The Everlasting #9
Title: The Everlasting
Rating: R
Spoilers: Up through end of season 2
Pairing: Alec Hardison/ Eliot Spencer
Warnings: None for *this* chapter...
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, don't take this too seriously.
A/N: Finally nearing the end, here. Probably only one more chapter after this one. :) Thanks for reading!
Story starts here.
"…okay, and last. Any mail destined for overseas travel must be batched separately, but sent to New York. From there it can bounce through whatever foreign ports it needs to bounce through in a lot less time than it would take to make it halfway to Oregon Got that?"
Alec turned from the papers he'd tacked to the wall and addressed the room, marker in hand. This felt more familiar than he'd thought it would, but essentially, he was just there to present information to a bunch of people who needed to know it. Even if those people were armed, and glaring at him even more than Nate had done on his most hungover of mornings.
He wondered, for a minute, if bogging them down with every last detail was really the best way to play this. He'd been playing on the angle that they didn't know that he did, in fact, know how to summarize information, a hell of a lot more succinctly than he'd been doing.
All the same, and deliberate information overload aside, he knew better than to push too hard on a room full of armed thugs, so it was with great relief that he observed Mica arriving with the day's delivery.
Up until he realized that Mica's cousin, Fiona, was supposed to be making the delivery. Mica was supposed to be with Eliot, and Eliot-
Something was wrong.
"Hey Hardison," Mica called out, walking in like he owned the place and setting the two ridiculously, hell, comically full mailbags up on the counter. "These the new trainees? Got some work for them."
Alec considered the pile, then glanced back at the trainees, who looked more like bored tech-school students than they did evil henchmen who could blow his brains out if they sensed there was something wrong.
"I don't know," he said, turning back to the class, searching out their glazed eyes. "Okay. This is a lot, and I mean, a lot of stuff we got in. The two of us have been doing this for a while; we've got the system down. I'm not sayin' you all aren't competent, I'm just saying it might be better to get y'all started on it with the next delivery."
A quick scan of the class told him that while for the most part, they were relieved at the prospect of bailing, one of the guys, Johnson, who was either higher up in the chain than the others, or just nastier, was looking a little suspicious, too.
Alec had pressed his luck. But there was room, still, for a little bit more.
"Here's the deal. I know Cornelius assigned you here to keep an eye out for something specific. If you want, you can go through all this, see if it's in there, and Mica and I can handle it from there. That way, nobody has to worry about pissing off the boss man."
Alec wasn't surprised to see all the heads turn towards Johnson to see what he thought. It wasn't hurting that Jamilla, the cute girl with the braided hair, was smiling at him, obviously hoping for a reprieve. For a low ranking evil henchman- woman, Jamilla was being more helpful than she'd ever know.
"As far as I've been told, we're just here laying the groundwork," Johnson said, after a moment, obviously pandering, while puffing himself up just a bit. "And some of us have things we need to get done." Alec suspected he didn't want to know what those things were.
"All right." He put the cap back on the marker. "Next shipment is day after tomorrow. I'll get you started on sorting the outgoing, and the day after that, I'll have you sort inbound. Bring your notes." With that, the motley class stood, stretching, retrieving guns and notebooks as they wandered out towards the door.
Alec waited superstitiously for the trainees to gain some distance before speaking.
"What's going on?"
Mica pulled a face. "Bad news, I really think Eliot should explain. He's out front making sure they've cleared the street, 'fore he comes in. We intercepted my cousin a few blocks out, grabbed the delivery. Sent me in here to get a read on the situation in here, told me to signal if it was looking like they weren't leaving."
"Right." Alec tried to remain patient. In a few minutes, he'd know. He forced his attention to the mailbags. "What did you stuff them with?"
"Pretty much any clean garbage we could find on the way," Mica said, reaching in to pull a thin layer of envelopes from the top of the bag. He began distractedly sorting them into piles, out of habit or nervousness, Alec couldn't tell.
Mica made himself scarce, over by the sorting bins, and it was three minutes before the door opened, and Eliot strode in, eyes wild and angry.
"Cornelius has Parker," was all he said.
---
"So they're clearing a route out to the shipping yards?" Parker asked, hopping on their feet, pouting. "Sounds fun."
"Yeah, well," Alec looked back to what he was doing, disconnecting the GPS sensor from the third phone. "If you'd been around, earlier, you could be out there, but there's something else we're gonna need your help on at some point."
"What's that?"
Alec fiddled with getting the board back into the phone for a minute, until it looked like he'd reconnected everything correctly. He reached blindly for the screwdriver, not finding it until Parker, who'd probably pocketed it, handed it over with a smirk. "They've got sentries and searchlights. Only way anyone's gonna make it out there is underwater. I've got an oxygen tank, but it's empty. I need an air compressor. That the sort of thing you've got lying around?"
"Yeah," Parker offered, unsurprisingly. If Alec had asked for eighteen bottle openers, a pair of fuzzy slippers, and a blowtorch, she would've asked him what color slippers he preferred. "The storage unit behind that café that Sophie liked going to. There's only one problem. I don't have any fuel to power the generator to power the compressor."
"I've got some I can bring out," Alec muttered, screwing the phone's casing back into place. "Okay," he said, turning the phone on. It took a few moments to program the numbers and set the caller IDs, but then, he was handing Parker her phone, and had to admit that finally, they were in business.
---
"Okay, man, what happened?" Alec asked, leading Eliot to the far corner of the room.
"We made it out to the docks a few hours ago, and we managed to get straight line of sight on the ships. Heard them coming, found cover, saw her being marched forward at gunpoint. Tried to think of something to do, but their route was in the open, there was no way to gain on their position before they could get a shot off."
"How did she look?"
Eliot paused to consider. "Honestly? Annoyed, more than anything. It's Parker."
"Did it look like they'd searched her?"
"They probably would have. Why?"
"Got her hooked up a few hours ago," Alec pulled out his own phone, noting regretfully that there were no missed calls.
Shit.
"Hey," Eliot said, shaking his head. "Look. Even if they manage to get her phone, she'll get it back, right?" There was no way Eliot could know that, but at least he was trying. "In the meantime, I need to head over to the school, make sure they're-"
Seriously? No. Unacceptable.
"Damn the school, and what the hell is with you, anyway? You don't want to stay, then you do. Parker, our very good friend gets nabbed and you want to-"
"It's tactics, Hardison." Eliot's narrowed eyes darted towards the window. "The sun's not going to set for another hour or so, and it's going to be a while before it's dark enough that we can even attempt to get to the water, much less through it."
He had a point, but he seemed to be waiting for Alec to think it through himself before continuing. "In the meantime, think. Everything he's pulled so far, why is Cornelius interested in Parker?"
"I don't know," Alec growled, too irritated to think.
"You do. She's the leader of the last sizeable chunk of resistance. And unless they've got double agents in there, they need information more than they need her dead. They're going to spend a lot of time talking. And probably keeping her in holding, but. You know."
"It's Parker," Alec agreed, abashedly, not quite meeting Eliot's eyes. "So my entire rant, there. Just now. I suppose it was a little, ah. Overboard."
"Don't worry about it," Eliot said, glancing back out at the street, only a little more relaxed than he'd been.
Fair enough, Alec decided. "Okay. How about this. You go out there, make sure everything's cool. I'll go grab my scuba gear- I have to fill the tank, it's going to take a while, but I can be ready to go-"
Eliot's head spun back to glare at him. "You're not doing it."
"One. I know what I'm doing," Alec held up one finger, then another. "Two. You hate the ocean."
"You try hang out on a raft in the middle of the Pacific for three weeks and see how you do," Eliot grumbled, rolling his eyes. "And that's all well and good, but there is serious security out there, and it's not infrared and key cards. Guys with guns are my gig, not yours."
You sure about that?, Alec was about to interrupt, but Eliot kept talking, clearly at the edge of his patience. "Okay. Here's the plan, and no, it's not up for debate. I'll go check on the school, and you'll get the gear out to the shipyard. I'll come meet you soon as I can, and in the meantime, you wait. Got that?"
"Yeah, but I don't know the route," Alec pointed out warily, not wanting to scrap the first vague plan on offer.
"I do," Mica offered, reluctantly, shoving a handful of envelopes into one of the sorting bins. "I could run you through it. I mean, if y'all think you could use the help."
"Awesome," Eliot declared, before Alec had a chance to complain. "It's settled. I'm out." He waited, though, when Alec held up a hand, using the other to fish in his pockets.
"I'm guessing you still know how to use one of these." He produced the phone he'd been keeping, accidentally un-pocketing his multi tool as well. The latter went into his back pocket, and the former into Eliot's hand. "So keep me in the loop, you hear?"
It didn't occur to Alec to ask him if he wanted a gun, but it did worry him that he'd thought to.
---
Eliot wasn't surprised to hear gunfire, but it wasn't until he'd cleared four blocks that he was able to see smoke rising up from the direction of the school.
He swallowed thickly, fighting to keep the nausea at bay. Buildings, when they burned, didn't smell like other fires, and they sounded a hell of a lot worse, too. He'd cleared another block when he began hearing the shouting. Halfway down the next, shots cracked through the din.
He started to run.
Two more blocks, and he could see the people trying to escape, and the people chasing after them. They were easy to dodge, though. It wasn't the first war zone he'd run into.
---
Total fucking chaos. Smoke and crying and grappling on the pavement. Down on the corner, a man was prying loose metal from a bike rack, trying to arm himself while two friends did their best to cover him, their guns scanning, searching for a target in the fray.
Someone had a bullhorn, telling everyone to calm down. To gather on the northeastern corner of the schoolyard, and that no harm would come to them if they would stop resisting.
Nobody seemed to believe it, and Eliot couldn't blame them.
Truth be told, he wasn't sure who it was he attacked first, which side they were on, but they had a gun, and the teenager they'd cornered didn't.
One down, he noted, but there was no sense trying to keep track when it had already gotten this far. No clear winner would be decided, not when there were women pressing children into the dirt of the playground so they'd make smaller targets.
There was no clear path to escape, and from the shrieking screams, it sounded like that even the children knew it. The closest thing they had to any protection whatsoever was a loose wall of Kings that shot at anything that pointed a gun their way.
A brick bounced off his shin, momentarily distracting him, as did the man who'd thrown it. By the time Eliot had dropped him, over in the playground another man was going down with his finger on the trigger, sending five wild shots out as he fell, causing an explosion of glass in the window above Eliot's head. He was still dodging the falling shards when a woman's voice screamed out louder than the rest.
Ten feet away, next to an overflowing and overturned trash can, two men were crouched, trying to grab at the flailing arms of the pregnant woman lying on the ground. It was Lisa, from the school. One, who was quickly jerked back and thrown sprawling to the ground, was the gangbanger Alec had argued with the day before.
The other one was Nate.
---
"What the hell?"
Nate's surprise cut quickly to a pained grimace. With the grip Lisa had, the bones of his hand were probably grinding together.
"In a minute," he said, waving Jay back over and nodding towards Eliot, calling "Jay, Eliot. Eliot, Jay. That was a misunderstanding and you're on the same side." Jay's eyes cut sharply towards Eliot before he nodded, and Eliot followed suit. "Jay. You see them coming yet?"
Eliot cast a glance in the direction they were looking, finding two people crouching as they ran out of the school's gymnasium towards them, carrying what looked to be a field stretcher between them.
Tensing his muscles for movement, preparing to move, he surveyed their trajectory and found that their path, at least, was clear for the time being. Once they had the stretcher ready, he and Nate helped her get positioned.
Jay wasn't much help, his hand clasped in Lisa's grip. "You're okay, ma'am. We're getting you out of here."
"You know where you need to go?" Nate asked, and Jay nodded towards the alley. Another few seconds and it was only Nate and Eliot in the middle of the warzone.
"So how you been?"
"Fine. You?"
"Never better. Good to see you, by the way. Hardison okay?"
"He's fine, getting the gear to bust Parker out. Cornelius has her out on one of the ships -" A sudden spray of gunfire rattled the ground, dangerously close to where they'd been standing.
"Then she's safer than anyone here," Nate nodded, peering around the corner. "So I'm changing the play. You see if there's a path out of the playground yet?"
Eliot scanned the playground. With the kids all lying down trying to dodge the bullets, he couldn't tell if any of them had been hit. "Doesn't matter. I was just about to make one."
"Okay. As of ten minutes ago, we've got a safe zone on the top level of that parking garage. Give me your phone, I'll meet you over there."
Eliot fished it out of his pocket and handed it over, before taking off towards the street on the western edge of the playground. It wasn't until he'd disarmed the second gunman that it occurred to him to wonder how Nate had known to ask him for it.
---
Alec and Mica hurried to throw all the supplies they thought might come in handy for the trek. Flashlights, ropes and a first aid kit. Knives and ammunition and even more bandages.
"There's another gun in the drawer below the markers," Alec offered when he noticed Mica checking his clip. "I've got two extra in the bag."
"We do this right, we won't even need 'em," Mica assured him, but he opened the drawer anyway. One minute later they were out the door.
---
It was strange, to walking down the street with a scuba tank slung over his shoulder, but it was the gun in his hand that he couldn't ignore.
He didn't have both hands free, and it was making him nervous. More nervous. He could see why Eliot didn't like guns, preferred to go without. They had a way to keep you focused on one option only. Oversimplified things to a dangerous extent. Nothing about them offered safety, but then again, nothing about tonight was proving to be peaceful.
The sun had gone down, but there were more people on the streets than Alec had seen since the crash. Some people stalked hurriedly, guns at the ready, heading towards the school. Others rushed in the opposite direction. Dozens more milled about, confused. Wanting to know what was going on and too wary of the passerby to ask them.
Any other night they would have missed it, but about two blocks from the old apartment, they had a clear view of the schoolyard, over the top of a ruined building. It had burned down months ago, but with the red and orange glare coming from behind it, Alec had to look twice to understand what he was seeing.
The school was on fire and there wasn't anything he could do about it. Eliot was out there, doing what he could. It would have to be enough, for now.
They moved onwards, but Mica's attention had been left behind somewhere. Alec glanced over at Mica, caught the stiff set of his shoulders. Over the next few blocks, it began to get worse. Like there isn't enough tension in the air already.
It felt like a thunderstorm was coming, but it didn't look like rain.
---
It was probably the ten minutes of standing around doing nothing, but Mica was losing his nerve, Alec was sure of it now.
"You okay?" he shouted over the noise of the generator, watching the gauge as the tank filled.
"My Cousin. Fiona's out there." His eyes were thirty blocks past the front door, and even before he turned back to Alec, he knew what his next words would be. "Look, man. The entrance you want is right on Dorchester Street, and tunnel's a straight shot east, all the way out until the smell's so bad you want to die. Keep your eye out for a dead end on the left with a door built into it. That's where you want to be."
"Cool," Alec shouted, not asking what Mica had planned, or if he even had a plan. As good as Mica's intentions were, Parker wasn't his fight.
Mica was gone before the tank was full, but Alec already had everything he needed, and finally, he shut off the compressor, and then the generator, and in the sudden silence, the air still seemed to be vibrating around him.
It took him a few seconds to realize it was only the phone in his pocket, flashing Eliot's name.
He coughed as he answered. "Hey, man. What's up?"
"Ah, you know. The usual," a strange voice answered.
"Nate?"
"Yeah, it's me. Good to hear your voice, but right now, you've got to listen. Eliot's filled me in and loaned me his phone while he's taking care of a few things. Now look. We're changing the play. Here's what I need you to do…"
---
If the second guy hadn't fallen into his side as he was going down, Eliot wouldn't have been trying to brush quite so much gravel and broken glass from the side of his hand. It stung like anything. He stopped the inventory there, though. Everything else, he could deal with later. Right now, he had to get the kids moving before anyone had a chance to focus on them again.
He swerved past the swing set and skidded to a halt when he reached them. Seventeen kids and three adults, and all of them were looking up at him, terrified.
But at least they were looking. "Are any of you hurt? We're getting you out of here, going someplace safe, okay?" With the enemy's numbers reduced, half a dozen Kings were freed up to help move them out.
It was a ten-year-old boy who stood up first, and the others were quick to follow. Avoiding the east side of the block, with the Kings corralling them on either side, they made it across the street. Others were waiting there, parents and strangers watching with anxious eyes, and they joined the throng as it passed.
You could've jumped in, any time.
Eliot knew he was being uncharitable, but the cracked rib was making him cranky. He had to get moving before the exhaustion caught up. And they all needed to get moving before Cornelius' crew had a chance to get their acts together. Already, he could see some of them scrambling over the ground, picking up the ammunition Eliot had spilled whenever he could.
"Let's keep it going, people!"
---
Eliot was so focused on keeping the group moving that it took him a while to register that the gunfire stopped. Or rather, it had moved, now blocks away, northeast, probably, out towards the shipyards.
More pressing was guiding the ever-growing group towards the paring garage, where they were met with bright strobe lights and a wall of self-appointed security guards.
The sight was startling enough that it took a moment to get moving again, and once Eliot's eyes had adjusted to the glare, he found Nate pacing by the entrance, shouting at someone to get back down with a stretcher and glancing nervously down at his phone.
"Nate, man, what the hell is going on?" Eliot asked, but Nate was waving him off with the one hand that wasn't raising the phone to his ear.
"Ah-hah? Great. Sit tight. We've got him here. I'll check back in fifteen." Thumbing the phone off, he grabbed Eliot and hugged him, nearly pulling him off what was starting to feel like the last of his balance.
"It worked," his grin flashed wide before an approaching stretcher distracted him again. "Get him up top," he called over to the two bearers, and both watched as they passed by, carrying an elderly woman between them.
"What worked?" Eliot asked, trying to get a grip on the irritation.
"That was the all clear. Right now, Cornelius' operation is undergoing the beginnings of a civil war. More importantly, the fighting's moving over towards the shipyards, where it belongs."
"You serious, man?" Eliot yanked the hair out of his face. "Parker's out there, Nate. Hardison too, and-"
Nate was shaking his head. "Hardison is on his way over here, said he was filling an air tank for a plan that sounded so idiotic I’m going to kick both of your asses the moment this is all sorted out. But yes. Parker is on the ship, with Sophie, but they're fine. I promise."
"You." Eliot shook his head, not able to process. "Explain it."
"I needed your phone because it was easier than getting Hardison's number, which Sophie needed. She called him with instructions to call Parker's phone with a very specific message. The message had the intended result, which was to turn Cornelius' own crew against him. There's still fighting going on, and it's no good, but they're fighting themselves, now."
"You just moved the fighting to a different location, Nate. Far as plans go?"
Nate pulled a face. "Yeah. Ah. This? This wasn't the plan. This is just what we had to work with when we got here. It's plan B. The school was already burning when we arrived, so we had to adapt. But it's as close to okay as we're going to get." Nate pointed up at the sky.
This ain't the time to be stargazing, Eliot was about to say, either before or after punching Nate in the face, but then he caught it. Movement. Not stars, but lights. Helicopters.
Nate's grin, though, was still smug enough that punching him was still a viable consideration. "We've got some UN Peacekeepers running backup on this one," Nate explained, "And all the US soldiers we could get our hands on. Means you can stand down, we've got backup."
Eliot went as far as leaning against the concrete wall to watch as more people were led in. "What about them?"
"It's not a hospital, but there are supplies up there. Food and water, too. And we should have reinforcements here in a little while."
Eliot had never liked the movies where the cavalry came in to save the day, but it was a ridiculous complaint. He forced himself to move on, asking Nate how he'd known about the phones.
"The what?" Nate shook his head, not understanding.
Eliot shrugged, knowing it was a stupid question, but the only one he could ask that might get an answer that might make sense. "The phones. For your plan B?"
"Heard from a friend who heard from a friend that three went missing the other day, thanks to, well, you, probably, given the description." Nate smirked, reveling in the reveal. "The fact that Hardison removed the GPS just meant that we couldn't track you down before this entire mess got started."
"You saying we're getting predictable?"
"Getting predictable?" Nate shook his head as he laughed. "I know you. All of you. I know what you can do, what you can't, and most importantly, I know what each of you would do."
"Right. So. How long before Hardison gets here?"
"I don't know," Nate glanced down at his watch, his eyes flashing in recognition. He hadn't finished frowning by the time Eliot started dialing. He should've made it here by now.
Alec didn't answer, but a strange woman's voice instructed him to check the number and dial again.
Something was wrong. Something was very fucking wrong.
He pushed himself away from the support of the wall. "I'm going after him."
"Eliot-"
"No, Nate. Ain't talking about this."
"Got that. Just give me your phone number first."
---
Word had gotten out, apparently, and Eliot found himself walking against heavy traffic for the first time in a year as everyone poured from the relative safety of whatever homes they'd made for themselves to converge on the parking garage.
Parker's storage unit wasn't too far from where 90 met up with 93, but it was a still a lot farther than Eliot was comfortable with.
It didn't stop the hope from lurching in his chest when he felt the phone vibrate in his hands. It was Nate. It had been ten minutes.
"Not even there yet. Five, ten minutes at worst."
"Keep me posted."
"No shit," Eliot snarled, glancing up at the street ahead, finding a patch of clear space, and finally broke into a run.
---
The area around the storage unit was calm, quieter than it had been when there'd been a million more people living in the city. It probably didn't matter that the front door was wide open, but Eliot entered quietly, just in case.
He stalked up one hallway and down the next, trying to listen, to hear anything there was to hear, and coming up empty.
Halfway down the third, he saw it, a glimmer of dim light coming from inside the half-open door. The urge to rush over was strong, but he kept himself in check, creeping to the doorway and easing his head through the door, searching.
Alec was sitting in the near dark, but his smile was bright when he caught sight of him. It took a moment to recognize it for the grimace that it was, and only a second to understand why.
He had his hand clasped tightly against his side, trying to stem the blood flow with red-slicked fingers.
It didn't seem to be working.
---
Chapter 10
Rating: R
Spoilers: Up through end of season 2
Pairing: Alec Hardison/ Eliot Spencer
Warnings: None for *this* chapter...
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, don't take this too seriously.
A/N: Finally nearing the end, here. Probably only one more chapter after this one. :) Thanks for reading!
Story starts here.
"…okay, and last. Any mail destined for overseas travel must be batched separately, but sent to New York. From there it can bounce through whatever foreign ports it needs to bounce through in a lot less time than it would take to make it halfway to Oregon Got that?"
Alec turned from the papers he'd tacked to the wall and addressed the room, marker in hand. This felt more familiar than he'd thought it would, but essentially, he was just there to present information to a bunch of people who needed to know it. Even if those people were armed, and glaring at him even more than Nate had done on his most hungover of mornings.
He wondered, for a minute, if bogging them down with every last detail was really the best way to play this. He'd been playing on the angle that they didn't know that he did, in fact, know how to summarize information, a hell of a lot more succinctly than he'd been doing.
All the same, and deliberate information overload aside, he knew better than to push too hard on a room full of armed thugs, so it was with great relief that he observed Mica arriving with the day's delivery.
Up until he realized that Mica's cousin, Fiona, was supposed to be making the delivery. Mica was supposed to be with Eliot, and Eliot-
Something was wrong.
"Hey Hardison," Mica called out, walking in like he owned the place and setting the two ridiculously, hell, comically full mailbags up on the counter. "These the new trainees? Got some work for them."
Alec considered the pile, then glanced back at the trainees, who looked more like bored tech-school students than they did evil henchmen who could blow his brains out if they sensed there was something wrong.
"I don't know," he said, turning back to the class, searching out their glazed eyes. "Okay. This is a lot, and I mean, a lot of stuff we got in. The two of us have been doing this for a while; we've got the system down. I'm not sayin' you all aren't competent, I'm just saying it might be better to get y'all started on it with the next delivery."
A quick scan of the class told him that while for the most part, they were relieved at the prospect of bailing, one of the guys, Johnson, who was either higher up in the chain than the others, or just nastier, was looking a little suspicious, too.
Alec had pressed his luck. But there was room, still, for a little bit more.
"Here's the deal. I know Cornelius assigned you here to keep an eye out for something specific. If you want, you can go through all this, see if it's in there, and Mica and I can handle it from there. That way, nobody has to worry about pissing off the boss man."
Alec wasn't surprised to see all the heads turn towards Johnson to see what he thought. It wasn't hurting that Jamilla, the cute girl with the braided hair, was smiling at him, obviously hoping for a reprieve. For a low ranking evil henchman- woman, Jamilla was being more helpful than she'd ever know.
"As far as I've been told, we're just here laying the groundwork," Johnson said, after a moment, obviously pandering, while puffing himself up just a bit. "And some of us have things we need to get done." Alec suspected he didn't want to know what those things were.
"All right." He put the cap back on the marker. "Next shipment is day after tomorrow. I'll get you started on sorting the outgoing, and the day after that, I'll have you sort inbound. Bring your notes." With that, the motley class stood, stretching, retrieving guns and notebooks as they wandered out towards the door.
Alec waited superstitiously for the trainees to gain some distance before speaking.
"What's going on?"
Mica pulled a face. "Bad news, I really think Eliot should explain. He's out front making sure they've cleared the street, 'fore he comes in. We intercepted my cousin a few blocks out, grabbed the delivery. Sent me in here to get a read on the situation in here, told me to signal if it was looking like they weren't leaving."
"Right." Alec tried to remain patient. In a few minutes, he'd know. He forced his attention to the mailbags. "What did you stuff them with?"
"Pretty much any clean garbage we could find on the way," Mica said, reaching in to pull a thin layer of envelopes from the top of the bag. He began distractedly sorting them into piles, out of habit or nervousness, Alec couldn't tell.
Mica made himself scarce, over by the sorting bins, and it was three minutes before the door opened, and Eliot strode in, eyes wild and angry.
"Cornelius has Parker," was all he said.
---
"So they're clearing a route out to the shipping yards?" Parker asked, hopping on their feet, pouting. "Sounds fun."
"Yeah, well," Alec looked back to what he was doing, disconnecting the GPS sensor from the third phone. "If you'd been around, earlier, you could be out there, but there's something else we're gonna need your help on at some point."
"What's that?"
Alec fiddled with getting the board back into the phone for a minute, until it looked like he'd reconnected everything correctly. He reached blindly for the screwdriver, not finding it until Parker, who'd probably pocketed it, handed it over with a smirk. "They've got sentries and searchlights. Only way anyone's gonna make it out there is underwater. I've got an oxygen tank, but it's empty. I need an air compressor. That the sort of thing you've got lying around?"
"Yeah," Parker offered, unsurprisingly. If Alec had asked for eighteen bottle openers, a pair of fuzzy slippers, and a blowtorch, she would've asked him what color slippers he preferred. "The storage unit behind that café that Sophie liked going to. There's only one problem. I don't have any fuel to power the generator to power the compressor."
"I've got some I can bring out," Alec muttered, screwing the phone's casing back into place. "Okay," he said, turning the phone on. It took a few moments to program the numbers and set the caller IDs, but then, he was handing Parker her phone, and had to admit that finally, they were in business.
---
"Okay, man, what happened?" Alec asked, leading Eliot to the far corner of the room.
"We made it out to the docks a few hours ago, and we managed to get straight line of sight on the ships. Heard them coming, found cover, saw her being marched forward at gunpoint. Tried to think of something to do, but their route was in the open, there was no way to gain on their position before they could get a shot off."
"How did she look?"
Eliot paused to consider. "Honestly? Annoyed, more than anything. It's Parker."
"Did it look like they'd searched her?"
"They probably would have. Why?"
"Got her hooked up a few hours ago," Alec pulled out his own phone, noting regretfully that there were no missed calls.
Shit.
"Hey," Eliot said, shaking his head. "Look. Even if they manage to get her phone, she'll get it back, right?" There was no way Eliot could know that, but at least he was trying. "In the meantime, I need to head over to the school, make sure they're-"
Seriously? No. Unacceptable.
"Damn the school, and what the hell is with you, anyway? You don't want to stay, then you do. Parker, our very good friend gets nabbed and you want to-"
"It's tactics, Hardison." Eliot's narrowed eyes darted towards the window. "The sun's not going to set for another hour or so, and it's going to be a while before it's dark enough that we can even attempt to get to the water, much less through it."
He had a point, but he seemed to be waiting for Alec to think it through himself before continuing. "In the meantime, think. Everything he's pulled so far, why is Cornelius interested in Parker?"
"I don't know," Alec growled, too irritated to think.
"You do. She's the leader of the last sizeable chunk of resistance. And unless they've got double agents in there, they need information more than they need her dead. They're going to spend a lot of time talking. And probably keeping her in holding, but. You know."
"It's Parker," Alec agreed, abashedly, not quite meeting Eliot's eyes. "So my entire rant, there. Just now. I suppose it was a little, ah. Overboard."
"Don't worry about it," Eliot said, glancing back out at the street, only a little more relaxed than he'd been.
Fair enough, Alec decided. "Okay. How about this. You go out there, make sure everything's cool. I'll go grab my scuba gear- I have to fill the tank, it's going to take a while, but I can be ready to go-"
Eliot's head spun back to glare at him. "You're not doing it."
"One. I know what I'm doing," Alec held up one finger, then another. "Two. You hate the ocean."
"You try hang out on a raft in the middle of the Pacific for three weeks and see how you do," Eliot grumbled, rolling his eyes. "And that's all well and good, but there is serious security out there, and it's not infrared and key cards. Guys with guns are my gig, not yours."
You sure about that?, Alec was about to interrupt, but Eliot kept talking, clearly at the edge of his patience. "Okay. Here's the plan, and no, it's not up for debate. I'll go check on the school, and you'll get the gear out to the shipyard. I'll come meet you soon as I can, and in the meantime, you wait. Got that?"
"Yeah, but I don't know the route," Alec pointed out warily, not wanting to scrap the first vague plan on offer.
"I do," Mica offered, reluctantly, shoving a handful of envelopes into one of the sorting bins. "I could run you through it. I mean, if y'all think you could use the help."
"Awesome," Eliot declared, before Alec had a chance to complain. "It's settled. I'm out." He waited, though, when Alec held up a hand, using the other to fish in his pockets.
"I'm guessing you still know how to use one of these." He produced the phone he'd been keeping, accidentally un-pocketing his multi tool as well. The latter went into his back pocket, and the former into Eliot's hand. "So keep me in the loop, you hear?"
It didn't occur to Alec to ask him if he wanted a gun, but it did worry him that he'd thought to.
---
Eliot wasn't surprised to hear gunfire, but it wasn't until he'd cleared four blocks that he was able to see smoke rising up from the direction of the school.
He swallowed thickly, fighting to keep the nausea at bay. Buildings, when they burned, didn't smell like other fires, and they sounded a hell of a lot worse, too. He'd cleared another block when he began hearing the shouting. Halfway down the next, shots cracked through the din.
He started to run.
Two more blocks, and he could see the people trying to escape, and the people chasing after them. They were easy to dodge, though. It wasn't the first war zone he'd run into.
---
Total fucking chaos. Smoke and crying and grappling on the pavement. Down on the corner, a man was prying loose metal from a bike rack, trying to arm himself while two friends did their best to cover him, their guns scanning, searching for a target in the fray.
Someone had a bullhorn, telling everyone to calm down. To gather on the northeastern corner of the schoolyard, and that no harm would come to them if they would stop resisting.
Nobody seemed to believe it, and Eliot couldn't blame them.
Truth be told, he wasn't sure who it was he attacked first, which side they were on, but they had a gun, and the teenager they'd cornered didn't.
One down, he noted, but there was no sense trying to keep track when it had already gotten this far. No clear winner would be decided, not when there were women pressing children into the dirt of the playground so they'd make smaller targets.
There was no clear path to escape, and from the shrieking screams, it sounded like that even the children knew it. The closest thing they had to any protection whatsoever was a loose wall of Kings that shot at anything that pointed a gun their way.
A brick bounced off his shin, momentarily distracting him, as did the man who'd thrown it. By the time Eliot had dropped him, over in the playground another man was going down with his finger on the trigger, sending five wild shots out as he fell, causing an explosion of glass in the window above Eliot's head. He was still dodging the falling shards when a woman's voice screamed out louder than the rest.
Ten feet away, next to an overflowing and overturned trash can, two men were crouched, trying to grab at the flailing arms of the pregnant woman lying on the ground. It was Lisa, from the school. One, who was quickly jerked back and thrown sprawling to the ground, was the gangbanger Alec had argued with the day before.
The other one was Nate.
---
"What the hell?"
Nate's surprise cut quickly to a pained grimace. With the grip Lisa had, the bones of his hand were probably grinding together.
"In a minute," he said, waving Jay back over and nodding towards Eliot, calling "Jay, Eliot. Eliot, Jay. That was a misunderstanding and you're on the same side." Jay's eyes cut sharply towards Eliot before he nodded, and Eliot followed suit. "Jay. You see them coming yet?"
Eliot cast a glance in the direction they were looking, finding two people crouching as they ran out of the school's gymnasium towards them, carrying what looked to be a field stretcher between them.
Tensing his muscles for movement, preparing to move, he surveyed their trajectory and found that their path, at least, was clear for the time being. Once they had the stretcher ready, he and Nate helped her get positioned.
Jay wasn't much help, his hand clasped in Lisa's grip. "You're okay, ma'am. We're getting you out of here."
"You know where you need to go?" Nate asked, and Jay nodded towards the alley. Another few seconds and it was only Nate and Eliot in the middle of the warzone.
"So how you been?"
"Fine. You?"
"Never better. Good to see you, by the way. Hardison okay?"
"He's fine, getting the gear to bust Parker out. Cornelius has her out on one of the ships -" A sudden spray of gunfire rattled the ground, dangerously close to where they'd been standing.
"Then she's safer than anyone here," Nate nodded, peering around the corner. "So I'm changing the play. You see if there's a path out of the playground yet?"
Eliot scanned the playground. With the kids all lying down trying to dodge the bullets, he couldn't tell if any of them had been hit. "Doesn't matter. I was just about to make one."
"Okay. As of ten minutes ago, we've got a safe zone on the top level of that parking garage. Give me your phone, I'll meet you over there."
Eliot fished it out of his pocket and handed it over, before taking off towards the street on the western edge of the playground. It wasn't until he'd disarmed the second gunman that it occurred to him to wonder how Nate had known to ask him for it.
---
Alec and Mica hurried to throw all the supplies they thought might come in handy for the trek. Flashlights, ropes and a first aid kit. Knives and ammunition and even more bandages.
"There's another gun in the drawer below the markers," Alec offered when he noticed Mica checking his clip. "I've got two extra in the bag."
"We do this right, we won't even need 'em," Mica assured him, but he opened the drawer anyway. One minute later they were out the door.
---
It was strange, to walking down the street with a scuba tank slung over his shoulder, but it was the gun in his hand that he couldn't ignore.
He didn't have both hands free, and it was making him nervous. More nervous. He could see why Eliot didn't like guns, preferred to go without. They had a way to keep you focused on one option only. Oversimplified things to a dangerous extent. Nothing about them offered safety, but then again, nothing about tonight was proving to be peaceful.
The sun had gone down, but there were more people on the streets than Alec had seen since the crash. Some people stalked hurriedly, guns at the ready, heading towards the school. Others rushed in the opposite direction. Dozens more milled about, confused. Wanting to know what was going on and too wary of the passerby to ask them.
Any other night they would have missed it, but about two blocks from the old apartment, they had a clear view of the schoolyard, over the top of a ruined building. It had burned down months ago, but with the red and orange glare coming from behind it, Alec had to look twice to understand what he was seeing.
The school was on fire and there wasn't anything he could do about it. Eliot was out there, doing what he could. It would have to be enough, for now.
They moved onwards, but Mica's attention had been left behind somewhere. Alec glanced over at Mica, caught the stiff set of his shoulders. Over the next few blocks, it began to get worse. Like there isn't enough tension in the air already.
It felt like a thunderstorm was coming, but it didn't look like rain.
---
It was probably the ten minutes of standing around doing nothing, but Mica was losing his nerve, Alec was sure of it now.
"You okay?" he shouted over the noise of the generator, watching the gauge as the tank filled.
"My Cousin. Fiona's out there." His eyes were thirty blocks past the front door, and even before he turned back to Alec, he knew what his next words would be. "Look, man. The entrance you want is right on Dorchester Street, and tunnel's a straight shot east, all the way out until the smell's so bad you want to die. Keep your eye out for a dead end on the left with a door built into it. That's where you want to be."
"Cool," Alec shouted, not asking what Mica had planned, or if he even had a plan. As good as Mica's intentions were, Parker wasn't his fight.
Mica was gone before the tank was full, but Alec already had everything he needed, and finally, he shut off the compressor, and then the generator, and in the sudden silence, the air still seemed to be vibrating around him.
It took him a few seconds to realize it was only the phone in his pocket, flashing Eliot's name.
He coughed as he answered. "Hey, man. What's up?"
"Ah, you know. The usual," a strange voice answered.
"Nate?"
"Yeah, it's me. Good to hear your voice, but right now, you've got to listen. Eliot's filled me in and loaned me his phone while he's taking care of a few things. Now look. We're changing the play. Here's what I need you to do…"
---
If the second guy hadn't fallen into his side as he was going down, Eliot wouldn't have been trying to brush quite so much gravel and broken glass from the side of his hand. It stung like anything. He stopped the inventory there, though. Everything else, he could deal with later. Right now, he had to get the kids moving before anyone had a chance to focus on them again.
He swerved past the swing set and skidded to a halt when he reached them. Seventeen kids and three adults, and all of them were looking up at him, terrified.
But at least they were looking. "Are any of you hurt? We're getting you out of here, going someplace safe, okay?" With the enemy's numbers reduced, half a dozen Kings were freed up to help move them out.
It was a ten-year-old boy who stood up first, and the others were quick to follow. Avoiding the east side of the block, with the Kings corralling them on either side, they made it across the street. Others were waiting there, parents and strangers watching with anxious eyes, and they joined the throng as it passed.
You could've jumped in, any time.
Eliot knew he was being uncharitable, but the cracked rib was making him cranky. He had to get moving before the exhaustion caught up. And they all needed to get moving before Cornelius' crew had a chance to get their acts together. Already, he could see some of them scrambling over the ground, picking up the ammunition Eliot had spilled whenever he could.
"Let's keep it going, people!"
---
Eliot was so focused on keeping the group moving that it took him a while to register that the gunfire stopped. Or rather, it had moved, now blocks away, northeast, probably, out towards the shipyards.
More pressing was guiding the ever-growing group towards the paring garage, where they were met with bright strobe lights and a wall of self-appointed security guards.
The sight was startling enough that it took a moment to get moving again, and once Eliot's eyes had adjusted to the glare, he found Nate pacing by the entrance, shouting at someone to get back down with a stretcher and glancing nervously down at his phone.
"Nate, man, what the hell is going on?" Eliot asked, but Nate was waving him off with the one hand that wasn't raising the phone to his ear.
"Ah-hah? Great. Sit tight. We've got him here. I'll check back in fifteen." Thumbing the phone off, he grabbed Eliot and hugged him, nearly pulling him off what was starting to feel like the last of his balance.
"It worked," his grin flashed wide before an approaching stretcher distracted him again. "Get him up top," he called over to the two bearers, and both watched as they passed by, carrying an elderly woman between them.
"What worked?" Eliot asked, trying to get a grip on the irritation.
"That was the all clear. Right now, Cornelius' operation is undergoing the beginnings of a civil war. More importantly, the fighting's moving over towards the shipyards, where it belongs."
"You serious, man?" Eliot yanked the hair out of his face. "Parker's out there, Nate. Hardison too, and-"
Nate was shaking his head. "Hardison is on his way over here, said he was filling an air tank for a plan that sounded so idiotic I’m going to kick both of your asses the moment this is all sorted out. But yes. Parker is on the ship, with Sophie, but they're fine. I promise."
"You." Eliot shook his head, not able to process. "Explain it."
"I needed your phone because it was easier than getting Hardison's number, which Sophie needed. She called him with instructions to call Parker's phone with a very specific message. The message had the intended result, which was to turn Cornelius' own crew against him. There's still fighting going on, and it's no good, but they're fighting themselves, now."
"You just moved the fighting to a different location, Nate. Far as plans go?"
Nate pulled a face. "Yeah. Ah. This? This wasn't the plan. This is just what we had to work with when we got here. It's plan B. The school was already burning when we arrived, so we had to adapt. But it's as close to okay as we're going to get." Nate pointed up at the sky.
This ain't the time to be stargazing, Eliot was about to say, either before or after punching Nate in the face, but then he caught it. Movement. Not stars, but lights. Helicopters.
Nate's grin, though, was still smug enough that punching him was still a viable consideration. "We've got some UN Peacekeepers running backup on this one," Nate explained, "And all the US soldiers we could get our hands on. Means you can stand down, we've got backup."
Eliot went as far as leaning against the concrete wall to watch as more people were led in. "What about them?"
"It's not a hospital, but there are supplies up there. Food and water, too. And we should have reinforcements here in a little while."
Eliot had never liked the movies where the cavalry came in to save the day, but it was a ridiculous complaint. He forced himself to move on, asking Nate how he'd known about the phones.
"The what?" Nate shook his head, not understanding.
Eliot shrugged, knowing it was a stupid question, but the only one he could ask that might get an answer that might make sense. "The phones. For your plan B?"
"Heard from a friend who heard from a friend that three went missing the other day, thanks to, well, you, probably, given the description." Nate smirked, reveling in the reveal. "The fact that Hardison removed the GPS just meant that we couldn't track you down before this entire mess got started."
"You saying we're getting predictable?"
"Getting predictable?" Nate shook his head as he laughed. "I know you. All of you. I know what you can do, what you can't, and most importantly, I know what each of you would do."
"Right. So. How long before Hardison gets here?"
"I don't know," Nate glanced down at his watch, his eyes flashing in recognition. He hadn't finished frowning by the time Eliot started dialing. He should've made it here by now.
Alec didn't answer, but a strange woman's voice instructed him to check the number and dial again.
Something was wrong. Something was very fucking wrong.
He pushed himself away from the support of the wall. "I'm going after him."
"Eliot-"
"No, Nate. Ain't talking about this."
"Got that. Just give me your phone number first."
---
Word had gotten out, apparently, and Eliot found himself walking against heavy traffic for the first time in a year as everyone poured from the relative safety of whatever homes they'd made for themselves to converge on the parking garage.
Parker's storage unit wasn't too far from where 90 met up with 93, but it was a still a lot farther than Eliot was comfortable with.
It didn't stop the hope from lurching in his chest when he felt the phone vibrate in his hands. It was Nate. It had been ten minutes.
"Not even there yet. Five, ten minutes at worst."
"Keep me posted."
"No shit," Eliot snarled, glancing up at the street ahead, finding a patch of clear space, and finally broke into a run.
---
The area around the storage unit was calm, quieter than it had been when there'd been a million more people living in the city. It probably didn't matter that the front door was wide open, but Eliot entered quietly, just in case.
He stalked up one hallway and down the next, trying to listen, to hear anything there was to hear, and coming up empty.
Halfway down the third, he saw it, a glimmer of dim light coming from inside the half-open door. The urge to rush over was strong, but he kept himself in check, creeping to the doorway and easing his head through the door, searching.
Alec was sitting in the near dark, but his smile was bright when he caught sight of him. It took a moment to recognize it for the grimace that it was, and only a second to understand why.
He had his hand clasped tightly against his side, trying to stem the blood flow with red-slicked fingers.
It didn't seem to be working.
---
Chapter 10