She found her sitting under the sun, it beating down something fierce that made even the hardiest creatures hide in the shade. She wasn't looking at anything in particular, only gazing blankly at the desert. If Sniper had followed her line of sight, she would have only seen the yellow dirt and the wavering lines the heat made visible. She slumped down unceremoniously next to the girl, facing the same direction as she did. They stayed quiet like that for a while, neither of them saying anything to disrupt the odd silence until Scout finally piped up. For some reason she seemed almost...anxious.
"Do you believe in heaven?"
She didn't answer at first, leaving the other to fidget slightly, until finally:
"Can't say I do." A beat passed. "Where'd that come from?" "Dunno. Its just…I don't know." Sniper turned to face her comrade, who had pulled her cap tighter over her eyes and set them down, finding the ground an interesting subject to study.
She let out a breath, sounding worn down and jabbed a finger in front of her. Catching the other's attention, she began to speak.
Gesturing to the out lands, she said:"That's our heaven. Right in this burning hellhole of a base. When we die, and we don't come back, that-this is where they'll put us, bury us so far under the ground we won't be able to even hear our own screams. To them, we're just rats, running around programmed to their will to test out whatever they want. The minute we put our pens to the paper they stole our names and our souls and any free will we had left. They own us- You, me, the whole team. But maybe that's why we came here in the first place. Once we're gone, they'll just find another lowlife desperate for a paycheck." She finished her speech by spitting onto the ground below her, a small act of rebellion against a whole army.
Quiet lapsed between the two for a second time. Suddenly, the younger stood. She glanced into the desert, searching for something but not finding it. Without breaking her gaze, she whispered in a hoarse voice "We're not human anymore, are we?"
It wasn't a question.
They locked eyes, both somber, and Sniper could only shrug. She quirked her lips, bitterness soaking her expression, turned on her heel and slowly walked back to base, leaving the woman alone with the wind and the thoughts lingering in her mind, the scout's ever present dog tags clinking in the breeze as she grew distant. She wondered what had brought that disturbing conversation on. To see the girl so serious was more or less an unpleasant shock compared to the usual cockiness and pride.
Maybe this life really was killing them, taking away what little they had until…nothing, then throwing away the corpses and moving on. It saddened her slightly, the truth that when she died, she would do so in a cage. No memory of her to remember or legacy to pass on. Her existence in this work was minuscule, and would quickly be brushed away like the countless before her. In her job, she would remain a nonentity, nameless and unimportant to the world. She then told herself to shut up, that dwelling on the past never did anything to change what lied ahead. She had chosen this future, on her own accord. Still, the nagging daydream of how her life could have been if she hadn't joined RED haunted her mind, staying there for days after.
"Receiving it, hanging it around the neck, and feeling [the dog tag] is at once a silent statement of commitment. The tag itself recognizes the being who wears it within a huge and faceless organization."