Mission: Scripted

This is IMF's Christmas story that has nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas. It also has nothing to do with this current mission. Merry Christmas everybody! And a happy New Year!

Timothius woke up with a groan. He couldn’t remember anything that had happened to him since he went to bed that night. Confused, he felt hard floor underneath him.
“Are you awake?” said a voice. It was Ryan Cruise.
“Yeah,” Tim nodded. He opened his eyes, but the lighting didn’t change much. Wherever they were, it sure was dark. “Where are we?”
“He must not remember anything after he was knocked out,” Ryan said to someone else.
“We’re in a dungeon,” said another voice. This one was Cathy’s.
“How’d we get here?” Tim asked groggily. He tried to remember but he couldn’t recall anything that had happened.
“We were infiltrating the Russian Embassy,” Ryan answered him. “You screwed up, though.”
“Excuse me?” Cathy exclaimed. “You were the one that knocked the mantelpiece over!”
“So? Nobody heard that.” Ryan argued.
“Then why are we here?”
Ryan shrugged. “Bad luck?”
“Guys, guys,” Tim held up his hand. “What happened to me?” His head felt like a watermelon that had been split open by a sledgehammer. (Whatever that feels like, but it looks painful.)
“Some guard knocked you on the head when you tried to resist,” Ryan explained. “You actually took about three guys out before that.” Ryan paused and reflected the moment before continuing. “They came running when you stepped on that piece of glass--”
“You mean when you knocked the mantelpiece over,” Cathy interrupted.
“Why was there a mantelpiece there in the first place? That’s what I want to know,” Ryan said, defending himself. “I mean this is an embassy, not somebody’s living room.”
“Well the point is,” Cathy ignored his comment. “We’re here and how do we get out?”
“No problem,” Ryan assured them. “I’ve got it all figured out.”
“You said that when the mantelpiece dropped,” Cathy snapped.
“What makes you think I didn’t have it all figure out then?”
“Well, maybe the fact that we’re now trapped in this dungeon!”
“That was part of the plan,” Ryan said, defiantly.
“Why are we in the Russian Embassy?” Timothius asked, still trying to figure out exactly what was going on.
Ryan started to explain but then just tossed him a stack of papers that were stapled together. “Forget it, just read this.”
“What’s this?” Timothius asked.
“The script,” Ryan replied. “It tells exactly what’s going to happen and what’s already happened.”
“Hey!” Timothius exclaimed. “It starts with me waking up, and you guys standing the dungeon. This is exactly how it happened!”
“Yeah,” Ryan shrugged as if this were common knowledge. “Didn’t I already say that?”
“Yeah, but…” Tim trailed off. “This is amazing!”
“You mean you didn’t know about this?” Ryan asked.
“No,” Timothius shook his head.
“Neither did I,” Cathy admitted, taking the script from Timothius.
“Wow,” Ryan shook his head. “You guys are missing out. It has all our lines, what we’re supposed to do, everything. I stopped thinking for myself two episodes ago.”
“Incredible,” Tim shook his head. “It even has me reading the script on the script, on the script, on the script, on the script--”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t hurt yourself” Ryan said, uninterested. “The script is all knowing, we can’t do anything that isn’t in the script. Even if we think we’re doing something totally out of the box, it’s on the script.”
“So,” Cathy ventured. “Do we like, have no free will?”
“Are you kidding me?!” Ryan appeared surprised at the question. “Of course we don’t, we just do whatever the script says.”
“This is so hard to believe,” Timothius shook his head.
“You get used to it,” Ryan said.
Suddenly, the dungeon door burst open, and two men walked inside.
“Who are they?” Tim whispered.
“Check the script,” Ryan whispered back.
Tim scanned the script. “…Crazy Horse and one of his henchmen,” he read aloud. “Enter the room. The henchman had a crow bar in his hands, which he was slapping against his hands, menacingly.” They looked up to see Crazy Horse and one of his henchmen enter the room. The henchman had a crow bar in his hands, which he was slapping against his hands, menacingly.
“Weird,” Tim murmured. He continued to read, “‘shut up,’ Crazy Horse growled.”
“Shut up,” Crazy Horse growled. “We have some talking to do. Like why-”
“We were in your embassy and who knocked over the mantelpiece,” Tim interrupted, reading his own quote from the script.
“Yes…” Crazy Horse paused, looking curiously at the script in Tim’s hands. Then he caught himself. “Well? Why are you here?”
Tim shrugged. “I’m still looking for that answer myself. Oh, here it is.” Tim looked at Ryan, who looked over his shoulder at the script.
“It has me spilling the whole story in here?” Ryan said in disbelief.
“Yeah,” Tim pointed to the passage.
Ryan shrugged. “Okay, well the emperor sent us on a mission here because he was worried that you had a little too much contact with terrorists, you meaning, Russia, of course. He sent us here to try and spy on you for information about your activities.”
Crazy Horse eyed him. “And who broke the mantelpiece?”
Ryan and Cathy pointed at each other at the same time.
“You will all pay for this!” Crazy Horse screamed.
“No we won’t,” Ryan shook his head.
“What?” Crazy Horse frowned.
“We won’t pay for this,” Ryan corrected him. “We escape.”
“How do you know?” Crazy Horse was skeptical.
“Look at the script,” Timothius said, tossing him the script.
Crazy Horse scanned the script quickly. “…’They laughed at him as he fumed in rage,’ blah, blah, blah. Ah, here it is.” Crazy Horse grinned, expecting that they were wrong. “All seemed lost, just as it appeared that they would be wrong…” Crazy Horse trailed off. “What? This is ridiculous!” He threw the script down. “How is a guy supposed to make a villainous living around here if some script writer guys are writing happy endings to all these stories?”
They laughed at him as he fumed in rage.
Ryan shrugged. “Crime doesn’t pay.” Then he grinned. “I made that up myself.”
“Actually,” Tim said, picking up the script. “That was in here.”
“Shut up,” Ryan snapped.
Suddenly, Crazy Horse spun towards them. “You know what? I don’t care what that script says. I’m going to kill you anyways, because no one controls me!” He pulled a gun from his holster and cocked it. Crazy Horse pointed it at the three IMF agents, his finger tightening at the trigger.
All seemed lost, just as it appeared that they would be wrong, however, Crazy Horse’s gun clicked. Amazed, the IMF agents watched as Crazy Horse pulled the trigger again, ‘click.’ No bullets.
Crazy Horse threw the gun down in disgust. “There’s no fighting it, is there?”
Ryan shook his head. “Nope. That was in the script too.” He reached up to knock out the villain, but Tim stopped him.
“Ladies first,” Tim shook his finger.
“Thank you,” Cathy said. Then she reached over and knocked Crazy Horse on the back of the head, knocking him out cold.
The henchman fled, but Ryan shot him in the back with a silenced pistol that the henchman had dropped in his haste.
“Now what?” Cathy asked.
“The script says, ‘they snuck up behind the three guards and knocked them out. Then they dragged them into a closet and put on their uniforms.’” Tim looked up from the script. “I guess that’s what we do.”
They walked down the hall, away from the dungeon. All of the sudden, three guards appeared around the corner, with their backs turned to them. They snuck up behind the three guards and knocked them out. Then they dragged them into a closet and put on their uniforms.
Acting casually, they walked out of the embassy, and onto the street. Not until they had gotten into their car did the alarm sound.
“Did we get what we came for?” Tim asked.
“Yep,” Ryan nodded, and held up a folder. “Enough evidence to prove that Russia has been involved with several terrorist organizations.”
“How come they didn’t take it from you?” Tim asked.
Ryan shrugged. “Ask the guy who writes the script. Must have been for time constraint reasons or something.”
Ryan started up the car and they drove off. It was night by now, and they were all tired. They took turns driving until they could reach the Imperial Palace; it was a long drive. When it was Tim’s turn to rest, he lay down in the back. Slowly, he drifted into a long, deep sleep…

Timothius woke up with a start. “Aaa!” he cried.
Ryan was lying on a couch across the room from him. “What?” he asked.
“I dreamt that we were on a mission,” Tim said, still breathing hard.
“That’s ridiculous, we’re on leave, finally,” Ryan said.
“And everything was scripted,” Tim continued.
“Scripted? What do you mean?”
“Like, everything we did was on a script,” Timothius explained.
“That’s dumb. We would have, like, no free will,” Ryan frowned.
“We didn’t, everything we did, or were going to do, was on the script, and we couldn’t change it.” “That’s really dumb. Who wrote this script anyways? God or someone?”
“No,” Tim shook his head, trying to remember the authors. “It was these two guys, I can’t remember their names. They seemed familiar, though. I think that we were based after them or something.”
“So, they wrote everything that happened to us, in the dream? And they even based themselves after us?” Ryan asked.
“Yeah, if they wanted us to fly away on carpets, I imagine they could make it happen. And actually, they based us off of them.”
“Yeah right,” Ryan waved him off. Just then, a cat flew by on a flying carpet. Ryan rubbed his eyes and blinked several times. “Did that just happen?”
“Yeah,” Tim nodded. “You see what I mean?”
Ryan looked as if he were starting to believe him. “This is incredible.” Suddenly…

Timothius woke up and jumped out of bed. “That was weird!” he exclaimed.
“What was weird?” Ryan asked. Ryan was standing in the doorway, wearing civilian clothes.
“Aaa!” Tim yelled. “What are you doing here?”
“I was staying at your house, remember?” Ryan said.
“Sorry,” Tim shook his head. “It’s just, everytime I wake up and see you, I’m in another dream.”
“You really shouldn’t have so much soda before going to bed if you’re gonna scream and talk all through the night afterwards.” He added. “You must have had some dream.”
“Boy did I ever,” Tim nodded. “I dreamed that our lives were all recorded in a script and that everything happened the way it was written.”
“Some dream,” Ryan agreed that it was crazy. “Oh great,” he groaned.
“What?” Tim asked.
“That, that over there. It’s coming towards us!”
“Where? What is it?” Tim saw it too now.
Ryan shook his head in disbelief. “It’s…”

The End?

And it was all just a dream... or was it?