Date of Expiration Chapter 18
Title: Date of Expiration
Fandom/Pairing: Leverage/Global Frequency fusion, with eventual Eliot Spencer/Alec Hardison.
Rating: R (eventually)
A/N: Here's wikipedia's rundown Warren Ellis's Global Frequency. While knowledge of the story is helpful, and I heartily recommend the graphic novels, it isn't absolutely necessary.
Summary: The Global Frequency existed to save humanity from itself, and there was always another crisis coming. It was job security of a sort, if you managed to survive the bioenhanced supersoldiers, alien neuroprogramming, physicists who should know better, and the bureaucracy.
Previous chapters: AO3 // DW // LJ
Sun., April 13, 2014 09:53 EDT (GMT-4)
"It's a small bar," Ford said. "Big Brother wouldn't fit in here."
As if Alec hadn't, by that point, already gotten three dozen hits on facial recognition with anything more than a swipe of his thumb across his phone. Like he hadn't run Nathan Ford through every local, county, state, federal and international database within the next ten minutes.
Whatever, Alec decided, annoyed by his own annoyance, all thirteen hours of it.
Then again, if he didn't concentrate on the irritation, he knew exactly where his head would wind up. Because maybe, he admitted to himself, he should've taken Eliot up on his invitation. Then again, maybe he should've just kept his damned mouth shut.
"Gonna go hit the gym for a while," was all he'd said. "Interested?"
"You need to work out?" If he hadn't sounded so surprised as he'd said it, if he'd just managed to not accidentally sweep his eyes up over Eliot's legs and chest so damned transparently, it wouldn't have been so mortifying. He'd tried for a quick recovery, quickly shifting his attention to Eliot's right arm. "I mean, you've got all those enhancements, right?"
Yeah. As if that hadn't just dug the hole deeper. Been cursing every spam email he'd ever read, because at that moment, his brain had decided to crash into the gutter at the word enhancement, Eliot had shook his head like he hadn't understood.
And then Eliot had smirked, right at him. "It don't matter what you've got if you don't know what to do with it."
Mercifully, he'd left shortly thereafter, leaving Alec to his embarrassment, but there was no way Eliot hadn't seen right through him.
What Alec kept coming back to, though? The fact that Eliot hadn't seemed like he'd minded.
---
The hotel gym was small, nothing special, which wasn't really the reason why Eliot was heading back upstairs after only forty minutes. The real reason would probably fall apart under close scrutiny, though, even if it had him combing his fingers through his hair as he approached the room, trying to get it under some semblance of control.
The real reason might've been a misunderstanding. Even if Hardison hadn't been scared off by Eliot's tech, he'd been spooked, flustered. It might've been the fact that he'd just been caught checking out another dude unintentionally. It might've meant something else entirely.
"Perfect timing," Hardison said, leaning back from his computer as Eliot entered so that he could see the screen. There was no hint of his earlier embarrassment, here, and when Eliot looked, he found Miranda's face up on the computer's video relay. Any ideas Eliot might have been entertaining went right out the window.
"We were just starting to discuss the possibilities presented by our associate, yesterday," Miranda's voice was tinny; Eliot had to concentrate to hear her. Leaning over Hardison's shoulder to listen more closely, he was suddenly aware that the sweat hadn't completely cooled from his skin. He probably stank.
"I need to grab a shower."
"I've only got a few minutes," Miranda replied. "So it'll have to wait. I'm sure Aleph won't mind."
"Uh, yeah." It was impossible to catch his expression from here, and Hardison wasn't turning around to make it easier for him. His voice sounded only slightly strangled. "It's cool."
Miranda's grin made him wonder what, exactly, they'd been talking about before he'd arrived. Then again, she always looked conspiratorial. It was probably nothing.
"All right," Eliot grabbed a chair and pulled it in next to Hardison to better see and hear. "What's the story, then? What do we make of Ford?"
Hardison shrugged. "I don't know. I mean. For a con guy who'd pulled the amount of crap he's pulled, you'd think he'd be better about using an alias. It's like, lookin' through it, he wants to get caught, half the time."
"So why isn't he in jail?"
"I'm pretty sure he's an informant." Eyebrows raised, Eliot's frown was skeptical. "Okay, check it. I don't have everything yet, but there's enough to establish a pattern. This is a dated list of people Ford screwed over. He's got some reach, too. Some of his targets, you've probably seen in the news, since Ford seems to have a thing for taking out corporate bigwigs." Minimizing the list, Hardison hooked into a CJIS database and entered a query. "Now it's not all of them, but most of his marks were arrested, or at least had warrants issued for their arrests, within a week of Ford taking them for everything they had."
"Yeah?"
"Going into the records, almost every single arrest report, whether it was Boston or L.A or Dallas, has the name Lieutenant Patrick Bonanno, somewhere in the record. The guy's local, but he heads up the Organized Crime Division for the State Police."
Eliot cut in. "Is he registered as an informant?"
"I'm not seeing it. Looks like whatever he's got going on, he and this Bonanno guy are handling it under the table. Also interesting, in case you were wondering..." Eliot hadn't been, but he followed Miranda's lead and nodded. "Every single one of Ford's target had, prior to ever coming into contact with him, been named as the defendant in one legal case or another, and they'd won. The people bringing the original charges, who usually at this point would be declaring bankruptcy, tend to get anonymous financial donations. Enough to make reparations, plus a little more for their troubles."
"He's a regular Robin Hood," Eliot muttered. It didn't mean he had tolike the guy.
Hardison shrugged, skeptically. "Maybe more of a consulting criminal. Some Moriarty type of dude."
"Maybe he's more of a Holmes without a Watson," Miranda speculated, and her voice sounded surprisingly fond. "But we need to establish why he would be keeping an eye out for someone like Chaos."
Hardison shrugged. "So far, it looks like it's just locational. Chaos wandered into his field of view. The bar is Ford's base of operation, so it makes sense that he'd be keeping an eye on the strangers, given his... profession? Trade?" He frowned, and glanced sideways at Eliot. "What do you call it when it's more likely to show up on a booking report than a resume?"
"Useful," Miranda said as Eliot shrugged. "I call it extremely useful."
Chapter 19
Fandom/Pairing: Leverage/Global Frequency fusion, with eventual Eliot Spencer/Alec Hardison.
Rating: R (eventually)
A/N: Here's wikipedia's rundown Warren Ellis's Global Frequency. While knowledge of the story is helpful, and I heartily recommend the graphic novels, it isn't absolutely necessary.
Summary: The Global Frequency existed to save humanity from itself, and there was always another crisis coming. It was job security of a sort, if you managed to survive the bioenhanced supersoldiers, alien neuroprogramming, physicists who should know better, and the bureaucracy.
Previous chapters: AO3 // DW // LJ
Sun., April 13, 2014 09:53 EDT (GMT-4)
"It's a small bar," Ford said. "Big Brother wouldn't fit in here."
As if Alec hadn't, by that point, already gotten three dozen hits on facial recognition with anything more than a swipe of his thumb across his phone. Like he hadn't run Nathan Ford through every local, county, state, federal and international database within the next ten minutes.
Whatever, Alec decided, annoyed by his own annoyance, all thirteen hours of it.
Then again, if he didn't concentrate on the irritation, he knew exactly where his head would wind up. Because maybe, he admitted to himself, he should've taken Eliot up on his invitation. Then again, maybe he should've just kept his damned mouth shut.
"Gonna go hit the gym for a while," was all he'd said. "Interested?"
"You need to work out?" If he hadn't sounded so surprised as he'd said it, if he'd just managed to not accidentally sweep his eyes up over Eliot's legs and chest so damned transparently, it wouldn't have been so mortifying. He'd tried for a quick recovery, quickly shifting his attention to Eliot's right arm. "I mean, you've got all those enhancements, right?"
Yeah. As if that hadn't just dug the hole deeper. Been cursing every spam email he'd ever read, because at that moment, his brain had decided to crash into the gutter at the word enhancement, Eliot had shook his head like he hadn't understood.
And then Eliot had smirked, right at him. "It don't matter what you've got if you don't know what to do with it."
Mercifully, he'd left shortly thereafter, leaving Alec to his embarrassment, but there was no way Eliot hadn't seen right through him.
What Alec kept coming back to, though? The fact that Eliot hadn't seemed like he'd minded.
---
The hotel gym was small, nothing special, which wasn't really the reason why Eliot was heading back upstairs after only forty minutes. The real reason would probably fall apart under close scrutiny, though, even if it had him combing his fingers through his hair as he approached the room, trying to get it under some semblance of control.
The real reason might've been a misunderstanding. Even if Hardison hadn't been scared off by Eliot's tech, he'd been spooked, flustered. It might've been the fact that he'd just been caught checking out another dude unintentionally. It might've meant something else entirely.
"Perfect timing," Hardison said, leaning back from his computer as Eliot entered so that he could see the screen. There was no hint of his earlier embarrassment, here, and when Eliot looked, he found Miranda's face up on the computer's video relay. Any ideas Eliot might have been entertaining went right out the window.
"We were just starting to discuss the possibilities presented by our associate, yesterday," Miranda's voice was tinny; Eliot had to concentrate to hear her. Leaning over Hardison's shoulder to listen more closely, he was suddenly aware that the sweat hadn't completely cooled from his skin. He probably stank.
"I need to grab a shower."
"I've only got a few minutes," Miranda replied. "So it'll have to wait. I'm sure Aleph won't mind."
"Uh, yeah." It was impossible to catch his expression from here, and Hardison wasn't turning around to make it easier for him. His voice sounded only slightly strangled. "It's cool."
Miranda's grin made him wonder what, exactly, they'd been talking about before he'd arrived. Then again, she always looked conspiratorial. It was probably nothing.
"All right," Eliot grabbed a chair and pulled it in next to Hardison to better see and hear. "What's the story, then? What do we make of Ford?"
Hardison shrugged. "I don't know. I mean. For a con guy who'd pulled the amount of crap he's pulled, you'd think he'd be better about using an alias. It's like, lookin' through it, he wants to get caught, half the time."
"So why isn't he in jail?"
"I'm pretty sure he's an informant." Eyebrows raised, Eliot's frown was skeptical. "Okay, check it. I don't have everything yet, but there's enough to establish a pattern. This is a dated list of people Ford screwed over. He's got some reach, too. Some of his targets, you've probably seen in the news, since Ford seems to have a thing for taking out corporate bigwigs." Minimizing the list, Hardison hooked into a CJIS database and entered a query. "Now it's not all of them, but most of his marks were arrested, or at least had warrants issued for their arrests, within a week of Ford taking them for everything they had."
"Yeah?"
"Going into the records, almost every single arrest report, whether it was Boston or L.A or Dallas, has the name Lieutenant Patrick Bonanno, somewhere in the record. The guy's local, but he heads up the Organized Crime Division for the State Police."
Eliot cut in. "Is he registered as an informant?"
"I'm not seeing it. Looks like whatever he's got going on, he and this Bonanno guy are handling it under the table. Also interesting, in case you were wondering..." Eliot hadn't been, but he followed Miranda's lead and nodded. "Every single one of Ford's target had, prior to ever coming into contact with him, been named as the defendant in one legal case or another, and they'd won. The people bringing the original charges, who usually at this point would be declaring bankruptcy, tend to get anonymous financial donations. Enough to make reparations, plus a little more for their troubles."
"He's a regular Robin Hood," Eliot muttered. It didn't mean he had tolike the guy.
Hardison shrugged, skeptically. "Maybe more of a consulting criminal. Some Moriarty type of dude."
"Maybe he's more of a Holmes without a Watson," Miranda speculated, and her voice sounded surprisingly fond. "But we need to establish why he would be keeping an eye out for someone like Chaos."
Hardison shrugged. "So far, it looks like it's just locational. Chaos wandered into his field of view. The bar is Ford's base of operation, so it makes sense that he'd be keeping an eye on the strangers, given his... profession? Trade?" He frowned, and glanced sideways at Eliot. "What do you call it when it's more likely to show up on a booking report than a resume?"
"Useful," Miranda said as Eliot shrugged. "I call it extremely useful."
Chapter 19