slides open and they find themselves looking down the barrels of twin pistols.
"Whoa!" Max starts, throwing his hands up. "You don't want to kill us, Clay," he glares at the two scientists, "who was supposed to be dead. You take us out and there won't be anyone to turn off our lovely machine, here."
Clay looks down at Jensen's struggling form, the young man's back arching against the restraints with blood pooling on the floor beneath his hands. The Colonel barely notices the agonized sobs as he takes in the sight of his soldier's face, a steady stream of red spilling out from the man's eyes, nose, and ears as bolts of electricity shoot into them from the nodes on the metal mask. At a closer look, Clay's eyes widen as he realizes his mistake – the lightening isn't running from the machine to Jensen, but the other way around.
"Turn it off!" he shouts.
The man in the chair jumps and turns back to the console, his fingers flying across the keyboard. With a couple short pops and fizzles, the electricity stops firing from within the hacker and his body slumps back into the chair. Another second later all the lights in the room go out.
"Shit!" Pooch shouts, dropping to the ground as he fires in Max's general direction. "Aisha, what are you doing?"
"Holding the door open, what do you think I'm doing?" she snarls.
A chair crashes to the ground and Pooch hears a struggle and then a panicked squeak.
"Turn the lights back on," Clay orders, his voice low and deadly.
"I can't, I can't from here," a shaky voice stammers out. "I ordered the system's security shutdown procedures to fire. You have to turn it back on from the outside."
Pooch smiles when he hears the man cry out in pain again, but then turns concerned eyes towards the exit when he hears footsteps coming down the hall – a lot of them.
"Clay, we're about to have company," he warns.
"Let go of the door, this is gonna take longer than we thought," the Colonel orders and they hear the door slide shut into place, leaving them in complete blackness. "I've got someone on the outside hacking into your systems. You are going to tell her exactly how to turn the lights and that computer back on. Got it?" His voice is almost friendly as he speaks, which serves to terrify the injured scientist even more.
Cougar's voice interrupts Clay's threats. "Labcoat coming out," he informs them.
"Shoot him," Clay, Pooch, and Aisha say at the same time.
"But don't kill him," Pooch adds. "I've got a score to settle with that one."
Cougar does as told, taking out both of the scientist's legs and watching him crumble to the ground. The soldiers outside the building immediately take cover, firing randomly into the trees. Their shots fall well short of the range of the sniper's rifle and he pastes on an evil smile as finally gets his chance to take down some prey.
"When the fuck do I get to shoot somebody?" Aisha grumbles as she awaits further instruction. It only takes another second before an unfamiliar voice comes through on the comm.
"Um, hello?" the frightened scientist calls tentatively.
She grins. "Alright, dipshit, hurry up and tell me what I need to do so I can get the hell out of here, then maybe by the time I get to you I won't kill your dumb ass."
Instructions begin to pour faster into her ear and she quickly complies.
While the scientist babbles away numbers from his position in the corner, Clay and Pooch feel their way around the machine hovering above Jensen's head. It folds back out of the way easily enough and Pooch shoves it harshly up against the wall while Clay gently pulls the tie out of the hacker's mouth. The lights suddenly flip back on, blinding everyone in the room for a second before their eyes adjust; and when they do, the men get their first full glimpse of the damage inflicted on their young friend. Random muscles on his body twitch convulsively here and there, his face and neck covered in blood, his breathing coming out in ragged little gasps, and his pain-glazed eyes staring up at nothing.
Clay reaches out a hand and lays it gently on Jensen's forehead, his face a mask of concern, anger, and utter sadness. Pooch steps up beside him and begins to unbuckle the many straps now useless in their purpose. It's obvious that the man in the chair isn't going anywhere on his own any time soon.
"You think he knew?" Pooch asks quietly as he works.
Clay shuts his eyes and swallows, nodding his head. "Yeah, he knew. Damn idiot knew exactly what he was walking into."
He pulls away from Jensen abruptly and stalks over to the scientist huddled in the corner. With no emotion at all crossing his features he turns his gun around and hits the man hard across the face, sending him into temporary oblivion. Bending down he yanks his comm. out of the man's slack hands and shoves it back in his ear.
"Clay?" Aisha asks, a tinge of concern actually coming through in her voice.
"He's alive, but he's out. We're stuck here until he comes to enough to take care of this damn virus." He turns angrily at the door as the soldiers on the outside slam against it.
"Want me to clear the air a little for you boys?" Aisha offers.
"Thought you'd never ask," Clay grins. "And Aisha? Just thought you'd like to know that Max is running around out there somewhere, too."
"Is that so?" she says with a sardonic grin, moving through the hall and emptying an entire clip in a matter of seconds.