“We're going to die.” Hope said resigning to the future in sight.
“We are not going to die.” Lizzie Saltzman said, her voice remembering Hope just why they were going to die.
“If you weren’t such a stubborn meanie, we wouldn’t.” Hope hissed at her. Too bad she couldn’t look her in the eyes while saying that. They were tied back to back in an airplane about to explode. The fact that the parts of her body touching Lizzie’s body were burning had everything to do with anger and nothing to do with romantic intent. No, definitely nothing.
“It wasn’t my fault that the boy couldn’t handle a little truth.” Lizzie said and Hope knew she was frowning without having to actually see it.
“That boy is a crime lord that you were supposed to charm into telling where his father is.” Hope shouted. She, then, felt Lizzie sighing and it reverberated on her own body sending shivers down her spine. Since she had met Lizzie a year ago and they had been partnered, Hope had noticed that Lizzie wasn’t quite like other people. And that made Hope more interested than she would admit.
“He told me where his father is.” Lizzie stated and Hope rolled her eyes. Yes, he did tell Lizzie but instead of charming him like she was supposed to do, she just did her Lizzie Thing on him. After that it was quite easy for him to figure out that Lizzie wasn’t just a girl from a bar but rather some secret agent out for his father’s head. The Lizzie Thing, Hope had noticed over the past months, always worked. It surprised Hope that Lizzie could recall dates, the color of the polish nail of someone she met for two seconds, the smell of the dog’s shampoo and a lot more random details that were totally irrelevant at the moment but that always helped them solve their cases. But also sometimes, no, usually… more like always, got them in trouble. That was probably why they partnered them up just a few months after they started to work to the CIA. Hope was there to prevent Lizzie from getting killed while actually getting the job done since Lizzie almost always had the answers but she lacked certain finesse to solve it.
“But we’ll die so what’s the point of it?” Hope asked feeling again the damned shivers when Lizzie rested her head on the top of Hope’s. Damned her for being so much taller. “I told them it should be me.” Hope said. She had told them that Lizzie wasn’t fit for the job; that while she had an amazing mind and successful interrogation technique, she had no idea how act like a normal person. They told Hope that this was an important mission and Hope was the extraction plan in case something happened. Well, something did happen and now they were trapped in an airplane.
“How could I know that the rival mob would put a bomb to kill him in the plane he was bringing us to his father?” Lizzie asked and Hope had to admit that she had a point. But…
“But did you actually had to tell him that someone had put a bomb in the plane? Now he and his men parachuted themselves out of here and left us. I’m glad that he was sensible enough to worry about the plane crashing on a city or something that he left the automatic pilot on or else we would’ve been dead by now already.” Hope said.
“I thought you had been trained to free yourself from any kind of thing.” Lizzie teased and Hope could see the smirk.
“I thought you were trained to be smarter than letting us die just because you didn’t want to kiss his disgusting mouth.”
“I’m a woman of values and I don’t believe in kissing men.” Lizzie said annoying Hope to the point of growls.
“I’ve seen you kissing a man before.” Hope exclaimed, a bitter taste in her mouth. It wasn’t jealousy.
“Call it relenting to societal expectations.” Lizzie said and Hope felt her smile in the way her head shifted a little on Hope’s own head. Hope couldn’t believe that they were about to die and Lizzie was smiling and making jokes.
“There’s not one single, not even half of it, bone in your body that cares about surrendering to society’s expectations, Lizzie.” Hope sighed out loud and then she smiled because that was something that she admired on Lizzie.
“Ha, you smiled.” Lizzie said triumphant.
“I didn’t because we’re about to die.” Hope said, smile fading.
“I already told you that we aren’t going to die.”
“I’m falling to see a solution since they chained us with real iron chains. Who does even chain people with iron chains these days?” Hope asked because really, iron chains was a bit unnecessary.
“Yeah but they made a terrible mistake because, you see, they didn’t account for me being clever.” Lizzie said in that way that was more like stating a fact, like the sky is blue or the sun is hot, than bragging.
“You’re right, they only guessed that you were rude.” Hope said and Lizzie rolled her eyes. Probably.
“Like I was saying, I’m clever and do you now how we can break lock?” Lizzie asked and Hope did know that answer even though she didn’t know how that applied to their case since they weren’t in a chem lab but Lizzie didn’t give her a chance to talk. “Liquid nitrogen.”
“Where are we going to find liquid nitrogen, Lizzie? In case you forgot, we’re kind of trapped in a plane with less than an hour till the bomb explodes and we’re history. We won’t even be heroes; no, when they find our bodies in the wreckages, the CIA won’t claim us and we’ll be buried like traitors in a collective grave.”
“At least we’ll be together till the bitter end.” Lizzie said. “But they actually have liquid nitrogen here.”
“Why would they have it?” Hope asked frowning. Such a weird thing to transport in a plane.
“Horse semen.” Lizzie giggled. “His father likes racing horses and he bought it to breed new ones and sell.” Lizzie told Hope.
“Did he tell you that?” Hope frowned.
“No but he was stinking horse and his name is after an Olympic winner equestrian.” Lizzie said. “There’s also some thermic boxes right in front of me labelled Equus caballus Semen. That’s horse.”
“So your plan is to, somehow, manage to get the liquid nitrogen inside that box and what? Throw it on the chain to make it easier to break? I’m not a specialist but I think it will hurt us.”
“Liquid nitrogen is actually widely used in medicine.” Lizzie said serious and Hope tilted her head a bit.
“Really? For what?” Hope asked suspicious.
“Skin removal.” Lizzie said and Hope felt in the way Lizzie’s shoulders shook a little that she was holding a laugh. Hope was actually angry at herself for recognizing Lizzie’s movements so well that she didn’t need to see her to know what she was doing. She really wanted to blame it on the fact that one year working together made them pretty good at reading each other but she was about to die; or get some part of her skin removed, that was still in question; and she shouldn’t lie to herself. The truth simple and undeniable: as much difficult, rude, and smug Lizzie was, Hope was actually pining hard for her.
“Lizzie!” Hope shouted and then sighed. “I guess it’s better than be blown up to little pieces.” Hope said.
“Medium pieces. This kind of explosion would blow us to medium pieces.” Lizzie corrected.
“And that is better than little pieces?” Hope frowned.
“Yes, because the likelihood of our body parts being recovered to be buried is higher.” Lizzie said, her body contorting behind Hope as if she was trying to reach something. “Got it.”
“What?”
“The horse semen.” Lizzie said. “Now I’m going to use my loose leg to get it closer to you so you can open it with your mouth.”
“That’s just disgusting.” Hope said with a face when she felt the box being pushed to her with Lizzie’s leg.
“You have to open it and try to dip the lock in the chain close to your hand because that’s the chain that’s tied to the seats thus locking us. If you break that, we can break it on my side and then we’re free.” Lizzie explained and Hope took a deep breath before trying to bend her body enough to open the box with her mouth. It wasn’t hard to open the box and inside there was a cylinder. “You should find a containment bottle.”
“I found it. It’s a cylinder.”
“Now do exactly what I tell you because I already used liquid nitrogen in interrogations before and I know that it can make you lose your finger very quickly. Your whole hand, if you’re not careful.” Lizzie said very serious this time and Hope noticed a slight stutter on her voice. Worry. For Hope. Hope felt something warm inside. “When you open it, you’ll have to dip the lock in it and I know you said it’s very close to your hand but I’m counting on the Leidenfrost Effect to keep your hand free of frostbites but you have to keep the lock inside the nitrogen for some time.” Lizzie inhaled. “As soon as you take it out, the metal of the lock will be kind of brittle and it should make it possible for you to snap it. You’ll have to use all your force to bring your body back like when a dog is forcing a leash. If the metal is brittle enough, you should be able to snap the lock open and take the chains off.”
“And if I can’t?” Hope asked fearing the answer. Lizzie was the one facing the timer of the bomb.
“We die in approximately 30 minutes.” She answered and Hope took a deep breath. Then she bent her body as much as she could and opened the cylinder that fortunately had a little lever. As soon as she opened it and used her mouth to push the cap away, she felt the cold. “Quickly now.” Lizzie said and Hope dipped the lock hanging from the chain in her hands in the nitrogen.
“Ouch. This is cold.” Hope said feeling it so cold that it burned a little.
“Okay. Now just breath as little as you can and try not to think of what’s happening. Actually, let’s think of something nice. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” Lizzie asked, her voice a little unstable but Hope could see that she was making her best not to freak out.
“Dead from an explosion.” Hope said huffing. “If not by this one, I’m sure another one will come our way if I’m still working with you.” Hope said and Lizzie laughed.
“That’s good. It means that even though we know we’ll die anyway, we keep trying. That’s strength of character. I appreciate that in a person.” Lizzie said and Hope could see her smile. She tried not to focus on the burning.
“Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” Hope asked.
“Finally getting to work with children.” Lizzie said a little bitter. Hope knew that this job wasn’t what Lizzie wanted. “Maybe have a child of my own.”
“Do you want to be a mom?” Hope asked surprised because she had never imagined Lizzie as a mom. She actually had never seen Lizzie with children before even though Hope knew she studied to work with them.
“Yes. Don’t you want to be a mom?” Lizzie asked and Hope thought she’d noticed something in Lizzie’s voice.
“I have never thought about it.” Hope said. But now that she thought about it, she would maybe like to have a strong minded, clever little child running around causing trouble. She would blame it on Lizzie if the child were too troublesome. Then she realized that she had imagined a child with Lizzie, so Hope blushed because she was being burned, about to get exploded and buried in a collective grave as a traitor, and she was still blushing because of Lizzie. She looked like a 15 years old rather then a 24 years old grown woman.
“When we survive you do this. Now break the lock.” Lizzie commanded and Hope took it from the nitrogen, breathed and pulled as hard as she could. She heard a crack noise and for one moment she thought she had been able to break it but then the pain washed over her. Her wrist. She screamed. “Did it break?”
“My wrist? Sure!” Hope snarled at Lizzie. Then Hope looked at the lock and saw that, although it had broken a little, it wasn’t enough. “It didn’t break.”
“Can you try to pull it again?” Lizzie asked and Hope noticed urgency in her voice.
“I don’t know.”
“I know it hurts like hell but you have to try. I’ll try to pull us towards my side so the force against yours is bigger. And this time when you feel the pain, you can’t stop.” Lizzie said and Hope nodded. “1, 2, 3, pull.” And Hope did it, the pain almost unbearable. But it was worth it because it really broke the lock. When the chain fell from her hands, she almost threw up from how ugly her writs looked.
“It worked.” Hope said. Then she started to lose the chains that were tying her to Lizzie. When she finally freed herself, it was time for Lizzie.
“It will take too much time for us to free me just like we freed you so I need you to find a hair clip or paper clip here in the plane so we can open the lock easier.” Lizzie said and Hope stood up, the pain too much for her to talk just yet. She had seen the man carrying folders with his father's finances and a folder was bound to have a paper clip. When she took it with her mouth because her arms were hurting too much to do anything, she gave it to Lizzie. Lizzie wasn’t the best lockpicker between them, Hope was, but Lizzie would have to handle it at the moment. When she finally freed herself, she hugged Hope. Hope smiled softly at Lizzie being so sweet with her when she felt a sting on her leg. She screamed again.
“What is that?” Hope asked as she felt something like a hush.
“An epi pen. I guess that someone on the plane was allergic. It’s to help you just until we can treat you. You were almost passing out.” Lizzie said and Hope nodded energetically. The pain was still wrecking her but the adrenaline hush made her pumped.
“Now let’s get the hell out of here.” Hope went to the compartment where they had taken the parachutes just to find it empty. “You got to be kidding me.” Hope exclaimed kicking it.
“So disarm the bomb it is.” Lizzie said going to the bomb that Hope hadn’t looked at till now. 5:00 minutes.
“You’re not going to disarm this bomb, Lizzie.” Hope shouted and Lizzie frowned.
“So we just wait to die?” She asked and Hope rolled her eyes.
“No, we jump in the ocean.” Hope said as if it was obvious. They were flying low enough that the ocean seemed close.
“And die from broken bones due to water’s surface tension?”
“Throw the bomb in the ocean?”
“It’s attached to the wiring circuit of the plane.”
“You’re not being very helpful.” Hope said.
“I can disarm the bomb.” Lizzie tried again.
“Have you ever disarmed a bomb before?” Hope asked knowing the answer. Lizzie didn’t say anything. “I have an idea.” Hope said.
“Really?” Lizzie asked frowning.
“Yes. That happens.” Hope said going to the pilot cabin. “Look for two emergency boats while I try to make this plane go closer to the water.” Hope said and Lizzie left. Hope had had some piloting classes; just the basic in case something like this happened but they left out of the drills the part of her wrists being broken, a bomb and no parachute. Also the part where it’s real. But it was enough for Hope to make the plane go lower. When she met Lizzie again next to the bomb, it was marking almost 3 minutes. “Now let’s jump.”
“I can still disarm the-”
“I’m in charge now.” She said. “Now let’s jump.” Hope said going to the back of the plane where the guys had jumped. When she opened the door, she felt the force of the air from the open door almost pulling her outside. “When we jump, we open the inflatable boat and-”
“Try to lay on it so when we land on the water the boat will absorb the energy of the impact and we won’t die. That’s actually pretty clever.” Lizzie said impressed.
“You have to pull a little string just like the parachute. Our fall will take approximately one minute. We should be able to open it and survive.” Hope said and Lizzie nodded nervous. “If we die, though, I have to tell you something.” Hope said knowing that even though they had less than two minutes before the plane exploded, she couldn’t die without telling Lizzie. Then she decided to show her. It would be easier. She grabbed Lizzie’s head, swollen wrist forgotten, and kissed her finding it funny Lizzie’s surprised gasp. When Hope pulled away, Lizzie was looking at her stunned.
“Now we definitely need to live.” Lizzie said smiling.
“Now we jump.” Hope answered smiling.
“Together.” Lizzie said.
And they jumped.