A/N: Lol, don't worry, Black Aura, the action has finally come and is here to stay until the end. *musingly* This fic is turning to be quite masculine-oriented compared to the others; I guess I never imagined Kirika handling C4 explosives, but there's always a first time. Lol.
Cunae
She sat on the brick ledge by the edge of the lake. From her vantage point, she could see the tall, fir trees that clustered around the famous Lake Lucerne of Switzerland, covering some old, medieval houses from view. Far away, she could see the tops of the magnificent, snow-clad mountains of the Swiss. The huge lake was peaceful, a ripple here and there but nothing more. Behind her was a row of small shops and trees dotting the sidewalk. It was an idyllic place, a few joggers and tourists milling around in quiet restfulness.
Mireille had a small bag of bird feed on her lap that she had bought from the little lady not far off from her. She tossed a few grains and crumbs on the pavement, bringing a cluster of pigeons suddenly settling near her feet, pecking. She breathed the cool, crisp air of the lake.
It had been strange waking up as Mireille Bouquet of the Real World.
She woke up from the sound of a telephone ringing plaintively from the bedside table, jolting her from her sleep. Grumbling, she opened her eyes only to find everything in her sight in red. There was something on her forehead.
When she removed the steel visor from her head, her memories suddenly came to her like a storm, knocking her into disorientation. She tried to get her bearings but the telephone snatched away her concentration, jingling persistenly in an almost perverse manner. Sitting up bleary-eyed, she pulled the receiver into her ear, her head pounding like a bad hangover.
"Mademoiselle Bouquet, it's me, Schwarz," said the other line before she could even say a word. "I trust you made the passage safely, with your memories intact?"
There was a pause. "Schwarz? Oh, yes, I remember...the assignment," Mireille mumbled, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "I'm still a little confused, though...what...?"
"It's a memory lag; your memory banks are transferring its contents in full capacity and it can get a little dizzying, but it will clear up momentarily," reassured Schwarz warmly. "Are you feeling all right?"
"I'm a little nauseated," replied Mireille, her stomach turning at the heavy morning taste in her mouth.
"You'll be fine. If you can't stand it, a little aspirin might help."
A thought struck Mireille. "How's Kirika?"
"She's fine. It's nighttime here so I had to interrupt her in the middle of the sleep, but she's a trooper and now we're on our way to the airport."
"Can I talk to her?"
"We're in the car right now and she's asleep..."
"Oh, I see. Don't bother then, thank you."
A grey-breasted pigeon landed on Mireille's arm, eating from her hand. After she had inquired of Kirika, Schwarz had given her the details of the rendezvous, of where and what time they would meet by the Lake. Since it would obviously take them a longer time to arrive, she could have a day to herself before going on the bus to Switzerland, which was France's southern neighbor.
After changing, she had found some food by the kitchen and had cooked herself some breakfast. She had planned to draw a bath for her to recollect herself at leisure, but a ring of the doorbell had interrupted her while she was doing the dishes. Wiping her soapy hands, she had left the sink to open the door.
A tall, handsome man with short, brown hair and blue eyes that matched hers stood by the doorway. He thrust a bouquet of flowers into her hands, said "Bonjour, ma cherie," and before Mireille could recover from her amazement, he had backed her to the wall with his arms and had given her a long, passionate kiss on the lips.
Mireille almost dropped the flowers. She pulled herself away in shock and her first instinct was to plow a hard fist into the intruder's stomach. But seeing the surprised look on the man's face, Mireille suddenly remembered Schwarz saying that "she" was affianced. This must be her "fiance," Jacques d'Orleans.
The pigeon stared at her as she laughed from the recollection.
"What's the matter, Mireille?" asked Jacques, concerned.
"Oh...nothing...Jacques," she said embarrassedly, wishing desperately that he had not come at this time. "How are you?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine," Jacques answered amiably, his eyes twinkling. "I'm ready to go."
"Oh, of course you have to go now," said Mireille, pleased that maybe some important business had to take "her" Jacques away from her hands during the meantime. He must have come here to take his leave. "Be careful!"
Jacques stared at her quizzically and then burst into laughter. "Very funny, Mireille, always the prankster. You almost got me there, as if you forgot our date."
"Our...date...of course," echoed Mireille, deflated. So she was stuck with him for the day. Then a flash of genius: "But...I have work today in the bookstore."
But that did not go far. "Monsieur LeBlanc gave you the day off, remember?" reminded Jacques, putting a hand on her forehead. "Are you sure you're all right? You're a little red."
She mustn't dump him, although she wanted to do it so much. He was the fiance of the other Mireille Bouquet, the one whose body she was borrowing. She wasn't even sure if she would stay as the Real Mireille forever, and if the Real one came back and found him gone, she would be devastated.
Mireille threw the last of the seeds to the hungry birds and she got up to put away the empty plastic bag into the garbage receptacle. So she had gone with Jacques to their date, which had surprisingly turned out to be a day in Corsica to visit her mother, Odette Bouquet.
Mireille returned to her seat, more subdued. The view of the high and craggy coastlines of the island of Corsica from her boat on the twinkling sea had initiated so much memory transfer from her memory banks, as it always did in Dreamscape. This was home, and she was going to see her mother.
Her mother lived in Ajaccio, the capital city of Corsica. Her house was a mansion, as the Bouquets came from a high, aristocratic lineage, and seeing Bouquet Manor so alive and so open with servants bustling for her visit had brought a lump in Mireille's throat. The last time she had seen it in Dreamscape had been almost sorrowful, the manor abandoned and the furniture in disarray, all of the Bouquet tradition slowly ruining to an end. And then there it was again in the Real-World, this time regal and untouched, as large and as imperious as she had remembered it when she was a child.
But perhaps what had affected her most was the sight of Odette Bouquet, alive and beautiful, smiling at her and pulling her into a embrace. Mireille had immediately felt her eyes welling with tears just before she had hastily blinked them away and bit her lip as she hugged her back tightly with all the worth of the years since her "death." Her mother was everything she remembered of her; kind, graceful, and gentle, with the same Corsican beauty that had been endowed on Mireille herself. Mireille had never realized that they looked so alike until that meeting.
It had been hard trying to keep the tears and the memories from overwhelming her as Mireille sat with her mother and Jacques, having lunch and discussing her "marriage" plans as if she had just met her mother earlier by a month ago. Whenever it was someone else's turn to speak, Mireille would tune out and focus all senses on her mother and would embarrassedly have to be woken up from time to time. But it had been so hard to believe that her mother was alive, sitting across the table with her warm eyes and talking to Mireille so affectionately as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
Delivering Ramsey's head to Schwarz would be a small price to pay in exchange for the existence of Mother, thought Mireille dreamily now, the fluttering pigeons having left her. How could one say no? Maybe she would accept the reward for Real life after all. Perhaps Kirika was right all along..
"Mademoiselle Bouquet?" Schwarz's German voice startled Mireille.
"Oh...Wilhelm Schwarz..." Mireille said, quickly remembering where she was and suddenly seeing the Lake and the trees again.
"How did you find Monsieur Jacques?" asked Schwarz, grinning, dressed in an overcoat.
"He was very sweet but a little too surprising," answered Mireille dryly, turning around. Then something else caught her eye. "Kirika?"
Kirika was standing behind Schwarz, looking a little tired. But it was her, with the same penetrating look and the complete lack of expression. She did not look any different as she raised a hand in acknowledgement. "Mireille." Even the voice was exactly the same, with its odd, distant quality.
"Well, we're finally all here," said Schwarz, sounding pleased as he carried a backpack and two suitcases. He dropped the two suitcases on the ground and took out a cellphone from his pocket. "I had a small cottage rented in these parts not too far away; I'll have to check my contacts if it's secure for us. One moment, please."
As Schwarz punched the buttons on his phone, Kirika quietly made her way towards Mireille, who was just standing up and stretching her legs. The older woman raised her eyebrows at Kirika's questioning eyes. "Yes?"
"Did you see your mother?" the other asked, her glassy eyes glowing under a soft shine.
"Yes...as a matter of fact, I did," said Mireille. She couldn't help a smile spreading across her face.
"She was a very nice lady," Kirika reflected, her voice full of meaning.
"She is, and still is," corrected Mireille, knowing how much this meant to Kirika.
Kirika looked at Mireille wistfully. "She looked...looks a lot like you."
"She does." Mireille laughed and sat back on the ledge, seeing Schwarz still busy with his contacts. She patted the ledge for Kirika to sit with her. "What about your parents?"
Kirika obliged gratefully. "They're working in America, but I called them by long-distance just after Mr. Schwarz woke me up with the phone."
"And?"
Mireille thought she saw something moist in Kirika's eye. "You were very lucky to have met your parents, even for a few years," said the girl in reply, her eyes downcast. "This was the first time I ever heard their voices as far as I can remember." She looked up, making an effort not to make her voice sound choked. "They told me they loved me."
Mireille unconsciously draped an arm across her friend's shoulders, looking far off to the pristine lake. She had never seen Kirika so content before. Kirika snuggled warmly against her, like a little sister who wasn't sure what to do with her newfound joy. Mireille was beginning to understand why Kirika had wanted this job so badly.
Schwarz snapped his phone shut, looking satisfied. "The cottage is waiting and the crew have set the computer monitoring system for us already." He stopped, seeing them together, and smiled, "The world suddenly seems to be a better place, doesn't it?"
It's basically the same world, Mireille was thinking, only this time it wasn't under the hands of Operators who needed to keep the players entertained. She pulled her arm off Kirika's shoulder and said coolly instead, "We'd better start on the mission while it's early."
The man with the shaved head took a pack of cigarettes from his bullet-proof vest and a lighter from his pocket. He pulled a stick and struck a flame, watching the end of the cigarette catch fire. He puffed.
"You?" He offered his similarly-dressed companion his pack. The other shook his head, leaning on his M16 rifle listlessly.
"You're looking bored, same as all of us stuck with this hunk of fortified concrete. You need a smoke." The shaved guard waved irritably at the towering castle they guarded, the design dating to the Middle Ages but the walls re-cemented with heavy-weight concrete. It was Steven Ramsey's resting-home in Switzerland, with impressive sand-colored battlements and spires containing men in black with rifles in their arms, keeping watch over the forest perimeter that surrounded the building. The medieval facade of the castle had been retained, but the entire area inside had been furnished into the most modern coordination center of security systems that had ever been designed, crawling with Ramsey's bodyguards. It was an impregnable fortress.
"I don't even know what use we're supposed to have to Ramsey," said the cigarette man, playing with the safety lock of his own rifle.
"You say that everyday, Bodenmann," replied the other guard with a touch of annoyance. "What's the point?"
Bodenmann ignored him, using the barrel of his rifle to point upwards at the steeples of the castle. "You see those snipers up there? They can take out anything that budges. Best part is they got a roof over the head so they don't end up with blasted bird droppings on their noggins."
"And they get a better view of the sunset than we do," said his friend, his eyes straining to see the sun sink behind the mountains under the hazy, dyed clouds.
"Don't care about sunsets, but if it makes you happy, yeah, they have a better view," shrugged Bodenmann, pulling his cigarette from his mouth to exhale a cloud. The wireless radio fixed on his head and plugged into his ear squawked quietly.
"Bodenmann here," he answered after turning on the radio and tapping the tinny microphone hanging by his mouth. "Shoot."
"South gate, report status."
"Just peachy. Not a living creature in sight. See anything, Meier?"
"Nein."
"That's a no from my partner, Central."
"Our scanners are detecting two humans together heading your way, and Mr. Ramsey isn't expecting visitors."
"Distance?"
"Roughly fifteen meters from where you're standing," the other line replied. "Just nearly outside of the forest perimeter."
"Armed?"
"Make that a yes. Pistols."
"Roger that, Central, we're on it." Bodenmann armed his rifle and motioned at Meier with his index finger to stay where he was. Without making a sound with his heavy boots, Bodenmann swiftly made his way into the fir-lined greenery, gingerly avoiding twigs on the ground that may alarm his presence. Shafts of the sunset penetrated into the forest gloom and a solitary fowl twittered once in a while.
"Central, you still have those two on your scans?" Bodenmann whispered into the mouthpiece.
The operator sounded surprised. "Don't you see them? They're just behind you."
"What?" Bodenmann whirled around quickly, his rifle aimed at whatever movement he may perceive. There was nothing. His eyebrows knitted together into a frown. "I don't see anything."
"Three o'clock, South gate one." Central sounded urgent. "Just two meters from you."
Bodenmann turned to his right, barely missing the rustle of bushes. He looked frustrated and he gripped his gun even more firmly, narrowing his eyes. "I hear them. Be my eyes, Central."
"They're closing in on you. We've alerted the rooftops to cover your back, but there's just too many leaves blocking their sight to get a good lock." There was a buzz as the other security operators notified the snipers.
"Roger that, Central." Bodenmann swore as he tried to locate where the two intruders were in vain. Everytime the operator gave him a location, he would find nothing except some trampled leaves. "Still together, Central?"
"Seven o'clock. They're just-"
Bodenmann never heard the rest of the instruction from Central. All he heard was a sharp sound behind him just before someone grabbed his neck and broke it. Bodenmann fell to the earth with a frozen grimace, prostrate.
Kirika calmly slipped Bodenmann's wireless device from his head and tossed it to Mireille. Mireille, her long hair pulled back in a ponytail, lifted it to her ear and shook her head, hearing nothing but static. She threw it back on Bodenmann's face just before a sniper's bullet ricocheted into a tree, almost hitting her if not for the distracting foliage. Three more followed and Mireille and Kirika jumped away harmlessly
"We got one of the south gate, but the rooftops are shooting," Mireille said to her own mouthpiece, backing behind a tree. "Jam their transmission and get our cover ready."
"On it, N1," crackled the other line with Schwarz's voice. A bullet streaked across Mireille by a hairsbreadth and she leaped away smoothly, jumping and planting her feet firmly into the thick trunk of a tree before shoving herself out of harm's away and rolling across the dirt as another shot rang out, driving the bullet into the tree, barely missing her. She could see with the corners of her eyes Kirika running towards the opposite direction with hardly a sound, gun gripped in her hand. The young assassin evaded the rain of bullets in an effortless dance, as if she knew where the next shot was coming from, until she reached the south gate, unscathed, but in the open range of gunfire. The red, alarm sirens scattered over the Ramsey fortress were blaring panic.
"Your cover's there, N1, and so is N2's," Schwarz came in, like a blessing to Mireille's ears. She knew Kirika was matchless when it came to avoiding shots, but no one could stand against an entire battalion of snipers firing together in the open. Mireille turned and hid behind a tree just in time to see dozens of Schwarz's men, dressed in fatigues, scaling up the thick branches of the trees quickly with sniper guns strapped on their backs, some already aiming at the south wall. Those were Kirika's sniper cover. Hers was behind her, awaiting her move towards the forest edge facing the east wall, as they had planned.
"And their radios are jammed," she heard Schwarz add satisfactorily. "We'll have our own snipers well on the tops of the trees before the rooftops even get wind of what's going on."
"Good," said Mireille shortly. Kirika's snipers were already positioned on the high branches with their lethal weapons targeted at the black figures running around the rooftops like ants without their queen. One, two, then three more shots rang out, and five figures disappeared from one battlement. A barrage of shots followed.
When Mireille decided that Kirika was safe enough in the hands of her cover, she led her own snipers in a quarter-circle around the perimeter towards the east, brazenly darting in and out of the forest edge to make sure that the fortress sentinels saw her. Bullets rained on their path and sometimes took one down from her pack, but they speedily made their way to the forest facing the east wall, jumping over broken tree trunks and flinging away the bushy arms of green plants. Mireille especially was in superb form, dodging away from the shots with every trick her body knew. The fortress snipers never left them.
They reached the east wall forest and as she stayed behind a tree, her men climbed nimbly up the treetops, perching themselves for a good aim of the east wall snipers. They began shooting with perfect ease. She could hear the guns going off and empty bullet cartridges bouncing off the tree branches and thudding into the forest ground.
Mireille caught her breath and held her mouthpiece. "I'm at the east wall. How are you, south gate?"
"One of the guards gave me the passcode for the gate when I held him," Kirika replied, her breath gasping as she sidestepped the ringing bullets aimed at her while trying to pound the sticky C4 explosive into the south door, "but looks like their security system just changed it when they gave out the alarm." Kirika gave a grunt as she stuck the detonator fuse into the plastic clay of C4. "I had to take down all of the south guards on the head; they were wearing bullet-proofs and wouldn't leave me alone."
A bullet Mireille neatly zwinged across the space between Mireille's ponytail and her head and flew into a tree. Her heart jumped at the nearness of the shot but she had not yet finished talking to Kirika. "Need any of my cover?"
"Thank you, but my own cover is fine and you're also doing fine as the distraction." Kirika sounded matter-of-fact.
Mireille's instinct urged her and she leaped lightly up the tree, grabbing the branch with both hands and swinging herself up before another bullet burned into where she had been a second ago. She let herself go before anyone got a lock on her and rolled on the ground to sit back up against another tree.
"Fire in the hole," Kirika's voice announced on the radio. Mireille heard Kirika's footfalls as the girl took cover into the forest and braced herself.
There was an explosion and debris flew everywhere amid the acrid smoke. The south wall snipers had stopped momentarily in surprise. Metal careened in all directions from the impact of the bomb, making a huge, gaping hole on where the south door used to be. Concrete rained on the entrance, mixing with the already blinding smoke of the blast.
"N2?"
There was no answer except a reply of static.
Mireille knew that something that slight wouldn't harm Kirika, especially from where the girl was hiding, but one could never be sure. "Kirika?"
There was a pause then Kirika's impassive voice was back online. "I'm fine, N1." She was hurrying back to the south gate. "I'm going in."
cunae, end