A/N For those of you who wanted some kind of play-by-play on the Anna-Alex throwdown, here you go.
"I gave him a mission."
"We have to get you…dressed."
"Enjoy the concert."
"Remove this man!"
That night, at Ellie's super-special dinner…
"Pregnant?"
"Yeah."
"Awesome!"
Verbanski Corp., after dark…
Gertrude sat in her office, doing all the little things that had gone undone with Morgan and Alex to see. The bounties on Sneijder were beginning to come in, and soon he would be making the rounds with all of his new friends. Her deal with Casey was already paying off handsomely, and what the hell would he do for an encore?
She stared at his gun, mounted across from her desk, as she so often did. What would he do for an encore? What was his game? And how did Alex fit into it? She had to fit into it somehow, Gertrude was not a big believer in coincidence.
Except maybe for this afternoon. Gertrude could draw lines all over the map between Alex and John and Morgan and the Buy More, but that mess with Anna had 'snafu' written all over it. Did she have to say 'who's next?' at just that moment?
Gertrude had tried to stop Alex, she really had, but all that accomplished was a jammed finger keeping the door from hitting her in the face as Alex raced across the mat, arm cocked, about to get her ass handed to her by an armed and armored professional. Anna heard Alex coming, she was not subtle, and surely she had to be John's daughter from that alone. But then, surprise, she could do subtle after all. As Anna raised her elbow to block, Alex dropped her punch, ducking her head under Anna's blocking elbow and ramming the instructor in the belly. The dropped punch became a hand grab to Anna's ankle as Alex pulled up, dropping Anna to the floor as Alex stepped back, a bit dazed.
Gertrude noticed Anna noticing her, looking past her stumbling opponent to see her boss watching the whole thing. Two minutes later it was over, with Alex sprawled on the mat and Anna on her knees, breathing hard.
Later, in the women's locker room…
Anna winced, taking off her body armor. That kid had a hard head.
What a fiasco. Gertrude Verbanski herself had held the door open for a couple of stretcher bearers, but there was Morgan running across the mat, dropping to his knees next to…the other girl. "Hey," he said, gently stroking her face.
Anna couldn't remember Morgan ever stroking her face like that, not that she'd ever wanted him to. "Did I win?" she'd heard the girl ask. As if. She'd gotten in a few hits, even managed to take Anna down to the mat, again, but she did herself a lot of damage on Anna's defenses.
"No," said Morgan, "But it was a glorious loss." He moved to one side as the medics took over, checking for broken bones. He didn't even look at Anna.
Gertrude had done that, one of her many command responsibilities. "How are you?"
"I'm fine," she'd said. It wasn't true, not really, but what else could she have said? Rather than get personal she tried for a more professional attitude, evaluating the girl's performance for her boss. "She's fast, mean, and fights dirty–"
"All fine things," said Gertrude. "She did better than all of Blue Squad." The members of which had become an equal-opportunity cheering section during the fight, but with the arrival of the boss on scene had apparently decided the demo was over and left the room.
"But she let her anger do the fighting. Plus I know her style and she didn't know mine, so, I win."
Anna could feel her boss watching her watch Morgan watching over Alex as they took her out of the room, but all Miss Verbanski said was, "I suppose you could say that."
God-dammit!
Oh, and then the icing on the cake, Morgan ducking back to the open door. "Hey, Anna, you look good." He'd run off without waiting for her to say anything.
"What does it say about me that I want him back, now?" she'd said to the room.
"It says, time for you to go back to the Rim," said Gertrude. "You wanted him to make a life without you in it and you succeeded. Congratulations."
She'd forgotten her boss was right there behind her. God-dammit! Anna slammed the locker door. Time to blow this pineapple stand.
Dr. Dreyfus had a few patients in the population of the CIA facility, enough to cover his activities with one client in particular. That client, however, wasn't a patient, and shouldn't have been checked in at all. "Good evening, Chuck," he said, entering Chuck's room. "At least I hope it is, just as I'm hoping this is a clever plan to meet with me under cover."
A small twitchy man stuck his head in the room. "What's going on in here, doc?" he asked, with a small snort. "Something–" his face twisted uncontrollably "–sexual?"
"No, Lewis," said Dreyfus. He closed the door, forcing the little man to back out. "You'll excuse us." Dreyfus turned back to his team, his clients, and nodded at Agent Walker, standing by the bed. "You're not supposed to be here either."
She shrugged. "They did try to keep me out."
Psychiatrists were like spies in some respects. He'd noticed some of the usual attendants were missing. "I'll leave word at the door for the future. We really can't afford to be understaffed. Lewis–or as he prefers to be called, Merlin–is the mildest of them."
He seemed pretty mild, but Sarah had met lots of spies who seemed mild. "Sounds good."
"So, Chuck? How's the mission going?"
"It's going great, Doc, I mean, aside from the shackles." Chuck rattled the chains holding him to the bed.
"My apologies, but appearances must be maintained," said Dreyfus. "You caused an international incident. The President will have to apologize tomorrow, as soon as they coach him in Zamibian."
"It's a tricky language," said Sarah. "Lots of clicks."
"None of us wants to hear the President try to speak Zamibian, Chuck, for any reason," said Leo. "So believe me when I say we all hope there was more to tonight's incident than your dislike of the man's dental work."
"Actually, Doc, that's exactly what I disliked." Sarah reached inside her dress and pulled out Kowambe's tooth. "We'll just get this analyzed, and Kuti will have to learn English."
"He already knows English, Chuck," said Sarah.
"I know he does, Sarah. I was just sayin'," said Chuck, laughing weakly. He rattled the cuff again. "Can someone get this off of me, please?"
"We have a mission for your little team, Colonel," said Beckman. "We discovered a new Ring cell after a suspicious transfer of funds."
He couldn't have heard that right. "You want these guys to go after the Ring, General?"
"No," said the General shortly. "We only discovered the cell because of a transfer of funds into an account we were already watching, and that's the target of your team's next mission. This man…" An image took over the screen. "Mats Zorn."
That's more like it. "Isn't he always on the move?" asked Casey.
"Correct, and right now he's moving toward you," said Beckman. "We heard about him sniffing around in Paris but only in time to catch his mole. Whatever information the mole gave him is in his possession, but if he gets to LA safely he can transmit that data anywhere in the world."
"Don't worry, General," said Casey. "We can handle it." One phone call, that's all it would take. Not even two. Maybe two, you can never have too much overkill. Still, one annoying little information merchant, how hard could it be?
Arriving at the scene…
Bravo One looked at his men, still one down with the absence of Bravo Five. "All right, boys," he said, "Time to earn our pay."
Inside the CIA Psychiatric Facility…
Two henchmen dressed as orderlies dragged their victim into the treatment room and threw him into the chair. Martin Kowambe strolled in, wearing a white lab coat over his suit. "What's going on, Doc?" asked the victim. He snorted. "Something…sexual?"
Kowambe glared at the little twitchy man. "Where is Bartowski?"
"You gave us a room number," said a henchman. "He was the only one there."
"Kill him," said Kowambe. "And find me Bartowski."
The doors opened, and Bravo One and his squad filed out in good order to secure their objective. The target environment was a madhouse of struggling figures, so no one noticed them as they moved into position.
"Spies!" shouted Lewis, looking to the door, "Attack!"
The henchmen looked up, but no one was there at this time of night. Lewis took advantage of the distraction to run away. They followed, not worried about interference because no one was around at this time of–
Chuck and Sarah were kneeling in the room, tranq guns ready as Lewis ran past. Both thugs fell with multiple darts in them. "Damn," drawled Merlin, as they fell.
Kowambe appeared in the doorway and Chuck shot him too. When he fell his face hit the floor, and something tooth-like fell out of his mouth.
"Hey, look, Sarah," he said, going over to pick it up. He peeled back Kowambe's lip to see the second gap. "It was exactly where I thought, just on the other side of his mouth." He stood up. looking confused. "I wonder how that happened?"
Lewis' face spasmed as he nodded. "So does Merlin, Chuck. So does Merlin."
When all his men acknowledged they were in position Bravo One gave the order. "Fire!"
His men leaped up and sprayed the area with their weapons, flashing lights with the best sound effects money could buy. The struggling figures stopped. "Cease Fire. You!" he shouted, pointing at Morgan, "What the hell is all this crap?"
"Oh, ah, well, sir," said Morgan, pointing to the crowd, "This is the crowd of fans that have been waiting outside all week for the new release of Spy Attack."
"Corporate only sent us six copies," said some other guy in a manager's uniform.
"You guys are doing all this damage over Spy Attack?" asked Bravo One in disbelief. "Everybody knows that game sucks! The gameplay is substandard, the music is too loud, and the dialog isn't realistic. Spend your money on Rainbow Ten."
"Corporate shill!" shouted someone in the crowd.
"Uh, One, this is Six, I see a dozen copies of LZ 20: Locked and Loaded right on that shelf over there, and that one got better reviews than R10 and Spy Attack combined." A couple of people in the crowd cheered.
"Yeah, well, when you lead this company you can choose the games, Six," said One. "Until then, you can just shut the–"
"Now, now," said Morgan, "This is America, sir." He turned to face the crowd. "How many for LZ20?" A bunch of hands went up. "How many for Rainbow Ten?" Not so many hands went up.
"That's just 'cause none of you yahoos know how to play a real game," said One.
"I smell blood in the water," said Jeff.
"Greenshirts!" yelled Morgan. "I want screens and controllers for twenty, on the double. You guys, it's put up or shut up time, against some real commandoes. Do you guys got the guts?"
The crowd roared YEAH! Big Mike asked Morgan, "What the hell are you doing? This ain't gonna get any games sold."
"Where do you think the Hollywood Buy More sent all its copies of R10, to make room for Spy Attack?" said Morgan. "We've got plenty. We'll charge these guys an entry fee, and then 'give' them the game, signed by real shooters. Plus, it should sell out the junk food aisle real quick. Send somebody over to Large Mart to get more, triple the prices, and don't forget to put those six copies of Spy Attack we did get into that guy's bag, when no one's looking." He pointed at Bravo One.
"There's more than one way to handle a riot," said Mike happily. "I was about to break out my disco stick, but this is even better."
On the roof of a building downtown…
Gertrude Verbanski looked out from the protective circle of Casey's arms as the helicopter she'd been standing next to just a minute before suddenly exploded. A random shot had holed a fuel tank, the fuel had spilled out and caught fire. She was blind and choking in an inferno, until John had pushed through the smoke and fumes to get her and carry her off the platform. Shrapnel flew out everywhere, mostly over the heads of her team. "We are not going to take the blame for this, John," she snapped.
John coughed a little. Gertrude's men had Zorn. One of his own losers was staring in horror at the target's briefcase, which had caught a metal fragment headed for his chest. He even shrieked like a little girl. This would do. "I wouldn't ask you to."
A/N2 Trying to combine Tooth, Frosted Tips, Cubic Z, and a little bit from Anniversary. All of which had conflicts that don't exist in this revision.
I know nothing at all about video games. I just made up the names.