Mechwarrior: "Days of the Jackal"

[Maerdwyn]

Malcolm peered around the room, wondering what was next. Some of the others looked a little uncomfortable with the silence, but he was used to his superiors at the Ministry letting him wait quietly, sometimes for hours until they needed his input. He let his gaze take in the room one more time, looking for something new to focus on.

 

[Festy_Dog]

[ooc: In order to keep this game afloat until definite word from Douane on whether this is still going, I'm writing a series of creative 'bumps'. Here's the first.]

Kevin had stopped strumming five minutes before, after strumming the same tune for twenty minutes his fingers weren't exactly pleased, he was a little worried that they'd start bleeding if he had kept going. Though he knew he had to soak up every piece of information the accountant spat out, right now he was having enough trouble staying awake. He couldn't help it, accountants were naturally boring, and he started to doze.

A dream, a memory, maybe some of both, started to play in his head. An interesting deviation from a slow-moving lecture...



"Team Alpha, go time," one voice said, and the shadows in the alleyway seemed to spawn six dark figures.

Six figures in jet black, from balaclavas to combat boots, wielded suppressed sub-machineguns. An overly complex electronic lock on a rear entrance to a seemingly average commercial building was in their way. It was out of their way in thirty seconds.

Once inside the building, the group paused. The voice from before spoke again.

"Four and Six, take the security room. Everyone else is with me. Go," and the group split up.



In the alley on the opposite side of the building Beta Team was behind schedule, possibility of detection had pushed back their starting time by almost a minute. Seven wasn't pleased, there were many occasions when late did about as much good as never, and he was worried this was one of them.

"Fast breach, now,” he said, urgency in his voice.

Eight slapped a door breaching charge on the building’s other side entrance. At the street end of the alley Twelve gave a thumbs up, then the charge went off with a dull ‘whump’. Ten followed this up with a flash-bang through the doorway.

Five members of Beta Team poured through the space where the door was, guns raised, expecting trouble. There was no retaliation, no alarm, not even an elderly security guard cowering somewhere filling his adult diaper.

“Fck,” Ten said, realising any sign of things not normal can only mean something worse.

“Proceed as planned,” Seven said sternly, “Eight and Nine, with me, Ten and Eleven, cut the power, Twelve…”

Twelve wasn’t there. Seven stuck his head back out the door, but Twelve wasn’t at where he last saw him, the alley entrance was clear. It was Seven’s turn to swear.

“Twelve’s MIA, go,” he said, and the group broke up.



[ooc: And that's the first bump, hope it reads alright.]

 

[Festy_Dog]

[ooc: Well, we know that Douane intends to get the game back in action once he's well enough to do so. Here's another bump to keep the game in easy reach when he gets back.]

Kevin jerked awake when he semi-conciously realised that he was asleep, and continued to listen to what the accountant had to say. It wasn't much different from before, though the content had changed, the tone of voice he'd slipped into was easily driving Kevin along the road to sleep again. The dream he was having... it seemed familiar to him, was it his imagination or had something like that actually happened? Kevin tried to dig back through his memories for a similar event. He made an effort to keep his eyes open, just short of physically holding them open, but he nodded off again.



Four and Six arrived at the security room. The door in was wide open, and there was noone inside. They entered, and searched the place thoroughly, but only found one thing of note. Underneath one of the many monitors covering the wall was an empty chocolate bar wrapper. Four raised an eyebrow under his balaclava, after Beta Team's hastened entry it became painfully obvious that something was up, and the most mundane of things seemed to arouse suspicion.

“Security room is under our control, we have a visual of everyone’s progress,” Six reported into her headset, and took a seat in front of the camera monitors.

Four went to close the door. He took a moment to glance out, but nothing stirred in the hallway. Twelve’s fate was bugging him, apparently he’d just disappeared. Twelve was not a person for sudden disappearances. He took a deep breath, and started to swing the door closed. Suddenly, the lights cut out.



A couple of seconds later half the lights came on again.

“Main power has been cut, the building’s now on auxiliary,” Eleven said, “Sorry we didn’t give you a heads up about that, people.”

Ten shook his head and rolled his eyes as he put away a couple of tools into his electronics kit.

Seven’s voice came over the radio, “Make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

It was shortly followed by One’s voice, “See what you can do about the power feed to the door, it’s giving us a fair bit of trouble.”

One and those with him were currently trying to break through a door into a computer lab, their objective was inside.

“I’m workin’ on it, sir,” came Ten’s reply.



Six and Four were browsing the monitors when something on one of them caught Four’s eye.

“What’s that?” he asked Six, and pointed out something on one of the cameras for the front foyer.

“Dunno,” she replied staring at it intently, “That’s where Seven’s headed anyway, let him know.”

“Seven, sir, there appears to be something large on the floor of the foyer. In the only angle we can get it from it’s obscured by a pot plant, be careful,” Four said.

“Roger that, Four, taking extra caution,” Seven replied.



Seven, Eight and Nine cautiously entered the front foyer of the building, and started to sweep the area.

“Found something,” Eight soon said, and swung his SMG behind his back, “Looks like Twelve, he’s lying on his stomach. There’s no blood, he might be unconscious, I’m taking a look.”

Eight crouched down to flip Twelve over. Seven felt something was very wrong about this. How did Twelve end up in the front foyer? He glanced to the automatic doors but they weren't functioning, main power was cut. It was too late to stop Eight regardless. Eight flipped Twelve over, and there was a loud click as a circular object covered in small lenses launched itself about five feet into the air.

“Sh-“ Nine realised what it was.

There was a blinding flash, then nothing.



[ooc: I'm not terribly familiar with Mechwarrior things, but I figured a kind of laser mine would be possible in the time period, though expensive (like all other laser stuff). That and it'd look kewler than a standard kinda mine. ]

 

[Festy_Dog]

[ooc: Here’s the next bump. If you actually bother reading them, enjoy. With any luck Douane will take over before this little side story thingy ends. Not that I'll run out of ideas though, I'm just worried about putting more bumps than game posts in the thread.]

Kevin stirred, it seemed like no time had passed. Was he dreaming faster than real life was passing? More or less irrelevant really, he was firmly entrenched in the urge to nap and slipped into the same dream from before, picking up where he left off.



Four and Six had witnessed what had happened through the security camera. Four jumped in his seat in surprise as feed from all the foyer cameras suddenly cut out.

“Seven, respond!” Six called through the radio, “Seven, respond!”

There was no reply for a few seconds, but eventually a voice crackled through.

“What happened?” One’s voice replied.

“We think it was some kind of anti-personnel mine, sir. It took out all the security cameras in the foyer, and probably Seven, Eight and Nine too,” Six explained, "From what they were saying I think they had found Twelve."

Four was struggling with wiring, futilely trying to get the foyer cameras back on from this end.

“Ten and Eleven, get to the foyer. I want to know what happened. Hustle!” One’s voice barked out of the radio, “Four and Six, make sure it doesn’t happen again. I’m sending Three to give you a hand keeping an eye on all those monitors.”

Ten gave an affirmative, and another one was given by Six a moment later.

“One must be pretty pssed off,” she said to Four as she tried to keep track of the remaining monitors.

“Good for him, make sure the door’s locked, I don’t want any surprises,” he replied, as he climbed his way out from behind the cabled area behind the monitors, “I’d say the whole foyer’s fubar.”

Six nodded in agreement and turned to walk over to the door. On the monitor for the security room hallway, just behind her, something was quickly moving towards their position. It left the camera’s view as quickly as it entered it. Six’s hand was inches from the lock when the door opened.



It was like Ten and Eleven had stepped into an urban battlefield. Pools of molten glass were still cooling on the pavement in front of the building, everything that wasn’t disintegrated from the flash of heat and light was scorched or melted beyond recognition. Four piles of ash and wilted metal objects marked the locations of the team members who were in the room at the time of detonation. The melted cameras previously in question had oozed a fair distance down the walls before Ten and Eleven had arrived.

"Holy sht," Ten breathed in disbelief, "Looks like the ammo they were carrying exploded in it's casings."

"One, the foyer's pretty messed up. Four casualties at a guess, likely some kind of plasma or laser charge, sir. Nothing's left," Eleven announced over the radio.

Even though radio isn't a brilliant means of conveying emotion, One's voice still managed to ooze with frustration after background static had had its way with it.

"Leave it then, and start setting up erasers. Meet up with me at the computer lab once you're done," he said, "And watch your backs."

It wasn't just time which was against them.

 

[Festy_Dog]

[ooc: On second thoughts I doubt there'll ever be more bumps than game posts, I'd give up long before then. But nonetheless here's another bump. If I get through this little story, and then a little more, me thinks I'll leave it at that and not bother any more.]

Ten and Eleven set an explosive charge in a key point of the front foyer, and set off to plant other charges throughout the building. The security room was third on their list of destinations, the second was on the way there.

Three had a bit of a head start on Ten and Eleven, but further to go. In theory he'd probably arrive around the same time, maybe a little sooner, little later.



The setup of the security room was pretty simple, a door was set into a corner of the room, facing out onto the hallway. Along the same wall as the door started the monitors for the security cameras. They continued around the room, taking up about 2 and a half walls. The room was set up to be occupied by three or four security personnel around the clock, but for some disturbing reason the entire building was deserted. It was no simple task for Four and Six to keep track of all the monitors with only the two of themselves, and though the building was apparently deserted something had escaped their observation.



Three, Ten and Eleven were all closing on the security room. Three had a moderate lead.

"Four, Six, friendlies inbound, respond?" Eleven said.

Silence.

Three and Ten both turned the corners at either end of the hallway, fortunately they recognised one another straight away. They exchanged brief nods and closed the distance to the security room door. Three arrived first.

"Four? Six? Respond!" Eleven repeated.

Three shook his head at Ten and Eleven. The door to the security room was wide open, and Six's corpse was sprawled just inside, four gunshot wounds to the torso. Four was further into the room, a single shot to the head had felled him, he sat leant against the desk on the far wall.

"One, sir, this is Three. Four and Six are down, unknown enemy took them both out with a suppressed firearm by the look of it," Three's foot nudged some shell casings on the floor, he crouched down to assess them.

Ten and Eleven arrived, one took a position at either side of the security room entrance and each trained a sub-machinegun down either side of the hallway.

"High calibre pistol, sir," Three said as he picked one of the shells up.

One's reply came through, "Ten and Eleven, are you with Three?"

"Yes, sir," Ten replied curtly.

"Hold the security room with Three until backup arrives, then resume planting erasers," he ordered.

"Yes, sir," Ten said again.

"I'm going to sweep the room for surprises, stay here," Three told the others, who replied with nods.

Three entered the room, moving slowly and assessing everything in sight. Nothing of note in clear view, so he checked behind the door, and found nothing. He was becoming hopeful. He checked underneath the desks with the monitors above them, and found something. A Claymore mine was hidden on the wall behind Four, a tripwire tied to his belt. It would have gone off had Three tried to move the corpse, it needed to be disarmed.

"Found a Claymore," he called out to the others, "Hold your positions."

He reached for the detonator, which the tripwire was attached to, and his hand crossed an unseen laser tripwire. Another Claymore, positioned behind a monitor above Three's head, went off.

 

[Festy_Dog]

[ooc: And so we come to the next installment of the mini series which exists only to prevent a thread falling off the edge of the map. In this episode our intrepid survivors will encounter more death, mystery and mediocre writing skill. Eager to find out what happens next? Neither am I! Huzzah!]

Three was ripped to shreds by the assortment of ball bearings and other miscellaneous shrapnel that graced his being. Eleven was standing in the hallway by the door and the right side of his body was exposed to the blast inside the room. Eleven's right arm and leg suddenly jerked forward and he spun to the ground. Instinctively he pulled his gun's trigger, and six rounds were quietly unloaded into the wall and ceiling as he fell.

Ten had dropped to a crouch at the explosion, and afterwards glanced into the monitor room and grimaced before turning his attention to Eleven, who was groaning on the ground. A series of profanities escaped Eleven's lips as he lay there.

"Hold still, I'll call a medic," Ten said.

Eleven wasn't looking well, his right arm and leg were badly torn up. A quick tally in Ten's head told him the only one left with significant medical training was Five, who would have been his preferred choice anyway. He made the call.



Elsewhere in the complex, One was trying to determine who he could send to help Three cover the monitors. The dozen who had breached the building had been halved, and One was close to sweating blood over the situation.

"Five, I want y-" One was cut off by a thump and a slight tremor, he continued, "I want you to get to the monitor room. Hustle. Two, keep up the work on the door, I've got your back."

As much as he regretted doing so, he realised he needed to enquire as to what might have happened.

"We need a medic at the monitor room!" Ten's voice came through urgently, "Three tripped a Claymore, he's gone and Eleven's hurt bad."

"Five is on his way now, how is the security room?"

"Fcked."

It was a catastrophe, but One had to salvage what he could.

"Patch Eleven up, bring him back here, then I want you and Five to lay the rest of the erasers."

He received an affirmative from the other end, and proceeded to keep a vigilant watch for the next four or so minutes.

"Got it!" Two said behind him, and the heavy blast door to the central computer lab slid open.

She effeciently packed up the electronics gear she used and moved inside the room to a computer terminal. Finally something good. Though initially problematic, the door had been opened five minutes ahead of schedule. Two had great respect in this area of expertise for a reason. One followed her in to assist where he could.

"Ten, what's your status?" he barked into his headpiece.

"Eleven's stable and we're on our way there now," Ten replied.

One stepped into the computer lab, and without warning the blast door slammed securely shut behind him.

 

[Festy_Dog]

[ooc: That's right, I'm still goin' at it here, don't actually think I'll let this little gem slip away, do ya? But regardless, I'm sure you're used to my ramblings by now: bla bla bla... when Douane gets back... bla bla bla... keeping bumped... bla bla bla. Here's another pile of hot, steaming creativity for your entertainment (or lack thereof).]

"Oops, sorry," Two said, and smiled sweetly, "Just shutting the door to prevent anything sneaking up on us. The others will let us know when they want to come in."

One grunted in response, a little speechless after feeling a great mass of metal come dangerously close to reducing him to jam-like consistency.

"I'm gonna get started on retrieving the package," Two said, and sat herself in front of a computer terminal.

"Good," One replied, having recovered part of his vocabulary.

He took a seat near the door. There were half a dozen terminals in the room, composed of monitors and keyboards, and all were connected to a large mainframe computer.

"I think it was some kind of setup," Two said as her fingers hammered away at a keyboard.

One nodded in agreement. He regretted not calling the whole thing off after the first few casualties, but he wasn't certain. He was in the frying pan, and had to jump, was there any way to avoid the fire? The least he could do was try to retrieve the information without losing anyone else. He opened his mouth to give Two some kind of encouragement, but was cut off by his radio.

"We're at the door, sir," came Five's voice.

"I got it," Two replied, and the blast door slid open smoothly, belying it's great weight.

Ten and Five rushed in, carrying Eleven between them. His right sleeve and leg were soaked with blood, but that was from before Five had patched him up.

"He's stable. A little reconstructive surgery and some bed rest and he'll be back in action, right now though he's zonked on morphine," Five summarised Eleven's condition.

Eleven's head lolled about as he took in the new surroundings, then he closed his eyes as he fell asleep.

"Sir, found something of interest," Two said.

One walked over and took a look.

"According to this one occupants of the offices upstairs left his computer on, with him still logged in. Either that or he's still here, which I doubt. The big bonus though is that he has clearance to get the data we want, which'll save plenty of time. Office 214" she said, then looked to him for a verdict.

"Alright then, Five and Ten, back to setting up those erasers. You've got five minutes. Two, keep watch over Eleven and see what else you can find. I'm going upstairs to get the package," One said.

The three black garbed commandos slipped out of the room and went their separate ways. The blast door slammed shut heavily behind them.

One made haste to the stairs, there was some kind of opposition in the building and it had managed to halve his teams numbers. To him it appeared he had jumped off the wrong side of the frying pan, because this felt like the fire.

He leaped the flights of stairs to the second floor, and sprinted down the darkened hallway at the top. Down one end a room's door was open, and weak light was spilling out, likely the light cast by a computer's monitor.

A solid blow to the throat and his legs were thrown into the air in front of him. One's radio earpiece was knocked clear of his ear with the impact. He gagged as he landed on the floor, sighting the extended arm above him he realised he had been clothes-lined. They must've been hiding in a doorway. He squeaked in an effort to call for backup, but had to roll out of the way to avoid the boot falling hard towards his head. His earpiece wasn't as lucky, feeling the full brunt of the boot's impact. He wasn't without martial arts training though, and jumped to his feet, avoiding the next boot as it kicked a hole in the hallway wall he lay next to. He spun about, and his fist connected with the unseen opponents face.

Intense hand-to-hand combat ensued.

 

[Festy_Dog]

[ooc: Now here we arrive at the finale for my first little ministory. Not having received any word from Douane (especially after the recent email) it would be quite easy to let this thread slip away... But I still have another idea to write about after this tale ends, likely to be less than half the size of this story but contains real character development and no killing (shock and/or horror!). Who knows, maybe I'll come up with another idea while writing the next little story and keep the thread alive a little longer. Always a chance.

Hmm, and do I have some kind of devious twist at the end of my story? Perhaps, it entirely depends on the reader's interpretation as to how this would relate to anything, but I'm sure there's twist enough to it without having to think long and hard about it. Now aside from that I'll let you read the final part (or not, it's quite possible that no one reads these little bumps of mine, heh).]



One sat against a side of the hallway, wheezing and coughing. A corpse lay next to him, its head lying at an awkward angle from the rest of its body. He picked up his smashed earpiece, and finding it unsalvageable, struggled to his feet. He dumped the body in the office, and closed the door on his way out. That'd do until the erasers did their work. As he stumbled towards the office at the end of the hallway something struck him as unusual: Shouldn't there be others? Why was he alone? After a moment of thought he realised he could have asked the same questions in reference to himself. One let the query go unanswered, putting the pieces together could wait till later.

He got through the office door and slumped into the chair behind the desk. He coughed a couple more times and stared blankly at the computer monitor for a good ten seconds. A few of his ribs hurt, and things were a tad fuzzy. One half-heartedly dug through his pockets, finally finding and extracting a number of disks. He inserted the first one, and proceeded to transfer the desired files onto it.



Two sat downstairs in front of a server terminal, One hadn't replied to her requests. Had something gone wrong?

"Five? Ten? Any sign of One?" she asked.

"No ma'am," came the replies, they had finished planting the erasers a minute or so before now, and had been searching for One.

"Keep-"

"Found him!" Five's voice came through, "One got to the computer terminal, he's pretty beat up but he's got the data by the look of it. Making copies of it now."

Two looked at the screen in front of her, indeed there was activity on that computer.

"His earpiece was broken in a fight," Five continued, "We're coming back down."

"A fight? Are there any others?" she asked.

"No idea," Five replied.



"Where's the body?" Five asked as he and One walked to the stairs.

One nodded towards a closed door with a hole at ankle height in the wall opposite it.

Five let One lean against the wall while he went to investigate.

"Forget it, we don't have time," One rasped, "I can tell you all about it when we get back, right now we're expected at the evac point."

"Yes, sir," Five answered, and helped One down the stairs.



The five remaining team members gathered inside the server room. Though it was still only a short time after the beatings he exchanged with the masked foe, One was standing on his own now, having gathered some breath and regained his equilibrium.

"We're pulling out," he said hoarsely.

"What happened to your voice?" Eleven asked.

"A clothesline for starters," One said, then coughed.

He proceeded to distribute out the disks he had stored the data on, before kneeling down next to Eleven. One inspected Five's handiwork, the bandaging was good for the conditions under which they were applied. He grunted as he stood back up.

"Five, Ten," he said, and indicated Eleven, "We'll split up and take the alternate routes to the evac."

After getting this far One didn't want the package failing to arrive. Five and Ten picked up Eleven between them and as the group headed for the door One's team originally came through, they could here approaching sirens.

"Two, set the timers for 120 seconds," One rasped an order.

"Yes, sir," she took out a remote detonator and punched in some numbers.

She nodded once she was done, then everyone split up.



Five hundred metres away the building was purged with intense flames before collapsing in on itself. Kevin took off his balaclava and looked at the disk in his hand. He had fulfilled his objectives, but it was far from a job well done. He winced and placed a hand on his ribs, quite sure a couple had been broken, and retrieved a backpack from behind a dumpster. Quickly as he could he changed into the outfit in the bag, then threw anything not worth keeping into the dumpster. He took a drink bottle from the bag and emptied it too into the dumpster, the smell of petrol permeated the air and Kevin spat some blood off to his left. He took a moment to check a tooth which felt wobbly, then threw a match into the dumpster as well. The petrol ignited with a 'woof', and Kevin paced off into the shadows created by the flames.

 

[Festy_Dog]

Reminders - Part 1

[ooc: Now that past series of posts does little to help get an insight of my character, Kevin, so I’ve decided that the next (and most probably last) few posts I make to keep this thread afloat will be a look at his life on Solaris and one of the major events there which has shaped his life. This series is about a year before the events in game. For the most part though what I write is totally unplanned, I just get some vague ideas of where I want a post to end up and what I want to happen during it and then I flesh it out during the actual post writing process. Did you ever think so much effort could be put into a bump? But yeah, all this effort being put into a character in an apparently dead game (or as I like to put it, a game in a ‘coma’) could be better spent on another game which is actually running, or my university work, or a console game, or on whipping a dead horse (wait a sec…).

On another note though, for those who actually read what I write (You’re out there, I know it! I’ve kept track of the number of views since I last posted. *wags finger*), my knowledge of the Mechwarrior universe is relatively slim. As I write these posts I’m assuming they have roughly the same technology as what people have now, though with the edge taken off non-weapon technology; much clunkier computers, this, that and the other. That and what little I know of Solaris comes primarily from what Douane has said and what little I’ve gleaned from Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries (although that game is set over 40 years after 3025, so the tech used in that isn’t much use for examples). The point of all this being: If I make a mistake, don’t bite my head off because I’m just trying to bump the thread in a mildly entertaining way under the impression that the GM is actually going to return out of the blue. If there is something which you feel needs to be said though, say it in the ooc thread, thanks.

Now that the largest blog I’ve written yet is behind us, here’s the intro to the next series of bumps (this series has a title, goes to show I have far too much spare time): ‘Reminders’ (sounds pretty spiffy I reckon’ *pretends to be cool*)]



Between contracts as a mercenary Kevin Mayne would try his hand at the mech dueling on Solaris. Ninety percent of the time he spent at any dueling arena though was as a medic on standby should his medical skills be called on. This in a way saved him from the worst of the flak he should have received with his poor performance, as a pilot would be hesitant to diss out their defeated opponent if this defeated opponent could be the medic patching them back together some time in the future. No one would be wise to disgruntle the person whose life they are placing their hands in, should luck be against them one day. He earned himself a small but good reputation as a medic, and this reputation even went outside of the arena, where he was a semi-legitimate general practitioner. He could fix people up and not ask questions, which was something he was appreciated for. That and he was willing to patch the odd charity case up for free. Such generosity didn’t stretch his budget too badly, thus he was able to do it. It was clear that his medical skills were valued far more than his piloting skills.

It wasn’t that he was an unskilled pilot, far from it in fact, he had served with the 21st Centauri Lancers for about six years. It’s just that wherever there is a winner, there must always be a loser, and somehow Kevin usually found himself on the losing end in these sporting events. He could probably have been described as a tropical fish in that regard, he performed quite well in his natural military habitat, but just by changing the temperature of the water, in this case switching over to a different style of mech combat, and he fell on his face.

It didn’t bother him that much really, in some abstract way it helped him keep his skills sharp between jobs. But none of this was why he was drinking at the point in time where this short story starts, and simply put, everyone’s got a few skeletons in the closet.

With the last of his patients out of the door a few hours earlier, Kevin had taken this opportunity to sit down at the kitchen table with a bottle of rum and his gun cleaning kit. His sub-machinegun was this evening’s victim, and throughout his empty apartment echoed his voice as he sung quietly in his semi-drunk state.

…And this is one fine mess I've made.
There's plenty more from where it came.
And when I've had enough to drink,
I'll see if things still look the same.
And when it washes over me,
I'll try my best to make believe
That I'm the same man,
The same man underneath…

This was his drinking song of sorts, though he never sung around other people as he usually became quiet and thoughtful when intoxicated. Nonetheless his song, and his attempt to analyze the present state of the firing pin spring were interrupted with a phone call. He jolted upright, being caught off guard by the noise, but as soon as he realized what was happening he twisted in his seat and picked up the phone.

“Err?” he started.

“Kevin? It’s Pierre. Did I catch you at a bad time?” Kevin didn’t have time to say yes, “Going to get worse, sorry. Sent a couple of charity cases your way, but given the time of night I thought I’d give you a heads up. Wife and kid, husband hit the wife on occasion but once he hurt the kid the wife took the kid and left.”

“Ah… okay, but I’ve been drinking. What is it that you wouldn’t handle? They in a car? Walking?”

“Car. And I think the boy’s fractured the radius on his left arm, fell down a short flight of stairs after the husband slapped him I’m told.”

“Hmm, that gives me about twenty minutes I guess. What about that can’t you handle?”

Pierre paused, “Husband’s a bit of a celebrity, Sammy Hogan.”

“Chri-”

“They’re trying to be discrete, she’s leaving him for good.”

“He’s not that big of a celebrity you know,” Kevin was a little agitated.

“True, I guess it doesn’t take much to slap you down in the arena.”

Kevin grunted dismissively, not wanting to get into a debate. A decision granted by alcohol’s tendency to not reside in his head.

“Oh, and they’ll be there in about five minutes.”

“What? You think I can get ready in that time?”

“Well I only realized I should call you about fifteen minutes after they left, beca-”

Kevin hung up, excuses could come when he was sober, and he didn’t have that luxury with these patients. He moved the bottle of rum onto the kitchen bench, but in doing so found out where the alcohol went instead of his head, and stumbled as his legs barely responded to his commands. He bundled up his cleaning kit and the dismantled weapon inside the canvas tablecloth he used for gun maintenance and dumped it on his bed. While in his bedroom he took a minute to change into a clean outfit and make himself presentable before carefully moving back out into the main living area. He winced as someone knocked at the door. He took a deep breath and practiced walking like a sober person as he approached the door. He opened the door with his standard smile but it rapidly disappeared.

“Ellice?”



[ooc: The lyrics are from an actual song, ‘Left Alone’ by Echo 7. Not a bad song at all, but that’s just my opinion. ]

 

[shurai]

Well, that about does it for me. It's been over two months now since real gameplay happened. As cool as all our characters were, and as cool as this concept is, I think it's time for me to let it go. tom dot olson at gmail dot com if you want to reach me, in case it starts up again.