He still wakes up at six every morning, his body having internalized the seemingly never-ending rhythm of fighting and ceasefire, of adrenaline-rushed daytime and numb, dreamless nights. He sits in the dark of his camper and relishes in the possibility of doing nothing at all without having to fear catching a bullet for it. There is, he decides as he slowly gets up, nothing quite like the absolute silence of a morning in the outback. The Sniper vaguely thinks of early morning hours, almost night, spent listening to the mindless rants and bickering of former colleagues. It's only been three months and already all of it feels a lifetime away, like some fever-induced hallucination experienced in that odd, frightening realm somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. But memories are the path to that ever-looming threat of being discovered, and so he shrugs all of it off as he steps outside, into the rising sun, leaving the darkness and the suffocating worry in the camper behind him.
Fetching supplies in the small store a few miles north does not sound like a particularly daring operation, especially not for someone who has worked as a mercenary, but he can't help but turn his head every few steps as soon as he leaves the van. There isn't anybody around, of course not, there never is, but the last few days of his time with RED have taught him that a healthy dose of paranoia really can't do any harm. There's nobody behind the counter, but that alone isn't enough to raise suspicion. Checking for his hidden knife, he carefully moves through the shelves to collect everything he needs for another three weeks out there where nobody knows him, where nobody can find him. He is calculating how many packs of cigarettes he'll be needing when he hears the throttling noise of a motor being stopped. Shit. Okay. No reason to panic. Find out who it is, what they want, if they're dangerous. Very quietly, he lowers the basket and moves behind the last aisle, where he is barely visible against the stark shadows. He can hear voices, two at least, but it is impossible to tell what they are saying. Probably both men. Relieved that he has parked his camper out of sight of the store, he slowly shuffles towards the backdoor, opening it just enough to slide through to the other side. Then he waits. Another minute and somebody enters the store. "Hello?" There is a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he first walks, then starts to run towards the camper, not needing any additional information as to who that person is that just so happens to be here, at the end of the world.
Shit. Shitshitshit. There is no real point in wondering how on earth anybody could manage to find him here, but he can't help but to ponder what mistake has led them on his way. Faintly realizing that he probably never really stood a chance against RED, who can be very, very determined, he anxiously watches the rear mirror and urges the car to go faster, just a little faster oh damn. It takes him four hours at full speed to finally reach his destination, a town with a small airport where hopefully he'll be able to find someone to fly him to Sydney, or Melbourne, just somewhere with an international airport. A glance at his watch tells him that the pilots have probably already left. He planned all of this the day he got there, found out where to go, who to turn to, when to do it, so he knows that the flight to Melbourne has taken off half an hour ago and the next one won't go until tomorrow. Aimlessly driving around town, he debates his next step, postponing the obvious decision of taking a room for as long as he can. There is no way, he reasons as he parks the car in front of a small motel, that they could have figured out where he has gone. He hasn't left any traces, no hints as to what his escape plans might be.
There is an amiable old woman behind the counter whose utter harmlessness soothes him a little bit. The room is cheap and conveniently positioned directly opposite the parking. It wouldn't take him much more than twenty seconds to rush out of the room, jump down the stairs and be at the car. He turns the key and knows what a mistake he has made almost instantly.
"Do come in, bushman", the voice from the store says.
In the end, he doesn't put up a fight, nor does he attempt to flee. There doesn't seem to be much of a point in it, escaping now would only mean prolonged weeks of panic before they'd catch up with him again. He simply does as he is told, enters the room as if completely unfazed by the appearance of his former colleagues, stashes his bag under the desk and puts his jacket over the chair before finally acknowledging the other men's presence. "So", he begins for lack of a more sophisticated way of leading this type of conversation, "you here to kill me or what?"
"Most certainly not", the man leaning against the wardrobe says with a thin smile, absent-mindedly flattening his suit as he does so. "You have violated your contract, quite profoundly so, in fact. I am here to ensure that the company's investment does not go lost.
"Investment? Come on, this can't possibly be about money, I've figured that much."
The steely glare he receives has a pleading edge to it, asking him to stop inquiring and just accept his fate unquestioningly.
"Aren't you a perceptive one. Listen: You and I both know fully well that I am not going to explain to you the motives of the company's management, for once because they largely remain unbeknown to me. You yet have to fulfil your contract. Come with me, do what you agreed to do and feel free to leave afterwards."
The Sniper limits himself to a doubtful arch of the eyebrow and turns to the other man who has remained absolutely silent so far, watching the conversation unfold with his typical patient observance. "What are you doing here? He convinced you to go back?"
"Nice to see you again", the engineer remarks drily and exhales loudly. "Look, son. We all knew it was just a matter of time, didn't we. We saw what they're capable of. It's really no great surprise they didn't just choose to let us go."
"What about the others?"
"Oh, you were rather difficult to track down in comparison, actually. The only ones left are the doctor and his big friend, and they shouldn't be hard to find at all. Besides, they are nowhere nearly as paranoid as you are and will quite likely agree to come back as long as the terms of their contract remain unaltered, which, incidentally, they will."
"Where will we be stationed? I mean, where are the others?"
That annoying, knowing smile pisses him off just as much as it used to and brings a whole number of memories back to mind, of oddly calm months at the base spent together with that weird assembly of freaks who for some time felt just like the team they were supposed to be.
"Just back where they came from."
Ultimately, he does exactly what he promised himself he wouldn't do, simply gives in and accepts the thought of returning to the company that is so inexplicably powerful, whose motives for hiring them stay entirely unclear. The spy excuses himself shortly afterwards to organize their departure the next day, so the other two men remain at the hotel, far too tense and confused to fall asleep, too worried to talk.
Sniper spends the next few days in equal parts of quiet amazement and discomfort at the utter lack of obstacles they encounter. Spy leads them through international airports and customs without so much as the bat of an eyelid, not once stopping to determine the best strategy, seemingly avoiding distrust and warrants through sheer determination and suave appearance. In Sydney, Sniper is handed a duffel bag with all the things he left behind in the small storage shack where he had kept his personal properties. He doesn't bother to ask how they managed to find it. The engineer avoids all attempts at forging a conversation about the possible motivation of their employer, uncharacteristically and unsettlingly so, and Sniper increasingly finds himself looking forward to being reunited with the team, to having an admittedly small number of possible conversation partners to choose from.
On the flight from Australia to the US, Sniper is seated next to Spy in First Class while the engineer is banished to Second Class (supposedly for reasons of stealth, but, Sniper suspects, probably to avoid his continuous, silent reproachfulness). As the plane noisily takes off the ground, the familiar Australian soil quickly vanishing form his sight, he can't help but to wonder if he'll ever manage to return.
"Already missing the motherland, mh?" , Spy says with a smug smile on his face when he doesn't immediately turn away from the window.
Sniper tells him to lay off and briefly thinks about telling him about the numerous and varied ways in which he considers him to be the most sorry example of a human being he has ever had the misfortune to encounter, but decides against it in the light of the months to come in which they will be expected to cooperate. In addition, hell, Spy works for RED, really works for them, not like all the others do, on grounds of a weird and illegal contract, but clearly on a far more demanding basis. He senses that the only person who could possibly provide any information on the company and on what they have gotten themselves into is sitting right next to him, and as painful as it's going to be, he plans to try and find out as much as he can.
Two hours into the flight and he decides to just go for it.
"So, are you ever going to explain to us what this is all about?"
"I told you before, you are to fulfil your contract."
"That's not what I mean, you bloody well know that. Come on. What was going on at the base? That was…you can't expect us to pretend nothing ever happened."
The other man's expression remains perfectly blank, a neutral face to convey neutral information.
"There were technical difficulties. It took the company a few days to fix them, as you all would have seen if you had just stayed as I told you to."
"Technical…? Seriously. I need to know this."
He stares at his neighbour until the spy deigns to look at him.
"I can't tell you more than this." He readjusts his suit and goes back to looking straight ahead. "I am sorry", he adds, quietly and with a touch of proper intonation.
Sniper feels oddly disappointed. He spends the rest of the flight berating himself for expecting anything at all to arise from a conversation with the spy and turning the facts over in his head, over and over, trying to make sense from what so clearly has a hidden truth kept from him and his colleagues.
Once having arrived in the US, they continue their journey by car. Hour after hour, dry and sullen landscape rushes past as they move further away from the coast, into the middle of nowhere, the dry, dusty austerity of the desert. Sniper manages to get the engineer to talk, and soon the two of them chatter away about whatever they can think of, with the spy stoically enduring what he certainly considers to be pointless and unsophisticated banter.
At some point, Sniper remembers a question he wanted to ask ever since that unfortunate encounter in the hotel room back home.
"Why were you both looking for me, anyway? I mean, I know Spy does it for RED, but I thought you were, you know, just a regular employee, Truckie."
"It was more convenient that way", Spy says, interrupting the engineer immediately.
"More convenient?", Sniper repeats incredulously, steering wildly to avoid approaching traffic as he remembers he's actually driving on the wrong side of the road. "How are Texas and Australia conveniently connected?"
"I wasn't in Texas", the engineer says from the backseat. "Couldn't risk endangering my family, so I figured I'd travel for a while to see if anyone from RED tries to contact me, or my relatives, before I return home. I was just about to leave for the States when Spy here caught up with me in Melbourne."
"No use in accompanying the two of you separately back to your workplace when I could just as well save the company the money for the superfluous travelling expenses and search for you first", Spy explains with a slightly condescending smile.
"Well, aren't you just the perfect employee."
"It seems to me I live up to your mantra of professionalism a lot more than you actually do, my dear."
Sniper scoffs, racking his brain for a witty reply as he seemingly returns his attention to the road ahead, but his train of thought is interrupted by the engineer.
"You didn't seem very professional back when all that BLU fiasco happened, you know. Didn't exactly give off the impression of someone who knows what to do."
Sniper takes a cautious look at the engineer in the back mirror. He seems perfectly at ease, his posture entirely relaxed, but Sniper is positive he's not the only one who made out a certain questioning tone to the Texan's reprimand. The spy actually feels compelled to turn around, scowling ever so slightly before sighing lightly.
"Maybe that was because I didn't, in fact, know exactly what to do. It's not like I had encountered such a situation before, but what I did know for certain was that the company has no rule that says "In the event of unforeseen deaths, you are all free to go. Consider yourselves free for hire!""
The engineer does not offer any evident reaction to his co-worker's slightly raised voice, eyes steadily fixed to a point outside the window, a few meters of the ground.
"So you saved the company some money, huh?", he non-sequiturs.
"I should hope so", the spy answers, evidently suspicious of this sudden return to a safer topic.
"Y'know what could have saved even more money? Simply hiring new people. It's not like we all possess unique talents, I'm sure RED could have found equally able workers to replace us."
"Hey, thanks, mate", Sniper interjects in the hope of lightening the atmosphere. All paths of their conversations lead to the same ultimate goal of coaxing the spy to talk, but he has so far – unsurprisingly so – proven to be quite immune to their admittedly clumsy attempts at gathering information.
"Oh, so this is all part of a conspiracy targeted at you, I suppose? A direct result of some ominous, unique trait you possess? Certainly I have been sent out to retrieve you and your exceptional capabilities, this couldn't possibly be related to your utterly unacceptable behaviour and the fact that you have been paid a substantial amount to guarantee what little trustworthiness you have to offer? I hate to be the one to break this to you, but this is how corporate life works. You don't get paid for nothing."
The spy's ridiculing tone of voice sounds almost believable, but even his exceptional histrionic capabilities are fairly unconvincing and transparent in the light of the gross incongruity of the situation. At least that is how Sniper feels and one brief glance at the engineer's face tells him he's not the only one. However justified their suspicion may be, though, there is nothing much they can do to clarify the events, at least for now. He highly doubts it, but Sniper tells himself that one of the other team members might have observed something else, or found out something about their employers during their short period of absence. Surely nothing is to be expected from the Scout, who clearly suffers from some kind of untreated attention deficit syndrome, or the perpetually drunk Scotsman, but maybe the Medic…
The car falls silent yet again. As they speed into the gradually darkening desert, Sniper finds himself looking forward to their arrival, as weird and misplaced a notion that may be. The loneliness and near-stupor of life in the outback feels nothing like the rush of the battle, like the bizarrely pleasant team dynamic they had developed. They will have to find out just what it is they are doing, who they are working for, but despite everything, Sniper feels vaguely optimistic even as the sun vanishes completely and the night obscures the bumpy road that lies ahead.
My first venture into the what little of a TF2 fandom there is. Before somebody leaves a review saying "I don't understand what's going on" – yeah. The background will be revealed in the next chapter.
I'm not sure if I should include some kind of pairing in this, any suggestions?
Feedback of any kind is much appreciated. Also, if you spot any particularly nasty mistakes, let me know. English is not my native language, so I'm not completely sure about the correctness of some phrases.