Best Laid Plans
It wasn’t until much later I found out just how hard Holly had to fight to let me go on this mission. What I did know, this was my chance to show them, show her, that I belonged in their world. That I could do what they did. It was my shot at taking part in something bigger than anything else I had done before.
This lifestyle was starting to grow on me. It felt exciting, even when we weren’t doing anything. The training made me feel like cross between James Bond and Captain America.
The mission itself was supposed to be simple. Reconnaissance with capture, if possible. Simple, according to them. I didn’t quite feel the same. Holly told me they had located another person like them—us—nearby.
“Who are we going after, exactly?” I asked Holly at lunch.
“We call them Rogues,” she said between bites.
“Yeah, but how did they become like you guys? I thought you, err, we, were all recruited through the government? How can there be Rogues?” I persisted.
“Remember how rare it is to find someone the virus works with?” she asked.
“Yes,” I responded
“And how the methods for finding patients, and the testing itself, weren’t the most scrupulous?”
“Yeah.” I wondered if I was going to like where this line of questioning was headed.
“Well. Not everyone who reacted well to the virus turned out to be the best… recruit.”
A few minutes passed without any further discussion on the matter as we both continued eating. I was about to ask for more information when she continued on her own.
“They aren’t all bad. Some can be reached, persuaded from the path of destruction they’re inevitably headed on.”
“Path of destruction?” I asked.
“What kind of person do you think gains abilities like ours, but then decides to run from the government? We were all from similar programs. There may be split missions and different divisions, but in the end we are all born into the same service.
“When someone takes off, it’s usually because they are going rogue. Sometimes for money from an outside government or criminal element. Sometimes because they passed initial screening but the virus did a number on their mental faculties. Sometimes they just want out of this life. But I’ve never seen it lead to a good ending.”
“What about me?” I wondered aloud. “I wasn’t really recruited, right? I can still choose to do whatever I want.”
I thought back to our first conversations, about the experimental cure. She hadn’t said anything about joining any government agencies when she’d pitched the idea to me.
“Weren’t you?” She smiled at me deviously.
Had I been?
“You were a special case. But for the rest of us, we signed up knowing exactly what we were being recruited for. So generally anyone found on the outside is a Rogue,” she said as she finished her food.
I stood up with her, gathering the dirty dishes from the table.
“How do they get out? If there aren’t that many of you, us, aren’t they found right away?” I asked.
“We usually have high-risk missions. Dying isn’t unheard of. Some use that as a means to escape,” she answered.
“Like fake their deaths?”
“Yes. A few just try running. They are usually less successful,” she replied.
“So how did you find out about this one?” I inquired.
“He made a mistake.” Her voice was unexpectedly hard.
“What?” I asked.
“He came after one of us.”
Her answer only left me with more questions, but when I pressed for more information, she insisted it was time to get back to training.
____________________
So were there more people like us out in the world? It turned out the answer was complicated. There were, but there weren’t supposed to be. This was why Holly’s contingent was stationed here, in the Midwest. Their purpose was to track down individuals like us. These Rogues.
Occasionally they were actors from another country, which technically made them spies. Then Holly’s division would keep tabs on them, but nothing more. More commonly, however, they were deserters. She didn’t seem too keen on giving me any more information about them. She said she’d talk to James and relay what was okay for me to hear. I guess some of it was classified. This only served to make me want to join them even more. What other craziness was happening in the world that the general public was unaware of?
I took my training far more seriously that afternoon, determined to not be a detriment on the mission. But the real fun didn’t start until Saturday morning.
Everyone who was going on the mission was gathered in front of their staging area. At least, I didn’t know what else to call it. It was a bunch of wood and drywall structures hastily put together. It looked like a small cluster of buildings with cutouts for doors and windows. We also all had wooden rifles and pistols.
“Before we head out tonight, I want to go through some basic maneuvers for Ryan and Holly,” James started.
“Lily, Mia, Derek.” He pointed out for each of them to line up.
Lily took point just to the side of the doorframe set in one of the faux buildings. Mia lined up behind her, one hand on her shoulder. Mia maintained an outward stance, watching all around them. Derek toward over them both at the end, one hand on Mia’s shoulder while he stood almost backwards, watching behind them.
“Why is Derek last?” I whispered to Holly.
“If he went in first, how would Lily or Mia see anything around him?” she answered.
“Oh.”
“Notice how they each have a different angle covered?” James said.
“Everyone has a job at all times. There are no breaks when over the wire. Anything can happen at any time. You must be always observant. The second you relax, stop covering your corner, that’s when someone gets hurt. And it won’t always be you. So don’t let someone else’s life ride on your conscious because you couldn’t be bothered to do your job.” He stared at me sternly.
I found myself nodding along. I wouldn’t.
“Ok, let’s move forward.”
He waved his hand, and as one they rolled into the room. James, Holly, and I followed to see them all set, each covering a different section of the room.
“Now, I’m sure you don’t have much experience breaching?” James looked at me.
“None.”
“Ok, that’s fine. We operate a little differently than most teams. There are standard configurations.” He pointed at their current positions. “Generally, the first person to enter covers the farthest corner of the room, and then each closer corner, depending on how many people we have. Last in covers everyone’s back and the entrance.
“However, a battlefield is always dynamic, and no two situations play out the same. We are also much faster than the average person, so we are not confined to rigid strategies. The difference between the first and last in covering the farthest corner of a room can be less than a fraction of a second. So if the room is empty, this is how you should look.”
James waved them all back out, and this time Holly joined them. He positioned me in one corner and stood right next to the entrance on the side away from me.
“GO!” he shouted.
Lily came around the corner with a blinding quickness. The rifle she was holding followed the path of her eyes as she scanned around the room. The barrel barely hesitated on me, before she continued her sweep.
James moved to intercept Lily as she was finishing her scan but caught the barrel of Holly’s rifle to the sternum as she followed Lily into the room. Together, they subdued him quickly at gunpoint. Mia entered and never let her gun point anywhere but me. Derek was last, took in the scene at a glance, and moved to cover the next open doorway.
“Good,” James said from his kneeling position. “Can you explain?” he asked me.
All their eyes turned to me.
“Umm…” I tried to process what had happened. It had been over in an instant.
“So, Lily saw me first and hesitated, but then kept scanning the room for threats,” I pointed out.
“I could have triple-tapped you with that pause, but I determined you weren’t an immediate threat,” Lily said with a smirk.
“Ok, fair enough,” I said, raising my hands. “Then Holly went straight to you,” I said with a gesture to James, “because she saw you engaged with Lily. Mia covered me the second she entered. Derek checked everything was covered and moved to watch the next room.”
“Good,” James said. “Since we can move very quickly, the first one in should cover the most immediate threat. If I hadn’t been here, that would have been you. Obviously once I moved it became me, and Holly was there to intercede. But if you had a gun at the ready, how would it have played out differently?” he asked me.
“I would have shot him on the first pass,” Lily answered smugly.
James sighed.
“Sorry.” She looked down.
“Everyone back out,” James said exasperatedly.
We all moved back to our original positions outside the structures.
“The best way to learn is by doing,” James said. “Mia, Lily, Derek, you all get to be the bad guys.”
They appeared far too excited about their roles as they made their way into the structures.
“Ok,” James turned toward Holly and me, “I’ll start as point, but eventually I want to see how just the two of you operate. Holly will be in charge of you during the mission, but that also means you will be the one who has to watch her back.”
James took up his position at the point, with Holly behind him. I walked to where Derek had been and placed a hand on Holly’s shoulder. I could feel her, tense muscle and sinew beneath the light cloth of her uniform. My heartrate increased as I stood waiting. I tried to make sure my attention didn’t lapse, watching everything behind us.
One second, I was standing there with a hand on Holly’s shoulder, rifle held out protecting our rear, the next second I was holding air. I moved quickly to catch up to James and Holly, who had already made their way inside. My foot caught the edge of the doorframe, and I barely kept from falling. Holly’s hand steadied me. She grinned and motioned for me to keep moving forward. James was already positioned at the next doorway. Good thing this room was empty.
I watched the empty room, but kept Holly in the corner of my eye, and I followed much more closely, which was unfortunate. Apparently Derek had been waiting just around the corner. He had tackled James in a bear hug that had quickly enveloped Holly too. I was caught up in the crushing weight of all three of them pushing back toward me. We hit the floor in a tangled mass.
I squeezed an arm between Holly and the rest of us, braced against the floor, and grunted with effort. Derek and James flew one way, leaving Holly and me finally able to breathe. I sprang up after them to come to James’ aid.
“Bang!”
Lily and Mia stood in the doorway with guns trained on Holly and me.
“Bang yourself,” James said with a pistol drawn on them.
“No way! Derek had you!” Mia retorted.
“Nah,” James held up his other hand, revealing a wooden knife.
“You didn’t have to hit me so hard with it,” Derek said, rubbing his chest.
“Let’s reset, and please try to take this seriously,” James called to them as we all made our separate ways.
“Speaking of,” James took my rifle from me, “you only get a pistol. Pretty sure you hit me with that barrel harder than I hit Derek.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off.
“And you always know exactly where it’s pointed, right?” He stared at me.
I closed my mouth.
“That’s what I thought. Once you have some more training, you can earn it back. Besides, you won’t need one for this upcoming mission.”
James played his role as our point-man through the entire morning. Lily, Derek, and Mia took up different positions in the various rooms, presenting me with scenario after scenario. Sometimes one of them would be a prisoner we had to identify and free, other times they would all be enemy combatants. Occasionally they would just be standing around like unarmed civilians.
It was the same routine over and over, but it never played out the same way. Every situation was different. Every room cleared presented a new challenge. I couldn’t get enough. Lunch break felt like an annoying necessity. This must be what people feel like when they find their calling, I thought as I rushed through my meal.
That afternoon, Mia and Lily left us to train on their own while James and Derek took up the roles of enemies.
“We won’t go for too much longer. Still have to get ready for tonight,” James said to Holly and me. “But I want to see just the two of you working together.”
“What about Lily and Mia?” I asked.
“Everyone has their own… pre-game ritual, if you will,” James responded. “This training is mostly for your benefit anyway.”
I nodded, and we got to work.
At first it was more difficult, even with fewer “enemies” to look out for. With only two of us covering every angle, we had to move more quickly. While the area I was technically responsible for only increased by a third, it seemed as if there was more than twice as much to do. And if I didn’t get my part right, our little team fell apart immediately. There was no one else to cover for my mistakes. I wondered if I should be going at all. The last thing I wanted was for something to happen to Holly because of me.
We made our way through the structures, clearing room after room. At one point we came across James. Holly forced him into the corner and covered him. I moved through the room to check the next.
“Aaaand Holly’s dead,” James said. “Again.”
I turned around to see Derek and James had Holly surrounded. Derek must have followed behind us by circling back through one of the previous rooms.
I clenched a fist in frustration.
“You guys are practically cheating,” Holly said.
“There’s no such thing as cheating in war,” James replied.
“Run it again.”
I trudged back outside.
“They’re just trying to mess with you, get in your head.” Holly put a hand on my shoulder.
Well, it was working.
“Can I run point?” I had an idea.
“Sure,” she said with a shrug.
I moved to the doorway and was surprised by her hand on my shoulder shortly after. This was the first time I hadn’t been last.
I shook my head and breathed in deep. I needed to get this right, for my own confidence at least. This morning had felt like fun and games compared to this afternoon.
One. Two. Three... I counted to myself and moved.
Only this time I willed myself forward with explosiveness. There was no one in front of me to watch out for, no one to react to. I didn’t have to check who was doing what; I was first and free to move as I pleased.
I planted a foot, and turned ninety degrees to enter the room straight on. No sweeping. The image before me burned into my mind in an instant. Details I had failed to notice in the previous dozens of attempts sprang out at me. A bare room, wooden two-by-fours making up the construction, with cheap cut outs for windows and doorways. An unfinished ceiling with wooden planks running its length and bare light bulbs recessed within. Concrete floor solid beneath my feet.
Derek was standing large in front of me, a wooden knife in his hand. Over his right shoulder I could see James covering the room with a rifle from a window. Derek had yet to react to my entrance.
Thump. My heart beat once in my chest.
I took two steps forward and to my right, positioning Derek directly between James and myself. Derek had only begun to follow my movements, his eyes trying to track me moving to his left. His head had just barely begun to turn as I stepped forward. I placed an open palm on his chest as I moved, my steps carrying me next to, then past him. I tensed my legs, bracing hard against the concrete floor. I could feel the energy flowing through my legs to my core and through my chest and arms. I pressed forward on Derek’s chest as hard as I could. I slid backward almost to the opposite wall as he launched away from me. Derek crashed through the open window, leaving a trail of splintered wooden beams and a cascade of drywall and dust.
“Room clear,” I muttered under my breath.
“I didn’t know we were training with grenades,” Holly whistled as she casually strolled through the wreckage.
“Was that really necessary?” Derek asked as he extricated himself from the debris.
James grunted as he pushed a pile of wood and drywall off himself.
“You two had to go and push him. He just showed he can push back,” Holly stated.
“Yeah, I think we’ve seen all we need to,” James said. “We’ll see you two tonight.” He dismissed us with a wave.
“I’m sorry,” I started as I followed Holly to the elevator.
“What for?” She gave me a dry smile over her shoulder.
“I let them get to me and got carried away.” I looked down. “I was just trying to prove I could—“
“Stop.” Holly placed a hand firmly on my chest.
She caught me by surprise, and I accidentally walked through her arm. She let it bend until I came to a stop almost pressed against her.
“Wow, you are just stupid strong,” she said while looking down pointedly at her hand pinned between us.
“Sorry,” I apologized again while stepping back.
“That, stop that!” she said again with exasperation. “What is it you think they are trying to do in there? They know what you’re capable of. Well, at least they have an idea. They are trying to push you. Trying to make you more aggressive. They are trying to get you to become like them. That’s how it works. Training, becoming a soldier. They break you down and build you up the way they want. These guys are just really good at it. They can play mental tricks you couldn’t even imagine. In the end, you will be exactly what they want.”
Is that what I wanted? I wondered to myself.
“So don’t feel bad, and definitely don’t apologize,” she continued. “Just remember not to lose yourself, who you are inside. Because that’s the person I like,” she finished with a smile.
I couldn’t help but smile back.
“Now come on! Let’s go get dinner.”
We changed and left the compound for the deli down the street. I ordered two sandwiches, a bag of chips, and some soda to wash it all down. But for the first time that I could remember, I didn’t finish everything in front of me. I glanced out the window; the shadows were growing long. The sun was mostly blocked by the buildings around us. It was almost time. My first mission.
“Are you ok?” Holly looked at the food still in front of me with concern.
“Just a little nervous,” I admitted.
“Don’t worry,” she smiled, “I’ll take care of you.”
I nodded but felt little reassurance.
We walked back in silence.
Holly led me to the armory. We rode down the elevator alone. Everyone else must already be getting ready. I couldn’t keep from fidgeting. She was completely still.
We arrived at the training-room floor. She led me to a door off to the side of the large room. It looked much the same as any of the other doors along the wall, except for a combination dial above the handle. It was already opened.
Inside was a much larger room than I was expecting—it was actually comprised of three rooms.
The first was a large locker room, though the lockers were big enough that they looked more like personal closets. Eight had nameplates above them.
Here, Mia and Lily were helping each other don their gear. Logan was also getting ready by himself.
Holly led me to a room etched further back into the stone. This one had a much larger locking mechanism, like a bank vault. Large pins were visible from the open and exposed door.
Inside, the walls were lined with various weapons and equipment. Close quarter weapons along the left wall, and long-range rifles on the right. There was also a vast quantity of knives, and even swords. A small contingent of explosives adorned the far wall. Underneath the explosives was another assortment of equipment. Black uniforms that looked barely more bulky than motorcycle gear, to full-on body armor. There were also almost a dozen helmets that looked like they were straight out of a sci-fi novel.
“First time eh?” Derek walked up to me. He had been cleaning a disassembled pistol on one of the center tables.
“Nervous?” he asked.
“A little,” I admitted.
“Well that’s good. Only a fool feels nothing when going into combat. Regardless of how easy they’ve been told it will be.” He gave Holly a look.
“There’s going to be combat?”
I guess I had been thinking a capture mission meant… What had I thought it would mean? We would just drop on top of the guy in a dark alley with a burlap sack? That sounded more like kidnapping. Speaking of, what’s the difference between capture and kidnap? Your point of reference?
“It’s always a possibility,” he answered. “So let’s get you kitted.”
He walked to the back wall, sizing me up and mumbling to himself as he went.
“Looks like you’re in good hands,” Holly said as she retrieved her own gear.
She grabbed a handful of knives and a pair of pistols from the wall.
“I’ll be right out here if you need me.” She walked back into the other room and started talking to Lily and Mia as she changed.
“So,” Derek was holding out two of the black suits, “what are you, like six-three?”
“Not quite,” I replied.
It must be hard to gauge people when you’re always looking down on them.
“Here.” He handed me one of the outfits he’d been holding.
“And this.” More gear.
“And this guy should do.” A helmet.
“You can just set all that there.” He pointed to an empty spot on the table.
“How’d your firearms training go?” he asked.
“I can generally hit what I’m pointing at,” I answered.
“You should always hit what you’re pointing at; the key is pointing correctly.” He frowned slightly, then turned away to move down the wall, inspecting and dismissing weapons one by one.
“He did best with the five-seven,” Holly called through the open doorway.
Derek selected the previously mentioned pistol, a box of ammunition, and a couple magazines. He set the entire ensemble next to my gear on the table.
“Feel free to load those now—just don’t chamber a round,” he said.
I picked up the magazines and started clicking in bullets from the box.
“What’s up with all the blades? A little medieval, no?” I asked.
We’d used some knives during my training earlier that week, but here they had almost half the wall dedicated to various blades.
Derek stopped where he was and slowly turned to me. He set down the modified MP5 he’d retrieved for himself.
“Let me ask you this. What is the purpose of a gun?”
I stared at him blankly.
“To kill people?” I guessed. Seemed a safe answer.
“Not always, but we’ll start there. How does it accomplish this?”
“By shooting?” I had no idea where he was going.
He just sighed in response.
He reached over and picked a revolver from the wall.
“This is a forty-four magnum.”
He pulled out a drawer underneath where the weapon had been hanging and took a handful of bullets. He lined them up on the table.
“This gun,” he resumed, “fires these bullets. They are three-hundred grain, jacketed hollow-points.”
He dropped one into my hand. It was heavy for such a small thing, and much larger than the ammunition I had been loading into my own pistol.
“They are fired out of this.” He held the pistol up, “at eleven hundred and fifty feet-per-second. That means they transfer roughly eleven hundred and ninety-five joules of energy to a point this large.” He pointed to the tip of the bullet and jabbed me in the chest for emphasis.
I started to wonder if he was just this good at basic physics, or if he had given this speech before.
“Now, normally this is plenty to incapacitate someone. But we are not dealing with normal people. And that Kevlar vest I handed you would stop this bullet,” he pointed.
I looked back at the pile of gear I had left on the table.
“Remember how hard you hit Logan?” he inquired.
I nodded.
“I wish I had seen it, but I heard all about it,” he said with booming laugh. “Well, you also broke several of his ribs.”
“One of these,” Derek again held the bullet up, “hitting that,” he pointed at the Kevlar, “would not even do as much damage to Logan as you did. And in a real fight, with adrenaline pumping through your veins, a little broken bone won’t stop you, let alone some light bruising.”
He set the bullet and revolver down and made his way to one of the swords hanging on the wall. He pulled it down delicately. The sword had a hilt wrapped in leather, cross-guard extending a couple inches to both sides, and a double-edged blade that looked to be over two feet long.
“This is a tungsten-carbide blade. It weighs a bit over five pounds.” He held it out to me, and I took it. “Now the fun part.” He smiled.
I got the same feeling I did in class when the professor was particularly interested in the subject he was teaching. Though this was more fascinating than most of my classes had been.
“A baseball player swings a bat weighing nine-hundred sixty grams up to eighty miles per hour. This, if applied to our perp and not a ball, would transfer about six hundred joules to an area this big.” He gestured with his whole arm, imitating a bat.
“Now you or I? We could get that bat moving much faster,” he said.
“Theoretically, twice the speed would give us over twenty-four hundred joules of energy to work with. Over twice that of the revolver,” he said with a nod toward the weapon on the table. “Applied to a bigger area. A lot of incapacitating power.”
“So why don’t we all just go out with bats?” I asked facetiously.
“Mostly because we’re not all fast enough to get into batting range.” He shrugged.
“Also, a bullet fired at a normal person burrows through their body, tumbling around as it goes, causing lots of damage and ripping a hole out the other side. But I’ve seen guys like us get shot, and they pull the bullet out a few inches deep. We are denser than normal people. Combine that with armor, and it’s much harder to put one of us down with just a bullet.
“So we can revert to armor-piercing rounds. But then, that wouldn’t work too well on a capture mission. So we use normal bullets to cause damage and slow the target down, or a blunt object to apply more energy directly to their forehead.” He smiled at his own joke.
“Also, armor-piercing rounds have a tendency to do less damage if they don’t hit anything critical, because they go straight through without all the tumbling and tearing of a normal bullet. Which means you have to point your gun accurately.” He gave me a critical look.
“So I should take the sword then?” I deflected from the jab at my accuracy issues.
“Not quite. That sword, moved at the speed of our theoretical baseball bat? Over six thousand joules of energy. But it can slice through the air even faster, since it’s not blunt. And since the striking edge is much more concentrated, it transfers the energy more efficiently to a much smaller cross section.”
He took the sword from me and replaced it on the wall.
“This is definitely not a weapon for a capture mission. But when dealing with people like us, in close quarters, give me a blade over a gun every time. Armor can stop bullets, but that sword would go right through Kevlar. An armor-piercing bullet might do some damage, but a good blade will cut the offender right in half.”
I looked over his giant frame and tried to imagine him wielding a sword. The mental picture was comically terrifying. I had no problem believing he could cut me in half with it.
“What’s taking you two so long?” Holly asked from the doorway.
“Derek’s going on about the virtues of the sword,” Logan called back.
He had entered the room behind us and was pulling an unmodified MP5 down from the opposite wall. It seemed to be their weapon of choice.
“Again?” Holly responded. “Well hurry up, James is ready for us.”
“Always good to have a blade, just in case,” he said as he hurriedly handed me a much smaller knife.
I gathered up all my gear and made my way to Holly in the other room. She watched me struggle with everything for a few seconds before coming over to help, chuckling to herself.
“What a mess. Let’s see what you’ve got here,” she said as she started to untang