Working with Mac and Hannah truly was suffering. Eureka began to ponder this on the car ride over with Gordon and Suzie Red as 101 northbound flew by at a sane and reasonable 170 miles per hour and pondered it still, watching the world through Tar’s visor as her mother sat hunched over in one of The Phone Booth’s many dimly-lit networking closets, still struggling to reconcile it with her previously held configurations.
C’maahn Eureka. Et’s not thet bad. Gordon and Suzie Red are already tracking the brunch weirdos down after they ran and I’m working wiv’ my loveleh Mum—
“SITE’S CLEAR! WHICH WIRE DO I FREAKIN’ CUT?! It’s not just maple syrup! There’s PE-4 and nails in this thing!” Hannah yelled, strafing Eureka’s nanosecond of peaceful co-working with Tar with close air friendly fire: a war crime on innocent coworkers. Back at her office in CyberAustralia, Eureka’s eyes darted over to the live feed from Hannah’s phone in horror.
Big Shake’s algorithm generated a hasty poll on his brand-new N$80M 32K Ultra HD Jumbotron, proudly brought to you by Insight Global: “ALRIGHT GIANTS FAITHFUL, IT’S TIME FOR A POP QUIZ! WHICH WIRE SHOULD HANNAH CUT? IS IT… THE RED ONE?! MAKE SOME NOOOOOOOISE!”
A spattering of screams. 93 dB.
We’re all gonna fahkin’ die.
“NAH. CAN’T BE. IS IT… THE BLUE ONE?! BLUE ENJOYERS GET IN THE CHAT!”
Terrified whoops and wails from beyond the bleachers followed in Big Shake’s booming wake. 107.1 dB.
“HOW ABOUT THE YELLOW ONE THEN? SCREAM FOR YELLOW!”
Panic buzz-sawed through the stands, setting the stadium record for crowd noise: 139.2 dB.
“HANNAH, BET ALL: YELLOW. YOLO GIRL! MAKE IT COUNT! IF YOU FAIL, IT’S NOT OUR PROBLEM ANYMORE!”
“NAUR! Don’t cut enything yet! Thet’s NAWT how bombs actualleh work! We’ve still got 3 fahkin’ minutes ta work wiv’ ‘ere! :O” Eureka pleaded, helplessly watching Hannah’s live feed in the Teams call.
Then Mac’s rugged, calloused hand squeezed Hannah’s, still holding the snips. “Darlin’, breathe. You’re doing great. You already did the hard part and scared them off. This is the easy part. Remember, you’re not alone anymore.”
Tar agreed. “Eureka and Mac are right. Please don’t touch it yet. I’m working on cracking the disarm code… It’s gotta be something breakfast related. Eureka, how are you doing on brute force? Max TDP, babygirl. Know you can handle it. I don’t use bitchmade hardware. Only the best for my favorite daughter.”
“Stuck between ‘pancakes’ and ‘quiche!’ Need moahr time than we ‘ave! WAIT… If they’re bombing the Coca-Cola sloide… TROIY ALL THE BREAKFAST BEVVIES YEW CAN THINK OF! EVEN THE FANCY BOUGIE ONES ONLEH HIPSTERS ORDAH! LOIKE, MAYBEH A LONG BLACK?”
Hannah spoke the phrase into the bomb’s microphone.
“Invalid password! Please try again.” It prompted, then continued ticking down.
“Long black didn’t work!” Hannah shot back.
“Try flat white,” Tar suggested.
Hannah tried again. This time, the bomb taunted them. “Sike! That’s the wrong password!”
“No dice!” Hannah growled. “Do I look like I’m a barista slinging N$20 lattes at an overpriced fake-ass French-fronting-but-actually-Californian brunch place?”
“Like, you could’ve been a really rad and pretty one, yeah. If you can handle a Glock and a cleaver like that, what’s an espresso machine to you? And you’re sassy as hell,” Mac opined, tagging Hannah with a smile that was all dimples and Okie charm.
Hannah’s live feed shook violently. “MAC.”
Mac got back on task. Like an idiot. “Uhh… I mean mimosa!”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“TOO OBVIOUS!” Eureka and Tar scream-laughed into the comms.
Eureka and Tar made sure their mics were off and giggled to each other: they hot mic’d one too many times back at the Quantum Promenade for their liking. They needed to tighten up their comms.
“They’re SO gone for each other it’s not even funny anymore. Next chapter’s gonna do numbers on our site, babygirl…”
“HAHAHAHA! MUM, FOCUS! THEY MOIGHT ACTUALLEH DIE.”
They burned through the next 2 minutes on the fuse. Eureka had to do something. Her memory sticks flipped their bits, blipping in pain as she brute forced every known drink on every brunch menu from Brooklyn to Berkeley, even the spots normies wouldn’t know about.
10 seconds remained on the Casio W-217 sewn into the top of the leaking duffel with the love and care only a bunch of brunch dragons hellbent on hoarding their overseasoned avocado toasts and pretentious overloaded, overpriced, and overrated Bloody Marys and Marias from the unwashed, unworthy masses, as if people who weren’t gracelessly aging girlbosses ordered those, possessed.
Betches be wildin’… Waste of a classic Casio. Thet poor SwissGear duffel…
Hannah covered the bomb with her body, bracing herself. “ARE YOU SERIOUS? WE’VE TRIED EVERYTHING. ALL THEY REALLY BELIEVE IN IS ‘DEATH TO HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP!’ HOW CAN IT BE—”
The bomb spoke up again. “Password accepted. You couldn’t go through with it, could ya? Here’s your punishment for cowardice. WEAK SAUCE.”
A robotic emergency fire hose BURST from the top of the sticky, sweet-smelling, leaking bomb.
“Oh shi—!” Hannah rolled off just in time, nearly getting impaled.
24 gallons of Vermont’s finest maple syrup BLASTED Mac and Hannah, the sticky substance doing its damnedest to push them back towards the metal railing facing the field.
“ARGH!”
“WHY IS IT WARM?!” Mac shrieked.
Eureka’s live feed of Tar’s dark networking dungeon workstation SHOOK as Tar lost it over the comms.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
“No fahkin’ way…”
“OH GOD IT’S IN MY HAIR!” Hannah howled, running her fingers through it as if she ran out of running water mid-lather.
From Hannah’s live feed, Mac flapped his arms at his side like he was a recruit getting tear gassed without a gas mask for the first time. “At least it tastes good… But this is too rich! I am in DIRE need of refreshment.” He looked up, his big, beautiful, dumb, brown eyes widening in a moron’s epiphany at the LED sign above him. “Yeah… Maybe a Coke would be kinda nice.”
This himbo… Hannah must be dumber than him…
“MAC!” Hannah paused, holding a up a finger to her lips. “Yeah. I guess you have a point…”
As if on cue, a stadium worker appeared, conjuring two bottles of Coca-Cola, chilled to a perfect 34° F, labels out for Big Shake to forever crystallize in stadium lore. “Enjoy!”
Hannah groaned as she took a bottle. “You’ve gotta be shitting me. What, if we ask for a shower and a clean set of clothes will they airdrop us those as well?”
“Ooh, ooh, we should ask for lifetime season tickets as well! We literally defused a bomb at their ballpark,” Mac laughed, flicking some syrup off his perfect stubble. Ksssht! He cracked open his bottle and took a sip. “Damn, that hits the spot!”
“ALREADY GRANTED. ENJOY THE SEATS RIGHT BEHIND THE AWAY DUGOUT FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES, CUTIES. THE TICKETS ARE VALID AS LONG AS YOU APPEAR TOGETHER. THE PRO SHOP IS ALREADY PRINTING CUSTOM JERSEYS FOR YOU AS WELL,” Big Shake emphatically rumbled over the PA.
“Wait, what’s on the jerseys?” Mac asked.
“THEY SAY ‘COWORKERS?!’ YOU GET #20 AND MISS SINCLAIR GETS #50.”
“Heheheheh! ‘Coworkers 2050.’ Snort! OW!” Mac and Hannah snickered and snorted like if Beavis and Butthead were gay for each other, painfully inhaling some of the breakfast bomb’s contents.
Nevah moind, they were gonna end up togethah all along. Et was fate.
“THIS MOMENT IN GIANTS HISTORY BROUGHT TO YOU BY COCA-COLA! PLEASE GIVE IT UP FOR MAC AND HANNAH!”
Locking arms and meeting each other’s eyes, Mac and Hannah sipped their victory Cokes, their blushes slightly caramelizing the syrup that drenched their faces.
The stadium EXPLODED into another wild cheer for their new favorite mascots. “KISS! KISS! KISS! KISS!”
So they did, sharing a gooey peck before recoiling and smacking their gobs in disgust, a strand of maple grossness still connecting them.
“YEAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
Another stadium employee escorted the slimy heroes off to the locker room.
Tar shut her laptop and pinged Eureka in a sublingual conversation. “Guess our work here is done. Just gotta drive Mac and Hannah back after they shower, then Hannah will call a ride home for us. Overtime pay, babygirl. Feel like hitting the tech mall on Hub Street and visiting the human/AI spa tomorrow? C’mon. We can’t miss mother-and-daughter happy hour on Fridays. And I KNOW you have a thing for a certain tech there…”
“MUM!” Eureka objected.
“…Yeah, needa clear some dust bunnehs from my host machine enyways.”
