The C-130 landed with the shocking bump that is the registered trademark of all military pilots. I relaxed into the bump and survived it completely unphazed, which did not make me popular with my two visibly shaken "friends" - at least I don't think the cold glares they gave me are a sign they want to be friends, my knowledge of human social behavior is limited at best. The moment we landed they rear hatch of the C-130 opened and I was hustled out and into a black humvee that took us to a stone gray bunker.
My burly shadows herded me inside and into a windowless room somewhere towards the center of the bunker. The room had a metal table bolted to the ground and two rusty chairs. I assumed that one of the chairs was for me so I sauntered over and dropped unceromoniously into one. The guards twitched but didn't make a move towards me, so I crossed one leg over my knee and sat back in the chair, closing my eyes in the perfect imitation of someone relaxing.
I didn't move when about five minutes T-minutes later the door to the room slid open and someone walked in. My eyes remained closed as he sat down, but I did activate the X-ray bionics in my eyes and scanned him for weapons and was shocked to discover he only had a ballistics knife on him. Someone was feeling a little over confident around his guards.
"L23-QU1-3M," He said in a gruff tenor.
"Requiem," I replied.
He blinked at me before recovering. "I'm sorry," he said. It wasn't an apology. It was more of a nasty sneer that someone gives to a person who they believe is in a station below them when they believe that person has over stepped their bounds.
It didn't affect me at all. "Requiem, it's my name." I told him, this time deigning to open my icy eyes and stare directly into his brown ones.
He raised his head slightly and tried to glare at me - I say try because it wasn't very threatening. "All right then....Requiem....I assume you know you're mission here."
"Course I do, I processed the data on the way over here. Nothing I can't handle, Sir."
"I see," he said, "Well then, we'd like to start out with the training of the guerilla squadron you'll be working with." He tossed a datachip across the table to me. I caught it without looking away from him. "That contains the profile of all the men you'll be working with and it details the series of missions you will be leading." I nodded and slipped the datachip into the datapad on my arm, allowing the datapad to process the data to the cybernetic part of my brain without affecting my ability to communicate with the uniformed man in front of me. The man glared at me again and then waved at one of the guards. The guard walked out of the room and returned with a black bag that the tossed on the table in front of me. "These are the weapons you will be working with."
I opened the bag and pulled out the largest weapon in the bag, an M4A1 Carbine. I inspected it and found it lacking a few areas, but it was nothing that I couldn't fix. I returned the weapon to the bag. "Anything else, Sir?"
"No," He said, then turned to the guards, "Take her to her quarters and get her settled in."
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
A hangover without the bonus of getting drunk...
Four hours later found me snapping my eyes open and instantly coming to my senses in a loud, uncomfortable environment. Maker I hate that memory wipe failsafe. Especially because it knocks us out. I don't like being completely vulnerable like that, it goes against my training.
I woke up with a small headache - not that it really bothered me, I just took the second to register that it was there - on the mesh seats of a cargo plane. I was sitting across from two burly men who were eying me, I twitched one eye gently and the electronics in my eyes switched over to an sort of X-ray vision. I took inventory of all their weapons and every other threat on the plane (There were eight of them). When I had satisfied my need to be sure I had an exit strategy I reached into the right thigh pocket of my black battle fatigues to pull out the chip The Director had given me. One of the burly men in front of me twitched when I moved so I noted that he had an itchy trigger finger and that if anyone would start a fight on this C-130 it would be him.
I resisted the urge to smirk at him -long story short I have a few weird personality quirks like that, I'm sure it's not a side effect of having my brain partial replaced with a computer- and slot the chip in the small datapad that's built into my wrist. The datapad automatically decrypted the chip and sent the flow of information directly to the computer in my brain. I let my concious brain fall into the data strean to absorb what I needed to know all the while keeping my subconcious brain alert for danger. (It's a learned skill aided by a computer for a brain, don't try at home)
Turns out I was working for Dictator of the month in what was formerly known as the United States. Evans, Phillip...thirty-five...kind of ugly (you know that kind of ugly that ends up plastered on T-shirts later). Anyways, apparently I was needed to run a series of guerilla recon missions in what used to be France with a team of total new recruits. Fun, every SINs dream job, of course. Who am I to complain though, this is the kind of shit I was built for.
I felt the nose cargo plane raise slightly. We were coming in for a landing. I made once last subtle check for the standard issue weapons SINs are given...the ones that hide in places no one would ever think to look and could therefore never take from us...and settled back in my seat for the last few minutes of the flight.
I woke up with a small headache - not that it really bothered me, I just took the second to register that it was there - on the mesh seats of a cargo plane. I was sitting across from two burly men who were eying me, I twitched one eye gently and the electronics in my eyes switched over to an sort of X-ray vision. I took inventory of all their weapons and every other threat on the plane (There were eight of them). When I had satisfied my need to be sure I had an exit strategy I reached into the right thigh pocket of my black battle fatigues to pull out the chip The Director had given me. One of the burly men in front of me twitched when I moved so I noted that he had an itchy trigger finger and that if anyone would start a fight on this C-130 it would be him.
I resisted the urge to smirk at him -long story short I have a few weird personality quirks like that, I'm sure it's not a side effect of having my brain partial replaced with a computer- and slot the chip in the small datapad that's built into my wrist. The datapad automatically decrypted the chip and sent the flow of information directly to the computer in my brain. I let my concious brain fall into the data strean to absorb what I needed to know all the while keeping my subconcious brain alert for danger. (It's a learned skill aided by a computer for a brain, don't try at home)
Turns out I was working for Dictator of the month in what was formerly known as the United States. Evans, Phillip...thirty-five...kind of ugly (you know that kind of ugly that ends up plastered on T-shirts later). Anyways, apparently I was needed to run a series of guerilla recon missions in what used to be France with a team of total new recruits. Fun, every SINs dream job, of course. Who am I to complain though, this is the kind of shit I was built for.
I felt the nose cargo plane raise slightly. We were coming in for a landing. I made once last subtle check for the standard issue weapons SINs are given...the ones that hide in places no one would ever think to look and could therefore never take from us...and settled back in my seat for the last few minutes of the flight.
Out of the pan...into the fire
So day one out of official field training sees me in The Director's office at three fucking AM. Graduating top of my class as a SIN (Synthesized Investigative Neutral- a type of gentically enhanced mercenary) officer candidate is starting to seem less prestigious by the second. I shoulda know some shit like this would happen when the war between the East and West factions began to escalate (Let's face it, dictated democracy and totaltarian communism were never meant to work together).
Erg, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning. My name is Requiem....well that's actually a code name, but Requiem sounds way better that l23-qu1-3m, which is my serial number. Says so on the barcode tattooed on the right side of my ribcage. I am a genetically engineered mercenary, created and trained to be sold off to the highest bidder for whatever nefarious plan he might have. Effectively - and yes, I know how cheesy this sounds - I am a superhuman perfect soldier.
I just recently completed training as an officer SIN, capable of doing field work on my own and leading large groups of other SINs. I graduated top of my class in combat, espionage, recon...the whole nine yards.
The reason why I'm standing at rigid attention in the Director's office is because I have just been sold to a high bidder. Maker only knows what the hell they're going to do with me, but it seems some dictator playing the role of a "president" in the West decided he HAD to have me.
I barely noticed The Director discreetly nod as he watched my icy gray eyes (standard issue to all SINs of my generation) flick rapidly around the room, scanning it for any signs of threats. With a quick flick of my eyes I switch the bionics in them into thermal mode, scanning the room again and this time noticing two large male shaped heat signatures outside a secret door built into the left wall. I tell the bionics in my brain to mark them as armed and dangerous and dedicate some of the internal memory in the cybernetic part of my brain to keep track of them.
"Satisfied?" The Director finally asked, his disinterested tenor ringing through the small office. I made no move just locked my eyes on his, he took that as a sign he had my full attention. "Good," he turned back to his desk and picked up a data chip, tossing it over his shoulder in my general direction. My wrist flicked up automatically to catch it and I was back to my disciplined pose before The Director could turn back around. "That is the dossier for your current assignment, you will be able to process it fully when you wake up on the cargo plane in four hours."
'Wake up'...what a totally innocent sounding phrase...at least for anyone who isn't a SIN. The nice thing about the SIN project mercenaries is that you never have to worry about them coming after you for revenge, letting priveledged information about missions get loose, or anything like that. See we come equipped with the relatively annoying failsafe that wipes our memory about our missions and conviniently knocks us out. How does it work? Well someone who has the right passwords says them out loud...
"Viper, aegis, seven-niner-two..."
Yeah...exactly like that...and then we...we....
-Transmission Terminated-
Erg, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning. My name is Requiem....well that's actually a code name, but Requiem sounds way better that l23-qu1-3m, which is my serial number. Says so on the barcode tattooed on the right side of my ribcage. I am a genetically engineered mercenary, created and trained to be sold off to the highest bidder for whatever nefarious plan he might have. Effectively - and yes, I know how cheesy this sounds - I am a superhuman perfect soldier.
I just recently completed training as an officer SIN, capable of doing field work on my own and leading large groups of other SINs. I graduated top of my class in combat, espionage, recon...the whole nine yards.
The reason why I'm standing at rigid attention in the Director's office is because I have just been sold to a high bidder. Maker only knows what the hell they're going to do with me, but it seems some dictator playing the role of a "president" in the West decided he HAD to have me.
I barely noticed The Director discreetly nod as he watched my icy gray eyes (standard issue to all SINs of my generation) flick rapidly around the room, scanning it for any signs of threats. With a quick flick of my eyes I switch the bionics in them into thermal mode, scanning the room again and this time noticing two large male shaped heat signatures outside a secret door built into the left wall. I tell the bionics in my brain to mark them as armed and dangerous and dedicate some of the internal memory in the cybernetic part of my brain to keep track of them.
"Satisfied?" The Director finally asked, his disinterested tenor ringing through the small office. I made no move just locked my eyes on his, he took that as a sign he had my full attention. "Good," he turned back to his desk and picked up a data chip, tossing it over his shoulder in my general direction. My wrist flicked up automatically to catch it and I was back to my disciplined pose before The Director could turn back around. "That is the dossier for your current assignment, you will be able to process it fully when you wake up on the cargo plane in four hours."
'Wake up'...what a totally innocent sounding phrase...at least for anyone who isn't a SIN. The nice thing about the SIN project mercenaries is that you never have to worry about them coming after you for revenge, letting priveledged information about missions get loose, or anything like that. See we come equipped with the relatively annoying failsafe that wipes our memory about our missions and conviniently knocks us out. How does it work? Well someone who has the right passwords says them out loud...
"Viper, aegis, seven-niner-two..."
Yeah...exactly like that...and then we...we....
-Transmission Terminated-
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