Mind over Matter
A/N: Okay! So, this pounced on me one night and wouldn't let go until I wrote it down. At first, I thought it was going to be part of a longer story, but then it decided that it wanted it's own spotlight and morphed into a story all of it's own. Isn't that nice?
This was beta'd for me by the lovely amitai, despite being an ocean away for some of it. I already owed her a million, I now owe her a million and one. Thank you darling.
Disclaimer: Not mine, never has been, never will be.
Warnings: Um, my pottymouth? No, seriously, swearing. Alex being awesome.
The door opened. Although it had been quiet, all the recruits turned to look, eager to get away from the lecture.
"Now this one, the Colt 365, has a longer range, but it packs a powerful punch, so better for those with a bit of muscle- morning, Rider."
The man who entered was no more than medium height, but slender rather than built, with serious brown eyes. He was certainly in rather better shape than most men of middle age - especially ones dressed as expensively as he was. "Morning Blades," the man replied with a grin. "Still going strong, I see." Blades grinned back, a rare sight.
"As always, sir." The man laughed.
"Well, don't let me stop you."
He edged through the crowded room to the gun bench and set down a sightless sniper rifle.
"I'll see you later then, Blades." He was about to leave when Blades spoke again.
"Rider – one more thing." The man turned, hand on the doorknob.
"Any chance you can fit an instinctive shooting seminar for this rabble into your busy schedule sometime soon? I'd like to show 'em a thing or two before sending 'em off to the normal instructors."
"Of course," Rider nodded briskly.
"Tomorrow? At three?"
"Can't do tomorrow afternoon at all, sorry. I've got a meeting with the PM at two, and you know how those can drag on. I'll be lucky to get home before my own rabble are in bed." Blades grimaced in sympathy.
"Thursday then. At ten?"
"I can do Thursday, but make it nine thirty. I ship out to Sierra Leone at one."
"Nine thirty it is. I'll put a general notice up on the board – it's important."
"Right you are then," the man replied and with one last nod and smile, he was out the door and away.
Come nine o'clock on Thursday, every single recruit was waiting in Blades' shooting seminar room. They had learned to always be early for Blades' lessons. He always had interesting (and often dangerous) projects on the go, and the old man was generally happy to show them to any interested recruits before the lesson.
'Rider' had got there earlier, though. Those who had been in Blades' lessons on Monday were able to identify him in the range below, and the information that he was there had quickly spread. Judging by the haze of gun-smoke that surrounded him, 'Rider' had been in there a while. His scoreboard was invisible.
And although MI6 agents gossiped like old women, no-one had found anything about 'Rider' on the grapevine, and it wasn't for lack of trying.
At nine thirty on the dot, the man finished his last clip. The smoke surrounding him by this time was so thick that no-one realised he'd left the range until the door of the seminar room opened. Everyone jumped; Blades just looked amused.
"What are you all standing around for?" 'Rider' asked. "Sit down."
By the time everyone had sorted themselves out, Rider had made his way through the crowd to the head of the room. With a few deft movements, he brought some scores up on the projector at the head of the room.
They were consistent. Bulls eyes throughout.
The crowd murmured. Rider spoke above them.
"These are my scores from the range just now. Thirty-two clips in thirty minutes. Can anyone tell me why these scores are so perfect?"
Blades, standing at the back of the room, grunted. "Twenty-eight minutes."
"Ah, twenty-eight minutes. Thanks, Blades. Anyone?"
"You fixed the scores?" someone at the back offered, after a long pause. Rider laughed. Blades snorted.
"Nice try, but Blades here will tell you that the system that detects and calculates the scores is almost unhackable, even by Six standards. Otherwise, every Tom, Dick and Harry in Q section would have perfect scores."
More laughter.
"Anyone else?" he paused. "No-one? Alright then. The technique I use is called instinctive shooting. Anyone heard of it?"
Silence.
"I'm not surprised. The army doesn't teach it, not even the SAS, and I've never heard of any instructor here that offers it either. Reason being, it's predominantly used by those whose livelihoods depend on them being able to shoot very fast and very accurately. Can anyone tell me a job that might require this skill?"
'Assassins?' someone called out jokingly. There was general laughter, but Rider looked serious.
'Bingo.' In the silence that followed, the muffled thud of bullets hitting targets seemed incredibly loud.
"The technique of instinctive shooting was first developed for archery by the monks of the Buddhist Zen tradition. To accomplish something monumental without thinking is the very heart of the Zen tradition. It was used widely in Japan in the eleventh to fifteenth centuries, when the monasteries that taught it were completely destroyed in the Ōnin War and it started to die out. Today, it is a very rare and prized skill." Rider's eyes were distant and his voice had taken on the sing-song quality of a recitation. At the back of the room, Blades cleared his throat loudly and Rider faltered for a second, shaking his head as if to be rid of an annoying fly, and then continued.
"To our knowledge, we employ just three people with this skill; myself and two others. The reason for this is that instinctive shooting is hard to teach, and even harder to learn. The clue," his mouth quirked into what might have been a smile, "is in the name, after all. And a rogue agent with this skill would be incredibly dangerous; they would probably be picked up by a terrorist organisation within days. The skill is highly coveted and there are very few places that teach it properly, and still fewer people who can learn it." He paused, and then smiled thinly. "Needless to say, we will not be teaching it to you today." There was some nervous laughter.
"The reason that I've been asked to speak to you about it is because you may well come across people with this skill in your future missions. The accepted procedure in cases such as this obviously depends on the situation, but my personal advice to you would be to contact your handler and they should pull you out, immediately. If this isn't possible, I would suggest that you get out yourself. Don't wait around for us, because if an instinctive shooter gets eyes on you and knows you're a mole, you're dead," he snapped his fingers. "Just like that. There won't be any ducking or dodging, because shooting you dead is as easy as breathing. There won't be any quarter. I've only ever met one assassin with this skill who ever gave quarter, and that was an extenuating circumstance. Always remember: you are never too young to die." Silence for a few heavy seconds.
"Does anyone have any questions?"
Of course, everyone did. Rider picked a small man at the back.
"Could you explain to us exactly how instinctive shooting works, sir?"
Rider looked thoughtful. "I left that out of the talk because it's hard to explain. Mostly, the technique is psychological. The student is taught to think of the gun as an extension of their body and eventually to shoot without conscious thought." His expression darkened. "For that reason, it is most easily picked up by those whose minds are most open to psychological attack, and those who have no previous experience with a gun – in both cases, usually children. Yes?" He pointed to a girl in the second row.
"You claim that it's rare and hard to teach, so where is it that actually teaches instinctive shooting? Especially," she swallowed, "since people don't normally teach children to shoot."
"There are several terrorist organisations who offer it to those who show the right aptitude in training, but it is still a highly prized skill." His answer was very evasive, and the girl challenged him over it. "The details of these places are highly classified-" Rider replied, and raised a hand as the girl opened her mouth again. "-as are the names of those who possess the skill in MI6. I would not divulge them, even if I knew them. Should I do so, you would find them most reluctant to answer any questions that you had." He smiled grimly. "There is something of a stigma attached to the skill in the intelligence community. "
A moment for his audience to absorb this, and then a forest of hands shot up again.
"You… at the back with the dark hair."
"If there's a stigma attached to the skill, why are you acknowledging it yourself?"
Riders tone was self deprecating. "I assure you, my skills are widely known in the intelligence community. There was a rather unfortunate intelligence breach by a major terrorist organisation about ten years ago, which succeeded in infiltrating the residence of the deputy head of MI6 and came very close to killing her. MI6's response to it has become rather infamous in certain circles. In fact, may I take this chance to assure you that my skills in that respect have been greatly exaggerated, but are most certainly no secret. In the blue shirt."
"I'm sorry, but I'm not sure that I caught your name."
"You didn't, because I didn't give it. I'm Special Agent Rider-" At this moment, his phone rang. Fishing it out of a back pocket, Rider took one look at the screen and cursed. "Shit. Blades, I've got to run. Finish this off, could you? Thanks…"
Then he was gone, out of the door at a dead run.
Blades sauntered to the front of the classroom.
"One little reminder that Rider always forgets. Can't blame him, not with his history, but this is all highly classified. The sort of 'classified' that comes in capital letters and means that someone rather high up will never work again if this gets out. And, of course, neither would the person who leaked it. Also," he drawled, "if you were thinking of looking our friend Special Agent Rider up on the system, you should know that someone in Q section has set up a lovely little virus that melts the hard drive of anyone looking for it without the correct clearance. It doesn't even wait for you to try and hack in. I'm sure some of the smartarses among you will still try it, but consider yourselves warned. Class dismissed."
They did try it. In the few seconds before the screen went black and refused to reboot, they had time to register the clearance level of the file. Nine. It doesn't get more classified than that.
What had Rider done to merit that kind of protection? The general consensus was that it would have to have been pretty damn amazing.