"I thought you were smart"
Chapter Three: Bring It on Loser
01x03:Cyclone.

*Trigger warning*

Callie was currently on the phone in the garage. Well trying to be. The men of Scorpion or shall we say boys were racing.

" Sylvester is only seconds behind! Oh, my! But he is displaying facial stressors. Will he choke? Will he choke?"

" Toby! Just, J....okay?"

"The pace is breakneck. The tension is high." Toby continues to yell.

"Hey, would you keep it down I'm trying to have a phone call?" Callie plugs one ear trying to hear her call. " How many messages do I have? Well just forwarded them to Scorpion. I'll give you the number."

"Children." Happy muttered lowly fixing the Scorpion sign. Callie laughed spinning around in Syl's chair.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, This is not for the pregnant or faint of heart. Oh, oh, oh! It's the old blind-bomber trick! It's gutsy, it's cocky, it could serve to psych out Dodd!" Toby continues.

" No. What? N-No."

"No. Oh, no! Dodd rallies! Dodd rallies!"

"Time!" Sly slams his Rubix cube down on the table.

" Oh, oh. Ooh."

"What the hell's going on?" Cabe yells as Callie hangs up on her phone call.

"Walter wins. As usual."

"By a hair, pal. By a hair." they fist bump.

"Team of Einsteins, none of you could tell time?! Turn that noise off! We're late! Let's move!"

"Oh, we were just blowing off steam, Cabe. We're ready." Walter says as everyone grabs their bags.

"Well, you better be. The future of the team depends on it. Director Merrick already thinks I'm crazy for forming a team of geniuses. We got to prove him wrong."

"Guys, guys, guys. He's right. This exercise is a huge opportunity for our company; for all of us. I know we can do this."   Walter says as they all hurry outside.

//

The team of genii was currently at USMC Training Facility Stockton, CA in a humvee, the guys were glaring at them as Callie just flicks her tongue against her teeth, cocking her gun.

"Walter, this is a mistake. I'm not prepared for this." Syl whispers while Callie was having a full-blown grudge match staring contest with one of the men in front of her.

"I've got your back, buddy. I've always got your back, okay?"

" Approaching the hot point. Delta Team quells the insurgency. Omega, locate the comm room. Shepherds, the SMACKs. You got 30 seconds to download that file. You copy?"

" I'm clear on everything, except why you keep calling us SMACKS" Syl gulps thickly.

" It's an army funny. SMACK Soldier, minus ability, coordination, and knowledge."  Callie explains adjusting her backpack strap on her arm. The guy on the right kept staring at her chest and it was annoying the hell out of her. 

"The Federal Government, good at acronyms and nothing else,"  Toby mutters over the earpiece.

"Got eyes on the compound. Moving in. Move, move, move, move, move, move."  everyone piles out of the humvees quickly.

"I have plantar fasciitis."  Syl whines as Callie guards their backs while Walter helps him up the hill.

"Come on Sly."

"I designed the breaching device for a hard torque, so put your back into it." Happy replies over the earpiece. They blow the door off with the device and start entering the room. They begin fighting off the insurgents.

"Down, down! Get down! Come on, SMACKs. Move!"

"Sylvester, you take the right," Walter says as  they head to where they need to go.

"Yeah, okay. Are you in?"

"Walter, there is encryption at the firmware level," Syl says.

"Damn it. This thing's in Arabic-Sudanese Unicode." Walter says/

"I'm panicking! I-I-I'm panicking!"

"We don't have time for this! Move!" Callie shoves Syl out of the way typing vigorously on the laptop. 

The soldiers were yelling at them" Okay, we'll adapt."

" Perimeter breach! 15 seconds!"

"I'm done," Walter shouts

"Three seconds! You hear me?!" they begin packing up their stuff.

" We're overdue! Come on! Go, go, go!"

" All right! All right, where are we going?" Walter asks as they run out of the building.

" Where are we going?"

"Go straight!"

"Oh, God. I'm so sorry, Walter. They are captured." they  watched as the rest of the team was being held captive hands behind their backs. Callie pulled out her paintball gun and shot each guy with it in the chest.

"What's with the full contact, Agent Gallo?" One of the jarheads whined when he got shot. He grabbed her by her waist and she elbowed him in the chest  and kneed him in the face. Which caused him to fall to the ground.

"Fall out! All right! Break it up, break it up! This is meant to impress me. Your human calculator froze. Your engineer has no concept of following orders. your shrink I don't know where to begin and what exactly do you even do here Miss Raes?"

"Okay, you know what that's it," Callie yelled throwing her stuff down on the ground she is about to approach Merrick when Toby holds her back.

"You can start by being nicer."

"We were doing fine until that jarhead got handsy." Callie snipped.

"Where'd he touch you, exactly?" Toby asked as she rolled her eyes and straightened her posture.

"Guys," Walter looks to his team giving them a look that says stop talking. " uh Director Merrick the, uh, Marines talking smack in the Humvee caused a distraction Questioning our entry point cost us time."

" Twenty- six seconds to be exact." Syl and Callie muttered at the same time. Interrupting Walter.

" Their approach slowed us down. " Walter continued

"The purpose of this exercise was to see if your purported group of geniuses could contribute to a high-end military operation. I have seen nothing that makes me believe that that's possible. And I'm starting to wonder if funding this group was a mistake. They have no other duties until you hear from me." Callie sighed and got changed going back to the garage. Being greeted by Paige who was smiling.

"Hey. How'd it go?"

"For a Government Endeavor? About how you'd expect." Toby mutters as everyone enters the garage staying silent.

Cabe's phone started ringing and he sighed. "Time for me to get chewed out again. Yes, sir. Director Merrick."  He mutters walking off.

Callie rolls her neck and walks over to her punching dummy punching it. She was angry. So angry, that her punches turned to full-blown kicks. Of course, her rampage was interrupted by the lovely Paige.

"Hey, Callie."

"Look I  appreciate what you're doing,  but I just need to settle down first. Check-in with me Sunday. Mkay." she muttered walking away to get water.

"You still don't know us that well. Happy suffers from hostility and anger dissonance syndrome. Sylvester's anxiety, OCD, and has more  phobias than you shake a stick at. Walter is textbook intellectual megalomania and anti-obedience syndrome. That should be fun to see how that plays out with Cabe. Callie suffers from Bipolar disorder and Choleric tendencies. Me? I am a narcissist with a slight dusting of addiction  So, welcome aboard." Callie just stands there and stares at him. He plugs in a tape and Scorpions begin playing loudly throughout the garage. "The Scorpions! It's our theme song!" He yells plugging in headphones.

"Children, I'm working with Children," Callie mutters walking away.

"What is happening? Our wireless is down. How on earth is our wireless down?" Callie hears Sylvester yell she walks back into the bullpen looking around.

"That call from Merrick was about a bomb. Took out a law firm at One Wilton. Homeland responds to all bombings." Cabe says walking towards the door and opening it.

"The big commercial building down by Sixth? How bad?"

"Took out the law firm and the basement beneath it. Six folks in intensive care," he explains

"Can we tag along?" Walter asked.

"You're a genius Walter Don't ask stupid questions," Callie mumbles plopping down in a chair in front of Toby and Syl's desk.

"Merrick has you on ice," Cabe replies leaving. Walter walks over to Toby's computer.

"One Wilton. One Wilton. They may have a problem a lot bigger than a lawyer's office." He mutters.

Walter looked between all of his team and they all gathered their bags piling into two cars. Walter, Sylvester, and Happy in Paige's Toby and Callie in hers.

//

"Cabe," Walter said as we walked over the debris

"Who's contaminating my crime scene?" A stoic-looking African American man asked.

"I think this is an act of terrorism," Walter mutters.

"Friends of yours?"

"Independent contractors." Cabe leers as the Stoic guys phone rings.

"Excuse me." He says leaving.

"Why are you here? That's Agent Thomas Keeler, Federal Surveillance Group. They analyze all domestic data and communications  for security purposes."

Toby fake coughs. "That's unconstitutional."

"Their agency has a direct line to Merrick, the Joint Chiefs, the President. Any of them hear shouting about terrorism--"

"This intentionally nondescript building houses the hard cables that support Internet service throughout the Southwest. That right there is what's left of them." Walter points to the charred bits of the building.

"There was a note left on the lawyer's door."

"That was a decoy. If the bomber was targeting the lawyer over something emotional, divorce or child custody, the killing mechanism would have been intimate stabbing or strangulation." Toby explains.

"Structurally, you'd put the explosive in that light fixture. Take the whole office out instead of just a section." 

"Whoever did this had to know that there was a seven-millimeter fiber trunk cable in the air vent so they could wedge a bomb behind," Callie mutters looking around at some of the debris.

"That's the vent configuration if everything is up to code. Normally, there's no place to even plant an explosive. I worked in the Building Commission for a day until I got fired for spilling some hand sanitizer on some blueprints." Sylvester babbles handing Cabe a schematic of what it looked it.

"With the Web down between here and Scottsdale, everything, from banking to emergency services is affected. No access to cash. Traffic will grind to a standstill by night. Even the DWP runs online, and in less than a week, freshwater goes away. This is about more than just people losing email." Walter says

"He's right about that." Agent Keeler speaks up from behind Cabe.

"If you let us help, we can eventually restore full service. In the meantime, we can help catch this bomber."

"Who exactly are these independent contractors of yours?"

"They're a team of high-IQ personnel that I've been working with. Give me a second." Cabe leads Walter away. "You're trying to make up for blowing it earlier, but you guys are still brand-new at this. You screw it up like you did this morning, it's over for all of us." He walks off from Walter and over to Paige. "You. You need to keep these guys in check. That's your job. Capisce?"

The team of geniuses headed back to their lair they were watching the news.

"The bombing in downtown LA continues to have  ripple effects. Jerry Dowdell reports live from Olympic and La Brea." The news anchor on the tv says.

"Security footage almost set up." Happy informs everyone.

"All right, well, if that's the best you can do, we'll take it. Happy, a 2000 Series Aggregation Router is being overnighted from Berlin."

"I haven't seen one of those since college,"  Callie mumbled a smirk on her lips as she takes a sip of tea from her coffee mug.

"Can we get it sooner?"

"We're not buying a mouse pad."  Happy sasses.

" No, it's a high-end product only made in Germany. So we get it installed tomorrow. Internet's up; everything is back to normal."

"Far from it in the meantime."

"Traffic lights are not working, causing near gridlock. And now reports of a train crossing malfunction in Moore Park that's resulted in the death of two pedestrians."  Jerry Dowell from Channel 3 says.

"Agent Gallo, I have a psychotic bomber to catch, and I don't have all day."

"Calm down. Surveillance footage is ready."  Callie sasses gathering around the plasmas with everyone else

"All right, Happy, can you run the films simultaneously?"

" So, the first thing we're gonna do is run a Gaussian filter algorithm." Walter pushes his sleeves up, and he slides up a rolling chair, typing on the keyboard. " That way, you get rid of all the film where nothing moves. It's a big problem with surveillance footage. There. We just cut down the number of hours to search by 80%."

"Where did you get this Goss-in--?"

"Gaussian." Callie corrected.

"Gaussian algorithm thing?"

" Photoshop. Toby, you're up." Walter says.

"We're gonna get a little un-PC up in here. Traditional bomber profile means we lose Asians and Latinos. Cut anyone over 60 and under 12."

"That's not how this software is meant to operate."

"Explosives are traditionally a boys' club, so let's lose the women and anyone not wearing a hat or sunglasses.  All right, now who's ready for a little hustle and flow?" Toby continues.

"What's that?"

"Flow dynamics, the study of herd thinking. Actions, reactions." Callie informs him who sends me a curt nod.

"That's right, When one gazelle's ears perk up, so do all the others, then they all run from the cheetah with the same urgency. But ah! That guy in the hat and sunglasses. White male, 30s, fits the domestic terrorist M.O. See, he's calm, 'cause he knows no other bombs are gonna go off." Toby points to a guy on the screen.

"Run him through the program." Agent Keeler Demands.

"I did. It's no match."

"Well, we'll take it back to the FSG lab. We can clarify the photo." Keeled continues.

"You know, your software is decent, but it relies on a three-point bone structure ratio, and that's pretty hard to compute when half of someone's face is covered."

"How do you know so much about top-secret government software?" he asks.

"I may know someone who hacked into it." Walter snips as Callie sighs taking another sip of her tea.

"Be that as it may, I'll rely on my technology. Cabe, let's go, but I'm done with your friends." Agent Keeler walks out.

"Pump your brakes before you say something brilliant," Cabe says stopping Walter in his tracks.

"The truth is his $80 million software was beaten by a hat and sunglasses,"  Callie says as Cabe sends her a look. She shrugs.

"What did we say earlier about a chain of command? You need to follow it."  Cabe replies leaving.

"This is illogical. We have a much better chance of finding that bomber than Cabe does. Okay, let's go."  Walter orders  as Paige steps in front of them.

"That's not what Cabe wants."

"All right, the bottom line is Cabe wants this team to work, so if we find the guy that everyone's looking for, we won't ever have to worry about Director Merrick shutting us down again. All right? All right." Walter replies as everyone leaves. 

"The bomber could have had a car waiting for him, but a co-conspirator increases the odds of capture." Syl starts.

"Now there's a bus stop a street over, but that gives people too much time to see his face."  Callie continues.

"The plaza was full of people fleeing. I mean, it was far too crowded for anybody to even get through."  Syl  finishes as they make it outside of the building standing in the front.

"Are they right about this?"

" Normal mathematicians run probabilities, the odds of a given set of facts taking place. Sylvester's mind runs all potentialities, the odds of almost any possible scenario taking place." Walter explains.

"That's incredible."

"-That's Slyvester." Toby and Walter say at the same time.

"What about Callie?"

"Same rules apply only difference is she can kill you," Toby says with a slight smirk.

"Bargain Nation. Okay, so, he enters the chaos. He walks to the back, and he exits out the loading dock."

"Now he's three blocks away with little public exposure. That is his best play." Callie  mumbles pointing to the store behind her. 

"That's why we don't wait for Cabe. All right, we're gonna do this ourselves."

"Those stores take great close-ups when you go in to prevent shoplifters. They'll have him on camera." Happy explains as the group heads across the street to the store.

"Why would they give us a photo?"

"Because I lifted Cabe's badge." Toby chirps.

"- Oh, Toby." Everyone groans.

"Oh, please. The way you two were fighting this morning, I figured we would have gone rogue hours ago. You should thank me for anticipating."

" Give me that. This is a federal offense." Callie mutters taking the badge from him.

They  get the photo and head back across the street. Using one of the tables that were set up for the crime scene team.

"Now we have a close-up of our bomber. That still doesn't help us."

"Hold on. Hey, dude, are you done with that? Okay, you look pretty done with that." Happy says taking a water bottle from some blonde guy. "Give me the photo. This guy's got something to offer. Lens effect. Convex bottle and water to refract. His key chain's a bottle opener with something on it. Is that a turtle in a racing helmet?"

"That's McAdoo's Tavern. They have turtle races on Saturday nights. I lost four grand there. Word to the wise, don't bet on Yertle McQuickShell. She's misnamed." Toby rambles as everyone looks at him. "What?"

Toby and Callie walked into the Tavern. One was Callie was going to go alone but Toby insisted she would need "backup." Before they  walked over she pulled her  hair down and fluffed it out. Pulling down my shirt. Toby just stares at her

"What? I have to get to his talk somehow."

"You know some people use their looks like that as a sign of insecurities." He says as she rolls her eyes, they approach the bar.

" Hey. We're, uh, looking for someone who might be one of your customers. You know the guy?" she asked holding up the photo the guy stares at her chest with a flirty smirk and she smiled back.

"My shifts vary. I'm in and out. I don't know a lot of the regulars." He mutters still eyeing her like she was the last Steak he'd ever eat.

"Really? Because you stop cutting lemon wedges when you answered. You want to know why?"

"Because I had enough?" Bartender sasses.

"No, that's not enough lemon wedges. You stopped because the part of your brain that handles the details of small tasks like cutting lemon wedges also engages when someone's creating lies. I'm in and out. My shifts vary, and so on. I'm assuming you're lying because you're on parole like the majority of bartenders working the day shift. your no-snitching criminal code is only gonna result in trouble that you don't want. So why don't you answer our questions?" Toby rambles he sounded a bit pissed at the guy which confused Callie she just shrugged it off. 

"Hey, aren't you the guy who lost a fortune on that turtle?"

Toby pulls off his hat revealing Cabe's badge again, which he pulled from Callie's pocket. "What I do when I'm off-duty is my business. The fact that you're lying means you know this guy or where in town he might lay his head. So go grab a pen and write it down, or the next thing I'm gonna pull out of my hat is gonna be my cuffs. You got it, dish rag?"

"I know a waitress he took home one night. I'll make a call."The bartender leaves.

"You know you're not a cop."

"You're a cop if you believe you're a cop." He says as she shakes her  head at him folding her arms over her chest.

The next thing they know the team was outside of the person's house. All gathered around Walter's death trap he called a car.

"Something's bothering you." He mutters

"Yes, Walter, we're outside the house of a possible terrorist. You guys might not be the best people to handle a situation like this. And if I'm going to translate situations for you as you asked me to, I think you're making a huge mistake." 

"You want me to call Cabe? I will surely do it when we know the guy's in there." Walter sasses as Callie looks around an idea sparking in her head.

"Hold on a second. I have a way to find out if he's in there," she mutters shoving her hands in Toby's Jean pockets. 

"Oh! Oh, I like this idea." He smirks as she rolls her eyes pulling out a wad of cash.

"Be right back!"

" That's my money." He whines as Happy and Callie  runs off to the band playing behind them.

"Hold this." Happy says handing Toby an amp with a microphone connected to it.

"I need a parabola," Callie mutters looking around and wetting her lips. "Give me that tape!" she yells to Happy who pulls a piece of duct tape from Walter's passenger seat.

"That's the only thing holding my seat together. "

"I need the mic."

"Here. This umbrella is disgusting." Syl mutters wrapping the microphone around the umbrella Callie plugs in the headphones and put them on Happy's head seeing as her hearing aids don't allow me to wear over-the-ear headphones.

"Okay, everyone quiet. Footsteps."

"Walter, you need to call Cabe." Paige whines as Callie shakes her head at her and continues looking at the apartments.

"Hold on."

"I think it's him," Syl mutters as Callie nods.

"Be cool, guys," she says as a blonde guy with a blue and black flannel and grey hat turns and looks directly at them. None of them say anything. jr pulled her hands from her hips. she could see that look in his eyes as he was about to take off. Which he did. 

"Come on!"  she yells running after him.

"- Oh! Callie!

"We can nail this guy!" she hears Happy yell as she continues running. She runs down an alleyway with him 

"I'm right on your six, you dumb son of a bitch!"  she yells as they keep running he jumps a fence and so does she  continuing to run down alleyways. Toby steps in front of the guy and just pushed him down. He  jumped over Toby and kept running only this time into traffic. she sees him raise a gun as Walter and Paige and she starts to think a bus comes and hits him. Toby panting next to Happy and Callie now.

"Not good."  Happy says Callie kicks a trash can next to them. 

"God damnit."

//

"Blown pupil. Spinal fluid coming out of his nose. Comatose."

"Well, the good news is we found the guy." Toby retorts as Callie smacks him on the shoulder.

"Really? Is that good news? 'Cause I thought we might want to question our only witness, find out his agenda. Where some more bombs might be. But we can't do that when the guy is in a damn coma. Great job, Mensa." Agent Keeler  from earlier in the day says.

"Mensa?! Please. There are porn stars in Mensa." Toby mutters as Callie hits him harder this time he moans and rubs the sore spot

"I will write all of you up for hindering a Federal investigation. You hitched your wagon to some real stars, here, Gallo." Keeler says as Callie shakes her head

"Thank you, Toby." Walter sasses walking off and following Cabe.

It's back to the garage for the team and everyone was aimless. working on different projects and Callie was sparring with a practice dummy. Walter and Paige were talking, and Syl was on his laptop. Happy was working on something with a mallet and a piece of metal and Toby well he's been staring at Callie, he had been  for the past ten minutes. Eyebrows knitted in confusion as if he were still trying to figure her out. Trying to undo a puzzle and put it back together. She looked him dead in the eyes and he cleared his throat and looked away pretending to be working on his computer. She just pursed her lips and kept sparring when Cabe walked in. The room grew even more tense and silent than before. 

"Would it buy them any goodwill if I told you they know they screwed up?" Paige whispered to Cabe.

" Barely. Bits and pieces from the guy's garage. Assume it's IEDs. " Cabe says walking over to Callie and handing her the evidence bag.

"I'll take a look." she  swallowed thickly grabbing the evidence bag and pouring it out on the table. She cracked her knuckles and began looking at the pieces taking them apart. She handed some to Happy who takes a seat down next to her.

"Need a hand. Bomber's computer. It has some kind of security setup. The only reason we're getting a shot at this is that Keeler's men couldn't get through the firewall. And it's important we do because the guy's fingerprints aren't in the system, and all five of his aliases have come up empty."

"All right, I'll get into it,"  Walter says. 

" The Craftsmanship on the wiring indicates U.S. Special Forces training. But there's only one reason to have these other pieces. And these things here are leftover sequencers. But they were all set for some time within the half hour, all coordinated via local frequency transmitters." Happy days.

"And what does that mean?" Paige questioned

" There are more bombs. But they were all supposed to go off in LA at the same time I think the bomb at One Wilton malfunctioned and went off early, and more bombs are coming down the pike real soon."  Callie explained.

"You think or you know?" Cabe says a big Explosion rings through our ears.

" I know,"  she mumbled getting up from her seat and running up to the roof with the others.

They  watched as three dark grey clouds of smoke appeared from the city. At this point, Callie was fuming. She ran back downstairs and began typing vigorously trying to see which buildings were hit while everyone else did the same. All of them huddled around the table.

"He hit a mall, a radio tower, and an armored car. I don't get it."

"What he's doing is random. It makes no sense." Toby says.

At this point, they  were all rambling out loud.

"- Um, guys,"  Paige says.

" I've been to every one of these sights, and I still don't see a pattern."

" Guys, maybe it isn't meant--" the blonde tries again being interrupted.

"See, it's terrorism without focus and that's not how these guys work."

" Hey, I'm talking." She demands.

" We're trying to figure something out."

"Don't interrupt me, Toby. The armored truck wasn't the target. I was a cashier at a Pic 'N Save. When the truck shows up depends on how much extra cash the double-coupon Wednesdays bring in. So it shows up at different times each week. There's no way to plan bombing something if you don't know when it'll be there. So maybe he put the bomb in the garbage can to take out that building, not the truck."

"Holy crap. She might be right" Callie says walking over to Paige and grabbing both of her cheeks in my hands. She kissed her on the face and she just smiles and laughs. They  all run back over to the desk with papers and stuff on it looking them over again while Cabe is on the phone.

"Yeah hi, My name is Federal agent Cabe Gallo, badge number 2835. I want to get a rundown on all the numbers running from 939 Conklin. Thank you. Before computers, people had to talk to each other. Yeah, I'm ready." he pauses for a moment.  "Casperson Film...Lynchfield Printing...."Greytech."

"Greytech that's it."  Walter points. "That's it 

"Thank you for your help," Cabe says hanging up the phone.

"Greytech specializes in slow storage servers, places that hold old data that's rarely accessed online, like, uh five-year-old bank statements."

" So he bombed the Internet hub and then a slow server but that doesn't explain the other targets." Toby leers as Callie begins thinking about wetting her dry lips again. Tapping  her fingertips against one another.

"They're red herrings. The bomber wanted his attacks to appear random, to hide his real motive. But what is it?"

"He's taking out sites where data would be stored long-term and the ability to distribute it online, so maybe the bomber's got a secret he doesn't want getting out and he's willing to blow up the city to erase it,"  Callie explains cutting Walter off and getting out of her trance.

At this point everyone was working diligently on different things, trying to figure this out.  Callie's hands were shaking, she takes a deep breath, working like this begin a genius, having your mind constantly thinking, made her forget about basic needs like Eating, which she hadn't done all day.at homeland, she was with Cabe who always eat on their breaks which would remind her to eat. And now she was here and things were different.  She just ignores it figuring she would at it when the case is done. The news was playing in the background.

"There's an increasing sense of panic in the city. Traffic signals are still sporadic. And now, overloading electrical transformers have erupted into flames, igniting several homes and a brush fire."

"Director Merrick's all over my ass because the damn city's falling apart. I hope to God you're making progress with the bomber's computer." Cabe asks.

"Oh, I am. It shows a failed attempt to hack into a file on a slow server. Now, the file belonged to an email account by the name of Frank Turner."

"Frank Turner died two weeks ago. I printed out this article for you." Syl mutters handing an article to Cabe.

"A hit and run?"

"More like Hit and run The car that killed him was never even found. But if someone is willing to blow up buildings to erase Frank Turner's files, it has to contain something very incriminating."  Callie explained

"On someone very important."

"But how in the hell do you erase a file once it's on the Web?" Cabe asked,

" Oh, it can be done," Walter says to explain to Cabe what is going on.  Callie cocks a brow at Toby and walks over to the desk his eyes glued to the screen.

"What has you so quiet over here?"He jumps a bit startled by my presence and looked up at her eyes filled with a glimmer of light.

"Oh, nothing. It's just--" he leans close to her face not getting out of his seat.  I've figured you out Calliope." He smirks as she gasps.

"Don't you tell anyone, anything you understand?"

He just smirks "I got it." He points a finger up in the air. " And it's more like trying to find a needle in a pile of needles. Ladies and gentlemen, who wants to sew? Because I just found that needle." He throws his messenger bag over his shoulder. " Frank Turner's IP address leads to a router hub in sunny Tarzana. Come on, follow me. I just saved a whole bunch of people."

"We find what's in that email, we'll know who wants to destroy it."

The team arrived at the router hub at Tarzana there's a security guard was posted at a desk in the hub.

"Exactly what are you looking for?"  The tech guy Garry asked.

" If we explained it to you, your mind would melt into your socks."

"It's official government business. Just give us some room."  Cabe orders as Gary shrugs and walks off.

"Normals, huh?" Toby points back to Gary who was leaving, he looks at Paige. " No offense."

"None taken."

"Got it. Email from Frank Turner to a heavily encrypted account.Whoa.All right, My name is Frank Turner. I was a member of FSG--"

"The agency Agent Keeler's with."  Paige interrupts Walter.

"In violation of U.S. and international law, FSG, under Agent Thomas Keeler has been spying on the White House, the State Department."

.

"Stop right there," Cabe says

"So Keeler found out about this, took Turner out, and then went after that data,"  Walter says

"Just copy it onto the drive. I'll get it to the DOJ, get a warrant to arrest Keeler." Cabe orders as Walter does what he is told. Syl and  Callie are standing over his shoulder. "That son of a bitch. He brought you in just to keep an eye on you."

"Keeler hired the bomber?"

"-A black ops ghost, who couldn't be traced back to him." Happy days.

"Here's the file, Cabe."

"FSG's a black budget funded operation. They recruit out of the CIA and the Special Forces. They're plugged in with no oversight." Walter  explained as Happy began looking around. Callie  heard a faint beep and Happy must've heard it too because she starts looking around.

"Happy, what are you doing?"

" - I just heard something."

"Me too. "  Callie says digging into her bag and pulling out a small drill. She hands it to Happy who nods and climbs up on the desk. She opened the vent. And Callie opened her hands giving her a boost.

"What are you? Happy? Callie? Hey, hey, hey, hey."

"- Oh, my God.- Where's she going?" Paige says as Callie shushes her following the sound on the ground. She stopped at a wall putting her ear to it.  Everyone kept rambling and asking questions.

" Hey, hey, hey just be careful, okay?"

"Where's she going?"

Callie tries to ignore them pressing her ear to the wall. She heard the faint beeping again.

"Guys, big problem."  Happy  yells as Callie climbed into the vent this time hearing a chorus of "what are you doing" from everyone else.

She crawled up next to Happy sees the bomb and they both gulp she pulls the bomb out of the vent slowly and crawls out first jumping down. Callie hands her the bomb and jumps downs too.  They place it down on the desk looking at it.

"It's mean-looking. enough plastique for this building and the one next door."

"Uh, based on the speed of the blinking light, and the acceleration of the beep, I would say that we have approximately five minutes and 31 seconds," Syl mutters as Callie takes a deep breath tying up her hair.

"I thought you said there's no chance he'd choose this building."

"He didn't. There are no sequencers on this device. And it was put here recently."

"Did someone tell Keeler we were going to be here?" Paige asks.

" I told Merrick."

"Yeah, who kept the FSG in the loop because he doesn't trust us." Walter snips.

"There's no time to call in the bomb squad. Callie?"  Cabe says as she nods cracking her.  knuckles. "All right, we're gonna have to evacuate the building ourselves. Have the maintenance man pull the fire alarm."

"That leaves the building 20% full. They'll think it's a drill."  Toby explains.

"All right, then go floor to floor. But just keep an eye on the time, okay?"

"We'll help," Paige says as she,  Happy, and Toby run off.

"Cabe, you gotta get that drive to the DOJ. If this place goes up, it's the last existing version of the file. Sylvester, make sure he knows how to open it." 

"Happily," Syl replies.

"You're gonna need this to get into the DOJ," Toby says handing Cabe his badge.

"Where'd you get that?"  He asked

"You dropped it," Toby says running off. Cabe and Syl leave and now it's just Walter and Callie. Callie was analyzing the bomb. Sweat pooled on her forehead. It was hot as she looked at the bomb trying to think quickly

"I can't defuse this."

"We're down to 3:40, 39, 38--" Walter was counting down.

" This wiring is all jerry-rigged, pure guerilla IED thinking. Anything could trip it.

"Well, if we don't run now, we're dead; if we do run now, everyone else left in the building is dead so any ideas?" he asks.

"If it were 1840,  we could drop it down a well." Callie sasses.

" What about the roof?"

"No time. Wait! Janitor supplies. She runs over to the corner grabbing a bucket. " Joint compound. This bomb's gonna blow, but we can lessen the impact. If this, uh, janitor likes his grub salty, we might be able to mute the bomb. Salt speeds up the hardening process but you gotta mix it in thoroughly." 

" Ah! Ha ha! Salt packets!"

" We're in business." She mutters opening another jar of the compound and pouring it in."If this works, the blast will take out the garage, but save the building."  "Ah we're down to a minute stop pouring salt and as Callie rolls up she.  sleeves slowly carrying the bomb to the compound and placing it in.

"Here we go. If the salt works, it should harden pretty quickly. It'll mute the blast enough to contain damage to this garage. If it's not stirred until it's hard as a rock, it won't mute anything."

"Callie  you gotta go find Paige, Toby, and Happy. Get 'em out of the building. You got about a minute left."   Walter says undoing his tie. 

"I run when you do."

"Do it now, okay? I'm right behind you."

"Yeah, I don't think so. I'm stronger than you and it's going to take two people to stir. I'm staying." she says  popping a broom in half and using it as a stirring stick.

"You are so stubborn."

"Yeah well, that makes two of us. Now stir," she demands as he grabs the stick and begins helping her.

The shrill beeping of the bomb and Walter's quiet grunts would make anyone go insane. Callie just grunts. "If it makes you feel any better. I like you okay? I like having you as a boss and I like hanging around you and the team."

He grunts and looks at her sweat pooling on both of their faces the beeping stops and they look at one another running.  The Explosion happens as they  keep walking the grey puff of smoke clouding their eyesight. she  couldn't hear a damn thing but she could  see everyone staring at  them, smiles on their faces.

The group heads back to the garage again.  They  all sat around while Paige was stitching up Toby. He smiled at her.

"I still don't know what you do here but thank you." He says with a smile.

"You're welcome." She beams walking away to throw the badge wrappers away. Callie was sitting on the brown bench in the middle of the room where Walter was looking at his laptop, which was covered in debris.

"You could've left him in the building, you know. I'd be tempted."  Happy says as Callie laughs

Walter looks over at her "The feelings mutual."

"Can you get anything from your computer?" Cabe questions walking into the room.

" No, it's ruined. The blast destroyed and shredded the hard drive."

"Thumb drive is dust," Syl mutters from behind Walter.

"So he erased all the evidence that could tie Keeler to these bombings. He might be in custody now, but he'll be gone by morning."

"What if someone knew that on December 17 Keeler and the U.S. Secretary of Defense had a meeting" Callie explains smirking at the two men and Paige. 

"About illegal drone strikes in Pakistan and Keeler recorded it to use as blackmail?" Syl finishes smiling back at Callie as Walter smirks standing next to the pair.

" I'd say it's admissible evidence. What-what are you two getting at?" Cabe asked.

" Sylvester and Callie were standing over my shoulder when the unencrypted file scrolled through. They memorized the whole thing."

"It was almost 30 pages, though. It only took a second." Paige says in disbelief.

"There are a lot of incriminating things in there." Callie nods. 

"Dirty things."  Sly replies shivering. 

"You two are coming with me to Homeland. We're getting what you know down on paper."

"Okay," Syl says as  Callie groans.

"I don't wanna go. " She whines as  her glucose meter beeps. Syl hands her some hand sanitizer and then her jacket.

"Too bad. We got Keeler. He's going away. Maybe Merrick I'll back off a bit now." He says as Callie nods.

"My glucose level is plummeting," Callie explains grabbing her bag along with Sylvester's

"I just called for transport for Keeler. We'll stop and get you a burger on the way to Homeland, heroes." Cabe quips.

" We'll all get food," Walter speaks up.

"I can't. I've got to pick up Ralph from aftercare."

"Well, we'll all go."  He says with a smile. 

So that's what they did. They all piled into the cars and went to pick up Ralph at aftercare.  From afar they  looked like a group of beat-up crazy people who were standing around staring at children. But as Ralph walked up you could see it. That glimmer of happiness and hope. It was evident in everyone's eyes. 

"Hey, Ralph. So what kind of punch does a jellyfish-like?"

"A smack. Because a group of them is called a Smack of jellyfish." He explains as Callie nods in approval.

"You know a bunch of turtles is a bale? Don't ever bet on them." Toby says as Callie smacks him in the chest and smiles at Ralph.

"Hippos hang out in a bloat."

" A pride of lions and a parliament of owls,"  Sly says.

"Army of ants."  Cabe leers.

"You know, um what a family of scorpions is called?" Walter kneels in front of him. " A cyclone. Now, scorpions are very loyal to their cyclone. But if one of them is attacked, all the others dive in. And we, all of us, we're a cyclone."

"This cyclone is hungry. Let's get some food!" Toby cheers as they all pile into their cars. "Ralph! This is our theme song!" Callie laughs at how he was head bobbing terribly to the music.

Callie was smiling for the rest of the night until she made it back to a temporary place. She hated to admit it but today she felt something. A light was seen in her. A tiny light, not a big one. Just a tiny little spec. It was there evident. She felt a tiny tingly in her chest; she knew it would keep happening and eventually one day she wouldn't be  able to bottle it up anymore. That one day she was  going to walk down to that cellar where she stored her emotions and lit it on fire. Watch it burn all around her and when that day comes she'll be ready. Ready to feel all the things she can. But for now, she was  gonna bottle it up, and store it deep down.

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