10
The rough waters of the Mediterranean never looked so beautiful as the orange ball in the sky sank below its shifting surface. Sunset had fallen upon the coastal town of Tel Aviv, and it was time for the crazy partygoers to paint the city's nightlife red. A time of an uneasy truce between the Abrahamic siblings as they partied together the cold, Middle Eastern night away.
Benjamin held his UZI close as the festive hoards closed in on his security post, just outside the nightclub's door.
"Ease up, Ben." Said his partner, Paul. He stood laxly at the other side of the walkthrough detector, his GALIL rifle dangling at his sides just like his hands. "Not every patron is a bomber."
"But you're stupid for taking that to the extreme." Ben eyed the partygoers- -the ones with towels crowning their heads-as they passed through the detector without a beep. "Did you hear about that soldier that joined the separatists the other day?"
The carefree guard leaned toward him intently. "You mean the one who was friends with those Palestinians?"
"The very same!" he nodded. "One day, during an assistance call to another group, his convoy was blown sky high! Five out of six--FIVE OUT OF SIX DIED! He was lucky to escape with only a burn--"
"That took up half his face!" the lax guard noticed-as he let a few more toweled individuals pass without a word.
"Uh--yeah.!" he continued. "Later, it was revealed that someone threw an old landmine right in front of the Hummer. And *guess* who he saw stroll casually away from the scene?"
"That mother figure he always talked about?" the lazy guard yawned.
"Of course." He nodded. "Who else would it be? She *was* a widow after all, and her children are just toddlers."
The guard stood up, and gazed at him squarely. "What do you mean, 'was'?"
"Simple." He shrugged. "He wasted the whole lot of them at their bunker in Jenin. When he approached a VSA recruiter literally red-handed, the group accepted him wholeheartedly."
"Pf--those VSA thugs are nothing but that!" the guard shook his head. "Thugs!"
"Boys!" he stood up at the sound of that silky smooth accent, American, just over the growing clacking of pumps. From the darkened street, walked up to them a beautiful face he'd grown to loath. Brown hair at shoulder length filtered in though the shadows; capping a pale, oval head dotted with two gray eyes. "How's business on the Mediterranean?"
He stumbled for the name of the bane of his profession. "Va. viv. ver--!"
"Vivian." The bane interjected. "It's Vivian. You know, the attorney from the ACLU?"
He rolled his eyes. "How can I forget?"
"Ms. Dixie?" Paul smiled brightly. for some reason Ben couldn't put his finger on. "How can we help you?"
"Just keeping tabs on my two favorite guards." Her smile was about as sweet as pure venom. "Not giving the Muslims any trouble, are we?"
A sigh escaped his lips; the harassment was about as bad as legal terrorism could get. Was all this trouble, just because he shoved around a Muslim--a surly, American Muslim--who was starting nothing but trouble in his nightclub? Any guard, any bouncer with a brain working in his head would have done the same thing, regardless of one's personal, religious affiliation!
Paul yawned again. "No ma'am."
Ben narrowed his eyes. His SMG tapped against his side as he folded his arms defiantly.
"Whether we give them carte blanche, or we tie them all up in rocks and throw them in the south side of the Dead Sea, it's our business--not yours!"
There was a small, impatient tapping coming from the woman's shoe as she folded her arms as well.
"You deliberately assaulted my client, defying his civil rights as an American citizen--!"
"Wake up and smell the Matzo, Johnson!" he growled. "This is Israeli soil, and there's no such thing as a constitutional democracy over here!"
"That's no excuse for assaulting my client!" she huffed.
"You liberals are all the same!" he shook his head. A few more cloaked individuals passed by, but he paid them no attention, not when the she--the castrator stood by with knife in hand, ready to slice. "It wasn't like I stomped into your embassy and took a leak on the American flag! Heaven, forbid a man from doing his job to God and country!"
He took in a deep whiff of sea level air as a breeze brushed over the nightclub.
"Still doesn't excuse your actions!" she growled like a cat. "We can be friends! Or we can be enemies! Ball's in your court--!"
--Something smelled strange in the gentle breeze, something that shouldn't have even been smelled. His nose caught something fowl and wretched, like someone had just walked past him after they had fertilized their lawn with liquid manure for a whole day--
--His mind clicked.
*Fertilizer!? Manure!? *
"Oh--SHIT!!"
--He didn't know what he heard at first. It sounded like something breaking. A loud, ear-splitting, splintering sound that bombarded his ears- -and the sound of shattering glass was the crowning touch over a stifled wail of a thousand screams.
He was flying, gracefully across the street or so it seemed. Out of the corners of his eyes were shards of broken glass. and small fragments of metal flying beside him, over a ground that magically turned orange. The color shifted in hue and shade as it spilt over the width of the street. The glass and the metal were swallowed up in the color as the dropped to the ground, as did he.
"Aw man.!" he groaned.
From out of the blast, he heard fire burning. a lot of it as it many colors of orange, red, and black danced coarsely on the black asphalt. Feeling slowly returned to his body as he felt the very asphalt beneath the heap that was his body. Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet, turning around apparently in slow motion--
"Oh--my--God!"
The nightclub, where he spent many a good year in his wild youth, was reduced to a heap of smoldering rubble in no more than a split second. The charred bones of the patrons gave off a smoky, cooked scent that made him want to gag, and the crisp structure was collapsed on the front side. It wouldn't be long before the makeshift crematorium caved in atop the mass grave.
He could barely hear the nearby people scream; the throbbing in his head was intense. His boot shuffled forward about an inch, only to wedge underneath something soft and squishy. His eyes were wide as tea saucers when he looked at his bloodied partner atop his boot.
Paul was dead; he could see it in that blank, accusing stare. The back was severely gashed with every bit and piece of glass and fragment imaginable, brimmed with runny red. There was a clean, crimson slice on his neck, oozing the valuable fluid profusely. The rifle rested in pieces beside its owner, warped and useless with the magazine's twisted spring jutting out at an awkward angle.
"Uh.." He heard a distant groan, faint and feminine. He looked closely at the burning heap, and he saw something twitch by a small pile of what looked like siding. But it took more of a distinct shape as he closed in on it, with a slow, shuffled step at a time. A woman's business suit enveloped the figure, soiled with the grime of the street and even more with crimson. A pale head capped the suit, with brown shoulder length hair caked with red grime and plastered to the scalp.
"Vivian.!" A sullen rage flushed through him as he stared coldly at the dying form. "*Ya khatikhat khara*.!"
Despite the utter soreness burning in his body, he trained the barrel of his SMG quickly at the middle of her bloodied crown.
"Uh--" she hacked out with a haggard, dying breath, "wait! Don't. you want to. hear--my--last--words?"
He never grinned so sinisterly in his whole life.
"Just did.!" his finger quickly took back the trigger--
--*BAM! *--
--And her head made a final jump as the hydra-shock round punched through, ending her life without a single second thought.
*Served you right! *
Down the darkened, shadowed street, he ran for sweet life. It wouldn't be too long before the police found out what really happened to "that poor, American casualty", and he didn't want to be around when the coroner's report came back.
The VSA: it was his only safe haven, and a place where a man of his stature could truly be appreciated.
*Major Uzi, say hello to your new recruit! *
***
To his nerves, Uzi's arm felt as it had been numbed up to kingdom come and sliced cleanly off; which, it had been. The rest of his arm bared the scar of the Osprey's blade, a painful reminder that would forever remind him how close he came to Heaven's door at the hands of that accursed wench--that American heathen!
His neck took a break, and the weight of the shrapnel imbedded on his head carried it down, angling it a bit to the left. The nice lunch he had would have miraculously worked its way back up his throat, if his brain didn't perpetually feel like it was swimming, as his good eye ran over the operation in progress. It seemed that the tissue at the elbow had been cut open, held open by clamps of some kind, as the Organ Grinder's doctor seemed to screw a metal plate into the jagged bone, latex fingers coated with his oozing red.
Crimson dribbled onto the shiny tray in tiny drops as the good doctor set the screwdriver down, and he swore he felt his butt pucker as the latex hand took up a welding tool. The other hand scooped up a handful of granules, spilt from an open bag of QuikClot.
"Is that necessary?" a kink formed in his tired brow.
"Absolutely, sir." The doctor's voice was muffled from under that paper mask. The yellow crumbs soaked up the oozing crimson greedily like a sponge while the man shook it on like salt. "You need the strongest hinge- joint possible to carry your new load."
"What new load?" he asked, as his eye ran over the doctor's seemingly good work. From the reinforced joint down, his new prosthetic looked nothing more than a tangled mess of metal on the top, twitching at his whim, with a rapier blade fixed on the bottom, seemingly worked in sync with some kind of pneumatic sheath.
"Your LMG, sir." The doctor replied--and the torch lit up in a shower of golden sparks as they rained on the cold, paved floor. "You know, the one that uses the Mauser cartridges?"
"That old ZB vz30 I got laying around?" he yawned. "I guess it's okay. I wouldn't know, since I never used it much."
"Well, it's been collecting dust ever since you got it way back when." The doctor noted. "I figured you should use it, since you've got a whole ton of 7.92 rounds, taking up shelf space in the armory."
"I would have preferred an FN MAG, like what the IDF are using." He yawned. "But it looks like I'm stuck with it, right?"
"Correct." The plastic capped head bobbed barely through a shower of sparks. "The machinists have already modified the ZB specifically for your arm, and vise versa."
"So what do I need the blade for?" he rolled his eyes. Though he could use one with practiced ease of a swordsman, he was never a big fan of blades.
"So you're not stuck up shit creek without a paddle of some kind." The doctor replied over the sizzle of the torch. "I understood you did a little fencing way back when."
"I'd rather stick with my kukri." He shook his head. "Go talk to Shia about fencing. He does it more than I."
"I think I might, actually." The doctor said.
"How's." he yawned, "Galil's patchwork coming along?"
"Ah--your brother!" the doctor chuckled. "He's making great progress in recovery. Our surgical team has just finished bolting in the last-- 'prosthetic'--if you call it that. And the immunosuppressant drugs should prevent rejection of the limbs, just in case."
"I gave Bonnet some shit over that rock-em, sock-em robot too." His words slurred in a tired stupor.
"Glad you did." The doctor affirmed. "Who knows what else he'll bring if you didn't."
"Exactly.!"
"Major Drazen!" a man of his called over the so-very distant sounds of his hurried footsteps. "Major Drazen!"
"What.?" he moaned in a tired drawl. The underling darted from out of the nearby corridor; the hollow steps ceasing instantly the soldier approached the operating table. Both boots were pressed together as the man's fingertips graced the brow in a salute. Uzi saluted weakly. "You're contaminating my operating room!"
"Not that there's much of it anyway." he was sure the soldier said it under-breath. It was true, since the Grinder's operating ward had yet to be one. Moist cement underfoot was a cesspool for germs, shifting and twinkling in the intense light from the large halogen lamps dangling on the trusses.
"I'm going to let that slide." He yawned. "Now. what do you want?"
"There's been another bombing in Tel Aviv!" the man said. "At a nightclub, by the coast!"
Through his motion-sickened drowsiness, he could just barely feel the blood quicken in his body. And he could just barely hear the granules of hemostat shift as the good doctor scooped up a handful nearby.
"*Dreck*!" he growled. "How many are dead?"
"At last count, 32." The soldier continued. "Most of them are Arabs. The air traffic the radio's been picking up seems to be originating from the West Bank and Gaza."
"So. what do you want to do about it?" he yawned.
The man looked at him quizzically.
"Sir.?"
"You heard me, Sergeant!" he exclaimed. "I can't do anything till the doctor over here sews me up, and I have to wait for the anesthetic to wear off. Until I sober up, I'm placing Shia in command."
"Are you sure that's a good idea, Sir?" the soldier asked uncertainly. For good reason too, since the button man nearly leveled a refugee camp after a rocket shower in the Negev Desert, courtesy of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. "He is a wild man. Nearly took out half of the camp after a sweep."
"All the more reason why Muslims and degenerates alike should fear us." He snickered. "Even Mr. *Putz*, for that matter! If they want to terrorize our people so badly, they too must endure the same, fair treatment. Turnabout is fair play, after all."
"Been reading the Talmud recently, Sir?" the soldier asked.
"What difference do those old parchments make?" he frowned. "That was then, this is now, Sergeant. I think Rabbi Kahane makes a hell of a lot more sense than those lambskins."
"To each his own."
"Exactly." He nodded. "If Shia isn't busy with his ulcers or his lover-lump, get him on the line and wait for his orders. I'll be recovering in my quarters in case you need me *so* badly."
"Sir!" the man clicked his heels as he spun around professionally, walking briskly into the shadows of the adjoining hall. The steps of his boots were a decrescendo, eventually pulled under by droning buzz of the lamps above.
He yawned. "Aw. *shtup*."
"My thoughts exactly, Sir." The medic's swathed face lit up brilliantly with another golden shower of sparks. His teeth pressed together as he felt one of those golden needles fall onto his chest, burning and tingling on his scarred skin as it burnt out, followed by more.
"I told you to wear a shirt, Sir." The doctor said indifferently.
***
"All right." said the secret agent woman, as her tanned fingers worked the card smoothly through the reader. The door handle twisted flawlessly as that little light blinked green, and the blonde pushed the solid door open effortlessly. "Room 402; this is your room."
Tara felt the blonde's scratchy clothes rub at her skin as she brushed past her. But it was soon forgotten as her lips beamed sheer delight at their quarters. The room was decorated lavishly with the rich warm, colors of the Mediterranean. The carpet was colored in a deep shade of orange, with lighter shades of the color painted on the walls. The curtains, deep crimson juxtaposed with white, offset the black accents of the furniture.
Her bag seemed to fly itself through the air from her fingers, and it bounced on the plush bedspread for a moment. She joined her stuffed carry- on as she hopped onto the cushy bed with a silly laugh.
"Ah. warm!" she giggled.
"The beauty of staying by the equator." Her boyfriend noted. "I just hope we can actually enjoy it."
"Don't get too comfortable, Yune." That killjoy of a blonde said flatly. "The work begins as soon as the others get here.
"Since you'll be overseeing the team's operations, you'll need a link- up with them and us." Tara frowned as the woman gestured to the laptop computer on the table. "There's the computer, as you can see. From there, you have direct access to the Mossad's network and databases with a secure link. Use it to contact me if you have any questions."
"Internet access?" the Asian asked.
"Of course."
"How can I contact our 'able element'?"
"We can't seem to figure out the encryption protocol on Kim's PDA over the airwaves, but we've programmed a card that should override the cipher directly. It's waiting for her at her dead drop in Cairo."
"So she's in dark territory till she gets it, right?"
"Essentially, yes."
"What about Wade?" he asked. "Isn't he in on this?"
"No." that blonde hair shook as if it belonged to a shaggy dog. "Your Department of State has been harassing my government over it. They said they'll personally kill the operations if they even suspect anything's being kept from them."
"Have to have their hands in everyone's cookie jar, don't they." Yune said rhetorically. "Can't they just live and let live?"
"Apparently not." Said the woman as she took a glance at her watch. "Though this kind of international relations do demand tact and diplomacy. You can't jeopardize it with an unknown group in the private sector. But humdrum practices aside, you should hear from Kim around midnight tonight. Until then, enjoy what you can of the evening."
The blonde turned their backs to them indifferently as her hips rolled for the open door. A thick lock of that blonde hair gave them a single wave goodbye just as Ariel turned the corner, nearly catching the strands in the frame as the door quietly clicked shut.
She rolled her eyes as she breathed out an exasperated growl. "What's with that woman?" she said to no one. "Does she have a stick up her ass or something?"
"Who knows?" She felt the springs underneath sink and shift as Yune took a seat beside her. She sat up just as the springs stopped. "Maybe she had a bad childhood or something. Not that it matters to us."
The small duffel in his hand fell to the lush carpet in a heap, and he coolly strolled over to the bed. Her heart accelerated gradually as she lost herself in that dark, longing gaze of his. She felt it stop, and her body shift on the mattress when the Korean took a seat close beside. He cupped his hand over her kneecap.
"I see only one bed in here." She grinned. "King sized for two."
"Sorry T." he squeezed her knee gently. "But I'm having a rollaway bed brought up for me."
Her grin dropped, and the corners inched her lips into a frown. "Why?" she sat up.
"Much as I'd like to. you know." He shrugged. "I can't. I don't want to do something I'd regret."
"Loving me.? The woman you love?" she gazed at him shyly with puppy eyes. "Why'd you regret that?"
"It's sin, T." He said. "Like Christ, we're dedicated to the Lord's higher calling."
"Right." she looked away, and sighed.
"You're a good woman, T." he smiled sincerely, from the heart. She could see it in his sparkling eyes. "I'm sorry."
"So very hard being good."
"I know." He nodded. "Not that fair for us, is it?"
"Yune?" She smirked weakly, and she laid herself flat on the bed. She gazed blankly at the plastered ceiling. Her body bounced as the Asian back-flopped onto the bed nearby. The bedspread underneath tugged at her as Yune shifted to his side.
"Yeah, T?"
".Kiss me." She said quietly. "Just one time."
"Okay." he smiled brilliantly.
Time seemed to stop at that very moment, when their lips touched each other intimately, quickly. Haggard breath came between them as Yune brought her closer.
"Make a wish." She grinned.
***
"I WISH WE HAD AN ELECTRIC BLANKET, KP!" Ron yelled at the top of his lungs, holding the flaps of his windbreaker in a death vice.
"Huh!" his Rufus-sickle squeaked out from his frosty burrow in his cargo shorts. "Me. TOO!"
Deserts; how he hated deserts. They were such odd, expansive locals. How could anything like the outskirts of the Sahara, such as Cairo and the rest of the Nile Delta, be so warm and toasty during the day and cold as Pluto when the sun greeted the other side of the globe? He'd never understand it.
"I told you to bring something heavier!" that redhead stood smug before him, unwavering in the sheer cold of the CAI rental lot, sporting the latest in Club Banana sweat jackets. "But no! You just had to bring the thinnest coat ever made. How many times did you tell Rufus that cold and naked don't mix?"
He frowned. "I'm not naked!"
"No, but you might as well be.!" she yawned. ".Come on, now. We got to find our dead drop."
"Do you think you think they have blankets?" his numbed lips cracked a weak smile.
"We'll never know if we can't find it." He saw those green eyes roll, just before the auburn turned away. "Help me find it, if you don't want to walk freeze out here."
"Right." He shook off the freeze for a split second as he nodded. His frosty eyes blinked. "So. what are we looking for? It better not be a Skoda like last time!"
"A European Ford," she explained, "white. With custom license plate: PROD214."
"Where do we start looking?" he batted the frost off his eyes. "This lot's huge!"
"Don't worry." The reddish mane shifted from side to side, her head sweeping the lot slowly like a security camera. "I'll find it--"
Something honked out nearby, a loud and noisy blare like someone sat upon the higher octaves of ivories of a pipe organ. Again and again, like a car alarm that honked its horn of conflicting notes. Out of the corner of his drying eyes, something flickered in the distance like a signal, on and off in sync with the horn, just beyond the reach of the yellow circle of the lamppost nearby.
"Anyone over there?" the girl called past the reach of the lamp, and tentatively her feet moved in front of each other as her hands clenched tightly. "Anyone?"
"K-Kim?" he forced the words past his chattering jaw. "W-what are you. d-doing?"
"What do you think?" the girl said flatly, shooting him a look before she took her steps into the warm, yellow circle. where she kept going till the shadows on the other side embraced her. His eyes squinted, and he could just make out the faintest of movement by the flickering lights.
*What is she doing? *
The car alarm died swiftly. The bright headlights deepened into a hue of dim yellow before the night choked it, and its silence ceased the manic-depressive fanfare.
"Ron!" the auburn called. "You big baby!"
A sudden spark of heat flushed through him quickly, burning out as quickly as it came.
"What?" he shrugged through his tight jacket.
"Get over here!" he could just barely see the gesture of her arm through the street lamp. "It's just a car alarm."
The corners of his chapped lips pulled into a frown as he shuffled over to the car. "D-don't think I didn't hear that b-baby comment!" he growled. "I heard it!"
"I found our ride." Kimberly said, giving the white hood a simple pat of the hand. "PROD214, conveniently 20 yards away from the terminal."
"Got the keys?"
"But of course." She dipped her fingers into her jacket pocket; he could hear the objects clatter in her grasp as she brought it out. A frigid desert breeze ran through his hair, and he held the windbreaker closer as the girl cruelly took her sweet time as she strolled for the driver's side door. "Feeling cold, Ronald?" she smirked playfully.
"Don't screw with me, KP!" the chattering silenced as he brought his teeth together. "My little buddy's probably frozen by now!"
"You're no fun." the driver's door creaked open as he hurried for the other side. He nearly tore the door clean off its hinges as he scrambled his way inside. The small car shook as he slammed the door.
Kim was looking at him with teasing patience. One arm rested on the steering wheel by the elbow, while the other rested on the gearshift by the palm of her hand. On her face wore a sarcastic, sadistic smirk.
"So Ron?" she said bluntly. "Are you going to forget your heavier jackets next time?"
"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, KIM!" he exclaimed. "NO!!"
"Good answer." She placed her back square against the seat. The key scraped the pins as she pushed the piece into the ignition, and the engine fired up with a quiet roar. Warming air blew at him, and his shivering eased to a stop as he felt the warm blood flow back into his face.
"Hmm. boy!" his buddy crawled into his lap, and he laid back into his body as if he were at the beach, bathing in the sunlight. "He--better- better!"
"You got that right, old buddy!" he wiggled serenely in the chair.
"What's this?" Kim asked, and he sat back up as his tired eyes caught her hand taking something from the center console. She twisted it in her grasp as her eyes ran over it in a curious gaze.
"It looks like a memory card." He noted. "The kind you plug into a laptop or something."
Her other hand took it in its pinch, while the former fished into a pocket of her cargos. A larger, flat object jerked and wiggled around as her hand tried to yank it free.
"Or like. a--PDA." She grunted--and the device in question came free as if by command, or mere mention of the abbreviation. "I knew this looked familiar! Wondering if the Barbie-doll lost it too."
The card slipped into the port smoothly, the plastics clicking and tapping at she pushed it firmly into place. She thumbed the little red button, and the Kimmunicator flickered on in a haze of static. On the little LCD, typed out a message.
"Duh!" she glared. "Of course I want to upload!"
A thin, blue line inched its way across the screen, and the PDA whirred and clicked just as if it were a desktop PC. Her fingers drummed on the steering wheel, her lips pulling into a sneer as the line took its time reaching for the other side of the screen.
"Remind me to get more RAM." She yawned.
"Okay." He nodded. "Kim?"
"Yeah?"
"Get more RAM." He smirked, and he felt his little buddy writhe with goofy laughter on his lap.
"Cute." her eyes rolled--and the blue line vanished as it reached the end of the window. Her personal monogram flashed on-screen for only a moment, it's green and yellow dashes fading into a dark shade of gray. Something typed out on the screen, the cursor dropping yellow characters behind wherever it went. "Hmm."
"Hmm. what?" he asked.
"Check the glove box." The auburn replied. "It says there should be a map of our destination."
"Right." His waist crumpled as he reached for the box. The rat below scampered down his legs, and there was a small *thump* as he dropped to the floor. The box's door clunked open, and his eyes could just make out the word map on the folded piece of paper in the dim light.
The paper rattled as he unfolded the flat country of Israel, printed and colored in the typical colors of a road map. A rather large, scribbled circle of red encompassed the city of Tel Aviv. Just below it was scribbled a small message in the same shade of red.
"Dan Panorama Tel Aviv." He read. "Charles Clore Park."
"Right." The auburn nodded. Her leg shifted in the seat, and there was a small *clomp* and a quiet squeal of air just before she wrenched the shifter down a few notches on the console. "Ready to go, Ron?"
"As always, KP--"
"Well, I'm not!" his heart jumped at a whinny, strident voice from all around.
"Did. you say something, Kim?" the cabin seemed to grow, expanding its corners, as he pressed deeper into the leather seat.
"No." her mane moved all around, barely able to keep the form as she glanced all around. "Did you?"
"Well I have a lot to say!" that voice whined, the timbre that of an older woman. Yet it was so strange, so familiar as if he heard it from somewhere before. But he didn't know when. "I've been sitting here all day! And my engine block is getting sick of these desert conditions! I'll be lucky if the sandstorm yesterday didn't put a scratch on my paintjob!"
The equalizer's bars on the readout jumped at every word, the gray stacks reaching high levels at times of a stressed syllable or exclamation.
*Wait! * He shook his head. *I saw this before. *
Kim lowered her head closer to the stereo; her round features a lime green in the readout's glow.
"Sadie.?" she said carefully.
"Sadie?" his brow perked. "As in Dr. Freeman's S-A-D-I system, Sadie?"
"The one and only!" the stacks shifted in height at the speech. "What? You didn't think I was a 'ghost car', did you?"
"Well--uh."
"At least you didn't scream bloody murder like our first meeting." The AI chuckled. "I'll give you some credit for that."
The whole interior began to emit a strange light, a glow of an eerie pale. The light consumed everything; even the exterior and the very seats they sat on shinned like a full moon. The shape of the cabin began to twist and morph, expanding and contracting, squaring out into its true shapes just before the glow vanished in the night.
"Ah." the exhale sounded like static on the speakers, "to think I started life as a mere Jeep."
"I hope optic camouflage isn't your only trick." The girl replied. "But what are you doing here?"
"Some blonde called up the doctor two days ago." The SUV replied. "She said that you guys were going on a tough mission, and she figured you guys could use a serious lift."
"Self-Automated-Driving-Intelligence." She smirked. "One good call Hershel made all day."
"Is that her name?" the AI asked. "I was wondering who that bitchy girl was. Not that it matters to me, anyhow.
"Just be prepared to deal with her more often," she warned, "now that you're here."
"Right." The vehicle agreed. "But is everyone ready to go? My carburetor's sick of the sand!"
"You and I both, my friend." She smiled. "To the Dan Panorama Tel Aviv, Sadie, in."
"Tel Aviv?"
"Yeah." The pads of her fingers ran over her crown in embarrassment. "At Charles Clore Park."
"Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride." The SUV said enthusiastically, bits of sand and gravel crunched underneath as the car rolled smoothly away. "Just let good old Sadie do the driving. And Ron?"
"Yeah." He took the vehicle's advice to heart, leaning back comfortably in his seat.
"There will be no Slurpsters in these cup holders!"
"Pf--" he frowned. "Man.!"
"Not her fault that you spilled it everywhere after Drakken's apprehension." Kim slouched in the driver's seat. "Now come on. Let's go."
The rough waters of the Mediterranean never looked so beautiful as the orange ball in the sky sank below its shifting surface. Sunset had fallen upon the coastal town of Tel Aviv, and it was time for the crazy partygoers to paint the city's nightlife red. A time of an uneasy truce between the Abrahamic siblings as they partied together the cold, Middle Eastern night away.
Benjamin held his UZI close as the festive hoards closed in on his security post, just outside the nightclub's door.
"Ease up, Ben." Said his partner, Paul. He stood laxly at the other side of the walkthrough detector, his GALIL rifle dangling at his sides just like his hands. "Not every patron is a bomber."
"But you're stupid for taking that to the extreme." Ben eyed the partygoers- -the ones with towels crowning their heads-as they passed through the detector without a beep. "Did you hear about that soldier that joined the separatists the other day?"
The carefree guard leaned toward him intently. "You mean the one who was friends with those Palestinians?"
"The very same!" he nodded. "One day, during an assistance call to another group, his convoy was blown sky high! Five out of six--FIVE OUT OF SIX DIED! He was lucky to escape with only a burn--"
"That took up half his face!" the lax guard noticed-as he let a few more toweled individuals pass without a word.
"Uh--yeah.!" he continued. "Later, it was revealed that someone threw an old landmine right in front of the Hummer. And *guess* who he saw stroll casually away from the scene?"
"That mother figure he always talked about?" the lazy guard yawned.
"Of course." He nodded. "Who else would it be? She *was* a widow after all, and her children are just toddlers."
The guard stood up, and gazed at him squarely. "What do you mean, 'was'?"
"Simple." He shrugged. "He wasted the whole lot of them at their bunker in Jenin. When he approached a VSA recruiter literally red-handed, the group accepted him wholeheartedly."
"Pf--those VSA thugs are nothing but that!" the guard shook his head. "Thugs!"
"Boys!" he stood up at the sound of that silky smooth accent, American, just over the growing clacking of pumps. From the darkened street, walked up to them a beautiful face he'd grown to loath. Brown hair at shoulder length filtered in though the shadows; capping a pale, oval head dotted with two gray eyes. "How's business on the Mediterranean?"
He stumbled for the name of the bane of his profession. "Va. viv. ver--!"
"Vivian." The bane interjected. "It's Vivian. You know, the attorney from the ACLU?"
He rolled his eyes. "How can I forget?"
"Ms. Dixie?" Paul smiled brightly. for some reason Ben couldn't put his finger on. "How can we help you?"
"Just keeping tabs on my two favorite guards." Her smile was about as sweet as pure venom. "Not giving the Muslims any trouble, are we?"
A sigh escaped his lips; the harassment was about as bad as legal terrorism could get. Was all this trouble, just because he shoved around a Muslim--a surly, American Muslim--who was starting nothing but trouble in his nightclub? Any guard, any bouncer with a brain working in his head would have done the same thing, regardless of one's personal, religious affiliation!
Paul yawned again. "No ma'am."
Ben narrowed his eyes. His SMG tapped against his side as he folded his arms defiantly.
"Whether we give them carte blanche, or we tie them all up in rocks and throw them in the south side of the Dead Sea, it's our business--not yours!"
There was a small, impatient tapping coming from the woman's shoe as she folded her arms as well.
"You deliberately assaulted my client, defying his civil rights as an American citizen--!"
"Wake up and smell the Matzo, Johnson!" he growled. "This is Israeli soil, and there's no such thing as a constitutional democracy over here!"
"That's no excuse for assaulting my client!" she huffed.
"You liberals are all the same!" he shook his head. A few more cloaked individuals passed by, but he paid them no attention, not when the she--the castrator stood by with knife in hand, ready to slice. "It wasn't like I stomped into your embassy and took a leak on the American flag! Heaven, forbid a man from doing his job to God and country!"
He took in a deep whiff of sea level air as a breeze brushed over the nightclub.
"Still doesn't excuse your actions!" she growled like a cat. "We can be friends! Or we can be enemies! Ball's in your court--!"
--Something smelled strange in the gentle breeze, something that shouldn't have even been smelled. His nose caught something fowl and wretched, like someone had just walked past him after they had fertilized their lawn with liquid manure for a whole day--
--His mind clicked.
*Fertilizer!? Manure!? *
"Oh--SHIT!!"
--He didn't know what he heard at first. It sounded like something breaking. A loud, ear-splitting, splintering sound that bombarded his ears- -and the sound of shattering glass was the crowning touch over a stifled wail of a thousand screams.
He was flying, gracefully across the street or so it seemed. Out of the corners of his eyes were shards of broken glass. and small fragments of metal flying beside him, over a ground that magically turned orange. The color shifted in hue and shade as it spilt over the width of the street. The glass and the metal were swallowed up in the color as the dropped to the ground, as did he.
"Aw man.!" he groaned.
From out of the blast, he heard fire burning. a lot of it as it many colors of orange, red, and black danced coarsely on the black asphalt. Feeling slowly returned to his body as he felt the very asphalt beneath the heap that was his body. Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet, turning around apparently in slow motion--
"Oh--my--God!"
The nightclub, where he spent many a good year in his wild youth, was reduced to a heap of smoldering rubble in no more than a split second. The charred bones of the patrons gave off a smoky, cooked scent that made him want to gag, and the crisp structure was collapsed on the front side. It wouldn't be long before the makeshift crematorium caved in atop the mass grave.
He could barely hear the nearby people scream; the throbbing in his head was intense. His boot shuffled forward about an inch, only to wedge underneath something soft and squishy. His eyes were wide as tea saucers when he looked at his bloodied partner atop his boot.
Paul was dead; he could see it in that blank, accusing stare. The back was severely gashed with every bit and piece of glass and fragment imaginable, brimmed with runny red. There was a clean, crimson slice on his neck, oozing the valuable fluid profusely. The rifle rested in pieces beside its owner, warped and useless with the magazine's twisted spring jutting out at an awkward angle.
"Uh.." He heard a distant groan, faint and feminine. He looked closely at the burning heap, and he saw something twitch by a small pile of what looked like siding. But it took more of a distinct shape as he closed in on it, with a slow, shuffled step at a time. A woman's business suit enveloped the figure, soiled with the grime of the street and even more with crimson. A pale head capped the suit, with brown shoulder length hair caked with red grime and plastered to the scalp.
"Vivian.!" A sullen rage flushed through him as he stared coldly at the dying form. "*Ya khatikhat khara*.!"
Despite the utter soreness burning in his body, he trained the barrel of his SMG quickly at the middle of her bloodied crown.
"Uh--" she hacked out with a haggard, dying breath, "wait! Don't. you want to. hear--my--last--words?"
He never grinned so sinisterly in his whole life.
"Just did.!" his finger quickly took back the trigger--
--*BAM! *--
--And her head made a final jump as the hydra-shock round punched through, ending her life without a single second thought.
*Served you right! *
Down the darkened, shadowed street, he ran for sweet life. It wouldn't be too long before the police found out what really happened to "that poor, American casualty", and he didn't want to be around when the coroner's report came back.
The VSA: it was his only safe haven, and a place where a man of his stature could truly be appreciated.
*Major Uzi, say hello to your new recruit! *
***
To his nerves, Uzi's arm felt as it had been numbed up to kingdom come and sliced cleanly off; which, it had been. The rest of his arm bared the scar of the Osprey's blade, a painful reminder that would forever remind him how close he came to Heaven's door at the hands of that accursed wench--that American heathen!
His neck took a break, and the weight of the shrapnel imbedded on his head carried it down, angling it a bit to the left. The nice lunch he had would have miraculously worked its way back up his throat, if his brain didn't perpetually feel like it was swimming, as his good eye ran over the operation in progress. It seemed that the tissue at the elbow had been cut open, held open by clamps of some kind, as the Organ Grinder's doctor seemed to screw a metal plate into the jagged bone, latex fingers coated with his oozing red.
Crimson dribbled onto the shiny tray in tiny drops as the good doctor set the screwdriver down, and he swore he felt his butt pucker as the latex hand took up a welding tool. The other hand scooped up a handful of granules, spilt from an open bag of QuikClot.
"Is that necessary?" a kink formed in his tired brow.
"Absolutely, sir." The doctor's voice was muffled from under that paper mask. The yellow crumbs soaked up the oozing crimson greedily like a sponge while the man shook it on like salt. "You need the strongest hinge- joint possible to carry your new load."
"What new load?" he asked, as his eye ran over the doctor's seemingly good work. From the reinforced joint down, his new prosthetic looked nothing more than a tangled mess of metal on the top, twitching at his whim, with a rapier blade fixed on the bottom, seemingly worked in sync with some kind of pneumatic sheath.
"Your LMG, sir." The doctor replied--and the torch lit up in a shower of golden sparks as they rained on the cold, paved floor. "You know, the one that uses the Mauser cartridges?"
"That old ZB vz30 I got laying around?" he yawned. "I guess it's okay. I wouldn't know, since I never used it much."
"Well, it's been collecting dust ever since you got it way back when." The doctor noted. "I figured you should use it, since you've got a whole ton of 7.92 rounds, taking up shelf space in the armory."
"I would have preferred an FN MAG, like what the IDF are using." He yawned. "But it looks like I'm stuck with it, right?"
"Correct." The plastic capped head bobbed barely through a shower of sparks. "The machinists have already modified the ZB specifically for your arm, and vise versa."
"So what do I need the blade for?" he rolled his eyes. Though he could use one with practiced ease of a swordsman, he was never a big fan of blades.
"So you're not stuck up shit creek without a paddle of some kind." The doctor replied over the sizzle of the torch. "I understood you did a little fencing way back when."
"I'd rather stick with my kukri." He shook his head. "Go talk to Shia about fencing. He does it more than I."
"I think I might, actually." The doctor said.
"How's." he yawned, "Galil's patchwork coming along?"
"Ah--your brother!" the doctor chuckled. "He's making great progress in recovery. Our surgical team has just finished bolting in the last-- 'prosthetic'--if you call it that. And the immunosuppressant drugs should prevent rejection of the limbs, just in case."
"I gave Bonnet some shit over that rock-em, sock-em robot too." His words slurred in a tired stupor.
"Glad you did." The doctor affirmed. "Who knows what else he'll bring if you didn't."
"Exactly.!"
"Major Drazen!" a man of his called over the so-very distant sounds of his hurried footsteps. "Major Drazen!"
"What.?" he moaned in a tired drawl. The underling darted from out of the nearby corridor; the hollow steps ceasing instantly the soldier approached the operating table. Both boots were pressed together as the man's fingertips graced the brow in a salute. Uzi saluted weakly. "You're contaminating my operating room!"
"Not that there's much of it anyway." he was sure the soldier said it under-breath. It was true, since the Grinder's operating ward had yet to be one. Moist cement underfoot was a cesspool for germs, shifting and twinkling in the intense light from the large halogen lamps dangling on the trusses.
"I'm going to let that slide." He yawned. "Now. what do you want?"
"There's been another bombing in Tel Aviv!" the man said. "At a nightclub, by the coast!"
Through his motion-sickened drowsiness, he could just barely feel the blood quicken in his body. And he could just barely hear the granules of hemostat shift as the good doctor scooped up a handful nearby.
"*Dreck*!" he growled. "How many are dead?"
"At last count, 32." The soldier continued. "Most of them are Arabs. The air traffic the radio's been picking up seems to be originating from the West Bank and Gaza."
"So. what do you want to do about it?" he yawned.
The man looked at him quizzically.
"Sir.?"
"You heard me, Sergeant!" he exclaimed. "I can't do anything till the doctor over here sews me up, and I have to wait for the anesthetic to wear off. Until I sober up, I'm placing Shia in command."
"Are you sure that's a good idea, Sir?" the soldier asked uncertainly. For good reason too, since the button man nearly leveled a refugee camp after a rocket shower in the Negev Desert, courtesy of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. "He is a wild man. Nearly took out half of the camp after a sweep."
"All the more reason why Muslims and degenerates alike should fear us." He snickered. "Even Mr. *Putz*, for that matter! If they want to terrorize our people so badly, they too must endure the same, fair treatment. Turnabout is fair play, after all."
"Been reading the Talmud recently, Sir?" the soldier asked.
"What difference do those old parchments make?" he frowned. "That was then, this is now, Sergeant. I think Rabbi Kahane makes a hell of a lot more sense than those lambskins."
"To each his own."
"Exactly." He nodded. "If Shia isn't busy with his ulcers or his lover-lump, get him on the line and wait for his orders. I'll be recovering in my quarters in case you need me *so* badly."
"Sir!" the man clicked his heels as he spun around professionally, walking briskly into the shadows of the adjoining hall. The steps of his boots were a decrescendo, eventually pulled under by droning buzz of the lamps above.
He yawned. "Aw. *shtup*."
"My thoughts exactly, Sir." The medic's swathed face lit up brilliantly with another golden shower of sparks. His teeth pressed together as he felt one of those golden needles fall onto his chest, burning and tingling on his scarred skin as it burnt out, followed by more.
"I told you to wear a shirt, Sir." The doctor said indifferently.
***
"All right." said the secret agent woman, as her tanned fingers worked the card smoothly through the reader. The door handle twisted flawlessly as that little light blinked green, and the blonde pushed the solid door open effortlessly. "Room 402; this is your room."
Tara felt the blonde's scratchy clothes rub at her skin as she brushed past her. But it was soon forgotten as her lips beamed sheer delight at their quarters. The room was decorated lavishly with the rich warm, colors of the Mediterranean. The carpet was colored in a deep shade of orange, with lighter shades of the color painted on the walls. The curtains, deep crimson juxtaposed with white, offset the black accents of the furniture.
Her bag seemed to fly itself through the air from her fingers, and it bounced on the plush bedspread for a moment. She joined her stuffed carry- on as she hopped onto the cushy bed with a silly laugh.
"Ah. warm!" she giggled.
"The beauty of staying by the equator." Her boyfriend noted. "I just hope we can actually enjoy it."
"Don't get too comfortable, Yune." That killjoy of a blonde said flatly. "The work begins as soon as the others get here.
"Since you'll be overseeing the team's operations, you'll need a link- up with them and us." Tara frowned as the woman gestured to the laptop computer on the table. "There's the computer, as you can see. From there, you have direct access to the Mossad's network and databases with a secure link. Use it to contact me if you have any questions."
"Internet access?" the Asian asked.
"Of course."
"How can I contact our 'able element'?"
"We can't seem to figure out the encryption protocol on Kim's PDA over the airwaves, but we've programmed a card that should override the cipher directly. It's waiting for her at her dead drop in Cairo."
"So she's in dark territory till she gets it, right?"
"Essentially, yes."
"What about Wade?" he asked. "Isn't he in on this?"
"No." that blonde hair shook as if it belonged to a shaggy dog. "Your Department of State has been harassing my government over it. They said they'll personally kill the operations if they even suspect anything's being kept from them."
"Have to have their hands in everyone's cookie jar, don't they." Yune said rhetorically. "Can't they just live and let live?"
"Apparently not." Said the woman as she took a glance at her watch. "Though this kind of international relations do demand tact and diplomacy. You can't jeopardize it with an unknown group in the private sector. But humdrum practices aside, you should hear from Kim around midnight tonight. Until then, enjoy what you can of the evening."
The blonde turned their backs to them indifferently as her hips rolled for the open door. A thick lock of that blonde hair gave them a single wave goodbye just as Ariel turned the corner, nearly catching the strands in the frame as the door quietly clicked shut.
She rolled her eyes as she breathed out an exasperated growl. "What's with that woman?" she said to no one. "Does she have a stick up her ass or something?"
"Who knows?" She felt the springs underneath sink and shift as Yune took a seat beside her. She sat up just as the springs stopped. "Maybe she had a bad childhood or something. Not that it matters to us."
The small duffel in his hand fell to the lush carpet in a heap, and he coolly strolled over to the bed. Her heart accelerated gradually as she lost herself in that dark, longing gaze of his. She felt it stop, and her body shift on the mattress when the Korean took a seat close beside. He cupped his hand over her kneecap.
"I see only one bed in here." She grinned. "King sized for two."
"Sorry T." he squeezed her knee gently. "But I'm having a rollaway bed brought up for me."
Her grin dropped, and the corners inched her lips into a frown. "Why?" she sat up.
"Much as I'd like to. you know." He shrugged. "I can't. I don't want to do something I'd regret."
"Loving me.? The woman you love?" she gazed at him shyly with puppy eyes. "Why'd you regret that?"
"It's sin, T." He said. "Like Christ, we're dedicated to the Lord's higher calling."
"Right." she looked away, and sighed.
"You're a good woman, T." he smiled sincerely, from the heart. She could see it in his sparkling eyes. "I'm sorry."
"So very hard being good."
"I know." He nodded. "Not that fair for us, is it?"
"Yune?" She smirked weakly, and she laid herself flat on the bed. She gazed blankly at the plastered ceiling. Her body bounced as the Asian back-flopped onto the bed nearby. The bedspread underneath tugged at her as Yune shifted to his side.
"Yeah, T?"
".Kiss me." She said quietly. "Just one time."
"Okay." he smiled brilliantly.
Time seemed to stop at that very moment, when their lips touched each other intimately, quickly. Haggard breath came between them as Yune brought her closer.
"Make a wish." She grinned.
***
"I WISH WE HAD AN ELECTRIC BLANKET, KP!" Ron yelled at the top of his lungs, holding the flaps of his windbreaker in a death vice.
"Huh!" his Rufus-sickle squeaked out from his frosty burrow in his cargo shorts. "Me. TOO!"
Deserts; how he hated deserts. They were such odd, expansive locals. How could anything like the outskirts of the Sahara, such as Cairo and the rest of the Nile Delta, be so warm and toasty during the day and cold as Pluto when the sun greeted the other side of the globe? He'd never understand it.
"I told you to bring something heavier!" that redhead stood smug before him, unwavering in the sheer cold of the CAI rental lot, sporting the latest in Club Banana sweat jackets. "But no! You just had to bring the thinnest coat ever made. How many times did you tell Rufus that cold and naked don't mix?"
He frowned. "I'm not naked!"
"No, but you might as well be.!" she yawned. ".Come on, now. We got to find our dead drop."
"Do you think you think they have blankets?" his numbed lips cracked a weak smile.
"We'll never know if we can't find it." He saw those green eyes roll, just before the auburn turned away. "Help me find it, if you don't want to walk freeze out here."
"Right." He shook off the freeze for a split second as he nodded. His frosty eyes blinked. "So. what are we looking for? It better not be a Skoda like last time!"
"A European Ford," she explained, "white. With custom license plate: PROD214."
"Where do we start looking?" he batted the frost off his eyes. "This lot's huge!"
"Don't worry." The reddish mane shifted from side to side, her head sweeping the lot slowly like a security camera. "I'll find it--"
Something honked out nearby, a loud and noisy blare like someone sat upon the higher octaves of ivories of a pipe organ. Again and again, like a car alarm that honked its horn of conflicting notes. Out of the corner of his drying eyes, something flickered in the distance like a signal, on and off in sync with the horn, just beyond the reach of the yellow circle of the lamppost nearby.
"Anyone over there?" the girl called past the reach of the lamp, and tentatively her feet moved in front of each other as her hands clenched tightly. "Anyone?"
"K-Kim?" he forced the words past his chattering jaw. "W-what are you. d-doing?"
"What do you think?" the girl said flatly, shooting him a look before she took her steps into the warm, yellow circle. where she kept going till the shadows on the other side embraced her. His eyes squinted, and he could just make out the faintest of movement by the flickering lights.
*What is she doing? *
The car alarm died swiftly. The bright headlights deepened into a hue of dim yellow before the night choked it, and its silence ceased the manic-depressive fanfare.
"Ron!" the auburn called. "You big baby!"
A sudden spark of heat flushed through him quickly, burning out as quickly as it came.
"What?" he shrugged through his tight jacket.
"Get over here!" he could just barely see the gesture of her arm through the street lamp. "It's just a car alarm."
The corners of his chapped lips pulled into a frown as he shuffled over to the car. "D-don't think I didn't hear that b-baby comment!" he growled. "I heard it!"
"I found our ride." Kimberly said, giving the white hood a simple pat of the hand. "PROD214, conveniently 20 yards away from the terminal."
"Got the keys?"
"But of course." She dipped her fingers into her jacket pocket; he could hear the objects clatter in her grasp as she brought it out. A frigid desert breeze ran through his hair, and he held the windbreaker closer as the girl cruelly took her sweet time as she strolled for the driver's side door. "Feeling cold, Ronald?" she smirked playfully.
"Don't screw with me, KP!" the chattering silenced as he brought his teeth together. "My little buddy's probably frozen by now!"
"You're no fun." the driver's door creaked open as he hurried for the other side. He nearly tore the door clean off its hinges as he scrambled his way inside. The small car shook as he slammed the door.
Kim was looking at him with teasing patience. One arm rested on the steering wheel by the elbow, while the other rested on the gearshift by the palm of her hand. On her face wore a sarcastic, sadistic smirk.
"So Ron?" she said bluntly. "Are you going to forget your heavier jackets next time?"
"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, KIM!" he exclaimed. "NO!!"
"Good answer." She placed her back square against the seat. The key scraped the pins as she pushed the piece into the ignition, and the engine fired up with a quiet roar. Warming air blew at him, and his shivering eased to a stop as he felt the warm blood flow back into his face.
"Hmm. boy!" his buddy crawled into his lap, and he laid back into his body as if he were at the beach, bathing in the sunlight. "He--better- better!"
"You got that right, old buddy!" he wiggled serenely in the chair.
"What's this?" Kim asked, and he sat back up as his tired eyes caught her hand taking something from the center console. She twisted it in her grasp as her eyes ran over it in a curious gaze.
"It looks like a memory card." He noted. "The kind you plug into a laptop or something."
Her other hand took it in its pinch, while the former fished into a pocket of her cargos. A larger, flat object jerked and wiggled around as her hand tried to yank it free.
"Or like. a--PDA." She grunted--and the device in question came free as if by command, or mere mention of the abbreviation. "I knew this looked familiar! Wondering if the Barbie-doll lost it too."
The card slipped into the port smoothly, the plastics clicking and tapping at she pushed it firmly into place. She thumbed the little red button, and the Kimmunicator flickered on in a haze of static. On the little LCD, typed out a message.
"Duh!" she glared. "Of course I want to upload!"
A thin, blue line inched its way across the screen, and the PDA whirred and clicked just as if it were a desktop PC. Her fingers drummed on the steering wheel, her lips pulling into a sneer as the line took its time reaching for the other side of the screen.
"Remind me to get more RAM." She yawned.
"Okay." He nodded. "Kim?"
"Yeah?"
"Get more RAM." He smirked, and he felt his little buddy writhe with goofy laughter on his lap.
"Cute." her eyes rolled--and the blue line vanished as it reached the end of the window. Her personal monogram flashed on-screen for only a moment, it's green and yellow dashes fading into a dark shade of gray. Something typed out on the screen, the cursor dropping yellow characters behind wherever it went. "Hmm."
"Hmm. what?" he asked.
"Check the glove box." The auburn replied. "It says there should be a map of our destination."
"Right." His waist crumpled as he reached for the box. The rat below scampered down his legs, and there was a small *thump* as he dropped to the floor. The box's door clunked open, and his eyes could just make out the word map on the folded piece of paper in the dim light.
The paper rattled as he unfolded the flat country of Israel, printed and colored in the typical colors of a road map. A rather large, scribbled circle of red encompassed the city of Tel Aviv. Just below it was scribbled a small message in the same shade of red.
"Dan Panorama Tel Aviv." He read. "Charles Clore Park."
"Right." The auburn nodded. Her leg shifted in the seat, and there was a small *clomp* and a quiet squeal of air just before she wrenched the shifter down a few notches on the console. "Ready to go, Ron?"
"As always, KP--"
"Well, I'm not!" his heart jumped at a whinny, strident voice from all around.
"Did. you say something, Kim?" the cabin seemed to grow, expanding its corners, as he pressed deeper into the leather seat.
"No." her mane moved all around, barely able to keep the form as she glanced all around. "Did you?"
"Well I have a lot to say!" that voice whined, the timbre that of an older woman. Yet it was so strange, so familiar as if he heard it from somewhere before. But he didn't know when. "I've been sitting here all day! And my engine block is getting sick of these desert conditions! I'll be lucky if the sandstorm yesterday didn't put a scratch on my paintjob!"
The equalizer's bars on the readout jumped at every word, the gray stacks reaching high levels at times of a stressed syllable or exclamation.
*Wait! * He shook his head. *I saw this before. *
Kim lowered her head closer to the stereo; her round features a lime green in the readout's glow.
"Sadie.?" she said carefully.
"Sadie?" his brow perked. "As in Dr. Freeman's S-A-D-I system, Sadie?"
"The one and only!" the stacks shifted in height at the speech. "What? You didn't think I was a 'ghost car', did you?"
"Well--uh."
"At least you didn't scream bloody murder like our first meeting." The AI chuckled. "I'll give you some credit for that."
The whole interior began to emit a strange light, a glow of an eerie pale. The light consumed everything; even the exterior and the very seats they sat on shinned like a full moon. The shape of the cabin began to twist and morph, expanding and contracting, squaring out into its true shapes just before the glow vanished in the night.
"Ah." the exhale sounded like static on the speakers, "to think I started life as a mere Jeep."
"I hope optic camouflage isn't your only trick." The girl replied. "But what are you doing here?"
"Some blonde called up the doctor two days ago." The SUV replied. "She said that you guys were going on a tough mission, and she figured you guys could use a serious lift."
"Self-Automated-Driving-Intelligence." She smirked. "One good call Hershel made all day."
"Is that her name?" the AI asked. "I was wondering who that bitchy girl was. Not that it matters to me, anyhow.
"Just be prepared to deal with her more often," she warned, "now that you're here."
"Right." The vehicle agreed. "But is everyone ready to go? My carburetor's sick of the sand!"
"You and I both, my friend." She smiled. "To the Dan Panorama Tel Aviv, Sadie, in."
"Tel Aviv?"
"Yeah." The pads of her fingers ran over her crown in embarrassment. "At Charles Clore Park."
"Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride." The SUV said enthusiastically, bits of sand and gravel crunched underneath as the car rolled smoothly away. "Just let good old Sadie do the driving. And Ron?"
"Yeah." He took the vehicle's advice to heart, leaning back comfortably in his seat.
"There will be no Slurpsters in these cup holders!"
"Pf--" he frowned. "Man.!"
"Not her fault that you spilled it everywhere after Drakken's apprehension." Kim slouched in the driver's seat. "Now come on. Let's go."