Sorry about the delay guys; I promise it won’t happen again, unless there’s another delay. I wrote parts of this one while I was sick and slightly feverish so… if there’s parts where sentences are repeated and stuff, you’ll know why. If there’s parts where sentences are repeated and stuff, you’ll know why. If there’s parts where sentences are repeated and stuff, you’ll know why. Lol Sorry, I couldn’t resist resist. ;)
Continued from two weeks ago...
Tim and Sarah were quickly strapping on their equipment as they explained the whole story to Jordan.
“So… they disappeared?” Jordan asked for the third time, he appeared confused and leaned against his helicopter for support.
“Yes,” Sarah snapped, stamping her foot on the landing platform. “They disappeared; they are no longer here; we don’t know where they are. Got that?”
Jordan frowned. “Yes, but it doesn’t seem very likely that Ryan would be caught off guard. He’s a professional; he knows what he’s doing.”
“Look, all we need is a ride, flyboy,” Sarah said. “Are you going to help us, or not?”
“Of course,” Jordan replied, throwing up his hands. “Anything for Ryan, you don’t have to get so testy about it.”
“I’m not testy!”
“Yes, you are,” Tim agreed. “Too testy, you’re gonna need to calm down.”
Jordan glanced behind him too see Clarence running towards them, his arms waving. “And we’re going to need to get out of here before Clarence crashes the party,” Jordan observed.
“She wouldn’t,” Sarah said in disbelief. “Forbid us to go and look for Ryan and Emmy?”
Tim glanced at Clarence, who was now frantically motioning for them to stop and come down from the platform. “She would,” he muttered.
“All right,” Jordan said, swinging himself into the cockpit. “Prepare yourselves, we’re in for a bumpy ride.” There was a closable hole in the ceiling, which Jordan had opened moments before, that was used for aircraft. This hole was slowly closing, however, which would make the take off that much more difficult.
“The opening is closing,” Tim noted.
“I see it,” Jordan barked, flipping switches and starting the lift off. “This is gonna be close.”
“How close?” Tim yelled over the roaring engine, but Jordan couldn’t hear him. He lifted the helicopter off the landing pad and they started to rise towards the ceiling.
“That hole is getting smaller,” Sarah warned.
Jordan gritted his teeth and flew straight for the hole. “Come on!” he yelled.
“We’re gonna hit,” Tim groaned.
“No we’re not!” Jordan exclaimed. He approached the hole; it was going to be close. If one of the blades so much as scraped the sides, they were done. Jordan was fully aware of this and he was sweating bullets.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. They passed through the opening and out into the open. “Yes!” Jordan cheered, with Tim and Sarah joining in.
“We made it!” Sarah screamed. Then her face turned dark. “We could have died, I can’t believe that Cathy would do that!”
“Neither can I,” Tim agreed. “But we better get out of here.” The opening clanked shut behind them.
“There’s no going back, that’s for sure,” Jordan observed.
“Take us to him, Jordan,” Tim ordered. “Take us to Cruise.”
“So where’s Emmy?” Ryan asked Jason for the second time.
“Hang on a sec, I’m gonna give you a shot of adrenaline,” Jason replied. He took out a long needle and syringe. “You’re gonna feel this,” Jason warned.
“Ha, ha, no kidding,” Ryan chuckled nervously. “Look at the size of that thi—Aaaaa!” Jason didn’t wait for him to finish, instead he stabbed him in mid-sentence.
“Whoa!” Ryan yelled, shaking his head. “This is great, I’m ready now, man! Wait, wait,” he snatched his shades from the table in the interrogation room and stuck them in his belt since it was too dark to wear them. “Now I’m ready, let’s go.”
“Come on then, Cruise,” Jason led him through a doorway. Inside was a huge brawl, with one person in the middle, holding her own.
“Heeya!” Emmy cried, kicking one of the five men in the groin who were currently attacking her. The man groaned and fell over.
Jason pulled out his pistol and shot the other four in quick succession. “Come on, let’s go.”
“I could have taken them,” Emmy protested.
“I’m sure you could have, sis,” Ryan said. “But let’s get going.”
“Who is this guy? What’s he doing here?” Emmy asked.
“I’m here for the same reason you are,” Jason replied.
“I don’t even know why we’re here,” Ryan mumbled.
“Because we all want the same thing, the death of the emperor,” Jason informed him.
“So these guys were working for the empire?”
“No, I have no idea whose side these guys are on, they just like to blow things, including themselves, up.”
“And they like to torture people, apparently,” Ryan added.
“Yeah, but that’s beside the point.”
“What is the point?” Emmy asked as they continued to make their way through the dark underground tunnels of the terrorists’ lair.
“To kill the emperor and then disappear as if we never existed.”
“Want to go over that last part again?” Ryan shouted as they ran.
“Do you really think they’ll let us live if we just go in and shoot the emperor; no, we’re gonna have to fake our deaths or something.”
“How do you know we even want to kill the emperor?” Cruise asked.
Jason Scorn stopped and turned around; he looked Ryan straight in the eyes. “Who doesn’t?” he asked.
Ryan nodded. “Good point.”
“Come on, let’s go then, I have a plan,” Jason started running again, and Ryan and Emmy quickened their paces to catch up.
“What’s the plan?” Emmy asked.
“To kill the emperor,” Jason replied matter-of-factly. “Without getting killed in the process.”
“What do you mean ‘Laz has been put in charge of supervising’?” Cathy nearly screamed into the phone.
On the other line, Clarence winced and held the phone away from his ear. “Precisely that madam,” he replied, rubbing his ear.
“How much damage has he done?” Cathy asked in a slightly calmer manner.
“Well, he hasn’t caused as much as we thought, he’s been overruled on almost everything by Christophear.”
“Thank God,” Cathy breathed.
“Hey, I heard that!” came Laz’s voice from the other line. “Where’s Ryan? I want to speak with him.”
“He’s currently unavailable,” Cathy said coldly.
“Since when? He’s always available unless…” Laz trailed off. “You sent him on a mission without me, didn’t you?”
“I did no such thing!” Cathy lied.
“Why would you do that?” Laz cried. “He never succeeds when he goes on a mission without me.”
“Laz, he doesn’t succeed when you go with him either,” Cathy muttered.
“Exactly my… wait, what’d you say?”
Cathy sighed. “Laz, just put Clarence back on will you?”
“Fine, you obviously don’t want to talk to me,” Laz shrugged and handed Clarence the phone.
Just then Chris approached Laz, “Any luck on finding Ryan?” he asked.
“Nope,” Laz shook his head. “I wonder where he is?”
“Where the heck are we anyways?” Ryan asked.
Jason Scorn simply kept walking and didn’t answer.
Ryan shrugged. “I love how talkative this guy is.”
“I dunno, I think he’s kinda cute,” Emmy said, softly enough so Jason couldn’t hear.
“Oh please, that’s just stupid,” Ryan rolled his eyes. “I mean he’s a killing machine.”
“So are you,” Emmy reminded him.
Ryan nodded. “That’s true but I’m not cute.”
Emmy nudged him. “Fine, he’s hot then.”
“That’s better,” Ryan laughed, but suddenly he halted. Ahead of them Jason dug into a crouch as well.
“What is it?” Emmy whispered, following their example.
“Helicopter,” Ryan hissed. “Get into the brush!” They all sprang for the trees and amongst the branches, hoping that the helicopter would pass, but it didn’t appear as if they would have such luck. The helicopter started to slowly descend towards their position, heading for a small clearing a few hundred yards away.
“It’s landing,” Jason said softly.
“Well I’m glad you’re here to tell us that!” Ryan snapped. “What’s next? The emperor is trying to kill us?”
“Hey! Who saved your butt back there at the terrorist’s little hideout, huh?” Jason broke his usual code of silence.
“I could have escaped without your help,” Ryan said defiantly.
“Yeah right, how?”
“I don’t know I didn’t have to! I would have thought of something though.”
“Shhh!” Emmy hushed them. “They just landed.”
A pair of boots stepped out from the helicopter, followed by another. Then the pilot himself stepped out. All three of the figures were fully decked out in combat suits and fully camouflaged. That didn’t keep Ryan from recognizing them, however.
“I know who that is!” Ryan exclaimed. “It’s Tim, and Jordan, and Sarah.”
“Who?” Jason asked.
“Friends of ours, come on,” Ryan waved him to follow and approached the helicopter.
The instant he stepped within sight, all three figures whirled around and trained their weapons on him.
“Relax guys, its me,” Ryan held up his hands and motioned for Jason and Emmy to do the same. Tim, Sarah, and Jordan did not lower their weapons, however.
“Guys, its me, come on,” Ryan chuckled nervously.
Sarah reached for her radio carefully and clicked on the transmission. “We have the fugitives in sight now, sir, awaiting your orders.”
“Oh no,” Ryan shook his head in disbelief.
Jason Scorn scowled at him. “Some friends of yours.”
“These aren’t our friends,” Ryan groaned. “We’ve been tricked.”
to be continued...
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Mission 5: Payback part 11
continued from two weeks ago...
As soon as he heard the scream, Tim knew that they’d been tricked. He and Sarah both looked at each other and then whirled around and started tearing pell-mell through the forest, looking for Ryan and Emmy. They kept their weapons in ready position constantly scanning the perimeter for any danger. No one could be seen, however, including Ryan and Emmy.
“They vanished,” Sarah gasped.
“It looks that way,” Tim replied, still searching for any signs of Ryan and Emmy’s whereabouts.
“I should never had left him,” Sarah groaned.
“I hardly see how you left him,” Tim disagreed. “We were on a recon mission, you and I had the eastern side of the camp and they had the west. How does that qualify as ‘leaving him’?”
“Shut up Tim,” Sarah muttered. “Just let me sulk, will you?”
Tim shrugged and sarcastically mumbled something he’d heard Ryan say a thousand times, “women.”
“What do we do now?” Sarah asked in a distressed tone.
“We have to tell Cathy about this,” Tim decided. “But first we need to get out of here.”
“We’re just going to leave him here?”
Tim sighed. “Last time I checked they’d both disappeared, which means we would be leaving ‘them’ behind not ‘him’, and yes, we are; we have not other choice.”
“I said ‘them’,” Sarah protested.
“No you didn’t,” Tim said.
“I did too.”
“Of course, of course, whatever you say.” Then he mumbled to himself again, “women.”
When the black bag was finally pulled from his face, a glaring white light instantly blinded Ryan. “Whoa there, turn the light down a little, will you?” Ryan also noticed that he was strapped into a metal chair in a very uncomfortable position and that the room had no windows.
“You will not find yourself so trivial in a minute, Mr. Cruise,” a heavily accented voice said from behind the light. He sounded Arabic but Cruise couldn’t imagine an Arab getting into the empire, the emperor had set up strict immigration laws that banned all Arabs and Mexicans from even entering the empire.
“So you’re the one that kidnapped us then, huh? Where’s Emmy, is she okay?”
“She is fine, worry about yourself.”
“I’m not too accustomed to that.”
The accented voice laughed. “You will learn quickly then.” He turned on a radio and heavy metal music started blasting from the speakers. “Are you familiar with this method of torture, Mr. Cruise?”
“Yeah that’s Slayer,” Cruise replied, never letting the boyish, cocky grin fall from his face. “Great band, love their music.”
“Aaaaa!” the interrogator slammed the radio and the music stopped. “You stupid infidels!” he yelled to someone outside the room. “I told you to get different tools for torture you stupid fools! Cruise likes loud American music with heavy metal guitars, get something else.”
“How about rap, like 65 Cent or Pee Wee Daddy?” a suggestion came from one of the ‘infidels’ outside.
“That’s some pretty sic stuff, bring it in,” Cruise replied.
“Ack! No you fools, try something else!” the interrogator yelled.
“Michael?”
“Sweet, what albums do you have?”
“Try something else!” the interrogator screamed. “Do you hate any music?” he asked Cruise.
“No, not really,” Ryan shook his head.
“What about punk?”
“Bring it on.”
“Pop?”
“Sure, whatever you got.”
Suddenly, a grin spread across the interrogator’s face. “What about… country?”
Ryan inhaled sharply. “NO! Not that, anything but that!”
“Bring in some country, men,” the triumphant interrogator bellowed. Then he turned to Ryan Cruise, “you will tell me where the Rebel base is, or you will listen to trashy American song about girl who hates cheating boyfriend over and over again.”
“Noooooooo!” Ryan yelled.
15 minutes later…
“Please,” Ryan cried. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, just don’t make me listen to this song again.”
The interrogator smiled and turned of the music. “You see that this form of torture is much more effective than say… beating you within inch of your life.”
“I’d prefer that,” Cruise admitted. Then he added. “What is it that you want?”
“I told you already you stupid agent! I want your Rebel base!”
“Why?”
“So I can blow it up, why else would I want to know?”
“But why would you want to blow it up?”
“Because…” the interrogator paused and scratched his head. “I never really thought about that,” he said more to himself than Ryan.
“How exactly would you blow it up?” Ryan pressed.
“By strapping deadly explosives to my body with adhesive tape and screaming ‘Allah Akbar!’ and then pushing red button and blowing place to smithereens.”
“Wouldn’t that blow you up too?” Ryan seemed confused by the whole thing. “Why would you want to do that?”
The Arab paused. “I never thought about that either.”
“Wouldn’t it be a lot more beneficial to you if you just planted a bomb and blew the place up from the outside?”
“I suppose, but then no one would know I did it.”
“Exactly, and you wouldn’t be dead,” Ryan pointed out.
“I suppose that’s true, but what about my virgins that I’m promised in heaven?”
Ryan grinned and looked at him. “You seriously think that Allah has that many virgins, just waiting for every man who blows himself, and several small children, to pieces? Come on, he’s probably run out by now. I mean, if it was that easy to get twenty-one gorgeous women, everyone would be doing it. Not to mention that that doesn’t seem very honorable to me, blowing up innocent people because of your own religion.”
“That’s not true,” the Arab disagreed. “There will be twenty-one virgins.”
“Maybe, but are you willing to take that chance? Besides, you don’t need to blow yourself up to get a girl. How selfish is that anyways? I thought Islam was a ‘peaceful religion’, if blowing up innocent people is ‘peaceful’ then I’d hate to see a violent religion.”
“Shut up you infidel! You defy Allah!” The interrogator screamed and smacked Cruise on the face, then he turned the music back on and left Ryan to suffer.
Cathy gave a miserable sigh and rested her head in her hands. “Are you sure that they’ve disappeared.
“Without a trace,” Tim replied with a slight nod.
“And why do I get the impression that that doesn’t bother you?” Sarah struck out, showing her frustration.
“Because I know how to keep my emotions in check, as should you,” Tim answered.
Sarah ignored him and turned towards Cathy. “We need to launch a rescue mission, immediately. They’re still out there somewhere.”
Cathy heaved another long sigh. “I’m afraid we can’t do that.”
Sarah could hardly believe her ears. “Why not?”
“Because,” Cathy paused, searching for the right words. “In technical terms, the mission was a success, we’ve identified the camp as nothing more than a decoy. Ryan and Emmy’s loss was definitely a huge setback… but there’s nothing we can do.”
“Sure there is, we can rescue them,” Sarah pleaded.
Cathy shook her head. “We can’t afford to use our troops for anything other than this attack. We strike tomorrow morning, as soon as the sun hits the sky. We need every man and woman we can get, Sarah.”
“Then we need Ryan Cruise, you know that,” Sarah pressed, not giving up.
“It would take too many of our forces to rescue him or Emmy, and I’m not sure whether he would give us the advantage we want.”
“So that’s it,” Sarah replied, disgusted. “You’re thinking tactically, is that it?”
“One has to,” Tim interjected. “But I would like to point out that your words are somewhat cold, Cathy.”
Cathy glared at him. “And I’d like to remind you that he’s partially responsible for the death of one of my dear friends.”
“And for saving your life a hundred times over,” Tim shot back.
“Ryan Cruise never sacrificed himself for anything other than his own personal gain and glory. Obviously he’s seen that we’re in an impossible situation and persuaded his sister to run into hiding with him, or perhaps even betray us.”
Sarah’s mouth fell open and she started to object, but she was cut off by a very pissed off Tim.
“Now just a minute, Cathy. Ryan has sacrificed himself a thousand times for nothing other than what he thought was right. I admit that his ways are somewhat… different, but he would never betray us, he’s our friend!”
“Dismissed,” Cathy said.
“If you don’t rescue him and Emmy, then we will,” Sarah said, arms folded.
“That would be disobeying a direct order,” Cathy informed them, daring them to do so.
“Watch us do it,” Tim said, answering the challenge.
Then they walked out the door together, disgusted at Cathy, at the empire, and themselves.
Cathy just shook her head as she watched them leave. “They don’t understand, I’m only trying to do what’s right for the Rebellion.” Then she picked up the phone on her desk. “Clarence? Yes, it’s Cathy. Yeah, listen; I want you to move the attack up. Yes, make it tonight. Yes Clarence, I’m sure, it’s now or never.” She hung up the phone and repeated her words. “Now or never.”
Ryan had been listening to the worst country song in the history of bad country songs for over an hour now, and his ears were screaming, or they would have if they’d had mouths.
The terrorist entered the room again, once again repeating his demand. “Where is the Rebel base?”
“Whom are you working for?” Ryan whispered. “The Empire?”
“Do not insult me,” the terrorist scoffed. “I wish to destroy both the Rebels and the Empire.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to destroy the Empire first, since they’re stronger?” Ryan offered. “Two smaller adversaries could much more easily take down a bigger one. Then when we’ve won we can turn on each other.”
“You suggest this?”
“Sure, it’s been done a thousand times, just look at the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.”
“You make good point, Cruise,” the terrorist stroked his beard. “But I still want to kill you.”
“That comes later,” Ryan tried, but to no avail.
“No, it comes now.” The Arab drew a knife from his belt and stepped towards Cruise. Ryan flinched and prepared for the blow. He had a feeling that he couldn’t survive a point blank knife stab into his heart, which was no doubt what the Arab intended to do.
The terrorist raised his arm and then paused. “The heart is in left ventricle, no?”
“No, it’s in the right,” Ryan lied.
“You lie.”
“Yep, you’re right.”
The terrorist paused, confused. “Wait, do you lie then, or lie now?”
“That… is a very good question.”
Just as the terrorist was about to say, ‘screw American games’ and stab Ryan in his heart, a knife blade sliced through his own heart, sticking out his chest and revealing it’s tip to Ryan.
“It’s on the left,” a man’s voice said from behind him. The terrorist groaned and dropped to the ground, dead.
The man turned off the light and removed Ryan from his torture chair.
“Who are you?” Ryan asked.
The man looked at him with a serious face. “Jason Scorn,” he replied.
to be continued...
As soon as he heard the scream, Tim knew that they’d been tricked. He and Sarah both looked at each other and then whirled around and started tearing pell-mell through the forest, looking for Ryan and Emmy. They kept their weapons in ready position constantly scanning the perimeter for any danger. No one could be seen, however, including Ryan and Emmy.
“They vanished,” Sarah gasped.
“It looks that way,” Tim replied, still searching for any signs of Ryan and Emmy’s whereabouts.
“I should never had left him,” Sarah groaned.
“I hardly see how you left him,” Tim disagreed. “We were on a recon mission, you and I had the eastern side of the camp and they had the west. How does that qualify as ‘leaving him’?”
“Shut up Tim,” Sarah muttered. “Just let me sulk, will you?”
Tim shrugged and sarcastically mumbled something he’d heard Ryan say a thousand times, “women.”
“What do we do now?” Sarah asked in a distressed tone.
“We have to tell Cathy about this,” Tim decided. “But first we need to get out of here.”
“We’re just going to leave him here?”
Tim sighed. “Last time I checked they’d both disappeared, which means we would be leaving ‘them’ behind not ‘him’, and yes, we are; we have not other choice.”
“I said ‘them’,” Sarah protested.
“No you didn’t,” Tim said.
“I did too.”
“Of course, of course, whatever you say.” Then he mumbled to himself again, “women.”
When the black bag was finally pulled from his face, a glaring white light instantly blinded Ryan. “Whoa there, turn the light down a little, will you?” Ryan also noticed that he was strapped into a metal chair in a very uncomfortable position and that the room had no windows.
“You will not find yourself so trivial in a minute, Mr. Cruise,” a heavily accented voice said from behind the light. He sounded Arabic but Cruise couldn’t imagine an Arab getting into the empire, the emperor had set up strict immigration laws that banned all Arabs and Mexicans from even entering the empire.
“So you’re the one that kidnapped us then, huh? Where’s Emmy, is she okay?”
“She is fine, worry about yourself.”
“I’m not too accustomed to that.”
The accented voice laughed. “You will learn quickly then.” He turned on a radio and heavy metal music started blasting from the speakers. “Are you familiar with this method of torture, Mr. Cruise?”
“Yeah that’s Slayer,” Cruise replied, never letting the boyish, cocky grin fall from his face. “Great band, love their music.”
“Aaaaa!” the interrogator slammed the radio and the music stopped. “You stupid infidels!” he yelled to someone outside the room. “I told you to get different tools for torture you stupid fools! Cruise likes loud American music with heavy metal guitars, get something else.”
“How about rap, like 65 Cent or Pee Wee Daddy?” a suggestion came from one of the ‘infidels’ outside.
“That’s some pretty sic stuff, bring it in,” Cruise replied.
“Ack! No you fools, try something else!” the interrogator yelled.
“Michael?”
“Sweet, what albums do you have?”
“Try something else!” the interrogator screamed. “Do you hate any music?” he asked Cruise.
“No, not really,” Ryan shook his head.
“What about punk?”
“Bring it on.”
“Pop?”
“Sure, whatever you got.”
Suddenly, a grin spread across the interrogator’s face. “What about… country?”
Ryan inhaled sharply. “NO! Not that, anything but that!”
“Bring in some country, men,” the triumphant interrogator bellowed. Then he turned to Ryan Cruise, “you will tell me where the Rebel base is, or you will listen to trashy American song about girl who hates cheating boyfriend over and over again.”
“Noooooooo!” Ryan yelled.
15 minutes later…
“Please,” Ryan cried. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, just don’t make me listen to this song again.”
The interrogator smiled and turned of the music. “You see that this form of torture is much more effective than say… beating you within inch of your life.”
“I’d prefer that,” Cruise admitted. Then he added. “What is it that you want?”
“I told you already you stupid agent! I want your Rebel base!”
“Why?”
“So I can blow it up, why else would I want to know?”
“But why would you want to blow it up?”
“Because…” the interrogator paused and scratched his head. “I never really thought about that,” he said more to himself than Ryan.
“How exactly would you blow it up?” Ryan pressed.
“By strapping deadly explosives to my body with adhesive tape and screaming ‘Allah Akbar!’ and then pushing red button and blowing place to smithereens.”
“Wouldn’t that blow you up too?” Ryan seemed confused by the whole thing. “Why would you want to do that?”
The Arab paused. “I never thought about that either.”
“Wouldn’t it be a lot more beneficial to you if you just planted a bomb and blew the place up from the outside?”
“I suppose, but then no one would know I did it.”
“Exactly, and you wouldn’t be dead,” Ryan pointed out.
“I suppose that’s true, but what about my virgins that I’m promised in heaven?”
Ryan grinned and looked at him. “You seriously think that Allah has that many virgins, just waiting for every man who blows himself, and several small children, to pieces? Come on, he’s probably run out by now. I mean, if it was that easy to get twenty-one gorgeous women, everyone would be doing it. Not to mention that that doesn’t seem very honorable to me, blowing up innocent people because of your own religion.”
“That’s not true,” the Arab disagreed. “There will be twenty-one virgins.”
“Maybe, but are you willing to take that chance? Besides, you don’t need to blow yourself up to get a girl. How selfish is that anyways? I thought Islam was a ‘peaceful religion’, if blowing up innocent people is ‘peaceful’ then I’d hate to see a violent religion.”
“Shut up you infidel! You defy Allah!” The interrogator screamed and smacked Cruise on the face, then he turned the music back on and left Ryan to suffer.
Cathy gave a miserable sigh and rested her head in her hands. “Are you sure that they’ve disappeared.
“Without a trace,” Tim replied with a slight nod.
“And why do I get the impression that that doesn’t bother you?” Sarah struck out, showing her frustration.
“Because I know how to keep my emotions in check, as should you,” Tim answered.
Sarah ignored him and turned towards Cathy. “We need to launch a rescue mission, immediately. They’re still out there somewhere.”
Cathy heaved another long sigh. “I’m afraid we can’t do that.”
Sarah could hardly believe her ears. “Why not?”
“Because,” Cathy paused, searching for the right words. “In technical terms, the mission was a success, we’ve identified the camp as nothing more than a decoy. Ryan and Emmy’s loss was definitely a huge setback… but there’s nothing we can do.”
“Sure there is, we can rescue them,” Sarah pleaded.
Cathy shook her head. “We can’t afford to use our troops for anything other than this attack. We strike tomorrow morning, as soon as the sun hits the sky. We need every man and woman we can get, Sarah.”
“Then we need Ryan Cruise, you know that,” Sarah pressed, not giving up.
“It would take too many of our forces to rescue him or Emmy, and I’m not sure whether he would give us the advantage we want.”
“So that’s it,” Sarah replied, disgusted. “You’re thinking tactically, is that it?”
“One has to,” Tim interjected. “But I would like to point out that your words are somewhat cold, Cathy.”
Cathy glared at him. “And I’d like to remind you that he’s partially responsible for the death of one of my dear friends.”
“And for saving your life a hundred times over,” Tim shot back.
“Ryan Cruise never sacrificed himself for anything other than his own personal gain and glory. Obviously he’s seen that we’re in an impossible situation and persuaded his sister to run into hiding with him, or perhaps even betray us.”
Sarah’s mouth fell open and she started to object, but she was cut off by a very pissed off Tim.
“Now just a minute, Cathy. Ryan has sacrificed himself a thousand times for nothing other than what he thought was right. I admit that his ways are somewhat… different, but he would never betray us, he’s our friend!”
“Dismissed,” Cathy said.
“If you don’t rescue him and Emmy, then we will,” Sarah said, arms folded.
“That would be disobeying a direct order,” Cathy informed them, daring them to do so.
“Watch us do it,” Tim said, answering the challenge.
Then they walked out the door together, disgusted at Cathy, at the empire, and themselves.
Cathy just shook her head as she watched them leave. “They don’t understand, I’m only trying to do what’s right for the Rebellion.” Then she picked up the phone on her desk. “Clarence? Yes, it’s Cathy. Yeah, listen; I want you to move the attack up. Yes, make it tonight. Yes Clarence, I’m sure, it’s now or never.” She hung up the phone and repeated her words. “Now or never.”
Ryan had been listening to the worst country song in the history of bad country songs for over an hour now, and his ears were screaming, or they would have if they’d had mouths.
The terrorist entered the room again, once again repeating his demand. “Where is the Rebel base?”
“Whom are you working for?” Ryan whispered. “The Empire?”
“Do not insult me,” the terrorist scoffed. “I wish to destroy both the Rebels and the Empire.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to destroy the Empire first, since they’re stronger?” Ryan offered. “Two smaller adversaries could much more easily take down a bigger one. Then when we’ve won we can turn on each other.”
“You suggest this?”
“Sure, it’s been done a thousand times, just look at the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.”
“You make good point, Cruise,” the terrorist stroked his beard. “But I still want to kill you.”
“That comes later,” Ryan tried, but to no avail.
“No, it comes now.” The Arab drew a knife from his belt and stepped towards Cruise. Ryan flinched and prepared for the blow. He had a feeling that he couldn’t survive a point blank knife stab into his heart, which was no doubt what the Arab intended to do.
The terrorist raised his arm and then paused. “The heart is in left ventricle, no?”
“No, it’s in the right,” Ryan lied.
“You lie.”
“Yep, you’re right.”
The terrorist paused, confused. “Wait, do you lie then, or lie now?”
“That… is a very good question.”
Just as the terrorist was about to say, ‘screw American games’ and stab Ryan in his heart, a knife blade sliced through his own heart, sticking out his chest and revealing it’s tip to Ryan.
“It’s on the left,” a man’s voice said from behind him. The terrorist groaned and dropped to the ground, dead.
The man turned off the light and removed Ryan from his torture chair.
“Who are you?” Ryan asked.
The man looked at him with a serious face. “Jason Scorn,” he replied.
to be continued...
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Mission 5: Payback part 10
continued from last week...
Ryan chuckled nervously. “You’re not Sarah, are you?”
“You just figured that out? You’re dumber than I thought, Cruise.”
“Well, before you kill me, do you mind telling me who you are?”
“I was sent by Chuck Morris.”
“Of course, the classic ‘lure him with a girl’ approach, did the emperor cook this one up?”
“Who cares?” the spy who was impersonating Sarah said, her finger tightening on the trigger. She started to pull back on the trigger but there was suddenly a loud crash and the spy’s eyes rolled up into her eyelids and she fell to the ground. Standing behind her was a familiar girl, holding a now broken vase.
“Sarah!” Ryan said. “Where’d you get the vase?”
“Next time you impersonate someone,” Sarah said to the unconscious body. “You should check and see if they’re still around first.”
“I don’t think she can hear you,” Ryan muttered as he bent down and handcuffed the unconscious spy.
Sarah put her hands on her hips. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Ryan asked.
“Do I get a thanks, or not?”
“Yeah, thanks for saving my life,” Ryan thanked her unenthusiastically. Then he added, “come on, we got a lot of work to do.”
Sarah rolled her eyes and followed him.
Ryan quickly informed the first two guards that he saw of the unconscious prisoner who needed to be locked up. The guards quickly picked up the spy, and carried her to her prison cell.
Still upset that yet another spy could have gotten inside the rebel base, Sarah had quite a talking-to with Clarence. “As the head of security, you’ve got to make sure that no more imperial spies can get through those gates,” she said, pointing at the front gates for affect. “We need to be running full DNA and fingerprint scans, not to mention checking for masks.”
“Of course ma’am,” Clarence agreed, not wanting to argue with an already angry woman. “We’ll make sure those changes are made as quickly as possible.”
“We should probably report this to Cathy,” Ryan said.
Sarah nodded. “Definitely, have you finished gathering together the troops and transporting supplies?”
“No,” Ryan admitted. “But they know what to do, I already laid out all the orders, they just need a supervisor.”
“Let Laz do it,” Sarah suggested.
“You’re kidding, right?” Ryan nearly laughed.
“No I’m not, we’ve got more important things to discuss right now, come on,” she jogged towards the HQ with Ryan jogging right beside her.
“What exactly are we discussing?”
“You mean besides the fact that somebody tried to impersonate a high-ranking former IMF agent and kill you?”
“Well yeah, that’s not worth having a whole meeting over, it happens all the time.” Sarah hit the button for the elevator and they waited for the doors to open
“Not all the time,” Sarah disagreed, holding the elevator door open for Ryan.
“Look, you’re new to this team, trust me, it happens all the time.”
Sarah would not budge, however, and insisted on reporting directly to Cathy. When they reached her office, Sarah burst through the door. “Someone tried to kill Ryan,” she blurted breathlessly.
Cathy looked up from the papers that she was reading and adjusted her glasses so that she could look and see who had just flown into her office without so much as knocking. “So?” she replied.
“’So’? What do you mean, ‘so’?”
“So? It happens all the time, when is someone not trying to kill Ryan?”
“I told you,” Ryan said, coming up from behind Sarah. “Let’s just go back to gathering the troops together.”
It wasn’t until then that Sarah noticed that they were not alone. “Tim, Emmy? What are you guys doing up here?”
Tim and Emmy were both sitting down in chairs opposite Cathy, as if they had been receiving orders from Cathy before being rudely interrupted.
“I was actually just about to call you two,” Cathy explained. “I have a recon mission for you.”
“A recon mission, I thought we were preparing for a preemptive strike,” Ryan mumbled to himself.
Cathy ignored his comment and continued. “I want to know exactly what the emperor has in store for us. We are planning to launch a preemptive strike against the largest military in the world, I want to know what we’re in for.”
“I’d say we’re probably in for, death, destruction, and more death,” Tim replied.
“Did you mention death?” Ryan asked sarcastically.
“Oh guys, don’t be so pessimistic,” Emmy said.
“I’m afraid they might be right,” Cathy solemnly told them. “That’s why I want to know exactly what we’re up against, so I can decide if a preemptive strike is really the best idea. Word has it that the emperor has moved his troops from the palace, to a location in the forest, closer to the rebellion.”
“So you want us to sneak into their camp and take inventory, is that it?” Ryan asked, getting to the point.
“Not exactly in those terms, no.”
“Well, that’s pretty much what it comes down to, isn’t it?”
“That’s impossible,” Tim declared. “Like you said, they’re the strongest military in the world.”
“But not all of the military is in one place,” Emmy pointed out.
“That doesn’t matter, they’re still stronger,” Tim shot back.
“Guys, guys,” Cathy interjected. “What I want to know is can you do it?”
Ryan grinned and spoke up for the group. “When do we start?”
Ryan carefully and silently made his way through the forest, keeping his silenced MP5 in a ready position. His face and arms were painted in combat green and black, and he was fully decked out in a combat suit. Beside him, Emmy crept along as well, wearing the same apparel. Tim and Sarah were in another part of the forest, working their way towards where they believed the camp might be as well.
Ryan clicked the button on the radio. “I’m not seeing anything,” he whispered.
“Okay, don’t worry, we’ll find them,” Sarah replied through radio. “Just don’t spaz out.”
“Excuse me?” Ryan frowned as he replied. “I don’t spaz out.”
“Whatever,” Sarah whispered back.
“That woman,” Ryan mumbled to himself.
“Just forget it,” Emmy hissed. “We’re on a mission, remember?”
“Yeah, next time I’ll talk to Tim,” Ryan agreed.
“You guys would make a great couple though,” Emmy speculated.
“Shut up, we fight all the time, remember?”
“Exactly,” Emmy said. Then she crouched down and motioned for silence. With her hands she pointed ahead. Ryan followed her fingers and saw what she was pointing at. It was a camp, there were guards posted around the perimeter, but not nearly enough for it to be an imperial camp.
“Isn’t it too small?” Ryan mouthed to Emmy.
Emmy just shrugged. She and Ryan crawled as close as they could to the camp without being seen. Ryan peered at the arrangements through his binoculars. There was no doubt that this camp was way too small to be the imperial base. It wasn’t even big enough to hold a small army. “It’s a decoy,” he muttered.
“No it’s not,” Emmy breathed. “It’s a trap.”
Suddenly, Ryan felt an explosion in the back of his head and he crumpled to the ground. The last thing he heard was a man laughing and Emmy screaming, then everything went black.
To be continued...
Ryan chuckled nervously. “You’re not Sarah, are you?”
“You just figured that out? You’re dumber than I thought, Cruise.”
“Well, before you kill me, do you mind telling me who you are?”
“I was sent by Chuck Morris.”
“Of course, the classic ‘lure him with a girl’ approach, did the emperor cook this one up?”
“Who cares?” the spy who was impersonating Sarah said, her finger tightening on the trigger. She started to pull back on the trigger but there was suddenly a loud crash and the spy’s eyes rolled up into her eyelids and she fell to the ground. Standing behind her was a familiar girl, holding a now broken vase.
“Sarah!” Ryan said. “Where’d you get the vase?”
“Next time you impersonate someone,” Sarah said to the unconscious body. “You should check and see if they’re still around first.”
“I don’t think she can hear you,” Ryan muttered as he bent down and handcuffed the unconscious spy.
Sarah put her hands on her hips. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Ryan asked.
“Do I get a thanks, or not?”
“Yeah, thanks for saving my life,” Ryan thanked her unenthusiastically. Then he added, “come on, we got a lot of work to do.”
Sarah rolled her eyes and followed him.
Ryan quickly informed the first two guards that he saw of the unconscious prisoner who needed to be locked up. The guards quickly picked up the spy, and carried her to her prison cell.
Still upset that yet another spy could have gotten inside the rebel base, Sarah had quite a talking-to with Clarence. “As the head of security, you’ve got to make sure that no more imperial spies can get through those gates,” she said, pointing at the front gates for affect. “We need to be running full DNA and fingerprint scans, not to mention checking for masks.”
“Of course ma’am,” Clarence agreed, not wanting to argue with an already angry woman. “We’ll make sure those changes are made as quickly as possible.”
“We should probably report this to Cathy,” Ryan said.
Sarah nodded. “Definitely, have you finished gathering together the troops and transporting supplies?”
“No,” Ryan admitted. “But they know what to do, I already laid out all the orders, they just need a supervisor.”
“Let Laz do it,” Sarah suggested.
“You’re kidding, right?” Ryan nearly laughed.
“No I’m not, we’ve got more important things to discuss right now, come on,” she jogged towards the HQ with Ryan jogging right beside her.
“What exactly are we discussing?”
“You mean besides the fact that somebody tried to impersonate a high-ranking former IMF agent and kill you?”
“Well yeah, that’s not worth having a whole meeting over, it happens all the time.” Sarah hit the button for the elevator and they waited for the doors to open
“Not all the time,” Sarah disagreed, holding the elevator door open for Ryan.
“Look, you’re new to this team, trust me, it happens all the time.”
Sarah would not budge, however, and insisted on reporting directly to Cathy. When they reached her office, Sarah burst through the door. “Someone tried to kill Ryan,” she blurted breathlessly.
Cathy looked up from the papers that she was reading and adjusted her glasses so that she could look and see who had just flown into her office without so much as knocking. “So?” she replied.
“’So’? What do you mean, ‘so’?”
“So? It happens all the time, when is someone not trying to kill Ryan?”
“I told you,” Ryan said, coming up from behind Sarah. “Let’s just go back to gathering the troops together.”
It wasn’t until then that Sarah noticed that they were not alone. “Tim, Emmy? What are you guys doing up here?”
Tim and Emmy were both sitting down in chairs opposite Cathy, as if they had been receiving orders from Cathy before being rudely interrupted.
“I was actually just about to call you two,” Cathy explained. “I have a recon mission for you.”
“A recon mission, I thought we were preparing for a preemptive strike,” Ryan mumbled to himself.
Cathy ignored his comment and continued. “I want to know exactly what the emperor has in store for us. We are planning to launch a preemptive strike against the largest military in the world, I want to know what we’re in for.”
“I’d say we’re probably in for, death, destruction, and more death,” Tim replied.
“Did you mention death?” Ryan asked sarcastically.
“Oh guys, don’t be so pessimistic,” Emmy said.
“I’m afraid they might be right,” Cathy solemnly told them. “That’s why I want to know exactly what we’re up against, so I can decide if a preemptive strike is really the best idea. Word has it that the emperor has moved his troops from the palace, to a location in the forest, closer to the rebellion.”
“So you want us to sneak into their camp and take inventory, is that it?” Ryan asked, getting to the point.
“Not exactly in those terms, no.”
“Well, that’s pretty much what it comes down to, isn’t it?”
“That’s impossible,” Tim declared. “Like you said, they’re the strongest military in the world.”
“But not all of the military is in one place,” Emmy pointed out.
“That doesn’t matter, they’re still stronger,” Tim shot back.
“Guys, guys,” Cathy interjected. “What I want to know is can you do it?”
Ryan grinned and spoke up for the group. “When do we start?”
Ryan carefully and silently made his way through the forest, keeping his silenced MP5 in a ready position. His face and arms were painted in combat green and black, and he was fully decked out in a combat suit. Beside him, Emmy crept along as well, wearing the same apparel. Tim and Sarah were in another part of the forest, working their way towards where they believed the camp might be as well.
Ryan clicked the button on the radio. “I’m not seeing anything,” he whispered.
“Okay, don’t worry, we’ll find them,” Sarah replied through radio. “Just don’t spaz out.”
“Excuse me?” Ryan frowned as he replied. “I don’t spaz out.”
“Whatever,” Sarah whispered back.
“That woman,” Ryan mumbled to himself.
“Just forget it,” Emmy hissed. “We’re on a mission, remember?”
“Yeah, next time I’ll talk to Tim,” Ryan agreed.
“You guys would make a great couple though,” Emmy speculated.
“Shut up, we fight all the time, remember?”
“Exactly,” Emmy said. Then she crouched down and motioned for silence. With her hands she pointed ahead. Ryan followed her fingers and saw what she was pointing at. It was a camp, there were guards posted around the perimeter, but not nearly enough for it to be an imperial camp.
“Isn’t it too small?” Ryan mouthed to Emmy.
Emmy just shrugged. She and Ryan crawled as close as they could to the camp without being seen. Ryan peered at the arrangements through his binoculars. There was no doubt that this camp was way too small to be the imperial base. It wasn’t even big enough to hold a small army. “It’s a decoy,” he muttered.
“No it’s not,” Emmy breathed. “It’s a trap.”
Suddenly, Ryan felt an explosion in the back of his head and he crumpled to the ground. The last thing he heard was a man laughing and Emmy screaming, then everything went black.
To be continued...
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
Mission 5: Payback part 9
Continued from last week...
“You let them what?” the emperor screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.
Chuck might have flinched; it was hard to tell with the huge bandage over his face. He mumbled something in response, but his words were so muffled that the emperor couldn’t understand.
“What?” the emperor asked, making face. “I can’t understand a word you just said behind that stupid bandage.
Chuck roared and ripped the bandage from his face. His skin was puffy and bright red; burns covered the right side and his left side looked slightly scorched.
The emperor gave a look of horror and turned away. “What in the world happened to your face?”
“Ryan Cruise happened,” Chuck growled, giving a menacing look that was amplified by his highly disfigured face.
“Well, what do expect? Marching your troops into hell like that wasn’t the smartest thing in the world. Did you really think he would just sit there and watch you kill him? He’s a trained IMF agent, remember that.”
“Well maybe you trained him too well,” Chuck mumbled.
“Excuse me, are we questioning my judgment?” the emperor’s hand hovered over the same button that had sent Michael down a trap door earlier.
Chuck stared at him. “Of course not, emperor.”
“Good,” the emperor put his hands back down on the desk. “Now look, if you’re having so much trouble with Cruise,” he paused, enjoying the increasing redness in Chuck’s face. “If you’re having so much trouble with Cruise then you should just… readjust your approach to capturing him.”
“How?” Chuck asked.
“You really are all brawn aren’t you?” the emperor said, rolling his eyes. “Use some bait, to lure him in.”
Chuck nodded. “What kind of bait?”
The emperor gave an annoyed laugh. “Are you really that stupid, Chuck? Lure him with a girl, Chuck, lure him with a girl. Every last agent has fallen for that trick, even his father,” the emperor cackled. “His father fell for it to the very end.”
When Jordan landed his helicopter on the Rebel airstrip, there was quite a commotion. The first one to meet them as they landed was Derek.
“Cruise, Laz, its good to see you again guys!” he exclaimed hugging them and slapping them high fives. “And who’s this?” he asked, pointing to Tim.
“This is--” Ryan started to say, but he was interrupted by a chorus of screams coming from a crowd of girls rushing towards them.
“Tim! Ryan! Laz!” they screamed. It was Cathy, Kayla, Emmy, and Katie, of course, all rushing towards them.
“I can’t believe you’re still alive!” Kayla said. “I haven’t seen you guys in forever! Where’ve you been?”
“To hell and back, Kayla, but I’m definitely glad to be back,” Tim replied.
“Well, enough of the chit chat,” Ryan said, breaking into the excited chatter as the girls giggled and wondered at their reappearance.
Just then, crushing arms wrapped around Tim, Ryan, and Laz and squeezed them together until their lungs were nearly suffocated. It was Chris, of course. “Ryan, Tim, Laz! Buddies, how you doing? Its good to see you again!”
“Its good to see you to,” Ryan gasped.
“Yeah, how about letting go now, so we don’t die from lack of air?” Laz wheezed. Chris let go and they fell in a heap. Ryan instantly popped to his feet, pretending that never happened.
Emmy hugged Ryan. “I’m glad your back, big brother,” she grinned at him.
“Yeah, so am I,” Ryan said. He glanced around. “Where’s Sarah?” he asked.
“Right here,” someone tapped him on the shoulder. Ryan turned around, and there was Sarah standing behind him.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Sarah smiled.
Ryan just blinked. “Wait, that’s it, I’ve been gone all this time and all I get is ‘we’ve got a lot of work to do’?”
“Well we do,” Sarah defended herself.
“I was expecting something a little more… I don’t know… exciting?”
“What do you want me to do, Ryan?” Sarah frowned. “Run up and hug you and give you a big kiss?”
Ryan shrugged. “Well, that would definitely be better…”
Sarah smacked him on the head and stormed off.
“Hey, I was just kidding!” Ryan said, jogging after her.
Sarah spun around to face him. “You’re always kidding, it’s irritating!”
“My foster parents used to say that.”
“There you go again,” Sarah said, throwing up her hands.
“You’re just saying that because you’re trying to find something wrong with me,” Ryan shot back.
“Well, that’s not to hard, and why would I want to do that anyways?”
“Because you like me, admit it,” Ryan grinned.
“Me? Like You?” Sarah laughed spitefully. “You’ve got to be joking.”
This didn’t faze Ryan however, “Deep down inside, you know you’re captivated by me,” he insisted.
“You really need to bring that ego of yours down a notch, Cruise,” Sarah said shortly, and then she walked away.
Ryan shook his head. “Women,” he muttered.
“What about them?” Katie spoke up from behind him.
“Nothing,” Ryan waved her off.
“Having some personal problems with your friend there?” Katie asked, smugly.
“No, thank you very much.”
“You really think she likes you?” Katie pressed, not willing to back down.
Ryan sighed. “I’m not sure if I like her. Sometimes I just want to strangle her, and other times I want to ask her to marry me,” he paused. “Well, maybe not marry me.”
“Girls are pretty hard for guys to figure out, I’ll give you that one,” Katie admitted. “Tell you what, do you want me to try and find out how she feels about you?”
Ryan grinned. “That would be awesome, thanks. By the way, I’m really sorry about your car, we’ll scrape some money together to buy you a new one when this is all over.”
“Wait,” Katie frowned. “What about my car?”
“Oh,” Ryan tried to stop the mischievous smile from spreading across his face. “Tim didn’t tell you?”
“Ryan Cruise, what happened to my car?” Katie shouted.
“Never mind, I didn’t say anything,” Ryan started to walk away.
“Did you wreck it?”
Ryan thought for a minute. “I wouldn’t exactly put it that way.”
“What way would you put it?”
“Well, how about this? Your car’s a lot hotter now, literally.”
“You blew it up, didn’t you?”
“Not quite in those terms, but yeah, pretty much.”
“I can’t believe this!” Katie pulled her hair. “My car!”
“I can,” said Kayla, who had just walked in on their conversation. “Leave it to Ryan to bring about plenty of explosive results.” She waved for Ryan to follow her, “Cathy wants to speak to you Ryan.”
Ryan glanced back at a seething Katie. “Don’t worry I’m coming,” he said.
“TIM!!!” Katie screamed. “You’re gonna pay for this!”
Tim was talking to Emmy and Laz when he heard his sister’s scream. “Oh crap,” he groaned. “Ryan told her about the car.” Then he took off sprinting in the opposite direction, with Laz close on his heels.
Later, Ryan and the rest of his team were gathered in Cathy’s office. “…Pat claims that an imperial strike is imminent,” Cathy was saying. “The question is, whether or not to believe him.”
“With all due respect, ma’am,” Jordan spoke up. “I don’t think we can afford not to. When I was flying towards Imperial Bridge I saw quite an army being amassed near the Imperial Palace. I’m not sure what they were gathering for, but I can only guess.”
Cruise nodded. “Jordan’s right, we have to assume that the emperor’s going to strike, and possibly even consider a preemptive strike.”
Everyone in the room appeared stunned by this suggestion.
“What are you saying, Cruise?” Cathy asked.
“What I just said,” Ryan replied, casually slipping on his shades. “We strike before the empire can strike us,” he leaned back in his chair and grinned.
“Are you crazy?” Kayla blurted.
Ryan just lowered his sunglasses and raised his eyebrows.
“We’ve already established that,” Chris said, rolling his eyes.
“I think he’s right, though,” Tim spoke up.
“You do?” everyone in the room spoke at once, even Ryan.
“Yeah, a preemptive strike would have tactical surprise. Thus, catching the empire completely off-guard, perhaps enough to give us a steady victory.”
“Perhaps?” Emmy questioned. “Frankly, it doesn’t seem like anyone has any answers.”
“I’ll bet my life it will work,” Ryan challenged.
“In the end, that may be what it comes down to,” Cathy pointed out.
“Besides, you’ve bet your life before and lost,” Laz said.
“Not my life,” Ryan shot back.
“Yeah, but you lost the bet,” Laz retorted.
“All right, all right, you all have valid points,” Cathy raised her hands in order to stop an argument from forming. “Sarah, you’ve been quiet, what do you have to say?”
Sarah sighed. “I agree with Ryan,” she said.
Once again, this was received with a shocked expression from everyone in the room.
“You do know that April Fool’s was a few weeks ago, right?” Laz asked.
“Yes, Laz, I know,” Sarah said with an irritated edge in her voice, as if she were upset with herself for agreeing with Ryan. “I just think it’s actually a good, strategically surprising idea. Let’s do it.”
Just then, there was a loud beep from Cathy’s desk. Cathy hit a button and Clarence’s voice came through the intercom. “Cathy, milady? You’re going to want to see this message I’m dispatching to you.”
“Can it wait, Clarence?”
“Trust me, milady, it pertains to your meeting.”
Just then, a large screen TV lowered from the ceiling. Ryan whistled. “That’s nice,” he commented.
“The emperor’s was better, though,” Laz said.
“True, true,” Ryan nodded in agreement.
All of the sudden, the emperor himself popped onto the screen. “Greetings, you despicable rebels,” he began. “I’m sure by now that you’ve gotten wind of an imminent invasion on your pitiful rebel base. As your emperor, and since I’m such a forgiving leader, I’m giving you exactly ten minutes to get down on your knees and beg for forgiveness. Otherwise, I will be forced to wipe your poor excuse for a rebellion from the face of this earth,” the emperor paused. “Is that it? How do you turn this thing off?” then the screen went blank.
After a long silence, Cathy finally spoke up. “That does it, Cruise, gather together the troops and prepare for a preemptive strike.”
Cruise grinned. “Right away, ma’am.”
Later that evening, as Ryan was gathering together the rebel forces and giving commands, Sarah came up to him.
“Ryan,” she said in a soft, smooth voice. “How are you?”
Ryan looked surprised at her friendly tone. “Fine, and you?”
Sarah smiled. “I’m doing fine, even better now. I want to ask you something.”
“What?” Ryan asked.
“Well, let’s go somewhere private, where we can talk alone,” Sarah whispered.
Ryan grinned. “I knew you’d warm up to me.” He followed Sarah to a deserted sector of the rebel base. “What is it you wanted to ask?”
Sarah pushed him into a corner of a building. “Something important,” she said. Then she shoved him against the wall.
“What the heck is your problem, Sarah?” Ryan asked, suddenly realizing that Sarah was not acting at all like her normal self.
“You are my problem,” Sarah hissed, pressing up against him and drawing a Glock from her side and pointing it to his head. “But I’ll be sure to end that problem real quick.”
To be continued...
“You let them what?” the emperor screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.
Chuck might have flinched; it was hard to tell with the huge bandage over his face. He mumbled something in response, but his words were so muffled that the emperor couldn’t understand.
“What?” the emperor asked, making face. “I can’t understand a word you just said behind that stupid bandage.
Chuck roared and ripped the bandage from his face. His skin was puffy and bright red; burns covered the right side and his left side looked slightly scorched.
The emperor gave a look of horror and turned away. “What in the world happened to your face?”
“Ryan Cruise happened,” Chuck growled, giving a menacing look that was amplified by his highly disfigured face.
“Well, what do expect? Marching your troops into hell like that wasn’t the smartest thing in the world. Did you really think he would just sit there and watch you kill him? He’s a trained IMF agent, remember that.”
“Well maybe you trained him too well,” Chuck mumbled.
“Excuse me, are we questioning my judgment?” the emperor’s hand hovered over the same button that had sent Michael down a trap door earlier.
Chuck stared at him. “Of course not, emperor.”
“Good,” the emperor put his hands back down on the desk. “Now look, if you’re having so much trouble with Cruise,” he paused, enjoying the increasing redness in Chuck’s face. “If you’re having so much trouble with Cruise then you should just… readjust your approach to capturing him.”
“How?” Chuck asked.
“You really are all brawn aren’t you?” the emperor said, rolling his eyes. “Use some bait, to lure him in.”
Chuck nodded. “What kind of bait?”
The emperor gave an annoyed laugh. “Are you really that stupid, Chuck? Lure him with a girl, Chuck, lure him with a girl. Every last agent has fallen for that trick, even his father,” the emperor cackled. “His father fell for it to the very end.”
When Jordan landed his helicopter on the Rebel airstrip, there was quite a commotion. The first one to meet them as they landed was Derek.
“Cruise, Laz, its good to see you again guys!” he exclaimed hugging them and slapping them high fives. “And who’s this?” he asked, pointing to Tim.
“This is--” Ryan started to say, but he was interrupted by a chorus of screams coming from a crowd of girls rushing towards them.
“Tim! Ryan! Laz!” they screamed. It was Cathy, Kayla, Emmy, and Katie, of course, all rushing towards them.
“I can’t believe you’re still alive!” Kayla said. “I haven’t seen you guys in forever! Where’ve you been?”
“To hell and back, Kayla, but I’m definitely glad to be back,” Tim replied.
“Well, enough of the chit chat,” Ryan said, breaking into the excited chatter as the girls giggled and wondered at their reappearance.
Just then, crushing arms wrapped around Tim, Ryan, and Laz and squeezed them together until their lungs were nearly suffocated. It was Chris, of course. “Ryan, Tim, Laz! Buddies, how you doing? Its good to see you again!”
“Its good to see you to,” Ryan gasped.
“Yeah, how about letting go now, so we don’t die from lack of air?” Laz wheezed. Chris let go and they fell in a heap. Ryan instantly popped to his feet, pretending that never happened.
Emmy hugged Ryan. “I’m glad your back, big brother,” she grinned at him.
“Yeah, so am I,” Ryan said. He glanced around. “Where’s Sarah?” he asked.
“Right here,” someone tapped him on the shoulder. Ryan turned around, and there was Sarah standing behind him.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Sarah smiled.
Ryan just blinked. “Wait, that’s it, I’ve been gone all this time and all I get is ‘we’ve got a lot of work to do’?”
“Well we do,” Sarah defended herself.
“I was expecting something a little more… I don’t know… exciting?”
“What do you want me to do, Ryan?” Sarah frowned. “Run up and hug you and give you a big kiss?”
Ryan shrugged. “Well, that would definitely be better…”
Sarah smacked him on the head and stormed off.
“Hey, I was just kidding!” Ryan said, jogging after her.
Sarah spun around to face him. “You’re always kidding, it’s irritating!”
“My foster parents used to say that.”
“There you go again,” Sarah said, throwing up her hands.
“You’re just saying that because you’re trying to find something wrong with me,” Ryan shot back.
“Well, that’s not to hard, and why would I want to do that anyways?”
“Because you like me, admit it,” Ryan grinned.
“Me? Like You?” Sarah laughed spitefully. “You’ve got to be joking.”
This didn’t faze Ryan however, “Deep down inside, you know you’re captivated by me,” he insisted.
“You really need to bring that ego of yours down a notch, Cruise,” Sarah said shortly, and then she walked away.
Ryan shook his head. “Women,” he muttered.
“What about them?” Katie spoke up from behind him.
“Nothing,” Ryan waved her off.
“Having some personal problems with your friend there?” Katie asked, smugly.
“No, thank you very much.”
“You really think she likes you?” Katie pressed, not willing to back down.
Ryan sighed. “I’m not sure if I like her. Sometimes I just want to strangle her, and other times I want to ask her to marry me,” he paused. “Well, maybe not marry me.”
“Girls are pretty hard for guys to figure out, I’ll give you that one,” Katie admitted. “Tell you what, do you want me to try and find out how she feels about you?”
Ryan grinned. “That would be awesome, thanks. By the way, I’m really sorry about your car, we’ll scrape some money together to buy you a new one when this is all over.”
“Wait,” Katie frowned. “What about my car?”
“Oh,” Ryan tried to stop the mischievous smile from spreading across his face. “Tim didn’t tell you?”
“Ryan Cruise, what happened to my car?” Katie shouted.
“Never mind, I didn’t say anything,” Ryan started to walk away.
“Did you wreck it?”
Ryan thought for a minute. “I wouldn’t exactly put it that way.”
“What way would you put it?”
“Well, how about this? Your car’s a lot hotter now, literally.”
“You blew it up, didn’t you?”
“Not quite in those terms, but yeah, pretty much.”
“I can’t believe this!” Katie pulled her hair. “My car!”
“I can,” said Kayla, who had just walked in on their conversation. “Leave it to Ryan to bring about plenty of explosive results.” She waved for Ryan to follow her, “Cathy wants to speak to you Ryan.”
Ryan glanced back at a seething Katie. “Don’t worry I’m coming,” he said.
“TIM!!!” Katie screamed. “You’re gonna pay for this!”
Tim was talking to Emmy and Laz when he heard his sister’s scream. “Oh crap,” he groaned. “Ryan told her about the car.” Then he took off sprinting in the opposite direction, with Laz close on his heels.
Later, Ryan and the rest of his team were gathered in Cathy’s office. “…Pat claims that an imperial strike is imminent,” Cathy was saying. “The question is, whether or not to believe him.”
“With all due respect, ma’am,” Jordan spoke up. “I don’t think we can afford not to. When I was flying towards Imperial Bridge I saw quite an army being amassed near the Imperial Palace. I’m not sure what they were gathering for, but I can only guess.”
Cruise nodded. “Jordan’s right, we have to assume that the emperor’s going to strike, and possibly even consider a preemptive strike.”
Everyone in the room appeared stunned by this suggestion.
“What are you saying, Cruise?” Cathy asked.
“What I just said,” Ryan replied, casually slipping on his shades. “We strike before the empire can strike us,” he leaned back in his chair and grinned.
“Are you crazy?” Kayla blurted.
Ryan just lowered his sunglasses and raised his eyebrows.
“We’ve already established that,” Chris said, rolling his eyes.
“I think he’s right, though,” Tim spoke up.
“You do?” everyone in the room spoke at once, even Ryan.
“Yeah, a preemptive strike would have tactical surprise. Thus, catching the empire completely off-guard, perhaps enough to give us a steady victory.”
“Perhaps?” Emmy questioned. “Frankly, it doesn’t seem like anyone has any answers.”
“I’ll bet my life it will work,” Ryan challenged.
“In the end, that may be what it comes down to,” Cathy pointed out.
“Besides, you’ve bet your life before and lost,” Laz said.
“Not my life,” Ryan shot back.
“Yeah, but you lost the bet,” Laz retorted.
“All right, all right, you all have valid points,” Cathy raised her hands in order to stop an argument from forming. “Sarah, you’ve been quiet, what do you have to say?”
Sarah sighed. “I agree with Ryan,” she said.
Once again, this was received with a shocked expression from everyone in the room.
“You do know that April Fool’s was a few weeks ago, right?” Laz asked.
“Yes, Laz, I know,” Sarah said with an irritated edge in her voice, as if she were upset with herself for agreeing with Ryan. “I just think it’s actually a good, strategically surprising idea. Let’s do it.”
Just then, there was a loud beep from Cathy’s desk. Cathy hit a button and Clarence’s voice came through the intercom. “Cathy, milady? You’re going to want to see this message I’m dispatching to you.”
“Can it wait, Clarence?”
“Trust me, milady, it pertains to your meeting.”
Just then, a large screen TV lowered from the ceiling. Ryan whistled. “That’s nice,” he commented.
“The emperor’s was better, though,” Laz said.
“True, true,” Ryan nodded in agreement.
All of the sudden, the emperor himself popped onto the screen. “Greetings, you despicable rebels,” he began. “I’m sure by now that you’ve gotten wind of an imminent invasion on your pitiful rebel base. As your emperor, and since I’m such a forgiving leader, I’m giving you exactly ten minutes to get down on your knees and beg for forgiveness. Otherwise, I will be forced to wipe your poor excuse for a rebellion from the face of this earth,” the emperor paused. “Is that it? How do you turn this thing off?” then the screen went blank.
After a long silence, Cathy finally spoke up. “That does it, Cruise, gather together the troops and prepare for a preemptive strike.”
Cruise grinned. “Right away, ma’am.”
Later that evening, as Ryan was gathering together the rebel forces and giving commands, Sarah came up to him.
“Ryan,” she said in a soft, smooth voice. “How are you?”
Ryan looked surprised at her friendly tone. “Fine, and you?”
Sarah smiled. “I’m doing fine, even better now. I want to ask you something.”
“What?” Ryan asked.
“Well, let’s go somewhere private, where we can talk alone,” Sarah whispered.
Ryan grinned. “I knew you’d warm up to me.” He followed Sarah to a deserted sector of the rebel base. “What is it you wanted to ask?”
Sarah pushed him into a corner of a building. “Something important,” she said. Then she shoved him against the wall.
“What the heck is your problem, Sarah?” Ryan asked, suddenly realizing that Sarah was not acting at all like her normal self.
“You are my problem,” Sarah hissed, pressing up against him and drawing a Glock from her side and pointing it to his head. “But I’ll be sure to end that problem real quick.”
To be continued...
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Mission 5: Payback part 8
Continued from last week...
“Cathy!” Jordan called from his perch on top of the truck. Katie and Daniel had raced over to pick him up once he’d caught Pat. His startling news had sent them screaming back to Cathy in the truck. Jordan hopped off the truck before it had come to a complete stop when they got to where Cathy was.
Cathy stepped back, surprised. They were just hauling the fake Cathy off to jail. “We already got the imposter, Jordan,” she said. “It was one of the emperor’s spies, just like I figured.”
“We’ve got bigger problems, Cathy!” Jordan nearly shouted. “The emperor knows where we are!”
Cathy was taken aback yet again. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Pat spilled the whole thing when I took him down.”
“How do you know he’s not lying?”
“Why would he lie about a thing like that? We have to prepare anyways, what should we do?”
“We need everyone to build up defenses,” Cathy said, taking charge. “Where’s Kayla and Emmy, I could use their help organizing things. Christophear!” she shouted.
Chris suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “Yes, ma’am,” he saluted.
“I need you to raise the alarm that the rebellion is under attack, spread the word to all the troops, but don’t cause any panic, that’s the last thing we need.”
“Right away,” Chris nodded and ran down the street.
“What about Cruise and the others?” Jordan asked. “We’re gonna need all the help we can get.”
Cathy sighed. “Yes, you should probably go pick them up.”
Suddenly, Sarah came running up to Cathy. “What can I do?” she asked.
Cathy let out a long breath of air. “Pray,” she whispered.
“Well, this is bad,” said Ryan as he watched the small army march towards them.
“Don’t worry,” Laz said, bravely. “We’ve been in worse scrapes before.”
“Name one,” Ryan challenged.
Laz paused and thought for a minute. “Um… well, nothing’s really coming to mind right now, but I’m sure I’ll think of one in a minute.”
“You do that,” Ryan patted him on the back and walked over towards Tim. “What now?”
“We could just jump over the bridge right now and end it,” Tim offered.
“No,” Ryan shook his head. “Its too far down, we’ll hit the water like its solid concrete.”
“That’s why I said ‘end it right now’.”
“Well, we at least have to put up some sort of a fight,” Ryan said.
“You’re right,” Tim drove his fist into his hand. “Take cover, and gather all your weapons, men!”
“Tim, there’s three of us,” Ryan raised his eyebrows, and gave him a look. “And there is no cover, and we have about three handguns between us.”
“And that spent rocket launcher,” Laz pointed out.
“I don’t even know where that came from,” Ryan threw up his hands. “Why was there a rocket launcher in the back seat of your sister’s car?”
Tim shrugged. “My sister can get pretty serious sometimes.”
Ryan looked surprised. He glanced at the rocket launcher and then back at Tim; then he gave his trademark grin that said he was about to say something he considered incredibly funny. “So when she burns guys, she does it literally, huh.”
“I hate to break it to you, Ryan,” Tim said. “But we’re still being approached by a private army of Imperial troops and we’re probably going to die in the next five minutes, so could you try and be a little more serious?”
“Me?” Ryan gave a mock look of shock and hurt. “Never.” Suddenly, Ryan’s eyes grew bright. “Laz,” he said. “Do you still have that equipment bag, with the C4?”
Laz looked around, and saw the bag lying on the ground next to the railing on the bridge. “Incredible,” Laz said. “Its still here.”
“Great,” Ryan grinned. “Let’s rig a little surprise for the emperor’s army.”
We can only make one bomb with this thing, Ryan,” Tim pointed out. “We’re gonna need more than this.”
“Don’t worry,” Ryan held up his hands. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“Like what?” Tim asked.
Ryan grinned. “Do you have any gum, by any chance?”
One after another, in neat little rows of five, the imperial troops marched down the bridge. The soles of their feet all slapped the pavement at the same time, creating a smooth, rhythmic thundering sound every time their shoes met the ground. One of the soldiers, however, was thrown off rhythm when he stepped on a piece of gum on the bridge. He stopped to pick it off, creating a gap in the rhythm. An officer stopped and screamed, “Who’s messing up the order?” at the top of his lungs.
“Sorry sir,” the soldier replied. “But you see there’s a piece of gum stuck in my--” and then he blew up all over the place, quite literally, taking a couple other soldiers with him. All the soldiers who had felt a stick to their step frantically started pulling at their shoes. One by one, they neatly were blown away, at least all the ones that had stepped on the gum. Ryan and Tim had only had a 24-piece pack between them, so there were still plenty of soldiers left. Except for one officer, whose face had been neatly erased when a terrified soldier had accidentally flung his shoe at the officer.
With some difficulty, the remaining officers managed to restore some order, and continue the march, being careful to watch out for any gum on the road. None of them noticed the oversized backpack lying to the side of the road.
Tim glanced at Ryan, “should I do it now?” he asked. He was holding a remote with a switch on it and eagerly waiting for Ryan’s signal before he flipped the switch.
“Not yet,” Ryan held up his hand. “Wait until about half way.” He peered through his binoculars and waited. “Okay, now,” he ordered.
There was a large eruption from the backpack and about half of the small imperial army was instantly blown from the bridge. Pieces of pavement and railing went flying everywhere, sometimes landing on unaware soldiers.
“Phew,” Ryan breathed. “That should keep them away.” To his amazement, however, the soldiers kept on coming. After a few minutes, the officers had gathered together their forces and renewed their march towards the unfortunate agents on the opposite side of the bridge.
“What now?” Laz yelled.
“Well, I guess we’re screwed,” Ryan shrugged.
Chuck led his troops to within ten feet of the agents. “You three have caused me a lot of trouble,” he growled.
Ryan grinned. “Happy to be of service,” he said giving a slight bow.
“Very funny, Cruise,” Chuck snarled, not looking very amused. “But you won’t think its so funny when you’re dead.”
“Cheery fellow, isn’t he?” Ryan remarked.
Tim nodded. “He’s probably just upset by the fact that we blew up half his force without even firing a shot.”
Ryan laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“You’re outnumbered, Cruise,” Chuck declared, ignoring their comments. “There’s only three of you, and there’s over c hundred of us.”
“Aw, I’ve had worse,” Ryan waved him off.
“There’s actually about one hundred and fifty of them,” Laz reported. “No wait, I think I counted one of them twice… nope, there’s one hundred and fifty.”
“Still seen worse.”
“Well,” Chuck said. “Surrender, beg for mercy, fall on your knees, you know the drill.”
“No,” Tim shook his head. “Actually, we don’t.”
“Well then, its to the death?” Chuck looked very pleased by this. “You know I could kill you all right now, just by looking at you.”
“Then do it,” Ryan challenged.
Chuck looked thrown off by the challenge. “I, uh, I don’t want to,” he stammered.
“Why not?”
“Cause I don’t want to.”
“Its probably because you made that up,” Ryan taunted.
“That is not true!”
Just then, Ryan heard a slight humming, coming from across the horizon. From where he stood it sounded sort of similar to a humming bird, but there were no flowers here. He knew who it had to be, and he grinned from ear to ear, if that’s possible.
“All right, all right,” Ryan threw up his hands, motioning for Tim and Laz to do the same. They simply looked at him like he was crazy. “You got us, Chuck,” Ryan admitted. “Just do me one favor, can I have one last word before we go?”
Chuck rolled his eyes and sighed. “What?”
Ryan twitched his arm ever so slightly and grabbed at his sleeve. “Catch.” He flung his arm towards Chuck and a wadded up piece of gum flew towards him.
As the stunned soldiers watched the deadly piece of gum fly towards their commander, they lost concentration and paid no attention to the fugitives.
Ryan sprang towards the edge of the bridge and jumped on top of the railing, with Tim and Laz close behind.
“Are you nuts?” Tim yelled. They could hear the gum exploding and a loud scream in the background.
“Yes, I thought we’d already established that!” Ryan cried in return.
“Are we gonna do what I think we’re gonna do?” Laz screamed.
“Depends on what you’re thinking,” Ryan yelled back.
“I’m thinking we’re gonna die!”
“You’re pretty close!” Then Ryan jumped off the railing and out towards the water. His arms flailed in the air, and his ears were filled with the sound of screaming coming from him, Tim, and Laz. Below him, he saw a welcome sight, a friendly, black helicopter, with a familiar face in the cockpit. Ryan grabbed onto the side of the helicopter as he fell and hung there for a minute. Then he pulled himself into the helicopter, followed quickly by Tim and Laz.
Jordan, who was the pilot of course, turned around and faced them. He was wearing some really cool aviator sunglasses and a big smile. “Nice of you three to drop by.”
“No problem,” Tim gasped, still unsure of exactly how they had survived. “Just as long as you’re here to catch us.”
To be continued...
“Cathy!” Jordan called from his perch on top of the truck. Katie and Daniel had raced over to pick him up once he’d caught Pat. His startling news had sent them screaming back to Cathy in the truck. Jordan hopped off the truck before it had come to a complete stop when they got to where Cathy was.
Cathy stepped back, surprised. They were just hauling the fake Cathy off to jail. “We already got the imposter, Jordan,” she said. “It was one of the emperor’s spies, just like I figured.”
“We’ve got bigger problems, Cathy!” Jordan nearly shouted. “The emperor knows where we are!”
Cathy was taken aback yet again. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Pat spilled the whole thing when I took him down.”
“How do you know he’s not lying?”
“Why would he lie about a thing like that? We have to prepare anyways, what should we do?”
“We need everyone to build up defenses,” Cathy said, taking charge. “Where’s Kayla and Emmy, I could use their help organizing things. Christophear!” she shouted.
Chris suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “Yes, ma’am,” he saluted.
“I need you to raise the alarm that the rebellion is under attack, spread the word to all the troops, but don’t cause any panic, that’s the last thing we need.”
“Right away,” Chris nodded and ran down the street.
“What about Cruise and the others?” Jordan asked. “We’re gonna need all the help we can get.”
Cathy sighed. “Yes, you should probably go pick them up.”
Suddenly, Sarah came running up to Cathy. “What can I do?” she asked.
Cathy let out a long breath of air. “Pray,” she whispered.
“Well, this is bad,” said Ryan as he watched the small army march towards them.
“Don’t worry,” Laz said, bravely. “We’ve been in worse scrapes before.”
“Name one,” Ryan challenged.
Laz paused and thought for a minute. “Um… well, nothing’s really coming to mind right now, but I’m sure I’ll think of one in a minute.”
“You do that,” Ryan patted him on the back and walked over towards Tim. “What now?”
“We could just jump over the bridge right now and end it,” Tim offered.
“No,” Ryan shook his head. “Its too far down, we’ll hit the water like its solid concrete.”
“That’s why I said ‘end it right now’.”
“Well, we at least have to put up some sort of a fight,” Ryan said.
“You’re right,” Tim drove his fist into his hand. “Take cover, and gather all your weapons, men!”
“Tim, there’s three of us,” Ryan raised his eyebrows, and gave him a look. “And there is no cover, and we have about three handguns between us.”
“And that spent rocket launcher,” Laz pointed out.
“I don’t even know where that came from,” Ryan threw up his hands. “Why was there a rocket launcher in the back seat of your sister’s car?”
Tim shrugged. “My sister can get pretty serious sometimes.”
Ryan looked surprised. He glanced at the rocket launcher and then back at Tim; then he gave his trademark grin that said he was about to say something he considered incredibly funny. “So when she burns guys, she does it literally, huh.”
“I hate to break it to you, Ryan,” Tim said. “But we’re still being approached by a private army of Imperial troops and we’re probably going to die in the next five minutes, so could you try and be a little more serious?”
“Me?” Ryan gave a mock look of shock and hurt. “Never.” Suddenly, Ryan’s eyes grew bright. “Laz,” he said. “Do you still have that equipment bag, with the C4?”
Laz looked around, and saw the bag lying on the ground next to the railing on the bridge. “Incredible,” Laz said. “Its still here.”
“Great,” Ryan grinned. “Let’s rig a little surprise for the emperor’s army.”
We can only make one bomb with this thing, Ryan,” Tim pointed out. “We’re gonna need more than this.”
“Don’t worry,” Ryan held up his hands. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“Like what?” Tim asked.
Ryan grinned. “Do you have any gum, by any chance?”
One after another, in neat little rows of five, the imperial troops marched down the bridge. The soles of their feet all slapped the pavement at the same time, creating a smooth, rhythmic thundering sound every time their shoes met the ground. One of the soldiers, however, was thrown off rhythm when he stepped on a piece of gum on the bridge. He stopped to pick it off, creating a gap in the rhythm. An officer stopped and screamed, “Who’s messing up the order?” at the top of his lungs.
“Sorry sir,” the soldier replied. “But you see there’s a piece of gum stuck in my--” and then he blew up all over the place, quite literally, taking a couple other soldiers with him. All the soldiers who had felt a stick to their step frantically started pulling at their shoes. One by one, they neatly were blown away, at least all the ones that had stepped on the gum. Ryan and Tim had only had a 24-piece pack between them, so there were still plenty of soldiers left. Except for one officer, whose face had been neatly erased when a terrified soldier had accidentally flung his shoe at the officer.
With some difficulty, the remaining officers managed to restore some order, and continue the march, being careful to watch out for any gum on the road. None of them noticed the oversized backpack lying to the side of the road.
Tim glanced at Ryan, “should I do it now?” he asked. He was holding a remote with a switch on it and eagerly waiting for Ryan’s signal before he flipped the switch.
“Not yet,” Ryan held up his hand. “Wait until about half way.” He peered through his binoculars and waited. “Okay, now,” he ordered.
There was a large eruption from the backpack and about half of the small imperial army was instantly blown from the bridge. Pieces of pavement and railing went flying everywhere, sometimes landing on unaware soldiers.
“Phew,” Ryan breathed. “That should keep them away.” To his amazement, however, the soldiers kept on coming. After a few minutes, the officers had gathered together their forces and renewed their march towards the unfortunate agents on the opposite side of the bridge.
“What now?” Laz yelled.
“Well, I guess we’re screwed,” Ryan shrugged.
Chuck led his troops to within ten feet of the agents. “You three have caused me a lot of trouble,” he growled.
Ryan grinned. “Happy to be of service,” he said giving a slight bow.
“Very funny, Cruise,” Chuck snarled, not looking very amused. “But you won’t think its so funny when you’re dead.”
“Cheery fellow, isn’t he?” Ryan remarked.
Tim nodded. “He’s probably just upset by the fact that we blew up half his force without even firing a shot.”
Ryan laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“You’re outnumbered, Cruise,” Chuck declared, ignoring their comments. “There’s only three of you, and there’s over c hundred of us.”
“Aw, I’ve had worse,” Ryan waved him off.
“There’s actually about one hundred and fifty of them,” Laz reported. “No wait, I think I counted one of them twice… nope, there’s one hundred and fifty.”
“Still seen worse.”
“Well,” Chuck said. “Surrender, beg for mercy, fall on your knees, you know the drill.”
“No,” Tim shook his head. “Actually, we don’t.”
“Well then, its to the death?” Chuck looked very pleased by this. “You know I could kill you all right now, just by looking at you.”
“Then do it,” Ryan challenged.
Chuck looked thrown off by the challenge. “I, uh, I don’t want to,” he stammered.
“Why not?”
“Cause I don’t want to.”
“Its probably because you made that up,” Ryan taunted.
“That is not true!”
Just then, Ryan heard a slight humming, coming from across the horizon. From where he stood it sounded sort of similar to a humming bird, but there were no flowers here. He knew who it had to be, and he grinned from ear to ear, if that’s possible.
“All right, all right,” Ryan threw up his hands, motioning for Tim and Laz to do the same. They simply looked at him like he was crazy. “You got us, Chuck,” Ryan admitted. “Just do me one favor, can I have one last word before we go?”
Chuck rolled his eyes and sighed. “What?”
Ryan twitched his arm ever so slightly and grabbed at his sleeve. “Catch.” He flung his arm towards Chuck and a wadded up piece of gum flew towards him.
As the stunned soldiers watched the deadly piece of gum fly towards their commander, they lost concentration and paid no attention to the fugitives.
Ryan sprang towards the edge of the bridge and jumped on top of the railing, with Tim and Laz close behind.
“Are you nuts?” Tim yelled. They could hear the gum exploding and a loud scream in the background.
“Yes, I thought we’d already established that!” Ryan cried in return.
“Are we gonna do what I think we’re gonna do?” Laz screamed.
“Depends on what you’re thinking,” Ryan yelled back.
“I’m thinking we’re gonna die!”
“You’re pretty close!” Then Ryan jumped off the railing and out towards the water. His arms flailed in the air, and his ears were filled with the sound of screaming coming from him, Tim, and Laz. Below him, he saw a welcome sight, a friendly, black helicopter, with a familiar face in the cockpit. Ryan grabbed onto the side of the helicopter as he fell and hung there for a minute. Then he pulled himself into the helicopter, followed quickly by Tim and Laz.
Jordan, who was the pilot of course, turned around and faced them. He was wearing some really cool aviator sunglasses and a big smile. “Nice of you three to drop by.”
“No problem,” Tim gasped, still unsure of exactly how they had survived. “Just as long as you’re here to catch us.”
To be continued...
Tuesday, 8 April 2008
Mission 5: Payback part 7
continued from last week...
Katie and Daniel were the only ones who were truly awed when they were ushered in through the secret gate into the Rebel base. Jordan and Cathy had each been here before, so they knew what to expect. Neither Katie nor Daniel had ever been here, however, and they were both amazed at the intricately designed underground world that had been established here.
“Wow,” was all Katie could say.
Coming to meet them at the gate was a very surprised Clarence.
“Well hello there, Clarence,” Cathy greeted him.
“Greetings my lady,” he said. “But didn’t I just see up at your office?” He appeared quite puzzled and so did Cathy.
“No, I haven’t been here for at least a month, Clarence.”
“That’s impossible, I’ve only just been talking to you, you’ve been in here for almost…” he trailed off. “Oh no.”
Cathy suddenly turned very serious. “Did you ever check her for a mask?”
“No, I never thought of that,” Clarence admitted.
“I want my office surrounded,” Cathy ordered. “Don’t let anyone escape; we have an imposter.” Clarence rushed to follow her orders, taking several Rebel agents with him.
Just then, Jordan noticed a very startled Pat watching them. “What’s he doing here?” Jordan asked.
Cathy frowned. “I don’t know.”
Noticing that they were staring at him, Pat suddenly took off down the street, a phone in hand.
“Guards!” Cathy called. “Bring me that man!” Jordan and a whole troop of Rebel guards took off after Pat, leaving Katie and Daniel behind with Cathy, bewildered.
Meanwhile, the other Cathy was frantically trying to escape from her office, but before she did so, she was going to destroy those documents. Just as the fake Cathy was about to put the documents through the shredder, a hand grabbed her arm.
“I don’t think so,” said Clarence, who was holding her arm.
“What are you doing, Clarence?” she asked, hoping to throw him off just enough to get away.
“Nice try, but that’s not going to--” Clarence started to say, but suddenly the imposter whackgd him up the side of the face and knocked him over.
“You were saying?” she taunted as she jumped over his body and towards the door. She suddenly halted, however, for standing outside the door was the real Cathy, and about thirty agents.
“Going somewhere?” the real Cathy asked, casually.
An Imperial helicopter flew over the wreckage on the Imperial Bridge, grinning as he piloted the aircraft. The tube on the side of his helicopter that had just shot a rocket only moments before was still cooling.
“Hit confirmed,” the pilot said jubilantly into his COM. “That car’s smoldering like nobody’s business. Three bodies lay on the grownd below him, all stretched out in uncomfortable positions, and none of them moving.
Suddenly, the one with the red hair popped up from the ground with a rocket launcher in his hands.
“Oh crap, where’d he get that?” the pilot groaned.
Ryan Cruise fired the rocket straight and true it whistled towards the helicopter and exploded into it with a ball of flame. “He’s fried,” Ryan commented. “Good thing I always carry this rocket launcher around with me.”
“Yeah,” Laz nodded. “You never know when you’ll almost be killed by a helicopter and need to fake your death for a short time before pulling it out and blowing it to bits.”
Tim got up from the ground and brushed himself off. “Now what?” he asked. “My sister’s car is toast…”
“Literally,” Ryan pointed out.
“She’s gonna kill me,” Tim muttered.
“Not if that doesn’t kill us first,” Ryan said, pointing ahead.
“What? What’s up there?” Tim was standing a ways behind Ryan and couldn’t really see what was going on.”
“Oh nothing much really, just an entire Imperial division,” Ryan replied sarcastically.
Tim walked up to where Ryan was. “Crap!” he exclaimed.
“That about sums it up,” Ryan agreed. He picked up his shades off the ground, which had flown away in the explosion, but, miraculously, had not been melted. He put them on, “this isn’t gonna be easy.”
At this time, Jordan was chasing Pat throughout the streets of the Rebel base. Although Pat had a head start, Jordan was a much faster runner and he soon had caught up with him. When he was close enough, Jordan ran up and tackled Pat to the ground.
“Wait,” Pat called. “Don’t kill me! I was forced to do this by my brother, you gotta believe me!”
“Right,” Jordan scoffed, dragging him up to the ground. “Like I believe that.” He glanced at Pat’s skin, which was still somewhat black. “What are pulling? A reverse Michael Jackson? How long have you been impersonating me?”
“Since you left,” Pat admitted.
“You are gonna regret that,” Jordan promised.
“I’m bugged,” Pat cried. “The emperor knows where the base is.”
This caused Jordan to pause. “What?”
“The emperor knows the location of your base, he’s planning an invasion right now.”
Jordan felt fear crawl at his chest, whatever that means. “We’re in trouble.”
Continuing with the random side plot…
Jordan and the other IMF agents weren’t the only one’s in trouble though, another former agent, by the name of Jason Scorn, was also in a tight spot. He limped constantly sometimes on his right leg and other times on the left, and kept a calm, serious face, but inside he knew he was running out of luck. Even his amazing ability to locate spies liking homing beacons and his incredible reflexes that made Spiderman look as mobile as a ninety-year-old woman could not save him now. He was about to be trapped by two ambitious young agents who had called his bluff.
Jason Scorn limped up the stairs and took a left; he was met by a couple of CIA agents. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he declared.
One of them pointed his gun at Jason, and suddenly, the agent was attacked by a whirlwind. At least that’s what his partner saw, before he himself was turned into a helpless sack of bones by a flurry of vicious kicks and punches, and dumped on the ground by his partner.
“Sorry,” Jason apologized. Then he vanished.
Sitting in the emperor’s office was a very nervous middle-aged man, with the heart of a child. He was wearing a black suit and a black fedora on his head. “So man, can I just Beat It, now?” he asked in a very high voice.
The emperor looked up at the strange-looking man sitting across from him. He was holding a picture of him from 1982. “Are you sure this was you back in ’82?” he asked.
“Yeah sure, of course it is,” the man replied.
“I think its time for you to take a look at The Man in the Mirror,” the emperor shook his head. “This doesn’t look anything like you. You’re black in this picture, but you’re white now. And your nose is a different shape.”
“But it is, please believe me,” the man begged. “Besides, it doesn’t matter if you’re Black or White.”
“I’m really sorry Michael,” the emperor shook his head. “The one thing I don’t understand is how you’ve survived this long. You’re aren’t Dangerous or anything, why didn’t I detect you before?”
“Because I’m Bad,” Michael said. “You’re not gonna kill me are you? You don’t Wanna Be Starting Somethin’ like that.”
“No, of course not,” the emperor shook his head. “I only have a small assignment for you, call it a little Thriller.”
“Will You Be There?” Michael asked.
The emperor shook his head, “nope. Billie Jean?” he spoke into the speaker on his desk and a young woman came in. “Do you Remember the Time you met this girl, Michael?” the emperor asked.
“Billie Jean?” Michael exclaimed nervously. “I’m really sorry baby, don’t do whatever you’re thinking, girl!”
“Where’s that Dirty Diana now?” Billie Jean asked. She turned to the emperor. “This man is responsible for conspiring against the empire, he deserves death.”
“NO!” Michael cried. “I’ll do anything! I could perform for you! You Rock My World, emperor, I would never conspire against you.”
“Goodbye,” the emperor said, shortly. He pressed a button on his desk, and Michael disappeared beneath a trap door that suddenly opened beneath his feet. “Aaaaa!” he screamed.
“What a Smooth Criminal,” the emperor commented. “But I’ve always wanted to do that.”
To be continued...
Katie and Daniel were the only ones who were truly awed when they were ushered in through the secret gate into the Rebel base. Jordan and Cathy had each been here before, so they knew what to expect. Neither Katie nor Daniel had ever been here, however, and they were both amazed at the intricately designed underground world that had been established here.
“Wow,” was all Katie could say.
Coming to meet them at the gate was a very surprised Clarence.
“Well hello there, Clarence,” Cathy greeted him.
“Greetings my lady,” he said. “But didn’t I just see up at your office?” He appeared quite puzzled and so did Cathy.
“No, I haven’t been here for at least a month, Clarence.”
“That’s impossible, I’ve only just been talking to you, you’ve been in here for almost…” he trailed off. “Oh no.”
Cathy suddenly turned very serious. “Did you ever check her for a mask?”
“No, I never thought of that,” Clarence admitted.
“I want my office surrounded,” Cathy ordered. “Don’t let anyone escape; we have an imposter.” Clarence rushed to follow her orders, taking several Rebel agents with him.
Just then, Jordan noticed a very startled Pat watching them. “What’s he doing here?” Jordan asked.
Cathy frowned. “I don’t know.”
Noticing that they were staring at him, Pat suddenly took off down the street, a phone in hand.
“Guards!” Cathy called. “Bring me that man!” Jordan and a whole troop of Rebel guards took off after Pat, leaving Katie and Daniel behind with Cathy, bewildered.
Meanwhile, the other Cathy was frantically trying to escape from her office, but before she did so, she was going to destroy those documents. Just as the fake Cathy was about to put the documents through the shredder, a hand grabbed her arm.
“I don’t think so,” said Clarence, who was holding her arm.
“What are you doing, Clarence?” she asked, hoping to throw him off just enough to get away.
“Nice try, but that’s not going to--” Clarence started to say, but suddenly the imposter whackgd him up the side of the face and knocked him over.
“You were saying?” she taunted as she jumped over his body and towards the door. She suddenly halted, however, for standing outside the door was the real Cathy, and about thirty agents.
“Going somewhere?” the real Cathy asked, casually.
An Imperial helicopter flew over the wreckage on the Imperial Bridge, grinning as he piloted the aircraft. The tube on the side of his helicopter that had just shot a rocket only moments before was still cooling.
“Hit confirmed,” the pilot said jubilantly into his COM. “That car’s smoldering like nobody’s business. Three bodies lay on the grownd below him, all stretched out in uncomfortable positions, and none of them moving.
Suddenly, the one with the red hair popped up from the ground with a rocket launcher in his hands.
“Oh crap, where’d he get that?” the pilot groaned.
Ryan Cruise fired the rocket straight and true it whistled towards the helicopter and exploded into it with a ball of flame. “He’s fried,” Ryan commented. “Good thing I always carry this rocket launcher around with me.”
“Yeah,” Laz nodded. “You never know when you’ll almost be killed by a helicopter and need to fake your death for a short time before pulling it out and blowing it to bits.”
Tim got up from the ground and brushed himself off. “Now what?” he asked. “My sister’s car is toast…”
“Literally,” Ryan pointed out.
“She’s gonna kill me,” Tim muttered.
“Not if that doesn’t kill us first,” Ryan said, pointing ahead.
“What? What’s up there?” Tim was standing a ways behind Ryan and couldn’t really see what was going on.”
“Oh nothing much really, just an entire Imperial division,” Ryan replied sarcastically.
Tim walked up to where Ryan was. “Crap!” he exclaimed.
“That about sums it up,” Ryan agreed. He picked up his shades off the ground, which had flown away in the explosion, but, miraculously, had not been melted. He put them on, “this isn’t gonna be easy.”
At this time, Jordan was chasing Pat throughout the streets of the Rebel base. Although Pat had a head start, Jordan was a much faster runner and he soon had caught up with him. When he was close enough, Jordan ran up and tackled Pat to the ground.
“Wait,” Pat called. “Don’t kill me! I was forced to do this by my brother, you gotta believe me!”
“Right,” Jordan scoffed, dragging him up to the ground. “Like I believe that.” He glanced at Pat’s skin, which was still somewhat black. “What are pulling? A reverse Michael Jackson? How long have you been impersonating me?”
“Since you left,” Pat admitted.
“You are gonna regret that,” Jordan promised.
“I’m bugged,” Pat cried. “The emperor knows where the base is.”
This caused Jordan to pause. “What?”
“The emperor knows the location of your base, he’s planning an invasion right now.”
Jordan felt fear crawl at his chest, whatever that means. “We’re in trouble.”
Continuing with the random side plot…
Jordan and the other IMF agents weren’t the only one’s in trouble though, another former agent, by the name of Jason Scorn, was also in a tight spot. He limped constantly sometimes on his right leg and other times on the left, and kept a calm, serious face, but inside he knew he was running out of luck. Even his amazing ability to locate spies liking homing beacons and his incredible reflexes that made Spiderman look as mobile as a ninety-year-old woman could not save him now. He was about to be trapped by two ambitious young agents who had called his bluff.
Jason Scorn limped up the stairs and took a left; he was met by a couple of CIA agents. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he declared.
One of them pointed his gun at Jason, and suddenly, the agent was attacked by a whirlwind. At least that’s what his partner saw, before he himself was turned into a helpless sack of bones by a flurry of vicious kicks and punches, and dumped on the ground by his partner.
“Sorry,” Jason apologized. Then he vanished.
Sitting in the emperor’s office was a very nervous middle-aged man, with the heart of a child. He was wearing a black suit and a black fedora on his head. “So man, can I just Beat It, now?” he asked in a very high voice.
The emperor looked up at the strange-looking man sitting across from him. He was holding a picture of him from 1982. “Are you sure this was you back in ’82?” he asked.
“Yeah sure, of course it is,” the man replied.
“I think its time for you to take a look at The Man in the Mirror,” the emperor shook his head. “This doesn’t look anything like you. You’re black in this picture, but you’re white now. And your nose is a different shape.”
“But it is, please believe me,” the man begged. “Besides, it doesn’t matter if you’re Black or White.”
“I’m really sorry Michael,” the emperor shook his head. “The one thing I don’t understand is how you’ve survived this long. You’re aren’t Dangerous or anything, why didn’t I detect you before?”
“Because I’m Bad,” Michael said. “You’re not gonna kill me are you? You don’t Wanna Be Starting Somethin’ like that.”
“No, of course not,” the emperor shook his head. “I only have a small assignment for you, call it a little Thriller.”
“Will You Be There?” Michael asked.
The emperor shook his head, “nope. Billie Jean?” he spoke into the speaker on his desk and a young woman came in. “Do you Remember the Time you met this girl, Michael?” the emperor asked.
“Billie Jean?” Michael exclaimed nervously. “I’m really sorry baby, don’t do whatever you’re thinking, girl!”
“Where’s that Dirty Diana now?” Billie Jean asked. She turned to the emperor. “This man is responsible for conspiring against the empire, he deserves death.”
“NO!” Michael cried. “I’ll do anything! I could perform for you! You Rock My World, emperor, I would never conspire against you.”
“Goodbye,” the emperor said, shortly. He pressed a button on his desk, and Michael disappeared beneath a trap door that suddenly opened beneath his feet. “Aaaaa!” he screamed.
“What a Smooth Criminal,” the emperor commented. “But I’ve always wanted to do that.”
To be continued...
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
Mission 5: Payback part 6
Continued from last week...
Cathy walked towards Ryan, and then suddenly, she started to take her face off as if it were a mask. It was a mask of course, but the person behind the mask shocked Tim.
“Ryan?” Tim gasped, he looked to Ryan who was standing right next to him and shook his head as if to clear it. “But, what’s going on?”
Ryan, the one who had just taken off the mask, drew his Glock and leveled it with the other Ryan’s head. “We have an imposter,” he said.
“Wait,” the other Ryan cried, holding up his hand. “It’s me, Zach.”
Ryan faltered for a second. “Show me,” he said, never dropping his gun.
The other Ryan started to pull a mask from his face, to reveal Zach. Zach took off the voice strip from his throat. “See?”
Laz gasped. “How’s that possible? We buried you.”
Zach shrugged. “How should I know, ask Cruise,” he pointed to Ryan.
Ryan laughed. “Well I have news for you,” he said.
“What?” they asked.
“I’m not really Ryan,” slowly, he removed his mask to reveal… Michelle. Now everyone was confused.
“What in the world is going on here?” Tim cried out. “Where’s the real Ryan?”
“He’s been dead ever since the beginning of Mission 4,” Michelle replied. “I killed him.”
“But you’re dead!” Laz exclaimed.
“That’s what you think,” Michelle laughed and shot Zach in the head. Zach fell over silently into Laz’s arms. Tim yelled and rushed towards Michelle, but Michelle shot him as well and he fell to the ground in front of her.
Suddenl{, Katie jumped up and started prying at her face. “This is gonna stop now, Michelle!” she cried. Then she removed her face and a voice strip, to reveal none other than… Ryan Cruise.
Even Michelle seemed shocked. “What? How?”
“I have just one thing to say,” Ryan declared.
“What?” Michelle asked, training her Glock on him.
“April Fool’s!” Ryan shouted.
(Note: the section above was purely an April Fool’s joke, thus the reason for its utter absurdity. Nothing in the previous section is to be taken seriously as it has no effect on the story whatsoever.)
Back to the Real Story…
“What?” the emperor screamed, causing Chuck Morris to flinch ever so slightly. “You let them escape, again?”
“Sir, I apologize for the incompetence of my agents, they will be dealt with--”
“No, no apologies,” the emperor got out of his chair, then remembered how much taller Chuck Morris was and thought better of it. He climbed back in his chair where he made a much more imposing figure. “I want Ryan Cruise, and Timothius, and their annoying little sidekick in body bags on my desk, now; no, I want them yesterday. Do you understand?”
“On your desk, that would stain the wood, don’t you think?” Chuck replied in a monotone voice that made it hard to determine whether he was being sarcastic or not. Only a small twitch on the side of his face gave any indication he wasn’t totally serious.
“Figure of speech, Morris, don’t play around with me!” the emperor was getting more and more distressed by the minute. “I need a massage,” he moaned.
“Good idea, sir,” Chuck Morris started to remove his black gloves and cracked his fingers.
“No, no,” the emperor held up his hand. “I’ll find someone else to do it, that’s okay.”
“As you wish,” Chuck bowed and walked out.
“Oh, and Morris?”
Chuck Morris stopped and turned back to the emperor.
“If you find that Jason Scorn fellow, or Matt Damon or whatever he calls himself, kill him too.”
Chuck Morris flipped a chopstick in the air and caught it easily. “Of course.”
“You thought I was dead, didn’t you?” Cathy said, circling around Ryan, as if she were examining him.
“Well yeah, your head blew up like a watermelon,” Tim exclaimed. Ryan and Laz had told him all about it in the car; he’d seen headshots like that before, but he’d never seen anyone come back alive from them.
“Usually, that’s fatal,” Ryan pointed out.
“Oh yeah, well usually radiation’s a killer, too,” Cathy shot back. “And so is a knife to the heart, and getting blown to pieces, and car crashes, but hey, we’re all invincible, right?”
“I didn’t think you were,” Ryan muttered.
“Well, I’m not,” Cathy said. “It was my bodyguard that was shot, her name was Attalie.” She slapped Ryan in the face.
“Ouch,” Ryan held his cheek with his hand. “What was that for?”
“For letting Attalie get shot, she was my friend. I’d slap you to, Laz, but I guess I can’t expect much more out of you.”
“Ouch,” Laz winced. “I think that was worse than the slap.”
“I don’t know,” Ryan shook his head, still touching his cheek. “She slaps pretty hard.”
“I would give my life for her,” Cathy said more to herself than anyone else.
“Well its kind of to late for that now,” Tim blurted out, earning him an elbow from Katie and a glare from Cathy.
“Well, I love the little reunion we’re having here,” Jordan spoke up. “But we really need to be going. So, everybody, get in the van,” he pointed to an unmarked van sitting in the bushes off in the distance.
“No,” Ryan said.
Jordan looked at him. “Why not?”
“You guys go ahead, Tim, Laz, and I have some unfinished business to settle with the emperor.”
“That can wait,” Jordan said. “There’s a rebellion we can go to; we can regroup there.”
“No, it cant’ wait,” Ryan disagreed. Tim and Laz hopped into Katie’s car and Ryan climbed into the driver seat.
“Hey,” Katie called out. “You can’t take my car.” She reached into her purse to check and see if her keys were still there, they weren’t.
Ryan held up her keys and let them dangle in his hands. “You shouldn’t keep your keys in the outside pocket of your purse, you know.” He put them in ignition and set the car into drive and took off.
“That, that little--”
“Rascal? Imbecile? Rat? Jerk? Idiot? Thief?” Daniel offered.
“All of them,” Katie sputtered.
Jordan just shook his head. “He’s gonna get himself killed one of these days,” he paused and then added, “And not come back to life.”
“Can’t this thing go any faster?” Ryan asked. He was already doing eight-five but the car didn’t want to go any faster.
“Hey,” Tim shrugged. “It is my sister’s car.”
“Maybe the car is made so you can’t speed,” Laz suggested.
“That’s stupid,” Ryan said. They were just coming to the Imperial Bridge, which looked unusually empty.
“Geez, where is everybody?” Tim asked no one in particular. “I’ve seen this place packed full with up to five hundred cars, and now I can’t see a single soul.”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Ryan replied flippantly. “Let’s just get to the emperor; it just means that there’s less traffic, the way I see it.”
“Yeah, but you usually don’t see things very well,” Tim muttered.
“What are you talking about? I have 20/20 vision.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Suddenly, a cell phone started ringing in the car.
“That your cell phone?” Ryan asked.
“No,” Tim shook his head. “Mine was taken from me when I was captured.”
“Well, mine blew up in the car crash, so its not mine,” Ryan said.
“Not mine either,” Laz said.
Tim was digging through the car, trying to find where the ringing was coming from. “It must be Katie’s phone,” he said. “She must have left it in here.”
“Sweet, we can prank call all the people in her contacts list,” Laz shouted.
Ryan and Tim turned towards the back seat and gave him a look.
“Or not.”
Tim answered it. “Hello?”
“Hello Timothius Danaford, prepare to die,” a voice said, and then he hung up.
Tim looked at Ryan. “I really hope that was a prank caller.”
“And I really hope that’s just a normal police helicopter, minding its own businesses, but its not.” Ryan pointed to Black Hawk, flying ahead of them. All of the sudden, fire burst from the helicopter and a rocket flew towards them.
“Not again,” Laz groaned.
There was a huge explosion as the car blew to smithereens and then everything went black…
To be continued...
Note:
If there are any questions that any of the readers would like to ask the authors, please enter them in the form of a comment so they can be humorously answered either by blogspot or in another interview farce. Thank You.
Cathy walked towards Ryan, and then suddenly, she started to take her face off as if it were a mask. It was a mask of course, but the person behind the mask shocked Tim.
“Ryan?” Tim gasped, he looked to Ryan who was standing right next to him and shook his head as if to clear it. “But, what’s going on?”
Ryan, the one who had just taken off the mask, drew his Glock and leveled it with the other Ryan’s head. “We have an imposter,” he said.
“Wait,” the other Ryan cried, holding up his hand. “It’s me, Zach.”
Ryan faltered for a second. “Show me,” he said, never dropping his gun.
The other Ryan started to pull a mask from his face, to reveal Zach. Zach took off the voice strip from his throat. “See?”
Laz gasped. “How’s that possible? We buried you.”
Zach shrugged. “How should I know, ask Cruise,” he pointed to Ryan.
Ryan laughed. “Well I have news for you,” he said.
“What?” they asked.
“I’m not really Ryan,” slowly, he removed his mask to reveal… Michelle. Now everyone was confused.
“What in the world is going on here?” Tim cried out. “Where’s the real Ryan?”
“He’s been dead ever since the beginning of Mission 4,” Michelle replied. “I killed him.”
“But you’re dead!” Laz exclaimed.
“That’s what you think,” Michelle laughed and shot Zach in the head. Zach fell over silently into Laz’s arms. Tim yelled and rushed towards Michelle, but Michelle shot him as well and he fell to the ground in front of her.
Suddenl{, Katie jumped up and started prying at her face. “This is gonna stop now, Michelle!” she cried. Then she removed her face and a voice strip, to reveal none other than… Ryan Cruise.
Even Michelle seemed shocked. “What? How?”
“I have just one thing to say,” Ryan declared.
“What?” Michelle asked, training her Glock on him.
“April Fool’s!” Ryan shouted.
(Note: the section above was purely an April Fool’s joke, thus the reason for its utter absurdity. Nothing in the previous section is to be taken seriously as it has no effect on the story whatsoever.)
Back to the Real Story…
“What?” the emperor screamed, causing Chuck Morris to flinch ever so slightly. “You let them escape, again?”
“Sir, I apologize for the incompetence of my agents, they will be dealt with--”
“No, no apologies,” the emperor got out of his chair, then remembered how much taller Chuck Morris was and thought better of it. He climbed back in his chair where he made a much more imposing figure. “I want Ryan Cruise, and Timothius, and their annoying little sidekick in body bags on my desk, now; no, I want them yesterday. Do you understand?”
“On your desk, that would stain the wood, don’t you think?” Chuck replied in a monotone voice that made it hard to determine whether he was being sarcastic or not. Only a small twitch on the side of his face gave any indication he wasn’t totally serious.
“Figure of speech, Morris, don’t play around with me!” the emperor was getting more and more distressed by the minute. “I need a massage,” he moaned.
“Good idea, sir,” Chuck Morris started to remove his black gloves and cracked his fingers.
“No, no,” the emperor held up his hand. “I’ll find someone else to do it, that’s okay.”
“As you wish,” Chuck bowed and walked out.
“Oh, and Morris?”
Chuck Morris stopped and turned back to the emperor.
“If you find that Jason Scorn fellow, or Matt Damon or whatever he calls himself, kill him too.”
Chuck Morris flipped a chopstick in the air and caught it easily. “Of course.”
“You thought I was dead, didn’t you?” Cathy said, circling around Ryan, as if she were examining him.
“Well yeah, your head blew up like a watermelon,” Tim exclaimed. Ryan and Laz had told him all about it in the car; he’d seen headshots like that before, but he’d never seen anyone come back alive from them.
“Usually, that’s fatal,” Ryan pointed out.
“Oh yeah, well usually radiation’s a killer, too,” Cathy shot back. “And so is a knife to the heart, and getting blown to pieces, and car crashes, but hey, we’re all invincible, right?”
“I didn’t think you were,” Ryan muttered.
“Well, I’m not,” Cathy said. “It was my bodyguard that was shot, her name was Attalie.” She slapped Ryan in the face.
“Ouch,” Ryan held his cheek with his hand. “What was that for?”
“For letting Attalie get shot, she was my friend. I’d slap you to, Laz, but I guess I can’t expect much more out of you.”
“Ouch,” Laz winced. “I think that was worse than the slap.”
“I don’t know,” Ryan shook his head, still touching his cheek. “She slaps pretty hard.”
“I would give my life for her,” Cathy said more to herself than anyone else.
“Well its kind of to late for that now,” Tim blurted out, earning him an elbow from Katie and a glare from Cathy.
“Well, I love the little reunion we’re having here,” Jordan spoke up. “But we really need to be going. So, everybody, get in the van,” he pointed to an unmarked van sitting in the bushes off in the distance.
“No,” Ryan said.
Jordan looked at him. “Why not?”
“You guys go ahead, Tim, Laz, and I have some unfinished business to settle with the emperor.”
“That can wait,” Jordan said. “There’s a rebellion we can go to; we can regroup there.”
“No, it cant’ wait,” Ryan disagreed. Tim and Laz hopped into Katie’s car and Ryan climbed into the driver seat.
“Hey,” Katie called out. “You can’t take my car.” She reached into her purse to check and see if her keys were still there, they weren’t.
Ryan held up her keys and let them dangle in his hands. “You shouldn’t keep your keys in the outside pocket of your purse, you know.” He put them in ignition and set the car into drive and took off.
“That, that little--”
“Rascal? Imbecile? Rat? Jerk? Idiot? Thief?” Daniel offered.
“All of them,” Katie sputtered.
Jordan just shook his head. “He’s gonna get himself killed one of these days,” he paused and then added, “And not come back to life.”
“Can’t this thing go any faster?” Ryan asked. He was already doing eight-five but the car didn’t want to go any faster.
“Hey,” Tim shrugged. “It is my sister’s car.”
“Maybe the car is made so you can’t speed,” Laz suggested.
“That’s stupid,” Ryan said. They were just coming to the Imperial Bridge, which looked unusually empty.
“Geez, where is everybody?” Tim asked no one in particular. “I’ve seen this place packed full with up to five hundred cars, and now I can’t see a single soul.”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Ryan replied flippantly. “Let’s just get to the emperor; it just means that there’s less traffic, the way I see it.”
“Yeah, but you usually don’t see things very well,” Tim muttered.
“What are you talking about? I have 20/20 vision.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Suddenly, a cell phone started ringing in the car.
“That your cell phone?” Ryan asked.
“No,” Tim shook his head. “Mine was taken from me when I was captured.”
“Well, mine blew up in the car crash, so its not mine,” Ryan said.
“Not mine either,” Laz said.
Tim was digging through the car, trying to find where the ringing was coming from. “It must be Katie’s phone,” he said. “She must have left it in here.”
“Sweet, we can prank call all the people in her contacts list,” Laz shouted.
Ryan and Tim turned towards the back seat and gave him a look.
“Or not.”
Tim answered it. “Hello?”
“Hello Timothius Danaford, prepare to die,” a voice said, and then he hung up.
Tim looked at Ryan. “I really hope that was a prank caller.”
“And I really hope that’s just a normal police helicopter, minding its own businesses, but its not.” Ryan pointed to Black Hawk, flying ahead of them. All of the sudden, fire burst from the helicopter and a rocket flew towards them.
“Not again,” Laz groaned.
There was a huge explosion as the car blew to smithereens and then everything went black…
To be continued...
Note:
If there are any questions that any of the readers would like to ask the authors, please enter them in the form of a comment so they can be humorously answered either by blogspot or in another interview farce. Thank You.
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
MIssion 5:Payback part 5
Note from the author: Well, I thought I'd just post the link to our interview: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5972359939885256315&hl=en. Let us know what you thought of it. If you didn't get a couple of the questions don't worry. As Laz so aptly put it, "you'd have to be drunk to understand a couple of these questions..." Or you'd have to have been there... or both... anyways, hopefully we'll also have some bloopers, there was quite a few, mostly of us rambling on and then suddenly realizing we were getting very stupid. And speaking of rambling, I'll shut up now. Now to our main attraction...
Continued from last week...
Continuing the random side-plot…
Agent P closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He sat down on his chair in his office at CIA headquarters. Why had ever taken this job in the CIA? Why? Things had been good at first; all they’d had to do was catch rebel terrorist every now and then, and that had been easy. Now all of the sudden they had a myriad of rogue agents on the loose and not nearly enough man power to track them all down. The most elusive, and consequently the most wanted, of the fugitives were Ryan Cruise, Timothius Danaford, and Laz.
There was another agent on the loose, however, one who went by the name of Jason Scorn. This particular agent was especially bothersome to Agent P, because of how easily he constantly outsmarted his agents at every turn. The guy was an expert at locating disguised agents, and could pick them out of the crowd as easily as if they were wearing red targets. On top of this, he was an incredibly good fighter, and could dismantle any five guys in the entire CIA.
As he was thinking about this, Agent P’s partner, Agent U, came into his office.
“Sir, there’s a call for you,” Agent U told him.
“Tell him I’m not here,” Agent P said, rearranging the photos of Ryan, Tim, Laz, and Jason on his desk.
“I think you might want to take this, its Jason Scorn.”
Agent P scrambled up from his chair and grabbed the phone. “Agent P,” he said.
“P, I knew you would come scrambling to the phone once you knew who I was,” Jason Scorn said from the other line.
“I didn’t scramble, I… how did you know that?” Agent P asked.
“I can see you, P.”
“That’s impossible.” Agent P paused and then looked at his desk. “Who’s pictures do I have on my desk?”
“Mine, Ryan Cruise’s, Tim Danaford’s, and Laz’s,” Jason replied.
“You could have just guessed,” Agent P said skeptically.
“Okay, I can tell you what you’re wearing right now,” Jason offered.
“What?”
“A black suit, with a red and blue striped tie, and black pants.”
“You could have guessed that too.”
“Who wears a red and blue striped tie? Why would I guess that?” Jason said, in his typical non-emotional voice.
Agent P held his hand over the phone, and whispered to Agent U. “He says he cans see us right now, is that possible?”
“Well sir,” Agent U responded. “Due to the utter lack of shades or blinds on any of the windows in this entire building, I’d say it’s highly possible that anyone can see us. Seriously, they have more secrecy on the set of Indian Jones 6.”
“Blast!” Agent P cursed. He turned back to the phone, “Jason… Jason?” But there was no answer. Jason was gone. “He’s on 222nd street, set up a trap for him.”
“How do you know?” Agent U asked.
“He left us a code,” Agent P replied.
“No he didn’t, he just hung up, how’s that a code?”
“Just shut up and set up the trap!”
“So we’re just gonna go there because he left you some code? What if he’s setting up a trap?”
“That’s impossible.”
Apparently, it wasn’t, but that’s a story for another time…
Back to the main storyline…
After they had gotten over the initial shock of seeing Cathy alive and realizing Jordan was no longer with them, the IMF agents were all very eager to see what was inside the files.
“Later,” Cathy insisted. “Right now we need to prepare for our attack on the Empire. Let me show you around the facilities.”
She escorted them and all the rest of IMF throughout the rebel base, showing them all their weapons, vehicles and other military supplies. She also showed them the living quarters and other important buildings, such as hospitals, banks, and movie theaters.
“But most importantly,” Cathy said, turning to the IMF agents. “Its all underground, which means that it can’t be reached by the Empire, except in two narrow entrances. The one you came by, and another that is barely big enough for a truck to fit through. That is our main entrance, and the one you came by is sort of our ‘back door’. Pretty neat, isn’t it?”
“Amazing,” Sarah agreed. The others nodded as well.
“But that’s enough of the tour, now we need to get down to business.”
“What do you mean?” Kayla asked.
“Well, we need to find Tim, of course.” She sighed. “And I guess we better locate Ryan and Laz as well.”
“Are you sure this will work?” Katie asked, her tone indicated that she obviously wasn’t very sure herself.
“Of course I’m sure,” Ryan replied, giving his trademark grin. “When have I ever been wrong?”
Katie looked at Tim. Tim just shrugged and didn’t answer.
“You’ve been wrong lot’s of times,” Laz spoke up. “You’ve just been extremely lucky.”
“Yeah, and why should that stop now?”
“There is such a thing as pushing your luck, you know,” Daniel said.
Ryan looked at him. “Not for me there isn’t. Now just do what we rehearsed.” The knocking on the door had turned into pounding, and lots of impatient cursing.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Daniel yelled in a drunken Southern accent. He yanked open the door. “What?” he bawled.
The two Imperial agents standing at the door were obviously thrown off by his attitude. “We’re from the government and we--”
“You’ve come to take my money haven’t you?” Daniel growled. “Well take it, I don’t have any anyways so you can take all of it.”
“No sir, we’re not from Imperial Revenue Service, we’re from the Imperial Police. We wanted to ask you if you’ve seen any of these men.” The agent showed Daniel pictures of Ryan, Tim, Laz, and some other man he’d never seen.
“What are their names?” Daniel asked stupidly.
“This one here’s Ryan Cruise,” the man said, pointing to the first one. “This one’s Timothius Danaford, and this guy goes by the name, Laz. This last one has a lot of names, but word has it that he’s calling himself, Matt Damon.”
“Well, I haven’t seen any of them,” Daniel said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, you think I’m stupid?”
The agent who was acting as spokesman smiled, “No, of course not. You mind if we look inside?”
“You have a warrant?”
“No.”
“Then yes, I do mind, now get.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the agent, he stepped forward and blocked Daniel from shutting the door. “We’re gonna have to look inside.”
“No,” Daniel said firmly.
The first agent looked at his partner. “He said, ‘no’, what do we do know?”
“We still do it, of course,” the other replied.
While this whole argument had been going on, Ryan, Tim, Laz, and Katie had snuck out the back door and were circling around the house. Ryan and Tim were coming around one side, and Laz and Katie were coming around the other.
The agents were just forcing their way into the house when Tim jumped out from behind the house and shot the first agent in the head with his Beretta. The agent fell off the front steps and onto the gravel. His partner jumped and grabbed Daniel. He thrust him in front of him, using him as a body shield.
“Great,” Ryan said. “Now what? We can’t shoot him without getting Daniel.”
Tim looked frustrated. “I don’t know, maybe we can double back and catch him by surprise.”
“Do you think Laz could shoot him from behind?”
“No, that would kill Daniel too.”
“We could accept him as an unavoidable loss,” Ryan pointed out.
Tim pondered this for a minute. “No, he’s my sister’s boyfriend, she’d kill me.”
“Well, they’re technically not involved,” Ryan made a good point once again, causing Tim to pause.
Tim shook his head after a few seconds. “No, she’d blame me, and the she’d claim that I’d know they were involved all along.”
“Well that would definitely move their relationship along then, don’t you think?” Ryan asked.
“True, but then he’d be dead,” Tim fired back.
“That’s a good point,” Ryan admitted, leaving them in the same predicament.
Suddenly, a shot rang out from the trees in front of Daniel’s house. The Imperial agent sank to the floor, a large hole in his head where his ear had been. His body fell against the now bloodstained door and he slid onto the steps.
Daniel wrung his bloody hands and screamed in shock; his face had blood sprayed on it as well.
“Where did that come from?” Tim asked.
Just then, a figure jumped out from the trees, holding a sniper rifle in his hands.
“Jordan?” Ryan exclaimed. “Buddy, where’d you come from?”
Jordan-- for it was actually Jordan, for real--smiled. “You guys are hard to track. Tim, I’ve been following you since you left your sister’s house. You definitely do leave a trail though.” Jordan held up a chicken feather in his hand and grinned. “I love the ingenuity, I must say.”
Ryan grinned, and went to greet him, and then he stopped. “How do I know it’s really you?”
Jordan looked at him. “You’re an idiot.”
Ryan looked satisfied. “Okay, you’re Jordan.”
“Wait,” Katie interrupted. “That’s it, that’s all you need? Anyone can say that.”
“Okay fine,” Ryan folded his arms. “Tell me something that only you would know.”
Jordan thought about this for a second. “When we were in kindergarten, you brought a live hand grenade to class and blew up the entire class room. Nearly blew your own face off.”
“That would have been a tragedy,” Ryan said, reminiscing. “Yep, you’re Jordan,” he declared.
“We did get the rest of the week off after that, though,” Jordan recalled.
“Yeah, that was good,” Ryan agreed.
“Hello,” a voice called. “Aren’t you forgetting someone?”
“Oh right,” Jordan snapped his fingers. “I almost forgot, you’ll never believe who I found tracking you guys as well.”
“Who?” Tim asked. “Kayla?”
Jordan gave him a look. “No, are you kidding me? All those other guys have practically forgotten about you already.”
“Figures,” Tim muttered.
“Who then?” Laz asked. “Sarah?”
Everyone turned to look at him. “Why are we so eager, Laz?” Ryan asked.
“I wasn’t eager, it was just the first name that came to mind,” Laz said, defensively.
“Sure, right Laz,” Ryan nodded.
“No, it was!”
“Whatever,” Ryan shook him off.
“I’m serious!”
“Okay, okay,” Jordan held up his hands. “Let’s just bring her on out.”
“Sarah?” Laz asked, instantly clapping a hand over his mouth.
Ryan jabbed him with an elbow. “It’s okay Laz, she is pretty…” he began but he trailed off when he saw who stepped out from the trees. It was someone that he’d never even hoped to see again, someone he’d taken for dead, and someone who, by all rights, should be dead.
“Cathy?” Ryan said in disbelief.
“Hey Ryan,” Cathy said. “Long time, no see.”
To be continued... next week...
Continued from last week...
Continuing the random side-plot…
Agent P closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He sat down on his chair in his office at CIA headquarters. Why had ever taken this job in the CIA? Why? Things had been good at first; all they’d had to do was catch rebel terrorist every now and then, and that had been easy. Now all of the sudden they had a myriad of rogue agents on the loose and not nearly enough man power to track them all down. The most elusive, and consequently the most wanted, of the fugitives were Ryan Cruise, Timothius Danaford, and Laz.
There was another agent on the loose, however, one who went by the name of Jason Scorn. This particular agent was especially bothersome to Agent P, because of how easily he constantly outsmarted his agents at every turn. The guy was an expert at locating disguised agents, and could pick them out of the crowd as easily as if they were wearing red targets. On top of this, he was an incredibly good fighter, and could dismantle any five guys in the entire CIA.
As he was thinking about this, Agent P’s partner, Agent U, came into his office.
“Sir, there’s a call for you,” Agent U told him.
“Tell him I’m not here,” Agent P said, rearranging the photos of Ryan, Tim, Laz, and Jason on his desk.
“I think you might want to take this, its Jason Scorn.”
Agent P scrambled up from his chair and grabbed the phone. “Agent P,” he said.
“P, I knew you would come scrambling to the phone once you knew who I was,” Jason Scorn said from the other line.
“I didn’t scramble, I… how did you know that?” Agent P asked.
“I can see you, P.”
“That’s impossible.” Agent P paused and then looked at his desk. “Who’s pictures do I have on my desk?”
“Mine, Ryan Cruise’s, Tim Danaford’s, and Laz’s,” Jason replied.
“You could have just guessed,” Agent P said skeptically.
“Okay, I can tell you what you’re wearing right now,” Jason offered.
“What?”
“A black suit, with a red and blue striped tie, and black pants.”
“You could have guessed that too.”
“Who wears a red and blue striped tie? Why would I guess that?” Jason said, in his typical non-emotional voice.
Agent P held his hand over the phone, and whispered to Agent U. “He says he cans see us right now, is that possible?”
“Well sir,” Agent U responded. “Due to the utter lack of shades or blinds on any of the windows in this entire building, I’d say it’s highly possible that anyone can see us. Seriously, they have more secrecy on the set of Indian Jones 6.”
“Blast!” Agent P cursed. He turned back to the phone, “Jason… Jason?” But there was no answer. Jason was gone. “He’s on 222nd street, set up a trap for him.”
“How do you know?” Agent U asked.
“He left us a code,” Agent P replied.
“No he didn’t, he just hung up, how’s that a code?”
“Just shut up and set up the trap!”
“So we’re just gonna go there because he left you some code? What if he’s setting up a trap?”
“That’s impossible.”
Apparently, it wasn’t, but that’s a story for another time…
Back to the main storyline…
After they had gotten over the initial shock of seeing Cathy alive and realizing Jordan was no longer with them, the IMF agents were all very eager to see what was inside the files.
“Later,” Cathy insisted. “Right now we need to prepare for our attack on the Empire. Let me show you around the facilities.”
She escorted them and all the rest of IMF throughout the rebel base, showing them all their weapons, vehicles and other military supplies. She also showed them the living quarters and other important buildings, such as hospitals, banks, and movie theaters.
“But most importantly,” Cathy said, turning to the IMF agents. “Its all underground, which means that it can’t be reached by the Empire, except in two narrow entrances. The one you came by, and another that is barely big enough for a truck to fit through. That is our main entrance, and the one you came by is sort of our ‘back door’. Pretty neat, isn’t it?”
“Amazing,” Sarah agreed. The others nodded as well.
“But that’s enough of the tour, now we need to get down to business.”
“What do you mean?” Kayla asked.
“Well, we need to find Tim, of course.” She sighed. “And I guess we better locate Ryan and Laz as well.”
“Are you sure this will work?” Katie asked, her tone indicated that she obviously wasn’t very sure herself.
“Of course I’m sure,” Ryan replied, giving his trademark grin. “When have I ever been wrong?”
Katie looked at Tim. Tim just shrugged and didn’t answer.
“You’ve been wrong lot’s of times,” Laz spoke up. “You’ve just been extremely lucky.”
“Yeah, and why should that stop now?”
“There is such a thing as pushing your luck, you know,” Daniel said.
Ryan looked at him. “Not for me there isn’t. Now just do what we rehearsed.” The knocking on the door had turned into pounding, and lots of impatient cursing.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Daniel yelled in a drunken Southern accent. He yanked open the door. “What?” he bawled.
The two Imperial agents standing at the door were obviously thrown off by his attitude. “We’re from the government and we--”
“You’ve come to take my money haven’t you?” Daniel growled. “Well take it, I don’t have any anyways so you can take all of it.”
“No sir, we’re not from Imperial Revenue Service, we’re from the Imperial Police. We wanted to ask you if you’ve seen any of these men.” The agent showed Daniel pictures of Ryan, Tim, Laz, and some other man he’d never seen.
“What are their names?” Daniel asked stupidly.
“This one here’s Ryan Cruise,” the man said, pointing to the first one. “This one’s Timothius Danaford, and this guy goes by the name, Laz. This last one has a lot of names, but word has it that he’s calling himself, Matt Damon.”
“Well, I haven’t seen any of them,” Daniel said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, you think I’m stupid?”
The agent who was acting as spokesman smiled, “No, of course not. You mind if we look inside?”
“You have a warrant?”
“No.”
“Then yes, I do mind, now get.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the agent, he stepped forward and blocked Daniel from shutting the door. “We’re gonna have to look inside.”
“No,” Daniel said firmly.
The first agent looked at his partner. “He said, ‘no’, what do we do know?”
“We still do it, of course,” the other replied.
While this whole argument had been going on, Ryan, Tim, Laz, and Katie had snuck out the back door and were circling around the house. Ryan and Tim were coming around one side, and Laz and Katie were coming around the other.
The agents were just forcing their way into the house when Tim jumped out from behind the house and shot the first agent in the head with his Beretta. The agent fell off the front steps and onto the gravel. His partner jumped and grabbed Daniel. He thrust him in front of him, using him as a body shield.
“Great,” Ryan said. “Now what? We can’t shoot him without getting Daniel.”
Tim looked frustrated. “I don’t know, maybe we can double back and catch him by surprise.”
“Do you think Laz could shoot him from behind?”
“No, that would kill Daniel too.”
“We could accept him as an unavoidable loss,” Ryan pointed out.
Tim pondered this for a minute. “No, he’s my sister’s boyfriend, she’d kill me.”
“Well, they’re technically not involved,” Ryan made a good point once again, causing Tim to pause.
Tim shook his head after a few seconds. “No, she’d blame me, and the she’d claim that I’d know they were involved all along.”
“Well that would definitely move their relationship along then, don’t you think?” Ryan asked.
“True, but then he’d be dead,” Tim fired back.
“That’s a good point,” Ryan admitted, leaving them in the same predicament.
Suddenly, a shot rang out from the trees in front of Daniel’s house. The Imperial agent sank to the floor, a large hole in his head where his ear had been. His body fell against the now bloodstained door and he slid onto the steps.
Daniel wrung his bloody hands and screamed in shock; his face had blood sprayed on it as well.
“Where did that come from?” Tim asked.
Just then, a figure jumped out from the trees, holding a sniper rifle in his hands.
“Jordan?” Ryan exclaimed. “Buddy, where’d you come from?”
Jordan-- for it was actually Jordan, for real--smiled. “You guys are hard to track. Tim, I’ve been following you since you left your sister’s house. You definitely do leave a trail though.” Jordan held up a chicken feather in his hand and grinned. “I love the ingenuity, I must say.”
Ryan grinned, and went to greet him, and then he stopped. “How do I know it’s really you?”
Jordan looked at him. “You’re an idiot.”
Ryan looked satisfied. “Okay, you’re Jordan.”
“Wait,” Katie interrupted. “That’s it, that’s all you need? Anyone can say that.”
“Okay fine,” Ryan folded his arms. “Tell me something that only you would know.”
Jordan thought about this for a second. “When we were in kindergarten, you brought a live hand grenade to class and blew up the entire class room. Nearly blew your own face off.”
“That would have been a tragedy,” Ryan said, reminiscing. “Yep, you’re Jordan,” he declared.
“We did get the rest of the week off after that, though,” Jordan recalled.
“Yeah, that was good,” Ryan agreed.
“Hello,” a voice called. “Aren’t you forgetting someone?”
“Oh right,” Jordan snapped his fingers. “I almost forgot, you’ll never believe who I found tracking you guys as well.”
“Who?” Tim asked. “Kayla?”
Jordan gave him a look. “No, are you kidding me? All those other guys have practically forgotten about you already.”
“Figures,” Tim muttered.
“Who then?” Laz asked. “Sarah?”
Everyone turned to look at him. “Why are we so eager, Laz?” Ryan asked.
“I wasn’t eager, it was just the first name that came to mind,” Laz said, defensively.
“Sure, right Laz,” Ryan nodded.
“No, it was!”
“Whatever,” Ryan shook him off.
“I’m serious!”
“Okay, okay,” Jordan held up his hands. “Let’s just bring her on out.”
“Sarah?” Laz asked, instantly clapping a hand over his mouth.
Ryan jabbed him with an elbow. “It’s okay Laz, she is pretty…” he began but he trailed off when he saw who stepped out from the trees. It was someone that he’d never even hoped to see again, someone he’d taken for dead, and someone who, by all rights, should be dead.
“Cathy?” Ryan said in disbelief.
“Hey Ryan,” Cathy said. “Long time, no see.”
To be continued... next week...
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
Mission 5: Payback part 4
continued from last week...
“I’m sorry about this, Daniel” Katie apologized.
Daniel nodded. “Its okay,” he said, but it was pretty clear that it wasn’t.
“Great, he’s gonna hate me now,” Katie moaned softly.
“I thought he wasn’t your boyfriend,” Ryan said.
Katie jerked. “Do you always eavesdrop on people like that?”
“Yeah.”
Laz was busy talking to Daniel about how exactly he would get the bug out of Tim’s neck. “Is it painful?”
“You try slicing up your skin and see if it hurts,” Daniel replied, annoyed.
He gave Tim some sort of sedative. “This will deaden the pain, you’ll probably fall asleep soon.”
“At least its in the neck,” Ryan said. “I’ve had a tracking device inserted in a more uncomfortable place.”
“Where would that be?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Ryan mumbled.
Daniel shrugged and continued his work. “This is going to be hard,” Daniel sighed, when he located the tracking device.
“Why?” Ryan asked.
“Its inserted into his spine. If I hit the wrong nerve, he’ll be paralyzed. Are you sure you want me to do this?”
Ryan glanced at Katie. “Yes,” she said. “Do it, just be careful.”
Daniel carefully started to try and make his way towards the tracking device, but it wasn’t as easy as it looked. As he had said earlier, one wrong move and it would be all over for Tim.
Suddenly, there was a loud noise outside, as if a car door had slammed.
Ryan’s head jerked up, along with everybody else’s. “What was that?” Katie asked.
“I don’t know, stay here and I’ll check it out,” Ryan said.
“Wait for me!” Laz called.
They left the room, and it was just Daniel and Katie, along with the heavily sedated Tim. “They’re quite the characters,” Daniel commented, motioning towards Laz and Ryan. He pulled his tools out of Tim’s neck and wiped the sweat of his face.
“I know,” Katie nodded. “I’m so sorry about all this, it got out of hand…”
Daniel pulled down his mask that covered his face and removed his gloves. “Don’t worry,” he said, pulling her away from the table. “Its fine, I don’t mind really. It’s a good challenge.”
“I’m just so worried, that…” Katie trailed off.
“That what?” Daniel asked.
“That you won’t like me, for who I really am,” Katie finished softly. “A Rebel agent.”
“I would like you no matter who you were,” Daniel said. “Besides, I’m a Rebel agent too.”
“You are!” Katie exclaimed. “How did--? I mean, how could you? I had no idea!”
“I’m a man of surprises!” Daniel grinned. He went back to work on Tim, concentrating on the task at hand. Leaving Katie to wonder how she’d never guessed that he was a Rebel agent. He hadn’t segmed too surprised when they’d mentioned Imperial agents, now that she thought about it.
Suddenly, Ryan busted through the door. By the sound of his panting and by the look in his eyes, Katie knew that something wasn’t right. He stared at Tim’s neck and shuddered. “Man, that’s gross! How do you stand that?”
“What did you burst in here so rudely for?” Daniel growled impatiently.
“Oh yeah,” Ryan suddenly remembered and a troubled light came into his eyes. “I don’t mean to rush you, since you’re so busy, but we’ve got company, of the Imperial kind.”
Meanwhile, back in the Rebellion headquarters, the members of IMF had just received a stupendous shock. Cathy was alive, sitting right in front of their faces!
“How are you alive?” Sarah finally gasped, after gaping at Cathy for a while. “We thought you were dead.”
Cathy smiled. “So did a lot of people apparently. I guess we never told you that I had a body double.” Cathy sighed sadly. “Poor, Attilie, she met a rather bloody end, didn’t she?”
“You had a body double?” Chris was astounded.
“Ryan and Laz were pretty sure it was you,” Emmy commented thoughtfully.
“Please,” Cathy shrugged. “This is Ryan and Laz we’re talking about here. Two of the most incompetent agents in IMF.”
“Ouch, that’s pretty harsh,” Kayla said.
“They got my friend killed remember? Attilie was a friend of mine.”
“Which is why you used her as a body double?” Jordan said, dryly.
“Shut up, Pat,” Cathy snapped.
Emmy raised an eyebrow. “Have you not seen us for that long, that’s not Pat, that’s Jordan.”
“Actually,” Cathy shook her head. “That’s Pat.” She nodded at Jordan.
Jordan removed a mask from his face to reveal Patrick’s white head. The rest of his body was still black, though. Pat removed a voice changing strip from his throat and coughed.
“How’d you…” Chris asked pointing at his skin. He quickly realized that they hadn’t checked Jordan for a mask, how very stupid.
“Body paint,” Pat shrugged. “It’s gonna be real fun getting it off I’m sure.”
“But why?” Kayla asked.
“Jordan left on a rescue mission for us some time ago, right after my apparent death.” Cathy explained.
“Rescue mission for who?” Sarah asked.
“Tim, of course,” Cathy replied.
Just then, Clarence burst in the room. “Ma’am we found those documents.” He was breathing hard, and was waving a folder marked: Top Secret.
Cathy grinned. She took the documents from Clarence and excused him from the room. “These are the documents that can prove all that the emperor has been doing.”
Meanwhile…
“How many of them are there?” Katie asked, peeping out the window through the closed blinds.
Ryan smacked her hand away from the blinds. “Stop doing that, why don’t you just hang a sign outside the says: occupied? If they see you, they’ll know we’re here.” He tossed her his other sidearm. She fumbled with it and nearly dropped it. “Be careful that’s not a toy.”
“I know that!” she snapped.
“And keep your voice down.”
“I am keeping my voice down!”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am!”
“Shut up!” Tim hissed. He had just exited the operation room and was rubbing his neck; the tracking chip had been successfully removed. “Stop fighting, both of you.”
“Where’s Laz?” Ryan suddenly asked.
“In here!” Laz whispered. They followed his voice into the living room. Laz was typing away on a computer.
“This is no time to be playing on the computer, Laz,” Tim said.
“I’m not playing, I’m trying to throw those Imperial agents off their scent.”
“Don’t you mean our scent?” Ryan asked.
“Whatever, I’m sending a message to their lap top in their car. It says that we’ve been spotted in lower Jonopolis, hopefully they go for it.”
A few seconds later there was a knock on the door; apparently it hadn’t worked.
“Come on,” Ryan said. “I have an idea.”
“I thought that would work,” Laz said, still astounded that his plan hadn’t worked out. “It should have worked. It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault.”
“Shut up, Laz,” they all said in unison.
to be continued...
Coming soon...
from KWS...
An exclusive interview of Ryan Maples and Tim Danford, the writers of IMF. Hosted by Lazarus Dance. And Filmed by Chris Danford.
“I’m sorry about this, Daniel” Katie apologized.
Daniel nodded. “Its okay,” he said, but it was pretty clear that it wasn’t.
“Great, he’s gonna hate me now,” Katie moaned softly.
“I thought he wasn’t your boyfriend,” Ryan said.
Katie jerked. “Do you always eavesdrop on people like that?”
“Yeah.”
Laz was busy talking to Daniel about how exactly he would get the bug out of Tim’s neck. “Is it painful?”
“You try slicing up your skin and see if it hurts,” Daniel replied, annoyed.
He gave Tim some sort of sedative. “This will deaden the pain, you’ll probably fall asleep soon.”
“At least its in the neck,” Ryan said. “I’ve had a tracking device inserted in a more uncomfortable place.”
“Where would that be?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Ryan mumbled.
Daniel shrugged and continued his work. “This is going to be hard,” Daniel sighed, when he located the tracking device.
“Why?” Ryan asked.
“Its inserted into his spine. If I hit the wrong nerve, he’ll be paralyzed. Are you sure you want me to do this?”
Ryan glanced at Katie. “Yes,” she said. “Do it, just be careful.”
Daniel carefully started to try and make his way towards the tracking device, but it wasn’t as easy as it looked. As he had said earlier, one wrong move and it would be all over for Tim.
Suddenly, there was a loud noise outside, as if a car door had slammed.
Ryan’s head jerked up, along with everybody else’s. “What was that?” Katie asked.
“I don’t know, stay here and I’ll check it out,” Ryan said.
“Wait for me!” Laz called.
They left the room, and it was just Daniel and Katie, along with the heavily sedated Tim. “They’re quite the characters,” Daniel commented, motioning towards Laz and Ryan. He pulled his tools out of Tim’s neck and wiped the sweat of his face.
“I know,” Katie nodded. “I’m so sorry about all this, it got out of hand…”
Daniel pulled down his mask that covered his face and removed his gloves. “Don’t worry,” he said, pulling her away from the table. “Its fine, I don’t mind really. It’s a good challenge.”
“I’m just so worried, that…” Katie trailed off.
“That what?” Daniel asked.
“That you won’t like me, for who I really am,” Katie finished softly. “A Rebel agent.”
“I would like you no matter who you were,” Daniel said. “Besides, I’m a Rebel agent too.”
“You are!” Katie exclaimed. “How did--? I mean, how could you? I had no idea!”
“I’m a man of surprises!” Daniel grinned. He went back to work on Tim, concentrating on the task at hand. Leaving Katie to wonder how she’d never guessed that he was a Rebel agent. He hadn’t segmed too surprised when they’d mentioned Imperial agents, now that she thought about it.
Suddenly, Ryan busted through the door. By the sound of his panting and by the look in his eyes, Katie knew that something wasn’t right. He stared at Tim’s neck and shuddered. “Man, that’s gross! How do you stand that?”
“What did you burst in here so rudely for?” Daniel growled impatiently.
“Oh yeah,” Ryan suddenly remembered and a troubled light came into his eyes. “I don’t mean to rush you, since you’re so busy, but we’ve got company, of the Imperial kind.”
Meanwhile, back in the Rebellion headquarters, the members of IMF had just received a stupendous shock. Cathy was alive, sitting right in front of their faces!
“How are you alive?” Sarah finally gasped, after gaping at Cathy for a while. “We thought you were dead.”
Cathy smiled. “So did a lot of people apparently. I guess we never told you that I had a body double.” Cathy sighed sadly. “Poor, Attilie, she met a rather bloody end, didn’t she?”
“You had a body double?” Chris was astounded.
“Ryan and Laz were pretty sure it was you,” Emmy commented thoughtfully.
“Please,” Cathy shrugged. “This is Ryan and Laz we’re talking about here. Two of the most incompetent agents in IMF.”
“Ouch, that’s pretty harsh,” Kayla said.
“They got my friend killed remember? Attilie was a friend of mine.”
“Which is why you used her as a body double?” Jordan said, dryly.
“Shut up, Pat,” Cathy snapped.
Emmy raised an eyebrow. “Have you not seen us for that long, that’s not Pat, that’s Jordan.”
“Actually,” Cathy shook her head. “That’s Pat.” She nodded at Jordan.
Jordan removed a mask from his face to reveal Patrick’s white head. The rest of his body was still black, though. Pat removed a voice changing strip from his throat and coughed.
“How’d you…” Chris asked pointing at his skin. He quickly realized that they hadn’t checked Jordan for a mask, how very stupid.
“Body paint,” Pat shrugged. “It’s gonna be real fun getting it off I’m sure.”
“But why?” Kayla asked.
“Jordan left on a rescue mission for us some time ago, right after my apparent death.” Cathy explained.
“Rescue mission for who?” Sarah asked.
“Tim, of course,” Cathy replied.
Just then, Clarence burst in the room. “Ma’am we found those documents.” He was breathing hard, and was waving a folder marked: Top Secret.
Cathy grinned. She took the documents from Clarence and excused him from the room. “These are the documents that can prove all that the emperor has been doing.”
Meanwhile…
“How many of them are there?” Katie asked, peeping out the window through the closed blinds.
Ryan smacked her hand away from the blinds. “Stop doing that, why don’t you just hang a sign outside the says: occupied? If they see you, they’ll know we’re here.” He tossed her his other sidearm. She fumbled with it and nearly dropped it. “Be careful that’s not a toy.”
“I know that!” she snapped.
“And keep your voice down.”
“I am keeping my voice down!”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am!”
“Shut up!” Tim hissed. He had just exited the operation room and was rubbing his neck; the tracking chip had been successfully removed. “Stop fighting, both of you.”
“Where’s Laz?” Ryan suddenly asked.
“In here!” Laz whispered. They followed his voice into the living room. Laz was typing away on a computer.
“This is no time to be playing on the computer, Laz,” Tim said.
“I’m not playing, I’m trying to throw those Imperial agents off their scent.”
“Don’t you mean our scent?” Ryan asked.
“Whatever, I’m sending a message to their lap top in their car. It says that we’ve been spotted in lower Jonopolis, hopefully they go for it.”
A few seconds later there was a knock on the door; apparently it hadn’t worked.
“Come on,” Ryan said. “I have an idea.”
“I thought that would work,” Laz said, still astounded that his plan hadn’t worked out. “It should have worked. It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault.”
“Shut up, Laz,” they all said in unison.
to be continued...
Coming soon...
from KWS...
An exclusive interview of Ryan Maples and Tim Danford, the writers of IMF. Hosted by Lazarus Dance. And Filmed by Chris Danford.
Wednesday, 12 March 2008
Mission 5: Payback part 3
continued from last week...
Sarah and the others stared in wonder at the Rebel base. There was all kinds of action going on around them. Cars and Trucks were coming in and out of the base constantly and there was a fair amount of people walking along the streets. That such a place existed underground without them ever even knowing about it was unconceivable.
The other agents had been led a different way by another guard, Thomas. The person in charge of the Rebellion had wanted to talk to them for some reason. Them meant everyone from Ryan’s team that was present, including Derek and Sarah, why them she didn’t know.
“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?” the Rebel guard, Clarence, said with a grin on his face.
“Definitely,” Sarah gasped.
Jordan turned to Derek, who was the only one who didn’t seem overwhelmed with the whole facility. “Did you know about this place?”
“Sure,” Derek shrugged. “I belong to the Rebellion. So did Evan Hunter.”
“How come we’ve never heard about it?” Chris asked.
“The emperor keeps a tight lid on any information about any rebellion. He doesn’t let the public know that anyone opposes his will. Kt would give them too many ideas.”
“Seems like a pretty successful Rebellion.” Kayla commented.
“Have you ever fought the empire?” Chris asked the question that Jordan was just about to ask.
“Of course,” Clarence replied. “Many times, we’ve even beaten him before, you just never hear about it. The emperor’s very good about that.”
“Obviously,” Sarah commented. “Because I’ve never even heard of you.”
The Rebel guard led them inside one of the larger skyscrapers and then into an elevator. He pushed the button for the top floor and they started to rise.
“Where are we going?” Jordan asked.
“To meet with the director,” the guard replied simply.
“Who’s the director?” Sarah asked.
“What does he do?” Chris added.
Clarence held up his hands. “One at a time, please. The director is the leader of the Rebellion, and he is a she. She makes all the important decisions, like how to spend our funds efficiently, who to place our troops under, and what brand of toilet paper to buy, etc.”
“Toilet paper?” Sarah asked, incredulously.
“Hey, its expensive if you don’t buy the right brand,” Clarence said, defensively. “Those things add up.”
“You still didn’t say who she was,” Kayla pointed out.
“As for who she is… well I’ll let you see for yourself.” The elevator opened and they stepped outside into the hall.
Clarence led them up to door that said: “Director of the Rebellion”, on it. He opened the door and motioned for them to enter.
It was much like the emperor’s office, only not quite as nice. There was a huge desk in the middle of the room and an office chair sat behind it. The chair’s back was turned towards them, but they could tell that someone was sitting in it.
Suddenly, the chair turned around, and the young woman sitting in the chair smiled at them. “Good to see you again, my old friends,” she said.
Everyone’s jaw dropped, except for Clarence’s. They couldn’t believe their eyes. Their voices failed them and they couldn’t voice the thousands of questions that filled their minds.
Finally, Sarah was able to form one word in her throat and she breathed it out, amazed. “Cathy?”
A short while after Ryan had ran back into the woods to go grab Laz, Katie led out a long sigh.
“What?” Tim asked.
Katie rolled her eyes. “He’s supposed to be the guy to help us escape the empire? He can’t even keep track of his agents.”
“Just trust him, he’s defeated impossible odds many time before. He’ll pull it off, you’ll see.” Then he added to himself, “I hope.”
Ryan came back out of the woods with a grumbling Laz. “You guys always forget me,” he complained. “Every mission I either get stuck in a tree, or left alone inside a building surrounded by bad guys, or hanging from the ceiling. I’m tired of it!”
“Oh quite complaining, Laz,” Ryan groaned. “We always come back to get you.”
They piled into the backseat of the car, and Katie started it back up again.
“You don’t have to worry about anymore roadblocks,” Laz spoke up. “I brought enough C4 with me to blow up the emperor’s entire garage!” He patted the backpack that he’d set beside him.
Katie cringed and gripped the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles turned white. “You brought what?”
“C4,” Laz replied, as if he’d brought a box of doughnuts. “Just don’t brake too hard.”
“Get rid of it!” Katie yelled.
“Katie, Katie,” Tim tried to calm her down. “He was just kidding.”
“About the C4?” she asked.
“No, about the braking part,” Ryan said. Then he added. “Actually, you might want to take that seriously too.”
Tim glared at Ryan, who just shrugged innocently.
“Its fine, Katie. It won’t blow up unless we want it to. Right?” He turned to Laz and Ryan.
“Right.” They both replied. “Still,” Ryan said, smiling. “I wouldn’t break too hard.”
“Let’s change the subject,” Tim said, forcefully.
“Okay then, how are you?” Ryan asked.
“Wgll, other than the fact that I’m a wanted man and the emperor has a huge price over my head for anybody that brings me back dead or alive, I’m good. How about you?”
“About the same,” Ryan agreed. “How’d you escape?”
Tim told Ryan and Laz about how the emperor had made him promise to turn his sister over to him, and how he’d been let go. Then he relayed the information that had caused their slight problem.
“You’re bugged!” Ryan cried. “They know where we are?”
“Right,” Tim nodded. “Which means I need to be debugged, fast. Katie’s taking me to her boyfriend’s, apparently he knows how to take care of this stuff.”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” Katie insisted.
Ryan glanced at Tim and grinned. “Must have hit a nerve there.”
“I can see where Tim gets it,” Katie mumbled.
Ryan and Tim laughed, so did Laz but he didn’t know what they were laughing at.
“So, where are we going?” Laz asked.
“We’re here,” Katie said. They looked out the window and, sure enough, they’d arrived at somebody’s residence. It was a rather isolated residence, kind of out in the countryside, which suited them just fine.
A young man stepped out; he was about Katie’s age, which affirmed Ryan and Tim’s assessment that he was her boy friend, at least in their minds. He trotted over to their car. “Katie, what a pleasant surprise!”
Tim softly mimicked his voice in a high-pitched accent, so only those in the car could hear. “What a pleasant surprise!”
Katie kicked him and climbed out of the car. “Hey Daniel, its good to see you too!” They hugged, which caused Ryan and Tim to look at each other and nod, definitely a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.
“They’re on a first name basis, too,” Ryan observed.
Katie continued to shoot them all glares, and then smiled at Daniel. “This is my brother, Tim,” she pointed to Tim. Daniel greeted him and shook hands with him.
“Are these your brothers too?” Daniel asked, pointing to Ryan and Laz.
“No,” Katie answered quickly. “No, those are my brother’s friends.” She didn’t bother to say their names.
“Yes,” Ryan said sarcastically. “I’m friend number one, and he’s friend number two,” he gestured towards Laz. “Nice to meet you.”
Daniel laughed. “You’re a funny guy,” he chuckled.
Katie apparently didn’t agree. “Yes, so funny,” she said with a fake smile, and then she glared at him when Daniel wasn’t looking. Ryan just shrugged. “Their names are Ryan and Laz.”
They shook hands. “Now, down to business,” Ryan said. “We need your help with something.”
“My help? Of course, I’d be glad to help you.” Daniel seemed quite willing.
“Would you mind debugging our friend here, Tim,” Ryan jerked his thumb at Tim. Then he lowered his shades and said, “and we’d appreciate it if there were no questions asked.”
“Uh, sure,” Daniel said, bewildered. “Debug?”
“Yeah, you know, bugs,” Katie said. “They just get all over, in your clothes, your hair, your, uh…”
“In your neck,” Tim said.
“Yes, of course, in your neck,” Katie.
“What kind of bugs?” Daniel asked, still utterly confused.
“Beatles?” Katie tried.
Ryan shoved her aside, and laughed casually. “Ha, she’s such a kidder,” he glared at her, and she just shrugged. Ryan rolled his eyes and turned back to Daniel. “We need you not to ask any questions about this, understand?”
“Sure?”
“That didn’t sound like you were sure, are you sure?”
“Yeah, okay, I’m sure. What do you want?”
Ryan glanced at Tim and then turned back to Daniel again. “We want you to remove a tracking device from Tim’s neck. It’s the back of your neck, right?”
Tim nodded.
“A tracking device? But how--?”
“Uh uh, that’s a question,” Ryan wagged his finger. “Just do your magic and we promise that we’ll be out of here quickly. Hopefully before any Imperial agents show up, oops, said too much.” Ryan acted as if he had accidentally let that slip, but in reality, he hadn’t. He thought that a little motivation wouldn’t hurt the man, and as long as they had their side arms, nothing should go wrong.
“Imperial agents? Uh uh, no way, Jose.” Daniel shook his head.
“Oh come one, Daniel, where’ your adventuresome spirit?” Ryan chastised him, playing with his Glock in his right hand. “We wouldn’t want to have to force you against your will,” he casually flicked off the safety.
“What are you doing?” Katie protested. Ryan held up his hand to silence her.
“Its okay,” Daniel held up his hands. “I’ll do it.” He led them to his operation room and set Tim, facedown, on the table.
“A wise decision, Daniel,” Ryan said. “We’ll be watching, so don’t try any funny business.” He grinned. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”
Danny glanced at his gun and swallowed. “Sure thing, you got it.” Just try not to interrupt, I don’t want to hurt him.”
“You better not,” Ryan said, fingering his Glock again. “Accidents can happen, but they usually happen in two’s, if you get what I mean.” He winked and left the room.
to be continued...
Sarah and the others stared in wonder at the Rebel base. There was all kinds of action going on around them. Cars and Trucks were coming in and out of the base constantly and there was a fair amount of people walking along the streets. That such a place existed underground without them ever even knowing about it was unconceivable.
The other agents had been led a different way by another guard, Thomas. The person in charge of the Rebellion had wanted to talk to them for some reason. Them meant everyone from Ryan’s team that was present, including Derek and Sarah, why them she didn’t know.
“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?” the Rebel guard, Clarence, said with a grin on his face.
“Definitely,” Sarah gasped.
Jordan turned to Derek, who was the only one who didn’t seem overwhelmed with the whole facility. “Did you know about this place?”
“Sure,” Derek shrugged. “I belong to the Rebellion. So did Evan Hunter.”
“How come we’ve never heard about it?” Chris asked.
“The emperor keeps a tight lid on any information about any rebellion. He doesn’t let the public know that anyone opposes his will. Kt would give them too many ideas.”
“Seems like a pretty successful Rebellion.” Kayla commented.
“Have you ever fought the empire?” Chris asked the question that Jordan was just about to ask.
“Of course,” Clarence replied. “Many times, we’ve even beaten him before, you just never hear about it. The emperor’s very good about that.”
“Obviously,” Sarah commented. “Because I’ve never even heard of you.”
The Rebel guard led them inside one of the larger skyscrapers and then into an elevator. He pushed the button for the top floor and they started to rise.
“Where are we going?” Jordan asked.
“To meet with the director,” the guard replied simply.
“Who’s the director?” Sarah asked.
“What does he do?” Chris added.
Clarence held up his hands. “One at a time, please. The director is the leader of the Rebellion, and he is a she. She makes all the important decisions, like how to spend our funds efficiently, who to place our troops under, and what brand of toilet paper to buy, etc.”
“Toilet paper?” Sarah asked, incredulously.
“Hey, its expensive if you don’t buy the right brand,” Clarence said, defensively. “Those things add up.”
“You still didn’t say who she was,” Kayla pointed out.
“As for who she is… well I’ll let you see for yourself.” The elevator opened and they stepped outside into the hall.
Clarence led them up to door that said: “Director of the Rebellion”, on it. He opened the door and motioned for them to enter.
It was much like the emperor’s office, only not quite as nice. There was a huge desk in the middle of the room and an office chair sat behind it. The chair’s back was turned towards them, but they could tell that someone was sitting in it.
Suddenly, the chair turned around, and the young woman sitting in the chair smiled at them. “Good to see you again, my old friends,” she said.
Everyone’s jaw dropped, except for Clarence’s. They couldn’t believe their eyes. Their voices failed them and they couldn’t voice the thousands of questions that filled their minds.
Finally, Sarah was able to form one word in her throat and she breathed it out, amazed. “Cathy?”
A short while after Ryan had ran back into the woods to go grab Laz, Katie led out a long sigh.
“What?” Tim asked.
Katie rolled her eyes. “He’s supposed to be the guy to help us escape the empire? He can’t even keep track of his agents.”
“Just trust him, he’s defeated impossible odds many time before. He’ll pull it off, you’ll see.” Then he added to himself, “I hope.”
Ryan came back out of the woods with a grumbling Laz. “You guys always forget me,” he complained. “Every mission I either get stuck in a tree, or left alone inside a building surrounded by bad guys, or hanging from the ceiling. I’m tired of it!”
“Oh quite complaining, Laz,” Ryan groaned. “We always come back to get you.”
They piled into the backseat of the car, and Katie started it back up again.
“You don’t have to worry about anymore roadblocks,” Laz spoke up. “I brought enough C4 with me to blow up the emperor’s entire garage!” He patted the backpack that he’d set beside him.
Katie cringed and gripped the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles turned white. “You brought what?”
“C4,” Laz replied, as if he’d brought a box of doughnuts. “Just don’t brake too hard.”
“Get rid of it!” Katie yelled.
“Katie, Katie,” Tim tried to calm her down. “He was just kidding.”
“About the C4?” she asked.
“No, about the braking part,” Ryan said. Then he added. “Actually, you might want to take that seriously too.”
Tim glared at Ryan, who just shrugged innocently.
“Its fine, Katie. It won’t blow up unless we want it to. Right?” He turned to Laz and Ryan.
“Right.” They both replied. “Still,” Ryan said, smiling. “I wouldn’t break too hard.”
“Let’s change the subject,” Tim said, forcefully.
“Okay then, how are you?” Ryan asked.
“Wgll, other than the fact that I’m a wanted man and the emperor has a huge price over my head for anybody that brings me back dead or alive, I’m good. How about you?”
“About the same,” Ryan agreed. “How’d you escape?”
Tim told Ryan and Laz about how the emperor had made him promise to turn his sister over to him, and how he’d been let go. Then he relayed the information that had caused their slight problem.
“You’re bugged!” Ryan cried. “They know where we are?”
“Right,” Tim nodded. “Which means I need to be debugged, fast. Katie’s taking me to her boyfriend’s, apparently he knows how to take care of this stuff.”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” Katie insisted.
Ryan glanced at Tim and grinned. “Must have hit a nerve there.”
“I can see where Tim gets it,” Katie mumbled.
Ryan and Tim laughed, so did Laz but he didn’t know what they were laughing at.
“So, where are we going?” Laz asked.
“We’re here,” Katie said. They looked out the window and, sure enough, they’d arrived at somebody’s residence. It was a rather isolated residence, kind of out in the countryside, which suited them just fine.
A young man stepped out; he was about Katie’s age, which affirmed Ryan and Tim’s assessment that he was her boy friend, at least in their minds. He trotted over to their car. “Katie, what a pleasant surprise!”
Tim softly mimicked his voice in a high-pitched accent, so only those in the car could hear. “What a pleasant surprise!”
Katie kicked him and climbed out of the car. “Hey Daniel, its good to see you too!” They hugged, which caused Ryan and Tim to look at each other and nod, definitely a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.
“They’re on a first name basis, too,” Ryan observed.
Katie continued to shoot them all glares, and then smiled at Daniel. “This is my brother, Tim,” she pointed to Tim. Daniel greeted him and shook hands with him.
“Are these your brothers too?” Daniel asked, pointing to Ryan and Laz.
“No,” Katie answered quickly. “No, those are my brother’s friends.” She didn’t bother to say their names.
“Yes,” Ryan said sarcastically. “I’m friend number one, and he’s friend number two,” he gestured towards Laz. “Nice to meet you.”
Daniel laughed. “You’re a funny guy,” he chuckled.
Katie apparently didn’t agree. “Yes, so funny,” she said with a fake smile, and then she glared at him when Daniel wasn’t looking. Ryan just shrugged. “Their names are Ryan and Laz.”
They shook hands. “Now, down to business,” Ryan said. “We need your help with something.”
“My help? Of course, I’d be glad to help you.” Daniel seemed quite willing.
“Would you mind debugging our friend here, Tim,” Ryan jerked his thumb at Tim. Then he lowered his shades and said, “and we’d appreciate it if there were no questions asked.”
“Uh, sure,” Daniel said, bewildered. “Debug?”
“Yeah, you know, bugs,” Katie said. “They just get all over, in your clothes, your hair, your, uh…”
“In your neck,” Tim said.
“Yes, of course, in your neck,” Katie.
“What kind of bugs?” Daniel asked, still utterly confused.
“Beatles?” Katie tried.
Ryan shoved her aside, and laughed casually. “Ha, she’s such a kidder,” he glared at her, and she just shrugged. Ryan rolled his eyes and turned back to Daniel. “We need you not to ask any questions about this, understand?”
“Sure?”
“That didn’t sound like you were sure, are you sure?”
“Yeah, okay, I’m sure. What do you want?”
Ryan glanced at Tim and then turned back to Daniel again. “We want you to remove a tracking device from Tim’s neck. It’s the back of your neck, right?”
Tim nodded.
“A tracking device? But how--?”
“Uh uh, that’s a question,” Ryan wagged his finger. “Just do your magic and we promise that we’ll be out of here quickly. Hopefully before any Imperial agents show up, oops, said too much.” Ryan acted as if he had accidentally let that slip, but in reality, he hadn’t. He thought that a little motivation wouldn’t hurt the man, and as long as they had their side arms, nothing should go wrong.
“Imperial agents? Uh uh, no way, Jose.” Daniel shook his head.
“Oh come one, Daniel, where’ your adventuresome spirit?” Ryan chastised him, playing with his Glock in his right hand. “We wouldn’t want to have to force you against your will,” he casually flicked off the safety.
“What are you doing?” Katie protested. Ryan held up his hand to silence her.
“Its okay,” Daniel held up his hands. “I’ll do it.” He led them to his operation room and set Tim, facedown, on the table.
“A wise decision, Daniel,” Ryan said. “We’ll be watching, so don’t try any funny business.” He grinned. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”
Danny glanced at his gun and swallowed. “Sure thing, you got it.” Just try not to interrupt, I don’t want to hurt him.”
“You better not,” Ryan said, fingering his Glock again. “Accidents can happen, but they usually happen in two’s, if you get what I mean.” He winked and left the room.
to be continued...
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