Story Attempt (1 Viewer)

[burom]

Hi, long time lurker, first time content creator. I can't draw at all so I wrote this little story, I hope you all like it.

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Through a hole in the wall of garbage bags keeping sunlight from entering the bar's windows, a man looked out onto the street, the last rays of sunset painting an orange glow on the scene. As dirty as the streets were, it gave the man a small sense of comfort to not see another living thing out there. Once the sun came down was when the local wildlife came out to play, but for now, a welcome respite. The man had enough of dealing with trash with his day job. A boxy television, in its cage in the top corner of the bar, was playing some old baseball game, but nobody in the bar was watching. There were never many customers in the bar anyway, but today was especially quiet; just the man, the bartender wiping down his bar, and a waitress with nothing to do. The man drank down the last few drops of cheap beer from a bottle.

As he was getting up to pay and leave, he saw, through the gap, a leg rounding the corner, down the street from the bar. The leg was followed by another one, and then two more pairs of legs, and with the legs, the ends of what looked like long guns. Trouble. "Barkeep, I think something's about to go down," said the man. "What, in here? You must be drunk," scoffed the bartender. "No, I'm serious, if you've got a gun or something, get ready." With a grunt and a wave of his hand, the bartender dismissed the man's warning. The waitress' eyes opened wide, never expecting something like this to happen on her shift. "If you'll excuse me..." The man stood from his booth and walked over to the bathroom, pausing for a moment to brace himself against the stench before opening the door and walking in.

Just after the bathroom door closed, the front door to the bar opened, and three masks walked in. All of them were women; the man could observe through a small crack in the wall, a dim bulb hanging from the ceiling giving him a small bit of light. They waved their guns around and aimed them at the waitress and the bartender, who was still in disbelief. Two of them were dressed about the same: ski masks, long bundles of hair tucked underneath and poking out from the edges, all leather jackets and camouflage pants and assorted army surplus. It was all designed to be intimidating rather than functional, garish nail polish exposed from their fingerless gloves. Both of them had shotguns in their hands, police types, and a handful of shells in almost empty bandoliers. One of them had an old steel helmet perched atop her head, black metal with a bright yellow smiley face and a white blob of some sort crudely scrawled on the front. The other was wearing a khaki boonie hat, sticking out like a sore thumb in the cold grey of the city. They pointed their shotguns around the room, threatening imaginary enemies. Both of them had attempts at scorpions painted in white on the backs of their jackets, as did the third one.

The third one was probably the leader of the pack, since she skipped the ski mask and shotgun in favor of aviator glasses, a military-style peaked cap, and a half-face respirator, and had spikes and some poorly made epaulets on her jacket. Instead of dulled army boots, the shine of her heeled ankle boots glowed dimly in the fading light of the bar, as did the leather skirt she wore instead of army cargos, torn nylon stockings running up her legs. A mess of dirty blonde hair spilled out from under the hat. In each hand was a pistol, some military castoff, one pointed at the bartender and the other at the waitress; it was exceedingly unlikely that she knew how to use one pistol let alone two, so the man was probably dealing with rank amateur junkies. Nothing he couldn't handle, and nothing he hasn't handled before, but only after some preparation.

The waitress screamed in fear. "Shut up!" barked the lead gangster, her voice muffled from under the respirator. "Hey, what the hell is this? I don't have time for this shit!" grunted the bartender. The three goons all aimed at the bartender now. "Give us everything in the register and nobody gets hurt!" shouted the leader. "Yeah, do what she says, or we'll blow your brains out!" added the one with the helmet. "We're serious, we've killed before and you do not want to fuck with us!" continued the one with the hat. "Fuck you, there ain't nothing in the register!" retorted the bartender. One of the underlings' finger twitched, and her shotgun fired, into the wall of bottles and glasses behind the bartender. "Oh, that's it..." muttered the bartender as he reached under the bar to retrieve his own shotgun. The three gang members were too distracted by the accidental gunshot to notice before the bartender grabbed his shotgun and began to take aim. However, the leader was faster than the old man and fired at him with both pistols, hitting her mark this time. The waitress screamed louder, covered her ears, and crumpled down to the floor to avoid the gunfire. Once the smoke cleared, the bartender was dead, the wall behind him a mess of wood fragments and glass shards.

The leader reached over to the cash register, dragged the drawer open, and, to her shock, found little more than pocket change. The leader undid one of the straps of her respirator, leaving it to dangle from her other ear, and her two underlings rolled up their ski masks. With their masks off, their hair came down in tangles. "What the fuck do we do now, boss?" asked the one with the helmet. Under her mask, she was pale, with her bloodshot eyes covered by irregular red bangs and face paint that she thought was intimidating but made her look more like a raccoon. "Shut up! I'm thinking," responded the leader, brushing away some stray hair with the slide of her pistol. A whimper from the floor caught their attention. "Oh, what are you doing down there?" asked the leader, in a mock singsong voice. A hard kick with her boot unfurled the terrified waitress onto the floor. "What do we do about this one?" asked the one with the cap, sweat streaming down her dark face, dripping from her many piercings. She was noticeably older and taller than the other two, with tattoos dotting her neck and face. The leader grinned a sadistic grin. "The White Scorpions could always use a new member," she said, giggling. Her underlings started to laugh along when they were interrupted by the sound of a toilet flushing in the bathroom. The goons readied their weapons. "Who the fuck is that? Hey, asshole, come out here!" shouted the leader. No response. "Okay, Kat, while I take care of our new lady friend, go see who our uninvited guest is!" ordered the leader. Kat, the one with the helmet, smiled. "Sure thing, boss!" She readied her shotgun and walked into the bar's bathroom.

Inside the bathroom, the smell was overpowering; Kat brought up her collar to try to cover her nose. "Eugh..." Her revulsion was disturbed by the sound of a shoe squeaking against something. "I know you're in here, you little bitch! Come out so I can cut off your balls!" The drugs in her system helped her bravado. Seeing nothing near the urinals to her left, she looked right at the stalls; two stalls, both of them closed. She paced slowly, her shotgun at the ready, towards one of the stalls. "I've got you now!" she shouted as she kicked open one of the stalls and fired as fast as her arms could pump until her weapon jammed. After a moment of struggling with the jam, she noticed that the stall was completely empty; what she didn't notice during the gunfire was the stall next to her opening, with the man calmly walking out and standing behind her. "Knock knock," said the man, before one arm shot out to cover Kat's mouth, while the other reached down into his boot to withdraw an old combat knife. "Mmmmf!" came out from under the man's hand, her eyes the size of dinner plates as she saw the glint of the blade in her peripheral vision. "Make a noise and I kill you," offered the man, as an ultimatum. "Fmmp ymm!" "Wrong answer," he whispered into her ear.

The man shoved the blade into the side of her neck as hard as he could, an even louder scream muffled by his powerful hand. As the man pulled the blade out a burst of blood followed with it, painting the filthy walls red. He let her go, Kat aimlessly stumbling, pawing at the wound, gurgling blood all over herself and the floor of the stall as she attempted to breathe. Not satisfied with the pace of things, the man grabbed Kat's hair and shoved her head down into the toilet bowl, her arms flailing helplessly at her sides. Bracing himself against the thin walls of the stall, he stood over her and brought his foot down on the back of her head, keeping it in the rapidly filling bowl until she stopped struggling. After it was done, he dragged her out of the toilet bowl, laid her flat on the ground, and rolled her over, her filth-stained face staring at the ceiling. He searched her body for whatever could be of use but found little other than some shotgun shells, some vials of powder, and a set of handcuffs in one pocket, flecked with blood. "These might be useful," he thought to himself as he put the handcuffs in his own pocket.

"What is taking her so long?" complained the one with the hat, tilting it to scratch her head. "You know Kat, she likes to have fun with people," replied the leader, stuffing a rag into the waitress' mouth to try and silence her. The waitress was on top of the bar, amidst the broken glass and shell casings. "Yeah, I know, but she'd be done by now, know what I'm saying?" she said, glancing up at the baseball game every so often. The leader, who traced a heart with the tip of her painted fingernail along the waitress' disgusted face, paused in thought for a second. "Hmm, you're right. Kat?" she asked, raising her voice. But Kat did not answer. "Kat? Come on Kat, we're almost done here..." The worry began to set in. "Maybe something happened to her, boss?" "Oh, come on Gabby, something happened? Some special forces asshole jumped out of a stall and killed her? Is that what you're saying?" "Just thinking, boss..." said Gabby, adjusting her hat. "Well, if you want her cut, then you go in." "If you put it that way," sighed Gabby, topping up the magazine of her shotgun as she walked towards the bathroom. She took a deep breath, held it to avoid having to breathe in the fumes, and pushed open the door.

As she leaned her head and the shotgun into the open door, her shotgun in one hand and her other hand holding the door open, Gabby looked to her right and saw Kat on the floor under a large spray of blood on the wall. Before she could process that information, the man stepped out from the left and snatched the shotgun out of Gabby's loose grip. "What the..." was all she could utter before the man stabbed his knife into the palm of Gabby's free hand, so hard that her hand was impaled on the wall next to the door frame. "Fuck!" bellowed Gabby, in pain, her fingers waving uselessly. Worrying about her hand quickly subsided when the man shoved the butt of the shotgun into Gabby's face, breaking her nose and throwing her off balance. She slumped down, as far as the knife pinning her hand to the wall would let her, blood dripping down from her face. The man let her shotgun fall to the floor. He quickly slapped one wrist of the handcuffs around Gabby's free wrist, pulled her inside the bathroom, then fixed the other wrist of the handcuffs around a sturdy metal pipe running up the wall, immobilizing her. For the cherry on top, he knocked off her hat, pulled her ski mask over her head, furled it into a ball and shoved it into her mouth, dulling her moans. Whether it would be gang reinforcements or the police, it would be them to deal with her. He knelt down, picked up her loaded shotgun, and exited the bathroom.

The scene took the leader by surprise. "What the fuck?" she shouted, confusedly. The leader doubled back behind the bar, grabbed her pistols, and put one against the head of the waitress and aimed the other at the man, the waitress whimpering even louder. The man responded in kind, aiming his shotgun at the two. "You'll have to excuse them, Kat and Gabby, was it? Well, they won't be joining us on this occasion." "You cocksucker! You've fucked with the wrong crowd! You'll pay!" "Oh, I think you're the one who's going to pay." The leader now aimed both pistols at the man. "Any last words, fucker?" she growled, contorting her mouth into a smirk. "Your guns are empty." Baring her teeth in rage, the leader fired her pistols, or she would have if the man wasn't right.

"What now?" she moaned. "I can count shots, and you've had yours. If you get down on the ground and put your hands behind your head I just might let you live." Realizing her captor's powerlessness, the waitress delivered a sharp elbow into the gut of the leader, and bolted away from the bar, crouching behind the man. Even though she had a rag in her mouth the three goons didn't have the forethought to bind her wrists. The blow knocked her glasses and the last strap of her respirator off of her head, bringing her hair out from under her hat, in front of her eyes. She looked up through the fine mesh of hair, seeing the man walk towards her with a loaded shotgun. The leader put her hands on the back of her head and dropped to her knees, dropping her empty pistols at her sides. "Don't shoot, I'm unarmed!" The waitress took the rag out of her mouth, spitting out the taste of bar filth. "Shoot her anyway!" shouted the waitress, voicing her desire for revenge with newfound courage. The man weighed his options.

"On the one hand, you are unarmed, so I shouldn't shoot you..." The leader nodded, hoping to convince the man to let her live. "But, to be honest, you were the one that killed the bartender over there, so..." "Wait, no, I'll do anything!" "Anything?" responded the man. The leader slowly unzipped her jacket, then ripped it open with both hands, exposing nothing underneath but tattoos and scars. "I mean anything, anything you want, big boy." She brought one finger up to her pouting lip, and slowly moved her other hand inside her jacket. The man smirked; he had always had a habit for evil women. "Now, that's more like it..." The waitress wasn't as distracted. "She's got a knife!" And she did, using the man's moment of weakness to pull a long knife out from inside her jacket. "Die!" she yelled as she jumped up and began to charge with the knife, pushing the man's shotgun away with her other hand. The man's training paid off, dodging the knife with a quick jump, dropping the shotgun, and grabbing the leader's arm with both hands. He quickly wrenched her around, burying the blade of her knife right into the leader's exposed chest.

The scene paused for a moment, the leader looking down at the inches of metal inside of her, then slowly looking up to face the cause of that, the realization that she was going to die dawning on her. The man had one hand on her back and one hand on the knife, looking her right in the eyes. "If you get immediate medical attention then you might live through that." The leader coughed up blood, spilling it on the man's boots. "Eat... shit..." "This is for pulling that stunt with the knife." The man swiveled around the leader and wrapped an arm around her neck, a loud snapping noise sounding when the man brought his strength to bear. Her arms fell limp, and when the man let go she fell to the floor, dead. He caught his breath, then saw the waitress in the corner of his eye, who had crouched in a booth. "You should leave before the cops get here." She ran through the front door as fast as she could, followed by the man, disappearing into the night.

 

[Weoooo]

Ah, bad girls that are actually bad.
Although if the Bartender just let them see how little money he had, this all probably could've been avoided.

 

[dinomoneymaiden]

Lovely little zako story. I quite enjoyed it.

 

[burom]

This was fun, so I wrote another one. Suggestions are welcomed.

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The woman stood in front of the massive iron gates to the house, shifting her weight from leg to leg, her sneakers forming divots in the gravel. The walk up the hill from the waiting van that brought her there was difficult enough, but her task once inside would be even more of a challenge. After catching her breath, supporting herself against a brick pillar, she pressed the button on the intercom affixed to the front of the pillar. On the outside, she was a journalist about to venture into hostile territory to conduct the interview of the century; a one to one chat with one of the world's most wanted arms dealers. To accomplish that, her hands contained an old-fashioned tape recorder, a notepad, and several pens; nothing in her pockets given the gravity of the situation. But on the inside, under the black jeans, over-sized tortoiseshell glasses, tweed blazer, and faded university T-shirt, beat the heart not of a mousy journalist, but of a government assassin. The objective of the day was not to interview, but to terminate. She pressed the button on the intercom again, and this time a crackly voice caught her attention. "No visitors." "I have an appointment with Miss Severus, I'm here to interview her for--" "Don't move, we will have the guards walk you in."

As soon as the intercom cut off the iron doors began to slide open, their motors struggling to cope with their mass. From a guard post up the driveway a door opened and a woman exited. She was wearing a black turtleneck, tan riding breeches, black knee high boots and had a radio, a set of keys, and spare magazines on a brown leather belt. Her brown leather shoulder holster was empty, a pistol in one hand. Further up the driveway the other guards standing near the front door were wearing similar clothes, no doubt with more guards inside the house. Even though the guards were all dressed like they were going riding, the satellite imagery provided during her briefing didn't place any stables on the property; the woman's handler thought maybe that was what their employer liked. The guard moved out of her post towards the door, waving to signal the guest.

"You are the journalist, yes?" The guest couldn't exactly place the accent, but could narrow it down to somewhere in Eastern Europe. "Yes, ma'am." The guard holstered her weapon and moved to the gate. The woman offered a hand to shake when the guard arrived, but the guard did not reciprocate, instead brushing some of her short black hair out of her eyes. "I will be escorting you inside. Do not touch anything, and do not leave my sight. We will have to search you once inside, unless you prefer to be searched right here." "No, inside is fine." Now that they were close the woman could see that this guard was much taller than she was. "Then walk slowly towards the front entrance." The woman began to make her way up the driveway, followed closely behind by the guard, with a hand at the ready on her holster.

At the front door, flanked by guards carrying submachine guns, the woman stood in the center of the group, while her escort barked into her radio. Not long after, the front door opened, with more guards with more submachine guns standing in the grand entrance of the house. While the room was large, the decoration was minimal, aside from a large chandelier hanging from the ceiling; there were crates and boxes scattered throughout the room. Her target liked to move from place to place to avoid detection, and the interview was scheduled for just before a changeover to another continent. All of the boxes were marked with a seven pointed star, which was her target's personal sigil. All of the weapons in the room were similarly marked, denoting their origin. The escort pushed the woman over the threshold and into the room, gun barrels tracking her every step.

"We cannot let you interview the boss without processing you. Now you must be searched. The room is on your left." The woman, following her orders, turned left and walked slowly towards an open doorway, met by yet another guard, who was leaning against the wall, her arms folded. Another black turtleneck, black breeches and a platinum blonde ponytail under a grey beret this time, and a submachine gun on a carrying sling. The guard at the door was about the same height as the woman, and had a devilish smirk on her face when she saw the pair walking towards her. The escorting guard motioned to the door guard to follow her and the woman into the room, which was noticeably colder than the rest of the house. The room was bare white, with a cold steel table in the center and a folding metal chair propped against it. The door itself was made of thick metal. The escort closed the door behind her, the bolt of the lock loudly sliding closed.

"Place your possessions on the table and stand against the wall, facing the table," said the escort, at the door. The other guard stood next to the escort. The woman put her things on the table and stood against the wall. "Undress yourself," ordered the escort. "Excuse me?" Both guards reached for their weapons. "I will not repeat this instruction. Remove your clothes and throw them against the other wall." The woman sighed. "Fine..." Off came her jacket, her sneakers, her socks, her pants, and her shirt, forming a pile against a wall. "There, are you happy?" "You ain't finished yet, sweetie!" responded the door guard. Another accent, different than the first guard's; Australian? It took the woman a moment to pick up what they were putting down, blushing on command when she realized. "I will not!" The guns came up again. "Oh, God, if you insist..."

The guards began to smile at the sight of the embarrassed "journalist" unhooking and slipping off her bra, covering herself with one arm, not knowing that she was planning her escape in her head. "You know, I was expecting to get frisked, but this is a bit much..." She was now covering herself with both hands, her bare feet gently thumping against the white tile floor as she brought them up and then down. "Put your hands out to the side and turn around... slowly," said the escort, her smile growing. The woman performed a pathetic little pirouette. "You are unarmed. We will conduct the cavity search after the interview," said the escort, flashing a smirk to the other guard. "Now sit on the chair, with your hands on your head, and face forward." The woman did as ordered, with no choice in the matter.

The guard at the door moved to the table, behind the seated woman, and began to inspect what the woman brought in. "One tape recorder, with tape inside." She lifted out the tape, checked the inside of the recorder, then put it back inside. "One notebook, leather-bound, black." The escort moved in front of the woman, then sat on the chair, straddling her. Her head leaned in, towards the woman's neck, the woman turning her head away. "You smell... nice. Even though the pay for this job is handsome, getting to do this is more than enough reward." Her eyes looked the woman up and down, one hand caressing the side of her face, the other hand wrenching it around to face the escort. She leaned in to whisper into the woman's ear. "I am going to enjoy you." Her breath made the hairs on the back of the woman's neck stand up, which paled in comparison to when the escort began to run her hands up the woman's bare back. "You will look delicious tied to this table..." she said, as she began to gnaw playfully on the woman's neck.

The guard behind them let out a malicious giggle, then continued her inventory. "One pen, ball-point, black and silver." She picked up the pen, fiddled with it, and idly clicked the top; because this was no ordinary pen, a mechanism inside the pen shot the tip of the pen out like a rocket. Due to how she was holding the pen, the tip buried itself into the exposed palm of her other hand, a small needle secreting a substance into the guard. "What the... what the fuck?" The guard began to lose her balance. "Was that the black pen?" asked the woman, looking back from the chair with her hands still on her head. The guard managed to slur out a "yes", spittle streaming out of her mouth, her legs turning to jelly under her. "Then I'll see you in hell." The guard fell to the floor, her lungs shutting down in response to the toxin flowing through her body.

The escort jumped back and withdrew her weapon, pointing it directly at the woman's head. She leaned in to talk, resting one boot on the woman's exposed thigh. "What did you do? Who are you?" The woman remained seated, her hands still on her head. "I told you, I'm a journalist." The guard on the floor began to foam at the mouth. "Bullshit!" responded the escort. "Oh yeah, I've been around enough to know that if your friend over there doesn't see a doctor ASAP, then it's lights out for her." The escort glanced over at the dying guard on the floor, which was enough of an opportunity for the woman to reach back, grab the tape recorder and smash it as hard as she could into the escort's face. The thick slab of plastic and metal did a fair amount of damage. As the escort was reeling from the blow, the woman's other hand grabbed the pistol out of the escort's hand, turning it around. "Not so cocky now, eh?" The escort backed away from the woman, rubbing the side of her face with one hand, spitting out blood and teeth onto the white floor. "You will not leave this place alive, whore." "Shut up and toss the keys over here." The escort unhooked the key ring from her belt and threw it over, the woman catching it with her free hand. "Now take off your clothes, up against the wall." The woman was gesturing with the gun, while the escort was still fruitlessly taunting. "I will rip you in half."

The escort's holster and belt clattered to the floor, followed by her turtleneck and the tank top under it. The woman recognized some of the tattoos on the escort, common to certain mercenary companies. "Touch the radio and you'll get a bullet between the eyes," warned the woman, as the escort was leaning down to pull off her boots. After a minute or so, both the escort and the woman were completely nude, but only the woman was smiling. "How do you like it, huh?" "Fuck you. Do you know how many little bitches like you are buried in the back garden? You are not the first to try and kill the boss. When I break you, not even your loudest screams can get through these walls." "Wait a minute, these walls are soundproof?" "I am going to remove your arms with a chainsaw and nobody will notice." "Good," said the woman, who fired her pistol, hitting the escort between the eyes. The dead escort slumped down against the wall, leaving a large red stain on the white paint, blood trickling out of the hole in her forehead.

The escort was right; after a tense moment or two, nobody came to check on the interrogation. The woman put the pistol on the table and ran over to the poisoned guard, who had finally died. Kneeling down she rolled the guard onto her belly and pulled down the neck of her sweater; the tag was still on, and this guard was the right size. Working quickly she stripped the dead guard of her clothes and began to dress herself in the turtleneck uniform of the guards. There were more tattoos on this guard, sprays of dark ink on lightly tanned skin, including a few seven pointed stars; there might have been something more to this guard than just being an employee. When she was done, she was dressed just like any of the other guards, putting as much of her hair as she could under the beret now that her old disguise was compromised. While her boots were a little tight, and her sweater was a bit too form-fitting, and her hair was black instead of blonde, she could reasonably pass for the guard on the floor, especially when she put on some black plastic sunglasses she found in the guard's pocket.

When she was thinking of what to do next, the radio on her belt buzzed, intended for the guard with the latest and greatest research in neurotoxins in her cooling veins. "Jenny, come in. This is Severus." Her target's characteristic drawl. The woman put on her best accent and answered. "I read you ma'am, over." It worked. "I don't feel well today. Shoot that journalist in the back of the head, then enter my room, alone. Momma needs some loving." Before she could come up with a response the feed clicked off. Composing herself, she picked up the submachine gun from the floor and the other two pens from the table and ran to the door. On her way there she flipped her middle finger up at the dead escort, whose lifeless eyes were staring at some far corner of the chamber. She left the room, locking the door behind her with a key from the ring on her belt, taken from the dead escort.

Part of her briefing before the mission was learning the layout of the house from plans her agency had acquired; with the plan in mind, she moved calmly but quickly towards the master bedroom upstairs, where her target was waiting. The door to the master bedroom was guarded by two more guards, all in the same turtleneck and breeches combination as she was. "No weapons with the boss, ma'am," said one of the guards, to which the woman handed over her submachine gun. Evidently, the uniform she stole made her a higher rank than the others. After being disarmed she opened the door and entered the room, which was dark, the curtains drawn tightly shut. Once the door closed, a hand grabbed the woman and lifted her up by the collar, moving her away from the door and pinning her against a wall, knocking off her beret. It was her target, Severus, benefactor of rebels and revolutionaries the world over.

Even though she was barefoot and in not much more than a robe, Severus towered over the woman, meeting each other at eye level once Severus dragged the woman higher up the wall. "You're late," said Severus, before bringing her lips to meet those of the reluctant woman, who had to play along. "I don't like it when you're late." "Sorry, ma'am," said the woman, still imitating the accent. Severus' other hand began to crawl lower and lower down the woman's back, under her sweater, as she continued. "Tardiness will be punished, severely..." The hand stopped, then moved to the pull chain of a nearby lamp, illuminating the room. More crates, more boxes, a large bed in the center, several computers against one wall, and her target's eyes opening right in front of the woman's, framed by a curtain of bright red hair. When she saw whose mouth her tongue was in, Severus dropped the woman.

"You're not Jenny." "What, what do you mean?" "Drop the accent, sugar. Unless Jenny dyed her hair black when I wasn't looking then you're not Jenny. And your uniform doesn't fit at all, I should have the guards at the door shot for letting you in here. You don't even smell like she does. She smells like peaches, you smell like..." She sniffed the air, loudly. "You smell like government bitch." The woman raised her hands. "Okay, you're right, I'm not Jenny," answered the woman, in her normal voice. Severus' hand reached inside her robe and withdrew a revolver, with a long barrel and white pearl grips with a red seven pointed star inlaid. "Tell me who you really are and I promise it won't be too painful when I stick this inside you and poke a few holes in your abdomen." "I'm the journalist who was supposed to interview you." "Yeah, and I'm the Queen of France," retorted Severus, cocking the hammer on the revolver. "I swear, ma'am, I'm the journalist." "Prove it." The woman reached into her pocket and withdrew one of the pens, a silver plated one.

"This is my pen. My notebook and tape recorder are still in your little interrogation room." "And if you're the journalist, then where's Jenny? That is her uniform and radio you stole, at least." "She's dead." Severus raised her revolver, moving forward and putting it to the woman's head. She stood over her, looking down in anger, breathing angrily like an enraged bull. "Dead? You killed her? You little shit, you killed her?" She was furious now, her Southern charm evaporating by the word. "Let's just say..." The woman thumbed the cap off of one of the pens and brought it up to Severus' temple, pressing the end of the pen against her skin. "The pen is mightier than the gun." The woman rapidly clicked the pen in her hand, firing the small caliber bullet concealed inside directly into her target's head. Severus collapsed instantly, her eyes rolling back into her head as the tiny bullet bounced around inside, carving tunnels through her brain.

The woman kicked the revolver aside and checked for a pulse. Nothing but the tick of a grandfather clock in the other corner of the room. She gently opened Severus' robe, looking for the seven pointed star pendant she kept on her at all times; it was around her neck on a chain, which the woman undid, putting the pendant in her pocket. The pendant was evidence that she had executed her task successfully. Satisfied, she picked her beret back up and tightened it on her head before gingerly opening the door and stepping out. "Everything OK in there?" asked one of the guards, wondering what the noise inside was. Her fake accent returned. "The boss is asleep and wants no disturbances," said the woman while getting her weapon back. The other guard saluted, watching the woman walk down the stairs and through the front door. The guards standing outside the door saluted as well, which the woman returned. "The boss needs some things, I'll be outside for a little while. Oh, and if you see that journalist, shoot her." The guards saluted with simultaneous "yes, ma'am"s, the disguise continuing to work. Walking confidently, the woman went to the now empty guard post, opened the door, pressed the button to open the gate, and calmly exited the property.

 

[burom]

A third one.

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The man adjusted the earpiece in his left ear, fiddling with it until he could hear the voice on the other end. "Central here, over." "Loud and clear, Central," responded the man. "Listen up, here's the plan. On your right, over the wall, is a house currently occupied by a bunch of paramilitaries from parts unknown; we don't know much if anything about them but consider them armed and extremely dangerous." The man could see through a gap in a gate what appeared to be several French maids milling about the premises; all appeared to be twenty-somethings, with frills and lace as far as the eye could see. They all had almost the exact same appearance: cute faces, curvaceous figures, and neatly trimmed bob cuts, so much so that the baffling array of hair colors was the only way to tell most of them apart. Thanks to his agency-issue glasses, his superiors could see everything he could as well.

"I don't know Central, they seem too cute for that..." The man cut himself off when he noticed that they were all toting guns, assault rifles and shotguns and pistols. "Yeah, scratch those plans for a candlelit dinner." "Keep your guard up agent, your kill orders are activated. Anyway, you are to enter the premises and reconnoiter the area, we'll keep you posted if your objective changes. It isn't much to go on, but you'll have to make do." "Anything I should know?" "See if you can figure out anything about where these goons come from, how they operate. They just popped up out of the blue here, and we know about as much as you do. We don't like it when that happens. Central out." The earpiece crunched with static. "Well, ain't that reassuring..." muttered the man.

To his right was a red brick wall, constructed nice and tall to keep trespassers out. To his left was the burner sedan the agency gave him to get there, more rust than car. After some mental calculations, he decided the best way to enter would be to jump from the top of the car over the wall. With a grunt, he climbed on top of the car, swiveled around, bent his knees, and sprung forward. He managed to catch the top of the wall, and he pulled himself up and over, onto the mansion grounds. That part of the grounds was where a few sheds were, near a tennis court and some hedges. The click of a rifle's charging handle received him from behind.

"Intruder! Identify yourself!" He turned slowly to meet the voice, oddly soft given the circumstances. It was one of the maids, with a silly bonnet on her light blue-haired head, fishnet stockings on her legs, and a bayonetted Kalashnikov in her hands pointed right at him. The man lifted up his hands, bringing his feet together. "Ma'am, have you heard the good news about our Lord and Savior?" The maid tilted her head, uncertain what to make of the intruder. Before she could react further the man grabbed the end of her rifle with both hands, making sure to deflect the barrel away from himself, then clicked his heels together. A long blade popped out from the tip of his right shoe; the perks of being part of an agency that doesn't officially exist. With a swift kick upwards, he buried the blade between the maid's legs, doubling her over in pain. She fell to her knees as the man slid out the blade, took her rifle from her hands and flipped it around. None of the other maids were in sight, and the man couldn't see any microphone or earpiece on her, so he had a moment or two to figure out what she was doing there.

"Central, are you seeing this?" "Clear as day, agent." The maid, blood streaming from between her legs, merely stared up at the man, with the occasional grimace and groan. "Who are you people?" asked the man. "Model one... serial number Golf two four five eight zero Mike." "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that." The maid opened her mouth, rolled something around with her tongue, and bit down. Before the man could take the cyanide capsule out of her mouth, she was dead. "Central, what the fuck is this?" "No clue, agent, but you're our eyes and ears. Search the body." The man clicked his heels again to retract the blade, then laid the dead maid flat on the ground.

Her figure and costume seemed out of place for a hired goon, but her rifle and cyanide pill seemed similarly uncharacteristic for a hired escort. There were no pockets on the skimpy maid uniform, just some spare magazines and a knife on thigh holsters designed to look like garters. He took the magazines and stuck them in his agency tailored charcoal gray suit. Rolling her over he didn't see anything else of note, save for something under a blue fringe of hair. He lifted up her hair to reveal a QR code neatly tattooed on the back of her neck. "Central..." "Already on it, agent. Scanner says something about a 'template', serial number, date of 'manufacture'..." "Like these women were brainwashed..." He felt the tattoo, which upon further inspection wasn't an ink tattoo but a brand. "Or cloned," he continued, semi-seriously.

His investigation was interrupted by the sounds of gunfire whizzing past his head, rounds pockmarking the brick walls around him. The man rushed to cover behind a shed. From the other side of the grounds, he could see more maids with Technicolor hair shooting at him. He leaned out with the rifle he took from the dead maid and returned fire, clipping one of the maids in the thigh and placing three rounds in the chest of another. None of the others seemed concerned that their comrades were bleeding out or dead. He had the suspicion that there would be more where they came from, so he dove from low wall to fence to statue, inching towards the mansion itself. He barked into his microphone. "Central, you got anything?" "We've planned for this, stand by..."

When he was crouching behind some imitation Greek statue, he heard one of the maids shout "Grenade!", still in that strangely calm voice, which was followed by the clinking of a fragmentation grenade on the stone tile next to him. Acting fast, he picked up the explosive and threw it back. A few moments later he heard an explosion, and when he turned to see what happened he narrowly avoided taking a severed heel to the face; further back he could see yet more maids pouring in. His fortunes changed when he heard the booming of a high caliber rifle, each crack followed by a maid falling to the ground. Between his fire and the mysterious marksman covering him, a path through the army of maids was opening up. One lucky shot hit a grenade held by one maid, taking out her entire cohort with a single round.

"Central, come in..." "You can thank me later, Agent D." A familiar voice over the man's earpiece, come to save his bacon, and not for the first time. "I don't know what I love more, the sound of your voice or the sound of your rifle, S!" said the man, burying his bayonet into the chest of a maid who had attempted to charge him with a knife. He left the empty rifle inside the maid, prying out a combat shotgun from another maid's cold, dead hands. "You owe me, D." "I'll make it up to you one day, I promise!" "You said that last time!" The man was now in the mansion proper, entering through the remains of a glass door, and the fire from the maids had died down; for mindless drones, even they knew when to change tactics. Through the remains of a window the man could see a tan blur sprinting across the yard littered with dead maids in whole and in part, a pistol in one hand and a rifle slung across her back: Agent S, his trusted colleague. She crouched on one side of a doorway, with Agent D crouched on the other.

"We have to stop meeting like this," noted Agent S, discarding her rifle after having consumed all of its ammunition. "How was your thing with the drug dealer?" asked Agent D. "Arms dealer." "Right, well, how was it?" "It's over, and that's all I'm going to say. How was your day off?" "Left my favorite knife in the bathroom of some dive bar stuck in some goon's hand." "Ouch." "Yeah, I loved that knife." Central interrupted the greetings. "Agents, listen up, new orders. Thermal imaging says there's something big and hot down in the basement of this place. You are to go down there and see what it is. Odds are you've got to blow it up, so you might want to find something to accomplish that with. Once you're done, we'll handle extraction." Agent S looked to see the lower half of a maid on the floor with a pair of grenades on her holsters; the upper half was embedded in the chandelier above them, thanks to a mistimed grenade. She ripped off the grenades and handed one to Agent D. "I think we've got that down, Central," said Agent S.

The two agents moved through the hallways of the mansion, back to back, sweeping each doorway and window with their weapons. Their shoes crunched over shards of glass and swept aside brass casing after brass casing. From a doorway, two maids jumped out, only to be met with a wall of lead from the agents. They came to a solid metal door, with a keypad next to it and no handle. Agent S put her finger to her earpiece. "Central, we've got a locked door, advise." They could hear fingers hammering away at a keyboard on the other end of the line. "Says here in the house plans that this door leads to a trophy room." Agent D jumped into the conversation. "Central, the code, please?" "If they didn't change it from default for this model lock, try 2222." Four beeps later and they were through the door.

Inside the trophy room were souvenirs from around the world; stuffed and mounted big game from Africa, golden relics from South America, and even a full suit of samurai armor, including a sword in its scabbard. The agents took a moment to take in the grandeur of the spectacle before moving through the room. Their astonishment was cut short by a small team of maids, this time wearing bulletproof vests over their frilly dresses. There were only two ways in or out of the room: the way they came in, and the way filled with armed hostiles. The two agents crouched behind two columns. "Any ideas?" muttered Agent S through her microphone, dropping her pistol's empty magazine to the floor. "We make them come to us," responded Agent D, loading shells picked up off a dead maid into his shotgun. "Hold fire until my mark." All they could hear were the stiletto heels of the maids clicking towards them on the polished tile. Agent D timed their steps until, at the right moment, he leaned to the side and fired his shotgun repeatedly into the tight grouping of maids. Most of the maids were killed or incapacitated by pellets, but two were only stunned, taking pellets to their vests. While they were down on the ground, Agent S ran over to the samurai display and unsheathed the sword, kept pristine and sharp.

By the time the two maids stood up, Agent S was already in the doorway, swinging her sword around. She managed to land a pair of strikes on one of the maids, the first strike severing an arm at the elbow, and the second strike, on the neck, severing the head; a surprised ball of pink hair rolled down the hallway, a red spray shooting out of where it was just a second before. Not even a split second later, she kneed the other maid in the belly, swung the sword down and then thrust it up, through the floor of her mouth and out the top of her head. The lifeless eyes of the maid and the ruthless eyes of Agent S lingered on each other for a moment, before Agent S let go of the sword, and the maid with it. A groan from the floor told Agent S that she had miscalculated how many maids were still alive. The third maid, buckshot having rendered one leg useless, was dragging herself along the floor towards her weapon. Agent S dropped to the floor, straddled the maid from behind, and wrapped her arms around the maid's neck and head, twisting the maid's neck with an audible crack. Agent S looked over at Agent D and motioned with her hand to get a move on.

The agents continued through the mansion until finally, they found the stairs leading down to the basement. Agent D tapped a minuscule button on one arm of his glasses, transforming his vision into thermal optics. The hallway was cold, the largest sources of heat being himself, Agent S, and a large blob at the far end. He switched back to normal vision to see that the blob was behind a hastily constructed barricade. Agent S saw it and pulled the pin out of a hand grenade. Agent D did the same, the two agents ducking into alcoves to escape the blast. Fragments of wood and metal and plastic and maid sprayed out of the blast radius; so much for the guards. The two agents rushed into the room, finding that the grenade eliminated all of the guards except one, who was sitting on the floor against the wall, a chunk of wood sticking out of her gut. Agent S dashed over, clicked open her shoe knife, and planted it in the maid's chest, withdrawing the blade from the maid's heart after the maid's arms went limp at her sides, dropping her pistol. The explosion revealed a large clear tank, surrounded by computers and machinery, in the center of what looked like a laboratory. A terminal controlling the entire contraption had a paperweight placed on some of the keys, the display above them displaying unreadable lines but flashing diagrams and photos of maids. The tank was filled with water, with what looked like a human body floating. Neither agent could believe it.

"Central, you see this?" the agents said in unison. "That's a heat signature all right. Get what you can off the computers and destroy the room, then get the hell out of there. Central out." As the two agents got to work, Agent D monitoring the exits and Agent S pulling a data transfer cable out of her agency issue smartwatch to plug into the computer, neither of them noticed the body in the tank start to change. A red lamp on the tank turned yellow, and then the body began to change shape. Before it was an androgynous humanoid shape, but whatever process was going on in the tank rapidly gave it the appearance of a young woman, finishing the process with a neat bob of emerald green hair. The quiet whirring of machinery opened a door in the floor of the tank.

The sound of fluid draining from the tank alerted both the agents and Central. Agent D noticed the terminal and knocked the paperweight aside. A message on the terminal asked him "CONTINUE ITERATION Y/N?", to which he pressed N and the terminal cut to black. "I got an idea. S, how are you doing?" "A few more minutes, D." Agent D touched his earpiece. "Central, request permission to open the tank." "Granted." Agent D ran over to the other side of the tank, finding a hatch. Once the water stopped draining, he opened it. The woman, completely nude, was standing in a cross shape, with her back to him. Robotic arms with various implements came up from the floor of the tank, drying the woman off, adjusting her hair, piercing her earlobes, and one arm came up to laser brand the back of her neck with an identification code. Once this set of arms was done they retracted back into the floor, and another pair of arms came up. Agent D could see that this was where the cyanide pills were inserted; one arm held a pill, the other had a drill to carve a place for it. Thinking quickly, he grabbed the woman and pulled her out of the tank before the pill could be implanted.

The woman stood up and looked around the room, walking slowly towards a metal chest in the corner, which had a hand print reader on it. When she unlocked the chest with her hand and opened the cover, inside was a maid uniform identical to all of the others, a handgun, ammunition, and an access card on a neck chain for the various locks around the mansion. She began to dress quickly, following the motions as if they were her destiny, doing every step of the process with programmed precision. Agent D went over to inspect the machine further, while Agent S looked up from the computer and still couldn't entirely grasp what he was thinking. "What's your plan, D? Take her home for a little companionship?" "That's what I have you for, S." She couldn't help but let out half a laugh. "Oh please, not if you were the last man on Earth." "Anyway, the eggheads over in R&D will have a field day, between her and all the info we're getting on this thing over here," said Agent D, pointing to the machine.

The sound of a throat clearing caught Agent D's attention. "Excuse me, who are you?" asked the green haired woman, now completely dressed and with the handgun in a garter holster. Agent D turned around. "Uh, I'm your master, and you've been a very naughty maid?" The maid's neutral expression made way for a smile. "Greetings, master. Model one, serial number Golf two four six oh one Mike reporting. Requesting orders." Agent S laughed, but the maid began to scowl. "Intruder! Identify yourself!" responded the maid, removing her firearm from her garter. "Stand down, she's with me!" shouted Agent D before Agent S could escalate the situation. The maid lowered her pistol. "My apologies, mistress." She turned to face Agent D, smiling again. "What are my orders, master?"

"You'll be coming with us, but before I get you confused with someone else..." Agent D took off his suit jacket and draped it over the woman's shoulders. "Wouldn't want a samurai sword through the head, now, would we." "No, that would be a shame." snapped back Agent S. A beep from her watch signified the transfer was finished. Agent S detached the cable, which reeled itself back into her watch. "D, we're done here." "Let's blow this thing and go home, all three of us." "With what, though? Grenades aren't enough for this," responded Agent S, waving her arms. While they were talking, the maid walked over to another crate, opened it with her hand, threw out the maid uniform and pulled out several bricks of plastic explosive. "Mistress?" Agent S turned her head, saw the maid holding some of the explosive, and cracked a grin.

Their exit from the mansion was uneventful, as what few maids were left put up little resistance; it seems the two agents and their new comrade were dropping maids faster than the machine in the basement could build them. By the time they could see daylight the only living, intact maid on the property was their new ward. An agency helicopter was waiting for them near where they entered the mansion, but before they left Agent S made sure to click the remote detonator, destroying the cloning machine, and collapsing the floor in that part of the mansion. As far as they knew the only details of the cloning process were flying away, either in Agent S's wristwatch or in the body of the last maid herself. Inside the helicopter, the agents began to relax. "Another day, another successful job," noted Agent D, his hands folded behind his head. He slid forward in his seat. "Ain't this the life, S?" "Sure, I guess," replied Agent S, nonchalantly, before opening a ration pouch kept aboard the helicopter. Once it was opened, she used her other hand to undo the band keeping her hair in a ponytail, her black hair falling down past her shoulders.

A call from Central interrupted her meal. "Agents, while you were in there, there was a bank robbery. The robbers managed to escape but local police took down one of them. You might want to see the postmortem." Central pushed a photo to their watches: a dead woman lying face down on the floor of a bank lobby, dressed in military gear, with a massive exit wound on the back of her head and the gloved hand of a crime scene investigator lifting up her lime green hair to reveal a QR code on the back of her neck. "What do we do about this, Central?" asked Agent S. "Return to base and we'll go over the data you recovered. Maybe your new friend could be of some help. Central out."

 

[Weoooo]

Ah, the mansion inexplicably full of inexplicably armed cute maids. It's a fun setting!

 

[dinomoneymaiden]

Now that was a darn good one. Maid clones in a mansion being viciously mowed through!

Oh, and shoe-blade to the cunt. A personal favorite of mine!

 

[Ghost999]

Not bad. Not bad at all. Do you do custom stories?

 

[burom]

Not bad. Not bad at all. Do you do custom stories?

I hadn't thought of customs, but I might be up for it.

Anyway, this one's a little different, in that nobody dies. The next story cooking will be back to normal, I assure you. :)

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The two agents were on top of a small hill, overlooking their target in a clearing in the forest. Through her binoculars, Agent S could see a cabin, a handful of guards patrolling in circles outside. One pair of guards on the outer perimeter, one individual guard near the door to the cabin, and presumably more inside the cabin itself. The resistance seemed oddly light for a VIP extraction that required their services. Agent D was behind her, checking his inventory of non lethal methods. Between the zip ties and tape on their chest rigs, and the stun guns in their holsters, they were ready to get the hostage out of the cabin without killing anyone. Unusually for the duo, their superior had not activated their kill orders, a decision which they were reminded of when their earpieces buzzed.

"Agents, come in, this is Central." "We hear you, Central," responded Agent D. "Inside that cabin down there is a VIP hostage, it's a one room building so you shouldn't have much trouble finding him. Due to the... nature of the situation, your kill orders are not activated. Non-lethal force only." Continuing to scan with her binoculars, Agent S noticed the guards carrying what looked like bolt action rifles and revolvers. "Even if they fire first?" "Even if they fire first, Agent. That doesn't mean you have to use the kid gloves, but just stay on your toes." Agent D tapped on his earpiece. "Hey, Central, what's with the non-lethal order? You hiding something from us?" Central hesitated for a moment, thinking of how to broach the subject. "There's not just one VIP in there, and if you end up killing the other VIPs then the consequences would be cataclysmic at the absolute best. Is that enough for you, Agent?" "Fine by me, Central." "Good. Central out."

The two agents made their way down the hillside, their movements covered by a black curtain of night and forest, the only sounds they made a gentle rustling of leaves. To the untrained ear it sounded just like the wind blowing through the forest, and as the two agents neared the first guards they could sense that they were far from trained. Two guards were standing around a campfire. One of them seemed antsy, waving her rifle at every cricket and croak coming from the black forest. She had a baseball cap on her head, backwards, ginger pigtails falling out the side of it. A dark grey hoodie, black leggings and sneakers weren't enough to stop her from shivering. The other was more relaxed, smiling and warming her hands over the fire, with a revolver shoved in the back of her dark green cargos. She was slightly older, taller, and had a light grey shemagh scarf wrapped loosely around her neck and head, covering up a dark blue T-shirt. There were red stripes on her cheeks, painted on with what looked like lipstick. To call the two guards women would be a stretch; these were college girls at the absolute oldest, and as the one at the fire looked over to talk to the other guard the agents could catch the glint of braces on her teeth.

"What's the matter?" The other guard fired back in a clipped monotone, her teeth chattering from the cold. "Too many... things... in the forest." "Hey, relax, there's nothing coming to get you! We're just waiting here 'til Kelly gets a phone call, and then we all go home!" "Then why... why did she give us these guns?" "Oh, silly, those are museum pieces, just to scare off anyone who comes close. I don't even think they're load--" Before she could finish her sentence the guard with the rifle heard the crackling of the fire, or a tree creaking from the cold night air, or some other noise, and fired her rifle inadvertently. It was loaded, a bullet exiting the barrel and lodging itself deeply inside a tree. The two guards squeaked in shock simultaneously, the one with the rifle dropping it at her feet, staring at it. Observing the scene from the bushes, Agent D buried his head in one hand, while Agent S shook her head in disapproval.

The two guards huddled together on the dirt, the taller one waving her pistol around while the smaller one buried her head in the side of her comrade. "Whoever you are, s-s-stay back!" Each word was punctuated by the whoosh of the revolver flicking from side to side. All the guards could hear was the wind rushing through the trees, the fire crackling behind them, and the whimpering of the younger guard. From their position in the bushes, the agents saw that the other guards near the cabin hadn't moved, if they even noticed the gunshot. Agent S put up a hand, signaling to her partner her course of action without uttering a word. Agent D nodded and stepped back, using the scenery around him to make a distraction. The noise caught the guards' attention, and their eyes were transfixed in the general area of Agent D. While that was going on, Agent S circled around the guards, approaching them from behind, hidden by the campfire. As she grew closer Agent S could smell their fear: sweat, gun smoke, cheap perfume, and a hint of urine, the smaller guard sliding herself off of her comrade to avoid embarrassing the both of them any further.

Finally, with a nod to Agent D, Agent S jumped out from behind the fire and grabbed the pistol from the guard's quavering hand. Agent D rushed out of the bushes to provide support, but they didn't need it. At the sight of two demons crawling out of the forest and sneaking up on them, the younger guard let out a pitiful squeal before fainting. The older guard, paralyzed by fear and indecision, raised her hands up in surrender. She began to shout. "Don't--" Agent S's gloved hand forced her mouth shut, followed by a shushing sound from Agent D, who had already begun to zip tie the guard's wrists behind her back. Agent S leaned in and then lifted her hand. "How many of you are there?" "F... five..." "And where is your hostage?" "What... what hostage?" "The hostage you're holding captive, remember?" "We have a hostage?" Agent S rolled her eyes then reached for the stun gun in her holster to provide further encouragement, but the mere act of doing so caused the other guard to faint as well.

Without firing a shot, or really doing anything in particular, two fifths of the guard contingent was out cold. The agents quickly went to the two guards and bound their wrists and ankles, lying them flat on the ground, taping their mouths shut in case they came to earlier than expected. "We should search them," whispered Agent S, Agent D responding with a nod. On the person of the taller guard was a lanyard around her neck and a cell phone in her pants pocket, white metal under a pink rubber case with cat ears sticking out of the top. Agent S gently pried open the guard's unconscious hand, putting a fingertip on the phone to unlock it, while Agent D looked at the lanyard and the plastic card attached to it, Central following along through the feed on his goggles. "Hold it still, Agent, we can read the bar code," asked Central. The plastic card was an ID card issued by a local college, with a smiling photograph of the guard on the front next to her student number and date of birth. "It's a real ID card, Agent. According to their system, your girl here just failed Psychology 101," said Central.

Meanwhile, with the phone unlocked, Agent S was rifling through its contents. A wide assortment of selfies were in the camera roll. Photos at the coffee shop, in a library, in all sorts of bathrooms, and even a few taken just moments before the two agents arrived; a big smile on the girl's face, her other hand holding her revolver in the shot, "#badass" and some muscle emojis stamped above her confident expression. Another photo was one with the girl and an older woman, in a stately sort of office. Agent S thought she recognized the woman. "Central, come in." "Go ahead, Agent." "The woman here, isn't that--" "Senator Browder, yes. The phone belongs to her eldest daughter. We're not completely sure but we think the other one is a friend of Senator Browder's youngest daughter." Agent S glanced at the younger guard, still unconscious. "Central, you seem to know more than you're letting on." "We always know more than we let on, Agent. But for now, remember, your kill orders are not activated. Get the hostage out, then we can talk freely. Central out." Agent S let out a quiet grumble, then shook her head to dispel it. "Come on D, let's get that hostage out of here." Agent D nodded, then took the lead position, the two agents moving in single file towards the cabin.

There was a deck leading up to the front door of the cabin, and on that deck was another guard. She was about the same age as the smaller guard back at the campfire, with a break-open hunting shotgun on a strap across her back. In one hand was a cell phone, a blue rectangular glow painting her face against the black sky, and in the other was a lit cigarette; she was still coughing after every drag, not yet used to the feeling. Her attention was entirely focused on the cell phone, her long fingernails tapping against glass, only changing when she heard a twig snap just around the corner. "Oh, fuck, I wasn't ready..." She dropped her cigarette and attempted to take her weapon out of its sling, but managed to drop her cell phone down the stairs of the deck instead of into her pants pocket. "Shit, no!" She forgot about her weapon for a moment and dove down the stairs to retrieve her phone, being met at the bottom with the prongs of Agent D's stun gun buried into her gut, through her thin T-shirt and open denim vest. Once she noticed the man holding the stun gun she began to reach for her weapon, but Agent D shushed her. "Make a move and I'll zap you with this cattle prod, understand?" The guard nodded silently.

Agent D motioned with his other hand, and then Agent S came in to subdue the guard with another set of zip ties. Before putting a strip of duct tape over her mouth, Agent S asked "How many are in there?" "Two, I think..." The first guard's word was right. "Are they armed?" "Yeah, and they're gonna kick your elderly ass, you--" Interrupting her, Agent S plucked the beanie off of her head, balled it up, shoved it into her mouth, and sealed it in place with the tape. After that, she threw the guard to the ground and rolled her onto her belly, using some more zip ties to hogtie her arms and legs behind her back. "That's for calling me elderly." Before moving up the stairs, she searched the guard's pockets: some chewing gum, a receipt from a gas station a few miles away from the cabin (several cans of energy drinks and a few boxes of snacks), and another ID card, issued by a high school this time. If the agents were reading the ID card right, this guard was related to the older of the first two guards. "Just as suspected," chimed in Central, reading off the ID card through the agents' camera feeds. "Care to explain?" asked Agent D. "Word on the street is that the hostage and the hostage takers all know each other, and since they're dumb enough to bring their IDs with them to a hostage situation then we've got the perfect leverage for later. Keep up the good work. Central out." "Leverage?" asked Agent S. "Forget it, it's probably above our pay grade," responded Agent D.

The agents could hear the front door to the cabin opening behind them, up the stairs. "Jane, how many times do I have to tell you, stay at your post-- hey, who the hell are you?" It was another guard, older, about a head taller than all the others and surprisingly muscular; in spite of the cold air of the twilight hour her muscles bristled against her tank top. She wasn't holding a weapon, but the agents suspected she didn't need one with arms like those. The guard on the floor started screaming through the duct tape, attracting the attention of the guard at the top of the stairs. "Oh shit, it's the feds!" The big guard ducked back into the cabin before the agents could retaliate. They heard the sound of shouting and of moving furniture from inside the cabin. "What do we do now?" asked Agent S. "There's two of us and two of them. We knock." Agent D ran up the stairs to the deck, followed closely behind by Agent S. He threw open the front door to be met by a brown work boot slamming into the door frame, inches away from his face.

The guard, who had missed her shot, retracted her foot, bringing up her hands in a martial arts stance. "What's the matter, chicken?" asked the guard, mockingly. Behind her, Agent D could see another guard holding a pistol to the head of the hostage. The hostage, a teenage boy with his shirt ripped open, was tied to a chair, and was struggling and screaming the entire time. A loose ball gag was around his neck. "My Poppy's a Senator, you're all going to be sorry!" "So what, my mom's a Senator too, so shut the hell up!" retorted the one with the gun, pushing the gun further up against the hostage's head. Agent S entered the room, standing next to Agent D. "Now, would you kindly tell us who you people are?" asked the one with the gun. Agent D put up his hands and took a couple steps forward, staying out of reach of the tall guard. "Uh, yeah, we're with the gas company, just here to check your meter..." The one with the gun was not amused, so she pointed it at the ceiling and fired. Bits of wood dust sprinkled down. Agent S stepped forward now. "Okay, okay, we were sent here to rescue that hostage over there," she said, pointing at the boy. The one with the gun was incredulous. "Hostage? Rescue? This earth needs rescue from the forces of the patriarchical establishment like this 'hostage' here!" she said, using finger quotes to illustrate her opinion. The agents noticed the big Che Guevara face staring back at them from the red shirt on the hostage taker's chest. The tall guard walked backwards to the far end of the room, never taking her eyes off of the two agents. "I've had enough, get them!" shouted the one with the gun.

"Yeah, come on, bitches!" yelled the tall guard, bracing herself to dash at the agents. With a scream she started forward, intent on using her mass to plow into one of the agents like a freight train, but she underestimated how fast they were. The two agents sidestepped, leaving a nice gap between them for the guard to run through, into the open doorway, through the flimsy wooden railing of the deck, and onto the mud a few feet below. Her voice trailed off as she tumbled out of the cabin. "Fuuuuuuuuuuu--" After she landed with a loud splash of mud, her confidence vanished, replaced with moaning and whimpering. "Ow! I think I broke something..." She was rolling around in the mud, cradling her foot. The last guard, the one with the gun, was furious. "Amateurs!" The agents stepped forward again, Agent S taking the lead. "Hey, you don't seem too experienced yourself, Kelly." The guard aimed her gun at the agents now. "How did you know my name?" The agents continued to pace closer, stepping around empty drink cans and discarded snack wrappers. "Kelly Browder, daughter of Sharon and Mark, sister to Megan and Jane, high school valedictorian, about to go to college on a full scholarship..." There was more information being piped into her earpiece by Central, but the girl had heard enough. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" She was holding her head with both hands, groaning about how her life as she knew it was probably over.

The two agents were now just a few yards in front of Kelly and the hostage. "Put the gun down and we can work this out, Kelly," said Agent D. "Oohhh..." she groaned. Weighing her options for a moment, Kelly finally put down her pistol, which Agent D promptly kicked away. Agent S ran behind and began to subdue her. The hostage was still squirming in his seat. "Whoever you guys are, thanks! SWAT team? Counter-terror? Special forces?" "We're nobody, now keep quiet, please," responded Agent D. "Ah, secret agents! I knew my Poppy would hire the best to get me out." "Still no," said Agent S, tying Kelly up. "Then who? I demand to know!" Agent D withdrew his stun gun and held it in front of the hostage, countless volts arcing between its terminals. "And we demand you shut up, okay?" "Oh... Okay." Agent S stood up, having slapped a piece of duct tape across Kelly's mouth. "We're done here, Central. Three to evac." "Negative, agents. You are to collect everyone you've bound and bring them to the cabin, then await further instructions. Central out." The two agents gave each other confused looks, shrugged them off, then went outside to begin collection. The sun had begun to crest over the mountains in the distance.

By the time it was all done, there were five girls with their wrists and hands bound, in a line on the floor. One of them, her face covered in mud, was still writhing around after spraining her ankle. Another one, lying flat on the floor with her arms and legs above her, looked bored, missing her cracked cellphone lying at the bottom of the stairs outside. Two more were coming back to consciousness, one of them squirming in disgust after noticing that she was lying in something wet. And the last one, the leader of the pack, was almost catatonic in disbelief, at the failure of her plan and at the punishment she would no doubt receive after this was over. Behind them all was the hostage, still sitting in the chair after the two agents had undone his restraints, rapping his fingers on the armrest. The two agents themselves were milling about the room. Agent S looked at a framed photograph lying on a table, a portrait of a man, a woman, and three of the girls, all smiles, in happier times. Agent D was availing himself to the last of the snack cakes, loudly opening the cellophane wrapper. The phone rang. "I'll get that, agents, put me on speaker." Agent S, closest to the phone, put down the picture, ran over to the phone, lifted up the earpiece and tapped a button on her smartwatch.

"Hello?" said Central, through a speaker on the smartwatch and into the earpiece. An angry drawl shouted at them over the phone. "This is Senator Stephens. My office got a phone call last night about my son being kidnapped, and whoever it was told me to call this number. I swear to God, if you so much as touch a hair on his head, I will whoop your asses from here to Sunday!" The boy recognized the voice. "Poppy!" "My boy!" "Let me talk to Poppy!" "Yes, let him talk," responded Central into Agent S's earpiece. Agent S picked up the handset and brought it over to the boy. "Poppy! I'm fine, I'm fine, it's just that-- no, they don't seem foreign, and actually I think I know a few of them-- no, I'm okay, thanks to the special forces you sent-- what do you mean you didn't send them?" The boy put down the handset. "He wants to talk to you again." Agent S picked up the handset again, putting Central to the microphone. "Listen, uh, whoever you are, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for getting my boy out safe." "Just part of the job, Senator. We'll get your son to you in about two hours, safe and sound." "Who are you, anyway?" "We're part of the government, and that's all we're authorized to tell you. It's best if you don't know too much about us." "Well, anyway, thank you." "We'll keep in touch. Goodbye, Senator." The call ended. "Permission to evac, Central?" asked Agent D, dusting snack cake crumbs off of his gloved fingers. Before Central could answer the front door to the cabin opened and an older woman in business wear walked in, her mouth agape in shock when she saw the bound guards on the floor.

"Mom!" said three of the guards at the same time; one relieved, one oblivious, one mortified, all of them muffled by tape. "What the hell is this?" asked the woman, moving over to take the tape off of the guards' mouths. One of them spat out a wet ball that was formerly her hat, giving a death glare to Agent S. The woman looked from the guards to the agents. "And whoever you are, you should be ashamed of yourself, tying up these defenseless girls--" "Hey, lady, they tied me up first!" snapped back the hostage from his chair. "And-- wait a minute, you're Phil's son, aren't you? What are you doing here?" "Your crazy daughters tied me up! Oh, and Janey, if you can hear me, we are so over!" The hogtied guard groaned. "Can we still be friends at least?" The woman continued. "You are all grounded, all of you!" "You can't ground me, I'm an adult!" responded the guard with the scarf. "Then I'm cutting off your credit card, Megan!" Now Megan groaned. "Now, who the hell are you?" asked the woman, looking at Agent D. "Uh... we were just in the area when we heard that your daughters here took someone hostage." The woman looked even more incredulous, pacing in a circle in front of her daughters, her heels clacking against the wooden floor of the cabin. "A hostage situation?" "It was all Kelly's idea!" squeaked the guard with the pigtails, her face as red as a beet. "Thanks a lot!" retorted Kelly. The Senator knelt down in front of her middle daughter. "Young woman, what on Earth possessed you to take this boy hostage?" "His politician father represents the military industrial complex, and by taking this decisive action, we are on the precipice of ushering in a new era of social justice, peace, freedom and equality!" Silence. "Sweetie, the military industrial complex paid for this cabin, paid for that stupid shirt you have on, paid for your cell phone, paid for your tuition, paid for everything!" "Mom!" Both agents rolled their eyes.

"Ahem, Madam Senator..." interrupted Central, from Agent S's wristwatch. "Who said that?" She looked around the room before focusing on Agent S's outstretched hand. "We deeply apologize for the circumstances, but even though your daughters did some very stupid things, our talented agents resolved this matter with minimal harm." "Ow! My ankle still hurts!" shouted the tallest guard. "Don't worry, baby, I'll get you to the hospital!" responded Megan. "Baby? Who are you calling baby?" asked the Senator. "You didn't know? Thought she was just her 'lab partner'?" asked Kelly, still finger quoting behind her back. The realization came to the Senator after a moment. "Where's the goddamn hooch when I need it..." she said, going off to search for the nearest strong liquor. Central continued. "Anyway, Madam Senator, there is the possibility that we let the events surrounding the kidnapping... slide. Completely forget what happened." "And what's the catch, whoever you are?" "Someday, and that day may never come, we will call upon you to do a service for us. But until that day, accept this as a gift from your friends in the intelligence community." "Fine, whatever, I owe you," said the Senator, struggling to open a bottle of tequila. "Very good, Madam Senator." Through the open doorway the group could hear the whirring of helicopter blades approaching. "We will be leaving now. Thank you for your cooperation, we'll keep in touch. Agents?" Agent D moved to stand in front of the hostage. "Can you walk?" "Sure." "Then walk." The two agents and the hostage went past the bickering family, down the deck, and towards the clearing in the forest where their helicopter was about to land.

While they were waiting, Agent S tapped on her earpiece. "Central, what the hell was all that?" Central responded through their earpieces, keeping the boy outside of the loop. "From some chat logs and web traffic we've intercepted, we've gathered the middle girl's got a grudge against society, especially the boy her younger sister's been dating, Senator Stephens' son. Their high school is where all the politicians' kids go, at least the rich ones, so there's bound to be some bipartisan action under the bleachers." "Get on with it, please?" said Agent S. "Anyway, the three girls, the oldest one's girlfriend and a friend of the youngest one get roped into this plan to open Daddy's gun cabinet, kidnap the boy, hold him for a ransom of getting the boy's father to make a statement decrying involvement in foreign wars and arms sales and a bunch of pinko crap, and to let him go afterwards." Agent D jumped into the conversation. "That's the dumbest plan I've ever heard." "Exactly." "So why do you need us to solve this?" asked Agent S. "Because this agency is both the sharpest scalpel and the heaviest hammer in this nation's arsenal. We understand that rounding up half a dozen dumbass teenagers could be left up to badges, but given who's involved over in the legislative branch, discretion and precision are key. And you pulled it off. The only lasting damage is a sprained ankle, some ruined pants, and a hell of a bruised ego. And because it was you two who saved the day, not only will nobody other than the people involved know this ever happened, we have enough dirt on the two Senators to get that budget increase we've been hoping for. Pat yourselves on the back. Central out." Agent S turned to Agent D. "So all this was just a waste of time." He shrugged. "Hey, it pays." The helicopter pulled up over the trees, hovering over the group before touching down, ready to take them away.

 

[dinomoneymaiden]

So was this story just to vent frustrations about SJWs? because I approve. Haha.

 

[burom]

Another one, returning to our normal programming.

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In a dark street of a dark city, the only sound other than the crickets and the buzz of distant traffic was the scraping of a manhole cover against the asphalt. It was followed by the sound of two heavily armed individuals exiting the manhole and then closing it behind them; Agent D and Agent S had arrived at their destination. They skipped the tailored suits in favor of black tactical gear, half face masks, and agency-issue goggles. Agent D was wearing a knit cap while Agent S had her hair up in its usual ponytail, her goggles flipped up on her forehead. Both of them had assault rifles, sidearms, and plenty of ammunition. "Remind me to bring some deodorant next time we have to do a sewer insertion," complained Agent S, thumbing a smudge on her rifle with her gloved hand. She heard a loud sniff next to her, which was Agent D shoving a car air freshener up against his nose and breathing in. Even though it was pitch black outside he could still see Agent S's glare of confused disapproval. "You don't want one? Smells just like the Cascades..." "No, D, I think those things cause cancer anyway." "Your loss," he retorted, taking one last sniff before crumpling up the air freshener and rolling it down a nearby storm drain.

"Cut the chatter, you two, and listen up." Central. "You've got warehouses on all sides of you, but one of them is hiding a gang drug operation, real professional stuff. You are to go in and destroy it." "Central, why us and not badges?" "We were getting to that, Agent D. Word on the street is that they're doing a big money buy here, right now, a lot of cash and drugs changing hands. Try to figure out who the buyers are, alive or dead. We can't leave something like that up to badges." "What are we up against?" asked Agent S. "The gang calls themselves the White Scorpions, they've been operating out of the city but a cash injection like this is ample incentive for them to expand." Agent D remembered something. "White Scorpions, I think I've met them before. Shouldn't be too much of a challenge, then." "Appearances can be deceiving, agents; most of them are street trash looking for their next fix, so that means little training but really itchy trigger fingers. What's more, if this deal goes hot then you'll have the buyers to deal with, and we have zero intel on them. Kill orders enabled, stay on your toes. Central out." Agent S moved forward, Agent D following closely behind.

The two agents moved single file down the street until they came upon the warehouse that contained the drug operation. Looking around they couldn't see anyone else, but then they heard the sound of a door opening coming from around a corner. Agent S crept to the corner and leaned her head over. She saw a guard standing near an open doorway, searching her pockets with one hand for a way to light the cigarette dangling from a corner of her mouth. Her other hand was firmly grasping a machine pistol, which was shaking in anticipation of the cigarette, no doubt adulterated with some drug other than tobacco. There was a cold bluish light above the doorway, allowing the agents to see she was wearing a camouflage pattern crop top, jeans with more holes than fabric, brown studded boots, tattoos on every inch of her arms and torso, mesh gauntlets, and a bright teal side shave on her head. The white scorpion design on the back of her top was a tip-off that they found the right warehouse. Agent S moved back behind the corner, signaling to Agent D. One guard. They were trained for situations like these, which is why Agent S reached for her knife while Agent D looked for something on the ground to throw. From around the corner, they could hear the clinking of a lighter, followed by the satisfied breaths of the guard taking in her cigarette.

Agent S put up her hand, counting down with her fingers. Three. Two. One. After one, Agent D threw an empty beverage can off to the side, aiming at a metal generator box to make more noise. "Who's there? Come out!" The guard sounded panicked through her gritted teeth, caught off guard by the noise. Slowly she moved towards the sound, each step uncertain, until she moved past the corner, not noticing the agents hiding in the darkness. At that moment, Agent S shot up, put one hand tightly over the guard's mouth (taking care to avoid burning herself on the cigarette), brought her other hand with the knife up to the guard's back, and thrust the point in and upwards between the shoulder blades, into the heart. The action was powerful enough that it lifted the guard off of the ground a few inches, leaving her feet to dangle. In the glow of the cigarette, the guard could see just at the edge of her vision the eyes of Agent S, which would be the last thing she would ever see as she slumped down to the ground and her world faded to black. The two agents lifted the guard by the head and feet and placed her down in the darkness of the corner, then silently moved past the dead guard and into the warehouse.

Inside the warehouse, it was not much brighter than the outside, with dim and flickering light bulbs providing minimal illumination. Agents D and S continued to move wordlessly through the hallways, stopping at doorways and corners to check for hostiles. So far, nothing; most of the noise and thermal signatures came from the large central room of the warehouse, where presumably the drug manufacturing and the eventual drug deal was taking place. Agent S flipped down her goggles onto her eyes. They stopped at a T-shaped junction when they could hear the sound of something clattering into the walls, thumping into corrugated sheets of metal laid against bare concrete. As the noise came closer the two agents stepped back a few paces, readying their firearms, but they didn't need to. The noise was, in fact, two guards locked in an amorous embrace, not caring or seeing where they were going, hence the occasional bounce into a wall.

One gang member was quite a bit younger and shorter than the other, the older and taller one holding her up to continue their uninterrupted kiss. Their passion was so overwhelming that neither of them was armed, having left their weapons behind at their posts. The two of them moved right in front of the two agents, who were taken aback, before continuing on into a side room, completely oblivious to the presence of intruders. As they neglected to close the door behind them, the two agents could hear everything that was going on inside the room, the clash of empty bottles falling to the floor, every zipper opening, every button unfastening, every giggle and invitation, every finger and tongue-- Agent D, who was in front, looked back over his shoulder with a confused expression at Agent S. She shrugged, then motioned to move forward, away from the two lovebirds, one of whom was loudly asking what scissors had to do with love. They were coming up on the main storage area, where the sounds of whirring machinery grew louder with each step closer, beginning to drown out the sounds from the room at the other end of the hall.

Just before the entrance to the main room, there was a ladder leading to the second floor. The agents split up, Agent S moving through the main floor entrance to hide behind some boxes while Agent D climbed up the ladder and took cover on a catwalk overlooking the main room. For a warehouse, the central room was rather spartan. On the side closer to the two agents were several large, open vats, unknown liquids gently mixing inside of them. Surrounding the vats were crates and barrels of raw materials. Just further out were some industrial ovens, as well as some tables filled with scales, empty plastic packets, discarded respirators and rubber gloves. A fine white dust was omnipresent. Personal safety was not at the top of the list of prerogatives; this drug lab was designed to put out product regardless how many on-site accidents would occur. On the far side of the warehouse were seven guards, firearms at the ready, waiting to greet the buyers for their drugs. One of the guards was standing between all of the others, in front of a pile of crates in the center, then turned around, brought one down, and put it in front of her. As amateurish as the White Scorpions were, at least they had a recognizable rank system; her rank insignia was stitched on the shoulders of her black track jacket, above a white scorpion design, demonstrating that she was in charge of the warehouse operation.

The far wall of the warehouse opened after one guard pressed a button on the wall, and not long after the high beams of four cars pierced the darkness and temporarily stunned the guards. The four cars, black European sedans, stopped in a line, all of their doors opening simultaneously. Sixteen women came out in total, all dressed in smart black skirt suits and wraparound sunglasses, and with submachine guns in their hands, with the only splashes of color being their white shirts, abnormally pale skin, colorful neckties, and their identically styled hair. Six of them had aluminum briefcases in their other hands, and they all met in a line in front of the central gang member. "Took you long enough, now hand over the money." The lead guard was impatient, coiling her hair around her finger with one hand, the other tightly gripping her machine pistol. One of the suits responded, the one in the center of the group, coldly and calmly. "You must provide what we are buying first." "Look in front of you." Another one of the suits, without a briefcase, ran over, knelt down in front of the crate, and ripped the lid off. Inside were several bags of white powder. The suit took a sharpened fingernail, pierced a bag, then licked the white powder off her nail. She stood up, retrieved her submachine gun, then shook her head left to right. The other suits all raised their weapons.

"Central?" whispered Agent S from her perch. "Agents, standby, this might get hot. Your new objective is the buyers, the dealers and lab are now secondary. Figure out where they came from." While the agents were receiving new orders, the drug deal went sour, fast. "What's the big deal here? That was the deal, six crates of dope for twelve million!" shouted the leader of the guards, waving her pistol from side to side. One of the suits took off her sunglasses, revealing eyes as red as the hair on her head. A couple gang members tilted their heads in confusion. "The purity of your product is inadequate." Her voice was still unnaturally calm. "As a result of your carelessness, we will have to alter the deal accordingly. Eight million dollars should be acceptable." Two of the suits with briefcases stood back, while the other four moved forward. They simultaneously placed their briefcases down, then kicked them as hard as they could towards the gang members, crossing the great distance. "You may inspect the payment if you wish," added the red-eyed suit. "I think I will!" snapped back the gang leader. She picked up one of the briefcases, moved the latch to the open position, then opened it while standing.

Looking into the bottom of the case, she could see some pristine hundred-dollar bills, all in neat stacks, as if every face on every bill was staring right up at her. She did hear a beeping noise coming from the money, though, and when she looked at the top of the case to investigate she could see a brick of plastic explosive, some packets of nails and ball bearings packed around it, and a red LED blinking at her. Most of the suits went down to one knee or a prone position, training their weapons on the White Scorpions. "What the fuck?" was all she could utter before the two suits still holding briefcases threw them at the White Scorpions, followed a split second later by the red-eyed suit withdrawing a detonator from her top jacket pocket and activating it, turning to avoid the blast. The aluminum briefcases turned to shrapnel, shredding suit and White Scorpion alike. When the smoke cleared there were two gang members left active in the drug room, up against eleven suits, and the other ten individuals scattered around the room, in various states of disarray. What neither side knew about were the two heavily armed government agents with kill orders observing the entire scene from safely behind cover.

The two White Scorpions took cover behind an overturned table, one struggling to load her machine pistol, the other holding a double barrel shotgun with perilously shaking hands. The one with the shotgun peeked her head over the top of the table only to be met with several rounds to the head, falling to the floor like a sack of hammers. A scream from the other gang member alerted the suits, who fired through the thin particleboard table, killing her as well. On the other side of the room, the eleven suits fanned out through the room, searching for more loose ends to tie up. Their apparent leader, the red-eyed woman, was unharmed and dusted off splinters of wood from her jacket before joining the hunt. She was interrupted by a hand grabbing her leg, blood smearing over the black pumps and opaque stockings that were part of her uniform. She looked down to see a White Scorpion lying on the floor with a table leg sticking out of her back, followed by a trail of blood from where she was standing just a few moments before, coughing up blood between words. "Help... me..." The red-eyed woman lowered her submachine gun and fired three rounds into the goon. Agent S remained behind her pile of crates, while Agent D peeked through a hole between two metal panels making up the catwalk railing. He looked to his side and saw a pistol lying on the catwalk. Why that pistol was there made itself apparent when he heard the sound coming from back down the ladder.

"Oh no, why tonight? Where's that gun they gave me?" It was followed by the sounds of bare hands slapping against metal, coming closer: someone climbing up the ladder. To fire would give away Agent D's position, which when outnumbered and outgunned this badly was a death sentence. He trained his rifle on the ladder but would not shoot. A messy sphere of dyed blonde hair, brown at the roots and with a pink barrette stuck in the middle, popped up from the top of the ladder, freezing when it saw Agent D. Two eyes underneath all that hair saw the stranger with a rifle put his finger to his mouth to tell her to keep quiet., the hairball nodding in acquiescence. Agent D motioned with his hand for her to come up but stay low to the floor, which she did, lying flat on her chest. It was one of the lovers from earlier, too confused, scared and embarrassed to be a threat to Agent D or anyone else in the room, not even noticing when Agent D took her pistol and put it in his own rig. She was wearing a dirty tartan skirt, a purple hooded sweatshirt, on backward, with the zipper barely fastened on her bare back, and one sneaker; everything else was left behind in a hurry. About the only sign that she was in a gang was the scorpion on her front. Below them, the other lover, who had retrieved her rifle and was hastily buttoning up her shirt, was standing in the doorway, with Agent S just out of her field of view. "Hey, cocksuckers!" was all she could shout before the suits noticed her and took her down.

The girl above whimpered with her hands over her ears, a puddle slowly expanding out from under her skirt. Agent S hastily tapped out a message to Central on her smartwatch, not wanting to break radio silence. "ADVISE?" Central responded almost immediately, having observed what transpired through the video links from their body cameras. "SURVIVE." Not reassuring, especially since these suits posed quite a challenge compared to the gang members they were expecting. Agent D rolled into the corridor with the ladder, hearing someone starting to climb up the stairs on the catwalk. He tapped on the shoulder of the girl, who rolled onto her side to see Agent D. Another finger to keep quiet, followed by putting his hands over his eyes, to tell her to close hers. The girl nodded, tears mixed with makeup painting dark tracks over her freckles, before rolling back down onto her belly, burying her face in her hood, and hoping for an escape.

The footsteps up the ladder were getting closer, so Agent D had to come up with a plan. He sent a message to Agent S on his smartwatch. "ON 3", which triggered a three-second countdown with a start button thanks to the watch's programming. After hearing a couple more cautious steps Agent D pressed the button on his watch. One. Agent D prepared to pounce, slinging his rifle across his back to leave his arms open. Two. The steps came from one of the suits, with a bright yellow tie and golden blonde hair. She looked to her side to see Agent D charging towards her. Three. Before she could fire he lifted her up with the all the adrenaline in his body and threw her over the railing of the catwalk, into one of the chemical vats. For a brief moment, her yellow eyes met with Agent D's, through her sunglasses. Agent S's smartwatch silently vibrated, but the sound of the suit falling into the chemical vat was more than enough of a signal. Whatever chemicals were in the vat weren't terribly merciful; after a brief moment the splashing and screaming stopped and a disgusting sizzling noise and even fouler smell emanated from the vat. One down, ten to go.

The sound of one of their own falling to her death alerted all of the other suits that there were hostiles in the area. They grouped up, three and three taking both flanks towards the catwalk while four stayed back near their cars. Three of them would pass directly in front of Agent S, who slung her rifle and took out her sidearm. Staying in the shadows, none of the suits noticed Agent S as they passed by in single file. Seizing her chance, Agent S grabbed the last suit and stood behind her, using the suit as a shield. Before the other two suits in that group could react, Agent S fired her sidearm, hitting them in the head and neck. They went down instantly, but that alerted the other suits, who began to fire at the general vicinity of Agent S. Agent S pushed her shield out into the open. Her comrades shot her mistakenly, not hearing the brief "Wait!"; seven to go. Agent D returned to his perch on the catwalk, sweeping the other flanking team with automatic rifle fire through a gap in the railing. With the timing of their attack the second team was caught outside cover, so they were no match for his rifle and his deadly aim; four to go.

The remaining suits hid behind their cars for cover, shooting alternately at Agent D and Agent S. Agent S, dashing from cover to cover, ended up behind one of the large ovens, with the shrapnel-ridden corpse of a White Scorpion on the floor next to her, bandages wrapped tightly around one hand and a face mask covering a broken nose. "I need this more than you," she thought to herself as she took a submachine gun from out of the corpse's hand. Taking a moment to prepare herself, Agent S flung the submachine gun out to one side, where it attracted the attention of the four suits left standing, both as it flew into the air and as it impacted the ground, firing spontaneously thanks to shoddy assembly and maintenance. With the suits distracted by the moving and firing target, Agent S dashed forward from the other side of the oven and returned fire with her rifle, managing to hit one of the suits in the eye, driving both the bullet and bits of plastic sunglasses into her brain. Three to go. She ran so fast that she ended up in the row of black cars, ducking into the back seat of one of them for cover.

Sensing an opportunity, Agent D rushed over to the ladder and slid down to the ground floor, changed his magazine, then entered the main room. Using the chemical vat as cover he leaned out to see the three remaining suits were running to their cars, eager to make an escape. With a quick rifle shot, he hit one of the suits, the red leader, in and through the calf, bringing her down but not out. The other two suits piled into one of the cars, attempting to get it started to escape but with no immediate success. Agent D fired at the car with his rifle, but the car was armored, bullets pinging off of the steel and reinforced glass. Since the remaining suits were inside the car, he ran towards it as fast as he could, stopping only to kick the submachine gun far away from the injured suit on the ground. The two remaining suits were in the front seats of the car, a brunette one in the passenger seat pointing her submachine gun at Agent D through the immovable bulletproof glass, and a blue haired one turning the key repeatedly. Finally, the engine started, and the brunette suit began to grin, smugly, knowing there was nothing Agent D could do about her escape. Her smug face dissolved away when the driver's brains splattered all over the windshield, what was left of her head slumping down onto the horn.

The brunette turned to look at what happened when she saw, in the rear-view mirror, Agent S crouched in the back, one finger plugging her ear, smoke wafting from the barrel of her pistol. Now Agent S was the one smiling, even though her ears were ringing despite trying to protect them. The brunette raised her firearm, but Agent S parried it away with her pistol, bringing her other hand from her ear around the brunette's brown necktie, pulling it back through the gap between the headrest and the seat, pinning her neck. Agent S was pushing against the front passenger seat with her legs for added force. The suit's heels kicked dents into the dashboard as she struggled to breathe. Finally, with a few rounds through the passenger seat and into her back, the brunette stopped kicking. Agent D opened the passenger door, and the body of the brunette suit fell out, followed by Agent S climbing over the center console, knocking the blue haired suit off of the horn. "Status report?" asked Agent D. Agent S didn't respond, partly out of temporary deafness and partly out of determination.

Instead, she ran over to the injured suit on the ground, who was pulling herself along towards the nearest weapon. "You are not going to take me alive!" taunted the suit, her fingers clawing at her firearm. Agent S stomped on the suit's fingers, then kicked the suit in the side, flipping the suit onto her back with her foot. Agent S then dropped to her knees down over the suit and withdrew a set of needle nose pliers from her chest rig, normally intended for defusing explosives. "Open wide, bitch," said Agent S, forcing the suit's mouth open with her hand, and shoving the pliers inside. The suit let out some muffled screams and kicked with her good leg as Agent S closed the pliers around a tooth and pulled. The tooth was pure white surrounded by pink gum and red blood, the white surface interrupted by a blue pill tucked in a hole neatly carved into the tooth. "When we're done with you, you'll be begging for this pill back," joked Agent S. The suit spat blood at her, landing it right on her goggles, which Agent S wiped away with a grunt of disapproval before leaning back to stick a finger into the bullet wound in the suit's leg. The suit got the message.

"How did you..." asked Agent D. Agent S was busy taking a zip tie out of a pouch on her chest rig and using it to bind the suit's hands. "Look at the brown one. Same as the maids." Agent D looked down at the brunette, who was face down on the floor in a pool of blood, growing larger as blood dripped out of the holes in her chest. Sure enough, another QR code on the back of her neck. These suits were all clones, and with their training and equipment, deadlier ones than the maids before. "Central, come in, this is Agent S." "Loud and clear, Agent." Agent S stood up, making sure to keep one boot firmly on the suit. "We've got three for evac, and one of them needs medical attention but shouldn't get it because SHE'S A LITTLE BITCH!" said Agent S, looking down to shout right at the suit's face with those last words. "Uh, understood, three for evac. We can get a bird over there in three minutes." "Central... make that four for evac," added Agent D. "Four?" asked Agent S. "I'll explain." Agent D turned to face the catwalk. "You can come down now!" he shouted.

A moment later, the sound of cautious footsteps came from the far end of the room. It was the last living White Scorpion in the building, who had remained on top of the ladder during the entire firefight. She had pulled her sweatshirt tightly around herself, only picking up the pace down the catwalk stairs and towards the agents when Agent D reassured her that it was safe. When she arrived, Agent D noticed she had somehow managed to lose her other sneaker. "And who is this?" "This is, uh... this is... you know, I never did catch her name." The girl looked up through her hair, her big brown eyes still welled up with tears, resembling a wounded animal. "Uh, anyway, I'm Agent D, this is Agent S. You're coming with us." Agent S furrowed her brow. "Why are we bringing her, though? At least this one might have something to tell us..." She paused for a moment to stomp her foot onto the suit's gut, the suit heaving and hacking up blood in response. Agent S continued. "...but this one's just a kid. I mean, she's barely five feet tall, and can't tell us anything about the clones or her gang, so why not just let her go?" At that moment, the girl dropped to her knees and began to beg incoherently, hands folded in front of her, the waterworks coming to life again.

"OHPLEASENOpleasenoIddoanythingtogetmeawayfromthegangIjustwantedtofitinsomewhereandthey'dkillmeiftheyfoundoutIwasn'tatmypostandLaraisdeadandshesaidshelovedmeandshesaidshehadagiftformeanditfeltreallygoodandIthinkIlikegirlsbutIcan'tbeagangsterImeanIwetmyself--" "Okay, okay, I get the point, you can come with us," concluded Agent S, the girl's begging overpowering the ringing in her ears. Now began the incoherent thanking. "OHTHANKYOUthankyouyou'reagoodpersonladyandI'llneverforgetthisandwhenIgrowoldandthestorkbringsmekidsIwillnamemyfirstchildSthatisyourfirstnameisn'titSthat'saweirdnamebuthowcouldIforgetIwillnamemyfirstchildDifit'saboyandSifit'sagirl--" Agent D had enough. "Please, don't... don't make us reconsider," he said, half joking. "I'll shut up now," she said, sweeping her hair out of her face. "How old are you, anyway?" he continued. She thought for a moment. "Um... what time is it?" asked the girl, standing up, putting a finger to her lip. Agent S checked her watch. "12:39 AM." "So, it... it's the 5th?" "It's the 5th, yeah." She scratched her head in thought. "Then I'm..." Agent S nodded. "Then you're..." She clicked her tongue. "I forgot. Ooh, I know this..." Agents D and S shot each other confused glances. She shrugged. "Well, all I remember is that today's my birthday!" "Uh... happy birthday?" said Agent D. "Oh, thank you!" said the girl, smiling, wrapping her arms around a bewildered Agent D in a surprisingly constrictive hug. "Central..." groaned Agent D. "Just a minute more, Agent," responded the normally stone-faced Central, who couldn't help but chuckle.

 

[dinomoneymaiden]

Wow, I think you're getting better at this as you go on actually.

I like how that weird girl got spared. That was cute.

 

[burom]

Another one. I've run through my current buffer of stories so it might be a bit of a while before the next one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The two agents were in the back of the agency limousine, putting the finishing touches on their disguises before insertion. "First chance I get I'm going to get rid of these shoes," said Agent S, gesturing at the red leather high heeled pumps constricting her feet, then pulling the edges of her red cocktail dress to fit right. She had a bright red wig on her head, cheap plastic horns sticking out of the top and her natural black hair sticking out of the bottom. A fuzzy pointed tail was on a red felt band around her waist, pinned between her back and the worn leather seats of the limousine.

"Well, they do look good on you," responded Agent D, adjusting the clerical collar on his black shirt in the reflection from the thick divider between the back seats and the driver. A silver wig, black jacket and black pants completed the priestly costume. Being in costume meant they had to forego their usual assortment of gadgets, relying on their training and their instincts for the task at hand. A speaker in the back of the limousine clicked on. "This is Central. Apologies for the costumes, Agents, R&D may or may not have had to run to the nearest costume store. You know, budget cuts." Agent S rolled her eyes.

"Anyway, your destination is a little Halloween soiree for the rising stars of organized crime, sponsored by the best and brightest minds in black market biotechnology. You are already aware of their new cloning breakthrough, but tonight is supposed to be a demonstration of it for potential buyers. Thanks to some well placed sources in the local PD, and thanks to their well placed sources in the syndicate that runs the show in this neck of the woods, we know that they keep records. Grab the guest list, the buyers lists, their business cards, anything." "What are we going up against?" asked Agent D. "The guests don't have their own bodyguards, but the hosts are running security. They're definitely clones, and surveillance didn't pick up anything bigger than handguns, but we can't make any judgments about training. For all we know you might be up against the clones of a black belt in judo, so--" "Stay on your toes, got it," said Agent S.

"Right. Kill orders activated, the limo will be a few blocks away once you need evac. Central out." As the line cut off, they could see the gates to the mansion open automatically, letting their limousine through. Several other limousines were parked near the front door, as well as a wide array of flashy sports cars and luxury sedans. A large marble fountain sprayed water upwards. The agency limousine idled just outside the entrance, speeding off once the two agents exited. The back wheels of the car kicked up some dust and gravel, which Agent S flicked off of her dress. "Let's go inside, shall we?" said Agent D, offering his hand. Agent S took his hand, and the two agents walked towards the large wooden door, keeping up the appearance of being a couple.

Agent D picked up the wrought iron door knocker and knocked it against the door a few times. After a moment, the door opened, the sounds of the party inside getting louder as a result. A clone guard met them, another young woman like all of the other clones they had seen so far: short black hair, an ornate mask covering her eyes, glossy black lipstick, a purple corset, a ruffled black miniskirt, hold-up stockings, platform heels, and, as she looked back to notify the other guards, a QR code neatly stamped on the back of her neck. "Welcome, you are..." "Losov, party of two," said Agent D, remembering his foreign language training to put up a convincing foreign accent. This guard was holding a clipboard, going over it with her steely grey eyes, until she found the right line. "You must be Mr. Boris Losov," said the guard, pointing with a pale finger, the fingernail black with nail polish. "Which means you are..." "Miss Natasha Belka," answered Agent S, also with an accent.

Their assumed identities were a middling mob associate and his plus one, sure to fit in with the rest of the crowd at the party. The guard stood back a few paces, her thick heels thumping against the hard tile as she waved the two agents towards the security checkpoint. At the checkpoint were a pair of guards, dressed similarly to the first one, black splotches of overdone makeup against pure white skin, covered with masks. One was holding a metal detector wand, waving it over the agents and finding nothing out of the ordinary. After the metal detection, each agent was patted down by the other guard, the two agents grimacing as the guards weren't exactly gentle. Once it was complete, the guard with the clipboard waved them on through to the rest of the party. "Enjoy the party!" she said, attending to the next guests. The two agents gave back half-hearted waves and walked quickly into the ballroom.

The ballroom was palatial, and as the agents surveyed the other guests and the masks on their faces, they came to the realization that this was a masquerade ball, not a costume party. Around them were various unsavory types in tuxedos, unsure whether to ogle the guards or their dates, thick arms wrapped around bubbly (and expensive) women in unbearably short dresses. At the center of the room was a temporary platform, covered in red cloth and with armed guards standing around it. A red carpet and some ropes kept a pathway open between the platform and double doors leading to an adjacent room. Besides being both eye candy and security, there were several guards moving about through the room, carrying trays of champagne flutes and finger foods.

Agent D picked up two glasses from a passing guard, handing one to Agent S. Agent S gently sipped on her drink, while Agent D emptied his almost immediately, placing the empty glass on a tray carried by another passing guard. "Went with the cheap stuff tonight..." muttered Agent D, wiping his mouth with his sleeve to get the taste out. His displeasure was interrupted by a guard climbing on top of the platform, the nearby criminals all taking their chances to peek up her skirt. She went up to a microphone on the platform and cleared her throat. "Ladies and gentlemen, please, the demonstration is about to begin. Please direct your attention to this platform." She stepped back and returned to her post around the platform as the lights in the ballroom began to dim.

At the far end of the red carpet, the double doors opened to reveal a shriveled old man in a red tuxedo, with various tubes sticking out of him, connected to tanks and bags strapped to his wheelchair. Pushing him along was another clone guard, dressed in a similar corset, mask, and skirt combination, except with an open white coat on and a white vinyl nurse's cap on top of her head, covered in firetruck red hair. As he rolled into the room, the two agents focused on him, with most of the room looking at his nurse instead. When he reached the end of the platform, his guard slash nurse pulled the microphone over and held it in front of his face, picking up his wheezing breaths.

"Thank you all for coming." The crowd began to clap, the agents as well to keep up appearances. "You are all here tonight to see the latest and greatest thing in personnel management. In my decades, I know all too well what happens when your employees are no longer loyal, or if your girl thinks she can just up and walk into witness protection." A few chuckles from the crowd. "Now, thanks to our generous friends, you can have employees that are loyal, talented, and most importantly, with great asses! They can and will do anything you tell them to without question. Isn't that right?" The nurse put the microphone to her mouth now. "That's right, sir. Our guards are the ultimate in security and entertainment for you and your organizations. This organization and many others have already begun to use our services, with great success. We can guard your properties carefully, carry out orders faithfully, pleasure you orally, and much much more. You can speak with our sales associates for quotes and information, but first, please watch this demonstration."

The nurse walked to the edge of the platform and leaned down to whisper to some of the guards, giving them orders. Most of the guards climbed up onto the platform to demonstrate the various unarmed combat techniques programmed into them, but two of them were moving towards the two agents, reaching them in a moment. "You two, the boss wants to talk to you," said one of the guards, brushing hair out of her eyes with one hand, the other holding a pistol at her side. The other guard was also armed with a pistol. "Who, us?" said Agent D, pointing to himself. Behind them, the party goers were less interested in the high kicks and grapples and more with the skirts flying upward with each strike. "No jokes, come with us." The guards were not amused. "If we must," said Agent D, with a shrug. The four walked in single file, guards at the front and the rear, towards the double doors.

They were led into the mansion's study, a richly decorated room; tall bookshelves with a sizable library between them (unopened), tasteful paintings (stolen), classical statues (counterfeit), stuffed and mounted big game (poached), and, importantly, a laptop sitting on a large wooden desk, a window overlooking the grounds outside. The two guards led the two agents to sit on plush leather chairs in front of the desk. As they sat down, the double doors opened again, the nurse entering the room and sitting at the other side of the desk. She nodded at the two guards, who stood at the door. "Our deepest apologies for the circumstances." Agent D waved off her concern with his hands. "Please, it is no difficulty." Agent S, in her disguise as a criminal's plaything, curled her hair with her finger.

The nurse continued. "I trust the evening has been treating you two well?" These clones were better at small talk than the other ones. "Excellent." "Don't mind the uniforms, when our host purchased our services, he felt that 'Victorian prostitute' was the best wardrobe option to check on the form. Even though we can't refuse our jobs, I'm not one to mind the outfit, although this corset is a little tight sometimes..." She adjusted the bust of her corset, black and white frills struggling to contain her figure. "I must say it does suit you," said Agent D, the nurse responding with a smile. "And what about the man in the wheelchair?" asked Agent D. "Don't worry, we just needed to borrow his house for a bit. We know he hasn't been paying his taxes, so the old don graciously let us use this building for our sales pitch. The nurse outfit is so I can look like his caregiver, not that I'd be caught dead cleaning out his bedpan." The nurse opened up the laptop and started typing on the keyboard as Agent D raised a hand to change the subject. "Excuse me, Miss..." She took off her mask, placing in on the desk in front of her, revealing eyebrows and eyes as red as her hair. "Call me Scarlett."

"Yes, Miss Scarlett, if I may ask, what is the tattoo on your neck?" She paused for a moment, thinking of what to say, then continued typing. "It's like an identification badge, but permanent. We exist to serve. It also helps us tell responsibilities apart." "Responsibilities?" She pointed at the two guards in the back. "Those two are the cheapest option. They can shoot, they can stand in place, they can get ogled, but not much more. Further up the price chart are expert drivers, safe crackers, medics, courtesans, such and such." She leaned back in her chair, putting her hands behind her head, smirking proudly. "But as for people like me, well, we're the top. The ultimate fixers." Agent D leaned forward. "Go on." "The strongest, the smartest, the fastest, the sexiest. Compared to the grunts, I can do so... much... more..." She leaned forward, over the desk, inching closer towards the two agents. Agent S stuck up a hand, interrupting the tension. "Oh, uh, may I use room of small child?" Silence. "Um... room of bath?" "Scarlett" snapped her fingers. "Oh, yes, the bathroom. Our associates will escort you." Agent S stood up, walked to the door, and was led out by the two guards.

The restroom was covered in black marble, with black fixtures and a large mirror running across one wall reflecting Agent S and the two guards. Agent S dashed to the toilet and sat down, taking off her shoes and her tail. A short wall let her see that the two guards hadn't left. "May I have privacy?" The two guards stood there unblinkingly. "No." "So you must be of standings there?" They answered simultaneously. "Yes." Agent S sighed, looking around the room for something to use to get her out of this situation. She looked down at her shoes; because these weren't just ordinary shoes, they would be useful. She surreptitiously reached down and twisted the heel, unscrewing it. Underneath a removable cap on the tip of the heel was a deliberately sharpened stabbing point, and, after doing the same for the other shoe, Agent S had two of them in her hands. Taking a moment to plan her attack, she reached back with her elbow to flush the toilet, to reduce suspicion.

She counted to three in her head, and when she reached the end, she jumped up and rushed as fast as she could towards the first guard, her hands gripped tightly around each heel. Taking her by surprise, she tackled the guard to the ground, then slammed the blades into the guard's temples, driving each point into her cloned brain. Agent S's wig fell off of her head from the inertia of the attack, landing on the dying guard's face, the red hair of the wig mixing with the blood leaking out of both holes. The other guard, following her programming, readied her pistol and aimed down at Agent S. "Stand down," said the guard, in a cold monotone. Agent S, still on top of the first guard, slowly raised her hands. The guard moved behind Agent S, then stepped forward, putting the barrel of her pistol right against the back of Agent S's head. "Prepare to die," said the guard, cracking the slightest smile. Then, in the blink of an eye, Agent S's hand shot out to retrieve the fallen guard's pistol, aiming it straight up. Her back unfolded, dropping her to the floor, out of the line of fire, putting the barrel of the pistol right between the standing guard's legs. The guard looked down to see where Agent S went, but was met with the pistol tearing through her replicated insides, each shot jolting her body as it carved its path. After enough shots, the guard fell to the floor, sandwiching Agent S between two dead clones. Worse, the guard landed on top of Agent S's face, her grunts of displeasure muffled by the guard's corpse sitting on her face. Mustering up her strength, she pushed off the dead guard on top of her, then stood up, ready to return to the study.

Meanwhile, back in the study, Agent D was alone with Scarlett, who was now sitting on the desk. "Your eyes are... striking," said Agent D. She blinked her artificially selected, lab-grown eyelashes. "They make me feel unique. Memorable." She pushed herself off of the desk, then began to straddle Agent D. "Oh, what will your wife say to this?" said Scarlett, grinning. "She is not my wife," said Agent D. Scarlett leaned in close, whispering in his ear, with a hand stroking the hair on the back of his head. She pulled off Agent D's wig, throwing it to the side. "I know, Agent." Agent D's brow tilted in uncertainty. "A kiss before you die?" Scarlett giggled, then kissed Agent D right on his lips, letting it linger for a moment. As she stood up, Agent D wiped off the black glossy lipstick left on him. She sat back on the desk, then turned the laptop around. Her finger pressed a button on the keyboard, which began to play a video.

A surveillance camera was recording inside a large house, the stillness of the scene disrupted when a gun fight erupted on the camera's display. A group of conspicuously armed French maids were cut down by two figures in suits and sunglasses, Scarlett pausing the video as they moved into the shot. "Do these two look familiar?" Agent D clicked his tongue and sighed. "Well, I guess I can do away with the accent now." "Oh, you can speak to me however you want, baby, but you're not getting out of this room alive." She reached inside her corset and withdrew a thin blade, twirling it between the fingers of one hand. "I'm the best there is, which means I know how to rip you into a million pieces while keeping you alive to feel it all." Still smiling, her finger moved towards an intercom button on the desk. She was distracted by the sounds of gunfire erupting from elsewhere in the house, and the clamor of the party guests beginning to panic as a result.

Scarlett shook her head. "What the hell?" Agent D seized the moment and reacted, jumping out of his chair and pinning Scarlett to the desk with the weight of his body before she could signal for help. His arm shot out, grabbed her arm, and slammed it against the desk, dropping the blade to the floor. Now he was the one leaning in to whisper, Scarlett's red eyes transfixed on his. "If you know who I am, then I know who you are, clone. You're replaceable." "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" "Oh, so they give you clones books now, huh?" "You can kill me and another will take my place and hunt you down. You can't outlast my sisters forever." "I'm getting tired of this, you've got to have an off switch here somewhere..." He tried to force Scarlett's mouth open, but she wouldn't budge; a strong right hook opened it up. Agent D, holding open her mouth with one hand, used his other hand to root around her molars for a pill. Finding one, he loosened it then stuck it between her jaws. "If I poison you, do you not die?" Her eyes opened wider and she started to whimper before Agent D grabbed her head and pressed her jaw shut, smashing the pill and releasing its contents into her mouth. She slumped to the floor just as Agent S threw open the door to the study.

"What happened to you?" asked Agent S, barefoot and covered in blood. "What happened to you?" responded Agent D, Scarlett crumpled in a pile at his feet. Agent S moved inside. "Let's just get what we came for and get the fuck out of here." "Good plan." Agent D turned the laptop over and closed the video. Elsewhere in its file system were the files they were looking for, the guest list, correspondence, a copy of the clones' "catalog", everything. Agent D shut down the laptop and closed it. As he was moving to leave through the door, he heard the sounds of boots approaching. "What now?" he asked. "Plan B!" shouted Agent S, starting into a run, picking up a chair, and heaving it through the window. The chair sailed through the glass and landed with a thud on the grass outside, the sounds of party guests piling into their cars and speeding off getting louder and more common.

Before they could leave through the window, the door opened again, revealing another pair of guards. "Boss, the situation is-- hey, who are you?" They raised their weapons, but Agent D was faster. Agent D grabbed one guard's arm, first pushing it to point at the other guard, who took a bullet in her chest when the first guard fired her weapon. With one guard down, Agent D wrenched the arm over his shoulder, spun around, and brought it down hard with a loud snap. Agent D took both weapons from the two injured guards, one on the floor wheezing from the bullet in her lung, the other on the floor groaning, her right arm a floppy, useless thing. He fired, putting the guards out of their misery. "Let's go outside, shall we?" said Agent S. Agent D ran over to pick up the laptop, threw one pistol back at Agent S, then dove out the window onto the grass, followed closely by Agent S.

Outside was still chaotic, some of the party guests figuring that this was a setup, and therefore deciding to attack the clone guards. As the agents made their way towards their escape, they could hear gunshots, screams, and cars driving through the gates. A pair of guests were busy drowning one of the guards in the fountain, while another was slamming a car door on the neck of a guard, screaming something about an ambush. Yet another was struggling to close the trunk of his car on top of a protesting guard, neither agent wanting to think about what he wanted to do with her. The two agents remained undetected in the pandemonium until they heard something from behind them. "Drop the laptop!" A guard, pistol in hand, blood running down her face from a guest smashing a champagne bottle on her head. The agents turned slowly, but before they could do anything about it the sound of an engine grew closer and closer, high beams lighting up the guard. She turned her head at the last moment, so she could see a limousine drive right into her at high speed, sending her flying up and over the car. The limousine braked sharply, the guard landing with a thud onto the metal roof, sliding off onto the gravel in a mangled heap. The limousine's driver honked the horn: their ride had arrived. The agents ran to the back door and opened it, sliding onto the seats and shutting the door behind them.

Central was on the speaker. "Do you have the data?" "Yes sir," said Agent S, taking the laptop out of Agent D's hands and holding it tightly on her lap. "Excellent work, agents." They heard another thud, and looking back through the rear window, the two agents could have sworn they saw a ghost, because it was Scarlett hanging from the trunk. Agent D did a double take. "How did she..." "Sugar pill!" shouted Scarlett, through the glass and noise. The limousine fishtailed around a crashed car, knocking Scarlett off of the back, tumbling onto the ground. She stood up, looked at the departing agents, and blew them a kiss before making her own escape. Looking forward, the divider between the agents and the driver was down, allowing them to see just who was driving the car. "Never mind her, return to base and we'll get that laptop to R&D as soon as we can." Central's voice sounded different, as it was coming from both the speaker and the driver, who glanced in the rear-view mirror at the passengers in the back. "Are you..." asked Agent S. The driver sighed. "You know, budget cuts."

 

[dinomoneymaiden]

"You know, budget cuts."

*Cue Seinfeld ending theme*