Chapter 3: Down Mexico Way, Part 2
"Found something in the corner!" Donut exclaimed as he knelt down onto the tent floor.
"Define 'something'." Grif asked, preemptively cringing as he braced himself for the inevitable.
"Some kinda rods!" came the reply, Donut seemingly oblivious to the double entendre that'd just left his mouth. "Hard ones, too!"
"Excuse me?!"
"Y'know, because they're full of rocks."
Grif rolled his eyes. "Wonder how everyone else is doing…" he muttered under his breath.
"Okay, it's official." Tucker grumbled as he hoisted himself onto a boulder. "I'm not stepping foot onto Mexican soil outside of a major city as long as I live."
"And miss the hallmarks of a great nation's storied pa–"
"Dude, if I wanted to hear the sales pitch, I'd ask a travel agent." came the retort. "Right now, the only hallmarks I want to see are our paycheck and a cantina, in either order."
"Well, with that attitude, those won't be the only things you'll be missing." Doc said. "For example, that guy about…oh, five, maybe six yards ahead of us."
Tucker stopped dead in his tracks. "What'd you say?"
Doc pointed out at a shape in the distance that resembled a barrel-chested man slumped against the side of a distant rock. "That guy over there."
"Yeah, I see him now. What about him?"
"Could be one of those geologists we're supposed to find."
"…and as the young geisha panned her eyes over her ninja paramour, a single phrase escaped her lips- "Now that's a katana!". Soon enough, the katana would find its scabbard, and–"
"Excuse me, Grif's sister?" Caboose asked.
"Yeah?"
"I think that Church wants us to do more looking for stuff instead of reading."
Sister let out a contemptuous snort as she slammed a dog-eared paperback shut, the words Ninjas of Love prominently featured on the cover. "Oh, come on! I was just getting to the good part!"
"Yeah, well, Church's orders take pres…pres…come first. It's like a law or something."
She sighed. "What sort of stuff are we even looking for?"
"Oh, you know, stuff. Probably stuff that isn't sand, or rocks, or that twinkle over in the distance–"
"What was that last one?"
Right on cue, the familiar sound of a gunshot filled the air, prompting both Sister and Caboose to hit dirt.
"Need to hit the firing range again?" Thom snarked as he saw what looked like two MECH troopers evade Jun's latest shot.
"They just got lucky." came the terse retort. "Especially given the nature of that paintjob on their armor."
"Wait, what?"
Jun handed his teammate a pair of binoculars. "See for yourself."
Thom silently accepted them and raised them to his eyes, whereupon his jaw suddenly went slack. Instead of the usual greenish-gray color, the two's armor had instead been amateurishly spray-painted canary yellow and blue respectively. Both had just now drawn their weapons (an assault rifle for Blue, while Yellow was armed with a pistol), and Blue was currently screaming his head off while wildly firing skyward.
"Um, Jun?"
"Yes?"
"I don't know who those guys are, but my gut tells me they're not with MECH– at least not anymore."
Jun quietly exhaled through his nose. "You want to go and check it out, then be my guest."
"Are you okay?" Doc asked as he and Tucker approached the man they'd spotted earlier.
The man scowled as he reached for his side. "What's it to you, you bastards?"
"Um, dude, we're here to bail you out." Tucker snapped back. "The least you could do is, oh, I dunno, show a little something called 'gratitude'?"
"Sure you are." came the retort. "Try and paint that armor up all you like, but I'm not falling for it."
"Falling for what?" Doc asked.
The man's hand shot back up, now clutching a revolver. "You know damn well what I'm talking about– the camp, Doc Bright, hijacking our jeep. Ring any bells?"
Tucker began to open his mouth, only to receive a nudge to the ribs courtesy of Doc's elbow.
"Well?" the man asked, his finger tensing against the trigger as he watched the man in the purple armor whisper something into his aqua-colored comrade's ear.
"Would you believe we're here to investigate whatever you went through?" the latter replied.
The man's finger eased off the trigger. "Who are you?"
"Lavernius Tucker, Red-Blue Security Company." the aqua-clad man replied. "Friend here's Frank DuFresne, same outfit. You?"
"Doctor Herm– err, Herc Armstrong." the other man said, putting the gun away. "Gabor Minerals Survey Team Bravo."
Tucker's mental record skipped. "Wait, what?"
"Like I said, Gabor Minerals Survey Team Bravo. You expecting someone else?"
"Considering our contract's with Ellingson, yeah."
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news for you guys, but Ellingson pulled their primary teams out about three or four days ago after we beat them for the rights for those new molybdenum and lithium deposits." Armstrong said.
Tucker clenched his fist. "You mean we came all this way for nothing?!"
"Well, if I had to guess, maybe the situation changed and it was too late to cancel our contract." Doc butted in. "I mean, things like that do happen, right?"
Tucker exhaled through gritted teeth. "Yeah, they do. Just don't expect me to be happy about it." He tapped the side of his helmet. "Hey, Sarge? You and Church there?"
"We're here." Church brusquely replied. "You find anything?"
"Yeah, we did– well, more like we found someone who's got some very important intel on this op."
An approving whistle soon emerged from Tucker's earpiece. "Looks like today's our lucky day, then– you and Doc with your VIP, Grif and Donut with some core samples, and Simmons just now managed to get into the workstation. All we need now is for Sister and Caboose to find a winning lottery ticket or something."
"Stay back, whoever you are!" Sister exclaimed as she leveled her pistol at Thom's chest. "This thing's fully loaded, and I'm not afraid to use it!"
"Look, I'm not looking for a fight." came the reply. "All I want is for you and your friend to just stand down before anyone gets killed."
"And how are we supposed to know if you're telling the truth?"
"Because if you were still MECH, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
Sister nodded as she put her gun away, with Caboose dropping his to the ground shortly thereafter. "So, who are you guys?"
"Just call me Thom."
"And you're here why?"
"Classified. You?"
"We're on a rescue mission!" Caboose excitedly blurted out. "Some scientists went missing, so it's up to us to save them!"
Thom cocked an eyebrow behind his helmet. "Go on…"
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
For those of you wondering what the "Red Shadows" mentioned in the last chapter were, they're an enemy faction from GI Joe. As for references to other Hasbro properties in this chapter, see if you can spot all three of them plus the non-Hasbro reference.
