Author's/N: I like all the classes. But some are fun to bash. Repeatedly. In the head. With scissors. Or bone saws. Mwahahahaha.
However, at this point, I really do not know what I am doing. I have included more (directly lifted) lines, this time from Blackadder. (There's something irresistible about britcoms.)
(P.S. Have you noticed that I've not marked this as complete yet? Ha! That is because I have yet another chapter to be locked and loaded and fired at your unsuspecting retinas! Prepare yourselves! You have been warned!
Actually, I'm posting them both at the same time, so I suppose you are sufficiently warned. :/)
Scout's Scouting
Scout had been the runt of the litter his entire life: the smallest, weakest, and least consequential person in a group of people of already dubious consequentiality. Of course, that just meant he had to make up for it by being the loudest, most boisterous, and most skull-numbingly logorrheic nuisance to walk the Earth or at least New Mexican deserts. He was astoundingly good at that, much to the consternation of his fellow mercenaries.
Scout was vaguely aware of their discontent, but, obviously, they deserved it. They didn't respect him at all. It wasn't his fault that they couldn't appreciate his wit and genius. He could hear them now: "Hey! What's-yer-face! Get your stupid butt over here."
There it was again. Always calling him "stupid". He wasn't stupid. He just did, said, and thought stupid things. There was a difference.
Oh wait, that was the other Scout calling him. He ground his teeth and answered in his own belligerent manner. (For the reader's sake, their following exchange, consisting of a steady stream of profanities and slang terms, has been literalized.)
"All right, tough guy. Of course, I'm using that epithet in a most sarcastic manner, as it is clear that I am merely pointing out the lack of so-called toughness you possess by using it."
"Oh yeah? Well, I'll see your sarcastic epithet and raise you a dismissive and unapologetically vulgar reference to romancing your mother."
"I laugh at you because the Spies have already used that against me, making your feeble attempt at disrespect tired and unoriginal! I then insult you in an equally profane and unoriginal manner, since our dialogue is written by a talentless hack who can't be bothered to come up with something actually clever and in-character."
(The two Scouts were so similar in their diatribes that they may as well have renamed themselves Pot and Kettle and debated whether or not the other was really a Very Dark Gray. Unfortunately, no one wants to be stuck with the name "Pot", so that scenario never came to be.)
"What do you want?" the former-RED Scout finally shouted in exasperation after exhausting his store of obscene insults.
"There's someone at the door. Go get it."
The former-RED Scout spluttered indignantly, "Why don't you go get it yourself?"
"Because I don't want to," the former-BLU said matter-of-factly. He darted off before his former-RED counterpart could reply.
Grumbling, he traipsed over to the door and yanked it open just so he could slam it closed on whatever schmuck was behind the disturbance. Before he could, he caught sight of whatever schmuck was behind the disturbance and was promptly gobsmacked into submission.
"Oh...Miss Pauling! What a...uh...a...terrific – coincidence?" (yes, that was the word) "...to see you here." He was immediately cheered by the fact that he had hit at least 46% of the words he had meant to say, and that was a passing score as far as he was concerned.
Although he had a rather graphic health education at the hands of his brothers and no trouble interacting with girls, his extent of his experience with "ladies" was his dealings with one heart-stopping Miss Pauling which, upon sight, rendered him weak at the jaw and elbows (not knees; he prided himself on having very strong knees).
Naturally, she didn't give him the time of day (or night, for that matter).
Miss Pauling stood there in her purple-toned, blood-spotted splendor, her jet-black hair in attractive disarray and her face adorably smeared with grime and sweat. She made a half-hearted attempt to force her tangled hair into a bun. It unraveled itself petulantly.
"Yeah, uh huh, nice to see you too."
Quick, say something sofa- sofisic- sofistikated! he thought to himself. "What brings you to –"
"I need to lay low for a few days. I thought they'd never find me..."
"Miss Pauling, who's after you?"
She sighed and pushed her glasses up, but the smudged glass didn't hide the frenzied gleam in her eyes. "The Department of Labor."
Scout blinked. "...What."
"If they catch me, they'll force me...to go on vacation."
"Oh, yeah, that sounds terrible. Miss Pauling, I think you might actually enjoy some time off –"
"I don't have time to deal with that right now. I can't not work, not even for a second."
"Aren't you technically not working now...?"
She ignored him. "There's something big going on. Something...I can't tell you about. But it's definitely big."
Scout nodded, eyes wide.
"I need you to hide me here for a few days. Give the team a head's-up first. If anyone from the Department shows up, say I'm on a safari."
He had, of course, tuned out by now and was staring at a freckle on her nose.
"Scout! Are you paying attention?"
"What? Oh. Yeah, I hear ya. You want me to give the Department heads a hiding and then go on a safari."
She sighed. "Close enough."
He beamed. "Say, Miss Pauling, can I just say how beautiful you are looking today –"
Unbeknownst to him, she had already pushed past him and was halfway down the hall.
The extremely awkward "date" they had after the bread incident consisted of him awkwardly being awkward – uh, suavely being charming – while Miss Pauling made some corpses out of some random people he couldn't remember. He had made absolutely no progress whatsoever–
Wait.
Last time, he had gotten her attention by messing with the briefcase. Granted, that didn't go perfectly, but it had gotten the job done.
Why was the briefcase so damn important anyway? It was definitely some sort of secret, but about what?
Maybe ...
Maybe he should find out.
Now, with the robots serving as a very effective distraction and the teams no longer (officially) at each others' throats, their briefcase was kept under minimum security. One was even destroyed in some freak kitchen fire. It would be easy, tantalizingly easy, just to take one, open it up, and look inside. And somehow he'd get another shot with Miss Pauling, although that seemed easier said than done.
His resolve solidified. Yes. He would take the briefcase, boast about taking the briefcase, then open the briefcase and read it.
He fell asleep, where his dreams were populated by scads of Miss Paulings.
Getting the briefcase was surprisingly less difficult than he had surmised. The last time, it had been behind triple-layered bullet-proof glass with laser-triggered alarms.
This time, it was lying behind a bucket in one of the spacier supply closets.
"Huh, I was really expecting this to be harder," he observed aloud. No one was around to hear him brag about it, so he simply addressed the various appliances in the supply closet. "Did you see that, mop? Stealin' intel's a piece of cake, spray bottle. Don't know why everyone makes a big deal..."
The mop fell over.
Since cleaning supplies did not make the best audience for his relating of the particulars of his daring feat, he decided to skip to the part where he opened and read the briefcase. Unfortunately, reading was not his strong suit. He, like half his teammates, was functionally illiterate. However, even he knew that anything written in big red letters meant business.
But business was boring, so he ignored it, even if a good understanding of current markets and industry disruption would be socially responsible, future-oriented, and synergistically recommendable. This meant most of the items in the briefcase went unread, since pretty much everything was written in big red letters.
The pictures were no better. They featured only old things – old ladies, old men, old cars, and some were so old they were portraits painted to a romantic ideal rather than as a true depiction of the idiosyncratic facial qualities of the person in question and therefore no use at all. Scout quickly came to the conclusion that it had been a waste of time walking stealthily into the supply closet, and his efforts were even more disappointed when Miss Pauling, coming to check on the briefcase, caught him with his hands metaphorically of a scarlet hue.
"Hey...Miss Pauling... didn't expect you to come here to this particular closet at this particular time. What a coinci–"
"You...you looked in the briefcase."
"Yeah, but–"
"You opened the briefcase?! Do you know what you've done?"
"...no."
"Did you even think before you decided to look in it?!"
"Also no."
"No! You never do! You never think! Did you read anything in there?!"
He shook his head, mute with fear.
"Of course. I forgot, you're an idiot. Give that to me." She snatched the briefcase from him, carefully tucked in the loose papers, and marched off.
A single (manly) tear rolled (manfully) down his (masculine) face (in a most virile manner). (No, he's not ashamed of his sensitivity. Wherever did you get that idea?) That single tear was quickly joined by a multitude of other tears, but they were all very single.
After he had a good long cry, he assessed the situation. There was probably a way to salvage this mission. He went to the Panic Room – which was really a Mild Concern room at the moment – to draw up a new plan.
The Demoman wandered in, brandishing a bottle of brandy in one hand and his grenade launcher in the other. He belched by way of greeting, flanked by a wary Engineer.
"Boyo! Whassa matter with ye?" slurred the Demoman.
"Nothin'," lied the Scout. He thought with some irritation that it was getting rather tired of being mistaken for a teenager even though he was well into his twenties. He attempted once to grow a beard, failed miserably, and so decided that beards were lame anyway while sulking with a bowl of ice cream.
He was certain that this was the only reason Miss Pauling was still distant. He accidentally tried to hide the rough sketch of Miss Pauling he was making, which brought it to everyone's attention.
"Girl troubles, huh? Well, I've got some (*eructation*) advice for ye."
Uh oh, thought the Engineer.
"Women like men with large..."
"...vocabularies," interrupted the Engineer.
"...giant (*burp*), pulsating..."
"...brains..."
"...and if you could just get..."
"...your grades up..."
"...then she'd be begging for..."
"...your company," the Engineer hurriedly finished. "Come along now, Demoman. I think the boy's heard enough."
Spy stepped in to hear the conversation better.
"I am simply here to acquire these files," he lied. "Proceed."
"Spy, do you think I have a chance with–"
"No."
"I didn't even finish my sentence."
"You didn't have to. You have a particular talent for using a great quantity of words to say absolutely nothing, so anything I said would have been appropriate."
"Thanks, man!"
"That was not a compliment."
"Anyway, you've given me an idea. I'll write her an apology letter! Yeah! That'll work."
He dashed out of the room.
"What is wrong with that boy?" Spy wondered aloud.
Demoman snored loudly in response.
"Never mind that," Engineer said. "We've just been talking to Miss Pauling, and, well, Scout's in trouble."
"Not a surprise. What did he do this time?"
"He looked in the briefcase."
Spy raised an eyebrow. "Well. That is serious."
"Yeah. So what are we gonna do about it?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? Spy, you know what will happen if we don't fix this right quick."
"Yes, and that pathetic excuse of a teammate would've brought it on himself. Not my problem."
Engineer frowned. "If he's really that pathetic—"
"He is."
"Well, fine. Since he's so pathetic, why do you feel the need to point it out so often?"
"There's something about the fragility of glass that entices one to endeavour to shatter it through all means possible."
"Well, glass can be tough when tempered," Engineer said.
"Do you think we're setting up an analogy of some sort? Of painful self-improvement leading to greater strength?"
"Don't be stupid; of course we aren't."
Engineer drummed his gloved fingers idly on the desk. Well, if we were to just...adjust a few things on that personality of Scout's, it wouldn't be that bad, would it?
A beat of silence later, Spy said, "Hypothetically, if we were..."
"Yes?" Engineer replied warily.
"Would the glass complain much?"
"Spy, we are not going to do that to him on purpose."
"But it might make him useful."
The Engineer lowered his gaze. "Spy."
"Let's be honest. The Scout's a ridiculous goober. Why do we keep him around?"
"Haven't you learned your lesson from last time, Spy? It didn't go so well when you tried to get rid of Medic."
Spy grimaced. "That's different. Medic is—" he gave a slight cough "—truly indispensable. Scout is not."
"Well, he can run faster than all of us combined, jump over small skyscrapers, and he's an acceptable scapegoat for just about anything."
"But he's incredibly stupid."
"So's half our team."
They sat in silence for a bit.
"How could we replace him?"
"We could get a rocket-powered Siberian sprinting cheetah." Spy looked expectantly at Engineer.
"No."
"You're not a very good sport."
"Fine. Let's discuss the procedure with Medic." Engineer cleared his throat. "MEDIC!"
"Vat?! Vat is going on? Ve are not even in battle!" wailed the Medic from the other side of the base.
"WE WANT YOU TO DO A BRAIN TRANSPLANT!"
Medic appeared after a supernally short pause at the door, his lab coat splattered with formaldehyde and his hair in slightly more disarray than usual.
Engineer did a double-take. "You're not our Medic."
"Does it matter?" the former-BLU Medic asked.
"...I guess not."
"Wait! Wait! I'm on my way!" the former-RED Medic came running up, and stopped upon seeing the other Medic. "Ach, verdammt!"
The former-BLU Medic smirked. "I used a teleporter I specially requested from my Engineer."
"You win ... this time!" the former-RED Medic said between wheezes. "Oh, I need to do more aerobics."
The former-BLU Medic blew a raspberry at his retreating counterpart before addressing Engineer again. "So, did you say...?"
"Yes," said Engineer gravely. "We want you to perform the sub-arachnoid neocranio-neurointegrative procedure. Hopefully using a smarter brain than the candidate currently has."
A grin spread slowly across Medic's face. "Wunderbar. It's been so long since I've done one of zose...who is the lucky victim – I mean candidate?"
"It's the Scout. We just heard from a very angry Miss Pauling that he snooped in the briefcase. We have to destroy all memories of anything he may have seen, or he'll have to be neutralized."
"I can neuter whomever you want," Medic said.
"I said neutralize. As in kill."
"Yes, zat too," Medic said airily. "Come now. Bring ze boy in for examination. I have a delightful selection of ganglia from great thinkers, scientists..."
"Yeah, we haven't really told him yet."
"No matter, bring him in. I don't have a medical license anymore, vhich means informed consent is more of a general suggestion than a rule."
"Alright. Demo, go get 'im. Tell him that Miss Pauling wants to see him." Engineer thought for a moment. "Hmm. 'Want' is a bit of a strong word. Just say he has to direct himself to the general location that is Miss Pauling's current coordinates on this plane of reality."
Demo saluted sloppily, and weaved out of the Panic Room.
"I love unethical experimentation!" Medic exclaimed without any provocation.
"Okay, don't get too excited."
"This is a dangerous procedure and for it to succeed, you will have to cooperate fully," Medic explained for the third time to the Scout strapped down to the gurney.
The former-RED Scout did not doze off during this exchange. That would be a wholly unrealistic exaggeration. People do not fall asleep within seconds of hearing boring speech. He did, however, drift off in a sort of glazed-eyed reverie.
"Are you listening to me?"
"Wha? Yeah, of course."
"Then what did I just say?"
"Uhh..." he snapped his jaw shut angrily. "You...uh...I don't care."
"Ve are going to replace your brain with another brain. It will be a smarter brain than yours. You might die, but you also might live, so chin up."
Scout's stomach twisted in fear. Well, not literally. If it had literally twisted, it would probably necessitate surgery, and the thought of having surgery done by the doctors available to them would have been enough for his poor, hapless stomach to frantically untwist itself in fear.
"Uh...do I get a say in this?"
"Nope!" Medic replied cheerily, and hit him about the head with a frying pan.
The procedure itself did not last very long. Medic sawed open Scout's skull, yanked out the brain, and shoved the new one in, the Medi Gun healing its merry way throughout. The tricky part was waiting for the patient to wake up afterwards, which Medic found to be the greatest frustration of his career since it happened so infrequently. Medic thought it quite inconsiderate on the part of his patients to die so often. This time, however, he was rewarded with a relatively short wait, and he found the patient standing at the window staring into space when he returned after he changed into less blood-stained clothing.
"Ah! It was a success. Not a surprise, I'm vunderfull. But still, nice to see."
The Scout turned abruptly to face him. "Is there an ontologically independent, objective reality beyond our subjective experience of it? Or is it that all that can exist is a phenomenological reality?" he said in perfect Received Pronunciation.
Medic frowned. "Hmm, I've never considered that. Philosophical realism has always been my perspective of choice."
Engineer popped his head in. "Hey, doc. How's it g–"
"Is it truly our place to determine if something is moral or not? Is there, truly, a morality to speak of?" Scout bloviated.
Engineer facepalmed. "Aw hell, you made him a moral nihilist?"
"Vell, at least he isn't a regular nihilist."
That was a mistake. In a voice that commanded attention, that swelled to the sweeping grand heights of passion and the low whispering valleys of prosodic emphasis, Scout began to pontificate. "Life has no meaning. All systems move towards entropy. The world will die flaming. PV=nRT."
"Not all systems – are you a naive empiricist?"
Spy cleared his throat from the doorway.
"May I just interrupt?" He turned to Scout. "Can you recite the first hundred digits of pi?"
The Scout swelled pompously. "Certainly. 3.1415..."
"Hmm. It seems like his conversation has even less substance than before. Odd." Spy turned back to Medic. "This is not better.
"Was there something wrong with the brain you used?" asked the Engineer.
"Nothing. Nothing at all. I made sure that it was fully compatible for once. The previous owner was shot to death, and its current owner has been shot to death many times. The previous owner had a degree in the liberal arts, and its current owner also won't amount to any academic success."
"Medic, I have 11 hard science PhDs, but I don't feel the need to demean other peoples' degrees. What was it in?"
"Philosophy."
"Oh. Never mind, then."
"Were there any communicable diseases that may have affected the organ?" Spy inquired.
"No! Wait. Yes, he had rabies. Oh, so zat's why zay shot him."
"We have to fix this!" Engineer exclaimed.
"Well, he is smarter, and he doesn't have any incriminating memories," Medic said in a cajoling tone.
"But we have to put up with this!" Engineer waved at the Scout, who had reached "510582097494459".
"That is a very good argument, I'll give you zat. But we'll have to stick with zis until I can figure out the reverse procedure."
"Just shove his old brain back in!"
"It's not that simple!" Medic shouted. "Once you have severed the brain stem once, severing it again is very dangerous! It simply rejects any new tissue! Rejects it, I say!"
"Fine, we'll try it! But Solly spotted another wave of bots earlier, so he'd better be able to fight them!"
He was not able to fight them.
"I am on a quest for knowledge!" Scout declaimed while standing on a pile of metal robot parts, in clear view of a robo-Sniper.
"No, you are on a quest for bullets!" screamed one of the Engineers.
"Pain is an illusion!" Scout shouted, now bleeding from multiple newly formed orifices.
"Haha! I like this new brain of yours, son!" yelled the former-RED Soldier as he careened past with his Rocket Jumper.
Medic hauled the still-pontificating Scout from off the pile of scrap metal and turned the Medi Gun on him. "Vat are you doing? You're supposed to shoot the robots!"
"Yes, but will that really bring true fulfillment?"
"No, but it vill bring TEMPORARY IMMUNITY FROM DEATH BY MY HAND!"
He was silent for a moment, and then pronounced the words: "Quidquid latine dictum, altum videtur."
"That doesn't even– You know vat? I vill go shoot the robots. You use the Medi Gun."
That didn't work either.
"Alright, that didn't work," Engineer said. He, Spy, Demo, and Medic stood in the more-aptly-named Panic Room.
"So...how can we get rid of those pesky memories in there?" asked Engineer in disgust as Medic prodded the jelly-like organ with delight.
Medic shrugged. "Electrocute it?"
"Would that not destroy it?" Spy asked.
"You zink zat would make a difference?"
"A little bit, yeah," Engineer said.
A new voice came from the doorway. "What is going on here?"
"Ah! Miss Pauling!" Medic said, tittering nervously. "Ve, ah..."
She stared at the brain Medic was holding. "Oh...you didn't kill that messenger, did you? I told you he was on our side–"
"No, this is the Scout's. See, it's far less complex than your usual human brain."
"What?! Guys, I told you I'll use the neuralyzer on him!"
"Oh, so that's what you said," Demo burped.
"Yes, indeed," the Scout said, sweeping into the room behind her. "I've heard everything."
Medic gulped.
"I will not hold it against you."
"What? Why?"
"Although this procedure was medically unnecessary, it was done in good faith, and I cannot fault that," Scout explained. "Besides, I have had such insights into the world that I would have never come to with that thing." He pointed to the wobbly mass of gray matter in Medic's hands.
With a flourish and a bow, he turned to Miss Pauling. "Miss Pauling. You are the asymptote to my rational function. I understand now that I can approach you, but I'll never quite reach you."
"Unless you go on long enough so delta y is negligible," muttered the Engineer under his breath.
"I apologize for my boorish and unacceptable behaviour. I was bluff and crass and unbelievably thick and gittish. Can you forgive me?"
"Sure, whatever," said Miss Pauling.
"And other Scout!" The other Scout had been skulking about outside, eavesdropping on the conversation much as Spy did earlier.
"I have a name," the former-BLU Scout said huffily.
"Yes, and by another you would smell as sweet. Well, you are forgiven in your tresspasses against me. Our earlier exchanges, I've been informed, were churlish and juvenile."
"Yeah, whatever," the other Scout said, a little spooked and partly entranced by the accent. "I'll ... uh ... go look at a dictionary." He dashed away.
"Yeah, it seems I vill have to put the old brain in regardless. The rabies would probably kill him in a few months. On the bright side, I realized that the reverse procedure is exactly like the forward procedure. Brain stems don't reject tissue, right temporal junctions do. Silly me."
"Wait, do I have any input in this deci–"
"Nope," Medic said quickly, walloping him in the head with a bone saw.
Scout slowly opened his eyes, wincing at the brightness. He had a splitting headache for some reason and he couldn't remember why.
A voice floated down to him, then smacked him in the cochlea.
"How are you feeling?"
"Awful."
"You are awful."
"What?"
"Vat?"
"Anyvay, it should all be fine. I replaced all your organs, blah blah blah, you should be fine in a day or so. Shame."
"Why'd you replace all my–"
"Rabies. Shut it."
"How did you get those organs on such a short notice?" a voice that sounded like Engie asked suspiciously. "Aw, hell. Did you steal them from some poor bastard? Or did you just buy them?"
"Ze illegal organ trade? That's lucrative. I mean ludicrous." Medic laughed nervously. "Silly me und my English slip-ups."
"Your English is perfectly fine," the Engineer said, trying to make it sound like an accusation.
"I obtain all my organs in a most definitely legitimate manner. Besides, the sale of organs is legal in Iran ... not that I do business there or anything."
(The Medics were far too familiar with laws involving the sale and bartering of human organs for the Engineer's taste, but he was willing to overlook it if they fixed their messes.)
"Is he back to normal?" Miss Pauling asked.
"Um, hello, I'm right here."
"Probably not," said the Medic.
"Eh, good enough. I mean, he acts brainless most of the time anyway, so this is probably an improvement."
"Still right here," repeated the Scout.
"Yeah, okay. I'm sorry about that whole...brain replacement thing. I should've just told you about the whole policy we have about, you know, briefcase memory removal. The briefcases are more important than all your sorry lives, though, so if any of you touch one again I will end you.
"Will you go out with me?"
"Nope."
Scout wasn't too concerned. The status quo had been restored, as was his brain, and all was well.
Demo's voice broke the silence. "Gosh darn it, she's gone and erased all his character development!"
(As if there was any in the first place. Carry on.)