Scorpion's Demise

almost 50 years earlier, 2015

"The day after… well… the day after the event, Scorpion's team members: Toby, Sly, and Happy showed up at the Garage like usual. But nothing was like it was before…"

The days dragged by and eventually turned into weeks. There were no more silly competitions, friendly barbs tossed back and forth. There weren't even disagreements that blew up into fights and hurt feelings. It was just the four members of the team going through the motions. Nothing was like it was before. And Walter had no idea how to fix it.

Toby was sleeping off a bottle of cheap tequila at his desk while Walter was trying to make the company bank account balance, but even a genius with a 197 IQ can't make money appear out of thin air. After getting an earful from the client where Sly was currently on a job, Walter hung up the phone and settled more comfortably in his chair, just waiting for Sly to return.

When Sly walked nervously into the Garage, Walter stood up. "What the hell, Sly?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Then he flat out refused to leave the Garage for a job again. Scorpion had been hired to calculate the specs needed to maximize utility while minimizing the cost and carbon footprint of a green building. "The company was a 'pet-friendly' workplace, Walter. That should have been our first clue not to take the job! I had to dodge several dogs and one miniature horse just to get to the lead architect's office. Once I was there I encountered the man's Great Pyrenees dog, who licked my face repeatedly. My face, Walter my face!"

Walter's face remained impassive as he spoke. "It was a job, Sly, a good job. We need jobs like that to keep this place afloat. It was just a damn dog's tongue. Nothing was going to happen to you."

"You weren't there. You can't know how disgusting it was. The dog's saliva touched my face and got into my mouth." Sly shuddered at the memory. "It was brimming with pathogens, microbes, and who knows what else!"

"I know what happened," Walter informed him, "The architect called as soon as you left his office and he was extremely offended by your reaction, particularly after he had called off the dog and she had obediently laid down on her dog bed behind his desk for the rest of the meeting."

Sly ignored Walter's words and just continued to slather his hands with antibacterial gel.

At that moment, Happy burst into the Garage cradling fractured knuckles on her right hand.

Walter whirled around to face her. "And what the hell happened to you? You were supposed to be on an easy job, a fabrication factory upgrade."

Happy wasn't in the mood to be chewed out by Walter. "Scumbag grabbed my ass. We had a problem. Problem solved."

"You had a physical altercation with the manufacturing supervisor?"

"If you want to call it that, then I guess the answer is yes. But I like to think of it more as creative conflict resolution." Happy smirked at Toby as he gave her an 'air high five.'

Walter wanted to scream in frustration, did none of them get it? How close to the edge they were? It's almost like none of them actually cared whether or not Scorpion closed its doors. "Did you at least get paid?"

"No."

"This is unacceptable!" Walter yelled. "This is a business and it needs to get paid and it needs its employees to act professionally."

"Maybe he should have acted professionally." Happy shrugged. She turned to look at Walter. "I don't need this headache. I'm headed for my cousin's in Phoenix."

"Fine, go, we'll be just fine without you." Walter snapped. He sat down at his desk, as if the code on the screen in front of him was the most interesting thing he had ever seen, ignoring Happy and the others. Toby and Sly simply watched in silence as she packed up her remaining tools. Most of her good stuff had already been sold to pay the rent, so there wasn't much worth taking.

"She'll be back," he told Toby and Sly as the door to the Garage slammed shut and the sound of her truck starting up in the parking lot overtook the heavy silence in the Garage.

"I doubt it," Toby muttered to no one in particular.

The next morning, Walter was irritated when he realized that there was no Happy or Toby at the Garage.

It wasn't that unusual for Toby to be missing from work. He often didn't even bother to show up most days and when he did, he was still drunk or hungover from his backroom gambling from the night before. Walter was growing more concerned though, he just didn't know what to do about it. Toby was getting more and more reckless, making bigger and bigger bets at the track and any underground poker game he could find. And he didn't always have the cash to cover his losses. He had been beaten badly enough to require medical attention on two separate occasions of which Walter was aware. Walter had been concerned the past few days that Toby was trying to hack Scorpion's corporate bank account and worried that his absence was a sign of further desperation to get his hands on money any way he could.

Walter sat at his computer in the empty garage and placed stronger firewalls and encryptions around the Scorpion's banking logins, he suspected that Toby was close to cracking them, and once that happened he would be gambling with Scorpion's money, not just his own. That scenario would bring Scorpion to financial ruin within a few days. It wasn't as if their money situation wasn't already precarious enough, but that would be the shove off the cliff that would end Scorpion with no hope of rescue.

Several days passed and it became obvious that Happy was gone for good and Toby was avoiding both the Garage and Walter. Sly still came to work, but he refused to speak to Walter. Scorpion was feeling like it was in a death spiral and Walter did the only thing he could think of to do, he hacked into Toby's cell phone and traced him to the local track.

Walter pushed past the crowd of gamblers in line at the window, placing their bets on the horse race that was about to begin. He saw Toby's ridiculous hat at the front of the line. Walter grabbed his friend and pulled him out of the queue, shoving the cash that was on the ledge into his pocket before Toby could lose one more cent.

"Hey, man!" Toby shoved Walter. "Leave me alone, what I do on my personal time is my own damn business."

"It's not your personal time. You're supposed to be at work right now, helping me land a client."

"Helping you? When did your giant ego ever need help?"

Walter made a sound of irritation in the back of his throat. "I'm not going to argue with you about this right now, in front of an audience." He gestured to the crowd that had gathered around them, suddenly less interested in making bets on the next race than in the slow-motion train wreck happening right in front of them. "Come back with me to the Garage. At least we can do this in private."

"Fine." Toby huffed as he pushed past Walter. "It'll be less embarrassing for you that way. No audience to watch me kick your ass."

"Fine by me, though I doubt you'd succeed."

The pair reached the parking lot and Walter started walking toward his car. "Hey, Walt, can I get a ride with you? I can't seem to remember where I parked."

Walter sighed. "Sure. Some genius you are."

"What did you say?"

Toby and Walter argued the entire drive back to the Garage. They barely took a breath as they entered the main work area and neither one of them noticed Sly sitting at his desk, hands over his ears, rocking back and forth as the two former best friends hurled one insult after another.

Walter was just done fighting with Toby. Even when he won, he didn't win. "I'm so sick of watching you and this self-destructive behavior! I'm not going to keep bailing you out of jail. I'm done with paying off your gambling debts, and making excuses for you to clients. You are going to have to figure your own mess out. I'm done!"

"Fine!" Toby hurled the syllable at Walter like it was a grenade and picked up one of his medical textbooks to read.

"Fine." Walter turned to his computer, studiously ignoring Toby as he sat down to work on a coding project he was doing on the side to keep his own sanity.

Neither man noticed Sly, who had taken in the entire exchange with wide and frightened eyes.

They also didn't notice Sly pack up a few items from his desk, his laptop, hand sanitizer, and silently walk out of the Garage to the bus stop, never looking back.

The next morning, there was no Sly or Toby, but Walter didn't notice their absence, he had gone down the rabbit hole with a new hypothesis to help him find the identity of the woman he dreamt of nightly, always the same dream. Several days passed before Walter emerged from his mind enough to wonder where they were.

Walter had a decent idea of where Toby was, but Sly's absence was disturbing and uncharacteristic. Walter tried to track him down. He called Sly's cell phone, but the number had been disconnected. He was unable to track Sly's phone, as it appeared Sly had removed the SIM card. He went to Sly's apartment, but it had been cleared out of personal items with no forwarding address and his landlord had no idea where he had gone.

Returning to the Garage, Walter did a cursory search for Sly online but was unable to easily find him. Walter considered digging deeper, but he ultimately decided not to keep going. Sly was good, almost as good as Walter, at covering his tracks online and he obviously didn't want to be found. Walter decided he would honor his friend's wishes and let him go. Walter understood, failing at saving the planes was messing with his head too. Walter mentally wished Sly the best and turned his attention to more pressing matters.

When another morning had come and gone with no sign of Toby, Walter decided to search for him one last time. He found Toby, hungover, with a black eye and a split lip in the alley behind one of his favorite underground poker game spots.

"I'm not rescuing you. I'm not bringing you back to the Garage. I'm not going to save you this time." Walter was so angry that he could hardly see straight. He wasn't even sure Toby was coherent enough to understand his words, but this was Walter's last straw. "This is the last time I come, Toby. If you decide to keep spending your time gambling, that's your decision. I'm out. I'm not going to try to save someone who doesn't want to be saved."

Surprisingly Toby answered, "I never asked you to save me 197, I just wanted you to be my friend."

"Well, I don't know how to do that anymore, not when you act like this." Walter raked his fingers through his hair in frustration.

"That is exactly why I need a friend," Toby mumbled through his swollen lip.

"I don't understand."

"And that is the crux of the problem." Toby turned his back to Walter and was sick on the street next to where he lay. "Don't worry, 197, I won't be your problem any longer. It's getting too hot in the underground gambling scene in L.A. I've decided to make a go of it in Chicago. I'm leaving town as soon as I can scrape the funds together."

"Consider this a going away present then." Walter opened his wallet and tossed $300 in Toby's general vicinity, careful not to let the money land in the fresh puddle of vomit.

Walter returned to the Garage alone. If he were a man who believed in destiny, he might believe he was just destined to be alone. Walter considered moving on as well, what did L.A. hold for him but bad memory after bad memory? But for some sentimental reason, he decided to stay, to keep the Garage.

The only joy in his world was when he closed his eyes at night and dreamed of the woman who loved him, whom he loved and would do anything to find.