Break Time

AN: Just a little something to tide over anyone reading this story (all two of you =D). I've been busy. I've got a part-time job at Kroger, and I might get another at the local library. Of course, in the meantime, I've been writing tons of other things. Things that aren't Fan Fiction, so they can't go here.

But screw that, let's get into it.

[1]

Rita woke with a scream. She screamed so loudly and for so long that her throat became raw. She screamed until her eyes began to burn from looking at the cold light of the fluorescent bulbs above. Tears flooded her eyes, making them burn even more—and all the world was a soaked blurry mess.

A soaked mess, like what Jack Kelso had winded up as in the end. Kelso, a practicing Methodist, in a country that had been becoming less religious on and on for the past hundred years (only half the country was Christian nowadays).

Not that it helped him much, Rita Mendoza thought…and kept right on screaming.

In an instant, hands were upon her. Large faces loomed above her. Faces with sunken eyes and blank expressions on their mouths. They wore white coats and Rita had time to think (I've joined the funny farm) before her sleeve was curled up. A narrow line of reflecting light appeared in the air in front of her: a syringe. The doctor holding it was short and stout.

(there is his handle…there is his spout!)

Hands bound her left and right arm. She struggled against them. Not knowing why. Only that she hated them. She hated everything.

"Calm down Ms. Mendoza." The stout doctor said. His eyes were patient. Maddeningly patient. She wanted to take one of her fists and smash it into that calm face.

The doctor put his free hand on the arm and squeezed. A vein—faded blue—appeared on Rita's arm.

Her hands twisted inside the hard grips of the orderlies. She bucked and bounced on the bed she was on. They hadn't strapped her down to the bed. Hadn't felt it necessary, they said.

A thin stream of medicine spurted out of the needle. As it went through the air, Rita thought it looked vaguely purple. Wasn't that funny?

The doctor spoke again, and his voice was slow and deliberate. It was the voice of a surgeon. "I recommend you stop struggling miss."

Rita's wrestling and tussling with the orderlies slowed down, but only a little. The guy on her left was a giant of a man. His grip on her left arm was light. The woman holding Rita's right arm had it in a death grip. She was grimacing at Rita, shouting at her to remain compliant. A regular Napoleon. Just like Rita herself.

"Fucking amateurs!" Rita spat at them. At all of them. "Squeezing my arm?! You don't even have a fucking tourniquet? Not even a damn piece of rubber fucking hose?!"

Rita laughed bitterly at that. Then she began to cry. It was a terrible, pitiable sound. She hated it. She stopped wrestling with the orderlies.

"Be easy lady." The giant said. "Calm down, I mean."

Rita didn't say anything. She felt the groping pinch of the needle.

Then she was riding the darkness again.

[2]

February 1st

[The following are scores from the Battle Zone under the living quarters. Only the scores of active XCOM Divers (neither missing nor confirmed dead) are listed].

Ranked First—Commander Laura Dreyfus

Battle Zone kills: 40.

Stats (out of 100):

Firing Accuracy: 71

Throwing Accuracy: 53

Stamina: 56

Strength: 34

Reactions: 60
Alien kills: 16

Ranked Second—Lieutenant Rachel Henderson

Battle Zone kills: 19

Firing Accuracy: 77

Throwing Accuracy: 33

Stamina: 50

Strength: 24

Reactions: 55

Alien kills: 11

Ranked Third—Lieutenant Tanya Olsen

Battle Zone kills: 26

Firing Accuracy: 59

Throwing accuracy: 75

Stamina: 64
Strength: 67

Reactions: 20

Alien kills: 7

[a bit farther down the list…]

Ranked Eighth—Able Seaman Claude Dreyfus

Battle Zone kills: 6

Firing Accuracy: 58

Throwing Accuracy: 63

Stamina: 70

Strength: 30

Reactions: 74

Alien kills: 8

[near the bottom of the Zone's rank list…]

Seaman Haru Ichiro…

[and below him…]

Seaman Phil Burnell…

[3]

"Interesting stats." said Hugo Urien.

"You're damn tootin'." Kenny Derringer said beside him.

"Do people still say that?"

"You're damn tootin'." Kenny said again.

The two of them were treading at the southern edge of the Battle Zone. The screen where they are looking is on the southern wall. They two of them were facing away from the action because of this, but it was really nothing the two of them hadn't seen before. Occasionally, Kenny turned to the center of the Zone, where Divers were using the typical gas tech XCOM had been regulated to for the past month. Instead of hard, armor-piercing tips, the tips were hollowed out and filled with water-resistant red paint. As Kenny watched, a newbie Diver (or a n00b, as Hugo might've called them) was hit with a paint-round and sent into the wall between the battle-area of the zone and the audience-area. The loud gunshot-sound, made Hugo jump.

"Shit! Scared the crap out of me."

"What the fuck!" the newbie Diver cried out. "That was bullshit!"

"What was bullshit?!" cried out one of the Divers on the green team. "That you weren't paying attention or that someone had to nerve to hit you for it?"

"I was so paying attention." Seaman Phil Burnell said. He wiped away he paint with one hand and placed his other one on the glass wall between him and the Divers Hugo and Kenny. Phil did this to show that he was "out."

Tanya Olsen, green team's leader, came swimming up to him. She looked and sounded pissed. She got up in Phil's face. "No you weren't."

"It's hard to dodge the fucking shots when literally every single other person on the enemy team wants to fire at me and just me!" Phil shouted.

"That's fucking bullshit and you know it." Tanya Olsen said, shoving Phil. Shoving him hard. Phil's back smashed against the glass wall.

"Shit! My back!" Phil cried and, sweet Jesus, he was crying. Bawling like a baby freshly spanked by the doctor that helped birth him. "My back I think you broke it."

He said this as he swam to the sliding metal door that led out.

Tanya started to swim after than him. Then thought better of it. "Get the fuck out of here for I break the rest of you, bitch!"

Kenny rolled back in the water, as though an invisible chair had given out from under him. He put his hands and his belly and gushed laughter. Hugo watched his friend as he flipped through the water.

"Stop that you ass!" Hugo said, but he was laughing himself. He was clutching his own damn sides. Phil Burnell had had plenty of shit to say during bed time in the living quarters (shit about women being in the top three spots on the Zone's rank list). But during all the times he'd been in close proximity to them, he'd been oddly quiet.

"Are you two idiots done?" Tanya Olsen said.

"Are you?" Hugo asked, before he could help it. Bad move, Hugo. She outranked him; that was one thing. The other? She could beat the both of them half to death right now—even in the water—and looked mad enough to do it.

Tanya swam around to the metal door.

Kenny said. "Oh fuck it. We should run."

It was already too late. Tanya had already swum around to their side of the wall.

"What is it?" Hugo said. He sounded afraid. That's because he was.

But Tanya only threw her training rifle at him (they were orange rather than the bright "caution" yellow of most of the other gas weapons). He caught it awkwardly, by the muzzle, and it was inverted in his hands.
"Let's get started." Tanya said. "There's still plenty of work to do."