Mark showed up to the 'Welcome' dinner in a rented suit, classic black & white with two gun holsters beneath the jacket. Most of the other mercenaries were sporting similar attire, and this revealed an essential part of their mindset: Even knowing in advance that they'd be attending this social function, they just didn't care enough to bring elegant clothing to a warzone. There were limits to such degeneracy; Krueger was a tolerated man, at best, but in their hearts, they had long ago embraced a lifestyle that did not require regular grooming beyond basic hygienic concerns.
Hence, Mark was surprised to a) spot John Done in attendance and b) see him running around in a custom-tailored suit. He pondered several possibilities regarding that, but had to hold onto that thought when Done spotted him in return and walked over to him, ushering the Enforcer towards a quiet corner.
"It's a small world, after all," John Done said; there was the hint of a smile on his scarred face.
"Look, man, I'm sorry about the Abakan, okay? My bad." Mark replied in a hushed voice; although they'd never settled it conclusively, he believed that Done was the better straight-up fighter, and even if that wasn't so, a fistfight wouldn't be a walk in the park.
"Really. How sorry are you? Are you 'lame apology' sorry? Or are you '7000 US Dollars' sorry?"
"I wanted to settle that, I really did. I've just been busy. Look, tomorrow, you go grab yourself some toys from the fair, I'm paying. How does that sound?"
John Done looked a bit taken away at that.
"Seriously?"
"Seriously. Why?"
"Well, to be honest -" Done scratched his head - "I, uh, I really didn't mean to ambush you like that. The rifle thing, it's kinda, uh, water under the bridge."
Mark raised an eyebrow. Why was Done apologizing to him?
"I was mad, really, I was," Done went on. "But at Equinox. He gave you my gun. As soon as I heard that, I kissed that baby goodbye."
"If it's any consolation, it worked really well."
"Yeah. I would have loved to try it out myself."
"C'est la vie."
"Basically. So, what are you doing here? The Boss said you were busy tearing up New York City."
"Oh, I am. Just had to check out a few things."
"Hello, John," Rowena said; Mark turned his head to see her wearing a pantsuit with grey jacket and trousers as well as a white shirt; unlike Mark's suit, this one was tailored to be open, and so showed off the straps of her shoulder holster plainly. Mark thought it looked ackward, but apparently it didn't bother her - perhaps showing off her gun was even a good thing in this climate. John Done mock-respectfully grabbed the brim of his non-existant hat.
"Miss," he said, managing a pretty good Southern drawl. They kept it up for a few seconds before she grinned, pounced on him and gave him a big hug. "Woah, Rovy, easy there. I just got the cast taken off." Rowena ignored him while Mark raised an eyebrow in faint amusement.
"What'd you break this time?"
"Oh, just a - Rovy, please, let go - just a finger." Rovena finally relented, still grinning from ear to ear, and then bowed in one more time and pecked him on the cheek.
"I can imagine which one," Mark said dryly. "How come I never get that kind of welcome from you, kid?" Mark asked; Rowena kept grinning while Done shrugged.
"I know how to treat the ladies right, Simmons. Might help ya if you try and learn from me. Speaking of ladies..."
Mark witnessed the second spectacular entry of the evening and had to blink a few times to recognise Trinity. The psionic amazon was bathed in deep red, a long silk evening dress flowing over her curves like a warm breeze of Mediterranean air at dusk. She wore black high heels and a red scarf hanging over her shoulders, whose only function seemed to be ensnaring Done with it as she closed in and flipped it over his shoulders, pulling him closer.
"Excuse us" was all she said, and then she and Done wandered off towards one of the tables, holding hands all the while.
"Wah," Mark stammered. "What the...what the fuck?"
"Welcome to my life, circa one year ago," Rowena cut in, used to the public displays of affection. "Atleast I'm not in the room next to them this time."
"I knew they were an item, but...woah. That just blew my mind. I've never seen her in a dress."
"It's their anniversary, I think. And he takes her to a gun fair in South America."
"I think it's cute when a couple shares hobbies," Mark quipped. "Now, how about we find ourselves a seat?"
---
Dinner came and went with a nice speech from Krueger; welcome this, new firearms that, lots of profit for everyone, try the veal. That was, indeed, just what Mark did; Rowena found that she'd indulged her sweet tooth too much with the basket of fresh peaches at the buffet and couldn't finish her main course, so she left it to Mark and watched him wolf it down. She wondered whether there was some sort of evolutionary adaption thing going on in the warriors she knew - eating lots when possible, then going without for days on the hunt. Mark matched a rare category of fast eaters - he was deliberate, not sloppy, and he didn't wolf down his meal, but he did eat fast, with nary a movement wasted as he used just the right amount of strokes from his knife to seperate the veal and chewed the meat only enough to swallow it.
Come to think of it, he had a rather similar philosophy in attacking both plates of food and people.
While they (well, Mark) still ate, the music started from the dancefloor, and Rowena spotted a surprising amount of people daring or drunk enough to try their look. She watched Done walk over to the DJ and talk to him briefly; Done handed him a CD and then walked back towards his table. As the last song died down, Done positioned himself next to the still sitting Trinity, earning himself a curious look from her.
Then it began.
Soft percussion and keyboard sounds filtered through the hall; the few other dancers cleared the floor as they noticed the change in music, but Done just held out his right hand towards Trinity and bowed his head slightly.
I've never seen you looking so lovely as you did tonight
I've never seen you shine so bright
Trinity smiled, a genuine, warm smile, got up and took Done's hand, then they both walked towards the dance floor. Rowena and Mark watched on, silent and unmoving.
I've never seen so many men ask you if you wanted to dance
They're looking for a little romance, given half a chance
Once on the floor, Done helped Trinity get into position, with a nervous smile, she began tapping her feet, trying to find the right rhythm.
I have never seen that dress you're wearing
Or the highlights in your head that catch your eyes I have been blind
She was still trying to find the rhythm when he began moving, and she swayed with him as he let his fingers stroke her hair, freeing a few strands from her 'do. Their movements became one; for a few minutes, they were all alone in that big hall, just them and the music and their two hearts.
The lady in red is dancing with me cheek to cheek
There's nobody here, it's just you and me - It's where I wanna be
But I hardly know this beauty by my side
I'll never forget, the way you look tonight...
And they danced.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Just 'cause - Chapter 3
"Carter," Rowena replied. "This place is amazing."
"It's the only safe location in the entire country," Krueger said. "I'm a careful man. I trust mercenaries because I understand them - they're all about money -, but once you add ideologies, things get murky. In this world, even ideas can be deadly, Miss Carter."
"But these are more reliable?" she asked, stealing another glance at the rockets.
Krueger smiled.
"The Russians have always had a few...leaks...in their decommisioning process. They've got a next-generation ICBM under development - the Bulava - and it shows a lot of promise, but it also means that these little bad boys slipped through the cracks when they were trying to comply with Start II. R-39 intercontinental ballistic missiles, slightly more than 8000 kilometers range, CEP 500 meters. MIRV-capable. Designed to deliver ten submunitions at 200 kilotons of yield, each. This is what terminal cold war technology is all about. These were stationed on Typhoon-class boomers - you know, Red October? But without the MHD propulsion."
War nerd, Rowena thought.
"I'm sorry, am I boring you?" Krueger asked, noting her distant look.
"Oh, no. I'm just not into the technical aspects of it. I'm more interested in the economics."
"Ah, a McNamara! I'm sure you're aware that even the threat of a nuclear launch can have very severe effects on your enemies, whoever they may be. Of course, you'll need to come up with the nukes yourself, but I'm sure the missiles will be of some worth to you, whether you intend to stockpile or reverse-engineer them."
"So how much are we talking?"
"That's for the bidders to decide, of course, but I like to think that we can sell them for about 40 million dollars each. But auctions have a way of being unpredictable," he said.
"Hm..."
"Say, Miss Carter, do you care for small arms?"
"Quite so. What do you have?"
"Only the very best."
---
Mark had finished getting dressed again when the woman walked out of the bathroom, wearing two towels - one to cover, well, the nasty bits, and another to dry her hair. Seeing her like that made his hormones rise again, but only slightly.
"Money's on the table," he said, buttoning up his uniform shirt.
"You're very generous," she said, counting the bills. "Ready to do anything to satisfy me, hm?"
"Just returning the favor, Ma'am. I didn't catch your name."
"I didn't drop it."
Mark groaned internally, but smiled for her sake.
"Well, duty calls. I might be back later, though," he said, walking towards the door.
"See you around, sailor," she replied. Mark briefly froze in his steps as he considered a possibility, but finally decided to walk out and look for Rowena. That woman didn't leave his mind, though.
Could be he'd just met an angel.
---
Krueger led Rowena into a large hangar; after her eyes had adjusted to the relative darkness, she could make out several stands, a firing range and a large stage in the back.
"The fair opens tomorrow," Krueger explained. "Most of the vendors are independant, but of course I've got a few of my people here, too. It's a good arrangement - we get a cut, they get a certain amount of flair and security. The auction brings in money, but the real cashflow comes from here. I see you've got a German carbine -" Rowena unloaded it and handed it over for him to inspect it - "ah yes, the 36K. Did you hear about the Mexican copycat, whatsitsname, ah yes! - the FX-05?"
"The guys at the Neckar must be pissed."
"Probably, but I only care whether it works. I'll have to grab one tomorrow - you wouldn't believe how many prototype weapons pass through here..."
"And you shoot them all?"
"Of course. How else can I advise my customers?"
Rowena took the G36K back and reloaded it.
"Sounds like a hell of a job," she concluded.
"Only means to an end. Now, I've wasted enough of your time, and you must be tired from your journey. The hotel is just across the street, the big two-story brick building. How about you get some sleep and we meet again for the 'Welcome' dinner at 8?"
"Deal."
As she walked away, a cell phone went off; she heard Krueger answer the call with a hushed voice.
"Hm. Unfortunate. Check the missiles again...Yes, I'll take care of it. Make sure the techs keep their mouths shut. If they've got a problem with it, kindly educate them about our NDAs."
He rushed past here, beating her to the exit; Rowena wondered briefly what the big deal was, then headed for the hotel. Krueger was right - she could use some sleep.
---
Mark spotted Rowena walking down the road ahead and almost called out to her, then saw the man she'd been with walk out of the hangar and got a good look at him.
Oh shit, Mark thought. The Doctor is in.
He dodged to the side, hoping to evade Krueger's notice, but the gunrunner had already locked onto him and was closing the distance. Mark flexed his fingers, preparing to shoot his way out of the camp, but then saw several armed men form up behind Krueger - his bodyguard detail. This complicated things; it meant Krueger had plans for him, and it wasn't a good idea to fight him on that.
"Aaron!" Krueger said with a smile, and shook hands with Mark. "I have your order ready in my office. Shall we look at it now?"
"Hey, Pete. I'm a bit busy right now..."
"Trust me, Aaron," he said, tightening the grip of his hand. "You want to see this, now."
Mark went along with it.
Krueger walked Mark towards the airfield and finally up the belly of the Antonov; the cargo bay held a multitude of crates and containers for unloading, but there was a refitted container waiting in the very back of it, with a seperate team of guards. Krueger dismissed his personal retainers, then opened the door and beckoned for Mark to go inside. Mark was now in a sort of airlock, a small seperate room divided from the main room of the container by thick steel. He noted that there were only two ways out of this room - the door towards the main section, securely locked before him, and the container's outer door, where Krueger and his boys were waiting. The only other features in the room were a lockbox to the right of Mark, as well as a small touchscreen interface prominently displaying "LOCKED".
"The lockbox is for your weapons," Krueger said. Mark knew better than to bullshit him on this one, so he disarmed himself completely and left his guns in the box. Krueger grabbed a small cellphone-esque remote from his suit jacket and pressed a button; a light lit up over the airlock door, pronouncing Mark to be free of weapons, explosives and other bad things. With a smile, Krueger stepped into the airlock, unlocked the internal door and led Mark inside. It was a small workspace with bed, computer desk and a kitchen corner, sparsely decorated with a curious focus on keeping things nailed down - truly, a mobile office. Krueger closed the internal door behind him, then touched another touchscreen panel, which showed a series of green lamps.
"We're secure," Krueger said. "What the fuck are you doing here, Simmons?"
"Nice to see you, too, Peter."
"The least you could do is phone ahead." Krueger rubbed his temples. "Okay, who are you after this time?"
"Those missiles, obviously."
"That would be me, then," Krueger said, and froze in position, watching Mark like a hawk, but the Enforcer just shrugged.
"The way I see it, taking out the missiles can wait until after you've sold them."
"I'm sure it can, but you don't know where they'll go. Nobody knows that before the auction is finished."
Mark smiled.
"We found the tracers, by the way," Krueger said, and Mark stopped smiling. "You always were a bit too careless, Simmons. Look, I don't care that you snuck in, I knew that already. But going after my sales is a big no-no. The good news is, I run this place, so I won't expose you. The bad news is, I have an investment to protect, both in monetary value and in reputation. Even if I selflessly decide that a potential hit to my rep is a good price to pay for playing the good guy, I'm a businessman first - and it'd take a hundred years of selling you guns to make up for what I'm about to earn in a few days."
He looked at Mark again.
"Well, maybe 50 years."
"Seriously, Peter, I know. This is a shitty situation all over, but trust me on this one. You can sell the missiles, I'll follow them and wipe the buyers from the face of the earth. Dead men don't demand refunds."
"Still, I'll lose trust with my clients. That equates to less sales. Even if I get the jackpot here, it won't be worth it if my revenue stream dries up."
"How much volume do you move?"
"Since when do you talk economics?"
"Peter, listen to me. How much volume do you move?"
"About two million Euros, on a good month."
"I can give you that."
Krueger raised his voice to protest, but Mark cut him off.
"You know me, Peter. I'm a rogue, but I don't talk bullshit. When I tell you that I can make up for any sales you might be losing, I'm not fucking with you. So what do you say?"
"I don't know." Krueger rubbed his temples. "Who's the girl?"
"My partner." After a second, he corrected himself. "Business partner."
"There's photos of you out there. Made my skin crawl when I saw them. Since when do you travel to Australia and Japan? What's your game?"
"I can't tell you that."
"I don't like this, Simmons. Changes make me nervous."
"Maybe you just didn't see the big picture before."
With another few taps at the touchscreen, Krueger unlocked the doors.
"2 million Euros. That's 500 of my best guns, every month. Are you raising an army?"
"You'll see."
Mark walked off the plane's rear hatch a minute later, and he briefly stared at the sun high up in the sky. Everything was turning out to be more complicated than he'd thought.
But he wouldn't let that ruin his vacation.
"It's the only safe location in the entire country," Krueger said. "I'm a careful man. I trust mercenaries because I understand them - they're all about money -, but once you add ideologies, things get murky. In this world, even ideas can be deadly, Miss Carter."
"But these are more reliable?" she asked, stealing another glance at the rockets.
Krueger smiled.
"The Russians have always had a few...leaks...in their decommisioning process. They've got a next-generation ICBM under development - the Bulava - and it shows a lot of promise, but it also means that these little bad boys slipped through the cracks when they were trying to comply with Start II. R-39 intercontinental ballistic missiles, slightly more than 8000 kilometers range, CEP 500 meters. MIRV-capable. Designed to deliver ten submunitions at 200 kilotons of yield, each. This is what terminal cold war technology is all about. These were stationed on Typhoon-class boomers - you know, Red October? But without the MHD propulsion."
War nerd, Rowena thought.
"I'm sorry, am I boring you?" Krueger asked, noting her distant look.
"Oh, no. I'm just not into the technical aspects of it. I'm more interested in the economics."
"Ah, a McNamara! I'm sure you're aware that even the threat of a nuclear launch can have very severe effects on your enemies, whoever they may be. Of course, you'll need to come up with the nukes yourself, but I'm sure the missiles will be of some worth to you, whether you intend to stockpile or reverse-engineer them."
"So how much are we talking?"
"That's for the bidders to decide, of course, but I like to think that we can sell them for about 40 million dollars each. But auctions have a way of being unpredictable," he said.
"Hm..."
"Say, Miss Carter, do you care for small arms?"
"Quite so. What do you have?"
"Only the very best."
---
Mark had finished getting dressed again when the woman walked out of the bathroom, wearing two towels - one to cover, well, the nasty bits, and another to dry her hair. Seeing her like that made his hormones rise again, but only slightly.
"Money's on the table," he said, buttoning up his uniform shirt.
"You're very generous," she said, counting the bills. "Ready to do anything to satisfy me, hm?"
"Just returning the favor, Ma'am. I didn't catch your name."
"I didn't drop it."
Mark groaned internally, but smiled for her sake.
"Well, duty calls. I might be back later, though," he said, walking towards the door.
"See you around, sailor," she replied. Mark briefly froze in his steps as he considered a possibility, but finally decided to walk out and look for Rowena. That woman didn't leave his mind, though.
Could be he'd just met an angel.
---
Krueger led Rowena into a large hangar; after her eyes had adjusted to the relative darkness, she could make out several stands, a firing range and a large stage in the back.
"The fair opens tomorrow," Krueger explained. "Most of the vendors are independant, but of course I've got a few of my people here, too. It's a good arrangement - we get a cut, they get a certain amount of flair and security. The auction brings in money, but the real cashflow comes from here. I see you've got a German carbine -" Rowena unloaded it and handed it over for him to inspect it - "ah yes, the 36K. Did you hear about the Mexican copycat, whatsitsname, ah yes! - the FX-05?"
"The guys at the Neckar must be pissed."
"Probably, but I only care whether it works. I'll have to grab one tomorrow - you wouldn't believe how many prototype weapons pass through here..."
"And you shoot them all?"
"Of course. How else can I advise my customers?"
Rowena took the G36K back and reloaded it.
"Sounds like a hell of a job," she concluded.
"Only means to an end. Now, I've wasted enough of your time, and you must be tired from your journey. The hotel is just across the street, the big two-story brick building. How about you get some sleep and we meet again for the 'Welcome' dinner at 8?"
"Deal."
As she walked away, a cell phone went off; she heard Krueger answer the call with a hushed voice.
"Hm. Unfortunate. Check the missiles again...Yes, I'll take care of it. Make sure the techs keep their mouths shut. If they've got a problem with it, kindly educate them about our NDAs."
He rushed past here, beating her to the exit; Rowena wondered briefly what the big deal was, then headed for the hotel. Krueger was right - she could use some sleep.
---
Mark spotted Rowena walking down the road ahead and almost called out to her, then saw the man she'd been with walk out of the hangar and got a good look at him.
Oh shit, Mark thought. The Doctor is in.
He dodged to the side, hoping to evade Krueger's notice, but the gunrunner had already locked onto him and was closing the distance. Mark flexed his fingers, preparing to shoot his way out of the camp, but then saw several armed men form up behind Krueger - his bodyguard detail. This complicated things; it meant Krueger had plans for him, and it wasn't a good idea to fight him on that.
"Aaron!" Krueger said with a smile, and shook hands with Mark. "I have your order ready in my office. Shall we look at it now?"
"Hey, Pete. I'm a bit busy right now..."
"Trust me, Aaron," he said, tightening the grip of his hand. "You want to see this, now."
Mark went along with it.
Krueger walked Mark towards the airfield and finally up the belly of the Antonov; the cargo bay held a multitude of crates and containers for unloading, but there was a refitted container waiting in the very back of it, with a seperate team of guards. Krueger dismissed his personal retainers, then opened the door and beckoned for Mark to go inside. Mark was now in a sort of airlock, a small seperate room divided from the main room of the container by thick steel. He noted that there were only two ways out of this room - the door towards the main section, securely locked before him, and the container's outer door, where Krueger and his boys were waiting. The only other features in the room were a lockbox to the right of Mark, as well as a small touchscreen interface prominently displaying "LOCKED".
"The lockbox is for your weapons," Krueger said. Mark knew better than to bullshit him on this one, so he disarmed himself completely and left his guns in the box. Krueger grabbed a small cellphone-esque remote from his suit jacket and pressed a button; a light lit up over the airlock door, pronouncing Mark to be free of weapons, explosives and other bad things. With a smile, Krueger stepped into the airlock, unlocked the internal door and led Mark inside. It was a small workspace with bed, computer desk and a kitchen corner, sparsely decorated with a curious focus on keeping things nailed down - truly, a mobile office. Krueger closed the internal door behind him, then touched another touchscreen panel, which showed a series of green lamps.
"We're secure," Krueger said. "What the fuck are you doing here, Simmons?"
"Nice to see you, too, Peter."
"The least you could do is phone ahead." Krueger rubbed his temples. "Okay, who are you after this time?"
"Those missiles, obviously."
"That would be me, then," Krueger said, and froze in position, watching Mark like a hawk, but the Enforcer just shrugged.
"The way I see it, taking out the missiles can wait until after you've sold them."
"I'm sure it can, but you don't know where they'll go. Nobody knows that before the auction is finished."
Mark smiled.
"We found the tracers, by the way," Krueger said, and Mark stopped smiling. "You always were a bit too careless, Simmons. Look, I don't care that you snuck in, I knew that already. But going after my sales is a big no-no. The good news is, I run this place, so I won't expose you. The bad news is, I have an investment to protect, both in monetary value and in reputation. Even if I selflessly decide that a potential hit to my rep is a good price to pay for playing the good guy, I'm a businessman first - and it'd take a hundred years of selling you guns to make up for what I'm about to earn in a few days."
He looked at Mark again.
"Well, maybe 50 years."
"Seriously, Peter, I know. This is a shitty situation all over, but trust me on this one. You can sell the missiles, I'll follow them and wipe the buyers from the face of the earth. Dead men don't demand refunds."
"Still, I'll lose trust with my clients. That equates to less sales. Even if I get the jackpot here, it won't be worth it if my revenue stream dries up."
"How much volume do you move?"
"Since when do you talk economics?"
"Peter, listen to me. How much volume do you move?"
"About two million Euros, on a good month."
"I can give you that."
Krueger raised his voice to protest, but Mark cut him off.
"You know me, Peter. I'm a rogue, but I don't talk bullshit. When I tell you that I can make up for any sales you might be losing, I'm not fucking with you. So what do you say?"
"I don't know." Krueger rubbed his temples. "Who's the girl?"
"My partner." After a second, he corrected himself. "Business partner."
"There's photos of you out there. Made my skin crawl when I saw them. Since when do you travel to Australia and Japan? What's your game?"
"I can't tell you that."
"I don't like this, Simmons. Changes make me nervous."
"Maybe you just didn't see the big picture before."
With another few taps at the touchscreen, Krueger unlocked the doors.
"2 million Euros. That's 500 of my best guns, every month. Are you raising an army?"
"You'll see."
Mark walked off the plane's rear hatch a minute later, and he briefly stared at the sun high up in the sky. Everything was turning out to be more complicated than he'd thought.
But he wouldn't let that ruin his vacation.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Just 'cause - Chapter 2
The train ride, such as it was, left Mark and Rowena more than enough time to settle into the situation, discarding their jump gear along the way in small increments, checking their equipment and even getting bits and pieces of sleep along the way. They exchanged their thermal suits for nondescript jungle fatigues and readied their weapons; then, Rowena set about attaching tracking bugs to the missiles while Mark stood - well, crouched - guard. That done, they waited for the train to take a turn and jumped off into the bush. It was still an hour before sunrise; Mark unpacked a satellite phone from the backpack while Rowena listened to the sounds of the jungle. They slowly made their way away from the tracks and deeper into the jungle until Mark was certain that they wouldn'tbe spotted from the air - which coincided nicely with the phone establishing a scrambled channel to the comm satellite.
"We're live," Mark spoke into the handset. "Can you see them?"
"Tracers are coming in clear, Paladin," Molly's voice replied. "But you're not gonna like the next part."
"I'm listening."
"Your signal isn't moving, so I guess you jumped from the train, right?"
"Like you told me to."
"We've had new orders come in. We need you to follow the missiles."
"...fuck!"
"Yes, I know, tough cookies. Nevermind, we're sending a pickup. How's your Spanish?"
"Decent."
"The Agency wants to insert a buyer, you're right there and you fit their ID. The kid's your...personal assistant. Go in, identify the buyers, make sure the missiles don't leave."
"Roger that, Clio. Paladin out."
He stashed the satellite phone, but not without thinking about smashing it against the next rock.
"That didn't sound like we'll be home for dinner," Rowena said, looking through the sights of her G36K while she swept the jungle for movement.
"Change of plan. We're going after the missiles."
"Fuck me."
"Maybe when you're legal."
She didn't slap him, because she was too busy doing her job of watching the surroundings. Yay for professionalism, Mark thought, then reminded himself to stop trying to piss off the people around him - even if it was funny. Especially when it was funny.
"Do you speak Spanish?" he asked.
"Of course I do, icho de puta."
"I'll take that as a 'Yes'."
---
Never let it be said that Mark was inflexible; thirty minutes later, he was riding in the back of a surplus jeep intently studying his new Brazillian passport. Aaron Taylor, it read. The identity had been used by some other Agency operatives, establishing him as an international mercenary noted for both his physical bulk and his pragmatism. Some gunrunning here, some security consulting there, plus a couple of blood diamonds smuggled from the blackest parts of Africa. Just the guy you'd want to hire to represent your interests in an arms deal, provided that you had something of gravity to ensure his loyalty.
Rowena's cover was less elaborate (or plausible); a fake British ID and some accounts on the Cayman's. Sophie Carter, teenage math prodigy gone runaway gone accountant; hey, it happened.
There was a winding path ahead, and to call it road would have done that word a great injustice; the most civilized aspect of it were the traces of gravel, but otherwise it looked to be a section of the jungle that was marginally less overgrown through the sheer persistance of vehicles driving through it; a no man's land in the war between humans and nature, constantly under attack from vines yet never completely gone. Mark hoped that the guerillas would, one day, use their ill-gotten funds on some asphalt.
"What about the guns?" Rowena asked.
"Well, what about them?"
"Aren't we a bit...overdressed?"
"We're bidding on nuclear warheads, we can afford the good stuff."
"Right, right, but couldn't we also afford a security detail?"
"We're competent and paranoid."
"Makes sense. Have you done this before?"
"What, jungle or deep cover?"
"Either."
"I grew up in a forest. West Virginia. I know my way around the green stuff...mostly. Deep cover? Well, I lie to people all the time, how hard can it be?"
"This is going to be a barrel of laughs," she said, checking the magazine in her carbine. "Right before they kill us."
Mark couldn't help but think that she was right.
---
The people of Vietnam had never made the acquaintance of Mark Simmons, what with him being unavailable for the draft; this was generally held to be a good thing by everyone involved, but right there Mark began to think that maybe he'd missed out on something. He'd been a city slicker for decades now, and the jungle around him felt icky and dirty in ways that made him more uncomfortable than any dark alley where he might've shared the night with a few homeless people. There was something reassuring, he felt, about the solidity of concrete and stone under you, the firm reminder that mankind had prevailed in a place and left nature in a permanent, distant second place. Here, the war was going much more in Gaia's favor, and if there was one thing Mark hated, it was a fair fight.
Worse, it was a fair fight he wasn't prepared for, which made it as close to even as anyone was likely to get in a duel with him.
The jeep finally pulled onto a large clearing, and Mark had to revise his opinion of guerilla camps a few notches upwards. Far from a tent city, there were actual buildings on the site, flanked by wire fences, sandbags and regular patrols. Of particular interest was the large array of concrete, which answered Mark's question as to where that material had gone to - the airstrip housed a large cargo aircraft that Mark couldn't place, but it looked vaguely Russian with its gargantuan engine cowlings and stocky build. The cyrillic markings on the side merely added to that impression.
The jeep came to a stop just outside the main gate and flashed its front beams; in response, several soldiers moved from the guardhouse and checked their IDs. After a short hassle over Mark's selection of knives, Rowena and he were inside the compound, taking in the vastness from within.
"Not very covert, is it," Rowena said.
"Daddy's probably watching," Mark replied, and Rowena's eyes shot up towards the sky. "Best behaviour, kid," he said, then wandered off.
"Where are you going?"
"I need some creature comforts. You just...take a look around, right?"
Rowena set course for a different direction; there was a large hall built over the tracks leading into the camp, and she easily passed through the front door. Inside, industrious soldiers were setting the air ablaze with the sparks of welding and cutting, assembling new structures within as they went. A large crane heaved the missiles from the flatbed railcar one by one and deposited them on custom-made braces while the neon lights flickered every time the heavy electric motors whined to life.
There was a polite cough behind her; Rowena turned around to see a 30-ish man with immaculate short hair and a tasteful suit hold out his right hand.
"Hello there. I don't think we've met."
She took his hand and shook it.
"Krueger," he said.
"We're live," Mark spoke into the handset. "Can you see them?"
"Tracers are coming in clear, Paladin," Molly's voice replied. "But you're not gonna like the next part."
"I'm listening."
"Your signal isn't moving, so I guess you jumped from the train, right?"
"Like you told me to."
"We've had new orders come in. We need you to follow the missiles."
"...fuck!"
"Yes, I know, tough cookies. Nevermind, we're sending a pickup. How's your Spanish?"
"Decent."
"The Agency wants to insert a buyer, you're right there and you fit their ID. The kid's your...personal assistant. Go in, identify the buyers, make sure the missiles don't leave."
"Roger that, Clio. Paladin out."
He stashed the satellite phone, but not without thinking about smashing it against the next rock.
"That didn't sound like we'll be home for dinner," Rowena said, looking through the sights of her G36K while she swept the jungle for movement.
"Change of plan. We're going after the missiles."
"Fuck me."
"Maybe when you're legal."
She didn't slap him, because she was too busy doing her job of watching the surroundings. Yay for professionalism, Mark thought, then reminded himself to stop trying to piss off the people around him - even if it was funny. Especially when it was funny.
"Do you speak Spanish?" he asked.
"Of course I do, icho de puta."
"I'll take that as a 'Yes'."
---
Never let it be said that Mark was inflexible; thirty minutes later, he was riding in the back of a surplus jeep intently studying his new Brazillian passport. Aaron Taylor, it read. The identity had been used by some other Agency operatives, establishing him as an international mercenary noted for both his physical bulk and his pragmatism. Some gunrunning here, some security consulting there, plus a couple of blood diamonds smuggled from the blackest parts of Africa. Just the guy you'd want to hire to represent your interests in an arms deal, provided that you had something of gravity to ensure his loyalty.
Rowena's cover was less elaborate (or plausible); a fake British ID and some accounts on the Cayman's. Sophie Carter, teenage math prodigy gone runaway gone accountant; hey, it happened.
There was a winding path ahead, and to call it road would have done that word a great injustice; the most civilized aspect of it were the traces of gravel, but otherwise it looked to be a section of the jungle that was marginally less overgrown through the sheer persistance of vehicles driving through it; a no man's land in the war between humans and nature, constantly under attack from vines yet never completely gone. Mark hoped that the guerillas would, one day, use their ill-gotten funds on some asphalt.
"What about the guns?" Rowena asked.
"Well, what about them?"
"Aren't we a bit...overdressed?"
"We're bidding on nuclear warheads, we can afford the good stuff."
"Right, right, but couldn't we also afford a security detail?"
"We're competent and paranoid."
"Makes sense. Have you done this before?"
"What, jungle or deep cover?"
"Either."
"I grew up in a forest. West Virginia. I know my way around the green stuff...mostly. Deep cover? Well, I lie to people all the time, how hard can it be?"
"This is going to be a barrel of laughs," she said, checking the magazine in her carbine. "Right before they kill us."
Mark couldn't help but think that she was right.
---
The people of Vietnam had never made the acquaintance of Mark Simmons, what with him being unavailable for the draft; this was generally held to be a good thing by everyone involved, but right there Mark began to think that maybe he'd missed out on something. He'd been a city slicker for decades now, and the jungle around him felt icky and dirty in ways that made him more uncomfortable than any dark alley where he might've shared the night with a few homeless people. There was something reassuring, he felt, about the solidity of concrete and stone under you, the firm reminder that mankind had prevailed in a place and left nature in a permanent, distant second place. Here, the war was going much more in Gaia's favor, and if there was one thing Mark hated, it was a fair fight.
Worse, it was a fair fight he wasn't prepared for, which made it as close to even as anyone was likely to get in a duel with him.
The jeep finally pulled onto a large clearing, and Mark had to revise his opinion of guerilla camps a few notches upwards. Far from a tent city, there were actual buildings on the site, flanked by wire fences, sandbags and regular patrols. Of particular interest was the large array of concrete, which answered Mark's question as to where that material had gone to - the airstrip housed a large cargo aircraft that Mark couldn't place, but it looked vaguely Russian with its gargantuan engine cowlings and stocky build. The cyrillic markings on the side merely added to that impression.
The jeep came to a stop just outside the main gate and flashed its front beams; in response, several soldiers moved from the guardhouse and checked their IDs. After a short hassle over Mark's selection of knives, Rowena and he were inside the compound, taking in the vastness from within.
"Not very covert, is it," Rowena said.
"Daddy's probably watching," Mark replied, and Rowena's eyes shot up towards the sky. "Best behaviour, kid," he said, then wandered off.
"Where are you going?"
"I need some creature comforts. You just...take a look around, right?"
Rowena set course for a different direction; there was a large hall built over the tracks leading into the camp, and she easily passed through the front door. Inside, industrious soldiers were setting the air ablaze with the sparks of welding and cutting, assembling new structures within as they went. A large crane heaved the missiles from the flatbed railcar one by one and deposited them on custom-made braces while the neon lights flickered every time the heavy electric motors whined to life.
There was a polite cough behind her; Rowena turned around to see a 30-ish man with immaculate short hair and a tasteful suit hold out his right hand.
"Hello there. I don't think we've met."
She took his hand and shook it.
"Krueger," he said.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Just 'cause - Chapter 1
Inside the MC-130's cargo hold, the murmur of the turboprops was almost deafening, and the constant shuddering wasn't very comfy, either. Mark felt gravity tug on his stomach as the plane climbed again until, finally, it seemed to settle into level flight above the local weather. He was tempted to throw up, but he held back - the full-face mask he'd been wearing for what seemed like forever wouldn't allow him to dispose of his breakfast in a civilized manner. Like Rowena next to him, he was strapped into a very tight array of gear - thermosuit, jump boots, life support, parachute rig and equipment carrier -, and the neoprene was tightening around his junk. He took another breath from the bottle next to him - pure, medical-grade oxygen.
All of that was made infinitely worse because Molly Hendricks unsnapped her safety harness and walked through the cargo hatch, wearing a decidedly less constricting variety of breathing mask over a loose, comfy BDU.
"You fellers okay?" she asked; Mark gave her the finger. "Well, you're still conscious..."
"Fuck you, Hendricks," he replied, hearing himself as a tinny voice over the radio. "I'm never booking Air Force again."
"You needed a lift to Southeast Columbia...think Aeroflot flies here? We can't even land here, technically..."
"Technically?" Rowena asked.
"We buzz the airfield, deploy supplies via LDACD - we throw out a big-ass drag chute that pulls the cargo pallet from the bay, gravity does the rest. Our military advisers need food, too. You guys - well, I can't throw you out there, the Colombian Army doesn't like it when we deploy troops without notice."
"We're not troops."
"No, you're illegal combatants."
"And that means?" Mark asked, fiddling with the knife sheath on his thigh.
"Every last one of our guys in this country is here with the express permission of the legal government of Columbia. If they see anyone leave a US plane unannounced - or we drop off the radar by landing somewhere else on the way -, they'll assume we're supplying FARC. I don't have to tell you that this would be a bad fucking day for Uncle Sam. Now, how many of our contestants today know how to do a HA/LO jump?"
Neither Rowena nor Mark raised their hands.
"Any skydiving?"
Rowena raised her hand to half-height; Mark didn't react. Molly tried to rub her temples, prodded against her mask and let out a sigh.
"Unhook the seat belts. I'll check your gear again, then I'll get the hell out. You two grab onto the handrails until we open the rear cargo hatch. And I mean hold on, the slipstream sucks out everything that's loose. Once it's open, watch out for the signal light over there. It'll be red. Once it starts blinking, you walk towards the hatch and get off your prayers. When it turns green, you jump."
"Question," Mark said. "How do we hold on to the oxygen bottle in free fall?"
"Good question! You don't, you're wearing your jump bottle already. Now that we're over the target area, I'll switch you from pre-breather to your proper supply in a minute. When I do this, hold your goddamn breath. I'm serious. Breath. Hold. You. Got that?"
"Yes," Rowena said. "Yes Ma'am," Mark added.
"God help me, if you fuck this up and get shuteye via hypoxia out there, I'll personally grab your body from the crater and dump it into a pen of hungry pigs. Do not even think about breathing while I switch you."
Mark and Rowena nodded, almost in unison.
"Now, the taxpayer has seen fit to provide you with some hi-tech gear that'll make the actual jump easier on you. Your mask comes with a built-in AR display - it shows important stuff over what you see so you know where you are and how fast you're going. Primary nav is GPS, backed up by inertial - this thing will guide you to where you need to go. You can steer by spreading your arms and legs - carefully. There's also an altimeter in your display, so you don't need to look at your arm or anything. Do not, under any circumstances, deploy the chute while the altimeter shows red - you will be spotted on radar."
"So when do we open?" Rowena asked.
"It goes green at 1000 feet, give or take a couple. By the way, when the altimeter turns yellow, spread out. You have to brake as much as you can before you deploy."
"So the chute doesn't rip?"
"Oh, the chute can take it. It's just that if you don't, chances are you'll be fast enough that there's about two seconds of reaction time between deployment altitude and cratering, plus the decel will be a real bitch."
Mark reconsidered throwing up.
"But don't worry, girls, we've got you covered. Your suits come standard with an AAD, which makes sure that you don't fuck it up and turn the HA/LO into a HA/NO. It'll bust out the emergency chute at 800 if you haven't pulled the line by then. Of course, the spare will make for a hard landing - you'll probably survive it, but the maneuverability is shit and you'll miss the target, so being asleep means you get to hike. Questions?"
"Here," Mark said, raising his arm again. "What's wrong with the people who do this for fun?"
"Hell if I know, Simmons. I just chuck them off my plane, the rest is their business. Scared?"
"...I don't like heights."
"I'm sure your dumb luck will see you through," Molly said. "I got out okay from my first drop. Besides, it's a rite of passage. Who's gonna take you seriously as a secret agent if you've never done covert insertion?"
"She's got a point there," Rowena added.
"Well then. What the fuck are we sitting around here for?" Mark said with fake bravado. "Hook us up, woman!"
"As you command..."
True to form, Mark and Rowena held their breaths while Molly switched them to their jump bottles. As of that moment, they were living in a self-contained environment, breathing pure oxygen, packed in a full-body temperature regulation suit and weighed down with their weapon load. With a final wink, Molly left the cargo bay for greener pastures, and Mark noted an ominous switch in the lighting soon thereafter.
“I think we should...” Rowena began, but then there were the klaxons and the lights, this time in red, as the rear cargo hatch shuddered open and groaned in defiance, ripped from its aerodynamically optimized position for some...some cheap mid-air stunt. With a sudden jerk, Mark’s hand shot out for the handrail before his body realized that it should be blown towards the pressure differential ahead; air rushed past their heads and their displays came live, flickering into existence like invisible elves constantly painting the all-important numbers onto the landscape.
The signal started blinking. Mark and Rowena shuffled towards the hatch, intent on not losing their footing, but it actually wasn’t that bad now that the pressure within the bay matched the ambience's - it was horribly loud at first, but then it settled down, and Mark suspected that the masks had the same sort of active noise-cancelling gizmos as he liked to use.
“Any last words?” Rowena came in again, and it was strange to see her stand right next to him and yet hear her only via radio.
“...nobody lives forever.”
The red light died, and then it all turned green.
“Salva nos,” Mark mumbled, then took the plunge - literally. Within the second, he was in free fall, air rushing past him as gravity reasserted itself. His stomach didn’t like it, but he kept it down and folded his arms and legs together, diving for maximum speed. The navigational system painted a big fat target onto the clouds below; he stretched out his right arm a bit to correct the course. Rowena was a mere arrow at the side of his display, but he couldn’t look at her now - the jump took all of his focus. He watched the altimeter count down, giving him a speed estimate of almost 400 feet per second. He pierced the cloud cover and saw lots of green below; his altimeter hesitated for a bit, then went yellow, and he spread his arms and legs. It felt like being jerked up by strings as the increased air resistance slowed his fall, but he was still headed downwards very, very fast.
250 feet per second.
The altimeter was edging in on 2000 feet when Mark decided to prepare for the chute; he pulled his right arm in and struggled to readjust his left one to compensate, going slightly off course. Then it all happened quickly, everything turned green and he pulled the cord. However bad the airbraking was, this was worse; there was a tremendous shock through his body, as if every bone had gotten a free vote whether to stay in the confederation or become an independent body. Luckily for Mark, there were no secessionists; the shoulder straps of the parachute harness settled into position, and then he was jerked into a vertical position. Below him, the arrow of the target tracking system turned into a diamond; Mark finally looked down and spotted a long train rolling through the countryside below.
Bingo, he thought, then let go of the canopy controls and reached for his right arm. With a touch, the contraption on it snapped to life - there he was on his first parachute drop and already up to shenigans that would make even seasoned paratroopers take a step back and furrow their brows. The device sent a shock through his arm when he triggered it, but the recoil was too late to throw off his aim; the harpoon dove towards the train, trailing a wake of disturbed air behind its fins, and found purchase in a boxcar after punching through the roof. Now, the most difficult phase of the drop began; Mark had to slow his glide to keep behind the harpoon's impact point while also reeling himself in; he snapped the harpoon gun's cable into a carabiner on his chest harness, freeing his arm to steer the canopy. It was all guts, no technique as he yanked it almost to a temporary standstill; the winch's motor engaged and pulled him downwards, while he had to fight twice as hard to keep on track against both the normal wind and the added pull from the train.
It was a very, very long minute, but finally Mark was almost on top of the train; he pulled the chute's quick-release, disconnecting his harness from the canopy, and plunged onto the boxcar. A bit of trivia: boxcars are not built in the geometric shape of a box - they are, at best, box-like in build, the chief differences being the inclusion of sliding doors (something Mark didn't care about) and the rounded roof - which Mark did care about, because he had mistimed his drop and slid off said roof, plunging down the side of the car until the harpoon brought him to a stop. The ordeal had knocked the wind out of him; with a painful grunt, he moved his legs and swung over to the car, pulling his limbs in just in time to avoid a signpost next to the tracks. After a few deep breaths, he shuffled towards the rear of the car until he was on safer ground, then began stripping the drop equipment from his body; he unhooked the oxygen supply bottle and dumped it, reducing his mask to full-face protection, then switched on the CCD camera embedded in the mask just over his forehead. It wasn't as good as regular night vision goggles, since it was just a high quality version of a camcorder's "night" mode, capturing and displaying near-visible infrared, but it did make the darkness somewhat more manageable. Mark hauled himself back up onto the car's roof and checked the display again. Rowena's locator signal came in from a few cars ahead; apparently, she'd had more luck with her landing approach. Mark was understandably reluctant to follow her, but finally unhooked the winch cable from his harness and crawled forward. The cars he passed were stocked with soldiers, but he moved carefully and avoided making noise well enough to slip past them.
After a few minutes, Mark finally dropped down onto a flatbed car in the middle of the train; Rowena was already sitting there, seeking cover from the air rushing past behind a large object under a tarp.
"Who the hell are these guys?" Rowena said - well, radioed -; Mark stole a glance under the tarp.
"They're just, you know, guys. With big fucking missiles. Missiles they want to sell here."
"Do you know what they are?"
"Not my area of expertise, but these look big. ICBM-big."
Rowena swallowed, hard. Mark cracked a humorless grin behind the mask.
"Can you say 'nuclear terrorism'?"
All of that was made infinitely worse because Molly Hendricks unsnapped her safety harness and walked through the cargo hatch, wearing a decidedly less constricting variety of breathing mask over a loose, comfy BDU.
"You fellers okay?" she asked; Mark gave her the finger. "Well, you're still conscious..."
"Fuck you, Hendricks," he replied, hearing himself as a tinny voice over the radio. "I'm never booking Air Force again."
"You needed a lift to Southeast Columbia...think Aeroflot flies here? We can't even land here, technically..."
"Technically?" Rowena asked.
"We buzz the airfield, deploy supplies via LDACD - we throw out a big-ass drag chute that pulls the cargo pallet from the bay, gravity does the rest. Our military advisers need food, too. You guys - well, I can't throw you out there, the Colombian Army doesn't like it when we deploy troops without notice."
"We're not troops."
"No, you're illegal combatants."
"And that means?" Mark asked, fiddling with the knife sheath on his thigh.
"Every last one of our guys in this country is here with the express permission of the legal government of Columbia. If they see anyone leave a US plane unannounced - or we drop off the radar by landing somewhere else on the way -, they'll assume we're supplying FARC. I don't have to tell you that this would be a bad fucking day for Uncle Sam. Now, how many of our contestants today know how to do a HA/LO jump?"
Neither Rowena nor Mark raised their hands.
"Any skydiving?"
Rowena raised her hand to half-height; Mark didn't react. Molly tried to rub her temples, prodded against her mask and let out a sigh.
"Unhook the seat belts. I'll check your gear again, then I'll get the hell out. You two grab onto the handrails until we open the rear cargo hatch. And I mean hold on, the slipstream sucks out everything that's loose. Once it's open, watch out for the signal light over there. It'll be red. Once it starts blinking, you walk towards the hatch and get off your prayers. When it turns green, you jump."
"Question," Mark said. "How do we hold on to the oxygen bottle in free fall?"
"Good question! You don't, you're wearing your jump bottle already. Now that we're over the target area, I'll switch you from pre-breather to your proper supply in a minute. When I do this, hold your goddamn breath. I'm serious. Breath. Hold. You. Got that?"
"Yes," Rowena said. "Yes Ma'am," Mark added.
"God help me, if you fuck this up and get shuteye via hypoxia out there, I'll personally grab your body from the crater and dump it into a pen of hungry pigs. Do not even think about breathing while I switch you."
Mark and Rowena nodded, almost in unison.
"Now, the taxpayer has seen fit to provide you with some hi-tech gear that'll make the actual jump easier on you. Your mask comes with a built-in AR display - it shows important stuff over what you see so you know where you are and how fast you're going. Primary nav is GPS, backed up by inertial - this thing will guide you to where you need to go. You can steer by spreading your arms and legs - carefully. There's also an altimeter in your display, so you don't need to look at your arm or anything. Do not, under any circumstances, deploy the chute while the altimeter shows red - you will be spotted on radar."
"So when do we open?" Rowena asked.
"It goes green at 1000 feet, give or take a couple. By the way, when the altimeter turns yellow, spread out. You have to brake as much as you can before you deploy."
"So the chute doesn't rip?"
"Oh, the chute can take it. It's just that if you don't, chances are you'll be fast enough that there's about two seconds of reaction time between deployment altitude and cratering, plus the decel will be a real bitch."
Mark reconsidered throwing up.
"But don't worry, girls, we've got you covered. Your suits come standard with an AAD, which makes sure that you don't fuck it up and turn the HA/LO into a HA/NO. It'll bust out the emergency chute at 800 if you haven't pulled the line by then. Of course, the spare will make for a hard landing - you'll probably survive it, but the maneuverability is shit and you'll miss the target, so being asleep means you get to hike. Questions?"
"Here," Mark said, raising his arm again. "What's wrong with the people who do this for fun?"
"Hell if I know, Simmons. I just chuck them off my plane, the rest is their business. Scared?"
"...I don't like heights."
"I'm sure your dumb luck will see you through," Molly said. "I got out okay from my first drop. Besides, it's a rite of passage. Who's gonna take you seriously as a secret agent if you've never done covert insertion?"
"She's got a point there," Rowena added.
"Well then. What the fuck are we sitting around here for?" Mark said with fake bravado. "Hook us up, woman!"
"As you command..."
True to form, Mark and Rowena held their breaths while Molly switched them to their jump bottles. As of that moment, they were living in a self-contained environment, breathing pure oxygen, packed in a full-body temperature regulation suit and weighed down with their weapon load. With a final wink, Molly left the cargo bay for greener pastures, and Mark noted an ominous switch in the lighting soon thereafter.
“I think we should...” Rowena began, but then there were the klaxons and the lights, this time in red, as the rear cargo hatch shuddered open and groaned in defiance, ripped from its aerodynamically optimized position for some...some cheap mid-air stunt. With a sudden jerk, Mark’s hand shot out for the handrail before his body realized that it should be blown towards the pressure differential ahead; air rushed past their heads and their displays came live, flickering into existence like invisible elves constantly painting the all-important numbers onto the landscape.
The signal started blinking. Mark and Rowena shuffled towards the hatch, intent on not losing their footing, but it actually wasn’t that bad now that the pressure within the bay matched the ambience's - it was horribly loud at first, but then it settled down, and Mark suspected that the masks had the same sort of active noise-cancelling gizmos as he liked to use.
“Any last words?” Rowena came in again, and it was strange to see her stand right next to him and yet hear her only via radio.
“...nobody lives forever.”
The red light died, and then it all turned green.
“Salva nos,” Mark mumbled, then took the plunge - literally. Within the second, he was in free fall, air rushing past him as gravity reasserted itself. His stomach didn’t like it, but he kept it down and folded his arms and legs together, diving for maximum speed. The navigational system painted a big fat target onto the clouds below; he stretched out his right arm a bit to correct the course. Rowena was a mere arrow at the side of his display, but he couldn’t look at her now - the jump took all of his focus. He watched the altimeter count down, giving him a speed estimate of almost 400 feet per second. He pierced the cloud cover and saw lots of green below; his altimeter hesitated for a bit, then went yellow, and he spread his arms and legs. It felt like being jerked up by strings as the increased air resistance slowed his fall, but he was still headed downwards very, very fast.
250 feet per second.
The altimeter was edging in on 2000 feet when Mark decided to prepare for the chute; he pulled his right arm in and struggled to readjust his left one to compensate, going slightly off course. Then it all happened quickly, everything turned green and he pulled the cord. However bad the airbraking was, this was worse; there was a tremendous shock through his body, as if every bone had gotten a free vote whether to stay in the confederation or become an independent body. Luckily for Mark, there were no secessionists; the shoulder straps of the parachute harness settled into position, and then he was jerked into a vertical position. Below him, the arrow of the target tracking system turned into a diamond; Mark finally looked down and spotted a long train rolling through the countryside below.
Bingo, he thought, then let go of the canopy controls and reached for his right arm. With a touch, the contraption on it snapped to life - there he was on his first parachute drop and already up to shenigans that would make even seasoned paratroopers take a step back and furrow their brows. The device sent a shock through his arm when he triggered it, but the recoil was too late to throw off his aim; the harpoon dove towards the train, trailing a wake of disturbed air behind its fins, and found purchase in a boxcar after punching through the roof. Now, the most difficult phase of the drop began; Mark had to slow his glide to keep behind the harpoon's impact point while also reeling himself in; he snapped the harpoon gun's cable into a carabiner on his chest harness, freeing his arm to steer the canopy. It was all guts, no technique as he yanked it almost to a temporary standstill; the winch's motor engaged and pulled him downwards, while he had to fight twice as hard to keep on track against both the normal wind and the added pull from the train.
It was a very, very long minute, but finally Mark was almost on top of the train; he pulled the chute's quick-release, disconnecting his harness from the canopy, and plunged onto the boxcar. A bit of trivia: boxcars are not built in the geometric shape of a box - they are, at best, box-like in build, the chief differences being the inclusion of sliding doors (something Mark didn't care about) and the rounded roof - which Mark did care about, because he had mistimed his drop and slid off said roof, plunging down the side of the car until the harpoon brought him to a stop. The ordeal had knocked the wind out of him; with a painful grunt, he moved his legs and swung over to the car, pulling his limbs in just in time to avoid a signpost next to the tracks. After a few deep breaths, he shuffled towards the rear of the car until he was on safer ground, then began stripping the drop equipment from his body; he unhooked the oxygen supply bottle and dumped it, reducing his mask to full-face protection, then switched on the CCD camera embedded in the mask just over his forehead. It wasn't as good as regular night vision goggles, since it was just a high quality version of a camcorder's "night" mode, capturing and displaying near-visible infrared, but it did make the darkness somewhat more manageable. Mark hauled himself back up onto the car's roof and checked the display again. Rowena's locator signal came in from a few cars ahead; apparently, she'd had more luck with her landing approach. Mark was understandably reluctant to follow her, but finally unhooked the winch cable from his harness and crawled forward. The cars he passed were stocked with soldiers, but he moved carefully and avoided making noise well enough to slip past them.
After a few minutes, Mark finally dropped down onto a flatbed car in the middle of the train; Rowena was already sitting there, seeking cover from the air rushing past behind a large object under a tarp.
"Who the hell are these guys?" Rowena said - well, radioed -; Mark stole a glance under the tarp.
"They're just, you know, guys. With big fucking missiles. Missiles they want to sell here."
"Do you know what they are?"
"Not my area of expertise, but these look big. ICBM-big."
Rowena swallowed, hard. Mark cracked a humorless grin behind the mask.
"Can you say 'nuclear terrorism'?"
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Childhood's End - Chapter 15
When you stand before a mountain, climb it.
Rowena fastened the straps on her gloves and hooked her hands into the tiny gaps of the brick wall in front of her, followed shortly by her feet. They were clad in a cross between moccasins and jika-tabi as interpreted by space-age materials - perfect climate control, mobility and a soft step, to boot. It wouldn't protect her if she were to step on a roofing nail, but for climbing a house wall? Just right. With every move, she felt the large-ish fanny pack shudder over her, well, fanny, packed tight with every bit of gear she had managed to cram in there. It was a light load, but it would be enough - and after five minutes of deliberate, slow movement, she'd hit the third floor.
The window was closed. Just her luck.
Stabilizing herself against the brickwork, she drew a knife from the sheath on her right hip and wedged the tip into the gap between the wooden frame and the window, watching the old wood splinter as she slowly worked it. Finally, it gave out with a crack - much too loud for her taste, but then again, she could hear her heartbeat - and released the window. Cautiously, she returned the knife to its sheath, climbed over to the window and slid in. Phase one.
She was in the ladies' restroom of a 'health club' now, a room with little apparent function - the clientel was almost exclusively male, and the staff had their own facilities. Indeed, up here there wasn't much traffic at all - just the private massage suites. Crouched down, she crept towards the hallway door and fumbled for a small device in the fanny pack; it was a smooth metal affair, rectangular and just big enough to fit in the palm of her hand. There was an indentation on one end and a not-very-glorious button on the other end; Rowena maneuvered said indentation over the lock and pressed the button with her thumb. The device attached itself to the metal with a CLANK, then the button started blinking a soft red. From beneath the door, soft clicking sounds echoed; finally, there was another, bigger CLICK and the button went green. Rowena pressed it again, removed the device and fished for the next one - a small fiberscope, which was the next thing through the lock. The hallway was clear; Rowena opened the door, closed it behind her and tiptoed towards the far side, her eyes darting between hallway and the staircase leading up to this floor. After a tense few seconds, she reached the first door; she grabbed a container full of organic fiber disks from the pack, slid one disk free and broke it in two before sliding the pieces under the door. The same process was repeated for each suite except the last; Rowena applied the lockpicker again and let herself in. The suite was like Mark had described; massage table in the middle, with a semi-seperated mini-bathroom featuring a sink and a shower, with attendant clothesbin in another corner. The AC was whirring just to keep the air moving inside - there were no windows here, and Rowena knew that they'd all been bricked up on this floor - except for, well, the bathrooms, which required more fresh air to keep the smell out. Speaking of which - the other rooms should be well stinking by now. This would be a disaster on most every day of the week, but today there were favorable circumstances - only one VIP to be taken care of, and the smell should be discovered when they go around opening the suites when they start their business day.
With a twist, Rowena locked the door behind her again. No need to make them suspicious.
Rowena spent an hour in the clothesbin, mercifully still empty; then the door moved, and she could hear the masseuse enter, followed by some Japanese words from a middle-aged man. She didn't speak Japanese well enough to understand him - beyond being certain that it was Japanese -, but that was all the confirmation she needed. Her target was there. Then came the massage. Rowena was not a child of innocence; she'd walked in on Done and Trinity and certainly heard them often enough, but now she was sitting there, contorted in ways that allowed her slender body to barely fit into the hiding spot, and she was listening to a middle-aged Yakuza oyabun screwing a prostitute-in-all-but-name. Rowena felt a bit saddened at her premature insight into the sex lives of strangers - she could tell the masseuse was faking it, and that didn't hit her with any disenchantment over the motivation of sex workers, but instead with a twinge of shame over her knowledge of what good sex sounded like. The whole thing was made worse by her inactivity; she wanted to step in and do the job right there, but all she could do was tense her muscles, keep the blood flowing to stop her limbs from falling asleep.
To think, she'd killed the first guy who may have been "It" three days ago. And now this fat fuck was giving her an extended radio drama on what sex shouldn't be like. Disgusting.
Eventually they stopped; the masseuse gathered her discarded clothing and left at once, presumably to clean up, while Mister Tezuka lost what scant amount of clothing he still wore and shambled off towards the shower. Finally, Rowena sprung into action; slowly, she opened the bin and climbed out, almost perfectly silent against the backdrop of running water. God, the bastard was singing in the shower, too; Rowena drew the .22 from her left hip holster and racked the slide slowly, then crept towards the shower. He wasn't even looking in her direction while he slathered soap all over his body - nice tattoos, though; Rowena guessed that this guy might've been handsome ten years ago. Now, the moment of truth: Rowena raised the .22, took aim and put her finger on the trigger.
It was easy.
With a whisper, the bullet entered his skull, rattling around in his skull until the brain was total mush. Muscles relaxed and some unidentifiable substance oozed from the entry wound as the Yakuza dropped to the ground, the water still running. Rowena packed up the gun again, grabbed the shower head and rinsed off the fallout of her action; the guy's last metabolized drink disappeared down the shower drain in what could've been the ultimate indignity. At least there was no involountary number two. No matter; Rowena kept the shower running to mask further sounds, then grabbed a small hedge trimmer from her pack and set to work on the guy's pinkie finger...
---
Mark was wasting his time away sitting in a Lincoln Continental Mark V - metallic baby blue with lovingly restored interior -, working through the crossword puzzle of his newspaper. Hm, Byzantine warship? Mark had to admit that his knowledge failed him here; he had a vague idea of galleys and such, but that was mostly from watching too many cheesy 50s flicks. With a bit of a sigh, he grabbed his smartphone, slid out the miniature keypad and started the webbrowser; a quick visit to the World Wide Web later, Mark was enlightened and filled in "dromon".
Played this way, it was quite possible to fill in the whole thing with a ballpoint pen.
Something stirred in the alley behind him; he watched Rowena climb out of the sewer access plate and started the car's engine. She entered the passenger side and dumped the pack onto the back seat while Mark pulled out and set a course for home.
"Got him?" he asked, his voice even.
"Yes, I killed him." Rowena's voice was slightly strained, protesting the use of euphemisms.
"Pinky finger?"
"Cut off."
"They pay extra for that, you know. It's a matter of honor for the Yakuza..."
"How long are we going to support the Triads?"
"A while," Mark said, shifting to third gear. "The Yellow Leaf tong is the lesser evil for the time being, and I say that as an expert on the topic. Really, it's pretty fucked up here, kid. These guys only do a protection racket and loansharking, and by 'only' I mean to imply that they're a step up from the scum that's running the city now."
"So..."
"You're taking it well, kid. Cool, calm, collected."
"Well, I've only been born and bred for this. Besides, it's not the first time anymore."
"The first time you had a choice."
"Hey, are you trying to get me to whine? I killed him, I'm not shouting, woo-hah. You should be glad, fucking glad."
"Okay," Mark said and shut up.
They cruised down to her apartment in silence. Up in the loft, Mark noted that the bed was now well out of the window's line of sight.
"I was thinking, we could put in a fake wall there" - Rowena pointed to the far side of the loft - "and then put in a safe. A nice, big one."
"And replace the window," Mark added.
"Put in a new one. Straight-up armored glass instead of the reinforcement sheets."
"Sure. Listen, kid, I..."
"Yes?"
"...I want to ask you something, and I need you to hear me out before you answer."
"Go on."
"I usually don't train people who are already as skilled as you. They usually bring too much baggage. But you did good, kid. You've got attitude, you learn fast and you've got some serious talent. Great things ahead of you and all that jazz. Now, technically, you graduate out of the program after the first successful kill, so if you want an official knighting or something, BAM!, you're a professional killer."
He grabbed a chair and sat down.
"If you want to call your Daddy and give him the good news, great. I didn't go easy on you, you're a worthy Umbrella field agent. However - and that's a big fucking however - I think we can go further."
"Further?"
"I won't lie to you, kid. I'm not getting younger. I'd like you to stick around. I have a few more things I need to wrap up and I'm starting to think I might not make it alone. I guarantee you, it won't be a cakewalk. I do big, scary shit and you ain't seen nothing yet. But you'll be playing the big leagues, kid. By the time you hit 20, you'll be a fucking legend."
"So you want me to be your...sidekick?"
Mark grinned.
"Sidekick's such an ugly word." He got up from the chair and walked towards Rowena; there was the flash of something true in his eyes. "More like...partner in crime."
Rowena fastened the straps on her gloves and hooked her hands into the tiny gaps of the brick wall in front of her, followed shortly by her feet. They were clad in a cross between moccasins and jika-tabi as interpreted by space-age materials - perfect climate control, mobility and a soft step, to boot. It wouldn't protect her if she were to step on a roofing nail, but for climbing a house wall? Just right. With every move, she felt the large-ish fanny pack shudder over her, well, fanny, packed tight with every bit of gear she had managed to cram in there. It was a light load, but it would be enough - and after five minutes of deliberate, slow movement, she'd hit the third floor.
The window was closed. Just her luck.
Stabilizing herself against the brickwork, she drew a knife from the sheath on her right hip and wedged the tip into the gap between the wooden frame and the window, watching the old wood splinter as she slowly worked it. Finally, it gave out with a crack - much too loud for her taste, but then again, she could hear her heartbeat - and released the window. Cautiously, she returned the knife to its sheath, climbed over to the window and slid in. Phase one.
She was in the ladies' restroom of a 'health club' now, a room with little apparent function - the clientel was almost exclusively male, and the staff had their own facilities. Indeed, up here there wasn't much traffic at all - just the private massage suites. Crouched down, she crept towards the hallway door and fumbled for a small device in the fanny pack; it was a smooth metal affair, rectangular and just big enough to fit in the palm of her hand. There was an indentation on one end and a not-very-glorious button on the other end; Rowena maneuvered said indentation over the lock and pressed the button with her thumb. The device attached itself to the metal with a CLANK, then the button started blinking a soft red. From beneath the door, soft clicking sounds echoed; finally, there was another, bigger CLICK and the button went green. Rowena pressed it again, removed the device and fished for the next one - a small fiberscope, which was the next thing through the lock. The hallway was clear; Rowena opened the door, closed it behind her and tiptoed towards the far side, her eyes darting between hallway and the staircase leading up to this floor. After a tense few seconds, she reached the first door; she grabbed a container full of organic fiber disks from the pack, slid one disk free and broke it in two before sliding the pieces under the door. The same process was repeated for each suite except the last; Rowena applied the lockpicker again and let herself in. The suite was like Mark had described; massage table in the middle, with a semi-seperated mini-bathroom featuring a sink and a shower, with attendant clothesbin in another corner. The AC was whirring just to keep the air moving inside - there were no windows here, and Rowena knew that they'd all been bricked up on this floor - except for, well, the bathrooms, which required more fresh air to keep the smell out. Speaking of which - the other rooms should be well stinking by now. This would be a disaster on most every day of the week, but today there were favorable circumstances - only one VIP to be taken care of, and the smell should be discovered when they go around opening the suites when they start their business day.
With a twist, Rowena locked the door behind her again. No need to make them suspicious.
Rowena spent an hour in the clothesbin, mercifully still empty; then the door moved, and she could hear the masseuse enter, followed by some Japanese words from a middle-aged man. She didn't speak Japanese well enough to understand him - beyond being certain that it was Japanese -, but that was all the confirmation she needed. Her target was there. Then came the massage. Rowena was not a child of innocence; she'd walked in on Done and Trinity and certainly heard them often enough, but now she was sitting there, contorted in ways that allowed her slender body to barely fit into the hiding spot, and she was listening to a middle-aged Yakuza oyabun screwing a prostitute-in-all-but-name. Rowena felt a bit saddened at her premature insight into the sex lives of strangers - she could tell the masseuse was faking it, and that didn't hit her with any disenchantment over the motivation of sex workers, but instead with a twinge of shame over her knowledge of what good sex sounded like. The whole thing was made worse by her inactivity; she wanted to step in and do the job right there, but all she could do was tense her muscles, keep the blood flowing to stop her limbs from falling asleep.
To think, she'd killed the first guy who may have been "It" three days ago. And now this fat fuck was giving her an extended radio drama on what sex shouldn't be like. Disgusting.
Eventually they stopped; the masseuse gathered her discarded clothing and left at once, presumably to clean up, while Mister Tezuka lost what scant amount of clothing he still wore and shambled off towards the shower. Finally, Rowena sprung into action; slowly, she opened the bin and climbed out, almost perfectly silent against the backdrop of running water. God, the bastard was singing in the shower, too; Rowena drew the .22 from her left hip holster and racked the slide slowly, then crept towards the shower. He wasn't even looking in her direction while he slathered soap all over his body - nice tattoos, though; Rowena guessed that this guy might've been handsome ten years ago. Now, the moment of truth: Rowena raised the .22, took aim and put her finger on the trigger.
It was easy.
With a whisper, the bullet entered his skull, rattling around in his skull until the brain was total mush. Muscles relaxed and some unidentifiable substance oozed from the entry wound as the Yakuza dropped to the ground, the water still running. Rowena packed up the gun again, grabbed the shower head and rinsed off the fallout of her action; the guy's last metabolized drink disappeared down the shower drain in what could've been the ultimate indignity. At least there was no involountary number two. No matter; Rowena kept the shower running to mask further sounds, then grabbed a small hedge trimmer from her pack and set to work on the guy's pinkie finger...
---
Mark was wasting his time away sitting in a Lincoln Continental Mark V - metallic baby blue with lovingly restored interior -, working through the crossword puzzle of his newspaper. Hm, Byzantine warship? Mark had to admit that his knowledge failed him here; he had a vague idea of galleys and such, but that was mostly from watching too many cheesy 50s flicks. With a bit of a sigh, he grabbed his smartphone, slid out the miniature keypad and started the webbrowser; a quick visit to the World Wide Web later, Mark was enlightened and filled in "dromon".
Played this way, it was quite possible to fill in the whole thing with a ballpoint pen.
Something stirred in the alley behind him; he watched Rowena climb out of the sewer access plate and started the car's engine. She entered the passenger side and dumped the pack onto the back seat while Mark pulled out and set a course for home.
"Got him?" he asked, his voice even.
"Yes, I killed him." Rowena's voice was slightly strained, protesting the use of euphemisms.
"Pinky finger?"
"Cut off."
"They pay extra for that, you know. It's a matter of honor for the Yakuza..."
"How long are we going to support the Triads?"
"A while," Mark said, shifting to third gear. "The Yellow Leaf tong is the lesser evil for the time being, and I say that as an expert on the topic. Really, it's pretty fucked up here, kid. These guys only do a protection racket and loansharking, and by 'only' I mean to imply that they're a step up from the scum that's running the city now."
"So..."
"You're taking it well, kid. Cool, calm, collected."
"Well, I've only been born and bred for this. Besides, it's not the first time anymore."
"The first time you had a choice."
"Hey, are you trying to get me to whine? I killed him, I'm not shouting, woo-hah. You should be glad, fucking glad."
"Okay," Mark said and shut up.
They cruised down to her apartment in silence. Up in the loft, Mark noted that the bed was now well out of the window's line of sight.
"I was thinking, we could put in a fake wall there" - Rowena pointed to the far side of the loft - "and then put in a safe. A nice, big one."
"And replace the window," Mark added.
"Put in a new one. Straight-up armored glass instead of the reinforcement sheets."
"Sure. Listen, kid, I..."
"Yes?"
"...I want to ask you something, and I need you to hear me out before you answer."
"Go on."
"I usually don't train people who are already as skilled as you. They usually bring too much baggage. But you did good, kid. You've got attitude, you learn fast and you've got some serious talent. Great things ahead of you and all that jazz. Now, technically, you graduate out of the program after the first successful kill, so if you want an official knighting or something, BAM!, you're a professional killer."
He grabbed a chair and sat down.
"If you want to call your Daddy and give him the good news, great. I didn't go easy on you, you're a worthy Umbrella field agent. However - and that's a big fucking however - I think we can go further."
"Further?"
"I won't lie to you, kid. I'm not getting younger. I'd like you to stick around. I have a few more things I need to wrap up and I'm starting to think I might not make it alone. I guarantee you, it won't be a cakewalk. I do big, scary shit and you ain't seen nothing yet. But you'll be playing the big leagues, kid. By the time you hit 20, you'll be a fucking legend."
"So you want me to be your...sidekick?"
Mark grinned.
"Sidekick's such an ugly word." He got up from the chair and walked towards Rowena; there was the flash of something true in his eyes. "More like...partner in crime."
Monday, January 01, 2007
Childhood's End - Chapter 14
After a tense hour of substituting a conversation of substance for an undying supply of hot cocoa, heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway of the pier's administrative building, followed by a series of knocks on the metal door. Molly - having leaned against the wall for the better part of fifteen minutes with impatient feet - shifted her center of gravity forward, walked towards the door and opened it to let Mark in; the Enforcer nodded by way of greeting, then set down one of his trademark duffel bags on the room's spartan table.
"The bad news is," he began, "I couldn't get the body. The cops were swarming all over the place when I got there."
"But he's dead?" Rowena asked, her voice even.
"100% organic fertilizer. I heard some whispers from the CSI guys, looks like the dive alone would've killed him twice over. Hit the ground head first, snapped his neck and cracked his skull."
"What happens now?"
"They'll scour the places for clues and witnesses. Do you remember leaving any?"
"I tried not to touch anything...and I don't think anybody near me saw my face. Except the girl."
"Girl?"
"Rowena met up with another girl in the chase," Molly explained, sparing Rowena the effort of repeating the tale. "She helped her escape."
"And she saw your face?" Mark asked, taking mental notes.
"Yes. But she...she was incredibly strong, she jumped over an intersection and she threw me onto the roof from three stories below."
"Sounds like an Adept to me," Molly said.
"Well, fuck me. Psions. You sure about that, kid?"
"I know what I saw."
Withholding his comment for now, Mark opened the duffel.
"I got your gun, and I brought some fresh clothes. I reckon you want to shower first...so I, er, well, I grabbed a towel, and the shampoo and the shower gel - vanilla? - oh, and some fresh underwear. And makeup. I, well, I couldn't find the perfume bottle..."
"Underwear?" Rowena asked, the hint of a smile on her face.
"Uh...you're probably all sweaty. From the running and the jumping and the fighting and..."
"Jesus, Simmons," Molly said, rolling her eyes. "Shut the hell up."
"Yes Ma'am," Mark added with a non-negleglible amount of sarcasm.
"There's a shower at the end of the hallway," Molly said, still glancing at Mark. "It might take a minute before the water's hot."
"Gotcha," Rowena said, then grabbed the duffel and stalked off in search of cleanliness.
With Rowena gone, Molly leveled a withering gaze at Mark.
"I swear I'll kill you if you have me playing babysitter again."
"Look, I can't be everywhere at once, okay? I needed somebody to pick her up and you were the closest."
"Don't you have your flunkies for that?"
"They wouldn't be my flunkies if they weren't busy with other shit." He weathered her gaze a bit more, then met it. "You think I wanted this to happen?"
"It's certainly convenient. At that range, a decent sniper shouldn't have missed. And correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't she the 'Waahhh I'm all torn up about killing' girl?"
"Do you honestly think I could hire someone to deliberately miss her, then set him up to fail so she can kill him? How the hell is that supposed to work?"
"I don't know, you're the hitman."
"Plots need to make sense," Mark said. "This one doesn't. Someone gave her that kill, but it wasn't whoever hired the sniper."
"So what's your theory?"
"The girl was a Physical Adept, right? Who do you know who's got Adepts?"
"The Shop, some Archer guys...Fade."
"Bingo. Just like the old man to have a shadow on the kid." He took a deep breath. "Look, Molly..."
"...Miss Hendricks..."
"...Miss Hendricks. What the hell do you want? All I ever hear from you is this trust bullshit, but everything that goes South is supposed to be my fault?"
"You're a sneak, Simmons. I know what you do to the people who forget that."
"Okay. Let's play your game. What can I do so you'll trust me?"
"...die?"
Mark had to laugh at that, which didn't earn him any sympathy points from Molly.
"Come on. You wouldn't be here if you didn't have problems. The Company wants to come in from the cold, they told me. You fucking called me. The only reason you've got this place is that I bought it for you. So where's this cooperation thing I saw in the ads?"
"Okay, okay. You want to prove yourself? I've got something for you. Almost as good as dying."
She showed him the file. Mark took a very long time to nod.
---
The Rowena who stepped out of the building thirty minutes later didn't resemble a little girl anymore; she was now wearing Doc Martens, work jeans and a dark gray commando sweater under her leather coat. The Five-seveN was back in it's shoulder holster, and her eyes were seated behind mirror shades with a cold, blueish tint.
This was turning out to be rather easier than she'd thought, and she wasn't sure yet whether that was a good thing.
"I need more guns," she said after she got into Mark's car. "We'll have to junk this one, right?"
Mark yanked the ignition and slowly pulled the car from it's parking position.
"I said, I need more guns."
"Heard you," he replied. "Also, file."
"What, did I break a nail?"
Mark rolled his eyes.
"No, kid. You could fix the ballistic profile problem with a metal file. Fine line between fucking the FBI and fucking yourself, though. Plays hell with accuracy. Also, it's a goddamn Five-seveN, the dial on those doesn't go all the way up to 'Incognito'. MedEx dig those bullets from a corpse, they think 'Man, we gotta do something about those street shootings involving millionaires.'"
"...yes, yes, I get your point. Hence, more guns."
"As you command, milady."
---
Rowena realized that she'd never been in the Umbrella's armory before, and felt somewhat cheated by the sheer utilitarian look - she expected showcases, custom stands and those neat plastic cutouts. It was just another storage room filled with heaps upon heaps of metal cases stacked in shelves, all wearing a small tag; there was a computer near the entrance, its cooling fan whirring to provide some background sound while Mark and Rowena walked through the place. Mark led her to a small corner with a table and a sandbox; Rowena guessed his intent and unloaded her gun. Mark nodded, then placed it in a nearby metal box; Rowena checked the label, which read "Dirty".
After that came the browsing.
The system made sense, she realized, after a fashion. Each case contained a single weapon "system" - guns, accessories, magazines -, together with a removeable barcode tag on the front. The inventory system was semi-automatic; after handling the contents on one case, the barcode was swept past a reader on the PC, which would then open the database to the right page - all the user had to do was enter what he'd taken from or added to the case, and the inventory would be updated. Mark explained with a lot of big words that this would soon be fully automatic, stumbling over terms like "RFID", but Rowena was understandably more concerned with getting the weapons she wanted - although Mark threatened that if he ever found her nabbing more stuff from the place without checking it out properly, he'd have her do a full audit of the place.
That said, Rowena soon had the whole thing laid out on a blanket: Two Five-seveN pistols (Mark professed ignorance of how they got into "his" stockpile), two USP Tacticals (9mm; Rowena wasn't feeling up to the .45s just yet), a handful of grenades, a G36K (derided by Mark as the "bastard child" of that particular weapon system) and, - by Mark's urging - a knife set distinctly unoptimized for cutting tomatoes. The piéce de résistance, however, came from the Other box; Rowena had a few seconds to admire the sheathed katana before Mark grabbed it by the scabbard and gave her that look.
"You could really hurt someone with that, kid." He cocked his wrist to the side, twisting it from her grip. "This one stays in the box," he said, and put it back where it came from.
"Uh, question. Why do you have a sword in the armory?"
"Plural, kid. Swords." With a quick grab, Mark hauled another scabbard from the container and handed it to Rowena. "Try this one. Damascus steel, one-and-a-half length, it's got two edges and a point."
"Yes, but why?"
"Swords are scary, if you know how to handle one. You come in with a sword, you're broadcasting a message - 'I'm crazy and lovin' it.' That one's a proper one. Then you get shit like this -" he grabbed a fencing foil - "great for theater productions. Not that scary. Comprende?"
"Si," she replied, unsheathed the bastard sword and assumed a defensive stance. "Daddy got me a Fechtbuch for my seventh birthday, I've been working on it since. Also, pattern welding doesn't make it Damascus. But it looks nice, Pendray-style superplastic steel?"
"Uh, right," Mark said, with the facial expression of someone who really hadn't expected to be outdone in swordsmanship expertise by a teenager. "You know, sharp end goes in the other guy and all that."
"I'm familiar. Is that it?"
"You'll need this."
Rowena's first encounter with a ballistic vest wasn't the most amiable, because she had to take off her sweater and let Mark fumble around with it for half an hour to get the thing properly fitted. At the end of that, it felt almost like cheating when he simply undid two buckles and slipped the heavy, sweaty thing off.
"Armor basics," he began while she dressed up again. "Don't fuck with the adjustable straps. I'll sew them in place later."
"You sew?"
"Shut up. Next, wear it. Get comfortable with it. Armor doesn't help if you don't have it on, and you won't wear it if you're not comfortable in it. You have to get familiar with it, how it moves with you, how much you should wear with it so you don't sweat your ass off. Wear something underneath, this shit chafes. Keep it dry. If you get hit with it, keep it on, it's better than nothing, but dump it and replace it as soon as you're away from the firefight. This is Level 3A, heaviest I'd recommend for regular carry. If you need the heavy stuff, we'll get you properly measured and order it custom, but...well, this'll do."
"...he could've killed me, right?"
"Hm?"
"Moody. If he hadn't missed."
Mark shrugged.
"A still fighter is a dead fighter," he said. Rowena understood.
"The bad news is," he began, "I couldn't get the body. The cops were swarming all over the place when I got there."
"But he's dead?" Rowena asked, her voice even.
"100% organic fertilizer. I heard some whispers from the CSI guys, looks like the dive alone would've killed him twice over. Hit the ground head first, snapped his neck and cracked his skull."
"What happens now?"
"They'll scour the places for clues and witnesses. Do you remember leaving any?"
"I tried not to touch anything...and I don't think anybody near me saw my face. Except the girl."
"Girl?"
"Rowena met up with another girl in the chase," Molly explained, sparing Rowena the effort of repeating the tale. "She helped her escape."
"And she saw your face?" Mark asked, taking mental notes.
"Yes. But she...she was incredibly strong, she jumped over an intersection and she threw me onto the roof from three stories below."
"Sounds like an Adept to me," Molly said.
"Well, fuck me. Psions. You sure about that, kid?"
"I know what I saw."
Withholding his comment for now, Mark opened the duffel.
"I got your gun, and I brought some fresh clothes. I reckon you want to shower first...so I, er, well, I grabbed a towel, and the shampoo and the shower gel - vanilla? - oh, and some fresh underwear. And makeup. I, well, I couldn't find the perfume bottle..."
"Underwear?" Rowena asked, the hint of a smile on her face.
"Uh...you're probably all sweaty. From the running and the jumping and the fighting and..."
"Jesus, Simmons," Molly said, rolling her eyes. "Shut the hell up."
"Yes Ma'am," Mark added with a non-negleglible amount of sarcasm.
"There's a shower at the end of the hallway," Molly said, still glancing at Mark. "It might take a minute before the water's hot."
"Gotcha," Rowena said, then grabbed the duffel and stalked off in search of cleanliness.
With Rowena gone, Molly leveled a withering gaze at Mark.
"I swear I'll kill you if you have me playing babysitter again."
"Look, I can't be everywhere at once, okay? I needed somebody to pick her up and you were the closest."
"Don't you have your flunkies for that?"
"They wouldn't be my flunkies if they weren't busy with other shit." He weathered her gaze a bit more, then met it. "You think I wanted this to happen?"
"It's certainly convenient. At that range, a decent sniper shouldn't have missed. And correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't she the 'Waahhh I'm all torn up about killing' girl?"
"Do you honestly think I could hire someone to deliberately miss her, then set him up to fail so she can kill him? How the hell is that supposed to work?"
"I don't know, you're the hitman."
"Plots need to make sense," Mark said. "This one doesn't. Someone gave her that kill, but it wasn't whoever hired the sniper."
"So what's your theory?"
"The girl was a Physical Adept, right? Who do you know who's got Adepts?"
"The Shop, some Archer guys...Fade."
"Bingo. Just like the old man to have a shadow on the kid." He took a deep breath. "Look, Molly..."
"...Miss Hendricks..."
"...Miss Hendricks. What the hell do you want? All I ever hear from you is this trust bullshit, but everything that goes South is supposed to be my fault?"
"You're a sneak, Simmons. I know what you do to the people who forget that."
"Okay. Let's play your game. What can I do so you'll trust me?"
"...die?"
Mark had to laugh at that, which didn't earn him any sympathy points from Molly.
"Come on. You wouldn't be here if you didn't have problems. The Company wants to come in from the cold, they told me. You fucking called me. The only reason you've got this place is that I bought it for you. So where's this cooperation thing I saw in the ads?"
"Okay, okay. You want to prove yourself? I've got something for you. Almost as good as dying."
She showed him the file. Mark took a very long time to nod.
---
The Rowena who stepped out of the building thirty minutes later didn't resemble a little girl anymore; she was now wearing Doc Martens, work jeans and a dark gray commando sweater under her leather coat. The Five-seveN was back in it's shoulder holster, and her eyes were seated behind mirror shades with a cold, blueish tint.
This was turning out to be rather easier than she'd thought, and she wasn't sure yet whether that was a good thing.
"I need more guns," she said after she got into Mark's car. "We'll have to junk this one, right?"
Mark yanked the ignition and slowly pulled the car from it's parking position.
"I said, I need more guns."
"Heard you," he replied. "Also, file."
"What, did I break a nail?"
Mark rolled his eyes.
"No, kid. You could fix the ballistic profile problem with a metal file. Fine line between fucking the FBI and fucking yourself, though. Plays hell with accuracy. Also, it's a goddamn Five-seveN, the dial on those doesn't go all the way up to 'Incognito'. MedEx dig those bullets from a corpse, they think 'Man, we gotta do something about those street shootings involving millionaires.'"
"...yes, yes, I get your point. Hence, more guns."
"As you command, milady."
---
Rowena realized that she'd never been in the Umbrella's armory before, and felt somewhat cheated by the sheer utilitarian look - she expected showcases, custom stands and those neat plastic cutouts. It was just another storage room filled with heaps upon heaps of metal cases stacked in shelves, all wearing a small tag; there was a computer near the entrance, its cooling fan whirring to provide some background sound while Mark and Rowena walked through the place. Mark led her to a small corner with a table and a sandbox; Rowena guessed his intent and unloaded her gun. Mark nodded, then placed it in a nearby metal box; Rowena checked the label, which read "Dirty".
After that came the browsing.
The system made sense, she realized, after a fashion. Each case contained a single weapon "system" - guns, accessories, magazines -, together with a removeable barcode tag on the front. The inventory system was semi-automatic; after handling the contents on one case, the barcode was swept past a reader on the PC, which would then open the database to the right page - all the user had to do was enter what he'd taken from or added to the case, and the inventory would be updated. Mark explained with a lot of big words that this would soon be fully automatic, stumbling over terms like "RFID", but Rowena was understandably more concerned with getting the weapons she wanted - although Mark threatened that if he ever found her nabbing more stuff from the place without checking it out properly, he'd have her do a full audit of the place.
That said, Rowena soon had the whole thing laid out on a blanket: Two Five-seveN pistols (Mark professed ignorance of how they got into "his" stockpile), two USP Tacticals (9mm; Rowena wasn't feeling up to the .45s just yet), a handful of grenades, a G36K (derided by Mark as the "bastard child" of that particular weapon system) and, - by Mark's urging - a knife set distinctly unoptimized for cutting tomatoes. The piéce de résistance, however, came from the Other box; Rowena had a few seconds to admire the sheathed katana before Mark grabbed it by the scabbard and gave her that look.
"You could really hurt someone with that, kid." He cocked his wrist to the side, twisting it from her grip. "This one stays in the box," he said, and put it back where it came from.
"Uh, question. Why do you have a sword in the armory?"
"Plural, kid. Swords." With a quick grab, Mark hauled another scabbard from the container and handed it to Rowena. "Try this one. Damascus steel, one-and-a-half length, it's got two edges and a point."
"Yes, but why?"
"Swords are scary, if you know how to handle one. You come in with a sword, you're broadcasting a message - 'I'm crazy and lovin' it.' That one's a proper one. Then you get shit like this -" he grabbed a fencing foil - "great for theater productions. Not that scary. Comprende?"
"Si," she replied, unsheathed the bastard sword and assumed a defensive stance. "Daddy got me a Fechtbuch for my seventh birthday, I've been working on it since. Also, pattern welding doesn't make it Damascus. But it looks nice, Pendray-style superplastic steel?"
"Uh, right," Mark said, with the facial expression of someone who really hadn't expected to be outdone in swordsmanship expertise by a teenager. "You know, sharp end goes in the other guy and all that."
"I'm familiar. Is that it?"
"You'll need this."
Rowena's first encounter with a ballistic vest wasn't the most amiable, because she had to take off her sweater and let Mark fumble around with it for half an hour to get the thing properly fitted. At the end of that, it felt almost like cheating when he simply undid two buckles and slipped the heavy, sweaty thing off.
"Armor basics," he began while she dressed up again. "Don't fuck with the adjustable straps. I'll sew them in place later."
"You sew?"
"Shut up. Next, wear it. Get comfortable with it. Armor doesn't help if you don't have it on, and you won't wear it if you're not comfortable in it. You have to get familiar with it, how it moves with you, how much you should wear with it so you don't sweat your ass off. Wear something underneath, this shit chafes. Keep it dry. If you get hit with it, keep it on, it's better than nothing, but dump it and replace it as soon as you're away from the firefight. This is Level 3A, heaviest I'd recommend for regular carry. If you need the heavy stuff, we'll get you properly measured and order it custom, but...well, this'll do."
"...he could've killed me, right?"
"Hm?"
"Moody. If he hadn't missed."
Mark shrugged.
"A still fighter is a dead fighter," he said. Rowena understood.
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