Well, I must say that is is a pleasant surprise to see people reading this. Thank you two that followed and to the one cool person that favorited. This lets me know that there is an audience. Also, do not be afraid to review with suggestions. I alwasy take those into consideration. Enjoy.
Jesse slumbered in the scout ship, tired and exhausted. So the natural outcome was to sleep. He had his legs propped up, it was quiet and cool. His body easily surrendered to the beckoning sands of Morpheus and he began to snore gently, falling into the light dream state as his body relaxed for the first time in several days. Jesse dreamed of the day he met Gabriel Reyes, in a sting operation on the Deadlock Gang orchestrated by Blackwatch… and covertly executed by Talon.
The wind was blowing gently through the canyon floor, lifting up dust but bringing a welcome freshness to the dry air they have been stewing in for the last hour. Spinning his revolver before holstering it, Jesse turned to his fellow gang member and friend, Cyrus. At least, as close to a friend as anyone in the gang could be. The boss had told them to wait for the buyer and waiting they had been, sitting pretty on a container full of assault rifles and shoulder-mounted explosive launchers but so far, the only thing that had shown up was a rattle snake, now sizzling on the open flame of a make-shift fire. Poking at the scaled body with a stick, Cyrus looked up at Jesse and began whistling a little tune, finally flipping over the carcass and causing a fresh shower of sparks to rise up in the air, swiftly taken away by the wind.
The smell of cooked rattle snake entered Jesse's nose and his stomach rumbled. He hadn't eaten anything decent that morning so he was quite hungry and the sight of Cyrus's homemade rattler sauce sent his salivary glands working overtime, the prospect of a decent meal all the more appealing now. Removing a canteen from his belt, he placed two shot glasses on the container and grabbed a large flat rock, bringing it over to the weapons container as a makeshift chair. Using his large hunting knife, Cyrus stabbed the rattle snake and tossed it onto the top of the weapons container, the still hot flesh sizzling as he used a gloved hand to hold the body still and cut away at it. Holding it by the tail, he sliced away at the body in long strips, peeling the oily meat away from the spine and placing the strips before Jesse, who knew what his job was. Jesse grabbed the strips of flesh and ripped away the scaly skin from the muscle, tossing the now useless leather away.
Finally done preparing the meal, Jesse and Cyrus sat down at the container, snake meat deliciously cooked and now crispy if albeit a little black. An eagle screeched and swooped down, hooked talons grabbing both piles of meat and flying away, stealing their work and leaving them to fume in silent fury. Cyrus sighed and then pulled out a harmonica, blowing a soulful tune as the wind slowed and then flat out died down. The heat rose and both gang members started sweating. Something didn't feel right to Jesse; where was the client? Why had they been asked to wait near the weapons cache for several hours? It didn't make sense. The townspeople knew better than to interfere with Deadlock business so there was no danger to the goods the client wanted to buy. The back of Jesse's neck prickled and he slowly went for his revolver, just barely reaching it when a loud crack echoed in the canyon walls, blood spattered Jesse in the face and Cyrus slumped forward, a hole where the side of his face used to be, blood and brain leaking out as his remaining eye stared glassily through the large weapons container. Jesse jumped back, head snapping away from the path of the bullet aimed for him as it zipped past his head and crashed against the orange stone that composed the majority of the canyon wall.
Figures in black armor started rappelling down the sides of the steep cliffs around him and all he could do was get on his knees, hands on his head as he waited to be arrested. Clearly this had been a sting operation and clearly, someone back in Deadlock had been bribed to organize it. Likelier than not it had been the boss who had done this, using some of the best stuff they had as a distraction. A chuckle resonated from one of the agent's near him, the sound muffled as he began cuffing him and roughly making Jesse get up, a snide laugh escaping another agent as he made a quick remark. "Someone got lucky."
Jesse laughed. Luck had indeed had a lot to do with it. He was still grinning when he smashed his head against the helmet of the agent behind him and rolled forward, smashing the handcuff links against a stone, the metal shards spinning wildly in the air as he finished drawing his revolver, unloading it onto the chest of the next agent closest to him, metal bracelet around his hand flashing in the sun as he quickly fanned the hammer of his gun sending six bullets into a burly agent, sending him flying off, blood streaming from six smoking holes on his chest. Throwing himself behind a large boulder, Jesse prepared himself to die in a gunfight, a sad smile on his lips as he reloaded the chamber, shells trailing smoke as they tumbled past his fingers and clinked merrily on the dusty stone floor, the primal song of death dying away quickly as he stood up, almost feeling as if the air had turned to thick syrup, his movements sluggish but nonetheless precise. He stood still, revolver out as he quickly noted the location of the attackers and then faster than the eye could follow, he fired six bullets for six of the agents, the metal slugs spinning quickly and breaking through helmets, cracking bone and destroying whatever lay beneath. For some an eye and the brain and for others a slug of metal neatly through their foreheads; Nonetheless, six agents were dead as Jesse holstered his revolver and looked up at the sky. Airships were flying overhead and more ropes were streaming down the canyon sides. He closed his eyes, expecting the cold kiss of death as that same sharpshooter that had killed Cyrus took careful aim and sent a bullet zipping through his skull at twenty five hundred feet a second. But nothing happened.
Jesse opened his eyes and saw a tall Latino man walking up to him, lips scarred and pressed in a tight line the only sign of his emotional state and Jesse knew it did not bode well for him. Thinking of something he could say that would stall his attackers he didn't see the gloved fist careening at his face, nor did he feel the ground when he slammed against it, eyes losing focus and unsure how he got there before the welcoming darkness took him into her embrace.
Reyes looked at the unconscious form of the young cowboy and then at the eight 'elite' agents that Talon had given him to take the weapons without having to pay. Not that he cared. He might have just found a new recruit… Crouching near the unconscious form of Jesse, Reyes grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him closer, the cowboy's head lolling back and arms flapping down on the dusty floor. Peering closely, scanning for something and to Reyes' satisfaction not finding it, he dropped the youth and stood, fist making a circle in the air as more agents joined in and started attaching support cables to the weapon's container, running scans and confirming that the large metal crate did indeed, contain a great deal of heavy weaponry, ranging from heavy pulse rifles to mounted energy cannons. Reyes oversaw all of this and then turned to a female agent, tapping her shoulder and causing her to almost drop her rifle when she noticed him right next to her. She snapped a salute and stood at attention. "Load him into my ship and set a course in it for Talon HQ." Reyes' rich voice echoed softly in the canyon amidst the hustle and bustle of Talon soldiers. Nodding, she watched as her superior officer left her alone to figure out how in the hells to load the heavier if somewhat younger male by herself.
Meanwhile the weaponry was cataloged on site, evaluated and promptly air lifted into a large cargo ship that thundered over head, cables shooting down to be locked in place by the agents on the ground and lifting the heavy metal box in the air, cables taut and quivering as the vibrations of the cable engines traveled through the interlaced metal. Soon, the box was safely within the belly of the cargo ship and it roared away, the only remnant of its existence the echoes of the thrum generated by the large repulsor engines before those too, faded away.
Jesse groaned and attempted to sit up before a pounding headache convinced him otherwise. Sitting on what seemed to be a metal chair and cuffed to a metal table, he listened attentively for anything that could betray his whereabouts but silence was the only answer to his query. He opened his eyes, casting them around. He was in a cell, like the ones he saw in the cop shows back in the gang recreation room. Off to his right was a mirror, so most likely a one way window for whoever was behind. Raising both hands as far as they could go whilst still cuffed to the table, he aimed them at the mirror and raised twin one-fingered salutes. The door to the cell opened, a large rectangle of the wall that swiveled to let in the same Latino who, Jesse guessed, had knocked him out earlier.
The man carried a chair and placed it near the table, tossing a folder with Jesse's name on it. Silence was king as the man slowly unwound some thread and opened the file, thick with papers it looked like a detailed compendium of Jesse's criminal activities, which of course it was. The man licked his thumb and began passing the pages, the sound deafening in the confined and deathly silent space. Arching an eyebrow at something that caught his attention, the man turned to Jesse after reading the information and saying, "Says here you studied to be a priest."
Jesse was struck. No one knew about that. He had kept it a secret from everyone he ever came across and he was certain that the school he had attended had burned down in the Omnic crisis, all the information it had on its students turned to ashes after a particularly fateful air strike. Jesse swallowed, sweat beading up with nerves. Whoever these people were, they were good at what they did and underestimating them would end in his death, whether he liked it or not and there was no doubt he would not like it. Nodding mutely, the cowboy awaited whatever sentence the man would pass.
All the while, Reyes kept passing pages, using a pen he had in his pocket to annotate on the margins or to underline something that caught his eye. Finally, after ten minutes of silence and letting Jesse simmer in his own stew Reyes took a breath and closed the folder, winding the threat so as to keep it from opening. Pushing it to the side he pocketed his pen and laced his fingers together on the table. Jesse swallowed, heart beating quickly. He was too young to die and he wanted to live life and enjoy its pleasures. Reyes tapped his chin before grabbing Jesse's hat and exiting the room. Now he was furious. No one took Jesse's hat, no one.
Taking a deep breath, Reyes stood behind the one way mirror, the boy's hat in his hand as he observed what the kid would do. Jesse didn't look like much but he had managed to kill eight Talon soldiers so that warranted a closer look. It gave the impression that he was saying something. Flicking a switch to activate the microphones located around the cell, Reyes stood, very impressed at Jesse's vocabulary for English and Spanish swear words that would have made any nun in any catholic school blush and hurry for the bar of soap.
"Give me back my hat pendejo! Lechuzo, harto sopa, guantanamera! Que pareces un cansino! Dame mi somebrero que te voy dar un guantazo en to' los dientes asi a bocajarro, que te bas a despertar in anciano! Tu eres tonto o te has dao un golpe en un pollete?! Te viu dar un guantazo que vas a perder la orientación del espacio-tiempo! Te via dar una torta que nos vamos a morir los dos! Tu de la torta y yo de la onda expansiva!" Indeed, Jesse McCree prided himself in being able to talk smack in several languages but since the man that had taken his hat was Latino, it was a safe bet that he understood Spanish and English. "At least give me back my fucking hat!"
Reyes grinned savagely. This was material for a recruit he could mold into the perfect assassin. Fearless when something was taken from him and brave to the realm of stupidity, but that could be cured. He nodded. This was well worth the price of eight 'elite' agents. Hell, it would be worth a great deal more once this cowboy hick was conditioned to absolute loyalty to Talon. Reyes considered for a moment before exiting, Leaving Jesse to fume and mouth off. He had a resignation to write up.