Heidelburg, Germany
[The setting sun casts a warm glow over the small room, sending long shadows sprawling across papers. If the little flat were to be described in one word, it would have to be "cluttered". Everywhere one looked, one could see forms, applications, diagrams and formulas, all scribbled with the same messy, hurried scrawl. The floor itself has disappeared underneath a shallow lake of paper covering the tiny apartment. The table isn't faring any better, being stacked with thick files, books and having paper dripping down its sides.]
[Except that on the table, where one would normally find an ornament, a small picture of the family or the family dog, there were none. There was instead an awkwardly large Bonesaw staved into the wood, jagged teeth first, sunk deep enough that it was a more-or-less permanent fixture on the desk.]
[The man behind the table looked a little calmer, a little saner than his crazy surroundings. With a sigh, he pushed away the pen that he had been using, then pinched the bridge of his nose, his expression turning into one of resignation.]
I – apologize – for zis – [he gestures weakly at the mess on his table] As you can see, you have caught me at a bad time. Filling up government forms now – zhat's what keeps me busy in ze day and awake at night.
I hear things are not going well?
Even in the global capital of efficiency, things are still not fast enough for my liking. For the vorld's liking. Each request has to be filled out, signed, resigned, filled out again in triplicate, delayed, lost, found, resubmitted and delayed again before it is finally rejected.
After zhe War died down, I tried to resettle in Stuttgart. I did, you know. I managed to make do with a small apartment in zhe edges of zhe city, carried on with some research, you know, ze usual. Lab rats, heavy equipment, lots of blood. I thought that since the War – since zhe middle of zhe War, actually – my purpose in life was done, locked up in zhe achievements that I have had accomplished. I thought – zis vould be my gift to humankind – and I could fade away peacefully after zhat.
[He snorts]
Nein. Even after all that zhey have seen, after all the atrocities ve have committed, ve still cannot get past zhe petty bickering like a couple of children.
What's all this for?
[The Medic glances at all the paper, flooding the room all the way to the far corner, where a smaller desk and an old wooden closet reside.]
My research has – vell – yielded surprising results. Results which practically seem impossible. If I did it two decades earlier, it vould have been called impossible; two centuries ago, I vould have been hailed as a wizard. And zhen burned at ze stake.
I vould, given my way, apply for patents, to develop ze technology further, to make it available. It vould save lives. It vould impact medicine like no other form of drug or vaccine, it vould be absolutely sensational. I don't have ze funds, as you can see. Right now all I have are my diagrams and half a metric tonne of useless forms.
But now, ze implications of my technology are beyond the medical, zhey are revolutionary. Of course zhey will cause great sensation in ze medical community. I believe it vill be ze most beneficial thing since ze invention of medicine itself. But zis revolution is being delayed precisely because it will impact all corners of life. Politics. Economy. Ze art of war. And zhat is something ze superiors up top do not vant to see, even if it means benefit for ze entire human race.
So it's a weapon?
Anything that could be beneficial in war is a weapon. You have your conventional weapons that eat metal and spit hellfire. And you also have your psychological weapons, ze weapons of the mind and the morale. A simple knife used by a foolto cut his food can be used a weapon if he only set his mind to it. It's a dangerous vorld we live in, and ze sooner we realize zat, ze better.
Ja, I get vhat you are getting at. It is a dangerous weapon, no doubt, in the wrong hands. I had hoped to be able to keep it to myself, to develop it myself and to use it myself. But now – as always – the government is rich and powerful, and I am now poor and old. When I am dead they shall ransack my room and find ze equipment they need, and soon ze weapon will be theirs for their abusing.
Is that why you joined RED in the beginning?
[The Medic pauses for a moment.]
Ja.
I was a young university student, you know, fresh out of school with an idea that could change ze world. My university grant was useless, ze kind that was only useful for getting your grades and getting access to body parts that would otherwise be very difficult, and very illegal, to get. I was studying anatomy, human biology, not to fix the body, nein. I wanted to study how the body worked so I could make it – how do I put it – not work. My thesis – my thesis was – was – Ze Human Brain And How To Make It Not Work - a title far more elegant in German, let me assure you zhat.
So far I had made minimal progress, and my – ah – early exit from ze university did not do anyzhing to help my financial situation. So I was stuck, on ze brink of a revolutionary idea that vould be the single best thing since Galen, but had no money to even buy my own lunch. It came to a point vhere I had to sell my own belongings to get food, it vas that bad. I vas really considering selling some of my lesser-used equipment for money when he arrived.
It vas a dark and stormy night.
Pleasant Valley, Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska, United States of America
[The man emerges from his kitchen, carrying a covered dish like they do in high class restaurants. He sets it down on the table and then – with the air of a master artist revealing his latest work – removes the silver lid with a flourish. Smirking at my surprise, he settles into the seat opposite me gracefully, picking up a fork and knife.]
After you.
[At my declining, he shrugs.]
It's only game hen, you know. It isn't going to come alive and stab you, so you might as well take advantage of the situation while it's still warm.
[At my persistence, he shrugs again, then pokes the Cornish game hen with his fork. He delicately and deliberately chooses a good cut for himself, then leisurely proceeds with his dinner. The table is neatly set for two, with the light appropriately dimmed and some candles set out for ambience. It was as if he imagined that there would be someone else joining him for dinner, on tonight of all nights.]
[At first, he eats with obvious enjoyment, caring only about his meal. Occasionally he shoots impatient, deliberate glances at me, obviously irked by my discomfort and awkward shuffling. Noticing this, the man puts down his utensils and takes a sip of water before folding his fingers into a steeple and staring at me.]
Few people travel all the way here to watch a grown man eat, you know.
I won't waste your time, then. What do you want?
Studio 2 Backstage, some Broadcasting Studio
"Okay, I got this." The lanky figure tugged his collar. His attire wasn't all that formal – just a long-sleeved shirt and proper pants – but honestly speaking, it was already starting to get on his nerves. He hopped on his feet, shifting his weight from one foot to another, as if ready to break into a sprint. He racked his brain to think a little about when he felt this nervous before.
"Fifteen seconds to go, sir," the lady with the clipboard reminded him. He nodded, trying to hitch up a smile on the side of his face. She reminded him, just a little, of his mother, he though. She glanced back at him, not reading his expression, looking him up and down before nodding with approval. Turning around, she hollered at the rest of the crew: "Ten seconds, people!"
She turned back to the nervous man. "First time, sir?"
He chuckled awkwardly. "What tipped ya off?"
She gave him a wry smile, her cold professional exterior dropping just a little. In the next moment it was back up again as she turned around to glare at the unfortunate crew members a little too slow in moving out of the way. "Five seconds!" she barked, stalking towards the backstage.
Alone now in the wings of the studio, he jogged a little on the spot, the familiar muscle movement easing his nerves a tinge. Blowing on his hands, he heard a faint voice cry "…and we're on!" and the host start his cheery introduction somewhere in the near distance.
"Okay, man, let's go." His hands gripped on the phantom memory of a bat that was no longer there. Old habits die hard, he mused, as the host pointed dramatically in his direction, his enthusiastic voice slowly-suddenly becoming crisp and clear in the man's ears.
"…our hands together to welcome – the one and only – Scout!"
He burst in from stage left, grinning his trademark grin at the studio audience. They obliged him, going wild and getting to their feet in the kind of welcome usually reserved for favourite Major League baseball players. Some of his more obsessed fan(atics) managed to secure a sizeable chunk of the third row, and were now screaming something unintelligible and two octaves too high, waving large pink placards. Man, is one of them cryin'? These folks love me.
Feeling a little more confident, he shook the host warmly by the hand, posing for an instant as the cameras flashed. "Hi, Ma," he quipped, pointing suavely at the camera, and the crowd simply lapped it up. Oh yeah. The host finally managed to cajole him into sitting down, but Scout himself had to get the fans back into their seats a little while later. "Alright, alright, I ain't goin' anywhere anytime soon, so please get yerselves seated so we can get on with the program, hey?"
After the applause and the shouting died down (man, he hadn't even been asked a single question yet! This interview thing was easy) the atmosphere was finally sane enough for the interviewer to get down to the business of interviewing. "Well," he drawled, "it's good to have such a famous guy on stage, so let's get down to business, shall we?"
"This here Scout's the main face of Bonk! soda, and ever since he's taken over as the main endorser of Bonk! it seems like you people can't stop drinking it – either something about the water or something about you, young sir. But anyway," the interviewer fixed Scout with a cool eye, "that's not what we're here for, no?"
"I dunno, man, I thought all a' ya were here for my good looks. I mean, check this out. Check it out," Scout struck a dramatic pose with his biceps, raising his eyebrows at the crowd. His pre-show jitters were pretty much eroded and gone with the early seconds. More cheers and screams as the showman hammed it up. Man, if I knew this paid so well, maybe I'd never have gone battin'. This is waaay easier, and don't involve no cleaning up of blood afterwards.
"That too," agreed the interviewer. "Though, question is, really, why we don't get to meet the rest of your team?"
Scout froze half-way through blowing a kiss to a couple of middle-aged women in the ninth row. "Say wha'?"
Pleasant Valley, Alaska
[The Spy leans back in his chair. His hands go through the motions of feeling for a pack of cigarettes that aren't there anymore before he catches himself. Half-smiling resignedly, he runs his hands over his chin, feeling the light crop of stubble that seems to have risen, before turning back to face me.]
I joined RED a long time ago, before anything could have been connected to these incidents. Back then, I was a mercenary spy: my professional services were provided to the highest bidder, and after that, that would be all. My services would be hired, and any confidentiality arrangements would be honoured until another party offers me enough money. It was honest work, as far as the espionage industry went – though I could tell you countless stories of former clients who themselves ended up on the wrong end of my contract.
RED contracted me to knock off [name withheld] because – well, there was no real because. I liked the reward they gave me for my services – very generous indeed. At that time, RED was maintaining its façade of being a regular demolitions company steeped only a little in "ze shady business", so I thought nothing much of it.
Soon, however, they contracted me a second time, to knock off another business magnate. That wasn't very suspicious, by itself – I like to think I have a lot of satisfied customers – but an idle thought led to dig deeper into RED's history. The more I dug, though, the more I wasn't sure about what I was finding. What I was sure of, though, was that RED was not just another innocent demolitions company steeped only a little in le monde of "ze shady business".
I guess my own digging all those years ago paid off – some of the fruits of my labours are spread out all over the front page of your newspapers when the scandal finally broke. Of course, some of the juicier nuggets I kept for myself, but the main points are now all known. RED and BLU are mere façades: they are merely the Headquarters for the gigantic underground network of RED and BLU that between them, control pretty much every corporation and by extension, government in the world.
RED and BLU, the two giant evil corporations, fighting over a spot of land in the middle of the forsaken desert, and hiring, killing, and rehiring countless other mercenaries to do the dirty work for them. That's the official story, yes.
So there's an unofficial story?
Perhaps.
Is this where you come in?
Non, I assure you. I came in after that. The truth, I found, is something you have to dig to discover, and it rarely is something that you make for yourself.
I started to – work – in a more critical way for RED, as they kept paying me more and more money. Back then, I worked for the person who could pay me the most – perfectly logical business sense, most corporations are doing it, non? – and RED was going to start writing me paychecks that I'd never dream of before.
At the same time I was growing rich, I was growing suspicious. I dug up RED's past records, how they started up, who they have hired, what they said and what they didn't. I was growing more and more convinced I was going to be part of something national – something regional perhaps – but never would I have imagined it would explode into something with such far-reaching global consequences.
I was young and foolish then, and after the first ten or so successful assassinations I imagined myself the pinnacle of my field. I thought I had dredged through all RED had to hide, that I had broken through its vaults of secrets and accessed its darkest, most private moments, and I would be ready to blackmail them if the time had ever come to it.
That was what I was thinking: that they were out for more money to continue their perpetual war with BLU. That they were after that plot of land - after the only known cache of Australium-infused gravel – and that they would fight a full-blown mercenary war to get it. Simple business – and my part of it was to conveniently knock off a couple of high-profile BLU personnel while they spun stories of heart attacks not related to the Knife-shaped nick where their heart used to be.
That was what I was thinking.
Until they got me to bring in the Medic.
Heidelburg, Germany
It vas a dark and stormy night, and I had just put away the remainder of my vork for ze night. I even remember vhat I was doing – I vas fixing a component on vhat would later become the Schnellheilung, the capacitator zhat would later – vell, it's no point explaining ze inner mechanics, would it now?
Anyway. I had finished my vork for ze day, and vas powering down the equipment. Ze low sound of the machinery vas still in the air when a knock on ze door cut through the rain and the hum. So. I put down my equipment and go to answer the door, thinking it would be ze landlord again, demanding rent money from me again. It was a bad relationship, the one between ze landlord and me, ranging somevhere betveen indifference if I was lucky and downright hatred if I vas not.
So I opened ze door, and this poor little old lady practically tottered into my apartment, soaking wet from ze rain. Now I don't know vhat you think about me, but "mad doktor" or not, you do not leave old ladies in ze rain if you can help it.
I led her in, only allowing her out of my sight just long enough to close ze door to my apartment to keep out ze rain. I had just heard the klick of my door locking before I heard another more sinister Klick – the first time of many. I freeze – the way you would have if you knew what was coming on – until I vas told to turn around. I vas told, and so I did.
"She" was gone.
In her place was a man with a mask, dressed in proper business attire that wouldn't look out of place in an office, and a Knife pointed at my back. Or. Or, where my back was, when I turned around , it – it was, ah, [he points to the middle of his back, then drags his finger along his body to rest in the middle of his chest] more or less here.
Not a very happy sight after a long day of work, I assure you.
I vasn't even thinking of my old medical equipment I had within reach that I could use as weapons, or even a fight-or-flight response. It vas more of a – a – [gesticulates emptily in the air] – a realisation of the situation, not unlike the feeling you'd get after you opened your wallet to check how much money you had inside. The detached, emotionless kind of message one part of your brain might send to anozher. [He mimics the high sing-song voice of a German telephone operator.] "Guten tag. You are going to die."
Except you didn't.
[pause] Ja. Ja, except I didn't.
Zhis Ambassador from RED introduced himself as zhe Spy – a mercenary working for zhe company. At first I couldn't quite understand why he was hunting me down or – even looking for me in the first place – but then his eyes fell on zhe half-finished machinery in the corner of ze room and suddenly – suddenly – I got it immediately.
Pleasant Valley, Alaska
We picked up mercs last time, too, for their own equipment. Usually those with say, specialised applications of chemistry or weapon manufacturing – I daresay I'm quite the self-taught expert in one of its specialised subfields of small, portable circuitry components. Sometimes I get taskings to bring back their weapons, to let us study them and have our people reverse-engineer them. Only occasionally was I required to bring the inventor back alive.
Sometimes we got people who we thought would be useful. Like the Scout. Minor League baseball drop-out, aggressiveness factor increased due to a large and mostly-hostile family. I've a whole file on the kid, believe me you. His main advantage is his fast running speed and the fact that we don't need to pay out that much in death benefits if and when he gets knocked off.
When I was dispatched to acquire who would later become the Medic, I assumed that we were after the Medic's healing gun for its healing abilities – because, you know, that would be an incredible boon. I confess being personally interested despite my professional standards. After all, when you're sent on dangerous missions, you sometimes wish you could magically get back your strength with a snap of a finger. [He does just that, for emphasis.]
But the healing gun would be good both for the mercenaries – you know, about not having to die so quickly – and for RED itself on two counts: one, you could hire less mercenaries, saving money, and two, you pay the existing mercs less risk pay, thus saving more money.
[shrugs] Seemed obvious at the time.
The only question was: what were they doing with all that money?
Studio 2, some Broadcasting Studio, live
The Scout racked his brains a little. Kinda like the old times, to rush in without really making a plan. Here it was less of a life-and-death situation, but it'd seriously affect his credibility and endanger his already shaky relationship with his sponsors. "Wha, you want me to drop you their contact numbers?" The audience laughed, but the host stuck to the script. "Not really necessary, but we'd appreciate it though. We just want to know what's up with them."
Scout took a deep breath, and decided to go on with the obvious first.
"Well. Well, I'm here, and I'm more good-lookin' then the rest of them put together, so why are y'all bothering about them chucklenuts?" he swung his hands open tauntingly, to loud laughter from the studio audience.
Yeahhhhhh. The man nodded to himself. This smart-talkin' was probably what got him on the team in the first place, instead of all the other losers in the Little League. That and his Incredible running speed – Incredible with a capital "I". He was the best, really, and he knew it. That's why he was the Scout, wasn't he? – but the host's mouth moved as he talked and Scout suddenly realised that he was in the studio answering questions oh crap whaddihe just say oh yeah RIGHT –
"But lessee here," Scout put his finger on his chin and thought. Boy, this is going to be harder than I expected. Uh, alright, let's start with the big guy.
"The Heavy moved back to the Doosomethin' Mountains [Dzhugdzhur] or something, some name I can't pronounce – have you ever tried to pronounce them Soviet names? Man, I'm tellin' ya – and basically tried to settle down for a while. I didn't hear from him in a while, honest, but I always supposed he went back to his family or something. Though – " he quipped "I can imagine that if he was married, he might'a had some trouble explainin' Sasha to his lady."
The audience laughed politely. Since the War ended and details of the mercenaries trickled down, the Heavy's obsession with his guns were well-documented. Scout felt it was his personal duty to ensure these little quirks were immortalised in the public sphere as much as he could. Somehow, he felt like he owed the guys this much.
"You can imagine my surprise when I heard the big guy was back in 'merica! Met up with him, gave him the whole Wha, Ivan not treatin' ya well enough? Ol' Uncle Sam's gotcha back speech, you know, as a patriotic citizen," he winked at the host, "but seems like he got a good job as some big shot's personal bodyguard. You know, he was all IZ GOOD JOB, STARING AT LEETLE MEN. No kiddin', the guy scares attackers off like you attract good-lookin' people."
As the crowd roared, the host smiled and prodded Scout for more information on the other teammates. Scout groaned inwardly, a thought about talking about the Medic surfacing in his mind. He considered it.
And a second of actual thought later, discarded it.
Pleasant Valley, Alaska
It was no surprise, really, that RED and BLU had a rather high turnover of mercenaries. After all, corporate espionage is one thing, but when you start trying to sustain fights in gravel pits in the godforsaken parts of the planet, then, well – that is quite a different thing altogether. Mercs die, you scavenge their equipment, you hire new mercs. Simple – it's the life cycle of a typical mercenary, and one of the reasons the pay is so high is because there is a very real chance of permanent disability or death.
Quite a significant portion of the money – RED's money, at least – was dedicated to searching, hunting and acquiring new people and weapons. Some weapons were more valuable than others, because of huge tactical changes they made on the battlefield.
The invention of the Stickybomb Launcher allowed incredible changes in demolition tactics with the introduction of time-controlled explosions, the invention of the PDA and subsequently the rapid deployment system used for the now-classic Sentry Guns are now important points on which strategy turns, but no one remembers the time when old-style mercs worked with ramshackle machinery and manual, human-controlled machine gun fire.
And now they were after the game-changer. One which would completely change the rules of the war on and off the battlefield.
Heidelburg, Germany
It was obvious, on hindsight. The most powerful corporations on earth. Money. Power. Gravel. People throwing their bodies at bombs for your service. Vhat more vould you vant? Vhat more could you ask for?
Vhat more can a human ask for?
[His eyes slowly survey around the room, resting on nowhere in particular.]
I thought I knew ze answer to that question. Health. Santé. [He spits the French word.] Life, and life everlasting. And life everlasting even if you die.
Ze senior Herr Conagher's Life Extending Machine was a very well-kept secret. However, it was eventually discovered, even if it was impractical, difficult to service, and also, as I discovered, not fully utilizing ze wonderful, terrible power it barely scratched the surface of.
My superiors had seen my natural – uh – interest and scientific inclination, and tasked me to handle some sensitive materials connected vith zhat. They had said that ze elderly Herr Conagher didn't really understand, as ze Americans say, "what he was dealing with", and advised me not to go too far into ze exploration.
I actually think not.
I think Herr Conagher knew exactly vhat he vas doing.
He moved onto other mechanical advancements. Ze strategic emplacement of spikes on wrenches. Ze start of ze development of rapid-deploying sentry positions. You vill note, of course, the difference between these later great works of ze Engineer and his earlier collaboration with me. They were things which were more controlled. Things which were not too accustomed to having a life of their own.
He saw, I believe, ze world of power, ze untapped reservoir of power that perhaps ve vere never meant to touch, to breach. I've done enough things that the term "crimes against nature" doesn't mean anyzhing anymore, but then maybe an exception should be made for zhis one.
Zhat is vhy he stopped.
On ze other hand, I – I had no idea.
Zhat is vhy I didn't.
Studio 2 Backstage, some Broadcasting Studio
"Well, that's about all I can say off the bat for ya, man. Sorry." He shrugged at the host in a comically resigned manner. But the host didn't get to where he was simply by reading off scripts – detecting slight changes in body movements, the change in the spirit in the eyes – nudging him to talk a little more, just release a couple of tidbits, cajoling him with his adoring fans –
After a few minues, the host got Scout recalling tales of (his) heroics and bravery on the battlefield, and Scout's weak mental defenses crumbled. He was lured in, just blabbering off whatever came to mind. "Wellll – " he drawled, "I can't really say anything, man, after we capped that Hospital we were all ridin' pretty high, but it all went downhill from there. I promise you, after that sh-twent down in Teufort I was pretty much told to take my batting socks and stuff it up my – "
"Wait, what, Teufort?" The host interjected.
The sly smile played just below the veneer of staged concern. The Scout, so cocksure of himself, all guns blazing, only to be ambushed, beaten back, and driven into a corner, forced to be staring down the barrels of bigger, more dangerous guns. It happened in battlefields, the complacency of the quick.
The battlefield of words was a battlefield, too.
The audience, including the middle-aged dogtag-wearing, bat-toting adoring fans of his, hung in silence, waiting for his answer.
Scout drew a sharp breath.
"Crap."
Man, his sponsorswould hate him.
Heidelburg, Germany
But vhen I vas standing zhere, with the Knife aimed directly at me and the butt of a threatening Revolver clearly visible in ze hand half-hidden in the suit, ze pieces of information floating in my head clicked together at last.
The Spy had come for the Schnellheilung.
Pleasant Valley, Alaska
It broke the game. It introduced new dimensions that no one expected at all. I saw that coming.
But even I couldn't even foresee what would happen next. It was a game-changer, in every sense of the word. It didn't break the game. It destroyed it and moulded a new one from the ashes of the old.
Heidelburg, Germany
The Schnellheilung. The Quick-Fix.
It was the machine that started the War.