Mercenaries’ Tale – 2.08 The Pipeline
Walking around behind the scenes of any Salmanic building was much like walking around backstage at a theatre. The areas accessible to the general public were covered in grand displays of wealth befitting of something owned by the richest and most influential person on the planet but when it came down to it, that’s all it was; a display put on to influence public perception. Up front may have been expensive marble flooring, stunning architecture and gaudy glass statues but behind the metaphorical curtain it was sticky linoleum floors, cost effective lighting and beige as far as the eye could see.
The mercenaries’ transportation followed a similar theme; a sleek aircraft that could be described as a hybrid between a helicopter and a plane looking smart in blue and emblazoned with the Salmanic logo on the doors which, inside, smelled like feet and was made entirely of cheap plastic. Rubbish was even still strewn across the floor courtesy of the last passengers it had ferried across the desert.
The group took their seats and soon they were flying high above the sandy dunes, racing towards the latest terrorist attack site.
“So what exactly is the plan here?” Harper asked aloud, attracting the others’ attention. Thad and Annie exchanged a look, Thad’s brow cocked and Annie’s lips spreading into an amused smirk. Doug was slowly getting a feel for how the dynamic worked between the two. They seemed to be sharing leadership responsibilities between them. Annie was obviously more of a people person than her partner, the Texan being the mouth piece, there to shepherd people into doing what they wanted. She was the pretty face to put people at ease and make friends, something Thad clearly had little interest in. He was obviously the brains of the operation, said brain being put to use dealing with all the niggly little details of strategising. It was Thad that addressed Harper’s query.
“We’re going to have a poke around and see if there’s anything our friends on the Salmanic security team might have missed.”
“Like what? They’ve got some of the best surveillance equipment money can buy!” she retorted.
“Ah, but we have something they don’t,” Thad smiled snidely as he shifted his position so that he could face Gratin, who was currently observing the view of the monorail network through the window.
“Mister Mage, I believe you have the ability to sense when magic’s been cast. If one of the terrorists is definitely a mage, will you be able to track them?” asked Thad as graciously as he could muster. Gratin contemplated this carefully.
“That all depends how long ago a spell was cast, the amount of power put behind it and if they continued to use their magic as they escaped,” he eventually answered.
“They were casting shielding spells,” Annie offered hopefully, “apparently they could make their team mates invulnerable with a song.”
“Hmm, chanting is merely a way to focus the mind, different mages picking up different techniques so the use of a melody does not surprise me. It does little to give me reason to be able to track them, however,”
“Well what if they were using magic to escape?” pressed Annie, refusing to give up at the first hurdle, “it might explain why no one has seen them travellin’ about. They just seem to appear at their targets without any hint of car tracks or aircraft on Salmanic’s radar; they could be teleportin’!”
“Hmm, possible but teleportation across vast distances would require a mage of substantial skill. Most teleporters I have met have only been able to achieve a few feet.”
“So what you’re saying here,” interjected Parkinson, “is that we may be completely wasting our time by coming out here? Wonderful.”
The pipeline network for the most part was kept underground but every so often a monolithic pipe could be glimpsed rising from the sands of the desert, usually running parallel to the monorail tracks used by Salmanic engineers to reach the various monitor stations scattered around the desert.
The stations were weathered concrete buildings which were usually placed at a point where the pipeline diverged. One colossal pipe entered the station and a number of smaller pipes cast out from the other side, spreading off into the distance towards the next station and, eventually, to the settlements that required the electricity.
So far, all of the sites where a terrorist attack had taken place were situated next to one of the monitor stations and the latest was no exception. Clean up crews could be seen shifting aside the rubble and attempting to begin repairs on the pipe. The mercs watched them bustling about from the landing bay on the roof of the station.
“I think it’s safe to say any evidence our targets left has already been cleared away. Or trampled over,” Parkinson observed glumly.
“Well aren’t you just the life of the party!” Doug retorted.
“Yeah, at a wake maybe. Chin up, Parky, all our leads ain’t dead yet!” added Harper. She spotted a Salmanic employee in a smart blue uniform similar to the ones worn back at the information centre rather than the blue overalls worn by the engineers. He was a supervisor of some sort, keeping an eye on the clean up crews. She hopped onto the railing lining the stairs leading down to the ground and slid down to meet him. The others slowly filtered down the stairs after her.
The smartly dressed employee was surprised to find Harper approaching him.
“Oh! Jess! What brings you out here-?”
“I’m just with the mercenary party poking about for a bit of info, like,” she beamed at him and indicated the others trailing behind her with a thumb. Blaise was the first to approach, brow cocked curiously.
“Are you on first name terms with the staff out here?” the red head asked, not one to over look the little details. Harper casually shrugged at her.
“I got to know a few of the guys at some of the pubs. You’d be surprised what you can pick up when you get the rounds in and do a bit of minglin’. Maybe you should try it some time, B-laze, you might just enjoy yourself!” the scouse winked causing Blaise’s nose to wrinkle in derision. Harper returned her attention to the employee.
“So, Mickey, got anything interestin’ for us?”
“Mostly just some pieces of cyborg and chunks of rubble I’m afraid. There were a few drops of blood that’s been sent away for analysis but you know how long these things take,” he gave her an apologetic look. Harper deflated a little.
“So there’s nothing new here aside from one surviving cyborg?”
“Well, there is one thing that you may find useful. The Cyborg had a few enhancements fitted to boost his brain’s performance in the way those Church of Mekanik guys do. You know the type,”
“Yeah, I pegged those cyborgs as being the modding sort. They practically screamed cyber-addicts,” she glanced at Doug who nodded in agreement.
“Well our survivor had an electronic hind-brain fitted to boost memory and recall. He’s given us permission to upload his memories of the encounter to our network. I can play it for you if you want, just give me a minute to get logged in…” he pulled a digibook from his belt and began to play with the screen.
The mercs uninterested in the conversation spread out to look at some of the damage caused by the terrorists. This group consisted of Tupper and Gratin. The two approached the pipe to begin their own highly professional investigation. Tupper picked up a piece of rubble and gave it a lick, smacking his lips together as he considered the taste. One of the members of the Salmanic clean up crew watched this intently, curiosity getting the better of him.
“Can you actually work out what they used to blow up the pipe like that?” he asked, mystified. Tupper shrugged.
“I mostly just taste sand, to be honest,”
Gratin stepped around the workmen until he reached the gaping hole in the pipe. The contents inside had been incinerated, melted copper lining the bottom of the concrete tube. Gratin eyed up the damage curiously and then began to run a hand forensically over the brim of the hole. He stretched out his senses, wondering if there had been any other magic users in the party that could have caused the damage. As far as he could tell, nothing magical had been used on the pipe but there was something… off about what he could feel that made his jaw clench. He removed his hand from the pipe and bent down to examine the interior more closely, running a finger over the solidified pool of copper.
“Ah, here we go!” Mikey the Salmanic employee exclaimed as his digibook connected to the Salmanic network. He accessed the security feed, input his login details and loaded up the video retrieved from the cyborg. It began innocently enough, the Cyborg having been patrolling the area with his fellows late into the night. Various displays along the top of the screen showed information the Cyborg’s cybernetics were registering such as external temperature, wind speed and so on. At the bottom was a chat log of messages received from the other cyborgs, the group talking to each other via the plugins in their mechanically enhanced brains. It was all fairly mundane up until the lights all turned off at once, plunging the area into total darkness.
The chat filled up with expletives and questions as to what was happening. Then one of the cyborgs disconnected from the chat, indicating the first fatality. More expletives in the chat. The Cyborg activated his cybernetic-eye’s night vision mode, the blackness of the screen being replaced by the ghostly green image of a cyborg lying prone on the floor, his throat having been cut. Another cyborg disconnected from the chat, the Cyborg whirling around to see one of the Art Deco cyborgs stood frozen in place, his head sparking as it’s cybernetic components overloaded.
“Come out and face us properly you coward!” another of the cyborg group yelled into the darkness. The reply came from over his shoulder.
“Serg abg, fha fcbg, vg jvyy nyy or bire fbba” gun fire sprayed from the shadows but now the mercs weren’t paying attention to the video any more.
“Fha fcbg… I know that phrase,” Doug muttered.
“You do? What does it mean?” Mickey asked. All eyes were now on Doug, even those belonging to the mercs examining the pipe. Gratin could sense his friend’s unease and decided to return to the group to see what had transpired. Doug scratched his jaw as he considered how to break the news.
“Yeah, I heard it a lot back in my PSF days, usually when me an’ Galvison had gotten caught short,” Blaise had tensed up at the mention of the name. She was watching Doug closely, absorbing every detail of his body language as he continued. She could see what he was going to say and didn’t like it one bit.
“It’s what Dark Worlders call Lusinians,” The merc explained, “I always took it to mean ‘Lighty Bastards’ but I think it actually means ‘sun spots’ or something like that.”
This revelation affected everyone differently. Gratin grunted, Annie and Thad held hands whilst staring at the floor, Parkinson and Tupper shared a sceptical glance and Blaise continued to stare at Doug. Doug stared back, their eyes locked. He could tell by the tilt of her head and the wideness of her eyes that she was genuinely concerned about him. He decided to take a page out of her book and forced his face to slacken enough to hide what was going through his head from her, his face becoming an emotionless mask. Her eyes narrowed in response but she didn’t say anything.
Parkinson did.
“Are you sure? You realise what that implies, right?” he said to Doug. Doug nodded, removing a cigarette from his jacket and lighting it up.
“Looks like Salmanic’s got a Dark Worlder problem,” he stated.
“Don’t be absurd! There’s no way a Dark Worlder could get down here, let alone a whole team of them! The PSF wouldn’t just let them through!” Harper proclaimed.
“The PSF are spread pretty thin up there; a ship might have breached their defences. Or these could be Lusinian Dark Worlders: a family that came here before the war and have become pretty jaded due to speciest pricks treating them like they’re the ones getting into dogfights with the PSF,” Doug shrugged, “all I know is that what we heard was a string of Dark Worlder speech.”
“What if it’s home-grown terrorists using Dark Worlder speak as a cover?” Harper argued weakly.
“New Dawn for instance. They’ve been trying to take down the power plant for years!”
The mercs not involved with the discussion tensed. Annie’s features hardened whilst Thad and Parkinson began to mutter quietly to each other.
“That ain’t New Dawn’s way of doin’ things and you know it!” the Texan butted in, “they go after folks they deem evil and they show their working. If it were New Dawn doin’ this then they’d have filmed a full confession and shown it to everyone on the planet by now! There’s no way Salmanic would’ve been able to sweep it under the carpet as well as they have!” she had cleared the gap between herself and Harper, preparing to square off against the scouse.
“Why Stone, I had no idea you knew about the inner workings and motivations of terrorist movements! So glad you’re here to set me straight!” Harper sarcastically replied.
“Ah ain’t an expert, ah just pay attention to the news rather than just assuming the first straw ah grasped will be the answer!” Annie shot back, clearly losing her temper.
“Oh you little bi-”
“OI! We’re supposed to be professionals, right? Let’s act like it!” Doug interrupted, “I don’t know much about New Dawn but I know enough to think Annie’s right about the way they work. The news feeds would’ve been full of images of exploding pipelines if they were the ones behind these attacks,”
“Don’t tell me you’re some kinda New Dawn sympathiser, Doug,” Harper’s nose wrinkled as she surveyed the bloke before her. Doug shook his head.
“New Dawn’s all political and I don’t follow the stuff. Seems to me it all boils down to two different sides of a room yellin’ insults at each other and I haven’t got time for that – not without some beers and the promise that I’ll get to throw a punch at someone at some point. All I know is that I heard a Dark Worlder insult on that video and that makes me think the people we’re after are doing this ‘cus they’re sympathetic to the people the planet’s at war with rather than this being a bunch of local terrorists blowing shit up because they want – what? Less privatisation and more health care? Blowing up the power lines ain’t a step in that direction,” reasoned Doug. Blaise coughed awkwardly.
“We could just watch the rest of the video. See if the cyborg got a good look at his assailants?” she suggested. Everyone turned to the Salmanic employee who was still holding his digibook. He glanced down at the video and started to rewind back to where they had stopped watching.
“She has a point, there’s another ten minutes of footage here,” he admitted. The mercs began to crowd around the tiny screen, Gratin being the only one to hang back. He had taken to observing Blaise throughout the previous exchange. She had renewed her interest in Doug the moment New Dawn had been mentioned, examining his reactions meticulously. His thoughts on the organisation had been of great interest to her, a detail Gratin had found very curious indeed. He stored this titbit away for later.
The Cyborg had indeed survived when his assailants opened fire. His friend hadn’t, another name disappearing from the chat log shortly after the bullets began to fly. The Cyborg had hit the dirt and had taken cover behind a rock. A compartment opened up in his artificial hip to reveal a sizeable pistol which the Cyborg snatched up. He took a deep breath and popped up from his cover, preparing to open fire on his attackers. He hadn’t been expecting one of them to be waiting on the other side of the rock for him.
“Pause it there!” Thad demanded, Mickey the Salmanic employee doing as he was told. The video froze on the image of the attacker’s head grinning at the startled Cyborg. It was humanoid in shape but there was something distinctly alien about it, as if a sculptor had attempted to replicate a human head but had been fuzzy on what scale the features were supposed to be.
The eyes and ears were too large. The eyes dominated the top half of the face and were easily twice the size of a humans’. Annie and Tupper both glanced towards Gratin, clearly wondering if his eyes were the same size. His mask’s glass eyes were overly large but they had assumed that it was a stylistic choice. Now they were wondering if that was actually the size of his natural eyes. Gratin grunted and turned away, resuming his inspection of their surroundings.
“Well, that doesn’t look like a member of New Dawn,” Doug summarised as he puffed away on his cigarette, “Not that I’ve ever met anyone from New Dawn mind you but I’m pretty sure that they don’t recruit Dark Worlders and that’s definitely a Dark Worlder.”
Harper grunted and muttered something inaudible under her breath. Annie grinned and put an arm around the scouse.
“Don’t be too upset sugah, ah’m sure at some point we’ll find you a genuine New Dawner for you to fight and we’ll all have a laugh. Just ’cus you were dead wrong don’t mean ya’ll have to sulk about it!” Harper surveyed the blonde for a moment and then broke into a grin of her own.
“Oh I’m sure that’ll be a hoot. I can hardly wait. Dark Worlders are meant to be tough bastards though, right? Who’s to say we’re all going to come out of this in one piece?”
“Ah didn’t take you for the pessimistic sort, Harp,”
“I’m not. I’m just worried that a delicate lady like you won’t be able to keep up with the rest of us, luv,” Harper grinned wickedly at the blonde.
“Ah’d worry less about lil’ old me and more about yerself, sugah,” Annie grinned back just as wickedly, “if you’re this slow on the uptake then ah’d hate to see you struggling with something really dangerous,”
The tension in the atmosphere was heightened as the two women leered at each other, the two looking for an excuse to deck the other. Thad coughed, drawing their attention.
“As good as it is to see you ladies getting along, I think it’s time to make a plan. I’d say it’s best we learn as much as we can about these Dark Worlders. Annabelle, sweetheart, perhaps you could go through the footage again and see if there is anything in there that may shed some light on how these bastards fight?” He suggested. Annie nodded.
“Sure thing, sweetie-”
“I’ll help,” Harper cut in, “two eyes are better than one and all that. I might spot something you don’t.”
“Why you-” Annie began only to spot the stern expression on her other half’s face. She took a deep breath and smiled sweetly at Harper.
“Why thank you Jess, your help will be mightily appreciated,” her voice sounded strained but Harper ignored it and took the tablet from the technician, resetting the footage to an earlier part in the fight and making herself comfortable on a rock to watch it. Annie grudgingly joined her. Thad nodded and turned to Doug.
“McCracken, you better give me a history lesson on your previous skirmishes with the Dark Worlders during your stint in the PSF. Any info on the tactics they generally used, abilities and so on will be helpful. We’ll need as much of an edge as we can get,” he said. Doug thought of this and nodded. The fact that Thad had designated himself as leader of their rag-tag little group irked him, but Doug could see sense in what he was saying.
“Sure thing. I gotta lot of stories to tell,” he agreed. Thad found a place to sit next to the women but paused when he noticed the expression of disapproval on Blaise’s face.
“I take it there won’t be no objections to my chattin’ with your pals?” Thad’s voice oozed with sarcasm. Blaise was aware that everyone’s attention was gravitating to her now, a knot forming in her stomach as she considered arguing her point and what Doug’s inevitable reaction would be.
“Do what you want. I’m going to help Gratin look around,” she eventually said, feigning disinterest and walking off to find Gratin.
“I’ll join you,” Parkinson piped up, following her, “I doubt I’m going to be all that useful around here anyway,” Blaise merely shrugged at him and allowed him to fall into step beside her as they approached the mage.
The Gentleman waited for Doug to make himself comfortable, lighting up a cigarette and offering the pack to the soldier in an effort to be friendly. Doug eyed the packet, shrugged and accepted one of the offered little black sticks, using the dying stub he had been previously smoking to light the new one. Thad let out an amused chuckle as he observed Doug.
“That’s an odd habit ya got there, pal. Don’t you have a lighter?”
“Yeah, but I tend to just use it for emergencies. It’s a habit I picked up from Galvison,” explained Doug.
“You mentioned that name earlier. Close friends, were you?”
“He was like a big brother to me. We met in the PSF, took me under his wing. Taught me damn near everything I know,” he was staring at the end of his smoking cigarette with a distant look in his eye, the stick resting between his index and middle fingers as he considered Thad’s question.
“He musta been somethin’ special, from what I’ve seen and heard of you. What did you do for the PSF anyway? Grunt work?”
“This and that. We got moved around a lot so we did a bit of everything to be honest. Piloting, infiltration, even a bit of trench warfare at one point,” the soldier shrugged.
“And that was all against the Dark Worlders?” Thaddeus inquired.
“Mostly, they were the priority after all, but every so often we’d be sent off for something a bit more special. The PSF earns its money by renting out the troops and the war with the Dark Worlders is just a freebie,”
“Not including donations from big business here on Lusinia, of course,” Thad pointed out casually, examining Doug closely as he took a long drag from his own cigarette. Doug once again shrugged.
“Don’t know much about that side of it to be honest. The accountants and marketing guys are a whole separate beast, the Commander being the only one who dealt with them directly. They just send down the client’s orders and we get to work,”
“You and your squad? Or do you all just work as one big army?”
“Depends on the job usually. Eventually me and Galvi got to pick a squad to work with permanently on special operations. There was us, Elvito and Wiggins, plus a few guys that got transferred in or out of the squad depending on what was needed for whatever mission we were about to be sent off on,” Doug smiled to himself, reminiscing over times long passed.
“Elvito was the heart and soul of the group. Gentle giant bear of a man, was always mothering us. Loved big guns and gave them all cute nick-names but my gods was he terrifying when he got angry. Wiggins was a tiny bloke who was good at scout work. Really nippy and had sticky fingers. He once blew up an entire enemy platoon with their own explosives without them even realising he had ever been there. Regularly drank all of us under the table. One hell of a guy,” he laughed. Thad couldn’t help but notice there was a hint of sadness behind Doug’s words.
“You must miss’em,”
“Mmm. But you didn’t wanna hear about my old mates, did you? You wanna know about our fights with the Dark Worlders,” Doug straightened himself up, leaning forward on his perch on the rocky outcrop and inserting the cigarette into his mouth to take a drag.
“Yes, we probably should stay on topic. What can you tell me?” agreed the Gentleman, steepling his fingers over his cane and resting his chin on top.
“There’s a few things you should know. They’re big on honour, believing that there should be rules in combat. You know, gentlemen’s rules. That kinda thing. They get real pissed off if you try an’ fight dirty,”
“Noted, what else?”
“Magic’s a pretty big deal for them. Their whole society is built on the stuff. Sure, they have some tech but the stuff they use is modified or I guess you could say enchanted so it doesn’t work the same as our stuff. Me and Galvi once tried to hijack one of their spacecraft just to find out you need an Air Mage to pilot the damn thing. There wasn’t a steering column, just a sorta pod where the mage could integrate themselves with the ship’s systems,”
“So we should expect some form of sorcery? Besides the shielding spells?”
“Pretty much. Most of the grunts we fought just had the occasional magic weapon; blades that could cut through damn near anything, bullets that could cast spells on impact, that sorta thing. If they could put a rune on it, they would and it’d give them some kinda edge. They even put ‘em on people to keep the soldiers fighting just that little longer than an unmarked guy would. Runes that dull pain, add stamina, that sorta thing. The higher up you get on the chain of command though, the more likely you are to find a real mage. Power and prestige is linked on the Dark Planet. A fully realised mage of grade six or higher usually wind up being generals or admirals,”
“So power buys power?”
“Not exactly. It all comes down to the mage religion, Elementisim, doesn’t it? Typically speaking, you gotta work to be good at magic and schools of magic tend to be linked to personalities and careers. If you’re good at magic then you’ll be good at the careers tied to it,” Doug attempted to explain, selecting his words carefully as he tried to think of the best way to express his meaning, “I’m not an Elementist so I don’t know the specifics – you’d have to talk to Archie about that – but I think the main gist of it is all about balance and lots of little parts coming together to make one big one,” he leant forward and began to draw in the sand with his index finger. What was known as an Element Wheel began to take form; a circle split into four inside another circle that was split into two. In each segment he wrote a letter; L, F, A on one side of the circles and D, W, E on the other.
He then pointed to the outer section labelled L.
“Light mages are closely linked with war and justice and all that so they make good soldiers,” he then moved to point at the inner segment labelled F, “Fire mages are supposed to be passionate people that are good with cooking and metal work and the like so they wind up in careers linked to those skills,” he then indicated the circles as a whole, “The other elements all got their own thing going on as well but all of them then come together to make life run smoothly. That’s the Elementist creed as I understand it,” Thad nodded in thought.
“I gotta say, your fire mage pal doesn’t exactly strike me as the passionate sort,”
“Yeah, well Archie’s kinda an oddball. I know a few people we’ve met in the past assumed he was a water mage ‘cus of his demeanour and were surprised when they learnt the truth. I know he studied with the fire mages at their monastery though, even worked for ‘em for a spell, but we don’t know much about him outside of that. He’s damn good at fire magic though so maybe he’s just got one hell of a poker face?”
“Maybe. You’ve given me a lot to think about anyway…”
“Yeah, well now it’s my turn to ask you a question,” Doug took another drag from his cigarette, smoke rising in front of his face and obscuring it as he breathed it out.
“Oh yeah?” Thad asked, off guard.
“What’ve you got on Blaise?” there was a stern expression set into Doug’s features as he stared Thaddeus in the eye. The Gentleman stared blankly back.
“What makes ya ask that, pal?”
“I’ve seen the way she’s acting around you. I’m not a total idiot, mate. There’s more to this whole situation then you’re lettin’ on,” Doug took a drag from his cigarette, “so I’ll ask again; what are you holding over Blaise’s head that’s got her so worked up?”
“Is that really any of your business? What’s it to you?”
“She’s my friend. We look out for each other. She’d do the same thing if some asshat was tryin’ to extort me. No offence,” the soldier grinned at The Gentleman, teeth bared and brow low giving him an intimidating air. He was like a wolf stalking his prey, The Gentleman in his sights. Thad chewed on the end of his own cigarette thoughtfully as he reclined back on his rock, unperturbed.
“That’s real sweet. I gotta admit, she’s been going a long way to try an’ protect you. I get the feelin’ she’d do just about anythin’ to keep you safe, Loverboy. Not too sure you’re worth it myself. How much of your chequered past have you shared with her?”
“She knows all about me. I ain’t got nothin’ to hide.”
“Even all the stuff from your PSF days? I’ll level with you, McCracken, I read up on you before approaching our mutual red-headed pal. Can’t help but notice a lot of your career’s been redacted. Especially your last mission on Jehoth IV. Makes me think you weren’t just a soldier-” Thad was cut off by Doug suddenly jumping to his feet in one deceptively fast motion. The next thing Thad knew, Doug’s bionically-enhanced hand was wrapped around his throat. It occurred to The Gentleman that if Doug was so inclined, he could pop off his head like a champagne cork…
This didn’t go unnoticed by Annie and Harper, the blonde crying out in alarm the moment what was occurring registered. Harper, however, remained deathly quiet as she took in the scene.
Annie was about to leap into action but stopped herself as Thad signalled for her to stay put, gesturing with a hand.
“What, did I hit a nerve?” he sneered. Doug’s face was a mask. It was clear from how tense he was that he was seething but his face remained expressionless, teeth clenched and rigidly holding the cigarette perched between them in place.
Eventually Doug managed to speak.
“You don’t get to talk to me about Jehoth IV,” each word was stated so forcefully and with such precision that they could perfectly hammer a nail into a wall. Thad remained extraordinarily calm for someone with several tonnes of bionics threatening to crush their windpipe.
“Seems fair. I don’t need to know the details, buddy, just if O’Donnell knows about your little trigger is all. Hate to think what would happen to her if she uttered those three little syllables…” a snide smile crept across his lips. This only caused Doug to snarl.
“Fuck you, you little-”
“For gods sake, let go of him!” Annie yelled at the soldier, throwing off his concentration. He turned to glare at her only to lay eyes on a terrified young woman on the verge of tears. Annie was on her feet now, a steel fan unsheathed and open to expose the bladed edge. She was ready for a fight but she was shaking like a leaf. Something about seeing the petrified blonde caused the rage to dissipate and Doug’s grip to slacken. Thad let out a long breath as the appendage removed itself from his person. Annie immediately closed the gap to examine her fiancé’s throat.
“You alright sugah? Ah swear if he hurt ya-”
“I’m fine, Sweetheart, just fine. I think I got what I wanted. How about you and me mosey on out of here and check on Tupper?” The Gentleman kept eye-contact with Doug as he spoke, that sneer of a smile remaining in place. Doug’s expression remained unreadable, the merc deep in thought.
Annie nodded meekly and helped her partner to his feet, wrapping an arm around him the moment he was standing. As they began to walk off, Thad glanced over his shoulder at Doug and winked.
“Good talking to ya, pal. I learned a lot,” said The Gentleman, pointing a finger-gun at the other man and pretending to shoot. Doug spat at the floor, took a long drag from his cigarette in an attempt to steady his nerves and then fell into a sitting position besides Harper, still staring off at the retreating couple as he went. Harper scoffed in disapproval.
“That guy really is a prick. What the hell was that even about?” asked the scouse, glancing between Doug and Thad. Doug shrugged, his features stern.
“Don’t wanna talk about it…”
“Oookay…” Harper said awkwardly. There was a pause, Doug mentally going through a folder of small talk topics in a bid to distract himself.
“You seem to have some pretty strong feelings about New Dawn,” Doug noted as he made himself comfortable, leaning forward, human forearm resting on his thigh. Harper had been watching Annie and The Gentleman like a hawk when Doug crowbarred his way into her thoughts. She shook herself out of whatever deep contemplative musings she was having and turned to face the Soldier, shrugging as she did so.
“It’s pretty simple. Sure, New Dawn talk a big game when it comes to helping the little guy but really they’re a hell of a lot worse than the guys they’re trying to pull down. Say what you wanna about how much of a dick Salmanic and his ilk are; at least they’re providing honest work to people. Just look around; we’re surrounded by people that can only afford to eat and keep a roof over their heads ‘cus Salmanic is employing them,” she swept a hand towards the various Salmanic personnel currently working to fix the pipe.
“Where would they be without that pay cheque? Hell, where would we all be without Salmanic power?” She asked. Doug stayed uncharacteristically quiet as she talked, focusing on his cigarette as he absorbed her words.
“Not all their work is honest…” he mumbled. Harper scoffed.
“That’s what New Dawn says but I haven’t seen any evidence, have you?” she was clearly getting worked up as she ranted, glaring off into the distance. Doug remained silent as he listened to her, staring down at his feet and focusing on smoking.
“Meanwhile, New Dawn is going outta their way to brainwash idiots into causing trouble. Labs have been blown up, officials assassinated or maimed… They stole me dad’s legs; a shipment of the latest digibook were coming in at the docks and they blew the whole damn ship up when my dad went to inspect the shipment,” her fists clenched and unclenched themselves, tears beginning to form in her eyes that she angrily wiped away, “if it weren’t for the Loading Droids, he’d have been… been…” she shook her head, cutting off the memories. Doug’s human hand landed on her shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to lose family…” he trailed off. Harper smiled at him, patting his hand.
“I thought you might,”
“What makes you say that?” asked Doug in surprise.
“Lucretia read out your details at the meet? She said about your Mum so I thought-”
“Oh, yeah. That. How’s a man supposed to be all enigmatic and shit if some bitch just reads out all your history to everyone?” He joked. Harper found herself chuckling, the mood shifting.
“That’s rough, man. That’s like, 20 percent of what makes you attractive!” She winked, stood up and stretched.
“Exactly! Wait, what?” Exclaimed Doug. Harper left the question hanging, strolling off with a cheeky grin on her face, leaving Doug to stare after her, surprised.
Post by Sam | July 30, 2022 at 12:01 am | The Mercenaries' Tale | No comment
Tags: Allan Parkinson, Annie Stone, Blaise, Doug McCracken, Galmanoc, Gratin, New Dawn, Salmanic Incorporated, Salmanic pipeline, Thad the Gentleman, the Mercs, Tupper