Round One - Set Four
Ketjak vs. spacemonkey vs. MarauderX
Title: Micro-Fury
Author: spacemonkey
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She wished Timmons had not been such a good compatriot. At least she would have one less formal function to attend now. Smiling, she knew that thought was now half-hearted at best. The stuffy parties were growing less loathsome by the year as well, she mused. Perhaps if they ever actually became enjoyable, it would be the perfect signal to cast off this line of work and find one more mundane. Every time she wore lace, it seemed that day drew nearer by a good margin. Today was no exception.
"Kate! Over here."
One of Nate's flunkies from Research and Development, his hands gesticulating wildly, hailed her from across the manicured lawn. She shoved the limo door closed and turned to Toni.
"Five dollars says its something pedantic about the guests or decorations."
Toni tipped her chauffeur's cap, replying "Nope, the food. Too much, too little or the type. I can't be certain which, but that's all these eggheads care about at a place like this. And I'll let you take the wheel on the ride back if I'm wrong."
A grin spreading quickly on her face, Kate quickly accepted the wager and turned to the tuxedoed payday jogging her way. He was panting heavily by now, his toupee flapping just slightly in his own breeze.
"Don't you have any comm equipment on you?" He managed to spit out before wheezing to a stop. "We've been trying to reach you for nine minutes now!"
Her grin diminished slightly. "Well where do you expect me to fit anything on this glove of an outfit? It was all I could do to get me into the damn thing! Besides, Nate said no business today, and I took him literally. He could always reach me on the earplant in an emergency, and I trust him not to do it if he doesn't need to. Plus I have this to haul around.." she said tersely, indicating the purple package under her arm, the wide black bow now slightly crumpled as she squeezed it in annoyance.
They don't own me, she grated inwardly. Not completely anyway.
"That's just it though - Nate I mean. He's been poisoned. We couldn't get in touch with you that way and.."
The rest of the sentence she left by the limousine in her blurred rush towards the garden, where she saw the ring of guests arrayed like the petals of a flower. As she pushed her way to the pistil, a grotesque sight met her eyes. Nate Timmons, dressed all in his white groom attire, stared dead-eyed into the cluster of faces about him. Sally wept at his feet, her bridal gown now streaked with green from the lawn.
His arms splayed out, one still holding his hat in an unmoving grip - he might have looked comical under different circumstances. Kate had no time for such illusions, and she knew it.
"Who's got some information for me?"
She saw Dawson hold up his smartphone and was halfway to him by the time he answered verbally. All the Agency guests were there, every one of them fully on the clock now.
Punching a few keys as she neared, Dawson smoothly relayed the information while simultaneously managing to give her one of his characteristic looks (the lascivious one, in this case). She was still surprised at his capacity to be completely unfazed by any and all emergencies surrounding him. That was surely one of the reasons he had been chosen for his job, but it was still damn annoying at times.
She filed the facts as he read them: paralytic toxin (the same used on a certain South American dictator some two years back), no suspects in custody, everyone accounted for but one florist, and little else. It was a clean job, whomever had done it, that was for sure. Dawson was still staring at her intently.
"Dammit Dawson! Shouldn't you be getting me more information instead of sustaining that slack-jawed expression? One, I might add, which will very shortly bring you some severe pain if it does not leave my presence?"
Dawson smirked slightly, then was all business once more. He leaned in close. Close enough for a good punch to the gut. Or somewhere lower perhaps.. Her thoughts were interrupted by what he said next, barely loud enough for her to hear.
"Timmons had Matchbook on him. They took it."
"What!?"
Heads turned her way, but she ignored them. "What are you talking about Dawson?"
He gripped her arm and pulled towards the street. "Let's get back to the Office." Louder, over his shoulder, he let the others know where they were headed. One of the security boys tried to protest, something about the area not having been fully checked yet, but by that time Kate had regained her composure and stared him down. He wasn't about to get into it with her - not right now.
"Call us with any information you get, no matter how small it seems." Her instructions were all that was left as she made her way with Dawson to the limo waiting on the curb. Toni had been with the Agency for 12 years, and had the sleek black monster charging down the street moments after they were inside it. She knew her job well, but Kate still regretted not getting to drive. That always took her mind off of things. She would have liked that about now, if only for a few minutes. She would still get her time 'behind the wheel' so to speak. Assuming they could find where the Matchbook had been taken, and who had done it.
The ride took just enough time to go over what she knew of Matchbox in her mind, and to pick Dawson's brain a bit as well. He seemed quite versed on the project, but she wasn't very technically minded, and had only paid attention to the main points in the briefings. He had to fill in quite a few gaps.
Born of the new technological world, but firmly seated in the realm of the biological, the Matchbook was more formally dubbed MF-P1. Actually a collection of small spheres with what appeared to be sticks attached to one end, it had gained the moniker Matchbook from the fact that it resembled a collection of matches stuck together.
Each 'matchstick' was a separate unit, grouped for efficiency and convenience. Much like an actual match, all of the action took place in the head. In this case it was a compact containing sphere housing several hundred million nano-machines and their auxiliary parts. The stick part contained building blocks with which they could make any structure they were programmed to make, along with the massive (for them) amounts of spare energy needed for them to function. They had thought of making them run off of ambient energy, but that was deemed too dangerous. That might limit their destructive power now, but how easily could they be modified? She didn't know, and Dawson was already onto the next bit about them.
They were made of ordinary protein, but like many biological systems they could reproduce, as long as they had the energy to do so. They could also be programmed like a modern computer. She didn't understand all the details, but it sure made for a powerful combination. "Like DNA with a brain, a purpose." Timmons had said. She couldn't help but wonder what purpose they would be put to now.
Screeching to a halt in front of the Office, Toni gave a quick salute as the limo's passengers rushed inside. Her job done, she headed for a local bar, trying in vain to forget what she had overheard of their conversation. The clouds on the horizon threatened rain.
Beneath the ordinary looking exterior, the Office was a monstrosity of highly secure labs, firing ranges, clean rooms, and things even Kate had never seen. Watching the floors drop by one after another through the bulletproof, but clear, elevator doors, she wondered why Nate had not left the Matchbook here. It was the safest place, wasn't it? It didn't make sense, unless..
"Dawson, why did-"
"Sorry Kate, phone's vibrating. Might be news, hold on a sec." The cell was to his ear before she could finish her query, and the elevator stopped before he was done.
Might as well get her prepped, she thought. Maybe Dawson would have a destination after that call. Even through the opening elevator doors, she could see The Shadow in its flight bay below. Sleek, aerodynamic, and virtually invisible to radar, this was a plane to be reckoned with; a machine she felt just right at the controls of.
"Nice looking machine, I'll give you that." Dawson's voice started her as he exited the elevator.
"It sure is. They modeled her after some old atmospheric plane called the 'Blackbird'. My Shadow is smaller, lighter, and faster. I heard the Blackbird was the fastest in her day, but I can get into LEO with my scramjet before they could have had that thing on the runway. But you've seen her before, haven't you?"
"Not this close. You know how it is around here, they don't show or tell you anything you don't really need to know."
"That's true, I suppose. Well?" Kate looked at him expectantly.
"Well what?"
Was it her imagination, or was he almost taken aback by the question? Maybe the stress was getting to him at last, but it made her nervous to inquire further if that was the case. Maybe the call was bad news..
"Well, what was the call about? Any new information?"
"Oh that. Yeah, looks like someone from the New Ukraine Union nabbed the Matchbook, or someone they hired. One of our sats caught a high speed retrieval vehicle rocketing back that way. We have coordinates, too."
Kate sighed. At least there was someone to go after now. And the NUU had been itching to get its hands on something like this for years - ever since their bio-weapons programs were shut down. Nano weapons would be so much easier for them to conceal.
"Well, good thing I'm ready to go then," she said as she took her hands away from The Shadow's preflight control panel. "I'll get moving, and you round up some backup for me. I imagine I'll need it. Those NUU boys will follow me all the way back if I know them."
"That sounded like you think they might spot you out there. Did you get sloppy while I wasn't looking?" Dawson said with mock astonishment.
"Shut up and go, we both have work to do." Dawson smirked and headed for the elevator while Kate made her way down to the hanger floor. It would still take a minute for the subterranean launchway to open, so she started suiting up. She should have felt better now, with a target in sight, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something was out of place.
The wedding present dropped to the floor, the large sliver of wood shaking free of the box. She had been carrying it this whole time without really noticing. She had thought long and hard about what to get Nate for his wedding day before settling on that. A bit of one of the smuggling crates from their first real mission, so many years ago. The least she could do now was carry it to his enemies, so she pulled her hair up and used the sliver as a pin. "Why didn't you tell me you had the Matchbook on you Nate? I would have at least added some security for you." The cold hanger echoed her question, but supplied no response.
Minutes later, Dawson felt the building tremble as The Shadow was on its way. Two cars pulled out of the parking garage at surface level shortly after, just a handful of seconds apart.
Dawson pulled to a stop in front of the old building. The sign outside said 'Dependable Rexall Drugs'. To Dawson, it seemed a fitting end to this day. After all, he thought, weren't nano-machines pioneered by the drug companies, looking for a new way to make and sell their products? Fitting that the latest and best should end up here, even if only for a short time. He patted the case containing the Matchbook. Long enough to make a lot of money, anyway. Long enough.
A figure waited in the shadows just under the prescription sign. The two entered the dilapidated building together as fat drops of rain began falling from the sky.
Kate pulled to a stop a block and a half away, then crept around the street and got close to the building. Climbing the Rexall's Drugs sign, she peered in a window at the scene below.
Dawson was checking the payment, via wire transfer, from his smartphone. The other person, an Australian by the looks of her hopper war tattoos, was peering through an imager at the Matchbook. She quietly made her way back to the ground and covered the back entrance.
"This looks good, payment in full." Dawson smiled. The Australian nodded. "Yes, the product checks out as well. A pleasure, as always. You don't mind if I leave now do you? I have another meeting to get to, and I suspect you merely have retirement ahead."
He watched her leave through the back exit by the stairs, and started towards the other door. He was halfway there when he heard a soft thud accompanied by a splash. He whirled, pulling out his weapon, but she was already there, her own sight right on him.
He smiled. "Shouldn't you be on a plane about now?"
She inched closer. "Maybe I should be, but something told me I needed to be here instead, so I put The Shadow on autopilot and told it to take a few photos over Canada, then return to base."
"Oh, and what was it that told you to come here?"
"You, actually. You said that nobody in the Agency was told anything they didn't need to know. It didn't really hit me until I was stepping into The Shadow, but why would Nate tell you where he had secreted the Matchbox, and not me? It fell into place then. Something had been off with the whole situation, and I finally realized that it was you. I just have one question."
"Oh?"
"Did you have to put Nate in such a ridiculous pose?"
Dawson smiled. "Of course. He always enjoyed treating me like a trained monkey, giving me the lowest assignments, making me do the go nowhere background checks. I thought he needed to play the fool for a change."
He snickered, and that was all the chance she needed. The bullet guided itself just where she had tracked it to when she started aiming - right into Dawson's shoulder. He cried out and dropped his own gun, grasping his shoulder. She walked over to him.
"I should take you out right here, but I imagine Intelligence will want to have a crack at you before-"
The crash came from outside the building. Dawson was quick to recover, and Kate's gun skidded across the floor. He was on her in a heartbeat, following the swift jab to her chest by grabbing at her throat, his thumbs searching for her trachea. Kate gasped for breath. His right hand was weak from the shoulder wound, but he would crush the life out of her anyway - it might take a little while longer was all. Dawson had the same training she did, and he wasn't going easy.
She struck at his vitals, but he was too quick still, kept dodging out of the way. Dawson was smiling, confident. Kate mumbled something softly. Dawson leaned in to hear her last words.
"Did you get a gift for Nate's wedding?" She could barely get the words out.
"No Kate, I must have forgotten." He was enjoying this now, but she shared a smile with him.
"Maybe we can go in together then, Dawson."
His amused consternation quickly turned to surprise as she pulled the splinter from her hair and drove it into his neck. He tumbled off of her, collapsing. She watched him expire as her breath slowly returned. Then she dragged the Australian's body inside, grabbed the Matchbox and walked outside. She saw the Rexall's sign lying broken in the rain-soaked lot in front of the store.
Kate laughed, letting the clouds pour rain upon her. She felt exhilarated.
"Well, maybe those formal functions don't always end up so boring after all. Some good, old-fashioned covert operations should be a welcome change."