Made In Basalt

(Un)Settled

Nikki had never really thought too deeply about death, but even in the few gloomy moments when the concept floated into his mind, never did he think he would die anytime soon. Certainly not at the distinctly confusing age of twenty-four.

But hell, here he was, deep in the air vent of the penthouse suite in the flashiest hotel in Colombia, the colour-coded wires of a ticking bomb held in his sweaty fingertips, the timer flashing the rapidly descending minutes and seconds, and he'd only had his birthday last month.

Nikki wiped his upper lip with his arm, then wiped his forehead with the same arm.

"Come on, you sonofabitch," he murmured. "Come on. Come on - slowly..."

His hands were shaking so badly it was almost comical, and he had no choice but to put the wires down for a moment and just thank everything holy that he wasn't a surgeon. When he picked the wires up again, though, his hands were still shaking. Less so, maybe, until he remembered that he was wearing no flame-resistant suit, no protective gear at all, and the only tools at his disposal were a pair of tweezers, a rusty screwdriver Nick had found in his glove compartment, and a hedge-clipper he'd stolen from the gardener on his way up here, and there was an actual fucking real-life UXB with a delayed action fuse sitting in front of him which, if he couldn't neutralise, would blow both him and everyone in the near-capacity hotel into bloody smithereens.

"OK. Sack up, Sixx, let's do this," he muttered. He'd already managed to figure out which wire he had to cut first, using the tweezers, the screwdriver and some careful examination.

Of course by 'figured out,' he meant 'guessed with an error margin of about 20 to 80 per cent,' but -

"Fuck it, just cut the damn thing," Nikki grunted, holding the wire in question between his fingers and holdings the scissors up.

When he snapped the scissors closed, the first thing that happened was that the bomb did not go off. Then the timer fizzled weakly into silence. A surge of frenzied relief overtook Nikki as he lunged with the screwdriver, taking the device apart and reaching for the little, rather heavy grey box inside, now attached to nothing, not a damn thing, definitely not the little half-empty plastic container with the wretched clear fluid that smelled like battery acid and death. Nikki slumped, feeling his heart thunk numbly in his chest.

It took a while for his legs to start working, and when they did, after grabbing the liquid-filled container and the little grey fuse, he cycled them frantically, scrambling along the tight metal tube with all the grace of a sumo wrestler in stripper heels. It was dusty in those air vents, and he could feels cobwebs stretching and splitting against his skin as he pushed clumsily forward, hands grappling for purchase on the worn metal, heart beating dementedly in his mouth as the bright red numbers on the bomb flashed behind his eyes, counting down.

******

"Cakewalk," Nikki said with slight hysteria, sliding into the car seat next to Mick, who had almost had a stroke when Nikki tapped on the window and waved. He grabbed Nikki's arm and took several deep breaths, closing his eyes. Nikki knew the other man could feel him shaking.

"Don't be gay, Mars," he murmured, feeling that hysteria slowly fading as he sat in the car seat, the warm weight of his partner's hand squeezing his arm.

"Did you do it properly?" Mick's voice was still sharp, despite everything. "Did you take out the liquid and the fuse...?"

"I did," Nikki said. His voice sounded weary, even to his ears. "Figured out which wire, cut that wire, disassembled the whole thing."