A/N: Just a general disclaimer--don't own any of these nutters. And also, there is one paragraph in here that gives me deja vu. The whole deja vu bit happens to me quite often so I'm ignoring it but if, god forbid, something in here I had read before and it just lodged in my brain--certainly tell me and I will correct it. You'll have to identify the passage, though--so I don't get you guys all screwing with me ;-)

Not Exactly Gagging For It—Diary of Hugh Stamp

May 04, 1998

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a bad action movie.

It's the most unnerving feeling, really, a cocktail of inner turmoil—adrenaline pulsing through your veins as if to a soundtrack heavy on the synth and frenetic quasi-Latin chanting. Alert, always, your senses piqued and nerves set on edge. And added to the mix, the most unfortunate component, the dash of Impending Doom. You can't quite taste it yet, but it's there, like cyanide in vodka—cheers, here's to you, drink up, don't mind that bitter aftertaste. And then there's the bit about being preoccupied with a nefarious plot to steal vials of a deadly biological agent and sell it to the highest bidder.

Yes. About that.

Best to start at the beginning.

Okay, so there's this secret agency. Or at least they are supposed to be secret, but they aren't exactly subtle. They deal with "impossible" field missions, i.e., those which can only be completed by good-looking men with an excess of both testosterone and high-powered explosives. They go by some ridiculous acronym I can't recall at the moment. There used to be two top agents in the organization, the American Ethan Hunt and Australian-Scottish hybrid Sean Ambrose. Apparently they used to double as each other in undercover operations, which seems rather pointless since the whole lot of them have a store of rubber masks that can turn them into anyone, regardless if they looked alike in the first place. It's unnerving. Once I saw an old lady in the underground rip off her face and jump on one of the moving trains. Positive it was one of those buggers. As I said, they aren't into subtlety. Anyway, Sean Ambrose came to his senses one day and said something along the lines of 'hey, I am pretty much superman here, why am I running around saving the world for peanuts when I could use my talents to unscrupulously obtain millions of dollars?' to which Ethan Hunt said, 'Look into my stoic but ruggedly handsome face and know that I will always be a lame-ass and work for the good of the universe, and if you do anything I don't like I'll come after you and be generally annoying for the rest of your life, which will be very short if I do say so myself.' Of course, I'm paraphrasing. But that's generally what went down.

Fast forward to now. Sean's gearing up for his first big heist. This pharmaceutical giant downtown Sydney has come up with some nasty new virus. Makes Ebola look like allergies. They named in Chimera after some Roman myth. How quaint. This is what Sean wants to get a hold of, this and its antidote, bellaraphon. If you ask me, there are better things to steal than level four biohazards. Diamonds, for instance. Money. Rare antiques. Cocaine, gold bullion, people's mailboxes, anything really, anything other than something that when mishandled makes your eyes bleed out until you die. I got my first whiff of Impending Doom when informed of this plan. You see, Sean wants to be rich, that's true, but he'd rather be Intensely Frightening and Truly Evil, and so it's not enough to just steal some shit, he has to steal dangerous shit and hold it over some peoples head to watch them sweat. And as an ex-operative for IMF (there's the acronym!), I can only assume it will involve explosions.

Sean and I used to hang out and torture small animals together in junior high. We were pretty much buddies, but by high school the relationship started to change. It became quite clear that Sean was In Charge and I was…not. People would see me in the hall and say 'hey, look, it's Sean's little bitch!' It used to bother me until I realized it was probably true and I should just accept it and get over it.

Before you get any ideas, though, our friendship, warped as it may be, has always been platonic. I admit I used to have a bit of a thing for Sean, but for him it's always been about the ladies. Again, all of those guys, testosterone overload. He used to be with this obnoxious chick Nyah, always getting into trouble and calling on Sean to bail her out. I don't know why he did it. If he wants to be Dangerously Evil he shouldn't go about caring about girls. There are plenty of good whores in Sidney.

Well, it's time to man the monitors. There really is no point to them but if you're going to be Dangerously Evil you need to have security monitors and a couple of guys to keep an eye on them. Don't like the job much. There is this brown haired guy down there who creeps me out. The guy doesn't talk. I don't think he even has a name. If this was a bad action movie, he'd be one of the guys in jumpsuits that get blown to bits within the first ten minutes. At least I'd get to duke it out with the hero, probably, before dying a more interesting yet albeit more painful death.

Sean would die last.

Lucky bastard.

May 06, 1998

Holy shit we did it. We stole the goddamned virus. Sean is elated. I am still getting over the fact I just rammed a fucking airplane into the side of a mountain. Even more amazing is the fact I 1) rigged the oxygen masks to dispense chloroform 2) flew the thing for two hours before 3) bailing and parachuting 20,000 feet to the ground. I am a genius. Genius, I tell you. Never even went to flight school. All Sean did was rip his face off. AGAIN.

May 08, 1998

Speak of the devil. The bitch is back. Nyah Nordoff-Hall just comes sailing up to the house 'oh, oh, I got in trouble and Sean offered to save me, oh, look at my gauzy scarf and my perky boobs!' I know she's working for someone, and that someone isn't us. She was just so impressed with his sexual prowess that she had to come back, I suppose. Bull shit. That man is never going to be the Pinnacle of Evil if he doesn't stop thinking with his dick. I don't trust that skank, I'm keeping an eye on her.

What a rotten day.

May 10 1998

Watching monitors. Plotting secondary evil. Story of my life.

May 14 1998.

FUCK.

I finally gather up the confidence to tell Sean what I think about his little whore-friend, and he CUTS OFF MY GODDAMN FINGER. I mean, seriously, why? I know you're evil, we've confirmed this, and you don't need to cut off pieces of my extremities to prove it. This is how it went, basically—

ME-- Why do you think she's

really here?

Sean--From her point of view or mine?

ME--Wasn't exactly gagging for it when she

left you six months ago..The question is,

do you trust her?

And here was my big mistake. Doubting the powers of Sean's sexual charm. The insinuation she wasn't very completely taken with his virility and strength was tantamount to taking a knife to his throbbing man muscle itself. He pulled this nasty looking cigar trimmer out of nowhere and cut my hand with it. There was a big dramatic monologue between the first act and the second, during which I nodded frantically and agreed pitifully to everything he said but to no avail. So I'm there, bleeding profusely, in intense pain and he's all 'don't ever question my judgment again.'

Ah, the life of an underling.

May 16 1998

Overheard at the races:

Nyah—"Hugh Stamp, an old mate of Sean's, is the only one I recognize. Bit of a creep and then some…"

BITCH.

And then some bastard closed the door on my face.

Not my day either.

May 18 1998

AS I THOUGHT. Nyah is working with Ethan Hunt. HA. HA.

Now people are ripping off their faces everywhere I turn, it's getting very confusing. I watch my monitors. Kill people. Watch monitors. Kill more people. Sean is watching "Ghost" upstairs. It is his favorite movie. I would tell him Truly Evil People do not watch Whoopi Goldberg but I want to keep the rest of my fingers.

I'm bored.

May 20 1998

So Sean thinks Ethan is going to break into the Biocyte compound to steal the Chimera (correction—destroy it. He's still playing boy scout). That means we go too, to get it first, and kill Ethan while we're at it. Ethan's like Spiderman on crack when he breaks into buildings…he ties himself to a big rubber band and bounces off the walls. I don't think it's ever occurred to him there might be easier ways.

I foresee massive destruction.

Pretty excited.