Theme song: "Til We Die" by Slipknot. Although it doesn't really play while he's out there lol
This one is a lot calmer than the first three. For once, there isn't really any fighting. Hope you guys enjoy! Please remember to review!
Ohio
The temperature was beyond cold. Anytime the wind blew formed minute ice particles on his uniform. Even simply breathing the air hurt. It was a good thing he had such a thick uniform. For he had been sitting there for a long time.
Part of the art of infiltration was knowing your enemy inside and out. In order to successfully get in without making even the slightest change to your surroundings was challenging unto itself. If you didn't know every facet of the place you were going, how could you manage to pull it off?
Tobias was a man of business. He was not in the practice of failure, and completed every objective to the utmost degree. Part of this job was doing less pleasant tasks as fully as if they were the actual job itself. His team could not infiltrate this building without accurate intelligence. He could not gather the intelligence from a warm room with a mug of hot water. (Tobias never drank anything than water of varying temperature.) If that meant that he had to sit out here for the past seven hours in the bitter cold, then he would. It had to be done.
Truth was, he wished he could gather the necessary information from a computer terminal. However that's not why he was hired. All of the intel they were looking for was on a computer somewhere. That somewhere was in this building. And that meant he had to break into this building.
"Toby," a voice said over his comm. "You've been out there a while. Have you not gotten in yet?"
"Don't ever call me 'Toby'," he grunted into his microphone. "And from what I can gather, they're going dark in 10. The team should be able to make a move then."
"You sure?" someone else said over the intercom. "I mean how do you know?"
Tobias's eyes narrowed in anger, although his partners could not see. How long did he have to sit out here to convince them he was right? Was seven hours not long enough? "I know," he replied gruffly.
"Well good," the original voice spoke again. "Get up here. We're going to need you."
Tobias never disobeyed a direct order from his CO. Personally, he would want eyes on the objective at all times, watching to make sure they weren't going to be ambushed. Tobias could sit there for a few more hours if he had to. He didn't mind the cold that much.
However he'd been given a command, and Tobias never disobeyed a direct order. So instead he pulled himself upright, ignoring the cramps in his stiff muscles and the rush of blood to his limbs. "Yes sir."
…
Tobias approached the meeting point on his snowmobile. To be certain he wasn't walking into a trap, he had stopped on the hill overlooking and used his sniper to check that everyone was there. His CO, Lt. Donaldson was watching his troops. There were four of them. Hart was loading extra clips into his belt in preparation. Burke was leaning against one of the snowmobiles. Graham was polishing his pistol. Feeling this was relatively typical behavior before a heist, Tobias had felt comfortable approaching.
"Well well," Burke said, taking a step toward him. "Nice of you to show up, Yeager."
Tobias shot her a glare. "You're welcome, Brenna."
"Both of you be quiet," snapped Donaldson, walking forward. Tobias shot her a look of venom. He and Burke had never seen eye to eye. After spending seven hours every day the last 4 days gathering intel in the killer cold, he would have appreciated her to be a bit warmer.
"Now, the objective is to get in, get the intel, and get out. No games," he added, glancing between Hart and Graham. "Graham, you will be our lookout."
"Yes sir." His arm came up to a salute. Tobias frowned. He was the sharpshooter in the team, not Graham. Shouldn't it be his job to lookout?
"Hart, you and I will be lead," Donaldson said, turning to the older gentleman, who nodded and gave a subtle 'yes sir'. "Yeager, you and Burke will go together. Now listen you two, I know you've never seen eye to eye." This was an understatement. Burke and Tobias had been at each other's throats since day 1. "But you will need to work together to complete this mission. I'm counting on you two to get the intelligence swiftly and safely."
Tobias thought that perhaps Donaldson was being a little unfair. Sure, he and Burke had tried to kill each other numerous times in the barracks, but on the battlefield they made a good team. Great, actually. Her sharp attitude combined with his observational skills made a deadly weapon paired together. And while they definitely hated together, neither of them ever broke an order.
"I'm depending on you," Donaldson added, looking at Tobias with a sort of desperation he always had before a mission.
…
The facility was very tiny, just one building. There was a kitchen area where the workers went to relax, an open common area that connected to 3 shared bedrooms and a single. Down the hall to a lab. Across the hall from the lab was the computer terminal. This was where their objective was.
Tobias threw his back against the wall, looking readily at the door to his right. Across the entryway, Burke nodded. Footsteps resounded against the metal floor, heading their way. Just one set, meaning it was probably the night guard doing his rounds.
It wasn't luck that Tobias had chosen this time to infiltrate. This building had a team of three scientists and four guards, one of which was assigned to patrol the facility at night while the others slept. There was no definitive nighttime this far south at this time of year, but it was close enough when everyone went to sleep. Everyone but this one guy.
The man came into view, padding quietly past without even noticing Burke or Tobias. The latter watched him go past, staring at him in disbelief. Burke silently tread forward, hitting the butt of her weapon into the back of his head. A quick, yet still painful way to eliminate the man.
Without looking back, the two entered the building. They stepped in time, making sure their footsteps matched. That way, if anyone was listening, the would still only hear one set of footsteps.
Over the com, Donaldson spoke. "This is where Hart and I leave you. We'll watch the perimeter, but you're on your own in there. Good luck."
Burke rolled her eyes. "Thanks command. We'll be home soon."
They walked the relatively short distance together, matching pace, until they were at the computer lab. Tobias hung back while Burke crept forward, pointing her weapon and checking first. "Clear," she muttered, lowering her weapon. Tobias took the lead now, entering the room.
There were plenty of computers lying around the room, but Tobias was able to easily identify the one he was looking for. It was the biggest, most impressive looking one. It was also the only one that looked as though the people here bothered with upkeep.
Smirking, he sat down and inserted the memory stick. The data they were looking for was not likely to be lying around without protection. The terminal was already on, and it was password protected. He clicked his fingers against the appropriate keys, pulling up a page with many letters and numbers.
"That stuff's gibberish to me," Burke muttered over his right shoulder. "Do you really understand it?"
"No," he responded sarcastically. "I got hired for my good looks."
"Psst, no wonder you're getting kicked off then," she replied nastily. Tobias ignored her. After a moment filled with only his flying fingers on the keyboard, she spoke again. "So what are we looking at?"
"Security code," he answered shortly.
She waited, as though expecting him to explain more. When he didn't she tried again. "Meaning?"
"It's a three tiered lockdown with a two thousand fifty-six bit encryption key," he muttered. "Not impossible to break, but challenging nonetheless. I'm working on spoofing one of those keys right now."
"Wow," she whistled. "Sounds like a lot of work."
"Get used to it," he said, glancing up at her. "You'll have to learn how to do it when I'm gone."
She sneered unpleasantly. "Why are you transferring out, huh? They could've picked anyone, and they decided on you."
Tobias frowned, typing madly away and thinking. While Burke might have been an ass about it, she had a valid point. Out of all the members on his team, they had chosen him specifically. For what purpose? Why him?
"I mean, if they needed a sharpshooter, they could have taken any one of us."
Tobias wanted to look at her, to see her face. She sounded almost forlorn. What a change from her usual personality. "I guess they wanted a computer programmer."
He hit the last button as he spoke, finishing the encryption and unlocking the data. "Forty-seven seconds to transfer," he said, leaning back in his chair. He swiveled so he met her eyes. They were cold and angry, looking at him as though he had committed a fairly heinous crime. Technically, breaking in here and stealing this information was a crime, but nothing to warrant that look from her. "What did I do this time?" he asked, leaning forward.
"Do you have to go?" she asked at last, sounding both upset and even a bit ashamed. Tobias narrowed his eyes.
"Aren't you happy I'll be out of your hair?"
She snorted. "Of course. And I hope when all is said and done I never see you again. But we're still in our prime, and whether or not we like it, we are a good team."
He blinked, sitting back in his chair. Burke was a person of business as well, one of the reasons they worked so well together. They did not like each other one bit, but that did not stop them from using their's and each other's strengths in field to the utmost. Their ability to get the job done right was what made them exceptional. It sounded like, while Burke did not want to admit it, she did not want him to go. Because if he left, she would lose that dynamic that made her so efficient.
Well she'd just have to find it elsewhere. He most certainly was going to have to.
Not more than two weeks ago he'd been told about this Project Freelancer shit he was going to be involved with. Only less than a week did he get his reassignment order. All it told him was where to be picked up and what not to bring. It didn't say anything about where he was going to be going, who he was going to be answering to, or if he would ever come back from it.
Using his technological skills, he'd done research, limited due to his time in the field on this current mission, on the Project to figure out more. It was run by Director Leonard Church, and the eventual purpose of the program was to work with AI programs in the field. AI were incredibly complex. They were almost impossible to make, and once made, just as difficult to acquire. While AI were not human, they were based on human minds, and if you came across a smart one, they sometimes had real emotions. It was kind of scary, actually.
It was no wonder to Tobias how he'd been chosen over everybody in his team. He was the programmer. If they were working with AI, they'd probably need some of those.
Still, he did not want to think about Burke missing him. It made her less of a tool to him. "Transfer complete," he said coldly, pulling the memory stick out of the computer and closing everything back to the page from before. "Let's get out of here."
"Whatever," she muttered, clearly still burning with envy. "Let's get out of here."
It wasn't an order, not that Tobias would have listened to her orders anyway. But they were on a mission, and she was a good business partner whether he liked her or not. So rather than argue, he let her take the lead and followed her back out into the cold.
Two days. In two days time he would never see her, or Donaldson, or the others again. Two days he would probably be across the galaxy fighting. Who the hell knew where he'd actually be in two days? All he knew was that in two days, his life would change forever.
