...wherein an earlier incarnation of Sarah Walker is further honed from skilled recruit to master spy and begins to learn some ugly truths of her new profession...
Canon Reference: None. First half of a non-canon flashback arc (to be concluded in the next installment before returning to canon). Watch the dates and keep in mind that 'Stacy' is almost / barely nineteen years old throughout.
Content: Two chapters; non-canon flashbacks picking up where Chapter 3 left off (reminder: a woman named Stacy Mills arrives at 'The Facility'); longer than I would have liked or expected and seemingly gratuitous but this side trip has it's purpose(s); the first of the two chapters is super sized (12K) presented in ten(!) sections of varying length while the second is medium length (around 3,400 words in six sections)
A/N: Happy Labor / Labour Day to all!
Sorry to those who don't get to use this story as an excuse to hide in the break room or to pretend you're answering important emails during boring meetings. (Not that I ever do anything of the sort...) You can always save it to read tomorrow if that is your modus operandi. For those not in the US / Canada, we celebrate (i.e., get a free pass from work on) Labor / Labour Day on the first Monday in September whereas much of the rest of the world observes a similar holiday on various earlier dates in the year. And for the record, even though I use the slightly more economical, far less elegant American versions, I secretly prefer and angered my grade-school teachers to no end with the British / Canadian spellings of 'u'-words (labour, colour, favourite...). They're fancier.
Warnings Revisited (aka Cage Match with a Dead Horse): I had a long, preachy-yet-simultaneously-apologetic note all teed up here but then I remembered my initial warnings closing by saying "I will let the story tell the story". So simply be aware that this installment and part of the next will cover seduction training / IIEP before circling back to canon. I have some strong opinions about the concept in general but equally strong and somewhat contradictory opinions on the usage of it in spy fiction (the tropes of which CHUCK leverages heavily) that I hope I can effectively convey.
Trigger warnings: The important thing is that this installment contains non-explicit (and even this compromise feels a bit like minimizing a horrible thing) but still potentially unsettling reference to a rape, a pattern of rape and more than one attempted rape. Its like medieval literature. I wasn't deliberately trying to put all the awful in one place but here we are. For those without strong aversions its probably not anywhere near as bad as I'm making it out to be. Miraculously, still T-rated. Multiple characters will offer their own takes on seduction training and its preferred role on missions and really, really horrible people.
In case you don't want to miss anything: As a human being, I personally dislike the entire concept behind these chapters but feel it and it's fallout are necessary to lay a foundation and tell the story I am telling. Like many other elements (such as adherence to canon, which IMO actually requires that this be addressed) it is a challenge to myself and, if it is to be done at all, I have to participate. You do not. For those who choose to opt out, I will provide a brief summary of key events at the beginning of the next installment. Things will lighten up a bit after the next several installments.
Some may also find it troubling that I'm still laying foundations.
Also, the structure got really weird with a personal pet-peeve, flashbacks within flashbacks (actually, I pulled a triple! Flashbacks cubed! With a drug trip of sorts - bonus!), but it seemed the cleanest, most expedient way and I think it works. My apologies if not. There is an attempt at writing a particular dialect so any misspellings between these thingies (") is probably intentional.
And - just for one loyal reader - this chapter actually does contain a 'deliberate barn'. (Actually, I knew that it would at the time of the first accidental 'deliberate barn' which made it even funnier to me.)
Disclaimers / Easter Eggs: No ownership of or rights to CHUCK is asserted or implied. Additionally, no ownership of or rights to Alice in Wonderland, The Hunger Games, The Blues Brothers, Gattaca, popular soft drinks, any Tom Clancy novel, or the mother of all Pixar Easter Eggs is asserted or implied. No ownership of or rights to the song referenced by Tears for Fears is asserted or implied. (I favor the original but the Lorde version is pretty awesome too, as is the version by a pop-punk / riot grrl band with one of the best names evah: Care Bears on Fire...)
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Part X: Chrysalis
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025: Down The Rabbit Hole
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"Welcome to your life..."
- Tears for Fears, Everybody Wants to Rule the World
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The Facility - Classified Secondary Training Site
Near Camp Peary, York County, VA; Sat Apr 14, 2001 5:55 pm
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Stacy Mills knew they had reached their destination only when the car stopped, the engine shut off and she heard the door locks disengage. She heard the trunk open and decided to check her own door handle. It opened freely and she extricated herself from the rear seat of the Town Car with windows darker from the inside than they were from the outside and a completely opaque partition between the passenger's and driver's cabins. She stepped out into a relatively cool spring evening and looked around at the eight old farm buildings scattered about the large open space.
Her driver had stopped the car, removed her luggage from the trunk and then simply stood at parade rest by the front passenger-side door facing a building that appeared to be nothing more than an old, weathered barn over a hundred yards away. She took the hint and moved to join the barrel-chested man and as she did the sun caught something metallic in the upper window of one of the buildings to her right. She looked around and was certain she saw a tiny movement in another building to her left. A window was open in another building behind her.
She was standing in a kill zone.
"Stop looking." the driver offered. "And don't run. You won't get ten feet."
Her heart was racing but she turned to face where her driver was looking and saw a figure emerge from the barn.
The man walking toward them seemed a match for the barn, slightly built with khaki overalls over a red and black checked shirt and a black flap ear cap. He walked with a pronounced limp, favoring his right leg, and his bushy, grey mustache hid the expression of his mouth as well as the brim of his hat hid that of his eyes.
He carried what appeared to be a modified Mossberg 930 at the ready in front of him. It had been roughed up a bit to match his overall look but the difference between it and the double-barreled breech loader the stereotype demanded was enough of an incongruity to make you notice that this man was not the hayseed he was attempting to portray. When he stopped four feet in front of them it was clear there was nothing casual or laid-back about this man especially the piercing alertness of his eyes.
"Harrison." he acknowledged the driver. Whether this was a first or last name was unclear but his gaze had not left the woman next to the driver until after he said it.
"Caretaker." he acknowledged back. "Got another one for you."
"Jesus." said the man with the shotgun as he glanced back at the female recruit briefly then looked back to her driver. "They keep gettin' younger and younger. Or I keep gettin' older. Stay fer a spell?"
"You're definitely getting older - more so than the rest of us - but I can't. Rain check?"
"Sure jus' drop in anytime. With 48 hours advance notice an' the proper orders, o'course."
Harrison scoffed at that but offered a tell-tale paper bag to Caretaker who cradled his shotgun between his armpit and wrist as he rolled the bag tightly against the bottle inside and tucked both into his back pocket. As he did so his shirt moved unnaturally and Stacy saw light body armor underneath. With a closer look at his flap-eared hat she realized it concealed a tactical radio. At least she knew no one would act without this man's order.
"Yer a good man Harrison." Caretaker said in return for his package before addressing the blonde woman. "Mills?" he asked.
"Yes, sir." It seemed the appropriate answer but he visibly reacted with a half-snarl, half-cringe.
"Sure you are." he acknowledged cryptically, then turning to her driver. "Better get her settled. See you Harrison."
Harrison turned to recruit Stacy Mills and looked at her properly for the first time with an indecipherable expression most closely resembling pity. "Good luck, Miss."
"Umm...thanks?"
The man whose first or last name may or may not have been Harrison nodded to her, rounded the Town Car and got back in, turned ninety degrees in reverse and then the remaining ninety degrees to return in the direction from which he came leaving a faint cloud of dust in his wake.
"You'll have to forgive Harrison..." she turned to see the man that Harrison had referred to simply as 'Caretaker' and looked down to see the barrel of his shotgun pointed directly at her stomach "...not much of a talker, that one. D'you know why yer here?"
"I'm...some sort of deep cover training?"
"And yer up for that?" his expression was hard as stone and lacked any of the pity Harrison had shown.
It kind of pissed her off so she answered somewhat indignantly "I've been training my ass off for almost three years. It's about time I did something with it."
"Hmm." He harumphed and took a moment to scrutinize her closely before simultaneously softening his expression and taking two steps backward while keeping his shotgun trained on her midsection. He was still close enough that - depending upon what it was loaded with - one shot would pretty much cut her in half easily but he had moved out of hand-to-hand range.
"What?" she asked in response to his strange change in posture as he reassessed her probable age and threat level.
"Nuthin'. Made some unfair assumptions is all. Ya see...some that come here, this is the first training - first real training - they get. Grab yer bags and head for that barn. I'll be right behind you."
She did as instructed but an unknown man with a shotgun behind her was making her uncomfortable. "Want to tell me why I'm being walked in here at gunpoint?"
"Sorry." She could almost hear the indifference of an unseen shrug. "Like I said, unfair 'sumptions. I don't know where you come from. And I don't wanna know. Some don't know what they're gettin' into until they're sent here. Some of 'em freak out. You say yer trained so prolly none of that but then again...yer trained. So I gotta be careful if you do freak out. Its a circle I don't care to follow huntin' for its start or end. Maybe yer a true believer. Gonna save the world. Maybe yer just another thrill junkie. Maybe you got yerself press ganged into being here. Maybe you jus' got nowhere else to go..."
When they reached the regular-sized access door in the right door of the barn's two large outer doors he nodded toward it and she opened it as indicated and stepped through. As she did so she considered that of the multiple choice motivations he proposed for her all were true to one degree or another.
Caretaker followed and continued. "...I seen all kinds step through that hatch. But I don't make those calls. I just get you checked in. And if you run..." he nodded back to the door and now that her eyes had adjusted to the light from the four exposed bulb lamps hanging down the length of the center rafter she saw the M40 sniper rifle next leaning against the wall just inside the door "...I bring you back. One way or t'other. That's what I do here when I'm not playin' doorman. A few recruits get a hall pass and get to go out to learn the long shot. Some hall passes for other stuff too, 'specially for the ones pretty as you. If yer one of Graham's with that much training we'll prolly see each other again."
Something about this whole interaction confused her as he closed up the barn and gestured for her to follow him toward the back. "Wait a minute. Don't you know my training? Have a file on me or something?"
"Nope. Don't know. Don't wanna know. That's the whole point of this place. No files since you an' me an' e'ryone else here - well, we ain't here. Yer a blank slate as far as anyone here is concerned. You'll get asked about what you can and cant do - yet. We'll set your training and we'll go from there. Don't sandbag, we'll know. Don't exaggerate... that would be bad."
"What if I'm not even Stacy Mills?"
"Well, if that's the case, yer pretty much fucked. But I'm pretty sure yer not Stacy Mills. And Stacy Mills isn't gonna be the woman walking out of this facility either. People go in, agents come out. You jus' make sure you do what you gotta do so you walk outta this...facility. Shit, now I'm sayin' it. Anyway, got anything in that bag yer gonna need?"
"Well, clothes, toothbrush, makeup..."
"Anything personal? Irreplaceable? Pichers? Mementos or such? You'll have every practical thing you need waiting for you in your room."
"No...nothing like that." Lydia had been given one photo of a flight training class that had been confiscated and the person who had taken it had received a severe reprimand. Annabelle had to leave all of her belongings in her campus apartment to be cleaned out after her 'death'. Even the foreign language books she had collected and studied years before her first meeting with Deputy Director Graham. Sloan had been a complete fabrication that required very little effort to vanish completely. Stacy was literally born yesterday. And the young woman underneath all of them hadn't bothered with anything resembling a memento in a long, long time.
"Alright then." he reached out a hand, palm up, for her belongings and she handed them over. He opened the door and pulled the chain of a bare light bulb inside and placed her bag and purse in a cubby hole with the number "6" prominently hung over it.
She saw several numbered cubby holes with a variety of luggage in most of them - bags of all types and sizes. Duffle bags, plastic trash bags, regular travel luggage like hers, Louis Vuitton and other designers...all of which she assumed belonged to her fellow residents. Only then did she wonder exactly where she would reside.
"Umm...do I sleep in the barn?"
"In a manner o' speaking." he answered cryptically - secretly impressed that she didn't seem too concerned if that had been the case - and gestured for her to follow him to the last stall.
He swept the hay on the floor away with his foot to reveal a circle in the floor four feet in diameter and stepped toward the outer wall. He pressed his thumb against an undetectable portion of the wall and a small metal door opened. After he bent at the waist to use the retinal scanner inside and entered a code, a seal released on the circle in the floor and after a few moments it began to rise.
It was the top of a large acrylic cylinder, seven feet tall and a little smaller on each side than the outline in the floor had indicated, began to slowly rise out of the floor. A thick circular top was supported by four vertical posts equally spaced at the 45 degree marks. When it fully emerged the quarter of the tube extended outward and spun 90 degrees to allow entry - from the front two supports to one in the rear - and a green light illuminated the inside.
"Thumb print here, please."
She pressed her thumb to the indicated reader and it too illuminated green. She assumed that meant she had been identified as the agent they had been expecting. Or if someone had taken Stacy Mills' place it was that person's thumb that was now required.
"Alright, Mills. Welcome to The Facility. Folks used to call it The Barn for obvious reasons but...well, you'll see. Follow the green lights. After you get through any door with a green light, let it close, find the reader and thumb-in so the system knows you entered and you'll be all good. It'll feel like a prison but it's all meant to keep you deep cover operatives safe. Don't want you seein' each other. You'll meet instructors as needed but we're careful with the other recruits. I get to see everyone because of my sunny disposition."
"And because you'll drop them if they run."
"Well there's that. I know I wouldn't want someone I hadn't looked in the eye taking me out. Seems fittin'. But we ain't all bad." and he held up a cartridge roughly the size of a shotgun shell but with an electric blue casing and twenty or so needle-like points at the tip.
"Tranqs?"
"Yep. You only come here if someone's got a use for you. And we don't waste people with uses lightly. But I'm afraid yer goin' underground one way or t'other. And yer gonna be there for a while. Most are out in six months or so. If ya been wond'rin what you signed up for...this is it."
It was clear she was meant to step into this tube. She did so reluctantly and the door closed behind her. She turned to face the man called 'Caretaker'. She could still hear him faintly as she placed her hands on both sides of the tube as it began to descend.
"You'll be alright. Just keep your head down and do what yer told. And don't freak out." He offered her a surprisingly kind smile as he disappeared out of view and the elevator, for lack of a better term, was surrounded on all sides by unforgiving concrete with a rail on either side roughly where her hands were placed that had apparently engaged the top and bottom once they were below the surface.
There was a vent in the ceiling but she didn't feel any air flow or see where any air could conceivably come from. It was like being buried alive - or swallowed by a whale - and her breathing became slightly erratic as she realized she had no idea how long it would be before her crypt reopened.
Or if it ever would.
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The Facility, Underground; Sat Apr 14, 2001 6:20 pm
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The thirty-foot descent took less than a minute but, when the circle around her feet became more brightly illuminated as more and more of the elevator encroached into the stark white hallway, she prayed this was her destination and she would be able to exit on this level.
The elevator stopped once its floor was level with the floor outside and she slipped through the opening while the door was still opening. Sure enough, at the end of the short hallway was a door with a green light illuminated in the ceiling above it. There was a thick binder labelled 'Recruit Handbook' on a shelf in the wall. Assuming the elevator counted as a door she pressed her thumb to the pad above the shelf. As she did so she thought a tag with the words 'Read Me' would have completed the visual. Out of curiosity, she flipped it open to one of the first pages and glanced over it.
...Potential clandestine and deep cover agents are not to be permitted contact with one another within this Facility to preserve future operational integrity... All training personnel with access to the Facility are heavily vetted and monitored to reduce such risks... for the duration of your stay in this Facility, personal interactions will be kept to a minimum... Read the remainder of this handbook to familiarize yourself with the procedures and practices required of all personnel within this Facility...
In her peripheral vision she saw the green light over the door began to flash. She glanced around and when she looked up she saw vents like the one inside the elevator spaced at regular intervals along the hallway. Red indicator lights illuminated on the ones above her with a corresponding click. Then the next pair of vents did the same. Then the next. And she decided it would be prudent to move along.
She didn't want to see what came after a flashing green light. She had the unsettling thought that it wouldn't take much to turn this place into an abattoir.
The door opened up in the middle of another longer hallway. She pressed her thumb to the pad by the door which had illuminated once the door she had entered through latched. Down the hallway to her right she saw another green light begin flashing almost immediately. She followed it quickly and the next was solid green. She kept up her pace for one more turn and found a green light over a door labelled with a number "6".
She barely processed that there was a sign over the door between her room and room number "8" labelled "6-10 showers" as she slipped into what was apparently her home for the foreseeable future and pressed her thumb against the pad next to the door. The word 'Hold' appeared and continued to flash on the top part of the pad as the door closed. She continued to hold her thumb against the pad as the light above the door blinked red three times and she heard an audible click as the word 'Hold' disappeared from the pad.
She had locked herself in and felt both trapped and relieved. The air vents were blowing cool air and at least externally didn't look anything like the contraptions in the ceiling throughout the corridors on her way here.
She pressed her thumb against the pad again and nothing happened as she looked around to see only a simple U-shaped pull handle on her side of the door and no light switches. She looked around to see a full size bed, a small desk and chair, a stainless steel toilet and small sink protruding from the wall and a small wardrobe.
A quick check of the wardrobe revealed grey tees, black tanks, tights, sweatpants and cargo pants, sports bras and utilitarian underwear, socks and shoes - all properly sized - and a bag of basic toiletries. The room was twice as wide as what she would expect of a prison cell but no more inviting. There was a pull-up bar against the wall opposite her bed and what looked like a larger version of an old-fashioned sliding bank teller drawer next to the door.
A screen above the drawer illuminated and displayed a schedule for the remainder of the night. There were instructions for various exercises with notations like 'any number consecutive' and 'at least 50 consecutive'. There was a time for meal delivery and a fifteen minute window for showering after that before lights out. She assumed the overhead lights were centrally controlled but was pleased to find there was a small reading light at the desk that she could control.
She ignored her calisthenics for the moment, turned the desk light on, sat cross-legged on the bed and opened the handbook.
Most everything at The Facility was underground. As the handbook passage she had sneaked a look at earlier had revealed it was intended for small classes of prospective deep cover operatives while limiting their exposure to other recruits. The unwritten reasoning was that the washout rate was high and if washouts were to be permitted to be assigned to other roles they were not allowed to have seen any other recruits who might later depend upon complete anonymity. Even mixing successful recruits was a risk if one were later captured or defected.
The run down buildings visible upon Stacy's arrival appeared to roughly define the footprint of each underground complex but below the first level many of them joined up to form larger areas. They were labelled on the diagram with a letter and number but no indication of their intended purpose.
She had been correct to hurry along at the flashing green lights. They were a thirty second warning before the section occupied by a dawdling recruit was sealed and flooded with knockout gas. There was no indication of what happened next or how many infractions resulted in punishment of some kind. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you were deliberately knocked out here it wouldn't be completely unjustified to wonder if you might never wake.
You would go where you were told when you were told and do what you were told when you got there. This place was designed to ensure compliance and given her welcoming party of impersonal green lights she didn't want to think about what failure to adhere to the rules could mean.
The drawer slid out and almost immediately back in. When it returned there were two bottles of water - even though there was a cup at the sink - and a tray of relatively palatable if bland food covered in shrink wrap on top of a ten page questionnaire covering a variety of skills. The concern that either food or water or even the air she was breathing could be drugged entered her mind but there wasn't much that could be done about that. She extracted the drawer's contents and moved them to the desk while she completed her assigned exercises - sit ups all in one go, full push-ups in two sets and pull ups one and two at a time - before the green light allowed her to exit her room and go next door for her shower time.
When she returned she ate and finished reading through the handbook at her small desk. If she ever had occasion to interact with anyone who knew of it, it would become clear that there was no cleverness associated with the nickname ascribed to this place by those select few who passed through this...Facility.
The word 'Facility' was simply always capitalized and appeared as many as three hundred times in the forty page handbook.
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The Facility, Underground; April/May 2001
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The first few weeks consisted entirely of increasingly brutal physical conditioning and multiple evaluations. She had met with a conditioning and strength coach who had put her through a few exercises to assess any weak points, alluding to but making no concession for her gender, and taught her how to use any equipment with which she was unfamiliar. Thereafter she reported dutifully to whichever of the small gyms she was assigned.
Physical Training was abbreviated PT on her schedule, wardrobe requirements were assigned and whoever was responsible for her prescribed workouts was clearly a sadist. Some sessions she knew were observed through ever present one-way glass while others were entirely unsupervised. Failure to keep up with self-directed endurance training in those sessions was easily detected by their trainers later in the program.
The glass itself implied observation rooms not present on any diagram of The Facility she had seen which in turn implied a completely unseen network of access points and tunnels. The ever present green lights and other herding mechanisms provided a constant reminder of her vulnerability and she wondered what kinds of safeguards existed on the other side of the glass. If she smashed the glass could she make her way to the surface? Only thoughts of her father's well-being and a complete lack of any destination after accomplishing such a fear kept her from attempting it.
She ran a total of ten miles on a treadmill every day with a pace that was approaching 'acceptable' and abused a heavy bag and lifted weights on alternating days. She was pleased with how quickly she was gaining strength and continued to embrace the athleticism awakened in her prior trainings. She had thought she was in good shape until she had been taught a few basic moves using a kettlebell followed by a prescribed routine building up to sprints of one-armed snatches that occasionally left her puking in the corner.
She used to despise the treadmill but now she looked at it longingly.
During the same period, she had answered questions truthfully about all of the languages that she now spoke and was rewarded with three solid weeks of lengthy twice daily sessions of language assessment in most of those languages. For nearly the first month all she did was train and talk. It seemed unnecessary but her evaluators all had extensive experience in regions where those languages were spoken and offered invaluable small adjustments and regional quirks while evaluating her believability in various cover scenarios.
She self-reported her proficiency with firearms - the only areas she didn't claim 'highly proficient' as her level of capability were long-range and heavy weapons - and self-reported her martial arts proficiency. After practical qualifications with a few disbelieving then incredulous evaluators she had been assigned a recurring block of range time for one firearm of her choosing (a S&W 5906 she had come to favor despite it being heavier than the rest of the 5900 variants), two that the instructors rotated and various assault rifles - also instructors choice.
When she filled out the martial arts questions she had to write on the back of the paper. She had wiped the mat with one of the instructors in her first assessment. She had then been told to limit herself only to the discipline being tested and did it again. It wasn't until later that she realized what a bad idea that might have been but she had been told not to hold back.
It was mid-May, two days after that sparring session, when she had shown up in the designated room for an abbreviated PT session only to find a small room with one single solitary piece of gym equipment. Her nemesis: a 26-ish lb. hunk of iron - a cannonball with a handle - and her goal written on the wall: "200 one-armed snatches; 15 minutes; pause / stop as needed". She quickly calculated in her head that, without stopping, it would be a pace of one every five seconds or so.
She had to start her own timer and resented the stolen few seconds. She had looked for some kind of sensor in the walls or ceiling but someone behind the glass must have been incrementing the counter next to the timer on the wall because any imperfect lift did not count. She was determined not to pause and show them what she was made of. Instead she puked twice and fell to one knee when the timer expired. She sat legs out trying to stretch out her hamstrings and relax her shoulders finding the counter at 172 but determined to finish next time.
It became a weekly torture and the second time her plans were thwarted when the timer was set to count down from 14 minutes instead of 15 and someone had painted a cartoonish demon face on the kettlebell. Just eyes with a sunken brow, triangular jack-o'-lantern teeth and horns extending onto the handle on one side of the bell. The other side had a single word: 'Faster!'.
She looked at the demon staring at her feet and muttered "I hate you".
She wasn't sure if she was talking to the demon-bell or the owner of the laughter from behind the one-way glass. But she gripped the demon-bell by its handle and started the timer - trying and failing for a pace that would meet her goal. She realized at the eight minute mark that she was hopelessly off pace but persisted and, at the eleven minute mark, emptied her stomach. As punishments went for upstaging instructors this was a pretty good-natured one.
She was already highly proficient at many of the topics on her schedule but her proficiency at hand-to-hand combat had definitely not gone unappreciated. After multiple assessments she was assigned several standing blocks of sparring time - some with a thin black mask the wearer could see and breathe through relatively well. When she saw her opponent wearing a similar mask - unlike her assessments with most instructors - she realized she was sparring with other recruits.
She originally thought they wanted her to get beat on and she fought within the prescribed parameters and styles of the session against usually much stronger male opponents beating all soundly and most quickly.
It became clear that her opponents were not nearly as well trained as her, especially the other women. She took extra care with the more timid of them, slowing down to pantomime moves, and encouraging her intended opponents to mirror her demonstration of them. Speaking was forbidden unless it was via a whispered message to an unmasked instructor who relayed the message. She was surprised to find that the sense of satisfaction she felt from learning new things had a parallel sense of satisfaction in teaching them to others. She was more than pleased to see all of her opponents improve significantly.
She assumed it was for the benefit of the less-trained opponents but, when they were dismissed and the evaluators referred to her opponent as 'recruit' and her as 'sensei', she took it for the compliment it was and embraced her status as a pseudo-instructor.
Explicit compliments were rare but this implied one was worth every bit of increasingly grueling PT - even the demon-bell where the timer had been moved to 12 minutes. Her count within that reduced time held relatively steady and the goal seemed no closer than it had the first time.
Even with her successes, she felt like she had a lot to prove and a lot left to learn about how to actually be a spy. She answered a few more questionnaires. This time about technical skills such as electronics and lock-picking. It was clear they really had not been briefed on her prior training. She was expected to go through every topic again and check every box proving her proficiency.
There were other questions about additional weapons where she listed herself as an expert on thrown knives - the highest level of proficiency on their scale. Considering she had not described herself as an expert an any fighting styles word spread quickly. She couldn't know that it was standing room only in the observation room for her demonstration but she also couldn't help but grin and bow afterward to the mirrored glass at the applause of those being deliberately loud enough to be heard though it.
There had also been a questionnaire mixed in with others labelled simply 'IIEP' that she initially thought was some psychological assessment until it ventured into increasingly personal and graphically sexual questions. She opted to simply leave these blank.
Later in the week her monitor was updated with revised schedule for the next week and she scrolled through it for changes. She smiled when she saw no evaluations. There were finally several sessions a week with more interesting names like 'Spycraft' or 'Tactics' and she smiled wider upon seeing an entry for Thursday morning labeled 'Real Shooting - Topside Range'.
She also cringed when she saw a half-hour entry for early afternoon on Tuesday labeled 'Meet and Greet'. The words themselves seemed harmless but she was reminded of the bizarre and insulting questions when she saw the acronym next to them.
'IIEP'
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The Facility, Woods and Grounds; May 2001
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The air had never smelled sweeter.
She had lugged two sniper rifles - a modified M24 slung over her shoulder and a massive M82A1M broken down in a hard case - and a loaded pack through the woods following the man she had not seen since he greeted her when she had first arrived. He apparently had some sort of range set up nearby. He was limping ahead of her carrying a third rifle - the M40 she had seen the first day - and a pack full of ammo while she lumbered behind him. She was sweating her ass off but smelling the pine scent in the air, feeling the sun warm her skin in the clearings and the breeze cooling her skin under the shade of the pines she wasn't about to complain.
She had been herded to the same tube she used to enter the Facility and Caretaker had been waiting for her when she emerged at the top. He had traded his ridiculous greeting outfit for combat boots, camo cargo pants, a black t-shirt with USMC emblazoned on its front in yellow letters and an OD green military cap. It was identical to the outfit that had appeared in her wardrobe shortly after her schedule had been updated last week except her shirt was plain and her cap had no insignia. She had been trained to recognize the ranks of military personnel in almost any country and recognized his as that of a gunnery sergeant. That was how she greeted him when she stepped out of the tube.
He had figured he wouldn't have to correct this one and smiled at being properly addressed. Most called him 'Sir' - as she had on her first day not knowing any better at the time - and got the automatic verbal smack for it. She was sharp as a tack and tough as old leather despite her looks. He knew a good one when he saw them.
"Heard you passed your pea-shooter tests, Mills. Since you did alright there thought you might want to try a real weapon. If yer up for a little hike."
She stifled her retort about just doing 'alright' or any of those weapons being anything but a pea-shooter at the smile on his face and the prospect of spending more time outside. "Sounds good to me, gunnery sergeant."
It was more than a little hike with the load she was carrying but they eventually came to long clearing running north-south that probably looked a bit like a golf fairway from above. There were remote controlled targets at varying distances and once she proved she had a basic familiarity with the weapons they had brought with them he assigned a few test shots without any additional instruction. Anything over a thousand yards had been less than impressive but he didn't seem surprised.
He opened the pack she had carried and removed a small cooler. Lunch was a gourmet affair - two bologna sandwiches for each of them with processed American cheese, mayonnaise, mustard and tomatoes. He smiled at her and gave her a choice of beverage. "Since you toted our lunch out here it's ladies choice. I got us both kinds of soda."
Apparently Coke and Mountain Dew were the only two kinds of soda. She hadn't had the sugary beverage in a long time but chose the more familiar one from her childhood and left the toxic yellow one for him which he seemed quite pleased with.
The food in The Facility wasn't particularly good or bad. It was all proper portions and specifically balanced nutritional content and a grand total of four possibilities. She would never have chosen bologna but sitting here in the sun it was heavenly.
They sat in silence until he mumbled through a mouthful of sandwich "The instructors been talkin' 'bout you." She looked surprised to hear that and he continued. "They come up and visit with me sometimes before they head home. I been pushin' to get you a hall pass to come up and play a bit."
"Why's that?"
"Observed some of your training and knew you were ready. And prolly gettin' a little bored. But mostly 'cause yer different. Most yap about their fancy degrees or what a hot shit they are in one way or another. You just go about your business. Don't gripe much. Try to outdo yourself 'stead of worrying about what anyone else might be doing. I like it. Shows backbone. Gumption."
Other recruits. They had actual degrees and had lived actual lives before committing to the Program. She suspected as much and envied them somewhat for all of that but would never let on. She didn't want to share that she did think about how she stacked up against other recruits. She was determined to show that she was just as good - just as worthy - as any of them. And better than most. While they had experienced college life as most would envision it, she had bought proficiencies they would never achieve. All it had cost her in exchange was the last few years of her childhood.
They spent the rest of their lunch covering the basics of the gunnery sergeant's craft. Wind adjustments. Humidity effects. How, after multiple shots, the barrel of a rifle heats up, the metal contracts slightly and the shell is propelled faster than usual. Even the Coriolis effect where the longest of long shots require an adjustment for the rotation of the earth itself.
They continued his instruction as he acted as her spotter and patiently offered minor corrections while reviewing the need for each correction. He rarely had to make the same correction twice. Her hit count on the intermediate targets had doubled over the course of their session and her technique was substantially improved.
"Welp. We're all out of ammo Mills but I think you earned yourself another session next week if you want to try the next set o' targets."
"Hell yeah..." slipped out of her mouth before she corrected "...gunnery sergeant." He chuckled knowing it was as much about getting outside as it was shooting. He had seen more than one recruit crack underground. As they packed up he asked how things were going in her other training sessions.
She talked as they hiked back and mentioned all but one and, although he knew his position on the matter wasn't exactly the company line, he had to ask.
"Meet Peterson yet?"
"Yeah." she said thoughtfully before correcting herself "Umm...yes, gunnery sergeant."
"Oh, drop it. You shoot like a real Marine but I'll let you off the hook anyways. Since we don't have names here just don't use one and I'll stop insulting our intelligence by calling you 'Mills'. I'll bend a few rules but I know the deal on real names. Hows about you jus' call me 'Gunny' and since you ain't got no rank I'll call you 'Recruit' and we'll both know what it really means? Deal?" She agreed and he continued "So, how'd that go?"
Recruit Mills smiled knowing the level of respect and acceptance that had just been offered to her just by telling her to call him 'Gunny'. It was similar to being called Sensei even slightly facetiously in the dojo. Her pride caused her to wonder briefly if any other recruits - the ones with the fancy degrees and more conventional upbringing - were given the same inherent compliment before responding.
"Well, I didn't know what to expect. My schedule just said IIEP and the questionnaire I filled out that was labelled IIEP was pretty...rude...so I left a lot of it blank..."
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The Facility, Annex, Room A113; May 2001
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She arrived promptly at 2:00 pm and thumbed in as the door latched closed. She had entered what turned out to be an unoccupied room turned office in a portion of the Facility not shown on the map in her handbook. The door she passed through had said "Annex" which she supposed accounted for the "A" and room arrows on the walls implied over thirty rooms.
A quick look around showed an attempt to add some sort of personalization. There was a basic low cabinet by the back wall with a matched pair of samurai swords and a few pictures of small groups of various military personnel hung on the wall. There were a few books on the shelves and several packing boxes behind the desk. Besides the desk chair the only seat in the room was an apartment sized leather couch.
As she sat to wait the door opened and the man who entered apologized for being late. "Sorry. Let me just..." and he pocketed an access card of some kind and thumbed-in as she had and the door latched. "Good. Just the two of us for a bit then. Mills was it?"
She had stood back up and stood with her hands folded in front of her and just nodded in response, not sure what to expect but noticing the charming smile he flashed and beginning to appreciate the fact that she was in an isolated and unfamiliar area of the Facility. He was tall and well built. Sort of ruggedly handsome but not really her cup of tea with cropped black hair and dark brown, almost-black eyes. He moved to the low cabinet and, after searching through the cabinets with a heavy sniff as though he had a cold, he stood and lit a small tea light candle underneath a small copper bowl and the room filled with a thick, spicy scent.
"Right. Still airing this place out and my allergies are killing me. I'm just getting settled but I wanted to have a chat with all of my recruits to see what we're working with."
He took his time as he gestured to the couch and she retook her seat. He continued to take his time as he retrieved a sheaf of papers from a desk drawer before joining her on the couch.
My recruits. He had been perfectly pleasant thus far and she didn't know why but she was already uncomfortable with him. She felt a minor itching sensation in her arms that alternated between the feel of crawling spiders and goosebumps. She didn't like the way he grinned when she shifted to move a little further from him. It was as though her mild discomfort amused him.
"So Stacy...do you mind if I call you Stacy?" She just shook her head slightly while she tried to figure this guy out. "My name is Agent Peterson. But you can call me Jason in here."
His wolffish grin only reminded her that the door was secured until their session was over. Twenty four minutes to go.
"So, IIEP?" she prompted with a slight clearing of her throat. The acronym had been the only warning she had been given about what she might be walking into today.
"Infiltration and Inducement of Enemy Personnel." he offered, clearly pleased to be launching into a well-rehearsed monologue. "Do you know which of those words is most important Stacy?"
There was still something about this conversation that was making her feel a little hazy and more than a little frightened.
"Inducement. You and I are going to be working on getting people who should be suspicious of you to do whatever you want them to do."
"Like running cons on people?" she held out some hope that this might not be as bad as she thought.
"Sort of." Agent Peterson continued as he leaned a little closer and lowered his voice. "That's definitely part of it. But we want you to be able to use every tool at your disposal. Your life - your very survival - may depend upon it." At the idea of survival her eyes flicked back to the door and she simultaneously felt a little warm and a little queasy. The trapped feeling was settling in more than the first night when she had realized she was locked in her own room.
Peterson shifted closer. "Your appearance - the way you carry yourself and interact with men - those are all tools you need to embrace as part of your arsenal. That's what you and I are going to be working on. People also call it 'Seduction School'. The CIA maintains three locations off and on. There were once three of us but the others moved on. So they move me around and someone decided to gather a class of recruits here. I am very good at what I do. I wouldn't be here if I didn't know what I was talking about. And I understand you are an excellent pupil, isn't that so, Stacy?"
Stacy's face fell. She didn't want to seduce anyone into anything. It was one of the reasons she had put her foot down about getting out of the con game with her father. And the whole exchange had her feeling like she had in high-altitude paratroop training. They had forced them each to go two minutes without an oxygen mask until they could reasonably manage it without losing their balance or having a full on panic attack at the inability to breathe. "I suppose so Agent Peterson." was all the response she could muster.
"Please Stacy. Call me Jason." he said smoothly as he put some distance between them and reclined on the other end of the couch. He had read her initial discomfort and moved away to observe her reactions as he continued. She was trying to breathe normally while Jason described motivations for male behavior and how they could be exploited. It was honestly nothing different than Stacy herself had witnessed as a juvenile con artist. Most men were pretty simple and predictable. But she had never envisioned herself being part of a discussion quite like this in a place from which she could see no escape.
As he droned on the air became thicker and she could only think of the first time she had been subjected to anything close to what he was suggesting.
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Scottsdale, AZ; January 1997
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When she was about fourteen and a half her father had suddenly realized she was becoming a young woman. He seemed to be the last to do so. She luckily had older female acquaintances over the course of the past few years that had helped her out when she first got her period and when she first realized she needed a bra.
Just over a year prior she had started stealing or borrowing feminine products so dad hadn't had an opportunity to question their addition to a grocery list. She was too embarrassed to discuss it with him and it either just hadn't occurred to him or was something he deliberately ignored.
A year prior to that, embarrassment drove her to seek out advice on undergarments. A lady who lived in the other half of their rented duplex offered her some of her grown daughter's old things. Thereafter she just told her father that she needed new underwear and he gave her some money - which she stretched as much as she could - and turned her loose in the appropriate stores.
Both were easily avoided topics. Despite her less-than-typical involvement in many of his cons, he still thought of her as his little girl.
But her father was always one to recognize an advantage and they were living in an affluent area at the time with plenty of high school age boys from wealthy families. Dad had wanted her to befriend a few of them - cozy up and case their houses to see whether it was worth him putting together something more elaborate to gain access to the homes or possibly find out enough about the families' schedules and the alarm systems to maybe gain some quick access to valuable, easy to fence items.
He sheepishly instructed her to be careful and to get up and leave if anything made her uncomfortable but didn't provide much more direction than that.
Despite her lack of confidence over her gangly build, less than stylish clothes, slight overbite and generally unkempt hair, it had been easy enough to get the attention of a few of the boys. Looking back on it they must have considered her as easy a mark as she considered them.
One boy, coincidentally named Mark, seemed like the most affluent of the bunch. His father was an executive at some bank and his mother was a real estate lawyer. Truth be told, she had noticed him just as the other girls had. He was a baseball prodigy and extremely handsome and she was pleased just to be noticed by him.
Mark and his cronies hung out at the convenience store across the street from school a few days per week and, after a few days of briefly talking and flirting with him, he invited her over to his house. His parents were attending some social event so the two of them had the house to themselves. She didn't think much about that at the time other than the fact that they wouldn't be interrupted or have to explain her presence in their house.
It seemed Mark was aware of both those facts as well and reached out in an attempt to draw her into an unwanted kiss. His unwelcome advances had escalated quickly from there. He was much stronger than her but she managed to fight him off with a painful wrist lock she had learned over their travels. She got out of the house as quickly as she could but with little useful information and nothing of value. That was the farthest thing from her mind, she was just relieved that none of his friends had been invited back to the house to join them.
When she spoke to her father over dinner she initially only informed him of her lack of results. He was disappointed and she hated disappointing him. He apparently needed some quick cash for something he was working on and had been counting on her getting it or providing information he could use to get it.
But knowing what she knew of what else went on in that house his focus on her apparent failure made her angrier and angrier until she finally blurted out some of what had happened once she was alone with the much larger and stronger boy. She was too angry to notice his relief that she had been able to get away safely and instead accused him of thinking she should be alright with the idea of prostituting herself as part of a con.
Instead of telling her of his previously unvoiced concerns about boys starting to notice her he stuck to what he knew. He tried to split hairs and argued that sex appeal was just something a female con artist needed to admit was in her arsenal and to understand how to use it. That she should be able to keep the situation under control and not do anything she didn't want to do. She tried to explain that it very nearly did get out of control and cried when he seemed to care more about her perceived failure to manage the situation than the ordeal that it was or the even worse ordeal it nearly became.
He tried to soothe her. Told her there were things she needed to learn to prevent smooth-talking men from taking advantage of her. He started in on one of his tried and true bits of wisdom: Once you know all the cons... but she had cut him off. She was too upset and stormed out of the room and locked herself in her bedroom. He was distraught over the fact that he didn't know how to talk to his daughter about such things and that she, justifiably he admitted to himself, thought so little of him. It was the beginning of the end for their bizarre partnership.
She found the entire idea reprehensible and he was never fully able to articulate the lesson he was trying to teach to her and was eventually unable to explain it even to himself. Over the next several days they avoided each other but that was challenging in their tiny apartment so they argued about it. She eventually told him she was out. Done with his cons and this life of deception. That he needed to find a place for them to stay and enroll her in a real high school or she would report him and say he was trying to whore her out. In her mind, it was close enough to the truth.
That seemed to get through to him although he still seemed shocked at her interpretation of his intentions and still insisted he was just trying to teach her how the world worked. Shortly after that her father wrapped up his business in Scottsdale and they settled into a suburb of San Diego where they rented a small house, he paid a local orthodontist cash for the braces for her teeth he had promised two years ago and she attended James Buchanan High School for the next year and a half.
He briefly considered reuniting her with her mother but didn't think compounding his error by forcing her to face those regrets was the best idea. Better to give her some sort of chance at a more normal life and he simply couldn't bear to part with his child completely even as angry as she was with him all the time.
Her father was rarely around thereafter. He would come and go for weeks at a time. She couldn't know that he was deliberately keeping his 'hunting grounds' separate from their new home base - a decision that resulted in him becoming more and more reckless. She worked a few small cons with him during that time but she was adamant about limiting her role and not doing as much as flirting with anyone. He sheepishly agreed still trying to explain that had never been his intention.
Eventually the day came when he was taken into custody as she watched from a distance as an ATF agent guide his head so he didn't bump it as he entered the car. The day she met Deputy Director Graham and set herself on this three year course of reshaping herself into a deep cover CIA agent. It was the first time she had seen her father in six weeks.
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The Facility, Annex, Room A113; May 2001
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"...You wouldn't be here if you didn't have all the right tools to do that. But I noticed you left a lot of responses on your forms blank. We'll have to talk about some of that but it's nothing to be embarrassed about. A lot of your fellow recruits don't have much experience either but that's never been a problem."
The drone of his voice had somehow gotten closer and she wondered when his hand had found her knee. She wanted to react at his touch and the fact that he was close enough for her to notice the shiny residue in each nostril but her limbs felt like they were immersed in wet cement. Fortunately, at precisely 2:30 the lock to the door disengaged and the ever present green light indicated her opportunity to escape. "Well, looks like our time is up."
Jason Peterson rose, took her by the hand and helped her stand. He walked her to the door as he continued "Don't worry, Stacy. I can arrange it so we have as much time as we need to discuss this. You're not my only student who needs a little... extra attention. We'll get you sorted out in no time. Better hurry along for now though."
The air felt cooler and the world less confining as soon as she stepped out the door and she wondered what had changed. She looked back as she left. She couldn't see his face as he crossed the room, blew out the tiny candle and placed a lid on the container of hot oil that had been filling the room with its scent.
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The Facility, Underground; May 2001
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Stacy had slowly regained her senses as she left the annex and the green lights herded her toward a session on general spy craft. When Graham had made his offer to her he had told her she would be trained to be a government agent. He had offered the moon and stars and made some rather clear threats as well.
For her part, her high school experience was a nightmare, she was watching classmates preparing to go to prestigious colleges. Despite being more intelligent than any of them, she didn't have the complete academic record under an identity that would hold up to close scrutiny that would be needed to apply to the schools she might have wanted to attend. She could only hope to bounce around some lesser schools and build such a life on yet another false identity.
Yet Graham had seemingly delivered. She found herself - or a version of herself - attending one of the most prestigious universities in the world and excelling. And excelling at any number of exciting skills meant to be part of her new trade. She naïvely thought it would be similar to her perceptions of any other law enforcement job. Sure she might have to play a part to gather evidence on people but she wouldn't be doing what she thought her father had once suggested. Or what Jason had implied.
Between the less than exciting prospects of a mundane life and the potential ugliness a female con artist might engage in she chose door number three and the life of adventure she thought it entailed. She might have to defend herself or even possibly shoot a suspect in extreme circumstances but she wouldn't be hurting people to pull a job or fight for her share of a haul. She certainly wouldn't be a glorified hooker just to get close to a criminal on the off chance that he said something incriminating in her presence.
They had never discussed what she was doing all that training for but Graham had told her that based on her tremendous potential he had 'something special' in mind for her. That had been enough to keep her motivated all that time. She had made some faulty assumptions. That must have been what the note in the car had meant. 'Time to earn your keep.' it had said. She was now more clear-headed but just as fearful of what was to come as she had been while trapped in Jason's - Agent Peterson's - office.
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The Facility, Woods and Grounds; May 2001
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"...Well, I 'magine they'd ask some pretty...personal...questions for that one. Sex stuff and whatnot."
The recollection of her experience in that office had left her almost forgetting what she had started to ask as they walked back from the sniper range. What did Agent Peterson have in mind when he talked about extra attention and getting her sorted out? And she was still seething at the dismissive, condescending tone he had used and her slowness in realizing that he was using something to dull her senses and reactions that she had naïvely thought to be some sort of incense or air freshener.
"Yeah, lots of sex stuff. Things I don't think are anyone's business. First times and things you've done. And whatnot. Lots of whatnot." She had considered telling him more. But he had said so many complimentary things about her. Offered her a show of respect. Said she had backbone - gumption - traits that he appreciated. She wouldn't go crying to him. Or anyone else. Ultimately, Agent Peterson had been supremely confident in his ability to act with impunity here. She couldn't risk being wrong, trusting the wrong person and tipping her hand. Despite her restored clarity after meeting with agent Peterson, she was likely just as alone and helpless as he had clearly implied that she was.
Gunny had laughed at her response but stopped at the sickened look on her face. He stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face her until she looked up and did the same.
"Look here, Recruit. I been watchin' you in your 'valuations. We always have two or three observers compare notes. Some the best most loyal people in the US of A. They don't let just anyone see the faces of the recruits good enough to come here. Even so, hardly anyone gets to see more'n a couple of the things you can do. 'Cept for that knife tossing bit. Word got out on that one. Mostly a person knows yer good at that one thing but no one knows how many things yer that good at. I get run o' the place so I seen most o' what you been doin'. An' I'm not s'posed to tell you about other recruits but there have been more than a few ladies through here lately and they're nowhere near what you can do.
"For some of the sessions it don't make sense to start until we have enough students to keep instructors busy. It's taken a while to whip them into any kind of shape while we've been watching you push your limits and I been cleaning up betting on your knife tossing and your sparring wins when you start a new style. Smartest thing I seen was that one who started sparring you 'gainst other recruits. You really helped them along, jus' so you know. We just got a couple more and then this Peterson shows up. Director's pick. He apparently gets the results the Director wants and that's about all I know about him. Now this eep stuff..."
"Eep?"
"Well, a buncha vowels an' a "P" ain't exactly "SCUBA"...hardly rolls off the tongue so I calls it eep. And I ain't s'posed to talk about other trainings but every agent goes through it and as far as I'm concerned, it's only about two things. Making sure an agent can turn on some kind of charm on the front end of a mission to get someone off their game - set up another move - that's the Infiltration part. Though there's a buncha better ways to infiltrate somewhere. Keeping them on the hook is the Inducement part - and it ain't right to ask you ladies to take that any further than you can stomach. But there's all kinds of women who come through here. Some look like you do and can't do what you can. Some can match some of your skills and are a little plainer...not sayin' they're ugly or anything just..." and he sighed, clearly uncomfortable with the topic, before finding his thought again down a completely different track.
"D'ya know what a Ghillie suit is?" when she shook her head to indicate she did not he continued. "Well, I spent half my life in one, seems like. It's major camouflage. Becoming a part of the landscape. If some asshole in a country we never been in hadn't got a lucky first shot with a mortar that killed my spotter and mangled this leg o mine I'd still be wearing one. Some of us have a calling. Like I think you do. But like me in that Ghillie suit, the agents that don't look like you do can hide in plain sight. Blend in. You...well, look...I got two daughters so I don't want you takin' this the wrong way 'cuz they're both beautiful. The oldest though...ev'ry thing stops when she walks in a room. You got the same thing going for you."
He didn't want her to get the wrong idea about making comments about her appearance but couldn't meet her eyes and see the smile that had erupted at his compliment. Or see her face fall when he continued. "But I don't know which has it better. The younger looks up to her big sister, wants the same effect on boys. The oldest tells her she only thinks she wants that but what she really wants is to have that effect on the right boy and the rest - boys and girls - to treat her like a normal person. That's gonna be a big problem for you."
"You'll have to see how big a problem. They prolly won't let you choose what they ask you to do so you gotta be ready for anything. Some of these girls coming through here...well, they ain't what I'd call 've fought a few of them. Seen you train 'em up a little but they're not made of the same stuff as you. I think a few might be pros. But that ain't even the thing. Ev'ryone's gotta come from somewhere. But this eep stuff...if they take it to extremes it means askin' things of these girls that shouldn't be asked. You follow me?"
At another nod, he sighed and continued. "So if this guy - Peterson - is any good, he won't just teach you how to wink and sashay and whatever else you can do to get a man off his game. You need to learn to hide that light of yours enough to stay inconspicuous when you need to. Blend in a little better than a woman who looks like you tends to. See if you can get your spy craft instructors to double down on that part. If you get dolled up and go for shock and awe jus' know what your getting into. And don't let it get outta hand. Yer better than that. And you should cut a man's balls off if he tries anything you don't approve of."
"I hope it doesn't come to that."
"Well, me neither. But that's why we train you up. To deal with things that most would never have to even consider dealing with. Think you'll be alright?
She already didn't want to share her misgivings about Agent Peterson. The way he had made her feel trapped and uncertain. But here he was trusting her to know her limits.
"Yeah. I can take most anything as long as people are straight with me."
He began walking again and only reinforced that idea before going off on another tangent. "That's why I like you. Nothin' fazes you. Some people call it Sparrow School, you know?"
"Sparrow School?"
"Yep, seduction training. Sparrow School. That's apparently what the Russians used to call it. Or at least some novel a recruit left behind for me says so. It's "Raven School" for the male agents."
"Well that sounds a lot cooler than Sparrows."
"Oh, not even. They call male agents Ravens and female agents Swallows."
"You gotta be fuckin' kidding me."
He had said what he intended to say and was trying to lighten her mood a bit. Even so he laughed at her outburst. "I know. It's crass as hell. But sparrows - the bird - also mean travel and adventure so maybe go with that instead? I don't care for the whole thing either. Even less for the fact that some ladies comin' through here seem to only be here for that reason. Swallows. Sparrows. I don't know where they get 'em but some don't even seem all that plussed about it." He seemed lost in his own musings on the topic. "I honestly don't know why they have a man teaching you ladies such things."
"Wait a minute. That's what you thought I was here for, isn't it?"
"Well, lookin like you do - beggin yer pardon. But I already 'pologized. You just didn't know what I was 'pologizin' for. Maybe they're just looking for people who can get up close to a target. Opposite of what we're doing here. How 'bout you? You any good with a knife up close?"
Stacy smiled remembering his characterization of her proficiency with pea-shooters and offered a cheeky repeat of that same observation. "I'm alright."
"Mor'n alright." he smiled back. "I seen you throw 'em, seen you fight. Figure someone might have you in mind for some wet work." He studied her face as she contemplated the idea before offering "Hey! Get 'em before they get you recruit. Beats the alternative."
He had brought her down again but had an ace up his sleeve. "Know what else the Russians gave us?"
"What?" she asked distractedly.
"They used to have these weights for weighing crops. Like an old Lady Justice scale, you know? But they hung the weights from a bar instead of puttin' 'em on a tray. Sort of a cannonball with a handle." he paused with the barn in sight as he saw the realization dawn on her. "Did you like my art work?"
"You ass!" He chuckled as he dodged a half-hearted swat that Stacy reared back but never actually swung. "I hate that thing."
"I started usin' them kettlebells in the Marines. All the gym you'll ever need in one hunk of iron. Try to get hold of one if yer in the same place long enough. The benchmark for that little test is 200 in 10 minutes just so you know. Its as much a test of will as functional strength and endurance. Not that we won't push you even harder after that. Also, start doing your pull ups with a light pack on. You wont be pulling yourself up a ledge in nice light workout clothes with no gear on ya. Everything we do here is about keeping you alive. Remember that."
"I'll get that two hundred." she muttered as they crossed the remaining distance to the barn.
The gunnery sergeant was pleased to see the competitive fire back in her eyes saying "I bet you will. Ain't no quit in you. You'll be pulling two-fifties based on what I've seen." as he led her back into the barn.
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The Facility, Barracks, Room Six; May 2001
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When she finished her day the demon bell had defeated her again. But she had achieved a count of 184 and had not lost her lunch. With a slight adjustment to her early pace she almost had it. She returned to her room to find tomorrow's schedule revised to meet with Peterson again - something slightly less stomach turning now that she felt a little more empowered to make her own decisions about how much to embrace the concept - and a military sniper's handbook waiting for her in the delivery drawer.
It would have been easy to chalk up to 'required reading' but when she flipped through it there were very few pages devoid of notes in the margins. In several places whole sections were crossed out and rewritten sideways in a tiny, neat cursive scrawl. This wasn't a handbook, it was his handbook.
She heard the shower start next door and decided to kill some time before going for a shower herself when her green light indicated her assigned time by reading the manual. The dry handbook itself was boring as hell but the rewritten version in the margin was not. In places, Caretaker - Gunny - had simply simplified the text to the point where it made more sense and didn't take two pages to make the point. She was halfway through the book before she realized how much time had passed.
Her door's lock was still engaged past her designated shower time and someone was clearly in the shower. She could hear it running through her wall. And realized it had been running for over half an hour.
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026: Of Swallows and Ravens
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"...There's no turning back"
- Tears for Fears, Everybody Wants to Rule the World
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The Facility, Annex, Room A113; June 2001
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This was the second time that Stacy Mills found herself standing in this particular hallway staring at this particular door.
Nearly a month ago she had been lying on her bunk reading a sniper's handbook with the insights of a master of his craft scribbled throughout. The diary of an artist.
It had taken nearly a hundred pages for her to wonder why the shower next door had not stopped running. She knew it was risky but decided it would only prove her mastery of yet another skill if she could successfully defeat the electronic lock on the door with a few odds and ends she had collected during her time here.
It was child's play.
The bathroom was open access - the only room with no door much less a lock - but it still had the acknowledgement pad inside the door and the light inside the door lit when it was time to leave. Since she hadn't officially left her room in any way the system would recognize she ignored the pad for the first time during her time in the Facility and headed to the back of the room that had apparently once allowed multiple occupants. There was a communal shower with a small pile of clothes haphazardly dropped just outside. A few bloodstains were visible but nothing life-threatening.
Stacy stepped in to find a pitiful creature curled up in a ball under still steaming hot water from the tanks that used to allow for a dozen recruits. A thin waif of a girl who looked like she might have been even younger than her own nearly nineteen years.
Stacy slipped her shoes off and stepped in as close to the stream of the shower as she could without getting soaked, squatted down and cleared her throat.
The girl looked up with huge doe eyes and said matter-of-factly "I got blood on my clothes."
Stacy glanced back at the pile and back to the girl still unsure of what had happened but with no visible injuries narrowing it down quickly "Nothing that can't be fixed, I'm sure. I'm Stacy."
She looked back suspiciously before responding quietly "Well...then I guess I'm Tiffany."
"What happened, Tiffany?"
The girl broke eye contact and looked down as she responded "He said I needed to bite the bullet. Couldn't risk me panicking on an assignment. Said he had to know if I could handle it for him to pass me. Said people who come here don't just get to go home if they can't do their job. Said you make a deal you have to see it though. Said..."
The girl had started to hyperventilate while continuing to speak as she began to rock back and forth at mention of a deal so Stacy stopped her and lifted her chin to look her in the eye.
"Tiffany?" she said roughly to interrupt her. Then more softly "Tell me everything."
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The Facility, Barracks Showers; May 2001
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Stacy had already noticed that her schedule had been modified with a similar summons for the following evening. Tiffany had told her about a meet and greet remarkably similar to her own. Stacy had tried not to dwell on her vulnerability while locked in The Facility for over a month but she recognized the same subtle threats and references to the confinement system of the Facility that had made her so uneasy.
Tiffany had completed the forms that Stacy had left blank. She confided that she felt just as much anxiety over stating that she was a virgin as Stacy had felt about sharing her own brief but active - what some might even consider slightly promiscuous - recent sexual history. Peterson had apparently made similar assumptions from Stacy's non-answers because the words sounded familiar. Tiffany had described that same hazy feeling in both meetings that Stacy had felt at her meet and greet earlier in the week.
She had wondered, if Tiffany had not warned her, if she would have been influenced - more easily or completely - by his subtle psychological warfare. If she had not figured out he was using something to dull their senses while he played his game of dominance and control. The Facility was designed to put recruits at the mercy of those who controlled it. It must have seemed like an amusement park for a predator like Agent Peterson.
Stacy had been fortunate to have so many positive experiences with her instructors. Tiffany had been here for only a few days. She had a few unremarkable assessments, a sparring session with Stacy (Stacy remembered her by her build) and her meeting with this asshole. He had made her feel worthless and expendable.
When Tiffany had seen instructed later that week to report to Jason's office she didn't think anything of it. An hour later she was desperately trying to maintain her composure, get back to her room as quickly as possible and worrying excessively about avoiding bleeding on her clothes. She managed to get cleaned up in the communal bathroom before breaking down in the corner and curling up into a ball where Stacy had found her.
As Stacy helped Tiffany back to her room, the trembling girl mused that she hadn't overly romanticized what her first time might be like but she hadn't expected it to be essentially a homework assignment. The green light over the door of room number eight was still lit and Tiffany panicked at a thought that leapt to the front of her mind.
"You're out of your room! He said they could take us out at any point. How are you gonna get back in? He can't know I saw you. He..."
"Shhh. It'll all be alright. I can manage the doors. And I can take care of him. Don't worry..." and with the beginnings of a plan starting to form she held Tiffany securely by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes "...I got this."
"Thank you. Thank you for finding me and thank you for listening. I won't tell anyone we saw each other but... I won't forget it."
Tiffany slipped through her door and the lock engaged. Stacy could hear the girl sobbing and assumed correctly that she had collapsed against the door.
The green light lit above the propped-open door to her own room and she realized that Peterson must have set the door sequence to wait for his victim to be secured in her room via thumbprint identification before allowing the remaining sequences to play out. Apparently, based on scheduled shower time, Stacy was next. And as she hurried to get her towel and shower caddy she steeled her resolve at that thought.
She was next.
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The Facility, Annex, Room A113; May 2001
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After her morning PT she checked her wardrobe and found clothing similar to what Tiffany had described. Fancier lingerie than she was accustomed to wearing and a slinky black dress. She wore her combat boots to protect her feet but three inch heels had also been provided.
She had feigned a blister this morning and while mock bandaging her finger - having noticed the residue around Peterson's nostrils - had palmed smelling salts from the first aid kit present in most rooms. Once you know all the cons...
That evening, when she had typically been in her room every night of her stay here, she reported to Peterson's office as instructed. The room was already thick with whatever that noxious smell was and, as she pressed her thumb to the scanner, she subtly inhaled the contents of a broken tube with a benign gesture and sniff. It burned like hell but would hopefully keep her clear headed long enough for what she planned next.
He had made one recruit feel worthless and expendable and Stacy was determined to portray the same reactions to his well practiced playbook until the moment she had been planning since Tiffany shared her story.
The smelling salts weren't completely effective as he began his well rehearsed monologue. It mirrored what Tiffany had told her in some ways, subtly leading up to the purpose of this late night visit. Things like she ...couldn't afford to be seen as someone who wasn't able to manage an uncomfortable situation... ...better to test her abilities in a secure environment... ...she had to be ready for anything... ...no one leaves here a virgin...
Maybe that was what her father had been clumsily trying to teach her - or at least open her eyes to - years ago. That there were evil, manipulative men like this in the world. It was definitely a sink or swim approach but he had thought she could handle it. She had always been so tough - or had always made him think so - but something like this wasn't something a father should push onto his daughter in any form. She fought the pull of such musings - the same fears she had succumbed to on her first visit here - as he demonstrated superficial knowledge of her that he must have learned from other instructors.
He pointed out that she had invested years of her life on her training - something she had confirmed when it had been obvious to a few instructors. That she possessed combat and language skills but knew nothing of how to be an effective spy. That she needed his recommendation to become a field agent but maybe they would keep her on as an analyst or linguist if she couldn't do what needed to be done in the field. Maybe they would reconsider all of the terms of the deal that brought her here.
She felt the fear creeping into her veins at the very idea that he could take away what she had trained so hard for during the past several years. What would she do - where would she go - if she failed at this? And even now, as she replayed all the other things he had said about the future for which she had sacrificed so much...
Stacy recognized every bit of what Tiffany had described. A point where she didn't know whether he had coerced her with threats or she had simply given in. Either way, he had played her and that was what hurt the most. And he was pushing all of the same buttons with her now. Tiffany had said there was a moment when she felt like she had slipped away into herself.
Stacy could feel all of that. The fear of what might happen trapped underground at this man's whim. The thinly veiled threat she woke up with every day for the past month that Tiffany had only managed - and not very well - for a few days was made into an explicit threat. The fear of returning to whatever life without purpose she had bargained away to be here.
But Stacy also recognized the lie. The vagueness of the threats. Peterson knew or guessed that a deal had been made to bring her here but said nothing specific about her father. Knew she was trained but not how well. It was all a bluff. But he thought he had set the hook and got back on that script - the point where Tiffany had said she knew she had broken - with four little words that made her skin crawl.
"Dance for me, baby."
Stacy had been waiting for it as he had mostly followed the same script Tiffany had deacribed and felt renewed vigor at hearing the words. Tiffany said when she started to dance and then followed his instructions to strip out of her clothing and then what came next she had been outside of herself. And Stacy portrayed the same dulled, submissive reaction even as she began to slowly strip down to her undergarments.
That was as much of a thrill as he would get.
"Dance for me, baby."
She approached him when he said it and she could tell by his predatory smile that he thought he had her as subdued as Tiffany had been. He hadn't questioned why she had worn her boots or why she had kept them on but he probably should have as a graceful spin of her dance saw her right foot rise and come crashing down viciously into his temple knocking him from his chair.
Stacy was pleased to see that whatever substance Agent Peterson had used was not much more effective than her own solution as he began to panic. It had worked when he had felt in control but now...not so much. And the tabkes had already turned completely. Now that she had taken control her fear was gone. She felt nothing but rage.
He was more than a little stunned but she left nothing to chance as she pounced and pulled him into a Muay Thai clinch and repeatedly struck him in the jaw and temple with an unrelenting series of vicious right knees. Bone and cartilage was destroyed yet as he stumbled backward he foolishly regained a standing position. It was definitely excessive but something Tiffany was unable to do for herself as Stacy threw all her weight into a mighty snap kick directly into his crotch and Agent Peterson crumpled to the ground.
She knelt beside him and lifted his face by the chin as she broke character and spoke for the first time.
"Goodnight... Baby." She rose quickly from her crouch before reversing directions and her elbow came crashing down on his temple putting an end to his mewling.
.
.
The Facility, Wood and Grounds; May 2001
.
At her next session with Gunny he had greeted her with an odd but simple statement prompted by details she had no way of knowing.
"Happy to see you."
Stacy had sat on the couch with an unconscious Peterson tied to his desk chair in front of her, holding his drawn samurai sword to his neck until he stirred. She had considered blowing the unknown oil in the burner in his face but had instead simply extinguished the candle under it. There was no doubt who was in control now. When he woke, she got his attention by moving the blade to his groin.
"Say one god damn word and I'll do what a friend of mine suggested."
She lazily held the blade between his legs just staring at each other until an hour after she had arrived the door unlatched on schedule. "Well...Jason...it seems our time is up."
On her way out she slipped the sword - which she could tell was a cheap decorative replica by its heft - under the open door and pulled upward until it snapped before pulling the door closed.
She had returned to her room, showered and gone to bed before Peterson could extract himself from his bonds. Before calling for help he pulled up a Facility management program and verified that recruit Stacy Mills had signed into her room via thumb print and executed a command that had never actually been used at the Facility.
Gunny had been surprised by the system alarm. Recruits were not made aware that knockout gas for subduing recruits for any number of reasons was not the only type of gas that was available to be administered. The system was requesting confirmation of a kill code for a priority recruit in room six and registering a system malfunction. About that same time a call for medical assistance came from Peterson's office.
Only the next day, after personally delivering Agent Peterson to the nearest military hospital did Gunny find the source of the malfunction. If someone else had given secondary confirmation the system would not have administered the gas due to the hack job Stacy had done to her door lock the night before.
After a surly, quiet hike they were working on moving targets today - human shaped ones replacing the previously used circular ones - moving at walking speed and distances of 800 to 1,200 yards.
"You missed."
Stacy checked her own shot in the range finder. "What makes you think I wasn't aiming for his balls? I hit what I was aiming for."
"Somethin' bothering you?"
"Lots of things are bothering me. How much longer do I have to stay here?"
"A while yet. Still got some things to go over. And that one class you don't like ain't going away. But I think the problem has been resolved."
Stacy was more concerned about a different person and finally voiced what had been bothering her since that night. "Have any recruits been taken away from here?"
"If I told you that a female recruit left here for medical reasons and is set to come back tomorrow could we get back to shootin'?"
At a nod in response he tried to get her refocused on the task at hand. "Good. I want head shots from now on."
"Fine." And Stacy tracked the path of the next Peterson-silhouette before putting her next shot through his eye. Not a perfect score but exactly where she had been aiming.
.
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The Facility, Wood and Grounds; June 2001
.
They were coming back from their fifth session - targets at 1,500 yards moving on angled tracks at vehicular speeds - and their previous repartee had been mostly restored. They limited themselves to what he knew of general spy craft (and his curiosity about what she had learned) but he was more knowledgable about infiltration - traditional infiltration they had settled on calling it - and evasion. He stopped as he had previously done before they stepped into the clearing where the barn was located.
"You'll be coming out here with me every other Monday morning from now on. It's just practice. There's only so much practice you can reasonably expect to get at this sort of thing but - once you're outta here - try to get some shooting in whenever you can. Yer already getting full marks from me. We'll work on some little things but you mostly just need some repetition."
"Yer not the first girl shooter I've had but yer the first one I'd consider one of my boys. Don't give me shit about saying it that way. I'm not about to say yer one of my girls what with some of the stuff going on here. Speaking of, yer not done with that eep shit. It's gonna start back up and I think... You know I hate the whole thing but I think you should listen. Don't take no crap and be smart but just listen and use what you can. There's a reason this fellow was sent here. Might save your life."
.
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The Facility, Annex, Room A113; June 2001
.
She had been notified yesterday in the same manner as before - a modification to her schedule adding an unusual evening session - to be where she was at this moment.
Standing in that particular hallway, staring at that particular door.
But she'd be damned if she was going to let three years of training go to waste - to be relegated to a lesser support role if she couldn't master her emotions and find a way to deal with this part of the world she had chosen as had been strongly implied during her last such meeting. She would just play a part as she had done all her life. Detach herself from the situation. Take as much as she could stomach, watch for traps and if all else failed she had palmed a combat knife while securing her weapons after her last sniper training session after Gunny's warning.
She steeled herself for what was to come and burst into the room as confidently as she could.
"I'm not sorry about last time." She announced as she entered and thumbed-in. She registered the man sitting behind the desk but also took in the changes to the office. The decor was different, warmer, but she was looking and checking for anything like that noxious chemical that had been present the last time she was in this room. Failing to find it she looked around for other traps seeing in her peripheral vision that the man behind the desk had not moved. "And I'll listen to what you have to say but no matter what comes out of your mouth you and I are not going to be fucking."
"Good to know." came the curt reply in a smooth, deep voice she did not recognize.
She turned to look at him more fully and was met by the stare of a man who was not Agent Peterson.
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TO BE CONTINUED
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A/N2: I wonder who it could be? Hopefully, that wasn't too bad - at least no more exploitive or misogynistic than the topic inherently is. I feel horrible for Tiffany. As we all should and I do not want to minimize her victimization at the hands of someone she should have been able to trust just because she is not a primary character. I couldn't bring myself to portray her actual assault explicitly or via direct dialogue.
Hopefully not getting too preachy or sounding like a PSA but: our society pretends it doesn't have a problem but there is a culture of rape, acceptance of rape and victim blaming. A woman's chance of being raped in the US is 1 in 5, half of all victims do not report their assault / attempted assault and only 3 percent of rapists ever see the inside of a jail. No woman ever 'deserves' or 'invites' such a thing under any circumstances and rape is a violent act whether by force, fear or threat.
Ultimately I decided 'Stacy' was a little too savvy to fall for this directly and too well trained to not fight it but not all women have all of that working to their advantage when faced with such situations. Frank discussion to follow - about what happened here and seduction in general - but nothing as disturbing as this betrayal.
The kettlebell SSST (Secret Service Snatch Test) is a real thing. It's brutal and I have about as much motivation to do it as I do to run a marathon. Maybe one day. And attempting it with minimal instruction is probably a good way to meet an ER doctor. Watching the trainers and contestants on Biggest Loser 'use' kettlebells makes my rotator cuff hurt. I don't know how no one has gotten hurt. Not to be attempted by novices! But I figure Sarah...err, Stacy is in really good physical condition, a quick learner and they wanted to really push her unlike some of their less capable recruits. And Stacy's trainers still have a twist they haven't sprung on her.
The Tom Clancy novel referenced is The Bear and the Dragon. It has a bit about 'Sparrow School' that I checked out on Google books... Not impressed with the tone of it even though I suspect it was meant to vilify the character whose thoughts were being portrayed. But I will always stop channel surfing whenever The Hunt for Red October is on...
Next time: Someone else has his say on the topic of seductions and we close out that training. Then it's back to the future...err, present...err, past but present in the context of...(sigh)...back to Chuck