Kyle then came back, “The Green wire is what you need—but you don’t want to cut it either. You need to disconnect it in order to avoid a potential partial release of some of the residue.”
Mason nodded, “Okay...”
Kyle elaborated, “What you need to do is disconnect the wire from the power source, without damaging it so the system will go to idle.”
Kyle then added, “There should be two screws attached to the plug, just undo them and you should be good to go.” Kyle then asked, “Do you have a screw driver on you?”
Mason realizing the problem cursed, “Damn…”
Kyle asked again, “Well do you have one or not?”
Mason growing agitated, responded, “Yeah Kyle, I’ll go ahead and pull one out of my ass and get right to work.”
Kyle muttered, “Sarcasm…. How charming… Anyway—if you don’t have a screwdriver… you’ll just have to find another way to disconnect the bolts without damaging the wiring.”
Mason grumbled, “Alright—alright—I’ll take them off with my teeth if I have to.”
18
Desperate Times and Desperate Measures
After Mason ended the call with Kyle, Raina who had been too busy monitoring the crowd with Mathew Benton to pay attention, could tell immediately that there was something wrong. She questioned him, “What’d you find out?”
Mason sighed, “Kyle says that we need to disconnect the green wire on the device.”
Raina then promptly pulled out a pair of small scissors she always kept in her pocket and asked, “Shall I do the honors.”
Mason practically screamed, “No!! If we cut the wires it will cause the exhaust to rev up and shoot out some of the pathogen! We have to manually disconnect it! Not cut it!”
Raina shocked by the voracity of the onslaught she was dealt, quietly intoned, “Oh…” She then suggested, “Okay—well… lets disconnect it.”
Mason nodded, “Yeah I would like to but there is only one problem.”
Raina asked, “What’s that.”
Mason groaned, “I don’t have a freaking screw driver to undo the two bolts on the back.”
Raina gasped, “You have got to be kidding me.”
She then thought, “Wait, Benton is like the resident MacGyver here on Onyx, maybe he has one.” She then patched in Benton who was a short distance away monitoring the crowd, on her Comm link, “Hey Benton, we need your assistance here.”
Benton responded, “Yeah, with what?”
Raina told him, “We need a screwdriver to get a couple bolts off of this device.”
Benton laughed, “Seriously…alright I’ll…” Benton then trailed off as he realized, “Shit…”
Raina asked, “I hope that shit doesn’t mean what I think it means Benton….”
Benton admitted, “It does… I don’t have one either….” Benton then offered, “I have a whole tool box in my car! Just give me a minute to…”
Mason then chimed in, “We don’t have a minute matt! We have to improvise somehow!”
Benton then suggested, “Yeah time to put some of those mad skills of improv we learned in the SEALs to use…just find something ANYTHING that you could use to get those bolts off of there.”
Mason quickly shot back, “Right… I’ll see what I can do.” Mason then scanned the platform thinking that he could find a wayward tool from one of the techs, muttering, “You would think that they would have something up here...”
But the platform looked as clean as a broom. Mason muttered, “Damn… Who put all this shit together and didn’t even leave any tools around for last minute adjustments…?”
Mason growing desperate started to look at the ground hoping to find something that he could somehow commandeer and use as a tool to take off the bolts. But aside from broken beer bottles, and the occasional wayward Coney dog he was coming up with absolutely nothing. It was then that he heard the unmistakable sound of a drunken reveler opening up a bottle of beer.
He looked over to see the guy with some kind of multipurpose bottle opener—cracking open his bottle of beer. Mason knew the kind of multi tool—he had one himself in the past. And the one that he had happened to have a screw driver attached to it. Hoping that this patron’s opener would have one as well, he stared at it thinking to himself, ‘Does it have it? Does it have it? Does it—? Yes, it does!’
Sure enough, along with a snazzy pair of fingernail clippers, he saw a small screw driver hanging off of the multi tool instrument. Mason knowing that there was no time to be polite, clambered back down from the platform, charged right at the man, and snatched the opener right out of his hand. The reveler was dumbfounded, as Mason shouted, “Sorry sir! I need this more than you do!”
Mason then ran back into the crowd, as the man began to shout, “Help! Thief! Bottle opener thief! Help!”
Mason holding the multi tool up in the air as if it were his prized possession, shouted, “I got it! I got it!”
Wasting no time, Mason then leapt back up onto the platform of the float and got to work on the device. The tool was not the best but with massive force and concentration he was indeed able to turn the screws. After about 30 seconds had elapsed, he managed to get the first off, the metal plate wiggling loose in his hands.
He was working on the second when something completely unexpected happened, he heard a gunshot as a bullet whizzed right past his ear. Mason couldn’t believe it, besides being shot at, he was shocked that NYC was so lax as to let someone into this public extravaganza with a firearm.
Mason shouted into the comm-link to Benton and Raina, “Shots fired! Shots fired!”
Benton asked, “Where?”
Mason growled, “At me! Someone just shot at me up here!”
Benton not sure what else to say, told him, “Alright man, I’m on it—just keep working up there.”
Mason getting frustrated responded with a terse, “Okay… I’ll try not to turn into swiss cheese over here.”
Benton scanned the crowd. And with his eagle eye he managed to find their gunman. He was
