6. What Can I Say, The Job Pays – alt!Lincoln - "This is It" by Simple Minds
The wind swirls overhead, objects clanging against each other in a tighter spiral towards the epicenter. He ducks down a split-second before a street sign is flung at his head and revels in the burn of his lungs as he runs toward the event.
Civilians are screaming and fleeing like their lives depend on it. It does, but it also depends on him and his team. He's heard it described as certain death, a job with an expiration date come too soon, but if that's true he's cheating death on a daily basis and he's never felt better for it.
He slides down low now, as close to the disturbance as he dares and presses a kiss to the metal of a dollar coin – his good luck charm - before depositing the canister over it. Then comes the stabilising unit to top it off, securing it to the ground in the midst of the gale.
This is it. 60 seconds to get clear, possibly less if the vortex grows faster than predicted but he trusts Farnsworth's calculations. He sprints out of the zone, clearing it with 6 seconds to go.
"You owe me twenty bucks Charlie," he wheezes as the amber disperses, "Didn't even have to skimp on paying my graces to Nixon this time."
"Don't brag. 1 second more and that'd be my twenty bucks you'd be handing over."
He stares at the amber that rapidly grows within arm's reach and knows how close he came to being immortalised inside it. These days he only really feels alive with that knowledge. It makes surviving all the sweeter.