Page 88 of Static/Cling

“You don’t follow a lot of orders, do you?”

The voices were getting closer now, so Leif eased away from the corner and flattened himself into the shallow alcove of a door, staying close enough to hear them, still.

“What orders? We don’t have orders. We have instructions. Make sure no one comes out of that door. Not like this is the army or something.”

“What did they just say?” Sal asked, voice frigid.

“Shh,” Roger warned. “Stay quiet, Leif.”

Like he needed the reminder, but still. He clamped his teeth shut and pursed his lips, to make Roger happy, even though he couldn’t see it.

Finally, the two people passed by and after another minute, a door at that end of the building opened and closed.

“They’re back in their guard booth,” Sal said. “Go fast, while they re still getting settled. The door you want is on the west wall.”

“You already said,” Leif whispered.

“Sorry. Just?—”

“Shh. I’m going.”

He stayed close to the wall as he hurried down the passage. The lock on the server room door was, thankfully, electronic, and Leif made a mental note to make sure next time they went on this kind of adventure, it was one of the things they remembered to check before hand. He would have been screwed standing in the hallways, plain as day, trying to pick a mechanical lock.

As it was, just getting the super-charged cuff close to the card-swipe was enough to make it buzz and click, and he could easily swing the door open.

“Now hurry,” Sal warned. “That has probably set off an alarm of some sort, and they aren’t that far away.”

“Right.”

Leif glanced around, decided on the nearest block of servers, laid his palm flat over the face of it, then pushed the “ouch” button.

“Fuck. My. Life.” He ground the words out through gritted teeth. Because “ouch” was a massive understatement. It felt like the skin around his wrist was on fire.

“That’s gonna leave a mark.”

But watching the way static charge raced through the machines like tiny blue flickers of lightning was as satisfying as it was painful.

“It’s not going to make it to the very end of the room,” Sal warned.

“I got this,” Leif told them, and hurried to the far end to use the other cuff.

Knowing what was coming this time didn’t help a lot. How Bjorn managed to do this on almost a daily basis, he had no idea. His lover’s heart had to be made of strong stuff. Leif could feel his literally fluttering in his chest.

When there was no more charge left in either cuff, he sagged against a wall to breathe.

“Now what?” he asked.

And got no answer. Nothing. Not even static.

“Again,” he muttered, “fuck my life.”

Which was when the door to the little room flew open and the two soldiers appeared, guns pointed at him.

“Hi?” He lifted both hands to where they could see them, next to his head, and waved with the fingers of one of them.

“I told you!” one of them said. “Someone was up here.”

“Shut up.”

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