TF2 and its characters are the property of Valve Software. This story is non-profit.
He remembered the first time he had looked at himself in his brand new uniform.
It was an unbecoming mixture of swamp-green and khaki. His trousers were slightly too long, covering too much of his polished brown shoes. They didn't have a shirt his size so he'd had to make do by tucking it so far into his trousers that he could have used it as underwear, too. The wide-brimmed slouch hat was slightly misshapen and squashed because he'd been the last to get to the locker rooms, thus had the last pick of, well, just about everything.
He had looked ridiculous. He had looked even more ridiculous when his fellow servicemen thought it would be hilarious to superglue his hat to his head one night.
He'd never looked more ridiculous than now – wearing nothing save for his underpants in front of the sergeant that had been tasked with training the sorry lot of civilians delivered to him a couple of weeks prior. It was the second time it had happened, and Michael thought that everybody would be used to it by now, but everybody still laughed just as hard, and the sergeant was as thoroughly unimpressed as before.
Later on, he found his clothes buried in the bowels of one of the outhouse toilets, and only because he had been assigned toilet duty. Again.
As much as he detested shovelling shit into pits, the outhouses became quiet at night. Sometimes, he even slept there, because it was safer than sleeping in the barracks with the mountainous and mischievous young Australians he was forced to suffer. He could sleep in a lot of weird places when he put his mind to it.
It was cold, but the young man didn't shiver once. He was used to going out in the cold nights because his dad had a lot of sheep giving birth in the spring time. That had been messy work, too, but most of the time, he had actually enjoyed it. Bringing some dumb, wooly baby into the world made him forget that he was far too young to be so jaded, as his father put it, and instead let him focus on doing some good.
As he pulled several sodden shirts and pairs of socks out of the toilet, he remembered that he wasn't too far away from home. He was still in South Australia, and Adelaide was a mere train ride away from his Battalion. He could so easily just get away from the lunatics that tormented him on a daily basis and see his mum and dad again.
That would involve telling them he'd dropped out of med school after a mere three months.
It would involve telling them he had been drafted into the National Service. They'd thought he could avoid it, being a supposed doctor in-the-making. The thing was, he'd dropped out, and then the draft had started. He was eighteen and healthy as a horse, so there had been no choice but to let himself get carted off to some dusty old Battalion in the middle of the desert.
His mum would have a heart attack. As for his dad, he didn't want the old codger to be sent down for first degree murder.
The rest of that cold night was spent in the laundry unit, washing each and every piece of clothing three times over until the smell was gradually replaced with overpowering detergent. He spent a lot of nights there, too. That he minded, because the small room only had so many machines, and when the boys went there to wash their clothes, they were all spontaneously reminded of their mums and they'd all burst into tears. Every time.
That night, however, he was alone – or so he thought. As he shovelled more shillings into his machine, a large shadow suddenly swallowed him whole. He turned to see the sergeant blocking the light granted by the doorway leading outside. The man appeared slightly less intimidating wearing nothing but boxers and a white vest, but being twice Michael's weight in pure muscle and moustache, the younger man was wise enough not to bite back whenever the guy tried winding him up.
He turned back to the machine and resumed waiting for his load to finish, swallowing down his nerves like he always did.
"Ah, the old flushing clothes prank," Sergeant Harris boomed. It was his quieter kind of shout, which meant for once, he wasn't angry. Something of a bloody miracle. "Gotta say, you probably hold the world record for that, lad."
Michael bit down on his tongue to stop himself from retorting and didn't bother turning around. His mum always raised him to be polite to everyone, men and women alike, but when it came to utter wankers he could never quite manage it. He would be polite to those who deserved it, to people he respected. So far, in all his eighteen years, the people he respected amounted to his parents.
"Oi, you don't talk much, do ya? Any other of these lads don't pass up an opportunity to make themselves heard. What's with you, eh? C'mon, we're not on duty."
Michael calmly opened the door to his washing machine and began roughly pulling out his third load into a basket.
"Got yelled at at school whenever I spoke," he explained in his monotone voice. "Got yelled at at college for having a different opinion. I get yelled at here 'cause I'm smaller than you blokes. D'ya think I ain't used to bein' pushed around? Well, no one's chasin' me outta here. I'm gonna do my service and then get the hell out, and I'm gonna avoid talkin' to you load of wankers as much as I can."
He was met with a brief silence. Turning, he was met with a deep, thoughtful frown, an expression that didn't entirely suit Harris' incredibly muscular face.
"I guess ya've had it rough. I know I've been hard on ya, but I know where we snatched ya from. Some poor farmer kid like you doesn't get into med school unless he's got proper brains. Keep lettin' people walk all over ya and you're gonna end up some nasty old croc-wrestler in the Outback, y'know?"
"You don't geddit, sir. I gotta let people walk all over me, otherwise I get my face smashed in, or I get made to box kangaroos, and then my parents get a call. My mum's got heart problems, she swears she's gonna kick it if I get beat up again."
"Ah, right, right. Like I said, I know I been hard on ya, but I'm tryin' to see that bold little kid who fights back how he can, like throwin' rocks at people from trees. Yeah, I read you got expelled three times from school 'cause of that, ya little sod. You're a dab hand with a gun, too, from what I've seen of you at drill."
As he was finishing up with his clothes, Michael stared contemplatively at his now shit-stained slouch hat before tossing it into the washer drum in a last ditch attempt to get it clean.
"So ya've been a right arse to me to try and encourage me?" he asked in a flat tone.
"Well, yeah! Call it character-buildin', if ya will. I've been all around the world, kiddo, and you ain't much different from the other blokes out there. You know ..." Harris snapped his fingers briefly, as if trying to search for the right term to refer to foreigners. "Like … non-Aussies. Them twiglets. Y'know?"
Poor Michael probably should have been grateful that he was getting a personal one-to-one with the Battalion's main man, the much revered Sergeant Harris, who had reportedly once boxed twelve men to death within two minutes. The last thing he felt was gratitude. Instead, a swell of anger bubbled up inside him and before he could restrain it, it manifested itself as speech.
That never went well.
"Yeah? You can take your sissy character-buildin' and shove it sideways up your steamin' arsehole, you flamin' dingo-breathed old croc fucker. Sir."
He did push-ups until the sun rose and all the other servicemen were awake and there to laugh at him.
He was forced to endure the next day on no sleep. It didn't really make a difference, however. He always came last in the obstacle course regardless of how long he had slept, only this time, he did temporarily fall asleep in the muddy water beneath the crawlspace. Covered in grime and bugs and other gross matter, Michael was dragged out from the netting by Sergeant Harris and forced to finish the rest of the course while the others were busy assembling their guns.
Despite finishing last and barely functioning, he still assembled his rifle before anyone else. He shot twenty targets in quick succession without missing a single one because he was the only one in the group of men present that had actually used a gun before being summoned into the service. His dad had been a soldier, once, and he had shown him everything about guns of all shapes and sizes.
Once done, he disassembled his rifle and rung the bell to indicate that he had come first in the morning training. Nobody was particularly impressed.
"Boy, c'mere," Harris ordered, gesturing for Michael to approach him as the other men grumbled amongst themselves. The younger man did so, reluctantly standing to attention. "See that Rolls Royce out the fence there? Yeah, proper nice. We've got some posh little duchess from England here to visit the troops. Probably so she can take some pictures with us Aussie uggos and put 'em in newspapers to make her look good. Anyways, she wants to shake hands with the first bloke who rung that bell. Congrats."
A hard shove nearly sent him face first into the ground. Righting himself, Michael stumbled forwards towards the mesh that surrounded the Battalion and peered at the gleaming black car parked on the dusty road on the other side. As he approached, the chauffeur climbed out and opened one of the rear doors.
He didn't really know what to expect when he'd heard 'duchess'. He had imagined some little old lady with grey hair and a ton of jewellery. Instead, he was met with a tiny lady probably a couple of years older than himself. She boasted wild blonde curls barely contained by numerous hair slides, and her bright pink suit was a little too tight around her plump frame. She was pretty, but what stunned Michael was the fact she barely came up to his shoulders. He had never seen a full-grown person so small in his entire life – aside from his own mother, who he could only assume had some kind of shrinking disease.
With a tiny dog tucked under her arm, the duchess swanned forwards excitedly and approached the mesh, red lips beaming broadly.
"Honey, you've got hands like Jesse Owens. I ain't ever seen anything so quick," she said. Michael couldn't quite place her accent; she was English, undoubtedly, but she didn't exactly sound like royalty when she spoke. Already entranced by her good looks and mystery, he failed to respond. "Well, what's your name, handsome?"
Standing to attention again, he recited, "Michael Chase Mundy, ma'am."
The duchess smiled back at him. "Lovely! Are you gonna fight for your country, Mr Mundy?"
"Nah, I don't think so, ma'am."
If she was disappointed with his response, she didn't show it. "Well, why's that?"
"'Cause I don't like people tellin' me what to do, ma'am. Gotta be honest."
The lady's round, soft face appeared sympathetic for a moment. "Hear hear, sugar. Come on over to that gate so I can meet you proper, hm?"
More than aware that the other men had stopped what they were doing to watch, he quickly followed the woman when she turned to walk quickly towards the chained gate at the Battalion's entrance. To his surprise, the young duchess produced a key from her pocket and began fiddling with the padlock supposedly there to keep people out of the Army's property.
"Nice gents gave me a key to get in, bless 'em! Hey, Georgie, come get a picture of me shaking this nice young man's hand!"
A lanky, pale man raced out of the other side of the car and held up a large, portable camera. As the duchess finished unlocking the gate, he began hurriedly setting up a tripod to balance it on.
Michael subconsciously began wiping his hand on the back of his trousers. As he looked at the woman some more, he could see that the heat was already beginning form a light sheen of sweat across her face. No, perspiration. He had never seen anybody succumb to the Outback's heat so gently in all his years. The tiny, kindly goddess suddenly made the rough morning more than worth the struggle.
When she offered her hand to him, he gawked at it somewhat pathetically for a time.
"Don't wanna get mud on you," he explained, his usually coarse voice softening oddly. The duchess laughed brightly and waved off his gallantry, reaching forwards to take his hand for herself and give it a decently firm shake as her cameraman took several pictures.
"It's okay, honey. The more weatherbeaten you are, the better I look for shaking your hand. Get it?"
At least she was honest.
When the handshake went on for long enough to start becoming awkward, Michael attempted to remove his hand from hers, only to find her grip tightening to an almost alarming extent. The woman subtly and gracefully pulled him forwards and down so that she could kiss him on the cheek. Whilst they were joined, she removed her lips from him with a loud mwah but didn't pull away just yet.
"Will those big guys over there get jealous?" she whispered.
"I dunno," he uttered back, more than a little confused. "I guess they like women with big muscles and moustaches. I mean – not that you ain't nice-lookin' or nothin' -"
"Oh," the duchess sighed happily. "You're just the full-package, aincha? My name is Evelyn Alton. Now, I know in the books and films there would be some kinda awkward romance and angst all in-between, but I'm the type to jump right in. Be my Heathcliff, Mr Mundy."
Too tired and bewildered to understand her reference or just about anything else that was going on, he simply said the first thing that came to his head.
"Well, all right, then."
Weirdly enough, Evelyn Alton ended up staying on camp for a while. It was to strengthen ties between their countries, or so she said. Michael had a feeling it was more something to do with her discovering a sudden interest in gangly Australian men. There had to be something there, after all, if he was sneaking into her empty barracks every evening to have his wicked way with her. He went several nights without sleeping, but it was nice because the lady was soft and squishy and she let him rest on her, even on the rare occasions they didn't end up shagging out their frustrations.
The young serviceman found himself getting up on time every morning, showering, and performing better in training. Was this what it was like to not wake up and simply give up before noon? On his days off, she let him take her out for drives in her fancy Rolls Royce, and they even ventured as far as Adelaide one afternoon. Evelyn decided that she would stay in a hotel in the city so that they could visit each other when possible.
Things continued this way for weeks. Weeks led into months. By the time Michael's service was almost complete, the two were still happily involved.
But he still knew next to nothing about her.
One evening, he turned up at her swanky hotel room with a bouquet of fresh flowers in hand. When he raised a hand to knock on the door, however, he was forced to pause. Just beyond, he could hear what sounded like shouting and cussing coming from her bedroom, but there were no other voices aside from hers. Was she on the phone to someone?
Tentatively knocking, he was soon answered by a slightly flustered looking duchess in a pink, feathery nightgown.
"Oh! Sugar, I've been waiting for you. Do ya like this new getup?" she asked coyly, lifting the hem of her gown enough to tease him. Bringing her arms around his neck, she pulled him into the sweet-smelling apartment and closed the door behind them.
"You look gorgeous, darlin'," Michael replied sincerely, giving her a lingering once-over. "Who were you shoutin' at a minute ago?"
Evelyn's face fell. Her gaze quickly turned to the flowers in his hand. "Oh, no one, baby, I'm just tryin' to keep the media of our backs, you know? Are these for me? Oh, they're lovely!" She quickly grasped the flowers and placed them into the glass vase she had ready every time he came. He always brought her flowers. "Mr Smith and I missed you!"
Mr Smith was the pathetic excuse for a dog she had as a pet. As if in response, Mr Smith looked up from his feather cushion on the sofa and growled menacingly.
"Oh, you stop that!" Evelyn chastised the creature. With a sweet smile, she moved onto the plush, king-sized bed that occupied most of the room and gestured for her partner to join her. "Ooh. You look so dark and brooding, as usual. Come here and I'll make you feel all better, hm?"
Though youth made him naïve, Michael wasn't entirely stupid. Alarm bells started sounding in his mind. Regardless, he slowly dumped his backpack down onto the floor and joined her on the bed, kicking off his shoes and then resting back on the pillows. Hands clasped thoughtfully at his stomach, he didn't move.
Evelyn swung a leg over his thighs and drew circles on his chest with a finger.
"What's the matter, honey?"
He turned his head to regard the woman, eyes narrowing. "Is someone botherin' you?"
She paused in what she was doing, eyes glittering. "What if they were?"
"Then they'd pay for it."
"How? Tell me."
"Er ..." Unsure whether he was supposed to be getting her off on what he said next, Michael took his time in thinking about it. "I'd punch him square in the face." His words came out more awkward than anything, but he felt Evelyn purr against his neck in satisfaction.
"And then?"
"Uh … I'd do it again. And again. Knock some teeth out, show 'im who's boss."
The lady laughed her tinkling laugh and moved to sit on Michael's hips. She pulled a joint from between her boobs and lit it with the table-lighter to one side. Leaning down, she invited her partner to take a puff by holding it to his lips.
"This man we're talking about," she said slowly, watching him take a drag before bringing it to her own mouth, "I need him gone, Micky. You know what he does? Calls me names. Expects me to do his chores in silence. I gotta go to the post office every Wednesday along with all the other housewives and deliver his letters. You know what I get for it? Nothin', honey."
"Wait, you're talkin' about Eddie?"
Eddie Alton was Evelyn's husband and about fifty years her senior. The duchess had married into that family, it turned out, because the old git had taken a liking to her when he spotted her working in the local Tescos. As it turned out, marrying an old man for his money had its downsides, and she had admitted to seeking company elsewhere whenever she was sent abroad to help boost her husband's image. She had found company in the young Australian, but as it turned out, there had been an ulterior motive to that, too.
"Is that why ya got with me?" Michael continued, youthful hurt seeping into his voice. "You just want me to off some old man?"
"I didn't say that," Evelyn retorted in a soothing tone, slowly beginning to unbutton the serviceman's shirt with one hand. "You don't gotta do it, but I'll make it worth your while if you do. You and your parents will be set for life, sugar, I promise." She took another casual puff on the joint and smiled so sweetly that Michael almost forgot that he had been starting to get angry.
The woman had this vibe – this sweet, flowery-scented vibe – that prevented him from ever getting irritated with her. He loved her, didn't he? Not that he had ever had the guts to say it. Being with her – no, actually being with someone who liked him for what he was had been the best time of his life. He had never cared that she was some rich duchess from mother country, but he did if it meant her skeletal old husband was now pestering her about going back to do his dishes.
There was only a week of training left to go, and he didn't exactly want to mess it up and waste all the time he had spent getting pushed around by the bigger blokes, but the lady smiled at him and batted her eyelashes and he quickly stopped thinking about himself.
"Yeah," he managed, hypnotised by the woman's radiance, lovely as it was through the smoky haze of weed. "Yeah, darlin', I'll do anythin' for ya."
And he did. A few days later, he was in the ladies' toilets in Adelaide airport, having sealed them off with a set of barriers. With a specialised tool he had stolen from the Battalion, he carved a small hole out of the window that overlooked the airfield.
Duke Alton was meant to arrive on that landing strip in five minutes. As Evelyn watched him from the seat of a toilet, Michael assembled his rifle and pointed it down towards the spot the plane would roll into when it was time for its passengers to descend the stairs outside. As the men below began getting everything into place, he peered down the specialised scope attached to his gun and performed some quick maths in his head to ensure the bullet met its mark when it was time.
He tried not to think about his parents as he was getting ready. They would kill him if they found out, and in any other circumstance, Michael would be questioning his own sanity. As it was, years of pent up aggression and frustration had probably driven him slightly mad, and if the one bright light in his life wanted him to shoot some crotchety old bloke, he sure as hell was going to do it. Especially if it meant his mum and dad could live on their farm without worrying about money anymore.
The duchess moved behind him and began massaging his shoulders. She then knelt and nibbled a bit on his ear like nothing was wrong, like her husband wasn't just about to get his brain splattered over some dusty desert runway.
"Oi, not now, I'm concentratin'," Michael objected, though he failed to move away from her. "Look, my shoulder's gonna whack you right in the face if you don't move outta the way when I shoot."
With a tender sigh, the lady took a step backwards. Moments later, the roar of a plane flying overhead alerted them that it was almost time. Michael dropped his eye to the scope and watched the plane land and eventually turn inwards to stop in front of the airport. Below, men raced up to it with the aircraft steps.
The plane's door slid open. He readjusted his grip slightly on his rifle, gently fingering the trigger as he waited.
That wanker wasn't going to know what hit him.
Sweat began beading on the young man's forehead. He could taste it on his upper lip, too. Worse – he could hear his heart beginning to pound in his ears, and the sudden rush he felt as a result almost sent him keeling over. An oddly cold sensation began forming somewhere between his throat and chest, like he had just run ten miles and was struggling to catch his breath. Only then did it truly strike him. He was about to kill a bloke.
"Micky, stop panicking," Evelyn said sweetly into his ear, brushing a soft finger down the side of his cheek. "The man's a bully, just like those people who have pushed you around your whole life, the people who have held you down. I know what you want to do to them, sugar. You're not just doing this for me, you're doing it for you."
"I've only shot targets," Michael muttered, closing his eyes briefly. "And sheep when they're decrepit."
"And? You got put into service, Micky. If this country gets dragged into that Korean war, you're gonna be shootin' guys anyways. What's the difference?"
There was. There was a difference. Wasn't there? He had no time to figure it out.
A withered old man was descending the steps. Michael saw him prod a little girl down the last few steps with the end of his walking stick, and she fell flat on her face on the ground. That was all he needed to see.
It was over in seconds. Even through the thick glass of the window, he could hear the shrieking and crying. For a moment, all he could do was lower his scope and stare at the red painting the tarmac below. It wasn't an image that he would forget quickly, if at all.
Ducking down, Michael rolled to lean against the wall and swiftly disassembled his rifle with shaking hands before shoving the parts into the pockets and insides of his anorak. Without a word, he scrabbled up to his feet, using one hand to grab hold of Evelyn's arm and the other to awkwardly hold the barrel of his gun against his side. He could have just put the pieces in his bag like before, but his brain had stopped functioning properly the moment he'd pulled the trigger.
He pulled the woman back out into the corridor and past the various shops and cafes that filled the massive interior of the airport. Everybody there was simply going about their business, unaware of what had just occurred outside. Trying to keep his mind from falling victim to utter blankness and regret, Michael stood several steadying breaths and slowed his walking slightly to try and look less suspicious.
The voices surrounding him became too loud, and yet he couldn't understand what they were saying. He could hear peals of laughter, people crying, but he couldn't make sense of any of it. His heart felt like it was beating in his throat and his lungs may as well have been constricted with the little space they had to move all of a sudden.
Despite everything, there was a small part of him, deep down, that felt oddly cleansed by what he had done. Sergeant Harris had been right. Distance gave him power.
What he forgot in that fleeting moment of victory, however, was that utilising that power had consequences.
Just as they passed the enormous statue of Saxton Hale and approached the airport exit, enormous Australians in black suits flooded through the doors with barking dogs on chains. Michael froze when the cattle dogs began directing their din towards him and the duchess. Could they smell the gunpowder on him? Or was it the joints neatly packaged somewhere in Evelyn's bosom? Whatever the case, they hadn't gotten out of the airport in time and there was now an enormous chance that he was going to have to call his parents from the Adelaide Correctional Facility and tell them he had dropped out of med school.
And killed a guy. He hadn't quite come to terms with that one just yet.
Attempting to pull Evelyn behind him in his desire to protect her, he was surprised to find her trying to sever his hold on her hand.
"Chill out," he warned, wanting the comfort of her small, soft hand again, but when he looked at her, he could tell immediately by the expression of shock on her face what she was about to do.
He stopped trying to reach for her and stood in silence.
"Help me," the duchess whimpered, but the plea wasn't aimed at her partner-in-crime. She suddenly dropped to her knees and started wailing, gesturing manically at Michael like he had kidnapped her and had been holding her hostage, like he had planted the drugs on her, like he had put her through hell and back and she was so relieved to see the policemen and their snarling hounds.
The poor young man's brain flooded with utter nothingness. He'd had bones broken before, had two teeth knocked straight out of his face, but nothing could compare with the agony of his heart shredding itself into pieces. He loved her, he'd never had the balls to say it but he loved her, and now he'd earned her a life of endless wealth and comfort, the most she could do in return was make sure he suffered each and every consequence of his foolish actions.
The duchess' rotund, perfect face gradually grew smaller and smaller as he was dragged away to somewhere. Even then, he couldn't keep his eyes off her. Not once did she look back at him.
Australia had a thoroughly imperfect trial system. When the evidence was set so against him, Michael was offered the choice of spending thirty years in maximum security or earning his freedom by boxing an Australium-infused kangaroo. Having heard horror stories regarding the marsupial monstrosities and their tendency to literally kick full-grown men into pieces, he chose max.
He regretted it a mere day afterwards.
School had been awful. The Battalion had been equally so but more tolerable, given his reluctant acceptance of how much of a freak his lean form made him. Prison, however, was unlike anything he had ever experienced.
The guards made sport out of pitting the inmates against each other. Michael, being fresh-blood and amusingly small compared to the beasts present, was kept in the ring for twelve hours. Twelve horrific hours, most of which were spent pinned to the floor, in a headlock, or trying not to drown in pools of blood and vomit and whatever else was present. Was it his own? He had no idea, only that his red jumpsuit was stained with it and all he wanted was for a kangaroo to come along and sucker-punch him into oblivion. The other twelve hours was spent dragging himself through the hallways towards the phone booths. Even then, he couldn't find the courage to call his parents.
He lost concept of time. They were hardly ever allowed outside, so he never knew whether it was day and night. The lack of control the guards had over the inmates meant that it was bedtime whenever the criminals wanted it to be bedtime, and they sure as hell got their dinner when they wanted it, too.
Some time later – it could have been days, it could have been weeks – Michael was pitted against another inmate for a chance at breakfast. He'd lost forty pounds already, and that disgusting slosh on a tray looked so appealing that he'd won the fight in mere minutes. It could have been the bite to the jugular, or it could have happened when he was strangling the guy with his own shoelace. Either way, it didn't matter, because unlike in the real world outside of the electrified fences, killing people here actually earned him something.
People started giving him stuff to take out their enemies. They stopped crunching him against walls whenever they passed, they stopped inventing names to taunt him with, because what he lacked in hard Australian beef, he made up for with his tactics and ability to utilise the element of surprise. His mum always told him he had brains. Now, finally, he was putting them to good use. If only she could be proud of the fact he had metaphorically been crowned king of the prison.
Michael Mundy wasn't one for being locked down, however. He had been behind chains his entire life. He wanted the farm, he wanted the Outback, he wanted anything just so he could feel the blistering heat and the wind against his skin. So, he did what he learnt got him what he wanted.
He killed a guard in five seconds with nothing but the guy's biro.
In the young inmate's addled mind, however, it wasn't really the kills that was getting him paid with food, sweets, and potentially his freedom. It was his efficiency. It was the fact he was a neutral-party and was polite to those who deserved it. It was because he knew how to kill anybody once he put his mind to it.
With his hands drenched in blood, he was tossed out into the courtyard following his attack on the guard. The dust of the outback filled his mouth and nostrils and it tasted amazing. He looked up at the sky and saw it was twilight, but the setting sun was near concealed by rolling black storm clouds. Oh, that's what torrential rain felt like, like ten thousand cool kisses on his face and neck. It was so deliciously cleansing, and it made him feel like he could forget everything and try to start again.
Australians were quick to wear out. Their bulky bodies took a lot of energy to function. He was oddly immune to that little known fault in their mutated biology. He could keep going, he could persist. Maybe, just maybe, he could make it to his parents' house and tell them the truth. Maybe he could find Evelyn Alton and … well, he didn't know exactly what he wanted with her. To tell her he had loved her unconditionally? Maybe. Or perhaps he longed for revenge. Either sounded good.
When the guards came at him with boomerangs and all sorts of other lethal weapons, Michael rolled up to his feet and made a mad dash for the tall fence surrounding the courtyard.
In his maddened and almost bestial attempt at escape, he completely forgot that the fence was protected by electric currents. The outside looked so wonderful, so open, and all he had to do was climb the fence to freedom. The moment his hands impacted the metal, his nerves felt like they were being set aflame and every muscle in his body immediately contracted. How long it went on for, he had no idea, because he was unconscious within seconds. Fucking idiot, he remembered thinking to himself.
The next day, he sat forlornly in a wheelchair with heavily bandaged hands, slowly wheeling himself to the phone booths with his gauze mittens. It was time, he knew, time to tell his parents everything before he died an untimely death trying to find his impossible escape. When he owed them everything in the world, it was the very least he could do.
He took up the handset with both mittens and took the bloodstained pen from his jumpsuit pocket into his teeth. Leaning forwards, he carefully dialled his home's phone number with the nib.
His mother answered, like she always did. There was an urgency to her voice, and he was fairly certain she said his name, but he couldn't be sure. He had caught sight of himself in the window to the guard's office opposite, and that coupled with hearing his mother's voice sent him into a brief state of shock. The past several months had been so fucking shit and it showed; his eyes were sunken and a dark, shaggy beard now occupied his once clean-shaven face. He had lost too much weight. He had the cold, callous stare of a man who had killed before. He looked like one of the blokes his dad always cursed on the TV when dinnertime news came out.
"Micky?" came the frantic voice again, drawing him out of his reverie. His vision blurred and when he blinked, a single trailed down his long nose. He quickly looked away from the window and into the phone booth, determined not to let any of the other inmates see him.
"Mum," he whispered into the handset. "Mum, I've messed up. For the love of Christ, don't tell dad."
There came a short silence, then his mother squeaked: "They have phones in max? I thought ..."
The fact she already knew where he was proved an enormous relief, oddly. He wouldn't have to physically say it and risk hearing her heart crumble apart in sheer disappointment.
"I … Yeah, we're meant to earn 'em but the guards are kinda scared of me. Are you … are you all right, mum?"
"All right?" his mother shot back, though shakily. "I've been worried sick, Micky! I thought this would be school all over again! Are the men leaving you alone? Are you hurt? Oh, I can knit you a new jumper and send it if you're getting cold at night, sweetie. I've only got Smissmas patterns, but ..."
"Mum, I'm fine," Michael lied, his voice growing thick with emotion. With a sigh, he leaned forwards and rested his forehead on the phone base. "You know why I'm in here, right?"
Another pause. "Well … yes. You likely don't remember, but you had a hypnotist when you were in primary school. You had this disturbing disregard for your classmates, always laughing whenever they fell over and hurt themselves. Sometimes you'd go into trees and throw rocks at them. He tried to force that instinct deep down inside you so it wouldn't come out again, but ..." his mother sniffed and Michael could hear her rubbing her nose with her sleeve.
"Ma, I think that just made it worse," he admitted sullenly. "It just feels like … like I'm just doin' what I'm good at. That's all. It's the only thing I'm good at. I got bored at med school and then I got preyed on by some devil in pink. I fell for a lady but she didn't really want me back." Whereas admitting this before would have caused some crippling jolt of pain to flare in his chest, now he simply felt nothing, like he was a blank slate.
"Oh, poppet. Did you love her, or did ya just love the escape she provided?"
Startled by the idea, the man anxiously began questioning everything that had occurred to get him into this hellhole prison. Had the duchess been manipulating him the whole time, or had he actually … let her? Had he used her as an excuse to forget the hell that was the rest of his life? Or had the entire thing been mutual the whole time?
"Mum," Michael rasped again, the handset creaking as his grip tightened on it. "I ain't crazy. I'm just confused. I don't know what the hell was real and what wasn't anymore. I don't know how the hell I got here. Everythin' just got – outta hand -"
"I know, sweetie.
"I got so mad. Look, I'm sorry. Neither of ya deserve this. I'm gonna make it better for ya both, 'kay? One day I'm gonna make as much money as a doctor and you can buy back that part of the farm ya sold to send me to college. I'll make everythin' up to ya, I swear it on me life."
"Micky -"
"Nah, I mean it. I love you both. Like, I really love ya both. Nothing about that can't be real. You're my mum and dad. Right? So I'm gonna get outta here the only way I know how."
"I swear to Saxton, Micky, if you lay your hands on one more man, I'll get your father to box your ears!"
Michael found himself smirking against the receiver. "All right. I'm sure he's missed it. Tell the old coot he's a load of mouldy old turnip farts. I'll be seein' ya both real soon."
Caught in a miserable crossroads between mirth, grief, and regret, he quickly hung up the phone and sat there a moment longer, the concerned and thoroughly exasperated voice of his mother lingering pleasantly in his ears. He'd told them about med school – or, rather, they already knew about med school, and for some reason it made him feel so much better, like a lead weight had been taken off his chest. It wasn't so much the fact he had killed numerous people, it was the prospect of disappointing them with his career choice and not being able to sustain them financially that had truly horrified him.
His parents had raised animals their entire lives. They couldn't look at cattle like they were living things, otherwise they would never send them to the slaughterhouse. Maybe they understood their son more than he had expected. There were some wankers in this cruel world that just had to go, but Michael had enough decency to know that no human life was worth shooting for free.
As for his one way out of maximum security prison, he had to be patient, first. He was a patient kind of guy, he'd put up with a lot during his short life and had all the persistence of an older man. He waited until he was healed, until he was fed and watered, and then he trained like he was back at the Battalion again, dropping down to do push-ups and replacing dessert with a hundred star jumps. Every day he did it, and every day he grew stronger.
He was going to fight a kangaroo for his freedom.
"Dude!"
Sniper jolted slightly and quickly raised his head, realising he had been starting to nod off. Using an empty beer bottle as leverage, he pushed himself back into a seated position against Two-Fort's wall to try and keep himself awake. With a grunt, he pushed Scout's snapping fingers away from his face.
"Jeez, this place is full of freakin' old timers. Quit passin' out and tell me what happened next!"
"Oh, please, boy," said the Spy, who was lounging on a blanket nearby, apparently engrossed in Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Barely glancing up from his book, he snorted with diabolical laughter and shook his head in disbelief. "If you think anything of what he is telling you is true, you are more of an imbecile than I first thought."
Sniper smirked and lit a cigarette before he prodded at their campfire with a nearby stick. "Take it or leave it, mates. Whether it's true or not, it's all you're getting outta me."
Aware that Scout was gaping at him in disbelief, the Australian forced down his conniving smirk and tilted his head upwards to gaze at the stars over their heads. It was a cool night. Peaceful, even, what with the gentle sloshing of the pool between the two bases, and the fact Scout had been silently enraptured for the past hour or so.
The boy gripped his forehead in frustration before gesturing frantically towards Sniper, his features the very picture of desperation.
"Snipes, please! I'm gonna die if ya don't tell me! Did ya win the fight against the kangaroo?"
The Australian drew thoughtfully on his cigarette, then removed it to blow an impressive smoke ring. "'Course I did. Poked it right in the eyes before it could do any damage. And, actually, that one was the Queen of Australia at the time, so I became king for like two minutes before I abdicated in favour of its oldest joey."
Another snicker from Spy. Sniper smirked and returned his gaze to Scout, amused by the young man's obvious conflict as to whether he should believe the assassin's tale or not.
"So let me get this straight," the runner began, raising a finger as he tried to recall everything he had been told, "you somehow got into medical school and then dropped out like some dumbass, then ya got forced to train for war and started some freakin' affair with a hot English duchess who made ya shoot her husband so she could get hold of his cash, then yous got sent down and killed a buncha guys with household items until they made ya their el jefe which led onto you sayin' 'fuck it' and beatin' up the Queen of Australia?"
Sniper shrugged slightly. "Sure. That's what I said, ain't it?"
"Look, guy, I asked how you became an assassin, not about the girls ya banged or the time you discovered you're a freakin' psychopath, aight?"
"Oi, piss off. I was getting' to that part, but you were so damn intrigued you were startin' to look at me weird."
"Whatever, pally! It's probably a loada crap, anyways!" Scout said loudly, flopping onto his back in a manner meant to appear uncaring, but his tone was laced with blatant doubt. "I think ya just got high off a loada 'shrooms and made this whole thing up."
"Believe what you want, lad. In retrospect, it all sounds kinda ridiculous, I know."
Spy cleared his throat, still staring intensely at his open book. "Well, do indulge us, jar-man. I suppose you decided to put your skills to good use to make money for your parents? And then – or so I can only gather from the many times I have heard this part – you spent the rest of your days festering in the desert you call home, shooting either maddened beasts or the people on your hit list, and in your spare time you would wrestle reptiles and buffalo until the maddening heat and isolation of the place made your borderline sociopathic tendencies a thousand times worse?"
Sniper scratched lazily at his crotch. "Yeah, that sounds about right."
In response to that revelation, Scout sat bolt upright again and appeared thoroughly disappointed. "What the hell? I kinda thought – well, I was just guessin', but I thought some super secret assassin organisation heard about all the stuff you did and let you join, and you got given the fake identity of some grouchy-ass game tracker who hates people as much as he hates crazy animals. Oh, and, yeah, you're still maintainin' the image right now 'cause even we can't know the truth. You're actually some clean-cut dude who loves baths and wears fancy-as-shit cologne and stuff."
"Nah, mate. Ya think there's any chance I could be like Spy? Now that's ridiculous."
"Ah, jeez. Well, didja ever think about lookin' up that fancy girlfriend of yours?"
"Did that ten years ago," Sniper replied cooly, the tiniest of smirks tilting his cracked lips. "Still a beaut. Rich as anythin'. Shame none of that helps ya when you're six feet under, eh?"
Scout's face contorted in confusion for a moment, and then he paled considerably, staring at the Australian in disbelief.
Satisfied with the response, Sniper cracked up into coarse, wheezing laughter. Whether or not he had been joking even Spy failed to determine, let alone the poor Bostonian sitting rigid over his bottle of beer.
"Yeah," the assassin continued, his laughter having gradually ebbed away. He suddenly appeared contemplative for a moment, and considerably younger as the lines in his face became softened by the moonlight above. "Yeah. Uh, real shame."