Prologue
"We are out of time, Pink!"
A bearded man paced frantically along the platform as the approaching train slowed to a halt. The doors of the carriages hissed open and the occupants began spilling out like syrup, seeping around pillars and newsstands. Everyone was focused on getting to their own destination and relatively ignorant of the man with the white beard stressfully pressing his ear.
"Anytime now, Pink," another, younger voice was heard over the com-link, "I can't search for the currier until I have that name."
"And you will have it, Green." A female voice sounded, the tone otherwise occupied. "Just give me a tick."
The bearded man pressed his lips. He was confident in his team. Faithfully so. Proudly so. Unwaveringly so. He checked his watch again. Quiznack. He was confident in his team. He was confident in his team. He was-
There were indistinct sounds of smashing and crunching with a few dull thuds. Pink's voice spoke again, though not to the others joined in the com-link. It must have not turned off.
" Who is carrying the files?" Her voice was clear and fearless. She expected to be answered. The man's anxiety lessened a squeeze. Finally, things were getting underway.
There was a silence that was obviously unacceptable, then a cracking thud and a gasp.
"Who is the currier?"
The bearded man could hear the urgency in her words, but he also knew that, to the unfortunate victim she was interrogating, it would sound as hard as steel and twice as dangerous.
Though he had stopped his pacing, the bearded man lifted his cap and ran his fingers through his white hair, a visual image of the female's veiled apprehension.
There was an agonizing half-second pause, and then –
"V-varkon!" a strained voice sputtered, "for the love of God!"
"Did you get that Green?" Pink asked, "I can ask him to spell it for you." A slight lilt in her voice made her sound almost eager.
"White, you should have his face on your phone now." Green's voice was immediately responsive, almost cutting Pink off, much to the fortune of her victim.
A profile of a middle aged, potbellied man appeared on White's phone. With a touch, the face was uploaded to a facial recognition scanner in his contact lens. The profiles of passers-by were scanned as quickly as White's eyes took in their faces. After a few tense moments, where everyone on the coms held their breath, a profile lit up a match. Only his years of training kept White's body from appearing anything but normal. Without another glance, he was on the move.
"Currier locked. Coming to you, Yellow." White said, walking briskly down some stairs. He flipped an alumni ring into his palm and removed the gem to reveal a long tip.
Adjusting his leather satchel over his shoulders, the man identified as Varkon opened the door leading off the train platform. White also reached to open the door. Right over Varkon's hand.
Varkon gasped at the sudden pain, looking first at his hand, then behind him. A dark skinned man with a white beard shrugged a half hearted apology. Varkon just rolled his eyes and turned back around, the matter already forgotten... and... why was the floor tilting? Varkon blinked as the entire station wobbled.
As planned, White was ready to catch him.
"Hey, are you alright?" Concern was written over White's face as he helped the man to a nearby bench.
Unable to keep his eyes open another second, Varkon slouched in the corner of the bench, his last words slurring through his lips, "I won letu don Zarkonnnn."
And with that, his head fell back against the armrest.
White lifted Varkon's satchel over his shoulders and plopped the cap he had been wearing over Varkon's face in a single movement. The unconscious man looked peacefully asleep to the rest of the world.
White walked away with confident steps, his back straight and eyes alight with relief in the ease of the mission, the previous tension all but forgotten in the light of victory, "Ready to hand off, Yellow."
White turned the corner and a short distance away, a hefty, dark skinned young man rose from a bench, still flipping through a magazine.
"Ready to receive, White." His soft voice spoke through the com-link.
White suddenly slowed, further down the hall than Yellow, two men in dark clothes stood and dropped their papers they had been browsing. He turned quickly to see two other men rise from the waiting benches by the train arrival board.
"Yellow, remain civilian, someone has crashed this drop."
"Local police?" Yellow's voice raised a pitch but quickly adapted to the situation.
"No." White took the satchel from his shoulder and hooked it around his body more securely as the darkly clothed men reached inside their jackets, "Armed hostiles."
And he took off. Running to his right, he burst through a side door to a flight of concrete stairs. His sudden speed defied the age his white hair gave, and the hostiles were taken off guard.
"Heading to the roof," White said as he stopped at the bottom of the staircase to engage the first man who was about to reach for the satchel strap around his back.
"I'm on my way." Pink piped up.
Slamming the man's head against the steel railing, White twisted the dazed attacker's neck with expert hands, the snap barely heard in the scuffle. Without a backward glance, White flew up the stairs, calling to the com-link,
"Negative Pink. Rendezvous at the east alleyway, I'll be there in three minutes." His voice was barely out of breath as he neared the top of the flight, "Coming onto the roof Blue. They're all yours."
"I thought we had agreed, sir, my new code name is Sharpshooter!" a high, young voice whined into the coms.
White allowed amusement to twitch his lips as he neared the exit doors. The pounding of his pursuers created an echoing thunder of noise against the cement walls as they sprinted after him.
"No one agreed to that but you, Blue."
"Shut up Green, no one asked for your opinion!"
"You did when you suggested 'Sharpshooter!"
"And you didn't protest at all, so the vote was unanimous."
"S-ho not! You said, 'Hey, you know what name is cooler than Blue? Sharpshooter.' And then I said 'How is Sharpshooter better than Blue? It's way too long!' And then you said, 'Fine, then just Shooter?' which is still longer than Blue, by the way."
"To be fair to Blue, Green, 'Sharpshooter' is better than some previous name suggestions. Let's not forget the whole 'Hot Cakes' incident..."
"You know what, Yellow, no one asked for your opinion either gracias very much! Sharpshooter out."
"Good, cause I'm coming to the roof now, Blue." White said, just as he exploded out of the metal doors. He quickly oriented himself before sprinting left across the long, flat roof of the train station. The pursuers were but a few seconds behind him.
"Aw, White, sir, you're too kind, lining them all up for me like that."
"I do what I can, Blue." White reached into his pocket and pulled out a contraption resembling a sort of rectangular grenade. He pressed the button on the side, activating it with a beep.
Behind him, there was a sort of sssspffft sound and one of the pursuers fell to the side, his momentum rolling his body a few times before stilling.
The edge of the roof was approaching fast and White sprinted faster, arms and legs pumping like pistons.
Sssspffft.
The second pursuer was sent reeling from the unseen attack, his body almost completely flipping over itself, arms slapping the metal roof before stopping.
"Woohohohoo! Milady is smoother than peanutbutter and bananas, Yellow! The new stabilizers are doin' magic!"
"I thought those balled joints would be smoother than the old stabilizers. Glad they've passed a field test!"
"Leave peanutbutter out of this, Blue." White could almost see Green's glare.
"Oh, oh, oh! Waitwait! He's gonna use the landing pad! White's gonna use the landing pad!" Blue's voice rose an octave in excitement and White did not disappoint.
Throwing the 'grenade' off the roof first, White jumped to fall six stories to the ground. Twisting his body as he fell, he took out his handgun and shot One! Two! Three! times at the last pursuer and he fell, body half hanging over the edge of the roof. The panache of the extra two shots may not have been necessary, but he liked to give his team a show when he could.
The 'grenade', upon contact with the ground, blew up an enormous air-filled landing pad. And not a moment too soon, as White landed on it not a second after it expanded.
White took the time to rise slowly, trying to find the breath that had been knocked from his ribs.
A final pursuer suddenly rounded the corner, gun drawn. Shit. White rolled on instinct, his body moving to a crouched position. Before he could raise his own gun, a sssspffft took the man out and he fell on his face, unmoving.
White stood to his feet, slouching a bit over his knee as he finally found his breath. He looked across the rails stretching out in front of him to a tall lookout tower and gave a tired, two fingered salute in its direction.
"Think nothing of it sir." Blue's voice was beaming.
"Please stop saluting him like that, sir, we talked about this. It only encourages him."
"I acknowledge when someone does a good job, Green." White readjusted the satchel from around his body to his shoulder and turned to walk around a corner to the rendezvous, "Speaking of, I believe I owe you a new wireless scanner for that quick pull up back there. We might have missed Varkon if it wasn't for those quick fingers."
"Please sir, it's my job. But yeah. You do owe me a new wireless. One point five seconds. Way under the previous three—you're welcome."
White approached the corner, resisting the urge to whistle happily. His team was turning out to be the best he could have possibly hoped for, which was defying all expectations back at headquarters. Many had insisted, on no uncertain terms, that such a young team to be a detriment to the AIS.
White allowed pride to flood his heart. The Director, the Secretary, everyone- had said that these inexperienced, albeit talented, children would cost the agency more than they were worth. But White had persisted. He had seen the results of their training and their commitment. Through watching them very closely, he had also seen something unique, something that agents their age were often lacking. The ability to work as a team. It had been the whole reason White had insisted so passionately to the director that he could make these junior agents into a team the agency had never seen before. They worked well, the three of them. Incredibly well.
It was also one of the reasons he let them bicker and have relatively free reign over the coms; it only strengthened their bond. They might not have been the best agents the AIS had to offer at the time he proposed the idea to his superiors, but they were certainly well on their way to becoming top paladin agents now. They were (usually) silent when they had to be, and when they weren't, it was sibling-like arguments and squabbling. He was continuously criticized for his untraditional training methods, particularly from his daughter, but no one could deny the results. A perfect record. He could still barely comprehend it himself. Some close calls had admittedly come to pass, but every mission his team was presented with, they had completed—and then some.
Even in his opinion, his team was young, some barely out of adolescence, and he knew just how sobering some of their missions could become. So let the kids be kids when they can, and they may even come out better for it. This was a philosophy that was back-boning most of his decisions on how he ran his team. A philosophy that was admittedly still in the experimental phases. All being said, White was immensely confident in his team, and now that it had been a full year, he was secretly almost giddy to present their success to Director Kolivan tomorrow.
"Almost at rendezvous. Yellow, what's your ETA?"
"Fourty-five seconds, Pink." There was the sound of a sigh through tired lips over the com, "Pfffffew! Did you know there are as many stairs down to the ground as there are up to the roof?"
White listened contentedly to the continued chatter of his team as he rounded the corner. Ahead, he saw an older woman walking towards him. A quick eye-scan of her body on instinct from years of training and experience took in her expensive wool, grey coat, Coach, black leather bag, heels and long white hair hanging over her thin, pointed face and elected her as non-threatening. Though her placement in a back alley was suspicious enough for him to be on guard.
White's phone buzzed in his pocket and he paused his stride to look at it. Eyes wide, his head shot up just as four silenced bullets slammed into his chest.
The sound of the shots reverberating through his body echoed through the com-link and all light-hearted conversation halted.
"What just happened? White?"
"White, sir, respond."
"Blue! Blue, do you have a visual? What's his location?"
"I lost visual when he turned the corner to the rendezvous Pink! I have no visual! I'm coming down."
"I'm coming too!"
"No Green, stay where you are, you understand me? White? White, acknowledge!"
The woman caught White as he slumped forward. Almost gently, the woman held him sitting up, hand softly around his neck as she fired three more shots into his ribs. She rose and let him fall, her face void of either pleasure or pain. She hooked the satchel around her own shoulder, disappearing from White's sight as blackness puffed around the edges of his eyes like food colouring, her heels clicking against the concrete becoming the last thing he ever heard.
Meanwhile, the coms were frantic, the voices of the team desperate for some kind, any kind of confirmation from their leader.
"White? White, please!"
"Say something! Anything!"
"White?"
"White!"
"Alfor!"