And WWII had Nazis pitting actual-factual flying saucers against Soviet land battleships armed with Tesla coils.
Hrm, yeah, I intended for 13's sidearm to be a type of Smart Gun, probably uses electricity to fire its rounds instead of mechanical...mechanisms. But it's not electrothermal. Now, the rifles he and his Elites use, that could be a different thing - thermoelectric, possibly, to deal with the inevitable challenge of dinosaurs. Possibly with special nano-sharpened AP bullets too. I mean, before the dinosaurs, they also regularly deal with governments with snazzy tech, so they have to provide their customers with 'cost-effective' and 'affordable' and 'economic' and 'profitable' ways with dealing with those things. 'course, if you become a Premium Golden EVIL Overlord with a Platinum Henchmen/Lair package, your guntotting goons could be supported by cyborg arch-toughguys with metal teeth and laser guns! And sharks with underwater lasers (srsly).
Or maybe Fidel's an idiot and he forgot to cock the pistol (nah)
EDIT:
And while the previous chapters were all talky and tactically espionagey, the recentest chapter marks a shift to action. As in Tactical Espionage Action.
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
Hrm, yeah, I intended for 13's sidearm to be a type of Smart Gun, probably uses electricity to fire its rounds instead of mechanical...mechanisms. But it's not electrothermal.
Nah, just a caseless projectile that uses a sparkplug (or something) instead of a mechanical hammer. Not electrothermal though, as it lacks the whole turning propellant into plasma stuff.
The flickering flames of the fire splayed out against the darkness of the night, hot yellow-orange light dancing amidst the camp, casting intricate shadows on the camouflage-pattern tents and the surrounding trees. Someone threw a log into the fire, disrupting the hypnotic flame-trance and sending burning embers flying through the air.
The embers blew past Fidel’s face, and once more, the dancing shadows and orange-yellow light played across his dirt-stained face.
“Where…the hell am I?” Fidel muttered groggily as he returned to the land of the living. He found himself leaning on a tree, his arms behind his back, wrists bound by handcuffs.
Someone walked up to him, his form silhouetted by the light of the flames, his face shrouded in shadow. “You are in hell,” he said. “And I, am the devil.”
Fidel was about to laugh when a fist broke his nose. He grunted in pain and tried to breathe with his mouth, spitting out blood that flowed down from his nose and into his mouth.
“My name is Eduadro,” the man said before he backhanded Fidel across his face. “What’s your name?”
Fidel didn’t say anything. Instead, he focused his attention on the campfire behind the man, watched the flames dance, the embers fly as wind blew by. Another fist smashed his face. And another. Again and again, for minutes on end until Eduadro apparently hurt both his hands.
Fidel spat at the ground and grinned wickedly at his torturer, blood leaked from his mouth, his bloodstained teeth glowing in the firelight.
Eduadro kicked Fidel in the gut, twice, eliciting Fidel to vomit. Before he could however, Eduadro grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head, so that his bloody vomit would spill over his own face.
“Raulo says you called yourself Fidel Castro,” Eduadro said mockingly as Fidel chocked and gurgled in his own fluids. “Are you one of the communistas? Do you have any friends in the jungle, or were you just hiking all alone?”
He released his hold on Fidel’s head, and Fidel gasped and coughed as his head lolled down. Before he could resume breathing, he received another blow, this time a face full of uppercut, jerking his head backwards and upwards, sending a stream of blood and spit flying from his mouth and nose.
“Raul was one of the guys in the camp you didn’t kill. You see, they were my amigos, and after what you did to them…” Eduadro paused for a while as he snapped Fidel’s nose back to its proper position, before breaking it again with his palm. He leaned forward, placing his face near Fidel’s. “I’m going to enjoy returning the favor.”
Fidel replied. By biting a bloody chunk of meat off Eduadro’s cheek and giving him a hard headbutt.
“You bitch!” Eduadro screamed as he placed his hand on his face. “I’m going to kill you!”
Fidel laughed. A loud boisterous laugh that was reduced to chuckling and then snickering and then, finally, painful coughing, as Eduadro pulled out something hard and beat Fidel with it. Blood was spilled, and bits of torn meat were ripped off Fidel’s face as Eduadro brutalized him for ten more minutes. Then the mercenary torturer took a couple of breaks in between, and a couple of his friends took his place for a while before he returned with a band-aid on his face and resumed his work.
“This pistol is a good one,” Eduadro commented as he wiped bits of Fidel off his makeshift club, holding the silencer like a handle. “I saw the rest of your stuff too, they’re really fancy. I think I’m going to keep them. Do you think that white guy will let me keep them?”
Fidel spat something bloody out of his mouth, it landed on the dirt. It was a piece of Eduadro’s cheek. “I think you should keep that first,” Fidel smiled.
“You know, it doesn’t matter if you tell us who you’re working for, where the rest of your friends are hiding in the jungle, what you’re doing here. We’re going to kill you anyway,” Eduadro sneered as he slammed the pistol-butt against the side of Fidel’s face, near his eye.
Fidel grunted in pain as he felt bits of his eye socket break from his skull in a way that pushed swelling, bruised meat against his eyeball. Another blow, and he felt the steel butt of his pistol once again smash against the side of his skull, sending a wave of pain and dizziness throughout his head, bypassing the cranium and going sharply into his brain.
Eduadro shoved the pistol into a pocket and unsheathed his machete. “I’m gonna take pleasure in gutting you, hombre.”
“Enough,” a voice from the back said, and even in his brutalized state, Fidel could still make out that pale albinic visage emerging from the darkness. A black-armored gauntlet grabbed Eduadro’s hand, the one that held the machete, and gripped hard.
“Alright, alright!” Eduadro winced as he withdrew his blade and rubbed his wrist. “If you want a go at him, be my guest!”
“No,” the albino said. “Finish up with him, and then transfer him into a cell. Alive.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Eduadro nodded as the albino disappeared, back into the night. “You hear that, Mr. Castro? You’re one lucky bastard.”
Fidel felt the steel-toed boot slam up between his legs and the vicious pain that came with it. He closed his teary eyes, but didn’t scream.
His breathing was ragged and his head hung loosely, neck painful and tired and slacked. He tried to look at the fire, to concentrate his attention on the dancing flame and the floating embers, but he couldn’t. His eyes were too bruised to open. As his torturer, Eduadro, laughed aloud, and as his laughter was joined by those of the other mercenary spectators, Fidel could hear a silent noise that was beneath their sadistic merriments but steadily growing louder.
It sounded unlike a helicopter rotor; it was too silent and too different. The Major said there was a lot of air traffic coming into the jungle, helicopters. This wasn’t a helicopter. Turbofans, a VTOL aircraft.
Someone was coming.
Last edited by Shroom Man 777 on 2007-09-09 06:17am, edited 1 time in total.
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
By the way, is Fidel going to end up losing an eye, making him resemble Naked Snake/Big Boss even more? (The torture scene sounded vicious.) Or will Number 13 resort to drugs to make Fidel talk?
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
The day was hot. It was noon and high above the cloudless sky, the sun bathed all in near-scorching light. Everyone was sweating like pigs, and to make matters worse, the sand was burning hot. Even with helmets and battle bandanas, soldiers and civilians alike felt their heads cook, and even with combat boots, they could all feel the heat rising from underfoot.
Young private Fidel Castro was severely tempted to run out of the assembled formation and jump into the sea.
“…and so the gringos and the bourgeoisie want to bring down our country? I say let them come! Let them come! The brave men and women of Cuba, brave soldiers all, you my friends will protect our home land, our humble island, from those greedy capitalist pig dogs from America!” El Jefe, the Comandante, the Presidente, Fidel Castro declared angrily and loudly, his voice heard by all despite the absence of microphones or speakers. For the fiftieth time in his hour-long speech, he angrily raised a fist to the air and then brought it down again mightily. “They have tried to assassinate me so many times that I have lost count, but I know that even if their treacheries succeed in killing me, you my brothers and sisters will continue on the great fight for freedom! The working class’ struggle against exploitation and oppression from the West!
“The world is watching our humble island, Cuba, so small next beside the fat decadence of the United States! From Moscow to Angola, they watch us as we bravely soldier on in our never-ending fight for equality, and our bravery inspires our allies in communist and socialist states all over. Even in nations ruled by the capitalists, we bring hope to those who want to free themselves from their Western masters! What you do everyday, the struggle of your families and your children, is proof that in the end, Cuba will triumph!”
Fidel clapped his hands along with the hundred or so wildly applauding soldiers and staff assembled before the President of Cuba, who stood atop the hood of the jeep, an imposing sight before the silhouette of the beachside Tesla coil that protected their base from any American treachery. In fact, Fidel realized, Fidel Castro looked probably taller than the tower itself.
After the applause died down, after the men were allowed to disperse to resume their duties, Fidel decided to go behind the barracks, where it was shady and closer to the beach. He produced a cigarette and rummaged his pockets for some matches. He had none, but someone else handed him a light.
“Thanks,” Fidel nodded to the man in fatigues who held out the lighter. “Man, what a day. Who’d think El Jefe would come over to our little base and-” he stopped talking, and the cigarette fell out of his mouth. “Wait…oh…shi-! I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you, sir!”
Immediately, Fidel straightened up his spine so fast it hurt, and then he gave stiff salute.
“Relax, boy,” Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, laughed at the young soldier’s awkwardness. “I’m just out for a smoke, just like you. I don’t have enough breath for another hour-long lecture, and while my generals are busy talking to those ‘Moscow-trained’ Tesla technicians, I decided to take a break. How about this heat, eh?”
After a short while, words finally entered Fidel’s mind and mouth. “Yes sir, it gets really hot this time of day. The men take their siestas in the barracks, but it gets so full and hot that the officers go out and rest on hammocks instead.”
Castro laughed and clapped the young Fidel on the shoulder. “Is that so? Then maybe we should get your base some air conditioning. What do you think?”
“I think that would be great, sir,” Fidel smiled. He was about to bend down to pick up his dropped cigarette when Castro stopped him.
“No,” Castro said, gently pushing Fidel back as he stepped on the cigarette. Fidel was worried, maybe the Commandante was testing him and he had failed his test, or maybe he had somehow offended Castro, but he grew even more confused when Castro produced a long brown cigar, which he gave to him. “Here, have a cigar.”
“Sir…thank you…sir!” once more, Fidel saluted the commander-in-chief of Cuba.
“So, what’s your name, soldier?” Castro said as he lit Fidel’s cigar.
“My name is Fidel Castro, sir.”
“Oh?”
Around the treeless patch of flattened ground, amidst the jungle canopy that rimmed the makeshift helipad, leaves and branches swayed violently as something emerged from the sky. It was large and dark, with a fuselage harshly angled to shroud itself from radar, and a hull devoid of any markings save for that of a triangle over a wire frame globe: the EVIL corporate logo.
The air was filled with the faint noise of wingtip-mounted turbofans, sounding like a barely audible banshee wail, and as the hoverplane began touching down, the eerie noise only grew more prominent and audible, but not really louder, as the craft made its strangely gracile descent. Mere feet from the ground, segments of its underbelly opened to reveal extending landing gear that snapped open, forming landing skis as the plane landed. Dust and leaves were blown all over before the turbofans shut down, and then there was silence.
The passenger cabin’s doors opened with a hiss, and from the bottom of the opening, metal stairs folded out to facilitate the exit of the craft’s passengers.
From the dimly lit interior of the hoverplane came a metallic foot that stomped hard on the aluminum stairway, denting it badly. The owner of the metal foot exited the craft, his form barely fitting through the door, cybernetic limbs whirring as he strode down the stairway and finally planted his feet on terra firma. His head surveyed what was before him, his intense gaze going from left to right like a lighthouse, the iris of his ocular implants contracting and then dilating to adjust to the low-light conditions.
Before him was a regiment of grey-suited EVIL henchmen, armed with grease guns and clad in hardhats, and with them was a cadre of mercenaries with an assortment of armaments. The latter group was clearly discomforted at the sight of the cybernetic organism before them, which wasn’t helped by the fact that the cyborg had a very dangerous looking cannon for an arm.
In the middle of the henchmen and the mercs were the leaders of the Corporation’s secret jungle lair, standing from left to right: Donald Dennaro, Jacque Thornier, Natasha Dementieva, Oktavia Boyer, and finally, Number 13.
The albino met the gaze of the cyborg’s blood red oculars with his own unnaturally cold cobalt blue eyes. At this standoff between the strange cyborg and their own boss, the Brazilian mercs grew apprehensive, and the safeties of various rifles were switched off while rocket propelled grenades were primed for ignition. Just in case.
Dementieva stepped in front of 13 and looked the cyborg up. “Deadbolt…aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
“Not necessarily,” came a voice from behind the cyborg killing machine, and from the hoverplane, another figure emerged, an aging man dressed in expensive formal clothing. The cyborg stepped aside for him and he smiled. “Hello, Natasha.”
“Mr. Hunt,” Dementieva nodded politely. “Welcome to the Amazon.”
The other leaders straightened up, and at their reactions, the henchmen and the mercs (who barely had a clue as to what was going on) followed suit, some of the latter even saluting the apparently high-ranking newcomers.
“At ease, gentlemen,” Mr. Marcus Elliot Hunt said pleasantly, addressing everyone. Once more, he smiled at Dementieva and 13. “My aide, Mr. Deadbolt here, was recovered and salvaged from that tragedy over at the Atlantic last month.”
“When the British attacked one of our oil rig lairs,” Dementieva noted.
“Yes, and since Deadbolt quite nearly gave his life defending our assets, and since he also signed up for the arch-henchman life insurance package, we reactivated him and gave him some upgrades, for being such a model employee,” Hunt explained pleasantly. “Oh, and we brought company.”
“Company?” Number 13 asked, though it barely sounded like a question.
“Yes, I’ve recently employed a group of problem solvers for the Corporation. Maybe they can be of some use here,” Hunt answered.
Just then, the rear doors of the hoverplane, the ones that led to the cargo bay, opened wide with a hiss. From the cavernous recesses of the plane’s interior came a group of five, four men and a woman. The Corporation’s Problem Solvers.
Dementieva looked at them with curiosity while 13 regarded them coldly. One of them wore a crimson black ninja outfit, while another was in an advanced skinsuit with a goggled spymask, the former had two sheathed katanas strapped to his back while the latter was cradling a massive sniper rifle. Another was unarmed and clad in a leather jacket and tattered jeans, he wore aviator sunglasses and chewed gum, and alongside him was the woman, blonde, carrying a large and heavy kitbag with one hand. Behind them was a much younger man wearing a baseball cap. 13 couldn’t help but snort ever so slightly.
“They might be of assistance to you,” Hunt offered. “The ninja is Arachnid, one of the world’s premier assassins. The man with the big gun is the Reckoner, a phenomenal marksman, a sniper prodigy. John Doe is the Slinger, a gunslinger who doesn’t need a gun, and Ms. Lilac is a proverbial femme fatale. And last but not the least, young Mr. Coleman here is a gifted telepath with many talents, or so I’ve heard.”
“Coincidently, we’ve captured an intruder just a short while ago, Mr. Hunt,” Dennaro butted in, trying to be helpful and trying to impress his boss. “13 was planning to torture him after your arrival.”
“In that case, I think it would be more convenient of we let Mr. Coleman do the interrogation while we get over to business, wouldn’t it?”
13 nodded.
“The prisoner is held not too far from here,” Dennaro said, talking quickly. He pointed at a merc with a brown bandana. “You, take him to the prisoner.”
As the young man in the baseball cap was led by the merc with the brown bandana, Marcus Elliot Hunt turned to face Doctor Thornier. “Now Jacque, I believe you have some dinosaurs to show me.”
For some reason, the room was damp, humid and warm. That was probably why they removed everything stored in it and locked Fidel inside it, turning the room into a makeshift cell. There were two chairs and a table, all made out of stainless steel, but Fidel sat himself down the floor in a dark corner and licked his wounds.
Outside, he could hear the footsteps and footfalls of the guards. Two of them, one standing right outside the door, another pacing slightly further away.
Fidel tried to open his eyes, a painful process that took him several minutes. Each attempt was more painful than the last, until finally, Fidel stopped trying. One of his eyes, the right, could open, if just partially. The one to the left…it would need some field surgery if he planned on using both eyes any time soon. There was too much swelling, he was practically blind.
He tried not to concentrate on that, the fact that he couldn’t see anything but blurry light and shadows. He tried to stand, but sore muscles all over his body protested his every effort. He exhaled, painfully, and collapsed back to his corner. Even breathing, a most basic task, was hard…the muscles of his torso were bruised and beaten, some ribs were probably broken as well, he could feel pain stabbing into the side of his chest.
His arms were cuffed behind his back. Steel handcuffs, he couldn’t break them, at least not without breaking his hands in turn. The next half hour were spent trying to pull his hands out of the cuffs, to wrench them free even if it meant damaging to his wrists and hand. He stopped when his wrist starting to bleed.
That wouldn’t work, but Fidel knew what would. He couldn’t free his hands from the cuffs, but he could do something about his arms being behind his back. If his body was flexible enough, he could fold his legs and maneuver his hands under them and, ultimately, have his arms back in front of his body. He would still be cuffed, restrained, but it would improve his situation.
But then what? The cell was locked from the outside, there were guards posted, and he was barely in any condition to fight. He was blind, the whole of his body was a bloody pulp, he could barely breathe without hurting. He wasn’t even sure if he could walk right, or if he’d just end up staggering like a drunk, eventually falling face first to the ground. His nose was broken, he had to breathe from his mouth and with every breath, he tasted blood and bile from inside him.
He coughed, felt pain jutting inwards from his side, spat out blood, coughed again and spat some more, lung spasms wracking, broken body hurting, breath ragged, sweat dripping…
Fidel had served Cuba’s special forces for a decade. Now that he was old and the Cold War was over, he was the last one serving, last one standing. The others, there were no others. They didn’t retire or get commendations, they were dead and forgotten.
He couldn’t see anything.
From mounts on its torso, beams of bright white light swayed from side to side like searchlights. The massive predatory head, an amalgamation of scale and steel with mechanical eyes that glowed so slightly, glared at them with a cold reptilian intelligence, titanium-reinforced teeth, hydraulic-enhanced jaws, armored cables and joints, nostrils flared, opening wide.
Many of the watchers stepped backward, including Dementieva herself. She looked to her left and saw Dennaro backing away, the smile on his face mixed with more than just a tinge of hesitation and fear, to her left 13 looked at the cyborg Allosaurian killing machine like how a person would consider a finely crafted sidearm.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?” Doctor Jacque Thornier said. His face, Dementieva could see, was filled with pride. Like a child with his first science project. “The dominant superpredator of the Jurassic Period outfitted with bleeding edge weaponry, the culmination of reptilian evolution and human technology!”
To punctuate this, the Allosaurus opened its cybernetic maw and let out a mighty roar, like that of a turbojet blasting out its supersonic afterburners. A gust of hot wind that smelled of sepsis and engine grease blew back those who hadn’t jumped in fright, forcing everyone to shield him or herself from the bellow. As it roared for a good minute and a half, the Allosaurus stomped both its feet firmly into the ground, causing the earth to shake. And then, with a sound like that of a blade being unsheathed, a massive railgun extended from its dorsal weapons mount while shoulder cannons and rocket pods of all make and model rose out of strategic locations on its hyperalloy combat chassis, accompanied by all sorts of mechanical clicking, whining and whirring sounds.
“Gentlemen, behold!” Thornier declared, quoting the catchphrase of a certain mad scientist. “The dinotech weapon that will bring the EVIL Corporation into the 21st century!”
There was laughter and there was applause, which surprised everyone.
“Impressive, most impressive,” Elliot Hunt clapped his hands as he walked forward towards Thornier and the cyborg dinosaur. The both of them stood before the massive cybernetic carnosaur. “I’m glad that all those years of research and development weren’t a waste of corporate resources and finance.”
With his arms spread, Doctor Thornier bowed gracefully.
“However, I’ve read Dennaro’s reports and your files extensively, and so I know very well the current operational status of all the Allosaur prototypes. They are quite a sight to behold firsthand, but I came here not for a project that has been monitored since it’s inception,” Hunt said for all of them to hear. “I came to inspect our more recent acquisitions.”
“The genetic material stol-” Dennaro, being a lawyer, quickly corrected himself. “Ah, I mean, liberated from GenInc. before the company’s tragic mishap.”
“Indeed,” Hunt nodded. “Delivered by the lovely Ms. Dementieva. I trust her services were quite satisfactory, Jacque?”
“Quite,” the scientist slicked his hair and adjusted his clothes. “Very well,” he said as he led the group to the mobile command-trailer that served as their makeshift tour bus. “We shall go to the laboratory.”
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
Considering that he's about to be interrogated by a telepath, I wonder if Fidel has cybernetic implants that prevent telepaths from probing his mind, like the DARPA chief in 'Metal Gear Solid'. Or are such implants beyond Cuba's military budget?
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
They're beyond Cuba's military budget. I think the Soviets kept the anti-telepathy stuff to themselves.
As usual, Fidel has to do things The Hard Way.
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
BTW, I screwed up. Fidel's radio contacts are the ENRIQUE brothers. That asshole cheeky mercenary with the brown bandana is EDUARDO. Names are hard.
It was the rainy season, thunder boomed in the blackened sky as heavy raindrops poured down from the firmament and struck the canopy with audible force. The jungle was wet and miserable as the downpour continued, and as stormy winds joined it, trees were bent out of shape and branches were snapped.
“Welcome to Camp Matanzas,” the scarred man with an eyepatch said. Arranged around him were men and women from all over the globe, revolutionaries from over ten countries – all huddled in groups and wearing raincoats. Palestinians, Colombians, Venezuelans, even a few from the Irish Republican Army. There were some Cubans as well. “Here, you will receive Vietnamese tactics training, which all of you will no doubt use to further your noble causes. But your instructors here will teach you more than just Vietnamese tactics, we will teach you how to fight like a soldier.
“How to fight like a soldier…that is the only thing we can teach you. We can’t teach you how to think like a soldier, that is something you’ll have to learn by yourself, or die trying. We also can’t instill on you the spirit of a soldier, but I’m sure most of you are already well motivated. So here today, we will be teaching you fighting techniques. Call me Major Muerte…you don’t need to know my real name, and I don’t need to know your real names either.”
Everyone was watching him carefully. “By fighting techniques, you probably expect firearms training. You are wrong. We will start from the fundamentals, and the fundamental fighting technique is not how to fire a gun. It’s hand-to-hand combat, the basis of all warfare,” he pointed at someone. “You there, come up here and fight me.”
Fidel got up and walked over to the Major.
“Try your best to kill me.”
Fidel picked up a machete and charged the man.
“Pathetic.”
Fidel screamed in pain. His arm snapped and the blade fell from his hand. He fell face first into the cold mud.
The jeep bounced on the rocky road and landed on a puddle of mud, causing muck to spray all over the sides and the windshield.
“Ah puta,” cursed Eduadro, rubbing his bandaged cheek before turning on the windshield wipers. “Watch out for the mud.”
Ted Coleman grunted as he pulled out his baseball cap from his black overcoat and protected his raven black hair with it.
“Nice hat,” the Brazilian merc pointed out, an attempt to get conversational.
Ted shrugged.
Eduadro struggled with the wheel, maneuvering the jeep to avoid other puddles and rocky bumps. Every time the car shook hard and he gritted his teeth, his cheek would hurt bad. “Anyway, we’re almost-”
“What’s his name?” Ted cut him off.
“What?”
“His name,” the young man repeated himself, fixing the merc with a piercing gaze. “The captive.”
“He calls himself Fidel Castro,” Eduadro replied, avoiding the kid’s eyes and trying to keep his own on the road.
“And he bit the skin off your cheek?”
“Yes, the fucker did,” Eduadro growled. Then he chuckled and laughed viciously. “But that kick I gave him after, it nearly turned him into Fidel Castrati!”
As the Brazilian laughed, Ted mused on the captive called Fidel Castro – and the prospects of torturing him, body, soul and mind. He lowered the front of his cap, and as shadow covered his face, he smiled.
Young Theodore was a man who had nothing, whose life was literally reduced to ashes when his father went mad, but he found a way to live – at the expense of other people’s lives, but nonetheless, he survived. He was gifted, and that gift was solely his, a gift he used to exploit other people, make them hurt, make them bleed like stuck pigs and leave them for dead, just like how they left him for dead. They all had names, faces, thoughts, but to him, they were all unworthy of recognition, and after he was through with them, they were all the same – covered in their own blood and excrement, the fear lingering in their minds and hearts as their last breaths left their lungs.
He was young, and like all young men, he had to choose his destiny - his career. He had found employment, working for those who were like him, who those would exploit other human beings for carnal gain. Because other human beings were worthless specks. But because he was a gifted young man, these Corporates, they found him and presented him with an opportunity, a very lucrative opportunity. And how could he refuse?
He would chance it, like all other young men his age trying to find a lot in life. If it went well, he would have a good job with the Corporation, be set for the rest of his life with a mutually-profitable contract with great economic benefits. If it didn’t, he would go back to America, back to Crowtalon City.
If he could rip through to the thoughts out of this man called Fidel Castro, bleed his mind with a clean cut, and if the Corporates liked his handiwork, he would be set.
He smiled. He knew it would go well.
Eduadro stopped the jeep. “We’re-”
“Here,” Ted muttered as he opened the door and stepped out of the jeep. He strode forward, towards the small concrete building, opened the door and strode in.
“He’s with me,” Eduadro told the pair of guards who immediately brought their guns to bear on the new arrivals. “He’ll be visiting Mr. Castro.”
The two henchmen smiled and nodded in understanding. They opened the thick metal door and walked into the cell. Eduadro and Ted followed them.
There, a mess of a man was sitting on the floor on the far corner of the room. He was shirtless, covered in sweat and dirt, his scarred chest heaving up and down, arms cuffed behind his back. There was a table and two chairs in the middle of the cell.
“Put him on the chair,” Ted uttered. “Leave us.”
The was door closed shut.
Ted removed his cap and placed his black overcoat on the empty chair. He smiled at the man called Fidel Castro.
“I am Ted Coleman…” he began, spreading his arms. “The Bloodsucker!”
The captive looked at him with bruised eyes, barely able to get them to open. He looked at the young man, up and down, and then he laughed. It was a sincere laugh, he chuckled and barked and coughed and continued on laughing. It obviously came from deep down.
Ted Coleman scowled at the captive’s impudence. He reached a hand into the air and curled it into a fist.
Fidel Castro stopped laughing. He convulsed once, convulsed twice, and then vomited a pool of black blood onto the steel table in front of him. It obviously came from deep down.
“Let’s begin, shall we?” Ted Coleman said nonchalantly.
The jungle had encroached upon the exterior of the facility, its marble, concrete, glass and steel façade now not so different from some ancient ruin lost to the jungle – its intricate surface of Art Deco architecture now infringed by leaves, vines and lichen. However, its exterior was only that, a façade.
Inside, lab technicians supervised various advanced medical machineries, from tiny centrifuges that spun vials of bioluminescent liquid, to refrigerators containing all sorts of genetic materials, to supercomputer consoles and holo-projectors.
“Pardon the rather…unkempt state of the facility’s exterior, sir,” head-engineer Oktavia Boyer apologized. “Some of the reclaimed facilities were completely refurbished, including Site A, which is the main lair where your rooms are located. But the other sites…we decided to forgo superficial aesthetics and focus on our main projects.”
“That’s alright, Mrs. Boyer,” Mr. Hunt said with an understanding tone. “But when it is time for our client overlord, Mr. Parker, to have his lair, the place should be a little tidied up.”
“Of course,” she nodded.
“I will see to it personally,” Dennaro said, butting in. “Now, Jacque, show Mr. Hunt your latest creation!”
“Yes, indeed,” the scientist slicked his hair, adjusted his glasses, and then, finally, pressed a large blue button on a nearby console. “Behold, sir!”
There was a hiss, as the wall of fogged glass behind Jacque Thornier gradually became translucent and then, fully transparent, revealing what was hidden behind it.
Dementieva raised an eyebrow. “What…is it?”
There, behind the glass wall and within a fluid-filled cylinder, was a fetal reptiloid form. Its eyes were closed solemnly, its cranium heavy and dome-like, its body slightly larger than an adult human. Its curled body made small near-imperceptible movements, betraying its living nature. Attached to its abdomen was a thick coiling tube that slowly pulsated rhythmically – in sync with the ECG monitors that hung from the ceiling. Where the biomechanical umbilical cord connected to the reptilian’s belly was a plug, and from the plug sub-dermal cyber-wires extended forth throughout the thing’s body.
“It is a Pachycephalosaurus,” Thornier said, placing an open palm on the glass.
“A…what?” Dennaro’s mouth was wider than it should’ve been. No doubt the fetal dinosaurian wasn’t what he was expecting to present to his superior. He looked at the dinosaur, then at Thornier, and then at Mr. Hunt.
“A Pachycephalosaurus,” Thornier repeated himself. “A bipedal herbivore of the Cretaceous period.”
“And…why would we want herbivores?” Dennaro asked, even confused by the fact that the fetal dinosaurian wasn’t some man-eating carnosaurian killing machine.
“Because some of the shareholders were getting worried,” Elliot Hunt answered for Thornier. “Meat-eating cyborg killing machines are always in high demand, whether they are weaponized dinosaurs or hyperintelligent sharks, but they’re rather expensive. Paying for our henchmen is costly enough.”
“Thank you, sir. A Pachycephalosaurus would be more affordable and maintainable than an Allosaurus. Its smaller frame also makes it more transportable,” Thornier spoke. “And yet, look at the skull. The Pachycephalosaurus engaged rivals and predators with its thick head, making it a resilient beast. And its bipedal build makes it compatible with the weapon-systems we’ve designed for the also-bipedal Allosaurs.”
Mr. Hunt smiled. “So for our clients who can’t afford cyborg superpredators, they can settle with these more affordable things.”
“You knew all about this, sir?” Dennaro inquired meekly, disheartened by his ruined surprise.
“Of course,” Hunt nodded, and smiled.
Dennaro looked at Thornier, but the scientist ignored the corporate lawyer and went on pointing and explaining his creation’s features. “We’ve had some trouble with this one, though. Apparently the sample DNA obtained from GenInc.’s stock was…not entirely intact,” he glanced at Dementieva. “But we fixed that, using the genetic material we found stored in Site A. Thankfully, we weren’t forced to resort to using frog DNA, unlike the scientists at GenInc. Also, as we did with our Allosaurs, we grew the Pachycephalosaur in an artificial womb.”
“Why?” Dementieva asked.
“When I read your papers, I’ve always wondered that, too,” Hunt agreed.
“Let me explain, then. GenInc.’s method of procreating dinosaurs involved the use of ostrich eggs. And while they may have harvested almost all the salvageable dinosaur DNA on Earth, leaving almost nothing behind for us, hatching dinosaurs in ostrich eggs is still an inane proposition. Even using artificial eggs made out of special material would be a needlessly complicated procedure.
“An artificial womb, sir, is the true way to the future. It provides the dinosaurian embryo a controlled and stable environment that we can monitor. A technologically superior method that is also economically sound. And an artificial womb also allows us to administer growth-acceleration in a safe manner, see the advanced stage of growth of the Pachycehalosaurus?”
“Fascinating, but dinosaurs don’t hatch from wombs,” Dementieva remarked.
“They hatch from eggs,” Thornier agreed. “And an egg is nothing but a disposable womb. In any case, Pachycephalosaurus was one of the few dinosaurs to give birth to offspring. If the hip structures of the fossils are to be believed.”
“And when will this Pachycephalosaurus be…born?” Hunt asked.
“It will be out of the cylinder within the week, sir,” Thornier replied. He pressed another button and, once again, the cylinder was obscured. “And after a month of testing, we can move on to further projects. By the year’s end, I expect we will have enough fully-functional prototypes of at least eight species. Then, the higher echelons of the EVIL Corporation can choose which ones to put into mass production.”
“Good. And as usual, we expect your timely reports. Hrm…” Mr. Hunt mused, and then he turned to face the gathered EVIL officers. “Gentlemen, and ladies, I do believe its time for us to call it a night. Dennaro, would you show those of us who have just arrived our lodgings?”
“Of course, sir,” Dennaro nodded. “Alright everyone, back to the command-trailer. Our quarters are located over at Site A, which is the safest and most comfortable of the refurbished lairs…”
As Dennaro prattled on and as most began heading for the exits, Doctor Jacque Thornier walked over to Marcus Elliot Hunt and whispered: “Dennaro is a fool. I didn’t show you the real surprise yet, sir.”
“Oh?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, there is a time, and a place for everything, I believe. We’ll get to that later, after that intruder fellow has been disposed of. After a few things have been settled.”
“A most prudent decision, sir.”
The knife stabbed through the bone of his cranium and bored deep into the soft grayish interiors of his brain. The sadistic boy twisted the knife, slowly, towards one direction and then to another. Fidel winced in pain, the horrible sensation of that cold metallic thing lancing within the confines of his skull, his eyes opened and closed in rapid succession, sometimes rolling to the back of his head, fluid pouring out of his tearducts.
He couldn’t see the blade, but he could feel its steel. Now he felt that steel melt into frigid tendrils, cold and warmthless snake-like fingers that slithered into the threads of his mind.
He gritted his teeth and screamed, closing his eyes that were once locked into the eyes of that boy. Then he slammed his own head down onto the bloody table, face first into the cold blood.
“You are a very persistent man, Fidel Castro,” Bloodsucker said, amused. “Why don’t you give up, give in, and all I’ll have to do next is kill you.”
Ted Coleman walked over to Fidel and grabbed his hair, and then pulled his face off the table and leveled it so that they were facing each other eye to eye.
Fidel growled. Blood leaked from his mouth and nostrils, and as Theodore Coleman locked eyes with him, once more that blade of cold steel sank itself into Fidel’s mind. He gritted his teeth and roared in frustration as he tried his best to put up a mental wall, whatever defense he could muster against the coming mental dissection.
“It is useless, Castro,” Bloodsucker mocked, and then he grinned viciously. “Your mind is like an open book to me. And your mind, like your body, will be bled dry when I’m done with you.”
Reading the mind was like reading a book, someone once said. The mind was the summation of a person’s life, his memories and sensations, emotions and feelings. It was not unlike reading a story – a story that the mind wrote on as a person’s life continued. There were ways to defeat telepathy, Fidel was taught. What a telepath interrogator was looking for in the book of the mind more often than not took up less than a page, often written in the last chapters of that ongoing story.
To defeat telepathy, one did not necessarily have to prevent the interrogator from reading the book of the mind. The interrogator could be distracted by showing him pages he did not want to read.
The jungle was a steaming hell, hot vapor coming out of the dark recesses like some toxic mist, highlighting the beams of sickly yellow light that stabbed through the canopy’s wounds. Animals cried and cawed, screeched and wailed, but these weren’t the sound of normal jungle fauna – these were the sounds of scavengers.
As they neared the source, the normal stink of the jungle gave way to an ever-growing putridity that seeped from beneath the dampness of the foliage. At first, it was barely noticeable, an underlying malodorous foulness, but as they got ever nearer, the smell grew ever more rancid. When the machete sliced through and parted away the final few leaves, the foulness of human decomposition struck them.
At the presence of the newcomers, crows and vultures and other carrion birds shrieked, the hundreds of thousands of flies and insects that saturated the chokingly thick air like some plague continued on swarming, and a pair of emaciated leprous jungle dogs whined. Fidel kicked one of the dogs away and slashed at the air with his machete, sending the vultures flying away and revealing their feast.
“Oh god…” Fidel uttered, covering his nose and mouth as his eyes watered. “Who could’ve done this?”
“The Contras, no one else.”
“Someone help me cut them down.”
Fidel got as far away as possible, knelt down on the jungle floor and vomited his stomach out. As he got back up and turned around, he saw the naked and skinless corpses look at him with bulging lidless eyes. Maggots and larvae undulated and insinuated themselves upon disemboweled viscera and the dead faces, though hung upside down, looked like they were screaming, screaming so loud that their tongues snaked out of their mouths.
“Fidel, get on the radio. Tell the villagers we’ve found the women…and the children.”
Ted Coleman struck Fidel hard, jerking his head back and causing blood to spurt out his nose. “You fucker,” Coleman hissed, the flavor of distasteful memories lingering in his own mind – those foreign feelings reminding him of his own experiences. “You shit eating spic!”
Fidel’s head hung loosely to one side, blood and saliva dribbled from his mouth to his shoulder.
“You don’t know what I can do to a man like you,” Ted threatened. “If you won’t let me see what I want…”
Fidel’s labored breathing stopped abruptly, replaced by a thick asthmatic wheezing as pain filled his lungs, but it wasn’t just pain, it was also the sensation of fluid seeping into his chest. His eyes shot open and he tried to speak, but it wasn’t words that came out of his mouth.
“Now, my persistent friend, I will show you what real torture is.”
The Contra smiled at him and cupped his chin, holding his head up.
“He is a persistent one.”
He unsheathed his machete. Showed it to Fidel, showed it to the Americans who were watching.
“He has a strong body.”
Fidel was naked, tied to a tree. He tried not to look scared, but he was afraid. Scared. His chest moved up and down, in sync with his frightened breathing.
“Don’t tell them anything, Fidel!” cried the man who was also tied to the tree, behind Fidel. “Not a word!”
“Are you ready?”
The Americans nodded.
The machete came down and Fidel closed his eyes. He heard the sick wet sound of the dull blade cleaving through meat and bone, the screaming, the cries. He screamed, he cried, but he wasn’t the only one.
Fidel opened his eyes and saw himself unmolested.
The cries stopped.
“Fidel…don’t tell them…”
The machete came down again and Fidel screamed, screamed with his friend who was being disemboweled alive right there behind him.
“Don’t say a word…”
Fidel wept as he felt warm liquid flow down, forming a pool on the dirty ground.
“Fidel! Please -”
He couldn’t see it, but he could hear every second of it. Until there was nothing left to hear.
He closed his eyest. He couldn’t see anything, nor could he hear. But he could feel the warm wetness at his feet, smell the stink of human blood mixing with urine.
“Shall we do this one as well?”
“No, the information he knows would no doubt be incorrect. So, even if he confessed from torture, he wouldn’t compromise his superiors. Too bad he didn’t know that.”
“What do we do with him, then?”
“Kill him.”
Your mind is like an open book to me, Fidel.
“Then learn how to read.”
Fidel let out an animalistic scream and, with both hands no longer behind his back, grabbed the Bloodsucker’s face. Theodore Coleman screamed in surprise, and fear, and both their screams merged into one bloodcurdling cry as Fidel slammed his torturer face first on the table, smearing his face on the cold blood.
Fidel snarled, spittle flying from his split lips, and he slammed both his fists on Bloodsucker’s throat. The young man tried to resist, to struggle, but Fidel placed himself on top and wrung his hands around that thin throat.
“You want to see?!” Fidel roared as he slammed the back of Ted Coleman’s head against the steel table. “You want to see?!”
The Bloodsucker lunged at his assailant, a futile counterattack, he tried to pull out his sidearm, a Desert Eagle, but Fidel backhanded him hard.
“You want to see?!”
Ted Coleman’s eyes watered as his windpipe was nearly crushed. He gasped for sweet air when the pressure was released, no doubt the guards had pulled off the captive.
He was wrong. Fidel placed his hands on Bloodsucker’s temples and forced his thumbs into the young man’s eye sockets.
Ted Coleman shrieked.
Fidel joined him as he pressed his thumbs deeper, gripped harder, slammed the struggling boy’s head against the steel in an attempt to smash his skull whilst trying to remove his eyeballs. Blood and spit dripped from his mouth and onto that screaming, crying, contorted face.
“No!” Ted screamed as the thumbs sank deeper into his eye sockets. He mustered whatever was left of his abilities, his talent, his special gift, all he could to save his life.
Fidel gritted his teeth as the blood in his veins and arteries flowed erratically, threatening to burst, to give him a hemorrhage, a stroke, threatening to spill out of his orifices. He could feel the pain but he ignored it. He stopped trying to gouge Bloodsucker’s eyeballs out and, instead, slammed the skull he held in his hands so hard against the table that the steel dented into a crater.
Fidel paused for a while…sat there on the table, still, as blood leaked from his nostrils and his mouth, dripping down and staining the unmoving body of his torturer. Fidel breathed. In and out.
“Time to get out of here.”
John and Bob were guarding the door to the prisoner’s cell. They weren’t Brazilian mercenaries, they were EVIL Corporate henchmen, garbed in jumpsuits and hardhats, armed with grease guns, equipped with all the benefits real EVIL employees enjoyed. John was standing by the cell doors, Bob was further off, so when they heard knocking on the thick metal doors, John was the one who opened the slit.
The interrogator was apparently thorough with his work, he was covered in blood. John shivered to think what he did to that prisoner.
John opened the door and Theodore Coleman fell to his feet.
“What the fuck?!” He reached for his weapon when the prisoner pulled it out of his hands and bludgeoned his head with it. John fell to the floor with a concussion.
“John, what’s going on?! Oh shit!” Bob ran for the alarm.
Fidel lunged at him, tackling him to the floor. He pulled out his sidearm and tried to get up, but a hard kick to the gut knocked the air out of him. Fidel placed himself over the ailing henchman, using his cuffed hands to hold the man’s gun-hand away while positioning himself so that his knee would be pressing against the man’s throat, depriving him of breath. The man’s free arm tried to pull Fidel off, but eventually it got weaker until the man stopped moving.
Fidel searched them for handcuff keys but found nothing. He searched the cabinets but only found medical supplies and a poster. He kept the medical supplies.
That merc, the one with the brown bandana, Eduardo, he had his sidearm and half of his Subsistence suit, including the radio. He was also the one who cuffed him.
Fidel growled. He had failed his mission, he had to call the Major and the Enrique brothers, request for pickup…but he didn’t have his radio.
First things first, he had to escape.
Natasha Dementieva was outside the Site A facility. Seeing that bizarre quasi-embryonic dinosaur made sleeping difficult for her, but there was another reason why she was out in the dark.
She inspected the steel crate that contained the package she had specifically requested. She opened it, inspected its contents, and closed it shut. Just in case.
She heard footsteps come from behind her, barely audible amidst the noise of chirping crickets, croaking frogs and other nocturnal creatures. She placed a hand on her hip holster and turned around.
“Good evening, Natasha,” Mr. Marcus Elliot Hunt greeted her.
She eased her stance. “Sir, what are you doing out here?”
“I had trouble sleeping,” he said as he neared her. “We have to talk, Natasha.”
“Sir?”
“There is a problem in the Corporation and finding people to trust nowadays…it’s difficult. Ferric, our boss, is especially worried.”
“I can understand, sir. Just last year, the vampires tried a hostile takeover. No doubt they’ll try again.”
“It’s not just them, Natasha. And Ferric and I are under the opinion that the Corporation’s special research projects, such as this one, are extremely threatened. But I know you are aware of this, being one of our top field agents.”
Natasha nodded.
“When you were first employed by the Corporation, did you not start off in Human Resources?”
“I did, for two years I assessed and evaluated employees…what are you getting at, sir?”
“I was wondering if you could do some evaluations, assessments on the people around us,” Hunt stopped. “We’ll talk later.”
Number 13 approached the two of them, barely visible in his black armor, the only thing sticking out in the darkness being his pale pigmentless face.
“What is it?” Natasha asked.
“The base is in Alert Phase. The prisoner has escaped,” 13 announced. “Apparently, he nearly killed one of the Problem Solvers, sir. It’s not safe for you to be outside, not with him on the loose.”
“He got Theodore? Tsk-tsk…” Mr. Hunt shook his head. “That’s a shame...”
“The mercenaries are being dispatched to hunt him down and security is being doubled,” 13 stated. “My Elites will stay to protect the facilities and ensure your security, sir.”
“They won’t be hunting the escapee?”
“They are unfamiliar with the jungle terrain, unlike the mercenaries.”
“In that case, then I will dispatch the rest of our Problem Solvers to hunt down this little menace,” Mr. Hunt offered.
“Agreed,” Number 13 replied. To him, those ‘Problem Solvers’ were expendable.
As 13 went off to gather the Problem Solvers, Hunt turned to face Natasha.
“Do whatever it takes.”
“Understood, sir.”
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
Fidel ditched it. He's gonna kill people. With his bare hands. While half naked. And feral.
Sorta like what Cillian Murphy does in the last parts of 28 Days Later.
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
Fidel screamed as he clutched his broken arm, but his screams soon turned to wet gurgles as a hard boot drove his face into the mud.
“Get up!” the old man shouted. “Get up and fight!”
Fidel roared and lashed at the man’s feet in an attempt to bring him down, but the Major avoided that and, instead, it was the steel-tip of his combat boot that struck Fidel in the face.
“Pathetic! And your father had the nerve to name you after the Commandante!”
Fidel tried to crawl away.
“Soldiers don’t crawl.”
Another kick.
“Soldiers stand.”
Another blow.
“Soldiers fight!”
The rain was hard and battered Fidel, but as he struggled to get up, he saw each glinting droplet of water slowly descend down to the earth, saw each drop hit the leaves and the ground.
“You want to learn to fight like a soldier,” The Major spat. “But you don’t even have the spirit of a soldier.”
Fidel got up and roared as, in one painful jerk, he snapped his broken arm back into place.
“That’s it, Fidel. Don’t run, don’t crawl. Stand up and fight.”
Fidel ran into the jungle. It was early morning, with no light, no direction. He ran far, but to where he didn’t know. He staggered, his legs weak, breathing labored and painful. Leaves and branches, vines and other forms of foliage whipped his naked skin as he brushed past the undergrowth.
The jungle was silent with his passing, jungle crickets and tree frogs, vampire bats and night owls, the creatures of the dark grew quiet. The wind became still.
Fidel entered a clearing in the jungle, with neither foliage nor canopy.
He breathed, and the breath that left his lungs turned into a cold white fog, as warmth seemed to have suddenly left the jungle. He shivered and shuddered and staggered, and as that impossible coldness passed him, he restrained himself from collapsing as a searing hotness took over his body. Dilating blood vessels caused his skin to flush, as if scalded throughout, and his eyes watered, a piercing pain stabbed him in his stomach, and then he felt a horrible thirst.
His vision blurred and he fell onto a puddle of thick mud, and as he crawled, the cold muck began covering his exposed flesh – cooling his body, giving moisture to his lips.
There on the mud he rested for some time before his jungle fever subsided. Then, slowly, almost painfully, he dragged himself back up. Thirstily, he lapped up droplets of water that had accumulated on the leaves of trees and vines.
Once more, his legs buckled and he fell.
“Stand up…” he growled, holding onto a tree trunk for support with cuffed hands, then bringing himself back up to his feet. “…and fight.”
It began to rain. Slowly in descent, each droplet glinting in the moonlight. Each droplet hitting the leaves and the ground. Distant thunder rumbled in the clouds.
Eduardo led his team of four deep into the jungle. They were following the tracks left behind by the escapee, the prisoner. Eduardo placed a hand on his wounded cheek, caressing the recently-applied bandage.
There were four of them, him, Alejandro, Hugo and Chavez. But they weren’t alone.
There were other search teams, out to find the illusive Fidel Castro, either to capture or kill, it didn’t matter. Not to Eduardo it didn’t.
Eduardo was wearing the face-eating bastard’s camouflage outfit, or at least half of it, and was using the puta’s sidearm – a silenced Colt pistol he’d sell later, for a good price. He would be the one who’d kill Castro, and he was sure the gringos were going to reward him with a pay raise. After all, wasn’t he the one who captured him in the first place?
Eduardo crouched down and examined the tracks. They were hard to see, almost impossible in the dark, but they had flashlights with red light. The blood red light still allowed them to see a bit in the dark, but from far away, people would have difficulty making out the light they made, unlike the case with normal lights.
“These tracks…they don’t make sense,” said Chavez.
“Why?”
“It looks like the man doesn’t know where he’s going…he’s lost or something, maybe even going around in circles,” Chavez shrugged.
“Maybe he is lost,” said Hugo, the big Venezuelan crouched next to Eduardo.
“Half-naked, beaten to shit,” Alejandro muttered. “Of course he’s lost. He’s probably delirious, the jungle’s going to kill him first if we don’t. What do you think, Eduardo?”
“I think he’s near,” Eduardo said, bringing up his silenced Colt 1911 and a pair of goggles. “Turn off your red lights and take out your heatseekers.”
Thermo-goggles in place, Eduardo ordered them to split into two groups.
“His tracks split to there and there, so we have to cover more ground,” Eduardo explained. “Watch your backs…this guy is a sneaky motherfucker, but we have the advantage. He can’t see in the dark, we can, and we can see his body heat too. So, let’s make him bleed.”
They split up, each pair of mercs disappearing into the underbrush.
The mud was cold on Fidel’s skin. He was crouched low, his eyes darting from side to side. He saw something…a light, a flash, he wasn’t sure. It was dark and despite the star and moonlight, he couldn’t see shit under the shadow of the canopy. He wiped his mouth. If there was anyone in the jungle with him, he’d have to listen to the noise they made.
Hugo slashed at the wet leaves with his machete, carving out a path through the foliage large enough for his ample form. His other hand held a Galil, an Israeli gun. Wrapped around his head were thermal goggles, the ones the EVIL Corporation gave to all of their many henchmen. They were probably very expensive, Hugo thought, most of the mercs had to settle for the red lights, but Eduardo had gotten them the goggles.
It was like nightvision, but instead of greens, Hugo saw lots of differently-shaded blues and blacks, the occasional red and orange forms of jungle animals, mostly flying bats – vampire bats. Hugo didn’t like them, the doctors the gringos brought with them said that those little bloodsuckers had rabies…
Hugo stepped on something warm and wet. He saw it, a big red and orange mess on the ground. He pulled off his goggles to get a good look…it was a boar, a stuck pig. No, it wasn’t a stuck pig, it was bloody but there weren’t any wounds Hugo could see. He was about to bend down to examine the thing further or call Chavez when…
Fidel smashed his skull with a rock.
“Huh? What was that?” Chavez said as he turned around. He swore he heard something, not just the sound of drizzling raindrops. He cautiously made his way to where the sound came from and found Hugo lying on the ground and not moving. “Hugo?!” he bent down to check if the man was… shallow breathing, barely alive… head smashed… “Shit! Just stay still, buddy… I’ll get him for you...”
Chavez got up and brought his shotgun to bear. There, rustling leaves and branches, movement, but no heat signature. The motherfucker went there, ran deeper into the jungle after getting Hugo!
“Puta…” Chavez hissed as he began the pursuit and made his way deeper into the jungle, leaving Hugo behind. “I’ll find you… I’ll get you…”
Fidel emerged from the trees and crouched beside Hugo, got the machete the big man had in his hands.
Silently, he ghosted Chavez.
Held the machete up.
The blade and the handcuffs reflected dim moonlight.
Brought the machete down the back of the man’s head.
Alejandro moved slowly and silently, ears sharp, goggled eyes scanning side to side, Kalashnikov held up and ready to fire. Stopped and crouched behind a tree, low and hard to see.
Nearby, Fidel leaned his back against another tree. Tightened his grip on the bloody machete.
Frogs started croaking.
Eduardo was alone now. He held the silenced .45 tight, switched the safeties off, worked the slide.
Where was everyone?
He heard something moving, turned around, saw nothing.
Spun around and fired a whisper of a shot. Nothing.
He ripped off his thermal goggles, cheap mass-produced shit couldn’t see anything.
Scanned with his eyes, listened with his ears.
“Hugo?!”
“Chavez?!”
“Alejandro?!”
Something got into his opened mouth, hit the back of his throat. He chocked and spat it out, whatever it was, into his hand.
It was a tiny frog, it croaked. Dim moonlight glistened on its golden yellow scales.
“Shit...”
Eduardo held his neck and tried to continue speaking, but it was hard. Just like breathing. Just like standing. He fell to his knees, both hands on his neck, eyes opened wide in surprise and fear as a dark figure emerged from the trees and approached him.
Eduardo keeled over and his mouth started foaming.
Fidel crouched beside him and examined the half of the Subsistence suit on Eduardo, checked if everything was intact. The pockets of the suit were still full, the first-aid kit, the rations, the NV-binoculars, motion detector. And the radio. The Subsistence suit was missing its tactical webbing though. That meant no ammo for the AKM with grenade launcher, which Fidel didn’t have. No plastic explosives. No semtex. No tranqs. No keys. Fidel glanced sideways at the paralyzed Eduardo’s face, whose mouth was foaming, raindrops were hitting his face, and his wide-open eyes were glaring at Fidel.
“I’m gonna get my stuff back,” Fidel worked the slide of his .45. He noticed Eduardo’s prominent brown bandana. “That’s a nice bandana-”
“Step away from him,” Alejandro said, stepping out of the underbrush twenty feet away from Fidel, his Kalashnikov armed and aimed. “No sudden-”
In the dark, he couldn’t see the machete sail through the air, but he did feel it impale into his torso, right in the region where chest met the abdomen. Breathing was suddenly much harder; with a two-foot piece of sharpened steel lodged in his thoracic diaphragm, drawing breath was now impossible.
Blood dripped from the side of his mouth. He staggered back and squeezed the Kalashnikov’s trigger, sending a stream of full automatic lead flying everywhere as, at the same time, he struggled to pry the machete from his chest. One hand gripped the blade’s handle and pulled, the other tried to aim at Fidel and handle the rifle’s kicking recoil.
Leaves exploded, branches were ripped off, Fidel snatched a particularly large piece of flying wood and lunged at the ailing mercenary, who continued to blast away at full automatic.
Fidel brought the thick branch up to protect himself, its top exploding into a shower of splinters as a bullet ripped through it, continued its path, and tore a deep bloody gash across the side of Fidel’s head.
Fidel gritted his teeth and, with the branch, smashed the Kalashnikov from the merc’s hand. Fidel then hammered the machete in its handle, driving the blade deeper into the merc’s chest cavity, and then, once more with the branch, struck the man in the knee joint, snapping his leg like a twig. As the man fell forward, Fidel sidestepped him and smashed the back of his skull, one last time with the branch.
Fidel discarded his stick and returned to the still-foaming Eduardo. Fidel was done searching the ½ Subsistence suit, now he searched the Brazilian’s denim pants. He found the keys in the back pocket.
“Free at last,” Fidel muttered as he threw the steel handcuffs into the paralyzed Eduardo’s face and began the process of reacquiring his gear. He holstered his silenced .45 and zipped on the top of his Subsistence suit, grabbed Alejandro’s Kalashnikov and all its ammo, and then, lastly, went back and remove Eduardo’s brown bandana. Fidel wore it tight to stop the bleeding from the wound on his head.
He looked down at Eduardo, who was now chocking in his own saliva.
“I think I’ll keep it.”
The command-trailer was a mobile hub for command, control, communications, computers and intelligence, C4I – the Corporation always placed logistics first and foremost. Right now, specialized henchmen, still in jumpsuits and hardhats, were monitoring computers and comm.-links that networked them with search teams, security squads, mercenaries and henchmen patrolling the bases and the jungle, sniper posts located on the trees in high-hides, surveillance equipment and autonomous platforms. Plasma screens and the occasional hologram gave the vehicle’s spacious interior a cold air.
The command-trailer was one of the many facilities higher-ranking Corporates could use for their personal purposes, and was therefore extremely secure. Multilayered tank-grade armoring, transparent steel windows, concealed remote gun-mounts incorporating HMGs and target-seeking shotguns, a hybrid engine that allowed the trailer a disproportionate off-and-on-road top-speed, NBC protection, passive metahuman countermeasures, and other features made the trailer the safest place to be in the jungle.
Number 13 opened the hydraulic-assisted door and entered, wearing his black armor and holding a cup of coffee with a gauntleted hand. He went to a hardhat manning a comm.-console.
“Situation report.”
“Sir…he’s taken down a search team. Two KIAs, the other two in critical condition.”
“Status of the criticals?”
“One of them suffered blunt-force trauma to the head, the other one has been poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” 13 raised an eyebrow.
“With a tree-frog, to the throat, sir.”
“Resourceful…” 13 said to himself.
“We’re re-routing search teams to the area, sir.”
“Contact the Problem-Solvers, direct them to the area as well. If he hasn’t gone far, they can still find him,” he took a sip of coffee. Normally, he would be in his sleep-cycle, but the circumstances required a change of schedule. The other higher-ups though, from Boyer to Thornier, were sound asleep. “Where is Coleman?”
The hardhat inputted some commands into his keyboard and listened with his earpiece. “At the infirmary, sir.”
“Send him out.”
“Sir, I don’t think he’s exactly in combat condition…” the henchman found himself the subject of 13’s piercing glare and had second thoughts. “Uh…I’ll try contacting him, sir. Patching through to video-radio.”
They could hear Theodore Coleman in the speakers: “He made me bleed and I’ll kill him for it! I’ll show him, I’ll show him that I can see. I’ll make blood come out of every hole in his body, and then he’ll know fear, he’ll know pain. He’ll know my fury! Let me at him!”
His eyes had a mad glint visible through the monitor.
“Go,” 13 commanded. He turned to the hardhat henchman. “Give him the directions.”
“Right, sir,” the henchman nodded. “I just hope his injuries aren’t too bad…”
“It doesn’t matter,” 13 said. Coleman was expendable, like the rest of them. He looked at the henchman coldly. “What is your name?”
The hardhat gulped. He tried to concentrate on the reports from his video-radio, avoiding the pigmentless arch-henchman’s dead eyes and trying to look busy. “I’m Jonathan, sir.”
Number 13 nodded.
“Um…sir, is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Yes,” Number 13 answered coldly. “Scan the radio channels, search for any and all frequencies we aren’t using. Ingoing and outgoing transmissions, everything.”
“Okay,” Jonathan replied, hastily tapping buttons on his console. “Though, sir, would you mind my asking?”
Number 13 gave him an impassive look. “If he’s escaped and re-acquired his equipment, he will attempt to re-establish contact.”
Fidel smeared his chest with ointment, spreading it on the burns and on the large splotches of dark purple bruises. The medical kit that came with the Subsistence suit had ointment, all-purpose medical cream that also served as local anesthetic, and styptic, titanium dioxide medication sticks that staunched cuts and left a sting.
With the bandages he got from the Corporation’s supply cabinet, he dressed his wounds up and covered the burns.
Then he took off his new bandana, which went from brown to a vague dark color due to the blood coming out of the side of his head. Fidel wiped the excess blood off his temple and examined the deep gash with a small mirror.
A styptic wouldn’t be enough to stop the bleeding, ointment couldn’t do anything, and he didn’t have enough bandages to wrap around his head. There wasn’t much disinfectant left… He’d have to conserve what little medical supplies he had, there were no doubt worse wounds to be had later…
Fidel took out a 7.62 x 39 mm cartridge, opened it, and sprinkled the powder very carefully onto the side of his head.
Then he got a waterproof match and lit it.
And lit the powder, searing his wound shut.
He gritted his teeth but didn’t scream, not even as he smelled it. His eyes did get teary.
He replaced the brown bandana, though it wasn’t brown anymore but a vague dark color.
Then he checked his radio, if it was still intact, and placed the earpiece into his ear, wrapped the microphone’s strap around his throat. He flicked it on and found the Major’s frequency.
“Major, this is Fidel…I’m still alive.”
“Fidel, what happened?! You were gone for hours, where were you? What’s your status?”
“I’m fine…I just got captured and tortured but I…”
“Did they get anything out of you?”
“No, I escaped before they could.”
“Fidel, your capture means that the mission has been compromised.”
“But I escaped, didn’t I?!”
“Yes you did, and that means you survived. But you’ve failed the mission, Fidel. There’s nothing more you can do. Contact the Enriques, get out of there.”
“Then what?”
“Then we’ll return to Cuba and figure something out…”
“Major, you know there are consequences if I fail the mission.”
“But what can you do, Fidel? Just by the sound of your voice, I can tell you’re nowhere near combat capable condition.”
“I’ve been through worse, Major. You know that.”
“Just get out of that godforsaken jungle, Fidel.”
“No. Major, soldiers stand up and fight.”
“…”
“Major?”
“Call the Enriques, Fidel.”
“I already told you, I’m not running away! I’m going to complete my mission!”
“Then call the Enriques and give them an approximation of where you were being held. If they know the lay of the land, then they can figure out the coordinates of the base and relay it to me. Then maybe I can figure out a way to support you.”
“Oh...alright. Switching frequencies…now,” Fidel dialed down to the Enriques’ radio frequency. “Enrique, can you hear me? Are you still up there?”
No response.
“Enrique, it’s me, Fidel Castro. I need help, right now.”
“Damn it, Enriques, answer me!”
“Fidel Castro,” a distorted and modulated artificial voice answered.
“Who the hell is this?!”
“Who I am is not important.”
“What?! Where are the Enriques?!”
“Listen to me Castro. I will give you coordinates, meet me.”
“Meet you where? And when?”
“I will tell you when and where.”
“Who the hell are you? Are you the inside man?”
“Yes. Be advised, Problem-Solvers are on route to your last known location.”
“Problem-Solvers?”
“Specialized mercenaries, like your interrogator. There are five of them.”
“Right…”
“Contact me at this frequency. 144.31.”
“Wait, what do I call you?”
“Call me N.”
After N hung up, Fidel called the Major.
“So, do you trust him?”
“No.”
“Good. Don’t let your guard down, Fidel. Not even for a second. Meet him, but be extremely careful.”
“I will.”
“And don’t hesitate. If you suspect anything, kill him.”
Last edited by Shroom Man 777 on 2007-09-18 08:18am, edited 1 time in total.
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
Fidel crouched beside him and examined the half of the Subsistence suit on Eduardo, checked if everything was intact. The pockets of the suit were still full, the first-aid kit, the rations, the NV-binoculars, motion detector. And the radio. The Subsistence suit was missing its tactical webbing though. That meant no ammo for the AKM with grenade launcher, which Fidel didn’t have. No plastic explosives. No semtex. No tranqs. No keys. Fidel glanced sideways at the paralyzed Eduardo’s face, whose mouth was foaming, raindrops were hitting his face, and his wide-open eyes were glaring at Fidel.
“I’m gonna get my stuff back,” Fidel worked the slide of his .45. He noticed Eduardo’s prominent brown bandana. “That’s a nice bandana-”
So that Fidel's equipment will be more stripped down. He'll just have his knife and his pistol.
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
"
- PeZook
Ouch. I feel sorry for Fidel. I wonder who's coming.
