Fic: Losing Ground [16]
Fic: Losing Ground [16]
Author: LMX
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Nate/Sophie, Alec/Parker
AN: See parts [2] and [3].
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19]
[16]
"Nate, Eliot is missing," Sophie cried out, railing against Nate's calm planning, "Don't you understand? We've set him up as the ideal target for this psychopath, waving him around like some kind of trophy... These are *dangerous* people, Nate. It was Eliot who warned us about them."
"The only way to play this now is to finish the con. If they realise he doesn't know anything..." Nate turned back to the screens, hiding his own worry in intensive planning. "We'll advertise the fact he's missing and someone will show their cards."
"What if it's not the one who took him?" Sophie asked quietly.
"Things will get difficult fast," Nate acknowledged. "We need to be able to locate him, so we can time it right. We don't want whoever has him realising he doesn't have the information they want."
Alec clicked his fingers to get their attention from where he was perched on the edge of his chair in front of a curve of four screens. Parker, they could see as they came closer, was underneath the desk, pressed into the back corner and playing with the morass of wires.
[Parker OK under there?] Nate signed as Hardison looked back at them to make sure they were coming over. Alec waved off his question and pointed to the middle-left screen where frame-by-frame Eliot was walking across the parking lot away from his meeting with the mark. On the next screen over the transcript of the four separate audio feeds was rolling, Alec's self-designed voice recognition program working impressively to sort two different conversations out of the ambient noise as Nate and Sophie worked their respective parts of the con. There was nothing but occasional snatches of words as Eliot passed bystanders on the lot. Then, suddenly, Eliot jerked to a stop, out of sight of anyone else.
"Fuck," rolled across the transcript with the text highlighted in blue to differentiate Eliot's voice from the other voices in the lot. "Hardison, Tranq. dart. No sound, blow-gun. It's... uh... Fuck," he swore again, swaying drunk-slow. "Ketamine."
"How is he even still standing?" Sophie muttered.
"He's locked his knees so they don't buckle and then all he has to do is keep his balance," Parker answered from underneath the table. "He can sleep like that so long as there aren't people moving around him."
Sophie and Nate shared a glance and turned back to the screen in time to see a van roll up just as Eliot started to topple forwards. A masked driver got out, catching Eliot as he folded and loaded him into the back of the van, driving off again immediately. Nate glanced at the transcript, but nothing more had been said.
Hardison gestured at the far right screen where a map showed a red line leading from the lot they'd just seen across the city, tapering out as it hit the camera-sparse suburbs. On the desktop hidden behind the map Nate could see a search program still scrolling through traffic cameras in the area.
A sticky note popped up on the screen and Alec typed "ANYTHING on the earbuds?" before turning to look at Nate and Sophie, eyes pleading.
Nate frowned. "It's been silent," he said and signed. "Is it working?"
Hardison turned and pulled up the real time earbud feeds from wherever they had been hiding in the background of the monitors. The last few lines of their conversation were showing in three of the windows, and Nate saw Hardison take a moment to read what Parker had said, swallowing hard and minimising all but Eliot's feed. A quick command had an audio frequency monitor displayed, shifting and fluxing sluggishly, never far from the baseline but picking up something.
[Turn it up?] Nate signed shortly at the camera set up pointed over Alec's shoulder. They were far too predictable, it seemed. It had been one of the first things Alec had set up when he'd got back to his computer.
The words 'hell no' appeared, bold and red and wearing little devil horns, quickly followed by "You did *not* just give the deaf guy the volume controls!" and a little face that rolled its eyes at Nate patronisingly.
Alec slid his seat to one side and pointed out the volume controls on Eliot's feed to Nate. Leaning over the desk, Nate clicked tentatively higher, and then a couple more times. Alec's eyes flicked between his and Sophie's faces as they listened.
Nate shook his head. "I can only hear breathing. No engine noise."
"Head in a bag," Parker muttered from under the desk. Nate frowned.
"Parker thinks something's muffling the sound, like he's got something over his head." Nate repeated for Alec.
[But no engine?] Alec turned back to the computer without waiting for a reply, pulling up a command line underneath the previous map and typing so fast that Nate couldn't even begin to follow.
First a series of intersecting circles appeared around the area the van had last been seen, and then each one flashed a couple of times before going dark. Everything east of the last sighting was dark when Alec punched the air suddenly, making Sophie jump. A small ping appeared on the map, less than a mile away from point the van's trail ended.
Parker crawled out from under the desk, using Alec more than was strictly necessary for someone so flexible.
[Let's go] she signed, as if she hadn't just spend the last twenty minutes hiding under the desk.
"No," Nate stopped her. "We can't go after Eliot with the con still open, and we can't finish this con without another man on the ground. Sophie, either you're going in or Alec is going in. That's all there is to it." Nate took a minute to absorb the look of absolute terror on Alec's face before turning his back on them both. It was about time they got over themselves. Maybe with Eliot's life on the line they'd finally manage to get themselves back on the path.
Nate pointedly left the room, hearing the signed argument start up behind him. Eliot needed all of them in on this one, and if they failed... well, they were at tipping point already. Who knew if they would survive losing one of their own now.
Nate returned with coffee to find Sophie on the phone and Alec on the computer. Two files were open on the big screens. One was Mikael Dayan and the other was Apollo. A sticky blinked up on the screen as Nate was trying to make out the censored details on Dayan's sheet. The message read "We have an idea." The word idea was multicoloured, sparkly and jumping up and down on the line like an over caffeinated child, making Nate think that Alec was learning to express himself through his computer all too well. However dark the times, that was something.
-
Master Post
Author: LMX
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Nate/Sophie, Alec/Parker
AN: See parts [2] and [3].
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19]
[16]
"Nate, Eliot is missing," Sophie cried out, railing against Nate's calm planning, "Don't you understand? We've set him up as the ideal target for this psychopath, waving him around like some kind of trophy... These are *dangerous* people, Nate. It was Eliot who warned us about them."
"The only way to play this now is to finish the con. If they realise he doesn't know anything..." Nate turned back to the screens, hiding his own worry in intensive planning. "We'll advertise the fact he's missing and someone will show their cards."
"What if it's not the one who took him?" Sophie asked quietly.
"Things will get difficult fast," Nate acknowledged. "We need to be able to locate him, so we can time it right. We don't want whoever has him realising he doesn't have the information they want."
Alec clicked his fingers to get their attention from where he was perched on the edge of his chair in front of a curve of four screens. Parker, they could see as they came closer, was underneath the desk, pressed into the back corner and playing with the morass of wires.
[Parker OK under there?] Nate signed as Hardison looked back at them to make sure they were coming over. Alec waved off his question and pointed to the middle-left screen where frame-by-frame Eliot was walking across the parking lot away from his meeting with the mark. On the next screen over the transcript of the four separate audio feeds was rolling, Alec's self-designed voice recognition program working impressively to sort two different conversations out of the ambient noise as Nate and Sophie worked their respective parts of the con. There was nothing but occasional snatches of words as Eliot passed bystanders on the lot. Then, suddenly, Eliot jerked to a stop, out of sight of anyone else.
"Fuck," rolled across the transcript with the text highlighted in blue to differentiate Eliot's voice from the other voices in the lot. "Hardison, Tranq. dart. No sound, blow-gun. It's... uh... Fuck," he swore again, swaying drunk-slow. "Ketamine."
"How is he even still standing?" Sophie muttered.
"He's locked his knees so they don't buckle and then all he has to do is keep his balance," Parker answered from underneath the table. "He can sleep like that so long as there aren't people moving around him."
Sophie and Nate shared a glance and turned back to the screen in time to see a van roll up just as Eliot started to topple forwards. A masked driver got out, catching Eliot as he folded and loaded him into the back of the van, driving off again immediately. Nate glanced at the transcript, but nothing more had been said.
Hardison gestured at the far right screen where a map showed a red line leading from the lot they'd just seen across the city, tapering out as it hit the camera-sparse suburbs. On the desktop hidden behind the map Nate could see a search program still scrolling through traffic cameras in the area.
A sticky note popped up on the screen and Alec typed "ANYTHING on the earbuds?" before turning to look at Nate and Sophie, eyes pleading.
Nate frowned. "It's been silent," he said and signed. "Is it working?"
Hardison turned and pulled up the real time earbud feeds from wherever they had been hiding in the background of the monitors. The last few lines of their conversation were showing in three of the windows, and Nate saw Hardison take a moment to read what Parker had said, swallowing hard and minimising all but Eliot's feed. A quick command had an audio frequency monitor displayed, shifting and fluxing sluggishly, never far from the baseline but picking up something.
[Turn it up?] Nate signed shortly at the camera set up pointed over Alec's shoulder. They were far too predictable, it seemed. It had been one of the first things Alec had set up when he'd got back to his computer.
The words 'hell no' appeared, bold and red and wearing little devil horns, quickly followed by "You did *not* just give the deaf guy the volume controls!" and a little face that rolled its eyes at Nate patronisingly.
Alec slid his seat to one side and pointed out the volume controls on Eliot's feed to Nate. Leaning over the desk, Nate clicked tentatively higher, and then a couple more times. Alec's eyes flicked between his and Sophie's faces as they listened.
Nate shook his head. "I can only hear breathing. No engine noise."
"Head in a bag," Parker muttered from under the desk. Nate frowned.
"Parker thinks something's muffling the sound, like he's got something over his head." Nate repeated for Alec.
[But no engine?] Alec turned back to the computer without waiting for a reply, pulling up a command line underneath the previous map and typing so fast that Nate couldn't even begin to follow.
First a series of intersecting circles appeared around the area the van had last been seen, and then each one flashed a couple of times before going dark. Everything east of the last sighting was dark when Alec punched the air suddenly, making Sophie jump. A small ping appeared on the map, less than a mile away from point the van's trail ended.
Parker crawled out from under the desk, using Alec more than was strictly necessary for someone so flexible.
[Let's go] she signed, as if she hadn't just spend the last twenty minutes hiding under the desk.
"No," Nate stopped her. "We can't go after Eliot with the con still open, and we can't finish this con without another man on the ground. Sophie, either you're going in or Alec is going in. That's all there is to it." Nate took a minute to absorb the look of absolute terror on Alec's face before turning his back on them both. It was about time they got over themselves. Maybe with Eliot's life on the line they'd finally manage to get themselves back on the path.
Nate pointedly left the room, hearing the signed argument start up behind him. Eliot needed all of them in on this one, and if they failed... well, they were at tipping point already. Who knew if they would survive losing one of their own now.
Nate returned with coffee to find Sophie on the phone and Alec on the computer. Two files were open on the big screens. One was Mikael Dayan and the other was Apollo. A sticky blinked up on the screen as Nate was trying to make out the censored details on Dayan's sheet. The message read "We have an idea." The word idea was multicoloured, sparkly and jumping up and down on the line like an over caffeinated child, making Nate think that Alec was learning to express himself through his computer all too well. However dark the times, that was something.
-
Master Post