GH Fic: Chaos Theory - Chapter 22/?
Title: Chaos Theory
Author: Normative Jean
Fandom: General Hospital
Characters/Pairings: Robin, Patrick, Lulu, Sam, Anna, Robert, Mac, Faison, original characters; main pairing is Robin/Patrick, with Lulu/OC and Sam/OC later
Rating: PG-13 (for language, situations, and thematic elements)
Timeline: begins March '06, after the bet debacle. AU after that.
Summary: The epidemic was just a experiment, and it was deemed a failure; its mastermind is now targeting the only doctor he believes can make the experiment a success: Robin Scorpio. Robin finds herself trapped in the middle of an international mystery, on the run from an old family enemy she believed long dead. Patrick Drake is determined not to let anything mess up his chances at happiness with Robin, even if it means going along for the ride. Along with old friends and unexpected allies, can they keep Robin safe and stop a plot to take over the world?
Chapter 22 - Mistakes
Robin wiped furiously at her face. She would not, could not fall apart now. It didn't matter that she had violated her own moral code that night, and it didn't matter that her first stirrings of hope during their entire time in London had come when she found a case of grenades. Nothing could matter now except restraining Williams, hopefully finding something to lead them to Sean and Tiffany, and escaping intact. Tonight couldn't be about her pain. She could deal with the horrible truths tomorrow.
Tomorrow, she could confront the fact that she was no different than her father. The mission had become what mattered, and she would have to accept that. But she could do it tomorrow.
"I'm fine, Patrick," Robin insisted, her voice a little stronger than before. "Okay, I'm not," she amended after seeing him open his mouth again, "But this isn't the time or place to deal with it." She looked pleadingly at him. "Let's just finish this. Please?"
Patrick pressed his lips together tightly, torn between wanting to deal with whatever was making Robin suddenly look so pale, and agreeing with her that this wasn't the best place to get into that discussion. Glancing back at the DVX agent, Patrick quickly decided that it would be better to have that conversation with Robin when they were someplace safer. Nodding silently, Patrick picked up the roll of duct tape and gestured to Robin. "What else gets tied down?"
She was grateful that Patrick wasn't pushing the issue. At that moment, Robin really had no idea if she could have tolerated focusing on anything other than the task at hand. Looking over Williams, she ran through a mental checklist of where he should have been restrained: arms behind his back, check; torso strapped to the chair, check; thighs tied to the seat, check; each calf tied to separate legs of the chair, check.
"That's it," she said softly.
"What's it?" Bobby asked, coming out of the bedroom with Lulu, each holding a laptop.
Robin straightened and turned around, pushing everything else to the back of her mind. "We've got Williams secured," she told them. "Once he wakes up, we can find out what he did to your parents."
Sam walked out of the bedroom carrying two handguns and several clips of ammunition. "What are the odds that he'll actually tell us anything, though?" she asked, holding one of the guns out to Robin.
"Not very good," Robin admitted sadly, taking the proffered weapon. Ignoring Patrick's shocked look, she opened the chamber, pulled out the current clip to check the number of bullets, nodded in satisfaction when she saw it was full, and locked ammunition back into place.
"Do I even want to--"
"No."
"Right," Patrick sighed resignedly. Resting his hands on his hips, he looked from Williams to Robin and Bobby. "All right, Spy Babies," he said, "What now?"
Robin folded her arms tightly over her chest. "We wait for him to wake up."
They stood facing Williams, watching the DVX agent in silence. The only sounds in the room were their shallow, baited breaths, layered over Williams' slow, deep ones; a faint beeping filtered through the background, but no one paid any attention to what was most likely just an alarm clock going off somewhere in the apartment. Bobby began bouncing on his toes slightly, then turned to Lulu and motioned for her to put the laptop down. Off her confused look, he rolled his eyes and pointed to her injured shoulder. Incredulous, Lulu silently reminded him she had been holding the laptop with her uninjured arm, to which Bobby only pointed towards the floor. Robin, Patrick, and Sam mutely watched the display for several long moments, before turning their attention back to Williams. It took another full minute of silence before someone asked the question they were all thinking.
"Um..." Sam began tentatively, "Exactly how long will it take him to wake up?"
Bobby turned to Robin. "Yeah," he said slowly. "That's actually a really interesting question." He bounced slightly and furrowed his brow. "When will he wake up?"
"Well..." Robin bit her lip as a disturbing thought occurred to her.
"Wait," Lulu frowned, "Is he still out because of what you did in the car?"
"Ah..." Robin tapped a finger against her chin, a worried expression covering her face.
"Robin," Patrick took a step closer to her, "What, exactly, did you do to the guy?"
"Oh," she murmured. "I think I pinched a little too hard."
"Pinched?" Patrick asked.
"The pressure point thing?" Bobby added.
"Mm-hm," Robin nodded meekly. "It's not like I've done this on a real person before."
Patrick's jaw dropped. "Wait. You attacked his nervous system using something you haven't tried before?"
"I've done it on dummies!" Robin defended herself. "I always hit the nerve exactly where the pressure point was."
"On the dummies," Patrick emphasized.
Bobby swallowed and stared at Williams. "Robin," he asked quietly, "How long is he supposed to be unconscious for?"
Robin lowered her eyes to the floor. "About a half-hour, maximum." She couldn't believe she had screwed up like this. She had let her fury over the situation get the better of her, and now her hasty response to Williams' initial awakening might have cost them the chance to find out where Sean and Tiffany were.
Lulu looked at her watch. "It's been nearly an hour since you did that...thing."
"So how long do we have to wait?" Sam asked.
Robin looked helplessly at Bobby, her regret evident on her face. "Bobby," she said softly, "I have no idea when he'll wake up. It could be hours from now."
Patrick's breath hitched. "We don't have hours to wait here, do we?"
"No," Bobby answered flatly. "No, we don't."
"Bobby..."
"It's okay, Robin," he replied sadly, suddenly looking much older than his eighteen years. "It...It was the only thing we could do in the car. We'd never have been able to win if he'd woken up again." He choked out a harsh laugh. "You only got the upper hand in the garden because that son of a bitch tripped on a damned rock!"
"Bobby!" Lulu rushed forward and gripped his arm
"It's all right, Lulu," Robin said softly.
"No, it is not!" the young woman snapped. She stared furiously at Bobby. "This sucks, it does. But we did more than my dad or Robert were willing to do. We followed the information and we found the guy, and we know for certain that he's a DVX agent, so we know for certain now that they got to your parents."
"Not exactly making me feel better about tonight, Lulu," Bobby snorted, his eyes fierce on her.
Lulu refused to back down from his dark glare. "And now we know for certain," she emphasized. "And we got the chance to get his computer files. There might be something we can use in them. I mean, if the DVX trusted Williams enough to abduct your parents, then maybe they trusted him with other information, too. And now we have something we can give to the WSB--"
"Don't you get it?" Bobby roared suddenly, ripping his arm out from Lulu's hold. "Even with this, the WSB won't do anything! They already knew the DVX had done something to my parents; Robert as much as admitted it!" His face fell, and his angry expression was quickly replaced with one of frantic desperation. "This is all about Faison," he whispered hoarsely. "Yeah, Robert and Anna and your dad believe he's still alive, but as far as the Bureau proper is concerned? He's still as dead as he ever was. Faison wants Robin, Robert thinks Faison wants him, and the only people with the resources to fight this maniac won't acknowledge his existence without real, physical evidence." Bobby tucked his head against his chest and took a shaky breath. "Don't you get it? Even after all this, we're still on our own until we can find out for sure what Faison is up to."
"Then that's what we'll do," Sam spoke up decisively. She caught Patrick's and Lulu's eyes, silently telling them that they needed to take control of the situation long enough to get them all out of the apartment. "Look. The fact is, we don't know when this guy'll wake up, and we can't hang around here indefinitely. Knocking him out was the only thing we could do at the time, and it's just a really unfortunate turn of events that it got..."
"Royally screwed up?" Robin finished caustically.
Sam met Robin's bitter expression head-on. She blinked when she saw Robin's eyes, though, guilt reflecting deeply in them. It shocked Sam to see how strongly the other woman was feeling about her role in what had happened; Sam knew it was just a crappy roll of the dice that had landed them there. Robin certainly hadn't meant to knock Williams out for too long, but Sam could see that that didn't stop her from taking responsibility for her part; even more than that, she could see how much that responsibility weighed on Robin's mind. Sam realized that Robin could not honestly deny her own culpability in the situation, however unintentional. For the first time since she had heard the name Robin Scorpio, Sam found herself wondering how such a sense of honesty could have ever been considered a betrayal by Jason and Sonny.
"Robin," Patrick cut in, firmly pulling her attention away from Sam, "We can't do this right now. Sam's right, we need to get out of here, and we'll just have to deal with any fallout after we've gotten somewhere relatively safe."
"But that doesn't change what I--"
"Do you hear that?" Lulu interrupted.
Robin frowned. "Hear what?"
"That," Bobby said, holding up a finger to silence everyone. He cocked his head to the side and listened for a moment. "There, I heard it again."
"What?" Sam asked quietly, then caught herself. "Wait, you mean that beeping sound?" When Bobby nodded, she shrugged. "I heard it coming from the closet in the bedroom."
Bobby paled. "You mean where you found the guns?"
"What difference does it make?" Sam asked curiously. "I figured I just jostled an old alarm clock in there or something."
Lulu's eyes widened. "You mean it wasn't making noise until you dug through the closet with the guns?"
Robin caught Bobby's eye and knew he was thinking the same thing she was. She shoved her knapsack the briefcase with the grenades into Sam's arms and ran into the other room. Pulling open the closet door, she frantically rifled through the hanging clothes and pulled boxes off the shelves, until a small black box affixed to the corner of the side wall came into her line of sight. Robin gasped when she saw the blinking red light and heard the methodical beeping emanating from it. It was boxy and she recognized the shape; not a bomb, but an alarm system. And it had been activated.
"We need to leave, now!" Robin shouted as she ran out of the bedroom. She paused only to grab the gun and keys from the kitchen table before heading towards the door. She spared only a single, fleeting glance at the man she was leaving tied up and unconscious in the apartment; there was suddenly a much more pressing matter to attend to, and she would have to examine her own selective ethics later.
"What is it?" Patrick asked urgently. "God, please don't tell me there's a bomb in there."
"Worse," Robin said, opening the door. "An alarm."
Bobby hefted the laptop up more firmly and raced after Robin. "Shit!" he spat. "You think there's a satellite signal?"
"I guess we really do need to make a quick getaway," Lulu muttered, following Robin and Bobby out the door.
The others clamored out of the apartment quickly, following them out and into the elevator. Robin took a moment to catch her breath. "There was no writing of any kind on the alarm, Bobby," she told him. "But there was a small antennae. I think it might have also been a stationary receiver."
Bobby banged his head against the elevator wall in frustration. "Dammit," he hissed, "Who knows how long that thing has been giving off a signal."
"What's actually the problem right now?" Patrick scowled. He felt like Robin and Bobby had skipped over about ten steps in the conversation, and Patrick hated feeling behind the curve.
The elevator doors slid open and they all stepped cautiously into the building's lobby. Checking for any obvious signs that they were being watched, Robin motioned for the others to follow her through the empty lobby to the outside; she kept a tight hold on the gun beneath her jacket the entire time. They rounded the building and headed for the parking area off to the side; they had left the car there to keep it -- and them -- out of sight from the average building entrant.
"Robin," Patrick insisted again, "What the hell is going on? I mean, we just abandoned that guy up there, and now we're rushing out of here like we're about to be attacked--"
Sam held up a hand to stop Patrick from speaking. "You said it was a stationary receiver?" she clarified, shifting the briefcase and handing Robin's bag back to her.
"A stationary receiver for what?" Patrick gritted out, only to be ignored.
"Looked like," Robin agreed. "But then, this is so far outside anything I'm used to dealing with..."
"It sounds right," Bobby huffed. " I just wish I knew if it was a random point for DVX tracking, or if--"
"I just had a really bad thought," Lulu murmured, looking with wide eyes at the car.
Robin, Bobby, and Sam followed her line of sight. "You don't think...?" Sam trailed off.
"Think what?" Patrick nearly shouted.
Suddenly, Robin and Bobby nodded decisively at each other and dropped to the ground, scooting underneath the car. Robin kicked at her bag that she had just dropped and inched back out slightly, just enough to reach a hand out, though most of her upper body remained hidden by the metal body of the car.
"Flashlight," she demanded. "In my bag. Can I have it please?"
Sam quickly reached into Robin's bag and dug around for a moment before producing a small flashlight. She crouched down and placed it in Robin's outstretched hand. "Here."
"Thanks," came the muffled reply. The hand disappeared and Robin slid further under the car, using her legs to brace her movements.
"Um...Robin?" Patrick said. "Not that I don't really enjoy the position you're in now," he allowed himself a small smile at the sight of her bent and slightly spread legs, "But what are you doing?"
"What, no comment about my pretty legs?" Bobby asked sarcastically from next to Robin.
Patrick clenched his jaw. "No," he replied stiffly. "What are you guys doing under there? Shouldn't we be, you know, leaving while we still have the chance?"
"We just need...to..." Robin's voice trailed off, and a moment later she cursed softly.
"Robin?" Lulu asked worriedly.
"Is that what I think it is?" Robin asked, presumably to Bobby.
"Yeah," came Bobby's answer. "Crap. Do you see that?"
"What?" Sam asked.
"I have absolutely no idea what to do," Robin said, ignoring the three people standing beside the car.
"I know what to do," Bobby replied, "But I just don't have the talent to do it."
"What?" Patrick ground out.
Instead of answering, Robin and Bobby rolled out from under the car and moved to stand up. She took Patrick's offered hand, while Bobby ignored Lulu's outstretched arm, frowning and pointing at the makeshift bandage that was still wrapped around her scrape. Bobby turned to look at the group.
"We have a problem," he finally said.
"This is news?" Lulu asked incredulously.
"We have another problem," Bobby clarified. "We found something attached to the underside of the car."
"A bomb?" Sam immediately thought.
Robin shook her head. "A GPS receiver."
Patrick visibly relaxed. "Is that all?" he smiled.
Lulu frowned. "You wouldn't be this worked up if it was a normal receiver."
"What else is down there?" Sam added.
"A pressure gauge," Bobby said. "The damn GPS receiver is attached to the car with a pressure-sensitive alarm. I've seen them before," he told everyone grimly. "The GPS system tracks the car's movements, which so far hasn't been a problem for us, since we just drove it right back to where Williams was expected to be. But if we start veering off the expected path--"
"Whoever is monitoring this operation inside the DVX will notice something is up," Robin finished. "And we've already set off an alarm in the apartment, which looked like it was attached to a stationary GPS receiver, which will give the DVX an incredibly accurate position for us unless we drive out of here now. But if we try to remove the receiver underneath the car, we'll set off that alarm and alert the DVX anyway." She blew out a frustrated breath and turned to Patrick. "The alarm is pressure-sensitive. If it's jiggled even just a little bit, it'll go off."
Patrick frowned and took a wary step backwards. "And why are you looking at me when you say that?"
"Because the only chance we have to get out of here is for someone with incredibly steady hands who is used to working with highly delicate materials under extreme pressure to remove the receiver," she answered simply.
Lulu smirked and turned to Patrick as well. "You mean, delicate as in the brain and central nervous system?"
A similar expression colored Sam's face. "And you mean, steady hands under extreme pressure like what the best neurosurgeon in the country might have?"
"There's a toolkit in the car, Doc," Bobby grinned. "I'll talk you through it."
"Wait, what?" Patrick looked slightly panicked. "You want me to do what, exactly? Cut out the GPS receiver and alarm system without bringing down a whole mess of evil, highly lethal spies on us?"
Robin shot him a half-smile and rested a hand on his arm. "It's time to show us all what a brilliant surgeon you really are."
Author: Normative Jean
Fandom: General Hospital
Characters/Pairings: Robin, Patrick, Lulu, Sam, Anna, Robert, Mac, Faison, original characters; main pairing is Robin/Patrick, with Lulu/OC and Sam/OC later
Rating: PG-13 (for language, situations, and thematic elements)
Timeline: begins March '06, after the bet debacle. AU after that.
Summary: The epidemic was just a experiment, and it was deemed a failure; its mastermind is now targeting the only doctor he believes can make the experiment a success: Robin Scorpio. Robin finds herself trapped in the middle of an international mystery, on the run from an old family enemy she believed long dead. Patrick Drake is determined not to let anything mess up his chances at happiness with Robin, even if it means going along for the ride. Along with old friends and unexpected allies, can they keep Robin safe and stop a plot to take over the world?
Chapter 22 - Mistakes
Robin wiped furiously at her face. She would not, could not fall apart now. It didn't matter that she had violated her own moral code that night, and it didn't matter that her first stirrings of hope during their entire time in London had come when she found a case of grenades. Nothing could matter now except restraining Williams, hopefully finding something to lead them to Sean and Tiffany, and escaping intact. Tonight couldn't be about her pain. She could deal with the horrible truths tomorrow.
Tomorrow, she could confront the fact that she was no different than her father. The mission had become what mattered, and she would have to accept that. But she could do it tomorrow.
"I'm fine, Patrick," Robin insisted, her voice a little stronger than before. "Okay, I'm not," she amended after seeing him open his mouth again, "But this isn't the time or place to deal with it." She looked pleadingly at him. "Let's just finish this. Please?"
Patrick pressed his lips together tightly, torn between wanting to deal with whatever was making Robin suddenly look so pale, and agreeing with her that this wasn't the best place to get into that discussion. Glancing back at the DVX agent, Patrick quickly decided that it would be better to have that conversation with Robin when they were someplace safer. Nodding silently, Patrick picked up the roll of duct tape and gestured to Robin. "What else gets tied down?"
She was grateful that Patrick wasn't pushing the issue. At that moment, Robin really had no idea if she could have tolerated focusing on anything other than the task at hand. Looking over Williams, she ran through a mental checklist of where he should have been restrained: arms behind his back, check; torso strapped to the chair, check; thighs tied to the seat, check; each calf tied to separate legs of the chair, check.
"That's it," she said softly.
"What's it?" Bobby asked, coming out of the bedroom with Lulu, each holding a laptop.
Robin straightened and turned around, pushing everything else to the back of her mind. "We've got Williams secured," she told them. "Once he wakes up, we can find out what he did to your parents."
Sam walked out of the bedroom carrying two handguns and several clips of ammunition. "What are the odds that he'll actually tell us anything, though?" she asked, holding one of the guns out to Robin.
"Not very good," Robin admitted sadly, taking the proffered weapon. Ignoring Patrick's shocked look, she opened the chamber, pulled out the current clip to check the number of bullets, nodded in satisfaction when she saw it was full, and locked ammunition back into place.
"Do I even want to--"
"No."
"Right," Patrick sighed resignedly. Resting his hands on his hips, he looked from Williams to Robin and Bobby. "All right, Spy Babies," he said, "What now?"
Robin folded her arms tightly over her chest. "We wait for him to wake up."
They stood facing Williams, watching the DVX agent in silence. The only sounds in the room were their shallow, baited breaths, layered over Williams' slow, deep ones; a faint beeping filtered through the background, but no one paid any attention to what was most likely just an alarm clock going off somewhere in the apartment. Bobby began bouncing on his toes slightly, then turned to Lulu and motioned for her to put the laptop down. Off her confused look, he rolled his eyes and pointed to her injured shoulder. Incredulous, Lulu silently reminded him she had been holding the laptop with her uninjured arm, to which Bobby only pointed towards the floor. Robin, Patrick, and Sam mutely watched the display for several long moments, before turning their attention back to Williams. It took another full minute of silence before someone asked the question they were all thinking.
"Um..." Sam began tentatively, "Exactly how long will it take him to wake up?"
Bobby turned to Robin. "Yeah," he said slowly. "That's actually a really interesting question." He bounced slightly and furrowed his brow. "When will he wake up?"
"Well..." Robin bit her lip as a disturbing thought occurred to her.
"Wait," Lulu frowned, "Is he still out because of what you did in the car?"
"Ah..." Robin tapped a finger against her chin, a worried expression covering her face.
"Robin," Patrick took a step closer to her, "What, exactly, did you do to the guy?"
"Oh," she murmured. "I think I pinched a little too hard."
"Pinched?" Patrick asked.
"The pressure point thing?" Bobby added.
"Mm-hm," Robin nodded meekly. "It's not like I've done this on a real person before."
Patrick's jaw dropped. "Wait. You attacked his nervous system using something you haven't tried before?"
"I've done it on dummies!" Robin defended herself. "I always hit the nerve exactly where the pressure point was."
"On the dummies," Patrick emphasized.
Bobby swallowed and stared at Williams. "Robin," he asked quietly, "How long is he supposed to be unconscious for?"
Robin lowered her eyes to the floor. "About a half-hour, maximum." She couldn't believe she had screwed up like this. She had let her fury over the situation get the better of her, and now her hasty response to Williams' initial awakening might have cost them the chance to find out where Sean and Tiffany were.
Lulu looked at her watch. "It's been nearly an hour since you did that...thing."
"So how long do we have to wait?" Sam asked.
Robin looked helplessly at Bobby, her regret evident on her face. "Bobby," she said softly, "I have no idea when he'll wake up. It could be hours from now."
Patrick's breath hitched. "We don't have hours to wait here, do we?"
"No," Bobby answered flatly. "No, we don't."
"Bobby..."
"It's okay, Robin," he replied sadly, suddenly looking much older than his eighteen years. "It...It was the only thing we could do in the car. We'd never have been able to win if he'd woken up again." He choked out a harsh laugh. "You only got the upper hand in the garden because that son of a bitch tripped on a damned rock!"
"Bobby!" Lulu rushed forward and gripped his arm
"It's all right, Lulu," Robin said softly.
"No, it is not!" the young woman snapped. She stared furiously at Bobby. "This sucks, it does. But we did more than my dad or Robert were willing to do. We followed the information and we found the guy, and we know for certain that he's a DVX agent, so we know for certain now that they got to your parents."
"Not exactly making me feel better about tonight, Lulu," Bobby snorted, his eyes fierce on her.
Lulu refused to back down from his dark glare. "And now we know for certain," she emphasized. "And we got the chance to get his computer files. There might be something we can use in them. I mean, if the DVX trusted Williams enough to abduct your parents, then maybe they trusted him with other information, too. And now we have something we can give to the WSB--"
"Don't you get it?" Bobby roared suddenly, ripping his arm out from Lulu's hold. "Even with this, the WSB won't do anything! They already knew the DVX had done something to my parents; Robert as much as admitted it!" His face fell, and his angry expression was quickly replaced with one of frantic desperation. "This is all about Faison," he whispered hoarsely. "Yeah, Robert and Anna and your dad believe he's still alive, but as far as the Bureau proper is concerned? He's still as dead as he ever was. Faison wants Robin, Robert thinks Faison wants him, and the only people with the resources to fight this maniac won't acknowledge his existence without real, physical evidence." Bobby tucked his head against his chest and took a shaky breath. "Don't you get it? Even after all this, we're still on our own until we can find out for sure what Faison is up to."
"Then that's what we'll do," Sam spoke up decisively. She caught Patrick's and Lulu's eyes, silently telling them that they needed to take control of the situation long enough to get them all out of the apartment. "Look. The fact is, we don't know when this guy'll wake up, and we can't hang around here indefinitely. Knocking him out was the only thing we could do at the time, and it's just a really unfortunate turn of events that it got..."
"Royally screwed up?" Robin finished caustically.
Sam met Robin's bitter expression head-on. She blinked when she saw Robin's eyes, though, guilt reflecting deeply in them. It shocked Sam to see how strongly the other woman was feeling about her role in what had happened; Sam knew it was just a crappy roll of the dice that had landed them there. Robin certainly hadn't meant to knock Williams out for too long, but Sam could see that that didn't stop her from taking responsibility for her part; even more than that, she could see how much that responsibility weighed on Robin's mind. Sam realized that Robin could not honestly deny her own culpability in the situation, however unintentional. For the first time since she had heard the name Robin Scorpio, Sam found herself wondering how such a sense of honesty could have ever been considered a betrayal by Jason and Sonny.
"Robin," Patrick cut in, firmly pulling her attention away from Sam, "We can't do this right now. Sam's right, we need to get out of here, and we'll just have to deal with any fallout after we've gotten somewhere relatively safe."
"But that doesn't change what I--"
"Do you hear that?" Lulu interrupted.
Robin frowned. "Hear what?"
"That," Bobby said, holding up a finger to silence everyone. He cocked his head to the side and listened for a moment. "There, I heard it again."
"What?" Sam asked quietly, then caught herself. "Wait, you mean that beeping sound?" When Bobby nodded, she shrugged. "I heard it coming from the closet in the bedroom."
Bobby paled. "You mean where you found the guns?"
"What difference does it make?" Sam asked curiously. "I figured I just jostled an old alarm clock in there or something."
Lulu's eyes widened. "You mean it wasn't making noise until you dug through the closet with the guns?"
Robin caught Bobby's eye and knew he was thinking the same thing she was. She shoved her knapsack the briefcase with the grenades into Sam's arms and ran into the other room. Pulling open the closet door, she frantically rifled through the hanging clothes and pulled boxes off the shelves, until a small black box affixed to the corner of the side wall came into her line of sight. Robin gasped when she saw the blinking red light and heard the methodical beeping emanating from it. It was boxy and she recognized the shape; not a bomb, but an alarm system. And it had been activated.
"We need to leave, now!" Robin shouted as she ran out of the bedroom. She paused only to grab the gun and keys from the kitchen table before heading towards the door. She spared only a single, fleeting glance at the man she was leaving tied up and unconscious in the apartment; there was suddenly a much more pressing matter to attend to, and she would have to examine her own selective ethics later.
"What is it?" Patrick asked urgently. "God, please don't tell me there's a bomb in there."
"Worse," Robin said, opening the door. "An alarm."
Bobby hefted the laptop up more firmly and raced after Robin. "Shit!" he spat. "You think there's a satellite signal?"
"I guess we really do need to make a quick getaway," Lulu muttered, following Robin and Bobby out the door.
The others clamored out of the apartment quickly, following them out and into the elevator. Robin took a moment to catch her breath. "There was no writing of any kind on the alarm, Bobby," she told him. "But there was a small antennae. I think it might have also been a stationary receiver."
Bobby banged his head against the elevator wall in frustration. "Dammit," he hissed, "Who knows how long that thing has been giving off a signal."
"What's actually the problem right now?" Patrick scowled. He felt like Robin and Bobby had skipped over about ten steps in the conversation, and Patrick hated feeling behind the curve.
The elevator doors slid open and they all stepped cautiously into the building's lobby. Checking for any obvious signs that they were being watched, Robin motioned for the others to follow her through the empty lobby to the outside; she kept a tight hold on the gun beneath her jacket the entire time. They rounded the building and headed for the parking area off to the side; they had left the car there to keep it -- and them -- out of sight from the average building entrant.
"Robin," Patrick insisted again, "What the hell is going on? I mean, we just abandoned that guy up there, and now we're rushing out of here like we're about to be attacked--"
Sam held up a hand to stop Patrick from speaking. "You said it was a stationary receiver?" she clarified, shifting the briefcase and handing Robin's bag back to her.
"A stationary receiver for what?" Patrick gritted out, only to be ignored.
"Looked like," Robin agreed. "But then, this is so far outside anything I'm used to dealing with..."
"It sounds right," Bobby huffed. " I just wish I knew if it was a random point for DVX tracking, or if--"
"I just had a really bad thought," Lulu murmured, looking with wide eyes at the car.
Robin, Bobby, and Sam followed her line of sight. "You don't think...?" Sam trailed off.
"Think what?" Patrick nearly shouted.
Suddenly, Robin and Bobby nodded decisively at each other and dropped to the ground, scooting underneath the car. Robin kicked at her bag that she had just dropped and inched back out slightly, just enough to reach a hand out, though most of her upper body remained hidden by the metal body of the car.
"Flashlight," she demanded. "In my bag. Can I have it please?"
Sam quickly reached into Robin's bag and dug around for a moment before producing a small flashlight. She crouched down and placed it in Robin's outstretched hand. "Here."
"Thanks," came the muffled reply. The hand disappeared and Robin slid further under the car, using her legs to brace her movements.
"Um...Robin?" Patrick said. "Not that I don't really enjoy the position you're in now," he allowed himself a small smile at the sight of her bent and slightly spread legs, "But what are you doing?"
"What, no comment about my pretty legs?" Bobby asked sarcastically from next to Robin.
Patrick clenched his jaw. "No," he replied stiffly. "What are you guys doing under there? Shouldn't we be, you know, leaving while we still have the chance?"
"We just need...to..." Robin's voice trailed off, and a moment later she cursed softly.
"Robin?" Lulu asked worriedly.
"Is that what I think it is?" Robin asked, presumably to Bobby.
"Yeah," came Bobby's answer. "Crap. Do you see that?"
"What?" Sam asked.
"I have absolutely no idea what to do," Robin said, ignoring the three people standing beside the car.
"I know what to do," Bobby replied, "But I just don't have the talent to do it."
"What?" Patrick ground out.
Instead of answering, Robin and Bobby rolled out from under the car and moved to stand up. She took Patrick's offered hand, while Bobby ignored Lulu's outstretched arm, frowning and pointing at the makeshift bandage that was still wrapped around her scrape. Bobby turned to look at the group.
"We have a problem," he finally said.
"This is news?" Lulu asked incredulously.
"We have another problem," Bobby clarified. "We found something attached to the underside of the car."
"A bomb?" Sam immediately thought.
Robin shook her head. "A GPS receiver."
Patrick visibly relaxed. "Is that all?" he smiled.
Lulu frowned. "You wouldn't be this worked up if it was a normal receiver."
"What else is down there?" Sam added.
"A pressure gauge," Bobby said. "The damn GPS receiver is attached to the car with a pressure-sensitive alarm. I've seen them before," he told everyone grimly. "The GPS system tracks the car's movements, which so far hasn't been a problem for us, since we just drove it right back to where Williams was expected to be. But if we start veering off the expected path--"
"Whoever is monitoring this operation inside the DVX will notice something is up," Robin finished. "And we've already set off an alarm in the apartment, which looked like it was attached to a stationary GPS receiver, which will give the DVX an incredibly accurate position for us unless we drive out of here now. But if we try to remove the receiver underneath the car, we'll set off that alarm and alert the DVX anyway." She blew out a frustrated breath and turned to Patrick. "The alarm is pressure-sensitive. If it's jiggled even just a little bit, it'll go off."
Patrick frowned and took a wary step backwards. "And why are you looking at me when you say that?"
"Because the only chance we have to get out of here is for someone with incredibly steady hands who is used to working with highly delicate materials under extreme pressure to remove the receiver," she answered simply.
Lulu smirked and turned to Patrick as well. "You mean, delicate as in the brain and central nervous system?"
A similar expression colored Sam's face. "And you mean, steady hands under extreme pressure like what the best neurosurgeon in the country might have?"
"There's a toolkit in the car, Doc," Bobby grinned. "I'll talk you through it."
"Wait, what?" Patrick looked slightly panicked. "You want me to do what, exactly? Cut out the GPS receiver and alarm system without bringing down a whole mess of evil, highly lethal spies on us?"
Robin shot him a half-smile and rested a hand on his arm. "It's time to show us all what a brilliant surgeon you really are."