《The B-Team》 Trigger Arc: Prologue The desk shook a little as Jamal bounced his knee restlessly. How much longer? This was the one thought that had bounced around inside his mind for the last three hours. He had been sweating due to the heat in the room and his t-shirt was now drenched in sweat. His jet black hair was now damp and a mess as compared to the sleek look it had before he had been introduced to this weather. The two men sitting on swivel chairs and watching seven screens had kept their silence for the last six hours straight. Each of the screens had different feeds and attention was never kept on a single one for too long. The room they were in was not small though it gave that impression due to its contents. There was a messy cot which they had taken turns on, a mini fridge which was now empty save for a bottle of cola, a small section in the corner where they had set up the mini-bathroom. And finally the desk they were sitting in front of which had the screens, two keyboards and several CPUs underneath it. Jamal looked through his drooping eyelids at his partner and wondered how long the older guy lived doing jobs like this. It had been 3 days already at their current location and he was already tired even though he had slept and eaten normally while working less than his partner. His partner, as ever, didn¡¯t look as though he had a hair out of place ever since they had met up and set up shop in the room. The older guy had simply introduced himself as Bink and answered in monosyllables ever since they had joined up. Bink had brown hair which was beginning to gray while his hairline was well into its recession. He was a moon-faced,middle-aged guy who always seemed bored and reminded Jamal a little of Danny DeVito, though he was considerably taller than the caustic little giant that had graced the silver screen not too long ago. His apparent boredom had not changed even after they had been given new orders earlier that afternoon. If Jamal had observed closely, he would have noticed that Bink had a pattern of keeping check on the screens ever since they had begun. 1,5,2,4,3,6 and then the tablet he rested on his lap to keep notes. The only thing he had noticed was that the Bink walked with slight hitch in his left leg. Jamal attributed his own survival during this time to the one extra screen which they were using which had turned out to be unnecessary. He had tuned its signal to the multitude of satellite signals present in this particular country. So now the screen showed the news, movies and Jamal¡¯s favorite, game shows. Those show-tunes provided the only outlet for all of his nervous energy. There had been no objection to the choice of programming from Bink ever since they had started the assignment. Tonight was a rerun of ¡°Who wants to be a millionaire¡± and Jamal could barely wait till the show was over as that was when their assignment would be concluded. The sudden nature of the order to cut the duration by 4 whole days had been a great source of relief for the young fellow. He could only be glad that the surveillance would be coming to an end. The subject of their surveillance, Ronald Hereira, a young man in his 20s, had been just another name to them at the beginning but now they knew as much as they could know about him as they ever would for the time being. The older man¡¯s ''skills'' with technology and his own ''skills'' in getting into and out of places he wasn''t supposed to be in had helped to get a pretty thorough picture of Ronald''s life. The subject in question was now on three of their screens watching some comedy show on his television while eating nachos. Two other screens focused on thermal images of the sleeping forms of the roommates. The investigation into their lives, while not as rigorous, did not yield anything worth pursuing, just as there was nothing special about Ronald. As far as Jamal was concerned, the current subject was not worth this work at all, an opinion he had cultivated since day one of this assignment. Well anyway only 5 more minutes and we can pack up. All that remained was the final signal that would initiate their departure. And sure enough just as the show ended with the host wishing the audience goodnight, the phone in between them buzzed once, twice, thrice and stopped. With that, both of them started packing up their personal equipment and trash as they cleaned the room, preparing the apartment for whoever might come there next. Bink typed in a few commands tasking the stationary camouflaged Hover cams to leave their positions and return to their cloaked charging spots. All the while, he watched Jamal out of the corner of his eye observing the younger man''s behavior. It wasn¡¯t curiosity or some other innocent reason but borderline paranoia which kept him vigilant. He watched as Jamal packed up his own stuff. He saw the younger man constantly eye the watch he was wearing, a regular-looking digital watch, almost exactly like the one Bink was wearing. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. The younger man seemed to be mostly ready except for a small bunch of trash in his right hand. As if almost on cue as waited while fidgeting, his watch buzzed twice. Jamal''s left hand relaxed and let go of the small rod he was holding inside his bag and he quickly stuffed his own trash inside the bag. The young man wasn¡¯t sure what he would have done if the watch hadn¡¯t given the fail-safe signal. He finally looked at Bink in the face and said ¡°Well, I¡¯m off.¡± He was absolutely relieved he didn¡¯t have to kill the older guy and walked past him out of the room. Bink stood there for a minute or so and put his tablet into his bag and shouldered it while inputting the final erase commands into the computers which now showed blank feeds except the sixth screen which showed some telemarketing ads now that the game show was over. Once he was done, he started to exit the room before he remembered something and returned to his chair. He looked around at the open door and quickly removed two small rods which formed part of each hand rest of the chair. The small rods looked just like the one Jamal had in his bag. Bink looked at it for a few seconds and pressed a barely noticeable switch on its side using his thumb and a long blade silently and violently emerged from the end of the rod. He looked at the blade for a few seconds and then pushed the blade back in using the wall as he exited and slipped the two rods up his sleeves as he walked out of the apartment block and into the crowded streets. Jamal was already long gone and it was only now that Bink truly relaxed. Not completely but the relief he had felt when his watch had buzzed just as the show ended was finally visible on his face. He glanced around casually and once in the direction where he knew his subject for the last three days was still sitting and watching the soap. He had sent his report on the same just a few minutes before he had wiped the room and it only had three lines in it: //Subject: R***** H****** //Assessment: Non-issue. //Recommendation: Discontinue surveillance. Short and sweet. Bink was satisfied with the work though he wondered why the assignment¡¯s duration had been reduced. This had been the third time something like this had happened. He looked back to the ground around him and quietly walked away , most likely to another room just like the one he had been in with a slight hitch in his step. ------------------------------ A few minutes later, the room¡¯s door opened and a man looked inside, carefully looking for anything he could use. He nodded as he walked into the room and didn¡¯t find a thing after three minutes. His mobile buzzed and he flipped it open and immediately said, ¡±Somebody¡¯s been naughty, but covered their tracks well¡±, "Well obviously, but more to the point, how''s the acting career so far?¡±, ¡±No, no problems, just a pain to keep up the pretense, and yes I followed your script almost to letter, by which I mean I didn¡¯t do the part which I know you put in just to screw with me. "Aww, You''re no fun, the report wouldn''t have gone anywhere even if you had. It would just been a small piece of entertainment for those poor guys. Ah forget it, what''s done is done, everything set on your end?¡±, ¡±Yes, let¡¯s start, we only have 2 months remaining, all candidates are ready for approach, no more time for your cat and mouse antics. ¡± ¡°But that''s the best part of it all. You need to entertain yourself and more importantly, me. It''s not fair i don''t get to play with you anym....... FLUSH!!! HA! Beat THAT ALFREDO!!..... umm, that was my twin Bruno.¡±, ¡°Yeah, yeah glad I could entertain you, now stop playing poker and pretending to be your own fake twin brother and get started¡± growled Ronald as he flipped the phone shut and finally tossed the popcorn he had been twiddling with onto the desk. He shook his head in part despair and part amusement when he thought of his boss at the other end of the phone. He then looked at the folder he had been holding. I¡¯m pretty sure his genius came at the price of his naming sense. And he considered the name buried under all the wear and tear on the folder. He then stepped up to the screen on the desk, the only one which stood on the desk instead of being attached to the walls, the one which had been showing the game show just a while back and was now in the middle of some skimpily dressed women chasing a man like the plague. He snapped off a false compartment on its back and put the file inside and then snapped it shut. once the compartment was back in place, the screen briefly flickered to a simple blue screen with one word on it: ''Secure''. Then he made his way out of the room picking up the piece of popcorn on the way and disappeared into the night. Chapter 1: Job offer 1 & 2 (Who you gonna call¡­ GHOST BUSTERS¡­) The punching bag moved heavily. Gemma was not focusing on it. Looking closer she was more involved in her headphones as she listened to the Ghostbusters theme song. She was frustrated but that didn¡¯t show in any way other than the fact that she was destroying a punching bag, and it didn¡¯t even help with the stress. Listening to the song was better for that. Her Playlist was her haven of peace, far away from her problems which consisted of her job performance, that jerk Ian and her family. Well, if she had to be honest, that jerk was at the top of the list. The fact that she came in third compared to him winning did not sit well with her at all. She hated being third. Third was not good enough. If only she had battled Tut instead of the jerk she would have made it to finals. Stupid playlist. Stupid technology. She could have sworn she had checked to see if the loop all setting was off. Metallica to Chopin did not make for a consistent beat down. That jerk, she would have pummeled his ass on a few more seconds of Metallica. Though, if she had to be even more honest, it was her own performance she was pissed about. Still, focusing on the jerk helped a bit. So to the top of her list he went. It didn¡¯t help that he was good-looking in the way she liked. Especially with those curls bouncing every time he landed and bounced after taking a hit. And damn those arms and the ridges that formed every time he flexed to take a shot were downright sinful. If she didn¡¯t hate him so much for thinking that he was Adonis himself, she would have given the idea a chance. Thinking of all this made her mutter ¡°What if I had¡­¡± As the song ended, Gemma heard someone say ¡°For warrior to say ''What if¡­'' , is the beginning of their demise.¡± Gemma spun around keeping her stance up, to see slightly built man with blond-grey hair with an endearing smile on his face. It took her a while to realize that it was him who had spoken. His voice was deep and grandfatherly but he looked to be barely in his mid ¨Ctwenties. He looked like he could be from anywhere with his jeans and cut off shirt and weirdly enough, Japanese wooden sandals. In the few seconds it took her to notice all of this, she also saw him giving her a once over. She could only imagine what she looked like in her sweat drenched razor back sticking to her lithe body. The dimly lit gymnasium making her skin look three to four shades darker than her usual golden brown skin tone. The dark stubble on her head (a penance for the loss) barely visible but adding to the angularity of her frame. Even with her average height, she would easily tower over the man in front of her by a head at least. She slowly relaxed her body out of the stance she had been holding up until now. ¡°Excuse me?¡± she said while taking one bud out of her ears. Tilting her head to the side, pretending as if she hadn¡¯t really understood what he meant. ¡°Oh please, do we really need to discuss your unwanted sabbatical¡­ for the past ten months.¡± The man looked around the room, all the while speaking. ¡°This place could pretty much be your home now, considering you¡¯re here most of the day, almost every day of the week.¡± As he turned his face slightly, Gemma saw that he had a tattoo on his temple. It looked like suspiciously like a ¡­.. a USB port? When he looked back at her, his eyes gained a piercing quality she associated with the best fighters, the earlier kindly smile gone. "Aren¡¯t you tired of the place?" At that Gemma noticed a slight smile but said nothing. Without a pause, the man continued nonchalantly "I have an opening for you in a permanent team" now inspecting the equipment lying around. She didn''t say anything, just listened intently to every nuance of the man¡¯s monologue. Inwardly though there was flutter of excitement starting to build up at the thought of an assignment, even more so for a permanent team assignment. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. It was like being welcome home after having been treated like a pariah for a long time. In a controlled voice that did not betray an ounce of the excitement she was feeling she said, "Whats the catch?" Still not looking at her, he says "No catch¡­." Giving her a quick glance he adds, "Just get second place next time around ........... maybe some other minor stuff. Maybe." and started moving towards the exit. She heard him say "Show me something interesting and I¡¯ll get in touch." "Second place?" Gemma wondered as he left the room. Why would anyone want to come second? It came with no benefits, no privileges, nothing. Being second place served no purpose as only the name of Champion was announced to all, everyone else was simply told their final position. So how would he know if she did place second or not? She could have come third like the last time and no one would know. Whatever the case was, she knew she wanted the job. She finally moved towards the next piece of training equipment before she noticed a sheet of paper stuck on the punching bag she had just been using. When the hell did he leave a piece of paper? Or even come to this side of the room? She picked up the sheet and started reading it. It listed the condition he had just told her and some vague details regarding the assignment. When she saw one particular detail, her eyes widened in shock but they slowly came back to normal as she thought more about the name she had just read. She stood there for a while and then noticed that the ink was fading from the page at an incredible pace. Within the minute, all the writing had faded and the sheet was now completely blank save for the name she was most interested in. Then it faded away as well. Gemma looked around the empty gym and then back at where the name had been just a moment ago on the sheet of paper. She plugged her bud back in and was surprised by the song that was playing. That song was not what she had selected for her playlist because she knew all 4000 odd songs on her music player. She looked at the player to see what it was and saw ¡® No man¡¯s land ¨C Billy Joel¡¯ flashing in white against the luminescent blue of the player¡¯s LCD screen. After listening to the song for a while, she began swaying and striking the air around her. Her face was calm but her eyes were brimming with excitement over the information she had just received. ------------------------------------- Elsewhere- He found a folder on his doormat when he reached his apartment. He looked around and then slowly picked it as his left leg was giving him small pangs of pain. He opened it without a pause and began reading. He raised an eyebrow as he read through the single page in the folder. Finishing it, he looked around once more and then opened his door. he tossed the folder in and closed the door.... but didn''t go in. he locked the door and pressed the doorbell six times and held the doorbell button down the sixth time for a few seconds. He waited and listened as a whirring noise began inside the apartment. Bink left the building and looked back towards where his apartment would be. He had liked this apartment, but now everything inside there had been incinerated. He sighed with a rare expression of sadness on his face and pulled out his phone. He dialed the only number saved on it and waited. When he got to voicemail, he simply said, "Code in: Greymatter8442. . . . . . . . . Change of address, change of contact." And disconnected the call and took out a a box slightly larger than the phone. He put the phone into the box and closed the lid and pressed the button on its side. There was a ''CRRunch '' sound and then he opened the box and dumped the smashed remains of the phone into the trash can nearby. Then he kept the box back into his backpack and walked away without another look back at his favorite apartment yet. Chapter 2: Job offer 3 Playing Immortal Kombat at the local arcade and lording it over those he beat was one of the favorite pastimes for Tut. "I''ll admit you''re good at spamming those light attacks, but that just gets me riled up . EAT THIS!!! TRIPLE AXEL KICK!! UZI PUNCH!!........ WHAT? That¡¯s it? Oh come on, I had a few more moves lined up. Well I guess I''ll settle for guillotine kicking you dead body. What can I say, shouldn''ta riled me up..... any other challengers?..... Oh well!!" He began to relax with the hands behind his head the crowd around him began dispersing whilst muttering various expletives. "I guess it''s time for me to wind up..... maybe pick up a McQueen burger with secret sauce on the way to the gym and visit..... Oh? A challenger?" He began smiling as a character began taunting his own avatar on the screen. "Dude, whoever you are, let¡¯s do this!" ------15 minutes later------------- "MOTHERF*****!!!!! ......YOU!! GET ME MORE COINS!! ...... I''m gonna grind and smash this asshole......" he broke off muttering in his rage. The formerly dispersed crowd was back and surrounding him and watching the carnage with glee and cracking comments. "Can¡¯t take the heat now can he...." "Losing 9 times in row without even grazing the opponent is a greatest achievement I''ve ever seen" "This is gonna go down in Immortal Kombat''s history as worst beat down ever,18 rounds ''Perfect'', never even seen first-timers do this badly" "Dude doesn''t even realize he''s turned gay since his ass has been pawned so hard" "Must have pissed off a god-level player when he was bragging so loudly earlier." "Bad winner and Sore loser, Awesome Combo" "GRAAAAHHHH!!!!" KRRRRUUNCH The crowd instantly fell silent as Tut punched the machine and the it just crumpled like a soda can. In the next instant, it was like an audition for Houdini as the entire crowd disappeared almost magically. Gamers, God-level or otherwise were one thing, but guys who could crumple metal with their bare fists? Those were people you didn''t stick around when they were pissed off. Feeling kind of better having vented his anger, Tut looked around to see if he could find the so called ''god-level'' player and then back at the destroyed arcade game in front of him. "Ah crap, guess I''m banned again. Well, there''s still two other arcades I haven''t entered yet" At that point, one of the store employees made his way gingerly towards Tut. When he reached the diminutive arcade machine murderer, he kept his eyes on the broken machine like it really was a dead body. "The owner would like a word with you...... sir" he added as an afterthought. "Yeah? Well too bad, I''m leaving and you guys can¡¯t stop me. But don''t worry, I''ll pay you guys for the damage caused." Saying this he began to leave. "The owner also told me to tell you that the ''God-level'' player is in the office, if you''d like to meet......" "LEAD THE WAY!" ----A few minutes later--------- "Hello Mr. Tutankhamun, I''m Mel and I own this arcade and also the one who owned your ass out there. First, don''t worry about the damages. Second, I asked you here so that I could pass this on to you, apparently, you''ll know what to do with it. Third, stop staring and drooling, it''s creeping me out. Fourth, you''re banned until you''ve worked out your anger issues. Fifth, that is all, get out of my store." Throughout this, Tut''s mouth remained open. He had never seen such stunningly gorgeous woman in his life. In a daze, he took the proffered folder and mumbled something under his breath which sounded suspiciously like ''Marry me''. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.Having said her part, the beauty got up and walked out of the rooms through the curtains that hid a door directly behind the chair she had just been sitting on. Tut stared at her the entire time and almost blushed when he saw that she was wearing a backless top no bra strap. But ''almost'' ruled the day as he noticed that the entirety of her upper back was covered with scars. It wasn''t too noticeable because of...... makeup? His mind cleared of all the pink nonsense that had been swirling around inside it as a hint of anger surfaced at the thought of anyone hurting Her. Thus began a romance that would become legendary for its comedy through stupidity, hope of league jumping and tragedy. Tut finally looked down at the folder he had been handed by his Goddess as he was leaving the arcade. He didn''t notice that the machine he had previously broken was now spotless with not a trace of damage on it. As he finally began reading through the folder his blood began boiling at the opportunity he had been presented made itself comfortable at the top of his list of priorities just slightly above the idea of Her. His relaxed walk became purposeful as he headed towards his dojo. ----- Mel watched him from the window as he walked down the street and turned to the man sitting in front of her desk. "You sure about him? Doesn''t seem too stable if you ask me." "I didn''t ask you now, did I?" "Well, your funeral, I guess I didn''t really teach you enough abo......" The man cut her off sharply, "You taught me well enough and I''ve moved past that level of thinking now, let¡¯s just leave it at that." "So you say." "So I do" "Can you prove it?" she said nodding her head the two arcade machines that were in the room. *sigh.... "Let¡¯s get it over with." ---5 minutes later------ Mel gaped at the screen in front of her, looking shell-shocked at the result. "I told you I''ve moved past what you taught me. And I didn''t even start with my cheat" he said tapping his temple. "B...bu.... but..... but how?" "There''s always somebody better out there Mel. For you, that¡¯s now me." Something in the way he said that made her look at him. "You mean there''s someone out there better than you?" "Yes, though I doubt that statement would apply to him." "..........." "Well regardless, Tut wasn''t my choice, so I didn''t really have say in this. Just a simple messenger." She stared at him in disbelief. "Cat got your tongue I see" "Who chose him?" "......." "Come on, you can trust me............ can''t you?" she added as she noticed a look on his face. "I trust you enough to tell you, it¡¯s the fellow who''s out there better than me. Well you shouldn''t really worry about this. I''ll see you around sometime. Take care of yourself and make sure you don''t lead the poor boy around too much, we need him operational." And now it was her turn to watch speechlessly as he left. She finally got a hold of herself just he disappeared through the doorway. "Yeah well those wooden sandals look like crap on you." she muttered and then flushed in embarrassment at the thought of the childishness she was displaying. Chapter 3: Job offer 4 "GET THE MUNITIONS PACKAGE TO SITE 14 ASAP!!! ...... Ooook, whats next Corporal?" The captain looked to his side to prepare himself for the next thing on his list. Being in a war-zone was not the best place for mental acuity but making the list daily helped with getting through the day without too much of a hassle. Cpt. Bimillah had been here for the last 7 months and had tired of the country within the first week. in the privacy of his mind, he was proud to admit that, even though he was in this stressful environment he had only taken 3 aspirins in his entire time here. The first had been after his first assistant had been shot by a sniper in his second week during a random inspection in his own base camp. Hi immediate reaction to order all officers to requisition Kevlar neck plates and all soldiers on base to wear their helmets when out in the open. His next reaction was to demolish an entire bottle of scotch and top it off with an aspirin and sleep for 12 hours. The second aspirin had been taken exactly 13 hours after the first one to help with the massive hangover he had the next morning. The hangover also led to him controlling his drinking habit over the remaining duration of his stay in this country. The third one was taken in response to the incident report regarding ''that'' psychopath. "Well sir, considering you just had you daily shouting match with your lover, I thought your meeting with the ''medic'' would fit into the next slot quite neatly." The captain gave the corporal his usual ''if-looks-could-kill'' expression before realizing what the second half of what had just been said sank in. Oh, how he missed his first assistant, god bless his soul. He had been helpful, understanding, and best of all didn''t lace every other line of conversation with subtle barbs of misguided humor. Scooting over the fact that she had just alluded to the supply officer in charge being his lover, he began preparing himself to meet the ''medic''. Even though the medical building was 20 feet away, Bimillah suddenly wanted time-stopping abilities. But knowing god wouldn''t be impulsive like that, he resigned himself to the meeting and took out the folder from the safe in his desk and began to move towards the next task of the day. He strode purposefully to the medical supplies door where he knew the ''medic'' spent all her time, the corporal following about 2 steps behind him. As he reached the door, he knocked on it twice before waiting for a few seconds. Then he pushed the door open and walked in. He hadn''t even laid eyes on the ''medic'' when he felt goosebumps erupt on his skin. Pushing aside the feeling he looked around trying to find the ''medic'' but saw no one. He even looked towards the other end of the room where the morgue was. As he walked towards that area with his assistant in tow, he noticed a body on one of the examining table with sheet covering it and the feet and the tag on a big toe sticking out from under the sheet. "Corporal, I don''t recall any dead bodies being reported in the last week, do you?" The corporal shook her head in confirmation. It had been an uneventful week, his favorite kind and he wanted to keep that going. But now that hope was being threatened with this unexplained body. For a moment he thought that the ''medic'' may have done something which would require him to start popping aspirins like skittles. As the two of them took a few more step towards the examining table, they stopped in shock as the body suddenly sat upright leaving its head lying in the same position. The sheet covered where the neck had been sliced clean off and the severed head was now in plain view staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. The silence was deafening until the headless sheet-covered torso began turning towards the visitors. The captain flinched while the corporal decided that now was the best time to begin her practice to crack glass with her voice. Alongside this new practice, she also drew her sidearm and took aim at the headless corpse. Cpt. Bimillah, to his credit, thought much faster and realized the truth of the matter almost immediately and began enjoying his assistant''s distress and noted that her safety was on. He relaxed and said, "Well, thank you very much for that scare Doctor, I''ll be sure to cherish the memory" as he looked gloatingly at the corporal. There was a quiet laugh at that and the sheet was whipped away by an unseen hand as Dr. Rashida revealed herself from under the sheet. As the corporal finally regained her composure and put away her Beretta while taking on progressively deeper hues of red on her cheeks , the captain quickly examined the haphazard frame sitting on the doctor'' shoulders which when complemented with the sheet, made it look like a headless torso. As he looked towards what he thought was the severed head, Dr. Rashida quickly picked it up and began clearing away the setup, chuckling quietly all the time. As she continued, the giggles finally stopped and she said. "You can stop ogling me now captain and get to whatever it is you came for. I need to go and develop the photos of your reactions in the dark room." The captain thought he heard something at the end of that and also thought the head looked suspiciously realistic, but decided not to pursue either matter, choosing instead to hand over the folder which he had nearly crumpled up completely when he had flinched earlier. "Yes well, this was to be handed to you with instructions to transfer you back home with an honorable discharge. I trust you don''t need me to help you pack?" Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. "Oh, you''d like to get rid of me, would you? No, I don''t need your help captain but I assure you, you will begin to miss me very soon and will almost regret offering to help me pack. Maybe you aspirin count will double without me here, or even triple. What is this?" She said in her usual quiet, humorous voice. As he listened to her, the usual conflicting emotions began roiling within him. She had this ability to terrify him, arouse him and make him worry all at once. It wasn''t intentional or her part and he knew that but the combination of her voice, the things she said and her petite body got to him every time they had conversed. She had her jet black hair in a boy cut and her cherubic face belied the terror she wielded over all her patients. Her body though was kind of mismatched yet oddly seductive. She was 5''2" and a size 1 though her assets were almost non-existent, something which she used as a trap if anyone was foolish enough to comment on the fact. Below the waist was almost the opposite as she had the most graceful and loin-stirring legs the captain had ever seen and he had seen quite a few. She had said but three sentences and already he was tearing his hair off mentally wondering what the hell she meant or how she even knew about the aspirin, while also wondering how her legs would look with no pants on. Quickly shaking free of these thoughts, he said, "I have no clue but I have arranged a seat for you on the next flight back home, First class, Complements of my boss who, by the way, is the one who gave me that folder to give to you. I hope you have a safe journey and hope you''ll look me up if you''re ever in my part of town." Internally, he was shouting at himself to shut the hell up as his initial plan had been to simply come in hand over the folder and leave. Dr. Rashida seemed to barely listen to him, as she had already opened up the folder and begun reading. "......requisite condition is......... only criteria...........oooooh....... wonder who''s in charge....?" She had begun muttering as she finished reading and reached under her desk and grabbed a duffel bag. She kept it next to her feet and then reached into a cabinet nearby before pulling out a steel bedpan. She continued muttering incoherently as she took out a bottle from the miscellaneous chemicals nearby and poured it into the bedpan. Then she put the folder into the bedpan and lugged the bedpan carefully onto the examination table she had just been lying on a few minutes ago. Lastly she picked up the duffel bag and slung it on her shoulder and calmly walked past the two soldiers who simply watched all of this in silence. When she reached the door, she opened the door and turned around while looking at the captain and corporal expectantly. After a a few more seconds of staring while holding the door open she finally said, "WELL, COME ON, you don''t want to die, do you?" At this, both of the dumbstruck soldiers looked at each other and then ran out the door while Dr. Rashida held the door open for a bit longer. Once Cpt. Bimillah was out in the open, he turned around to see Dr. Rashida toss an unopened bottle at the bed pan in the room. As he watched the bottle sail through the air, he could have sworn he saw the bottle separate into two halves neatly almost as if they has been cut and held together with glue. As the bottle and its contents landed in the bedpan, he squinted his eyes and rubbed them quickly because now he seemed to see a silhouette of something in the bedpan where nothing was previously. And then the door closed, and he was now looking into the dark brown eyes of Dr. Rashida. "I wonder what you were looking at....." the quiet voice said. "N..nothing, not a damn thing......" he hurriedly stammered as he recalled his suspicions about the realistic ''fake'' severed head which he had not gotten a good look at. "Thats good." the doctor said contentedly. "Well, seeya." and with that she turned and began walking towards the motor pool. "OH GOD, was that terrifying" the corporal said once she confirmed the doctor was out of earshot. "Thank god your safety was on." "Glad I was mistaken about that." she said. "Mistaken?... What do you mean?" "Well, she''s always freaked me out, sir and I always leave my safety off. Thank god I had it on " "Yes, I saw your safety when you were screaming and it was on....... wait, you''re telling me you pulled the trigger?" She blushed and said "Yes, several times...... while I was still screaming." Cpt. Bimillah stared at his assistant incredulously for a moment and then looked towards where the motor pool lay, his expression now thoughtful. "Bloody hell" he said under his breath and then looked down at the tent which had formed on his pants. Now it was his turn to blush and he hurriedly walked back to the command building with his still blushing assistant. ----------------------- Sorry about the short chapters previously, but I find it difficult to go on typing after about 1.2k words as my attention drifts easily. It''s probably going to take some time for me to get the next few chapters out due to work and formatting issues. It''s going to start heating up after 1 more chapters. Hope the slow start hasn''t put any of you off this story. Chapter 4: And they begin to gather The Gateway of India, Bombay, India----- In the light of sunset, the crowd still milled about as many watched the sun finally dip below the horizon. The ambient noise was almost tangible as people went about their business and leisure. Photographers took random pictures hoping the people they photographed would buy a print of the snapshot. Tourists took selfies of the giant structure of the gate and the horse-driven carriages on the roads by the hundreds. All of this energy made it very easy to lose track of what a person might think. Despite this, there were several individuals in the area who waited desperately for the last of the natural light to fade from the atmosphere. And as soon as it did, they all began to make their way to a corner of the enormous area, weaving through the throng. If one were to examine their movements it would be barely noticeable that all of these people were taking care not be caught in any of the hundreds of picture being taken every minute. As each of them caught sight of their destination, they looked around and caught sight of each other one by one. Through a series of subtle nods they began to make their way , one at a time, towards a photographer who had actually setup a tripod facing away from the sunset over the horizon. As the first one came within a few feet of him, he made a gesture which seemed to indicate he wanted his picture taken. When the photographer noticed this, he fiddled with the camera for a few seconds and then took aim through the viewfinder, and gave his subject a thumbs-up. There was a flash, and then he just swiveled his camera a bit and took up his previous pose of lounging around. At this point, the second person repeated the same procedure with the photographer doing the same thing and swiveling the camera on its tripod a bit in a random direction each time after he had pressed the trigger. Nobody paid this procedure any attention as flashes were now going off all around the area due to the declining natural light. As the photographer clicked his camera the seventeenth time, he calmly began packing up as did many other photographers in the area. He chatted up a few of his friends nearby where the discussion was now foreign vs. local tourists and then left slowly with the crowd which had decided it had enough of the monument for the day. If anybody had paid further attention to this particular photographer''s business, they would have noticed that all his subjects had magically disappeared once they got rid of effects of the blinding flash. Seventeen people entered the area but did not leave. Such an occurrence was not really noticeable as seventeen in the sea of people was barely a drop in the figurative sea. -------- Nightclub Le Baron, Paris, France----------- The large double doors catered to two lines of people, and as such there was a disparity in sizes of each line when compared to each other. The line on the right-hand side had at least twenty-five people waiting, with a bouncer analyzing each of them, all the while awaiting updates on his earpiece. He gave a quick glance at his partner for the night, the smaller fellow in charge of the other line. This line had no one in it, but Bouncer #1 knew he couldn''t get that position as the requirements were solid judgement of their clientele. And as much of a good character he thought himself to be, he knew he couldn''t compete with this colleague. They had gotten along famously off-duty but when on the job, the 5''0" man became the perfect professional bouncer/valet/whatever-role-was-needed-of-him. Bouncer #1 had even teased his friend about his jack-of-all-trades-related-to-nightclubs abilities. He''d even seen the guy behind the bar more than once, whenever one of the regular bartenders had been out sick or away. There had been only six VIPs who got in through the left door tonight and each had been flashily dressed which was only a bit unusual but not too much so. Bouncer #1 had seen wannabe VIPs and the real deal and it was generally the wannabes who dressed to blind, thinking it would impress. But there were some VIPs who chose to be fashionably eccentric hoping to stir up trouble by making the bouncer mistake them and then show off their ''importance''. But Bouncer #1''s partner had never made such a mistake much to disappointment of the fashionably eccentric attention-seekers. And his short friend knew how to handle himself well. He had been backed up by small man once when a particular bouncee had taken his (/her? who could tell?) bouncing rather personally. Bouncer #1 had been smashed upside the head with a nice looking cane early one morning and struggling to stare down any of the thugs the bouncee had gathered up when the his small colleague had calmly walked out of the nearby backdoor and glanced at the situation. He gave Bouncer #1 a quick once-over and then swung his right hand outwards. In the next moment all the thugs except the one with the cane and the bouncee crumpled and fell to the ground. As Bouncer #1 felt cold chill of blood-thirst directed at the remaining two standing antagonists, he also examined the unconscious thugs and found a small bruise on each of their heads and a pebble lying near each of them. As he turned his head painfully to look at his colleague, he realized the man had disappeared and was now holding the cane whilst standing right in front of the bouncee. He looked at the fellow near him who had been holding the cane just a moment ago, but instead found him unconscious minus any pebble though his arm seemed to be bent the wrong way. Next thing he knew he was rising and moving towards the still open door and he noticed his small colleague under his shoulder. Then everything went black. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. When he had woken up, he was on the couch in the break room. He gingerly raised his torso off the couch feeling his head slowly. It was already bandaged and he saw his small colleague standing in front of him with a glass containing something that looked very much like the scotch the boss gave out at times to the prettiest waitresses. He gratefully accepted the glass and looked at his colleague in a questioning manner. The first words his new friend ever told him, "Minor bruise and cut, sewn up already, drink it, food on table, eat it, sleep." Bouncer #1 had expressed his gratitude and followed his new small friend''s instructions and thus began a friendship he cherished like no other. Shaking off his trip down memory lane, he found his small friend at his elbow with Bouncer #2 next to him. Looking at his small friend in his usual questioning manner, he received the following reply, "Break time, #2 will take over, come, want to show something." Handing over the clipboard and clicker to Bouncer #2, Bouncer #1 followed his friend to the door on the left. Suddenly, his friend took out the club stamp meant for VIPs and gestured towards his left hand. Extending the requested hand, Bouncer #1 watched his friend stamp the limb, then stamp his own hand and slip the stamp into his pockets. Then they entered the club and walked into the VIP room six other people had entered that night. But no one came out of the room and if anyone else had gone in, they would have found the room to be empty. ------------------ Elsewhere- Marcy twiddled his fingers over the touchscreen in boredom. "Window''s almost closed, I WANNA LEAVE!! The party''s about to start and i don''t even have a seat yet." She moaned. "Here you go, enjoy the show" Marcy squealed out loud at the surprise of someone speaking to her when she hadn''t even noticed them standing there. As her face flushed, she took good look at Mr. Sneaky. He seemed to a middle-aged guy who looked pretty normal except for his twinkling eyes and his smile that almost screamed out ''This smile is for another reason and you''ll never know it''. He was wearing a flannel shirt that was a size too big for him with cargo pants which had at least 8 pockets. His weather-beaten face was reminiscent of the blond blue-eyed jock type except for the streaks of grey in his fringe. He seemed well-built and she noticed he was holding a jumbo bag of M&Ms. "WHY THE HELL DID YOU SNEAK UP ON........ is that a front row ticket." her scream petered out as her eyes locked on to the ticket the man was waving in her face. "Why yes it is, do you not want it?" he teased her. "Gimme." "Absolutely, enjoy the show..... what''s wrong?" "I have to wait until the window closes before I can leave." "Ah, not to worry, I''ll take over, please go and enjoy the show without any worries." She became a bit suspicious and said, "Who are you? Mr. sneaky, maybe I should ask my boss." "This should clear things up" he said as he took out a card embossed with a image of Sphinx on it. Giving Mr. sneaky one more glance, she focused on the card and then felt the blood drain from her face as she realized who she was talking to. "S..s.....sir is... Mr. Snea.." she shut herself up but it was too late as his smile widened. "Sir, I''m really sorry, I didn''t know who you wer......." she shut herself up again as he raised his open hand. "Don''t worry about it, thats the cutest thing I''ve ever been called. Now, before you leave, could you report the count to me?" "Yes Sir! As of now, we have 5 entries from America, 30 from China, 14 from Japan, 17 from India, 15 from Russia, 5 from Sweden, 8 from Fran......." She stopped as he raised his hand once more. "Eh, forget it, just give me the total count, save us some time." "Er... Yes Sir, total count is 94." "Alright, thanks, enjoy the show. Want a bite?" He said showing the open bag towards her. "Ummm.... No .......er... yes, ok, thanks you Sir" she said incoherently. She reached into the bad and took a handful of the chocolate treats and began walking towards the main stadium giving the chuckling man one last look. "Wow, he was cute, I thought he''d look scarier from the rumors....... But why would he want to take over registration duty?....... GECKKKK" Her thoughts took a sudden shock as the M&M she had just popped into her mouth exploded with a small plop and made her stumble. "Did the head of Grey Matter just prank me?" Looking over her shoulder once more, she dropped the rest of the M&Ms into her belt-pouch and continued walking towards the stadium. ---------------------- Please do leave any suggestions or comments on the story. I''m finding the silence a bit unnerving. The story should ramp up now, but please bear with me as It will be my first attempt at a detailed conflict scenario. Chapter 5: The Tournament - Opening day Somewhere near Limbo---- The leader looked around the box at people around sitting here and there, chatting with each other or trying to find seats facing whichever of the three stadiums they were interested in. He gave a sigh before looking at his two of his direct subordinates and couldn''t help but wonder where the third one had gone. He felt a particular foreboding that indicated the onset of a headache. He wasn''t upset about it, he got headaches on a regular basis. What irked him at this moment was the quality of the headaches he had to endure. With the two subordinates who were present, there was never much of a surprise or double-takes when it came to the headaches. They gave him the low-maintenance, regularly throbbing headaches and these were a cinch to deal with. But when it came to the third subordinate, the headache would be near debilitating, and his top would blow at least two or three times within an hour. As he rubbed the ridge of his nose, he considered his life so far and tried to wonder what he had done to deserve such a subordinate or why the elders had seen fit to put him in charge. Malko was now 68 and beginning to feel his age. His hair had completely greyed over the span of the last two years and whenever he was in a particularly vindictive mood, he''d blame his third subordinate for it. Malko felt that he looked like Morgan Freeman though friends assured him that he was just imagining it. To which, he''d reply that he could accept that since the great actor did not have the eight-pack abs he did. He could still keep up with the training regimen the active operatives followed and very few of them could match him in the sparring arena. His prosthetic left hand was a miracle of Bio-engineering and felt the same, if not better than the one he had lost in his last field operation nearly twenty years ago. Even the phantom pains had stopped a few months after this particular model had been fitted onto him. He spoke into his lapel mic, "Director Gaste here, anyone have eyes on Jester?" Silence and then, "Sorry Sir, nothing since he got off the Peak Box elevator." Well, that merited rubbing his temples, which was noticed by his friend and successor, now one of his subordinates, Tim. So the gentle giant ambled over to Malko. The director often told himself that his friend would probably have been successful anywhere when he thought of the man who succeeded himself at Fulcrum. "That bozo giving you grief again?" Tim asked in his typical relaxed voice. "Not really, just don''t know what he''s up to now." "That would do it." "......" "Think he''s gonna do something like last time?" " Worse." Now it was the gentle giant who shivered at the thought of something worse than last time''s incident. "Impossible." "The smirk he''s been holding onto has been 20% wider over the last two weeks." "......." Finally noticing the grim faces the conversation had produced, Malko''s other subordinate walked up to them and clapped her boss'' back, "Why the long faces, it''s party time." The smile on her face would have been infectious if not for the person who was the subject of the discussion. "No eyes on Jester" said Tim succinctly. "........." "I''ve never seen a smile turn upside down that fast" Malko finally chuckled as he saw thunderclouds appear on Saki''s face. Saki was the head of Sharp End for the last 6 years when the previous head had died of a heart attack. The petite half Japanese woman looked amazing in her dress since she was always a mess otherwise. Her hair tied up neatly into a ponytail, the blue dress perfectly accentuated her curves. She had cleaned up very well indeed, so well that, she had received several advances when she had come outside today from several of her own officers. The proposals in question had been responded to in the exact same way a tornado responds to meeting a scarecrow. Three of the ''scarecrows'' were still in treatment and one had been critical though he was now stabilized. Several others who had not made their move before they witnessed the ''tornado'' had already signed up for therapy citing survivor''s guilt. "I''ll pull out his finger nails, then his fingers and then his arms if he does anything like last time." "Boss here thinks it''ll be worse." "Not possible." "That''s what I said." "Well he will show up here in half an hour, so maybe I could chain him up to you. That good with you Saki?" Malko pondered. "He''ll be dead within the hour if you do that boss." "Well at least I''ll enjoy myself, thought the dress might get dirty" she said struggling to weigh the pro against the con. "Well, if that does happen, make sure he dies after his speech and Tim, I''ve told you a million times you don''t need to call me boss anymore." "Sure thing boss." Tim grinned. -----------15 minutes later--------------- The Peak box was a VIP booth reserved for the bigwigs and family heads who wished to have the ability to watch any of the three stadiums as they chose. It was placed on a enormous column that was exactly between the three stadiums offering perfect views into each of them. The column was a marvel of engineering housing 2 elevator shafts plus running water, electricty up nearly 500m. The box at top of the column had 3 seating areas focusing on each of the stadiums. in addition there was 8 VIP rooms above this which offered views of all three stadiums. Finally at the very apex, was a podium for announcements to be made to all three stadiums. The entire structure looked like a hare-brained scheme but was surprisingly stable and safe. Malko stepped to the podium at the top of the Box and faced the Hover-cam that faced him. "Welcome everyone to the 72nd Biannual Tournament. I''m happy to see so many old faces and all the new faces. It''s hard thing we do and it isn''t often we can relax our guards. Now I don''t like speeches so without further ado.... " he flinched for a moment as he noticed Travis finally enter the staging area and signal his readiness to give his speech. He paused for less than second as all this registered in his mind and he continued with the slightest pause, " .... I declare the Tournament open and invite the head of Grey Matter to give the customary opening speech. Best of luck to all competitors!!" He stepped off the podium and gracefully waved Travis towards the podium. Under his breath, he muttered just loud enough for Travis to hear him without his mic picking it up, "Anything like last time and I will chain you to Saki, it''s been arranged." All the while smiling pleasantly at the man who passed by him. Travis'' smile widened as he heard this and he took the final step on the podium and began. "My friends, my name is Travis Whitress and I''d like to welcome all of you to The Tournament. But before we let the festivities begin, I''d like to speak about a very serious topic." Dramatic pause "The ''C'' Word......" Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. He looked at his audience and continued, "A very basic idea which gives birth to a large number of conflicts, discussions and banality in daily life. We may hear how some one is unwilling to commit to the relationship or wants to ''be free''. What are you? The wind? Get real. Everyone is committed to something or the other." "I hate plum cake, but when a colleague brought artistically wrapped cupcakes, people jumped over one another to get one, myself included. And for my effort? I bit down expecting chocolate goodness and instead got dry fruit. But what can a person do? You take a bite and you''re committed to the cupcake." Using that banal example, he proudly continued, "We could get more technical and say that our bodies are committed to our survival, and here we are deliberately going against that commitment such as operating heavy machinery on a regular basis (cars). But that''s involuntary (or is it?), so we''ll let it slide. We live with all sorts of commitments (job, shelter, friends, and even disliking others) , and it''s the conflict between these that brings it up to the level of losing sleep (among other things) over it. Lest we forget, we also have levels of commitment, since we need to complicate it more." He stopped and looked around him in a considering manner. "So how to make sense of this? Do we just hang it all and "be free"? I think I hear Monro in the background crooning. Or do we identify and clarify each and every commitment we can think of, because I can see the ocean on the horizon, oh no wait, that''s an ocean of therapy and counseling bills. Maybe the age old maxim;" Everything in moderation"? Doubtful at best. Whatever be the case it could help if....... Ah screw it, I''m not committed enough to finish talking about this..... BOORN FREEEEE, AS FREE AS THE WIND BLOWS......." As he sang, laughter erupted from the crowds below while the people in the box around him frowned in annoyance. Finishing the verse of the song, he took a big showman bow and got off the stadium. Saki took his place and all three stadiums immediately fell silent. "Do your best and enjoy the show!!" she chirped and the crowd went wild. Behind her, Malko was thinking hard about the topic of the speech and staring with the intensity of a laser at Travis. Did he have to mention the plum cake?I worked hard on that. As he thought and ignored everything around him, he had a thought and he instantly caught hold of his smiling subordinate and dragged him away to a private room. ---VIP room 07---- Once inside the room he said nothing and simply point to the couch in the room. Travis took the hint and sat down on the indicated seat and observed his superior pacing up and down the room. He looked around like a mischievous child would in a new environment and relaxed waiting for Malko to formulate his thoughts. The director eventually stopped pacing and faced the sitting man. He said, "You used the 5-year command didn''t you." The smile widened and Travis nodded in confirmation. The director began wondering what madness had been initiated and said,"You know you only get one of those every five years and now you have only 1 left. And you won''t get another until 3 years later." Now the smile widened even more as Travis finally opened his mouth and said, "Actually you''re wrong on that count, i don''t have one remaining." "Who gave you another? I don''t believe you. Saki would never give you the one she has and Tim would have told me if he had given one of his." "Such a narrow train of thought." The director thought for a moment before saying slowly, "You stole one of mine?" "As I said, narrow train of thought." The director now developed a sheen of cold sweat. "The elders?" "Nope." "Then .... WHAT THE F***???" As the director''s top blew for the first time that day. "Tell me right now or I swear I will beat it out of you myself!!" "Oh all right, keep your panties on" Travis said dismissively. "You know, when I first found out about the 5-year command, I thought it was a hassle but then, when I read the fine print attached to it I realized what a weapon it was. '' A command/order that cannot be refused nor countermanded for five years, not by any superior or even the elders. Even other 5-year commands made subsequently cannot be used to interact with the pre-existing order. And only the one who had issued it would be able to rescind it before it''s time limit.'' Dear god, I almost peed myself in joy when I understood it fully." He stopped as he sank into his own thoughts. Malko stood staring at him for a few moment and then shouted at him, "WHAT DID YOU ORDER???" Travis shook off his thoughts and said, "I apologize, but I cannot tell you Sir." Malko was floored by this. He said slowly, "Are you refusing an order from you superior?" "Yes and No, Sir." And suddenly Malko got it. When Travis saw his boss'' face, he said, "You got it, Sir, I don''t have any 5-year command left, I used ''em both. And the others will take advantage of me if you tell them as much." Malko stood silent as he considered the ramifications of what he had just heard. "The second order prevents me from divulging the contents of the first 5-year command in any way. Even against direct orders by any superiors of mine." "Please tell me what you did." "Made a bet." "........" The smile widened and began to reach the realm of ''manic'' as the man in charge of Grey Matter thought of what he had set into motion. "I''m going to work you to the bone." "Too bad that''s the most you can do." "Just tell me if this one of your Machiavellian-type pranks." "It''s nothing of the sort, and I''m hurt you would think of me in such a manner" Travis said while pouting. "................" "Ok ok, it will also be entertaining, difficult and will make or break our war against the Order" "Just like that, entertaining and make or break?" "Just like that." "................. You''d better make sure it doesn''t break then." "I have every intention of ensuring it ''makes'', I promise you. " "Alright then" Malko said as he turned and heaved a breath of relief. He then thought of something and started saying as he turned back again, "So which stadium are you going to..........." But Travis was gone. Anybody passing VIP room 07 at that point would have a heard a muffled noise. Anyone who knew of the Malko''s abilities would know that the soundproofing had been done very well to reduce the noise to that level. As a red-faced director exited the room shortly after, he took out a sticker and slapped it onto the door before he walked away hurriedly. ------------------ In case there''s any confusion regarding who ''Jester'' is, its Travis'' code name. Sorry, conflicts coming up in the next few chapters. Chapter 6: The Tournament - Proving Grounds Somewhere near Limbo----- Bouncer #1 felt very out of place as he followed his small friend around. He had seen the announcement a little while back but didn''t understand what kind of tournament was all about. His friend had simply guided him around and waved at a few people here and there. They''d eaten food at a small canteen on one of the walkways. The buildings around him seemed to be from all over the world with houses, apartments, a few building that looked like offices and the coup de grace, the Three stadiums and the Peak Box. As he looked around in fascination, his mental paralysis finally started unraveling as he realized he had entered a VIP room in the club and ended up in an unknown place. He had been on autopilot for the last 2 hours as he followed his friend around the ..... town? So he tapped his friend''s shoulder and gave the small man the most intense questioning look of his life. His little friend, Jacques, simply said, "Felt like recruiting you, best time for it, go into this building, will catch up with you later......... Sorry for the surprise." Having spoken his piece, he handed the perplexed man a card and added, "Recommendation, use it in there." The he walked away. Bouncer #1 felt miffed as he stood there dumbly holding the card and looked at the building he was to enter. The sign above the doorway said Initiate Support Center. Taking a deep breath, he entered taking a quick glance behind him as he passed through the doorway. As a sign that his mental paralysis was mostly undone, his brain finally gave the thought that would at least one of the many factors making him uncomfortable. That is, the lack of clouds and sun. Feeling like he didn''t need to know yet, he put the thought away and faced the receptionist and handed her the card wordlessly. "Ah, thank you. Hmmm, Jack Molena? And your name is?" she asked. "Allan Menzes" "Thank you, Mr. Menzes. Please follow me; I''ll set you up with the Initiation video series. Would you like a beverage served while you watch?" she gestured for him to follow. "..............." Seeing the befuddled look on Allan''s face, she giggled and said, "Alright, so I''ll check on you in about half an hour and ask you again." She brought him to a room with a recliner in the center and a laptop on a desk behind the recliner. "Have a seat while I set up the video for you." Allan sat down slowly and watched as she did something on the laptop. "Ok. It''s all set, there are five videos and once each of them is done playing all you have to do is say ''Play next''. If you want to watch the video again or rewind it by a small interval just say ''Rewind¡¯. Let me know what you think when you get out. There''s a notebook and pencil in the pouch on the side of the recliner in case you want to take notes. You can keep them after you''re done with all the videos." As she made her way out of the room, the light began to dim as the wall in front of him lit up and began showing the promised video. "Oh, before I forget, you might be asked questions once you''re done by one of my superiors chosen on the basis of your recommendation. Enjoy, I set it for surround sound" she said as she closed the door behind her. -------------------------------- Stadium 2, Staging Area 3 "Ok all visitors need to leave now. Participants please be ready to be called up for your matches. Results for Staging Area 1 & 2 will up on the board in three minutes." announced the buff man wearing the referee''s outfit. "In case you need the reminder, the only rule is no killing. Violating this rule will not be tolerated and if you don''t believe it, I dare you to try it. There are only two spots available to qualify for the finals so do your best. Don''t forget to wear your NV-bands and make sure they''re activated before entering the field. Failure to do so will lead to automatic disqualification. Victory by incapacitating your opponent or making them vocally confirm their forfeiture." As several people left the room, eight people stayed back. As he looked around at the seven other people, Tut fiddled with his NV-band and finally flipped the red switch and reversed the band on his wrist to lock the switch. He admired the thin rubber band and the technology hidden inside it. The NV band was named the neuter video protection device. Once the switch on the band was flipped, any video recording devices aimed at the person wearing it would find a neutral blur instead of that person. Additionally, to anybody looking at them directly, details of that holder''s face and stature would also be blurred. This device perfectly suited the anonymity required for participants of the Tournament. Tut started his breathing exercise to help him warm up. As he got into its rhythm, he noticed one of the other participants eyeing him. He couldn''t see the eyes through the blur of the man NV-band but he could feel the attention. The guy looked him up several times and then moved onto another competitor. Tut wasn''t sure if his facade had been seen through. He had prepared a different image for his debut. Under his blur, he had slicked back his usually curly hair with copious amounts of hair-gel. He''d also bought and worn a sky blue robe which he had ironed vigorously. The robe hid his very noticeable self-proclaimed ''Berserker set''. It was a set of interlocking Titan Kevlar plates designed to allow for complete freedom of movement. It did leave a few spots weak which could only be determined though examination of the insides. He had added some spike to certain part and decided it needed a paint job. So it was now various shades or orange and red and a dead giveaway. The first time he had worn it had been in the previous tournament and the set was perceivable even through the blur. This had caused several of his opponents to prepare against him mentally and lowered his performance. Since then, he had removed the spikes and repainted it to a dull green with a streak of bright orange over the region over the spine. Now, even the meditation he was pretending to be deeply absorbed in was something he had picked up from somewhere on the net. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. All of it was for the surprise of his first opponent, where he was least confident. And the reason for this was due to his passive ability. ''Lucky Streak'' was a good ability but as its name suggested, it was a slow starter if it worked right and a non-starter if it did not. It was conflict based and simple at that. Every time he won a conflict with someone, his physical and mental abilities would rise. They would keep rising unless he didn''t participate in a conflict for more than an hour, at which point he would return to his normal state. So he really needed the first win to keep his streak going. Hence, the charade to look like a calm & technical combatant. A speaker set on the walls crackled and announced, ¡°Participants #17 and #21, please make you way to Stage A. Participant #18 and #24, please standby at Stage B." Tut began moving towards Stage B as the guy who had been staring at everyone also move in the same direction. Seeing his opponent, he began doing mental fist pumps as he was pretty sure the trick would work. This fellow would allow the ''calm'' opponent to test the waters and he, in turn, would use the opportunity to wallop him over the head with it. As the gong was rung for the first fight, a small smile crept up on Tut''s face as he started the fight in his mind. ----5 minutes later----- "Please give those two fighters a big round of applause. I congratulate Participant # 21 on his victory." "Next up is Group 3, Match 2, with Participant #18 facing off against Participant #24. Both have chosen to use their weapons. And here they come now. Wow, that is sick sword! But his opponent seems to be using? .......Tonfas?" Tut had to admit the sword did look sick. The NV bands provided had been modified so that they would not hide the weapons and the limbs of the person using the band. As he examined the sword, he noted its foot and half handle. The blade and the handle looked very thin when compared to the thick and strong-looking hilt. But he knew that the apparent lack of width of the blade meant nothing. The blade radiated strength when #24 unsheathed it. It wasn''t much of disadvantage as his tonfas had a few surprises in them as well. One of the basic upgrades he had made to them had been to convert the base material to titanium alloy. The difference between what most others did and what he did was to make his alloy heavier. Not only would this surprise his opponents many a time but it also made his strike-force one hell of an problem for those who received any strike. Of course it hadn''t been easy for him to train with them but he had recently made a major improvement with his strength and his tonfas were now a formidable threat. Of course the trade-off had been his fights prior to the breakthrough, each of which had been a struggle. ¡°Well, there won¡¯t be much more of that anymore¡± he thought. As they reached the center of the arena, the announcer finally shouted, ¡°Aaand¡­ BEGIN!¡± The sound the gong being struck resounded throughout the stadium. Tut began walking towards #24 at brisk clip, spinning the tonfas slowly. When they were about eight feet away from each other he stopped and took a stance. This was because he had noted that the edge of blade on the sword he was facing looked a bit off as though not completely smooth. The sword was in #24''s left hand and pointing at the ground. As he took another look at it, he realized that the damn thing had serrated edges. Glancing at #24, he had no choice but to acknowledge him at least for his choice of weapon. The swing would be powerful but damaging even at the slightest graze. Thinking about it more carefully, he realized that the opponent had done this to cover up for something. Tut knew that the best sword users never used such additions as they felt it took something away from the sword. At this point, #24 finally spoke,¡± Forget it, you won¡¯t be able get closer to me, and even if you do dodge a few times, by the time you get into your ¡®flow of battle¡¯, you won¡¯t have enough strength since this monster won¡¯t leave you with enough blood.¡± His arrogant tone was reinforced by the fact that he still hadn¡¯t taken a stance. Tut was cheering on the inside at this moron. ¡°If I can one-shot him, maybe I can keep the trick running even into the next fight.¡± Taking a deep breath so that he didn¡¯t let his joyful concentration show, he said monotonously, ¡°We¡¯ll see about that.¡± Visualizing the move one last time, he took a deep breath and dove forward as he kept an eye on the sword. To his credit, #24 had relaxed his sword-wielding hand quite well, and his reactive strike was quite good. Unfortunately, Tut had anticipated the upward diagonal slash and ducked slightly to the left to get under the swing. Pushing forward, he got within striking distance and took a firm step and took aim at the neck just above #24¡¯s right collarbone. Twisting his body as he put his all into the punch, he hit the spot perfectly just as he noticed the sword behind him burst into flames. ¡°Too little, too late¡± he smirked as he pushed his punch further in as though he was trying to punch right through the neck. Which, as everyone knows, is the best way to punch. All of this took place within three seconds and then it was over. #24 was now grasping his throat, while making choking and grunting sounds. Then he slowly keeled over and fell unconscious. Tut backed up a few steps and examined the tonfa. The momentum his hand gained from the heavy weapon had enhanced the force behind the punch. He grinned and then caught himself before slowly walking off the stage amidst cheers and the victory announcement. ------------------ Enjoy. I''m traveling for two days so no chapters till Friday but I''ll try to prep for double release once I get back. Do comment/review as that helps. a lot. How was the first fight scene? Chapter 7: The Tournament - Cloak and Dagger Somewhere near Limbo---- VIP Room 02, Peak Box "That''s new." Saki mumbled as she tried to analyze the the structure that was the center of attention in Stadium 1. "It''s all part of the theme this year" Travis said as he entered the room. "Care to share?" Tim asked. "No thanks, I''ll let it be a surprise." Saki remained near the window as she tried to wrestle with the structure in her mind. Having heard that this thing was Jester''s brainchild, she was more than sure this thing,whatever it was, would the next source of grief for all of them. Ever since she had risen to the top of Sharp End, she had to deal with the other head-of-sections and it was then that she saw the real Jester. All she remembered before that had been a cheery older man who had all her superiors on tiptoes. She had liked him then, almost likening him to a grandfather figure. He''d been nice to her and most others lower on the totem pole. Even the code name had confused her since she thought he was named for his perpetual smile. She now lived in a state somewhere between fear of and frustration at the very same smile. The building had been constructed exclusively for the purpose of Grey Matter''s arena of war. And the team in charge of construction had been given several blueprints and a budget personally designed by Travis that went above and beyond their wild expectations. As such, the structure was overwhelmingly eye-catching and most of the big-shots were watching it as a result. It was a mini-office building left slightly unfinished at certain areas. It had two basement levels and 9 level above-ground. It had been filled with used furniture and office supplies and dummy-style sentry bots to simulate office workers. Every single one of the bots was armed with Tasers. They had also been given communications and advanced cooperative AI. Cameras dotted the entire structure to give the audience a view of what was going on inside. The cameras were also linked to he bots populating the building. Each of the three jumbo screens outside had been divided into at several subsections showing the various feeds. The objective was simple enough, to obtain a certain object and/or the information on it and extract it without triggering any alarms. Two people would be given the same objective and treat each other as the enemy after the same objective. Many of the participants were quite happy with such a format and were itching to show off their skills. Triggering the alarms would result in security bots flooding the structure. These bots were considerably more dangerous and generally meant that getting in or out would be much harder. Tim¡¯s usually passive face frowned as racked his brains trying to figure out Jester''s agenda. He was sure that whatever it was, he wouldn''t be happy with it. More importantly, he was sure Malko wouldn''t like it either. He''d never been sure of Travis and suggested the same to Malko several times but it had been brushed off. He thought for sure that taking over Fulcrum would have given him the clout to become the next director but Malko was a tough old man who, like Travis had quite a few hidden trumps he hadn''t used over the years. He''d taken a look at the psych and fitness reports on his boss and seen that while the old man wasn''t in his prime anymore, he was nowhere close to obsolete in any way. Based on the report, he wouldn''t have been surprised if the director suddenly went into the field. "Well, it¡¯s about to start, so let''s sit back, grab some snacks and enjoy the show." Travis announced and proceeded to do exactly that. "What about the boss?" Tim asked as he hadn''t seen the director since he had pulled Travis away earlier. "Oh he should be..., there he is. Hey, Malko, come grab a seat, this one next to me is acoustically perfect, trust me, I checked it myself. Hey, come on guys, Shell, Picky, what are you thinking about so hard?" Saki and Tim winced as he made their code-names cute. And the director did, looking like he was in a daze and tired to the bone simultaneously. Seeing this, Saki shrugged at Tim and took seat. Tim stood, unsure for a moment, and then settled down into a seat as the first round began. -----Stadium 1, Staging Area 1---- ¡°Well this is different.¡± The two participants had just been let into the arena. One had charged straight into the building but the other one just stood there for a while as he took stock of the building. "#28 seems to be in hurry, too bad he didn''t realize there isn''t any time restraint." Bink stood there wondering what the catch would be. He''d found out that this thing had been his boss'' boss'' plan and as such knew that it would not be the most straightforward of assignments. He had heard rumors of Jester''s escapades and pranks. He looked around and saw the cameras and nodded as he took off his backpack and satchel. He dropped both behind a fake planter at the edge of the arena right near the exit point. Looking around once more he made sure none of the cameras could see him now. He unpacked his trump card and took out his tablet and laptop from the satchel. He paused for a moment as he thought of the folder that had been left for him awhile back and the criteria he had been assigned. Then he got to work. He pulled out a cable from the bag which had a needle at its end. With practiced ease, he plugged it into the vein on his left wrist. Taping the needle to make sure it had enough slack and wouldn''t slip; he took out two other cables from the backpack and plugged them into his laptop and tablet. Having done this, he also took out a box from the backpack which was attached to the fourth and last cable the bag had. Once the blood in the cable attached to him had reached the bag he booted up all the devices around him and then flipped a switch on the backpack. Then he watched as the dark red liquid move out from the bag into the two devices and the box he had taken out from the backpack. Two pings informed him that the tablet and laptop were ready. He unplugged them from the devices and once the cables retracted back into the backpack. Bink had a rather unique ability, and he had long hoped to improve or change it because of its constraints. ¡®Flammable blood¡¯ was an ability which wasn¡¯t too practical. He had tried storing some only to realize it was only good as long as it remained fresh. To his superiors and almost everyone one around him, it seemed to be an almost useless ability. But Bink had never risen up to the innumerable insults that had flown in his direction once others found out the how useless their teammate was. He was good with computers but that seemed to be about it. He could become a suicide bomber but that would understandably be a one-time thing. Stolen story; please report. The truth was that no one knew about a few particular details about his ability and Bink was in no hurry to share them. As the box pinged, he continued to wait as he watched a meter show up on one side of the box. The meter was divided into twenty sections and was filling up pretty quickly. As it reached full capacity, the backpack pump cleared both remaining cables of his blood and spooled the cables back in once he removed the needle. As Bink started typing on the laptop, the box opened up to display a small robot that looked like a very bulky cockroach but matte black instead. It was about 7cm in length and 2cm in width. It jumped out of its box and ran with tremendous speed towards the building. Looking through the cameras it had on its body, anybody watching him at that moment would have thought he was playing one of the really old Radio control toy car racing games. This toy of his was his best gadget. In the sanctity of his mind he called it ¡®Little Immortal¡¯. He had designed it himself and made it compatible with his ability, including the effects only he knew about. And so Little Immortal sped on through and entered the building. The little robot had no real combat ability but was second to none when it came to infiltration and surveillance. It could even serve as a remote presence to hack electronics on its own without user guidance. Bink watched for the screen for a while and then switched over to his least favorite plan. He had aptly named it PP for Poltergeist Peekaboo. Little Immortal would switch to stealth mode and run around while hacking the buildings infrastructure hubs following which it would start causing chaos. As it began going through the rooms on each floor, he noticed a flash of white here and there. He recognized #28 and identified the flash as enemy combatant and changed the bots primary objective to follow #28 and set his original plan as its secondary objective. Soon the pattern emerged in #28¡¯s exploration of the building and the bot was able to keep up easily. As the bot mapped out the route #28 took, Bink noticed that a certain room was left untouched and that #28 was doing so deliberately. Watching him for a while longer, he found that his rival was looking for traps in area. A minute later Bink had figured out the route in and sent the bot in. Inside he saw the target computer and the Flash drive. He manually controlled the bot to jump onto the CPU and plug itself in. Once in he analyzed the data and found that the data was rigged to trigger an alarm if the data went physically out of the room in any device. He knew he didn¡¯t have time to disable the trigger code so he simply copied it and sent the bot to the edge of the doorway. As he used the bot¡¯s remote features to get a view of the situation outside, he saw that #28 had found another longer route in and was almost at the doorway. Watching the flash move to the doorway, he timed it so the bot would exit just as #28 entered the room. An alarm went off inside the room and in his panic, #28 simply grabbed the flash drive and ran out again. Having the trigger code go off twice made the sentry bots pour out a rapid speed as they flooded the building in droves. ---#28--- ¡°WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?¡± he thought as he dashed about avoiding camera sight-lines and hid in nooks and crannies. He had examined the doorway several times and found not scanners or traps near alarms near it but it had been triggered by the door opening. But he had double-checked the door for any signals and found nothing. He had been going along really well until then and he was sure he was going to get show off his new idea to the Grey Matter bigwigs. The scout-type intel operative was idea which had never really worked until he had dusted off the idea and put a super computer onto the scout. The hardware had to be distributed around his entire person to help with stealth and overheating. Once he fed the data onto his computer, he threw the flash drive into the pocket of one of the dummy bots which was being shepherded into the ¡®canteen¡¯ room by sentry bots and went the other way. As he began dashing towards the exit, a patrol of security bots rounded the corner and he was forced to get into an elevator and then go through the roof into the elevator shaft. Almost immediately, one of the security bots got onto the elevator and made the lift rise up the shaft. #28 sat there, silent as a mouse as the bot finally got off on the eighth floor and he gingerly swung down out of the elevator. As he began moving once more towards the elevator, another patrol of bots came onto the hallway and he was forced to jump into a conference room. As he watched the bots go past the door through the crack between the doorway and the door. He let out a sigh of relief and turned around to face the room. And instantly felt his blood run cold as twenty tasers charged up and aimed at him. In his confusion, he had run into the same room many of the dummy bots had been shepherded into. --Bink--- Setting the poor fellow up had been easy but he never got used to the sting of placing his custom lighter on his vein. Then again he needed to do it since he would not have fulfilled the criteria for the job he had been offered unless he used all his trump cards. The assignment he had been offered had specified that he had to get second place in the tournament and that while his presence could not be caught on any camera, he also had to expose his opponent. The unknown side effect of Bink¡¯s ¡®Inflammable blood¡¯ was that when the blood burned, there was interference in the space time continuum around the burning. Meaning that, the world slowed down in the vicinity of the burning blood. Very handy for getting out of tight spots but very pokey as all his gadgets had to have some of his blood burn inside them to keep up with him. It also didn¡¯t hurt that his blood burnt better than most jet fuel, but that depended on his diet. Having thought about it, he now knew that the head of his section had some knowledge of this as the criteria had been based on prior knowledge of the tournament¡¯s format. He downloaded the target data onto a drive of his and began packing up his gear. As Little Immortal reached him and jumped back into the box, he heard a pitiful scream from a window that had just been opened on the eighth floor. As he made his way to the exit with the target data on a spare flash drive, he wondered what was so special about the team he would be joining. ----------------------------- Will put up the second chapter as soon I''ve gone through it for mistakes. Maybe around 18 hours or so since I need to go for groceries and sleep early. Review/comment please, even for mistakes. Chapter 8: The Tournament - The Best Defense is Intimidation Somewhere near Limbo------- Allan had seen enough. He''d asked for a stiff drink after the 2nd video and was now on his fifth. The nice receptionist lady hadn''t raised an eyebrow each time he had asked for another drink. The alcohol had helped initially but now he wished he was sober. By the time he had reached the start of the video he was already pretty drunk and any buzz he hoped the drinks would have given him had been wrecked by the 4th video. The nice receptionist lady came in once more once she had verified a video was not playing. "So how goes it, would you like anything else?" "Yerpp, Gimme a bucket, towel, black coffee, and all the garlic bread you can get. Ooh and a few bottles of any sports drink. Also can iI have a toilet? And a fluffy ... HIC...carpet near it, you know the type you love to let your bare feet squirm on...." As though it was routine, she said, "Alright, come this way, the bathroom is down that way, give me 2 minutes for that carpet and 5 for the other stuff." Looking at her in a daze, he replied, "You''re amazing, will you marry me?" "Ask me again in half an hour" as she went the other way, presumably to get the stuff. As he tottered towards the bathroom he wondered if it was alcohol or whether she had really blushed when he had asked her that last question. Then a question of greater importance washed that away as he wondered why he was climbing the floor and why the door to the bathroom was above him. ---45 minutes later--- Allan sat on the recliner again with a trolley full of food and a bucket next to him. His face was pale and he refused to meet the nice receptionist lady''s eyes. "Anything else?" she said and giggled as she saw his behavior. "Umm... about what I said before I went to the bathroom....." "Would you like me to forget about it?" she asked kindly. "Actually an answer would be better........." he said as his pale face suddenly flushed. And now she was speechless. For a moment he thought she had really lost her cool but instead she laughed out loud. "Oh dear, you''re just so cute" she said to the 6''4" bouncer form Paris. "Sorry dear, already married. But it¡¯s nice to know I still got it going." Then she began laughing harder as she saw the disappointed look on his face. To her credit she got her laughter under control after about twenty seconds and then apologized to him. "To be honest, you never really had a chance dear, I don''t swing that way." He sighed as he realized the issue but her next words caused his pale complexion to reach bloodless. "Plus, my wife is the head of Sharp End. But don''t tell anybody, she secretly likes it when guy call me pretty." He desperately recalled the little he remembered from the second video and the role Sharp End played. And then he wished he had drunk enough to cause a blackout. The video had made mention of the latest head of Sharp End''s code-name: Icepick. "Well anyways, after all that you should probably re-watch the video again. The interviewer has been chosen and should be here in about 3 hours." ---2 hours later--- Allan waited nervously as he looked around the room. It was the same room he has watched the video in. but the nice receptionist had come and taken away the laptop from behind the recliner when he had told her he had seen enough. The door burst open causing Allan to jump slightly as his head whipped towards the doorway. A guy of about average height was in the doorway holding a folding metal chair. As he walked into the room and unfolded the chair, he stared at the big man in the recliner while rolling up his sleeves. Allan for his part was enthralled by thee pattern on the man''s shirt. It was abstract splurge of red and white shirt. As he followed the line dividing the red and white, he saw that the red continued beyond the limits of the shirt and onto his neck. As he gaped at this, the receptionist came in and said to the man, ¡°Well? You want anything or what?" Surprised at her cold tone, Allan looked at her. "Yeah, get me a clean blue shirt, a basin of hot water, a scotch on the rocks and the best goddamn pussy you got. Thanks very much, Rae." All the while, not even giving her a look. The receptionist, now known to Allan as Rae grew agitated and replied, "Fuck you Jay, get that shit yourself" and turned and stormed off. Jay had not taken his eyes off Allan the entire time. They sat there silently staring at each other, the blood spattered man with a probing look and the other just curious at this vulgar interviewer. Just as the silence was beginning to get unbearable, Rae came back with the first three items he had asked for. She slammed down the tray nearby and walked off again. "Exes eh? What are you gonna do?" Jay finally said to Allan and walked over to the stuff. He bent down and picked up the drink and drained it in one shot. Then he set the glass down and took off his shirt. With his back to Allan, he took some water from the basin and washed off the blood on his neck. As he washed it, the water dripped down his torso causing something off white to come off with it. as he finished washing himself, Allan sat dumbfounded as he saw the entire section from his 6th rib upwards on the right side was some kind of alloy. This included his entire right arm as well all the way up to the point just before the collarbone. It looked like something had taken a big bite of him, and though it succeeded, he had still survived. And the rest of his skin was not much better with scars and patches of shiny skin showing an astonishing amount of damage accrued. Even a few patches of his scalp were empty. He wasn¡¯t too bulky but instead looked lean and very mean. His face was craggy and square and he spoke with an accent straight out of a South London pub. He finally wore the blue shirt and then kicked the tray out of the room and bellowed, ¡°REFILL!!!¡± Then he sat back down on the chair he had brought in said to Allan, ¡°So, Jack brought you in eh? How¡¯s that leprechaun doing?¡± ¡°He¡¯s fine, I guess. Doesn''t talk much¡± ¡°No he doesn''t. So he got you into this, how do you feel about it.¡± ¡°This entire place is the ability of one of your people? I feel a bit uncomfortable that all of our lives are in this person''s hands or dimension or whatever it is. I''m just really surprised, I had no clue something like this was going on.¡± ¡°Don''t worry so much, I can guarantee that the person in charge is very stable. And not likely to fail. Having loved ones in here is a great motivator not to screw up the job you do. So, now that you do know? ¡± ¡°I guess I¡¯ll do my part and help out.¡± ¡°Well aren¡¯t you a trooper? And what if we decide that you¡¯ll be your best as an assassin or as the surveillance expert or maybe the janitor?¡± ¡°I think I¡¯d be the best judge of that.¡± ¡°You think wrong. We will be the best judge of that. Let me explain, when a person is initiated, they generate an aura. For our side it''s a bright light and for the other side, it¡¯s darkness. The intensity of either depends on the morals and the self-control you possess. So if you have strong morals but no self-control, we will most probably not place you in the field. Also there¡¯s the fact that you¡¯ll have to figure out your ability. Each person presents with a unique ability which needs to be trained. ¡± ¡°¡­¡­¡­¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°How does the initiation occur?¡± ¡°Well why don¡¯t you tell me how it first started?¡± ¡°Ship of slaves traveling to America from South Africa in the 1765 met a weird storm at sea. Characterized by colored lightning and unmoving waves.When the people on board woke up they were near an island where they seemed to be marooned. The ship was about to be washed away with the slaves still in the hold and a few of the crew jumped ship rather than stay. Some slaves joined them when they were freed from the ship''s hold while several helped get the ship under control. As the ship was slowly swept away from the island, the people on board first saw the dark aura of those who had abandoned the ship and the bright aura of those who had stayed with the ship.¡± ¡°Right, but what is less known is that soon after, the families of the people involved in this began creating more other people with auras simply by being around them or starting families. They realized that people with auras had certain abilities. They passed on the knowledge of the incident to help their future generations¡± The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°So when the two sides which had been separated met again later during the civil war they each tried to help their side win. And right now they¡¯re winning in most of the developed countries.¡± ¡°Alright so you know it starts and what¡¯s going on on today. So tell me which side is right? Us or them?¡± ¡°¡­¡­¡± ¡°That¡¯s correct. You noticed when we gave the slaves back their freedom. They may have been all for slavery but we were only a little better, though we have made large strides now. There are still quite a few slaves on the other side ¡± ¡°¡­¡­¡­..¡± ¡°Well, that''s enough, I guess you¡¯re in, can you see my aura? I haven¡¯t suppressed it anymore.¡± ¡°Is it the waves of red and coming from you?¡± ¡°Hey, you got it. That¡¯s right, you¡¯ve already been initiated. Remember, just being around us for long periods of time when our auras aren¡¯t suppressed and eating our food can get you initiated. That¡¯s probably why Jack brought you in. You could see auras before you came here as well, right?¡± ¡°¡­¡­.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not a big deal, it¡¯s probably why Jack brought you in the first place. Just remember, we may be the ¡®good guys¡¯ but we still aren¡¯t the best of people. HEY, WHERE¡¯S MY REFILL?¡± He shouted at the end. ¡°Well, let¡¯s go see what you got.¡± Allan followed behind him trying to figure out which section he¡¯d be assigned to and what his power might be. --------------- Stadium 3, Section 4 The competition for the Fulcrum section was already underway. The thirty two participants had been divided into 4 groups of 8 and set into a random environment where they had to protect their dummy bot squad from dying. The first three sections had simple enough environments where they could focus on disrupting their rivals and reach the target destination. But the last section had flesh and blood dummy bots in a poisonous environment so the primary concern was survival. Team #26''s bots were almost at death''s door already with the simulated flesh sending signals to the referees regarding its status. The others were barely hanging on and moving at a snail''s pace towards the destination. ---#31--- "Goddammit, why the hell did I get such a weird ass environ..... what was that?" he flinched as he heard something. But when he turned towards the noise, he didn''t notice his dummy bot squad and the stretchers they were on disappear soundlessly from right next to him. As he stared into the gloom, the speaker suddenly crackled and announced, "#31 disqualified for loss of teammates." As he quickly turned around to check on his bots, he was stunned to see that they were gone. Realizing what had happened; his shoulders slumped and he began walking out back to starting point. Three steps later he let out a shriek as he came across the dismembered pieces of his dummy bot squad. As he looked around in a panic, he started running and then tripped and stumbled and continued running in his fear. ---#29--- She stood there listening carefully with the stretchers surrounding her after that last announcement. Somebody had started going after the dummy bots. After that last announcement, she knew everyone would be completely focused on letting their bots survive. As she waited there silently, the speaker crackled once more and announced, "#25, #27, #28, #29, #32 are disqualified for loss of teammates. "WTF?" As she quickly checked on the bots right next to her she found that they were goners and she hadn''t even noticed how it had happened. She did see one of the bots still desperately trying to gulp down air and realized that they must have taken in excessive poisonous fumes while incapacitated. "Looks like only the two of them thought to put gas masks on the bots", as she slowly made her way out of the simulated jungle. ---#31--- "Ok, so it''s just me and #26. I knew filtering the atmospheric toxins was the way to go. Should I go out and get him or get to the target zone. Alright, how would this play out on a real mission?" As he thought about it, he decided to take #26 out. "Last man standing applies and he shouldn''t be doing much better than me right now." He moved his bots into a cave and closed it off and began to search for the other remaining team. ---#26--- She watched him as he put the bot into the cave and then slink away. Quickly opening the cave he had just left, she looked in to see the ''poisoned'' bots. She thought for a moment and then smiled as she left the cave and went back into the jungle. As she followed him quietly in the canopy, she thought about how to best to achieve the requirements the offer had specified. Terrifying at least one competitor while disqualifying all the rest was something she had been looking forward to for the last three weeks. Getting second place was a moot point as she was pretty sure she had it in the bag. As she considered what he could use, she found that the dummy bots of the disqualified participants had not been cleared away. As wicked smile graced her face, Rashida began to plan out operation ''Attack of the Undead bots''. ---#31--- He had been moving around for about 15 minutes and hadn''t found anything or anyone yet. He had come across the camps of a few of the participants who had been disqualified, but the bots had disappeared. He assumed they had been cleared away. He held onto his gun as he moved slowly trying not to make too much noise. He had a suppressed Heckler and Koch MP5 and three clips on hand. As he reached a clearing he found another camp but this one had bots lying on stretchers. Wasting no time he shot each of the bots through the head with double taps and looked around to see if #26 had done anything in response. But nothing happened nor did any announcement sound out signaling his opponent¡¯s failure. Confused he began to approach the bots when one of the sat up and began crawling to him. Shocked at this, he took aim and fired once more at its head and watched in satisfaction as he saw its head get blown off. But the satisfaction was short lived, as the headless bot toppled over and then began to get up once more. In addition, the others also began to move towards him. Frightened, he switched to full automatic and sprayed all the remaining bullets in the magazine and one more clips worth at the mangled bots. He began to run away back to the cave he left his own bots in but kept coming up against the undying bots which kept coming at him regardless of the bullets he fired at them. Once he had run out of ammo, he pulled his pistol and just pushed through any bots which approached him. What scared him more was they seemed to be calling him back. "Bots can¡¯t speak! WHAT THE HELL? WHAT THE HELL?" he thought fervently as he finally reached his cave and began to enter it. Just as he got within sight of his ''teammates'', a raspy voice echoed through the cave, " Whyyyy did you abandon us........" and to his horror, his bots began to get up and me towards him mumbling incoherently. As he saw them approach, he finally snapped and opened fire at them and shot each and every one of them repeatedly. And they stopped. "#31 has forfeited by killing squad-mates. #26 is the winner. Will participants #1, #15, #20 and #26 please prepare for final round in 2 hours." And he sat there numb until a referee came over and took him to the infirmary. ---Rashida--- She couldn''t stop giggling the entire time she had watched and made him run around. It had taken all her self-control not to burst out laughing as she watched him shoot his own bots never noticing that they were literally puppets in her play. Her ability ''Puppet String'' allowed her to freely manipulate strings of all types. She couldn''t create any but it was surprisingly easy to store several different types on her person. As she skipped happily away towards a canteen, she wondered how much fun she''d have once she was done with this tournament. --------------------- Here''s chapter two of the day. Do point out any mistakes you find and review/comment please. Chapter 9: The Tournament - Enjoy the Limelight Somewhere near Limbo---- Peak Box, VIP room 02, "Oh come on, let''s make a few bets. It''ll be fun." he whined as he faced Tim and Saki. "Enough, Travis" Malko finally spoke. He hadn''t said a word since he had come into the room up until this point. He had decided that not thinking about whatever was going to happen was the best way to deal with this. So he had simply watched the various qualifying matches. Now each stadium had only 4 participants remaining. As he simply watched the three competitions, he had devoted all his attention to the participants and their methods. He was sure there would be some hint of Travis'' plan visible. But as much as he focused, he couldn''t find it. The competition for Fulcrum members in Stadium 3 had been pretty much the same. Two sections had their winner decided by achieving the target goal and two had been reduced to last man standing wins. The competition for Sharp End members was still going on in Stadium 2 but the fights that he had witnessed were quite normal. As for the competition for Grey Matter, it too seemed to be progressing normally. Though the format was new, he hadn''t seen anything that caught his attention. The types of operatives had been more or less the same as usual. Only #28 had caught his attention for attempting to revitalize the scout type operative but he had not succeeded. Malko made a note to check on the man to figure out his progress. Though participant identities were not revealed unless they got first place, any of the data could be accessed by any him or the heads-of-department. As he stole a glance at the subordinate who had earned the code-name Jester before he himself had become a head of Fulcrum in the past, he thought about what the man had done to get such a name. ------------- Stadium 1, Staging Area 1 Bink sat in his room with his tools spread out when there was a knock on his door. As he slid all his tools into his backpack quickly, he took out his special lighter and kept it in his left hand. Satisfied that he was prepared, he called out, "Yes, come in." As the door to his private room opened, he watched the waitress bring the food he had ordered in. He gestured to the now empty table and she wordlessly began placing the various dishes in front of him. While he eyed the dishes, he kept her in focus using his peripheral vision. Once she had finished serving the dishes, she took a look at him and began to leave. But just as she was about to step through the door, she heard a loud rumbling. She looked around and saw the man at the table turn beet red. Giggling a bit, she left and closed the door. Having seen her leave, slipped his right hand out of his pocket and put the item into the backpack as well. His face instantly turned back to its normal complexion. The item in his right hand was a recorder with several different audio clips recorded onto it. He frequently used the noises on it to test people around him. It had started out as one of the few quirks he had but after it saved his life twice, he made it a habit. He took out a fork and a test tube from his backpack and began taking small pieces from the various dishes and put it into the test tube using the fork. As he waited for the reaction to the test, he took out his tablet and read through the updates on the rest of the tournament. As he swirled the test tube one last time, he began to turn the page on the tablet and froze. The test tube had turned blue, indicating a compound sedative that assembled itself from the various dishes. He immediately flicked open his lighter and took stock of his surroundings. He pressed a nother button on the side of the lighter and a small nedle emerged from the bottom of the lighter. He was just about to plunge it into his thigh when his tablet pinged with a message. He paused and looked around warily as he opened it up to read. His eyes widened as he read what message told him to do. He waited for a while and then put out his lighter. Then he thought some more and shrugged and began eating all the food. ------------ Stadium 3, Staging Area 2, As the announcer called out the 5 minute countdown to the end of the match, there were only two competitors left in the fake environment. The task was a simple capture the flag type game where the flag was one of the dummy bots of the participant''s squad. Except that they had to kill the flag while protecting their own. And all four remaining competitors had been put in together into the same arena. Participants #1 and #20 had already been disqualified by stray shots from #15''s erratic shooting. It had taken all of Rashida''s patience not to just win the match and be declared champion. As she watched the poor fellow flailing his gun about, her phone bleeped causing her to dodge the spray of bullets which swept the position she had just left. As she relocated, she looked at the phone she knew she had switched off earlier in the day and read the message that nearly got her shot. Reading through the message, her eyebrow twitched as she wondered how this message had arrived with perfect timing. She sighed and adjusted the bot she had been carrying on her back, the ''flag''. She slipped him of her back and held t it front of her like shield. And then switched off the phone making it beep with a power-down tone. Then she braced herself as bullets began flying her way. To her chagrin, none of the bullets hit the bot in front of her but two ripped into her left arm. As she shrugged off the pain and performed surgery on the wounds using her ability, she watched as #15 took a closer look at the area he had just fired at and took aim at the bot he could see. Within a split-second, he took aim and tracked the bot as Rashida flung it to the left while she flung herself to the right. And let loose a long stream of bullets at the bot. Despite his shoddy marksmanship, 3 of the bullets blew sizable holes through the bot but he did not notice that his gun was now out of commission, the result of one string Rashida sent his way as he stopped firing at the bot. If he tried to fire the gun at her now, it would backfire and blow up in his hands. As she watched him find her a few meters away from the bot he had just gunned down, she felt a cold thrill run through her as he lined up his sights on her. A moment later, there was a shrill scream that resounded in Stadium 3 as an announcement sounded out, "#26 has been eliminated, and this Tournaments Fulcrum Champion is #15, Arnold Ungler! Congratulations Arnold!" As Rashida watched the field medics crowd around the ''champion'' and his mangled hands, she chuckled once and walked out of the stadium towards the address she had received during the match. It was only once she turned in her NV band, that people who passed by her felt an ominous air around the small smiling woman who seemed to be humming her way down the road. --------------- Stadium 1, Staging Area 2 #9 sat in a chair, having watched most of the matches on a nearby by screen to get hints as to her possible opponents and their styles of fighting. She had already identified three participants who could be problem. #7 was in her group and used a variety of firearms in an extremely efficient manner but she had already found a way through that method. #18 was a weird one using tonfas and getting through every fight with one hit. She felt something off about him but had decided to drag out the fight if she got to him since his fights seemed to be too short. #21 she knew very well. That jerk was cruising through his opponents. Still, he was #18''s problem in the next match. Nobody from group 4 had interested her and her own group had been trash. As she went through her playlist and music settings, she put on her clasp-style headphones and entered a world of silence. She sighed in pleasure at the lack of noise. Gemma had been born with an extremely keen sense of hearing to the point where it could interfere with her daily life. And during fights, the ambient noises could sometime save her from an unanticipated attack or cripple her due to volume of sound. So she had developed her taste in music and learned every possible move she could. Her style of fighting twisted these moves into the rhythm of any song she listened to. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. This did limit her due to the fact that any experienced combatant who also liked music might pick on the rhythm she used in combat but she had never encountered that till date. And she had applied the same strategy to her ability ''Quartz Body''. The ability allowed her to change her body into quartz. She had used it to unleash devastating strikes. Recently though , she studied the mineral in her off time and discovered that with practice and knowledge of the environment she could also use it to phase in and out most types of earth and rocks. Even more surprisingly, she was able to make use of less well known property of quartz called piezoelectricity to generate small charges of electricity. It couldn''t shock anyone, but it could be stored and it helped with recoil. The stored charge could then conversely be released to create more force. It was a minor application but one she had started to love. As she got her playlist started, she saw that it was her turn up next against #7 and she walked into the Arena, ----Tut---- He kept staring at his hands as though they were going to fall off and disappear any moment. He''d won every match with one hit and he could feel himself surging with energy. He still hadn''t taken off his disguise and he was surprised at how calm he had been in each fight. Everything had gone smoothly with no plan B type of strategy even needed. Three fights back to back within a few seconds. "When it rains, it pours. No wait, is this what it¡¯s like to be strong?" he wondered. He shook his head as he watched the first semifinal match. #9 reminded him of someone though he just couldn''t place the name. And #7 was nowhere close to winning. #9 dodged every shot and had already landed several blows. #7 was struggling to keep and was almost about to fire a point-blank shot on #9''s ribs, when #9 seemed to slip down in an odd manner causing the shot to be miss by a hair. and then #7 got knocked out by a beautiful uppercut. And just like that, Tut realized that he would have to beat Gemma if he got through the finals. He''d seen and felt that same uppercut last year and after watching it replayed over and over recognized it immediately. He then switched on his own phone and brought up the previous fight of his next opponent. This guy was pretty good at his techniques but overtime someone came close to really landing a solid strike on him, they''d mysteriously weaken the punch and he''d counter them. Recalling the folder he had been given and the offer inside it, he bit his lips and pushed down his desire to fight Gemma again and got through the fact that he''d have to lose this match. As the announcement for his match came up, he waited for a minute before leaving the room and dropped off his NV band at a desk near the canteen. As he exited the stadium, he heard the announcement disqualifying him and sighed. His phone trilled and he opened it eagerly and read the message he had been sent. Putting the phone back into his pocket, he started walking towards the residential area. ---Gemma--- "F***ING HELLFIRE!! I just got done with a fight and I have to go back in again?" Gemma exclaimed at the referee. "Well, the other fighter is ready and waived their rest period." "Because he won by default!!!" "Either way, you have five minutes or else you forfeit." and the referee walked away. Her plan was now ruined because of that stupid #18 ditching his fight. The job offer had specified that she needed to get second place but once she found out that she would fight him, she had decided to beat ''him'' up and then forfeit. But now she wasn''t sure she could beat Ian while she was close to empty. She desperately looked through her playlist for a song that would get her through this. Finally she found the one song she hadn''t listened to ever since she first started creating her own fighting style. She set it to loop continuously and walked into the arena. She could almost make out that picture-perfect smile through the blur the NV band created. He was wielding a bo staff. Seeing the staff, she put on her knuckle dusters and immediately took a stance. As the announcer rang the gong, she stood there without moving while Ian started twirling the staff lazily and circled around to her flank. As he got into position and began leaning forward, the first few bars of the song began playing and she slipped into that familiar trance-like state. She dodged his initial few strikes with few subtle moves and continued moving slowly towards Ian with long strides and casually sent a few 1-2 punches his way. he blocked the majority of them while getting pushed back. as the song launched into its second section, her strikes were laced with even spaced kicks alongside the punches with an occasional flurry of jabs here and there. The few swings of his staff were calmly brushed aside before she continued her assault. Two minutes of this and she suddenly started barraging him with jabs and light kicks which then switched into strong stroking strikes that made him feel chills. This pattern stopped suddenly as she suddenly doing a slower version of the Ali shuffle and feinted several times and then made a few full swings that made him retreat as he felt the force from the air disturbed. And then she began increasing the force of the blows progressively once, twice thrice and then suddenly started lashing out almost indiscriminately and caught him on his torso several times. Keeping him on the defensive, this new barrage lasted for almost a minutes before it began to peter out as she seemed to lose steam. As he finally moved forward, he finally activated his ability but just at that moment Gemma slipped past his staff in an almost magical use of footwork and sunk her fist deep into his gut. Then she seemed to come out of her trance. As she looked at the scene before her, the fatigue hit her and to the surprise of the entire audience, she collapsed while watching Ian desperately hold onto his last meal as it threatened to burst out. But to his credit, he kept it all in and stayed standing. A few minutes later, she heard a loud voice announcing Ian as the Sharp End Champion for the Tournament. But she barely heard it as she stared at the song that was still playing on her phone. She sighed, "Guess I''m still not capable of Queen." She blinked as the familiar tone rang out from her phone showing a new message with directions and instructions. And she closed her eyes thinking of the man who had visited her in the gym and what he had told her about ''What ifs''. ------------ Do review/comment. I would like to dedicate this chapter to my dog Rover, 17 years old and the most handsome and weird dog I ever loved. I miss you already. Your howling went perfectly with the rhapsody. Spoiler : Rover Chapter 10: Best Meeting ever Somewhere near Limbo/Safe Dimension 001-------- Building 013,Residential Zone He sat on a cream and black sofa, his eyes glazed, facing a clock on the wall. Behind him, two men sat at tables with serious looking desktop computers playing some sort of shooting game. Their backs faced his back and it looked like two different zone had been created inside the room, one for him staring off into space and the other in the virtual shooting world. As the clock did its job, the doorbell finally rang. The two gamers did not flinch or pay the sound any attention whatsoever while the man on the sofa suddenly got up and focused on the door. He opened the door and put on his usual smile. "Delivery for Mr. Azisa?" The courier looked quite bored. Presumably, he looked even more bored in other situations, but today he looked much less bored, possibly due to the fact that he was delivering such a large box. The box on the wheelbarrow was quite large and was marked fragile. It was at least 7 feet tall and 4 feet wide and looked very much like a bed was inside it. "Ah yes, where do I need to sign?" "Nowhere, just place your thumb on this screen. You opted for fingerprint verification." Azisa smiled and did as the courier asked and opened the door further to allow the man to wheel the box inside. The courier looked around the sparsely furnished apartment and at the two gamers who still had not turned around to see who had come in. Azisa left the door open and followed the courier and gestured towards the wall right next to the gamers. And then helped the courier move the box off the wheelbarrow move it flush against the wall. The courier looked expectantly towards Azisa hoping to see what was inside, but Azisa just smiled at him. After waiting for about 10 seconds, he got the hint and began to make his way out the door. As he walked out the door with the wheelbarrow he turned to close the door behind him and saw Azisa still watching him and smiling. He reluctantly closed the door and began to exit the building. Once back in his van, he looked into the rear-view mirror while adjusting it and said, "Nothing of note, failed to plant bug, advise new instructions." As he watched the mirror while stile holding it, he read the words that played over the mirror and simply nodded and then drove off. ----------------- Back in the room, Azisa''s eyes had glazed over once again and once the van downstairs drove away, he turned to appraise the box next to him. He placed his hand over the Fragile sticker and green lights began to play around near the edges of where his hand touched the sticker. The sticker was a portable biometric scanner of his own design and several extra features that even thee most advanced biometric scanners did not. Once his hand was verified, the cardboard like sides of the box fell away to reveal a dark blue mettalix box of the same proportions. It was utterly plain except for a small screen near one of the corners. It had a timer that was showing 10 minutes remaining. Nodding at the sight of this, Azisa cleared away the cardboard sides into another room and sat down on the couch again. A few minutes later he could hear sounds of arguing approaching the door. While this did not affect the lack of focus, one of the men behind him, got up from his place and began waddling towards the door. The computer he had been using powered down by itself just as he began his waddling. The man was immense and had already begun sweating even though he gone no further than 5 paces. He was about 7 feet tall and looked morbidly obese. He was wearing a punk rock tshirt that barely fit over his humongous torso and polka dot pajama bottoms. Add to that his messed up curly hair and his pitch black face which was covered in warts and acne, he could easily have won an award for person least prepared to be social. Just as the doorbell rang, he reached the door and opened it. The two people who had been arguing outside stopped their argument at the sight of him. "Hi Gemma, glad to see you, your hair looks good. Ah Tut, Mel sends her regards, c''mon in you two." As he maneuvered his body to the side, the two guests entered the apartment without a word. "Have a seat on the couch, we''re just waiting on one more person." As they looked over at the couch where Azisa was sitting, a flash of recogntion went through Gemma''s eyes as she recognized her mystery visitor from two months ago. Confusion was the next flash to enter her eyes as she recognized the huge man''s voice to be her mystery visitor''s voice. However Azisa paid no attention to the two newcomers. "Oh, dont worry, that''s also me, my names Azisa. Glad to have you both on the team. I''ll explain the details in a few minutes." Having said this, the large man closed the door as he left the apartment and waddled away. Looking around in confusion, Gemma and Tut looked around and caught sight of the highlights of the room. The guy behind the couch playing some game and the dark green box nearby with the timer counting down on it. "Is that a bomb?" Tut said as he eyed the box with the timer. And they both promptly jumped as the Azisa on the couch suddenly stood up and said, "No. That''s one of our squad members, he''ll wake up when the timer runs out. Small FYI, the massive guy who just left is the real me, this body is just one of my shells. You won''t see more of my real body for practical purposes. The guy on the computer behind me is also part of the team though I don''t know what his role is." As they listened to this ''shell'', their expressions looked just like a dog looking at a suspicious new food. They turned around in their seats to get a better look at the gamer who had still not acknowledged anybody else till now. The gamer had large solid frame glasses and messy short black hair. He looked pretty tall at about 6 feet or so and was a bit hefty. He looked to be south-Asian or possibly middle eastern with his brown skin and had a 4 day stubble going while wearing a simple Yellow T-shirt with a tribal African mask on it with shiny black basketball shorts. Apart from a significant tire at his waist his arms and legs looked considerably fit. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. "Hey, I''m Gemma, this idiot next to me is Tut" Gemma decided to take the initiative and introduce herself to the gamer but just stood there getting no response as Mr. gamer did nothing except continue to play his game and blink and breathe. As she looked questioningly towards Azisa, he shrugged and said, "I dunno he did talk to me in-game but only regarding the game. He did say his name was Ron." And then Azisa sat down again and faced the clock again. Silence reigned for a few minutes before Tut finally erupted, "OKAY, I''M GETTING WEIRDED OUT!!! IT''S TOO WEiRD FOR E........" his voice petered out as he saw the woman who entered the apartment. She was short but looked at everything around her like it was beneath her. She was definitely a knockout though Tut felt that she was lacking a decent cup size. Her petite figure was smaller than Gemma''s and looked very close to a child''s figure if not for her legs and the air she possessed. Her entire atmosphere said ''A woman has entered the building!'' "Why is this getting weird for you?" Rashida asked seductively as she approached him slowly. "I''m sorry I was late but I had some trouble finding a good spot to park. Could you fill me in on what''s happening here?" she continued to talk as she reached Tut batting her eyelashes demurely all the way. To his credit, Tut got through two sentences before starting up his feeble flirting engine and another two sentences before he made his first colossally bad idea of the day. "Well, I''m Tut and this is Gemma and this guy staring off into space is Azisa and he''s like drone or something and that guy is Ron, I think. Nothing''s happened yet and we were w-waiting on you and the timer on this box." He made it up to here mainly on routine before he decided in his mind to express his affection by saying, "You have no idea how glad I am to meet you. Maybe we could grab coffee sometime and discuss how glad I am to meet you." It was at this point he tried to remember the popular flirting techniques he had read about online. The only two things he could remember at this point were to buy a girl something and ''negging'' which was to use a negative compliment to bring down the girl''s self esteem. Thus he said, " I would love to take you shopping, maybe some jewelry and some fancy lingerie and clothes? Though you really wouldn''t need the br--UHH----assssssssssshhhh!!!" There were two loud sounds as Rashida sank her fist into his gut while Gemma round-housed his jaw from behind and he crashed into the dark green box. Almost as if on cue, the box made a noise like a microwave oven when the dish is ready and the lid popped open with smoke emerging from the inside. As the smoke cleared, a balding middle-aged guy sat up from inside the box and started looking around at the room and it''s occupants. As he focused on the two females and their raised arms and the unconscious Tut, he seemed to reach a conclusion and he regained his usual dead-eyed clarity. To the two women, the man in the box moved incredibly quickly or almost like a how a video is edited. Just as they blinked their surprise away, he was suddenly holding a lit lighter and a very bulky revolver with several strange attachments on it. As he shut off the lighter, he slowly got off the box to stand on the ground making sure not to step on the fallen Tut. All the while keeping his gun pointed at the two women. He looked around once more and asked, "Where''s my bag?" As Gemma was about to reply, two things happened, Tut groaned and began to clamber onto all fours and at the same time a compartment on the side of the box jumped open. These two incidents coincided at Tut''s head which the compartment door smashed. The door had swung open to reveal a backpack. The middle-aged man stepped forward quickly to check on the bag. As he finished checking the bag, Rashida relaxed her guard, gave a wide smile and said, "Hey relax , we''re all friends here, the gun is useless anyways." Seeing her smile, the middle aged man felt a small chill and immediately flicked the lighter on. Once again, the two women to felt as though the picture had changed slightly as if few frames had been edited out. "No it''s not." the middle aged man said and squeezed the trigger. Rashida''s fluttering insides abruptly shut down as the the gun quietly spat fire and grazed her neck. She froze stared dumbly at the gun. Gemma tensed up as she she heard the suppressed round punch into the wall behind her. The room fell silent once more. The middle aged man didn''t move, the two women didn''t move, the man sitting on the couch didn''t move, the dizzy Tut sat with his back against the box and the gamer sat there playing his game. After about twenty seconds, Azisa finally stood up again, causing 4 people to look at him. "Excellent, we''re all here, Mr. Bink you won''t need that gun for this meeting, why don''t you come and sit next to me? Ms. Gemma, Ms. Rashida come and sit down, you look so tense and Tut, let me give you hand, there we go, OK? Just sit on this chair here. Drink some water, there you go." As he organized the seating for the four people, he finally sat down at his earlier spot and looked at them all approvingly and sighed in contentment. He took a breath and smiled happily and said, "Welcome all, to the Counter-Intelligence division. As the founding members, let have our first Best team meeting ever!!!" ------------------------------------ I''m not completely back, real life continues to beat me up but I''ll try my best. Expect any further chapters to be released irregularly. Do point out any mistakes you find and review/comment please. Chapter 11- People blab Safe Dimension 001----- Building 013, Residential Zone Four people sat in a haphazard circle looking blankly at what the fifth person had just said. The only other person in the room did not seem to be part of the conversation and continued to play a game on the computer in front of him. Rashida spoke first, "Are you going to say that the rumour is true or what? This is complete bul..............." Gemma chimed in next,"Seriously? You dragged us all the way here for this? Do you like playing ..................." Tut eventually gained enough mental clarity to start asking, "What are you guys talking about? What''s so special........." Only Bink remained silent and seemed to to be looking at the the isolated gamer with a weird expression, which was saying something, because Bink had spent a lot of time developing his poker face. Eventually, he turned his full attention to Azisa who sat there smiling at all the bickering. He finally held up his hand and three streams of bickering stopped at the gesture. He looked at Bink for a moment before saying, "Thats fair, I guess, So here''s what I''ll do. I will give you a quick briefing on the on the rationale and background of this division and then I will ask you one last time whether you''re interested or not." Rashida immediately asked, "And what if we decide not?" He replied,"Why nothing bad of course. Ok, maybe a little bit. We''ll just wipe half a year''s worth of memories and put you into a dead-end assignment." That shut her up. thought Tut. He was still smarting all over. He kept sending glares at both females whenever he remembered what had just happened to him. But he was much more curious about the topic of their discussion and said, "So tell us already." Azisa looked off into space and started speaking, " For the last year, give or take a few weeks, many squads sent for a variety of objectives and responding to many threats have been red-lit at the last possible moment of their mission. This has always been a result of a directive from their superiors ordering them to stand down. Many members of these teams have felt unsatisfied with these proceedings, as they have been putting in quite a lot of prep work only to see the actual mission not materialize. Eventually, many of the team leaders had an impromptu conference about this and found a superior who would give them the time of day. He told them that in every case of being red-lit at the last moment,he and the other superiors had been ordered by their bosses to hold back the team as Counter Intel had been sent into the same mission. As the team leaders looked at each other in disbelief, the superior also added that every such mission had been a complete success with zero complications. By the way, that superior is now on a desk job in the sanitation department. All of which has led to a idea that has been floating around about a division named Counter Intel which has been sniping various missions. A division whose'' members have never been seen till now. Many teams have tried to find out if these rumors are true but failed to find anything of note. And that, dear Tut is why Gemma and Rashida reacted this way." Tut looked at the two women in a questioning manner. Gemma said, "Three of my missions." Rashida added, " Six of mine." "Long story short, It''s mostly all true except the members never being seen." They waited as he paused for a moment. "There were no members. It was just one person. I haven''t seen him either, apparently he''s going to be my boss and I will be your team leader." "NO, STOP, you mean all those mission were sniped and completed by one person? Stop bullshitting!" Gemma exclaimed as she stood up. "Those missions needed loads of prepwork........." She paused as she considered the information she had just been given. "I think what he''s saying is that this guy used the prepwork laid by the teams to complete the missions, right?" Rashida spoke slowly. "Actually no, you didn''t think it through, the prepwork the teams laid were for teams, not for solo operatives. No, this person did everything alone; more often using a completely different plan" Rashida sucked in deep breath as she considered the few missions she had lost to the rumored Counter-Intel. Even with her abilities, most of them had been extremely difficult, but to say that one person completed them alone and without any complications. Her natural curiosity began to burn deep inside her. She hesitantly asked, "So if we join, will we have access to the mission reports?" Azisa chuckled, " Not likely as this folder is here has all the paperwork produced by Counter-Intel over the last year." as he brought out a 3-inch thick folder from behind the sofa. Tut cleared his throat and queried,"How many missions?" thinking about how big individual mission reports used to be from his previous assignments. Azisa gave him a look and said, "Numbers don''t mean much but, its 394 mission over 376 days. Aaaand that''s all the background I got. The only other information I got was the rationale and that I got through a chat box from him." and jerked his thumb towards Ron. They all glanced at Ron before looking to Azisa again and Tut asked,"So what is the rationale?" "Before I explain it, let me ask you, what is the number one rule for our operatives?" There was a brief pause before Tut answered, "Don''t involve civilians?" "Correct, and our second objective?" Rashida responded,"Complete the mission''s objective is, of course." "Right. And as you all know, our opponents have no such restrictions. They often use civilians to change the rules as and how they please. This has been a major point of vulnerability for us throughout our history and only one elder I know is able to acknowledge that this might be a mistake in our philosophy. However, he is not enough to change this protocol and so this division has been created to experiment and test the viability of another protocol. The idea is simple enough, we change the priorities." There was utter silence in the room, apart from the clacking of the keyboard. "Specifically, our first rule will be to complete our assignment as a primary objective. The second rule is to be attempt to reach absolute discretion. How we choose to do so is up to us. The third rule is to prevent civilian damage as far as possible. That''s pretty much it." Gemma was trembling with rage as she considered these rules. She spoke in cold, low voice," If you think, I''m going to disregard people who could be saved instead of doing the mission, you are sorely mistaken." Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Azisa calmly replied,"I''m sorry you feel that way but now I WOULD like to rely on numbers just a little. May I ask if anyone here knows about the Crunchers division? No? Well, they are very small division of just three people who report directly to the Head of Grey Matter. They do statistics. Apart from the six of us here, the rumored Counter-Intel operative and the Head of Grey Matter, nobody else knows about this venture. So what the Head did was to compare the statistics. He requested them to create 4 sets of 394 missions and compared them against the 394 missions done by .... well, my boss, I guess. The 4 sets were differentiated by potential for high or low collateral damage and chance of success. Long story short, set 1 reported high success rate and low or minimal collateral damage, set 2 reported low success rates....... well whatever, the results ranged from Okay to Bad with the occasional good. That''s the gist of it. but there was no comparison to the missions Counter-Intel did. As is said before, perfect success rate and zero collateral damage." Gemma still scowled while Tut and Rashida''s mouth hung open. Bink was expressionless as usual though there was a tinge of admiration in his eyes. "The rationale is very basic, complete the mission as fast as possible and do not anyone else see how you do it. The idea being to focus on objective and prevent collateral damage from happening in the first place. Of course if you feel that this is not worth a try, I will understand. This model of approaching missions does not allow for self doubt, at least not for very long." Azisa clapped his hands together suddenly starting all four of them. "So? who''s in? There is no huddle but if you feel like you can make the choice to join in, drop all forms of ID into the trashcan in the kitchen. If not.... just stay where you are I guess. You have half an hour to make you decision." Having said this Azisa slumped back onto the couch like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Alongside this, sound emerged from him that sounded exactly like a machine powering down. Despite this they could still see his chest heaving as he continued to breathe. Rashida got up immediately and went into the kitchen. She came out after a minute and went and stood behind Ron watching him play. Tut looked at Gemma and Bink before slowly walking over to ''Azisa''. After checking for a pulse, Tut looked around at everyone in the room and wordlessly went into the kitchen. He came out five minutes later and looked strangely at Rashida and then went over to the dark green box Bink had popped out from and began looking over it. He came to understand that is was some type of stasis capsule and tried to lie down inside it. He continued fiddling around with it. Gemma stared at Bink and wondered what she should do. She had been raised in an orthodox family who had all belonged to Sharp End. The idea of not protecting civilians as the first rule was alien and abhorrent to her. But the assignment in front of her seemed to provide a better path. Granted, it was a completely unknown path. As she struggled over her choice, Bink took out his lighter and looked around slowly. Deciding against it, He closed and put away the lighter and got up from his seat to go into the kitchen. He came out just in time to see the lid of the dark green box close while Tut was still in it. As he moved closer to the box, he noticed that the compartment that held his backpack earlier now had other stuff inside it. As he crouched down to take a better look, he noticed that it seemed to be some type of body armor and tonfas. But the tonfas were extremely heavy and he could barely move them. As he stood up, he noticed the timer was working again and counting down from five minutes. Shrugging to himself, he went back to his seat and began using his tablet to look at the news. As time continued to run out, Gemma began to feel the pressure and took out her ID. As looked at the details on the card, she finally reached a decision and went into the kitchen slowly. In front of he dustbin, she hesitated for a moment before flinging her ID into it and stormed out and sat back on the sofa in a huff. despite her angry exterior, she felt relief as she had made her choice. ------------------------------------------- Riyadh, In a certain hotel room "How was the tournament, my friend?" Sheikh Tariq asked his Irish colleague. "Nothin'' special. Kind of a let down, really." Nate Wilson replied. "Oh dear, Well I do hope the speech was good. Who was it this time?" the sheikh continued in his cultured British accent. "It was that Jester fella. He nattered on about somethin like ''commitment'' and such." The mention of that person instantly brought a grimace to the sheikh''s otherwise impeccable visage. As he suppressed his anger, he coughed discreetly and responded,"Really? Well lets hope others thought so as well." The sheikh did not particularly like any Westerner but found that he did like the Irish man sitting in front of him. If he had not been an ally he might never have discovered how they shared a penchant for drinking, cigars, whores and all three at the same time. He admired the Irish man for his achievements, if nothing else. Nate Wilson had been a petty criminal in his early youth before joining a certain organization which opened up his world view. This world view allowed him to soar through the Irish and eventually, the international underworld. He even managed to get himself instated as a Baron of the Irish nobility through his usual combination of ''trickery and skulduggery'' as he liked to call it. "In any case have you considered how your organization will align itself?" the sheikh came to his agenda of the day. Nate Wilson''s criminal empire was also unique for one reason. He had never fully aligned it with the either of the two sides even though he had been shown the truth of modern society by one of the sides. This was mainly due to one of his most important rules:''Always know what you''re missing.'' And even though various aspects of his empire had dealings with the both side, he had constantly kept his empire as neutral as possible. Today however, he had decided to break that rule. "Yes, we will join you." he spoke gruffly. He had slight mental itch as he broke that rule of his but put it out of his mind as he thought of what he would be able to gain. Sheikh Tariq''s smile widened and he picked a glass of scotch from a waiter who was hovering nearby. "To the dark ones." he toasted and the Irish crime baron half-smiled as he followed suit. Character Sheet In order of appearance; Jamal- Newbie surveillance expert part of Grey Matter. His ability seems to allow him to infiltrate places easily. Bink- Veteran surveillance expert part of Grey Matter. His ability allows his blood(fresh) to burn like fuel. Burning blood also causes time to slow down in its vicinity. Middle-aged and discreetly paranoid. Ron Gemma- Veteran combatant part of Sharp End. Member of a Sharp End legacy family. Ability to transform body into quartz. Can manipulate herself into the earth''s crust through this ability but not very well yet. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Azisa(shell) Tut Mel Rashida Allan Jacques Marcy Travis Malko Gaste Tim Saki Ian Azisa(real) Nate Wilson The General I''m feeling particularly lazy but if you could post a nice description for these characters, I''ll add them to the character sheet. Don''t have to stick to my format. Chapter 12- Ice Disintegrating Session Safe Dimension 001 Building 013, Residential Zone "Okay then! Let get started then." ''Azisa'' suddenly jumped up from his "cut-strings puppet" pose on the couch. He took stock of the room around him and was just about to start speaking again when the dark green box pinged and Tut popped out doing the lost phone dance as he did so. Looking around he quickly spied his gear in the popout compartment and quickly picked them up and rushed into the bathroom nearby. A few seconds passed before he came back out looking a bit red in the face and sat down on another couch without saying another word. Azisa looked at him with slight disapproval on his ''face'' before he said, "Well, since everyone is on board, let¡¯s have a quick ice breaking session and discuss ourselves and how we might improve the team''s capabilities. I''ll go first, Team leader Azisa, i guess you could call me a techno-path, I''m a 3 star combatant, 6 star comms specialist and a 5 star chef. I like anime and ponies and my favorite color is purple. I do look forward to working with all of you" Smiling brightly, he sat back down on the couch and looked at the others expectantly. An awkward silence began to build up as no one else got up to continue what Azisa had started. Gemma could no longer bear as she erupted as she stood up frantically. "I''m Gemma and I''m a 4 star combatant and 3 star support technician and a ..........4 star scout" The last bit had been said as her volume decreased drastically throughout the entire sentence. She sat back down gingerly with a healthy blush on her face and refused to make eye contact with anyone. Tut got up while still eyeing Rashida and said, ¡°I¡¯m Tut and I''m a5 star combatant and a 2 star scout." Sitting back down immediately, he looked expectantly at Bink and Rashida. Rashida sighed and said, "This is kind of pointless but I''m Rashida and I''m a 6 star combat medic and..." She had only gotten so far when Azisa suddenly interrupted her and exclaimed, "THIS IS POINTLESS,.... well, ok, time for another type of ice breaking session!" and fished out a TV remote from his trouser pocket and pressed a series of buttons on it. Before any of the four people sitting on the couch could say a word, a bright purple dot materialized in front of them and with a soft ''thump'' all four of them suddenly fell back onto the couches with their eyes shut. As Azisa looked around at his handiwork, he gently touched Tut on his forehead as though checking on something. Nodding his head in satisfaction, he turned to Gemma who seemed to have turned a shade of orange. As he tapped her forehead, he muttered, "Transmogrification.... no... rock puppet... nope..... ah just a self-defense mechanism, a bit too simple" Spending a few more moments considering her, he moved onto Bink and found that the middle aged man was fine as well though he did have an unlit lighter open in his hand. Nodding his head slightly in approval, he finally took a step and was just about to touch Rashida on her forehead when he suddenly stiffened. The scene could be said to have been frozen except for the ever present clacking of the keyboard by the guy who was still playing a game, seemingly unconcerned by the events taking place behind him. Slowly, ''Azisa'' split into 16 neatly cut portions, with bits of circuitry sparking being revealed as ''he'' fell apart. eight horizontal cuts and one vertical made it look quite weird as his normal smile stayed on his divided face, though the light in his eyes faded quickly. A slight whirring noise sounded out as his eyes closed and with a quiet swish, several thin threads that had been spread all over the room was slowly reeled back in onto Rashida''s person. A few minutes passed before ''Azisa'' walked in through the front door again and regarded his previous chopped up ''self'' lying on the floor in between all the couches. With a sigh he bundled all the pieces up and put them into the dark green box and set it''s timer to twenty minutes. He turned and began to check on Rashida once more. As he leaned down to touch her forehead, He stiffened once more as it seemed to look like deja vu. He split into sixteen pieces once more just like his other ¡®self¡¯ earlier. After a few more minutes had passed, another ''Azisa'' walked in through the front door and regarded the pieces on the floor once more. This time he bundled the pieces up and began to walk out of the apartment with those pieces muttering "repeating trap" in a perplexed manner. -------------------------------------- V-Amazon instance J0931, Server 06 Four people stared at each other as they fell towards the forest far below them. Two of them screaming hysterically at the sudden transition from sitting on a couch to falling from the sky. Bink simply stared at Tut as he tuned out Gemma and Rashida''s collective screaming as he analyzed the approaching forest. Tut in turn, looked around himself with his jaws tightly clenched. As he looked past the similarly falling Bink, his expression changed. Bink caught the look and peeked behind himself only to see a flowerpot with petunias falling just like them. And then all of a sudden, everything paused. Except the screaming, that took several more seconds to peter out as Rashida stopped and Gemma finally opened her eyes and shut herself up as well. As they looked around themselves in silence a cube materialized in between them. "HEY!!, sorry about that but this seems better than just chatting around like a bunch of losers." Each side of the cube showed a screen of ''Azisa'' as he cheerfully waved at the four impromptu skydivers. "So, the instructions are kinda a simple, when you land on the ground your mission will start. The details of the mission are on your comms so do have listen to it when you can. All four of you have the same objective but the plan and methods are yours to decide as a group. This is a training mission and is part of a virtual reality, as one of you has already guessed but I hope you won''t take it lightly because of that. Your official training periods will be affected by your performance in this mission. Your equipment has been virtually constructed and will be delivered by parachute at the location you land at 2 minutes after you do. Communications and supplies for the purpose of the mission will be attached to the same. Remember our rationale as we will be inspecting your performance on the same basis. Alrighty then. Azisa out!" as the screens on the cube fizzled out with a fading image of Azisa giving them a mock salute. The cube itself shot straight up after that and three pings sounded out before everything resumed. Including one person''s screaming. --------------------------------------- Sparkfly Fen, Maguuma Jungle Two Rangers barraged their way through the Risen as their pet Wolves ran around attacking the stragglers that they were pointed out to. Bowbeforethe1: my heal is on cooldown could u use urs Syalus: get closer thenThe tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Bowbeforethe1: ty, switch to shortbow now? Syalus: we dont need to run away Bowbeforethe1: ahk, let the wolves take care of the last couple of them. Syalus: ye, just gonna check the market for a better shortbow. Bowbeforethe1: so what u think of the recruits so far? who knew gemma was afraida heights? Syalus: they ok bink has the best progress tut isnt using his head like he should Bowbeforethe1: and the girls? rashida is always trying to toy with others though it doesnt seem to work with bink Syalus: he knows what she wants gemma is struggling with the code her family taught rashida needs to play Bowbeforethe1: so u think theyre fine? Syalus: barely Bowbeforethe1: k, so why dint u say anything to them? or talk at all using your real voice ? im getting tired of only chatting with you through this game Syalus: unnecessary right now And then they both teleported back to the city. ----------------------------------------------- Prince sultan Air Base, Al Kharj A group of men stood waiting inside a hangar as a private Cessna taxied in. The leader of the group stood in the center of the group and as his arms fell out of the folded position he had, the other men spread outkeeping a distance of around two meters or so from each other. As the plane stopped, the door opened immediately and four women veiled in the traditional burqas rushed down, their high heels very noticeable to the leader. As the first woman reached the ground, the hangar door began to close and the lights inside came on. The four womenhurried past the group, fear in their eyes, as they eyed at the leader of the group. Only one pair of eyes did not show fear but instead held the leader''s eye contact for two beat before focusing on the door all four women were hurrying towards. As the women exited the building with the door shutting beside them, a roar seemed to shake the entire hangar. It was almost animalistic in nature but listening closely it there was no anger in it. A huge man began to exit the aircraft. He was wearing desert fatigues and had a palpable sense of command around him. As the leader watched him descend the stairs, he wondered how he possibly fit inside the cabin or even the onboard bathroom. Shaking his head in resignation, he raised a hand in greeting towards the titanic officer. "HAHA!! MATE!! THERE YOU ARE!!! COME AND GIVE ME HUG!!!" Sighing, the leader stepped forward and almost disappeared into the hug. A few seconds later he was released and he felt like he had stepped out of a tropical rainforest. "STILL SCRAWNY AS EVER EH?" the giant rumbled as he let go the relatively tiny man. Behind the giant, a woman and three men also got off the plane, all of them dressed in similar uniforms. They were all lean and sharp-eyed and they gave polite smiles at the man their giant had just hugged. "THESE HERE ARE MY KIDDOS!! ELITE OF THE ELITE, EACH ONE OF THEM!! YOU''LL BE HARD PRESSED TO FIND BETTER WARRIORS ANYWHERE ELSE!!" Turning to them, he continued in the same manner, "KIDDOS THIS IS NATE ''THE MATE'' WILSON HERE. A VERY CLOSE FRIEND OF MINE AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. HIS ORGANIZATION EVEN MORE SO!! HAHAHAHA!!" This evaluation made the four disciples wrinkle their brow as they realized that put this man on the same level as their leader, at the very least. "Sure." Nate Wilson calmly waved off the introduction. "How was the ride over? Enjoyed yourself?" "AHAHAHAHAHA!! YOUR ACCENT IS BARELY NOTICABLE, GREAT PROGRESS SINCE THE LAST TIME WE TALKED. YES, I DID. VERY DELECTABLE AND DURABLE, I MUST SAY!!! " Nate chuckled An odd quality to mention about prostitutes but then given the general''s temperament and ways, it wasmiracle if any woman accompanying him to bed was able to move more than ten feet the next morning. Or even six women. The General''s voice finally relaxed a bit and he spoke in what seemed to be his version ofwhisper ¡°Any chance you could find five more like them for my next journey?" Better to get this over quickly. The smile fading off his face, Nate said, "Well, that would depend on your choice, old friend." General Sharan''s face showed confusion for a moment before his the infamous vein began pulsing on his forehead. His eyes began sweeping the surroundings for any threats before settling on to Nate Wilson''s eyes. He unleashed his aura as he lowered his center of gravity and waited. Behind him, his four disciples armed themselves and took up positions behind the giant scanning the area around them. "What do you mean by that, my little friend?" The general''s voice is surprisingly low. But still, very distinct. Nate releases his aura as well and stares unflinchingly at the chipper old man in front of him. A feat only possible by less than fifty people worldwide. General Hadiq Sharan is a legend in the military. Originally an officer in the SAS, he hopped around most armies, holding a position of considerable influence and command every time. Something unheard of before. Such were his skills. Being a soldier for so long, he finally ''retired'' at the age of 62. The retirement was when he was awakened to the truth of the world and its society. There had never been an older initiate to the reality behind the working of the world and there hasn''t been once since. More importantly, an initiate who was so old who could easily defeat all but the thirty strongest people on Earth within a month of awakening. His legend didn''t stop there as he then setup a mercenary company, which is now known throughout the world and the best private contractor in most circles. All the time remaining neutral to both sides of the war despite offers and threats. This was a man Nate Wilson had known for 20 years and had the utmost respect for. if not for his new allies and the plan they made, he would never have thought of doing what he was doing now to the General. But the chances for success and survival would improve drastically with the General with him. "What I mean is that i have joined the nuthouse and I''d like to ''invite'' you to join me." Nate said as though talking about everyday affairs. The General snorted, "PAH! I doubt the word ''invite'' is accurate! " "Well my choice is made and I''d love nothing more than to see you join me of your own volition." Nate replied. "Ahh! Youth is truly wasted on the young! as suppose I wish not to join?" the General asked in a low tone. His entire body screaming out that all hell was about to break loose. "Then we part ways, immediately." Having said his part, Nate surreptitiously pressed down on a small remote. The general''s face immediately flushed and his eyes grew increasingly bloodshot. Even his huge body trembled intermittently. Despite all this, he did not move and he seemed to be ready to attack at any moment. At this point, his four disciples, as though in a dream, turned their weapons against him and pointed those weapons at various vital points on his body. The General''s bloodshot eyes calmly regarded the four youngsters. Refocusing on the indifferent Irishman standing a few meters away from him, he slowly relaxed. Even Pulsy the vein on his forehead receded and he said, "Very well then, I accept. Let''s do this." Pleased, Nate pressed another button and the unnatural flush went away in a few seconds. The amiable giant from the beginning seemed to be back with the slightest hint of resignation visible on him. "Excellent, do you need some help with your luggage?" Nate gestured toward the men who hadn¡¯t moved once throughout the show. "No, my luggage is smaller now due to my change of plans. I can handle my kiddos'' stuff temporarily. I assume it is temporary?" his eyes glinted dangerously at that last question. "No need to worry, they''ll be up and about in a couple of hours. Won''t remember this at all." Nate assured as he watched the General walk back to the aircraft. I really did think he''d erupt and I''d be forced to make a move to subdue him. Is he finally getting soft with his old age? Or does he truly realize the wisdom of siding with us? On the plane, the General hefted two large suitcases, each the size of his massive torso. Sighing in disappointment for a moment, he maneuvered them so that he could push them out of the cabin on his way out. Pausing by the cabin control panel, he pressed down on two buttons simultaneously for 3 seconds before releasing them. The screen blanked and he said, "Recruitment failed. Change mission type and duration." he paused as the screen began to make the changes. Once the flight was back over international airspace, the details would be broadcast to prevent local interception. "Mission type: undercover and duration: indefinite. Change call-sign from General to Captain." tapping the screen to restore the usual display, he walked out towards his smiling ''ally''. Chapter 13- The fear you know 2 months later, Chiwan Wharf, Port of Shenzhen, China-------------- The port bustled with activity and lights as the sun began to set and the floodlights came on. The workers began to wind up and check out as the night shift began to trickle into the docks. Most of the workers were locals and worked eight hour shifts to send money back to their homes. There was a smattering of people of various other ethnicities though the same could be said only for a few of the managers and supervisors. The Kajuro had made port three hours ago but due to an unexpected delay; their loading and unloading slot was pushed back by two hours. The captain was exhausted and barely awake. Even so he had to hurry and depart as soon as possible. He was very clear on the importance of cargo that was at the heart of all the containers on his ship. Even more so of the people who were have it transported. He could vividly picture the man who showed up an hour before his ship had set sail earlier at Hong Kong and how persuasive he was. The cargo container had suddenly shown up on a nearby semi-truck and it had taken the captain several favors to put this particular onto his ship while adhering to the conditions the mystery man had stipulated. One of which was that it be removed from the manifest. While this was common enough back in the old days, it was very difficult to do nowadays with the computerization of the port. The captain had made sure to list the cargo under an obscure and almost obsolete company he knew of and then switch the location of that container with another one. Having watched over this process, the mystery man was satisfied and left a suitcase with the captain along a few more choice words which left the captain trembling like a leaf just before autumn. The mystery man had then disembarked the ship and gotten into a grey sedan which had rolled up next to the now burden-free semi. As both vehicles left, the captain immediately ran to his collapsed colleague, the first mate. They had known each other for three years and were good friends. As he began to check the vital signs of the unconscious man, he felt the man move about and his eyelids flutter open. Sighing in relief, the captain pulled his friend up and sat him on a nearby ledge. "You feel ok? How does your forehead feel?" "It''s fine, why? What happened?" "You don''t remember?" "Not really. Why?" "Never mind, just don''t freak out about the scar." "The one on my forehead?" The first mate asked quizzically as he lightly rubbed the scar that ran from above his right temple down till the jawline. "How did you know about it?" the captain asked as he felt a chill down the back of his spine. "What are you talking about? I''ve seen it every day in the mirror for a long time." "YOU JUST Go.........!!" the captain''s exclamation petered off as he remembered what the mystery man had told him. "When did you get that scar?" he asked quietly as a cold sweat began to develop on his brow. "What¡¯s the matter with you? You know I got it 6 years ago. You even made fun of my wife for liking it last month." The captain felt another surge of terror spike inside him as he finally understood the last words the mystery man had told him a few minutes ago: "Have you ever wondered what its like to not be able to talk to anyone? Whether anybody would wonder where you are? And I will make that happen for you my dear captain unless you complete the task I have given you. Good evening." The threat he assumed to be death had turned into something much worse as the captain sat there in front of his confused friend. 7th Floor, Rizola Hotel, Shekou Residential district, Port of Shenzhen, China--------------------- Tut stared at the screen of his tablet as he wiggled himself into a more comfortable position. A dim red glow permeated the small space around him as he watched some ''Who¡¯s line is it anyway?¡¯ He had been stuck in this ventilation duct for nearly a day now and he was appropriately bored. Azisa had told him to expect maybe even 2 days of waiting like this so Tut had come prepared. As he started the next episode, the dim glow noticeably changed to yellow and Tut stiffened. He looked down at his chest and a small LED was slowly glowing orange.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. He began to take deep breathsto get his body ready and at the same time plugged in a drive into a rack on the ceiling of the duct. The rack was perfectly built for his tablet. He did a quick patdown to check his inventory andput on his tactical mask while snapping his Kevlar neck plate and helmet into place. He then slotted the tablet into the rack and turned on the camera to have a look at himself. Adjusting the mask a bit more, he closed the camera and opened up the special program Azisa had designed. He finished his breathing exercises and looked at the various security camera feeds. As he looked at various feeds he saw one group of people walking out of the penthouse floor and into the elevator. It was very obvious that they were surrounding the man with a briefcase in his hand. Any second now. And the LED turned green and began flashing. Tut took a few more deep breaths and turned his NV band on. Instead of blur, he looked like an average bellhop. As the green light suddenly stopped flashing the tablet switched itself off and the metal plate he was resting on gave way smoothly like a hatch and he was deposited right outside the network hub room. He calmly opened the door and closed it and pretending he had just come out of it. His earpiece buzzed as he heard Azisa say, ¡°Bink, make the handoff and go to the pier, you''ll be back up there, Rashida and Tut 2 minutes. Both of you be advised, your target is a complete unknown but all his guards are known and they ARE civilians." Tut looked around a moment and then began walking towards the stairs. He saw another man turn around the corner approaching him. As he raised his hand in greeting, the other man seemed to recognize him and raised his hand in a jerky manner to respond in kind. The jerk was perfectly timed to let the small object sail through the air and land perfectly in Tut''s now descending hand. A smooth maneuver made for the cameras in the hallway, Bink and Tut then walked past each other and as soon as Bink was out of sight, the group of men was visible to Tut as they walked away from him. Taking a quick beat he began walking briskly but silently holding the device Bink had given him a moment ago. As he approached them silently he tried to focus on the man in the middle of the bodyguards as they had no intel on him. When Tut was about three feet behind the group, Tut slowed down and squeezed the device and set it on his helmet, slightly rippling the NV band''s effect as he did so. At this moment, all six bodyguards suddenly glanced at the door on their left which had just opened to reveal a stunning woman dressed in lingerie and a silk chemise and heels. She was holding a fragrant candle which was lit and seeing this Tut lunged forward. ---Bodyguard #1---- Holy SHIT!! The guy tapping that is one lucky sonnuvabitch! ---Bodyguard #2---- That candle doesn''t smell that great.... ---Bodyguard #3---- Whoa MAMA!! ARE THOSE CROTCHLESS PANTIES?!! ---Bodyguard #4---- Hmm, dolled up but lacking up top. ---Bodyguard #5---- I''m calling the babysitter tomorrow. ---Bodyguard #6---- Dammit, if I wasn''t on the job, I''d make it my job to make her as sore as humanly possible. ---Man in the middle---- As he glanced at the eye candy which just popped up, he felt a change and tensed up while now glaring at the woman. Unfortunately, he couldn''t do much more than that before he felt a humungous impact on his left jaw and temple and something small going into his mouth while two teeth went out. Before he could fall unconscious, he felt his whole world jerking forward and he felt himself sinking into a mattress as he finally sank into darkness. ----Tut---- This is almost like cheating Tut started walking as the bodyguards took their eyes off Rashida and continued walking towards the stairwell. The entire incident was took about 40 seconds as he scanned the man in the middle into his NV band placed a pill into the path of his mouth and then smashed his jaw and temple with a full force blow using his tonfas. That the man didn''t die from the impacts was tantamount to proving he wasn''t a civilian. The strike pushed his mouth onto the pill while the teeth and blood which came out were collected by Tut to firm up his cover. He then wrested the briefcase out of the man''s hands and took a step back. As he stood clear of the man and switched on his NV band, a few strands of string came out of the room as Rashida, the women in the risqu¨¦ attire, pulled the man into the room and gave him a quick pat down and tossed a phone and wallet to the new ''man in the middle''. He watched as she took her original position and watched her blow out the candle while he switched off the device on his helmet at the same time. And he started walking while she pretended to close the door in embarrassment. Something I''m surprised she can portray. Tut shrugged inwardly. Outside Chiwan Wharf------- Azisa sat on the kerb facing a storefront that said ¡®Nuudles¡¯. Behind him was the fence marking the Chiwan Wharf. He had a file open on his lap but he seemed to be staring off into space. ¡°Sequel is good. Let¡¯s do it.¡± A random passer-by paused as she heard him speak. He started and looked at her and said, ¡°Movie script¡­.¡± in an explanatory manner and she shrugged and walked away. First mission, how tough could it be?