"…we don't have much to go on. This John Lark is a complete unknown, however we do know he has had multiple meetings with a college student, Maisie Parker. No further information is available on the nature of these meetings. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to track down both Nils Debruuk and Maisie Parker to find out what they know, and intercept the plutonium before it can be used by the Apostles. This message will self-destruct in…"
Ethan Hunt flipped the hollowed out book shut as smoke filled his nostrils. The girl in the photos, Miss Parker, looked almost like a teenager. How did she get involved with a terrorist like John Lark?
Luther and Benji could handle the nuclear weapons expert; a man like that would do anything for his vision to come true, and that was something easily exploitable. But someone who had met with John Lark personally? That required Hunt's full attention.
Maisie Parker was in fact no recluse. Although Hunt expected to require Benji or Luther's help to track the girl down, a quick google search revealed her multiple social media accounts. According to her Facebook, she was planning on attending an upcoming event in Paris, some sort of massive nightclub party with very exclusive invites.
Hunt phoned the director of the IMF on a disposable mobile to coordinate an immediate flight to Paris.
Maisie didn't really consider herself a party person; but then again, events like these were the perfect cover for top-secret meetings. She smiled at her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she adjusted her pantsuit. The friends she came with had, as expected, ditched her the second they got a little tipsy, which gave her freedom as well as an alibi.
In the past months, her appearance had changed quite a bit. John required it; it kept things 'tidier' as he put it. As long as you avoid a consistent appearance, people find it harder to look for you in a crowd. Of course, her safety was never really an issue. She knew Lark had ensured her constant protection ever since he realized he needed her. She didn't even know what her bodyguards looked like or what their names were, but her growing bank account stopped her from asking too many questions.
Before coming to the party she had gotten most of her hair cut off. For a while she had been just dying it from her natural blonde, to brunette, to bright red, to a brunette again, but this meeting was more important than usual, so she figured why not make a more permanent change. The ends of her hair were still somewhat sharp and the feeling of them brushing over her naked shoulders was an unfamiliar delight.
She hovered over the sink, mouth dangling open as she fitted two colored contacts into her eyes. This meeting had to go well. For the first time, Lark was introducing her to another of his colleagues, the White Widow. She was their ticket to plutonium.
Maisie swore as she realized she was running slightly late. The bar lounge was opposite the bathrooms, thankfully, and she rushed in just as one familiar face fell into conversation with a stranger. The White Widow wasn't with John Lark.
Frowning, she approached the pair. Although the man hid it well, his eyelids flickered in panic. He gave her an easy smile. "We meet again," his gaze stared deeply into hers, pleading.
"It's been a while. You look different. Have you lost weight?" She grinned at this man as the muscles in his jaw loosened, and he dragged over a stool for her.
The White Widow spoke up. "As I was saying, and I'm sure you'll agree with me Maisie, is that Mr. Lark here seems far too handsome to do what he does. Don't you think?"
Maisie shrugged, hoisting herself up onto the stool. "The hot ones are always assholes, I find. Anyways, shall we get down to business?"
The stranger gave her an unsure look, then deepened his stare to behind her. She swiveled to see what was going on, only to notice three men standing conspicuously still, staring at them.
The White Widow frowned. "Your protection?"
Maisie shook her head, confused. "They've never been this obvious." She turned back, slow grin on her face. "What do you think, Mr. Lark?" He furrowed his brows. "Should we be afraid?"
Her good humor vanished when a bruising grip on her arm jolted her in towards him. "These men are here to kill one of us, and I'm sure you don't want to take the odds that it's not you. What do you say?"
His grip didn't waver. She swallowed, fighting the urge to turn back to the men that were surely closing in on them. "I think…it would be in our best interests to continue the discussion privately."
He gave her a nod, before tugging her off the seat. The White Widow threw her a distressed look, but all Maisie could do was shrug.
And duck.
The knife came out of nowhere, but clearly the man wasn't as caught off guard. He dropped Maisie's arm and latched onto the hitman's in a second, using brute force to bend the man's elbow back onto himself. The man crumpled over, knife deeply embedded in his chest.
Maisie didn't have time to gape at the dying body on the floor; she felt hands like claws grabbing at her shoulders and slamming her into a barstool. She was dumped unceremoniously on the floor, and groaned as her head swam. A metallic warmth flooded her mouth and she realized through inspection that she had bitten deeply into her lip. Holding a hand over her injured mouth, she used the other arm to hoist herself up off the carpet, heart racing.
The mysterious man posing as John Lark was beating the crap out of two men, and both the White Widow and an unfamiliar lady were taking down the rest.
She turned to follow the three as they made their way toward an exit, only to be assaulted again by a pair of arms wrapping around her torso.
She yelped and started wriggling, flailing her legs in the air, but the solid mass of muscle was herding her towards the exit.
She slowly realized this person was clearly on their side, as he hadn't made any move to injure her and in fact was following the others. He let her down when she stopped struggling, and she turned to look at him, almost stumbling over herself.
The real John Lark stood across from her. An incredulous exclamation came out of her but he shook his head firmly, and placed a hand on her back to keep pushing her out the door.
Her mind was still racing when they bundled into a car and took off. The White Widow was in the front beside her brother; Maisie was sandwiched between two John Larks.
The fake Lark caught her dumbfounded expression. "You okay?"
She slowly nodded. The ensuing silence caused her to look up, and she saw he was waiting for an answer. On the other side of her, she felt a hand close around her wrist, holding it at a painful angle, ready to snap. "I… I'm not used to violence, that's all. The bodyguards usually deal with that stuff themselves without me ever seeing it. Where were they, anyway?"
The man mentally fumbled to come up with an answer, and Maisie felt the iron grip fall away, leaving an aching wrist behind. "There were more men out to get us. They were preoccupied. Next time I'll assign more. This won't be happening again."
Even though she knew the words were coming from a stranger who was lying through his teeth, they were still reassuring to her. A thought struck her as the adrenaline high wore off. She twisted around and faced John.
"Sorry, I didn't catch your name."
He gave her a pleasant smile. "Walker." The smile had an edge to it; the 'don't ask questions' glint in his eye.
She rubbed her wrist and nodded. "Nice to meet you. Maisie Parker."
At the residence of the White Widow, Maisie quickly requested to be escorted to a bathroom to have a shower. It wasn't particularly hot out, but the stress of the evening had caused her to sweat, and the satiny fabric of her pantsuit was starting to stick to her thighs and stomach.
At least, she convinced herself that was the reason. Deep down, she was terrified. Terrified of screwing something up, of saying the wrong thing and having the wrath of that maniac upon her.
It was the fake John Lark that was waiting outside the bathroom when she got out almost an hour later.
She stopped at the doorway, waiting for him to say something. His face was impassive, and before he spoke, he walked into the bathroom, causing her to back up, and shut the door behind them. The steam-licked mirrors and windows caused a somewhat claustrophobic atmosphere and she clasped her hands together tightly to stop them from shaking.
"You know I'm not the real Lark."
She nodded slowly.
"But you let me convince the White Widow I am."
Again, he waited for her to give an assenting nod.
"How old are you?"
She blinked, caught off her rhythm. It took her a while to even think enough to answer. "Uh, twenty two."
His eyes softened. "What are you doing with a man like Lark? He wants to kill millions of people. He's a psychopath."
Little did he know that the psychopath in question was two doors down. "I have a family. He has hitmen." She poked at the wound on the inside of her lip with her tongue, hoping the jolt of pain would stop her from getting too emotional.
"What does he need from you?"
She sighed, leaning back against the vanity. "He needs a memory."
The man furrowed his brows. "What?"
"Look, if I'm going to tell you all this, and he finds out, I'm dead. My family's dead. So I need to know who you are, and I need to know that you'll get me out of this."
The man considered this. Finally, he gave a single nod. "My name is Ethan Hunt. I'm an operative with the IMF, the Impossible Mission Force. We are closely linked with the CIA. I can get you out of this. I promise."
Maisie could feel her hair beginning to curl from the steam. "That's a stupid name."
The man shook his head in disbelief. "What?"
"Impossible Mission Force," she elaborated, "is a really stupid name. Clearly the missions aren't impossible, otherwise they wouldn't hire employees to do them."
He gave her a long, hard stare. She threw her hands up in defeat. "I'm going to ask you again, Maisie: What does he need from you?"
She crossed her hands over her chest. Without realizing it, she had lowered her voice, subconsciously afraid the man in question would overhear from down the hall. "A guy like Lark can't afford anything to go wrong. He knows files can be stolen and computers can be hacked. Of course, he needs to have some sort of communication with the Apostles, but all the important information? It's up here." She placed a finger to her temple. "I meet with him and with other Apostles to share the really top secret information. No physical records, no problem."
"Doesn't that put you at a lot of risk? A lot of people would do some terrible things to a person to get what they needed out of her."
She shrugged. "Why do you think I have bodyguards? Why do you think I don't even know who they are? In exchange for my photographic memory, he keeps me and my family alive. Break that trust, it all goes to shit."
Ethan had his head down for most of this, processing the information. All at once, he lunged at her and grabbed tightly onto her shoulders. "Tell me who Lark is. All of this death and destruction can be prevented, but only if you tell me who he is."
Maisie winced as her skull bounced off the mirror glass. "I can't!"
He shook her, staring intensely into her eyes. "I promised I'd keep you safe, just tell me!"
"I can't!" she hissed at him, shaking his hands off of her. "If I tell you anything specific, he knows exactly where it came from. I'm sorry, but I'm not taking that risk. You're the one that signed up to an impossible mission, not me. You get me out of this, I'll help you with whatever I can but nobody can keep me safe from a man like him. You best believe that anything you find out is precisely what he wants you to know. Any advantage he gives you by letting you take me is a step down the path that leads directly to your own demise. He's going to destroy the world, Ethan. He's not leaving this up to good luck."
Feeling like she needed another shower already, she pushed past Ethan and into the hallway.
He didn't follow.
Hi everybody, thanks for reading! I love MI: Fallout so very much and I really wanted to put my own twist on it, so I hope you enjoy it too!
I'd love to hear from you, so please do write a review down below. Updates will be unpredictable as I tend to have random spurts of motivation and I can't guarantee how often they'll come, so I would recommend following the story if you want to keep posted.
