Everyone wanted to speak with Operator that night. The RED's final rounds were a massive success, their base impenetrable with the girl's Wispies and various other booby traps littered across the encampment. Barely any of the mercenaries had to defend their headquarters, and so they were able to push into the BLU's base with far more ease than usual. Operator was the main topic that day, every mercenary squeezing past each other to her ask questions about her lasers and traps. Even Scout, who captured at least five briefcases that day and yearned for more attention than anyone on RED, didn't mind when all ignored him to speak with Operator. Everyone was fascinated by her diverse weaponry, scaling from complex laser designs to nets peppered with an odd electric spray, which paralyzed anyone it entrapped. Everyone was awed. Everyone lent her respect.
Everyone-except Spy and Demoman. Medic watched them under a keen eye as he half-listened to the elated conversation about Operator's victims, Heavy's gravely laughter shaking the walls. Spy leaned against the far corner in the main room, quietly smoking his cigarette with his arms crossed and eyes half-closed, completely detached from the boisterous group. Demo lounged on the arm chair, staring blankly inside his untouched bottle of scrumpy, eyebrows wrinkled slightly.
Medic frowned as he studied the two, sliding his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Normally, he would not have noticed nor cared about the Spy's behavior; the man's very personality was centered on mystery and emotional detachment, dotted with the frequent dry sarcasm and witty jokes. Medic was not troubled by Spy's indifference, despite the pleasant victory the Operator had won them. It was Demo that concerned the German. For once, in the entire course of three years working with Demoman, the Scotsman was sober. Every minute of every day Demo was drunk. To remove the man's whisky was the same as removing wings from a bird; they were inseparable, and without each other, they were incomplete. So for the cyclops not to be utterly intoxicated with his homemade brandy at such a night like this, Medic was incredibly disturbed and perplexed. Silently, he pondered the notion of asking the Demoman what was wrong.
But he could not question it further once Heavy's roar reached his ears, cutting off his thoughts.
"That slaps me on the knee! You are good for team!"
The RED mercenaries buzzed loudly, adding their approval. Even Soldier, who had voiced his displeasure of Operator most clearly that morning, smiled brightly, adding, "A true American!" He brandished his bottle of whisky into the air, shouting a hearty, "To victory!" before chugging his bottle down with gusto. Most of the mercenaries repeated the action with passion, patting the girl on the back as they did so. The line seemed a little cheesy, but the RED team was too drunk to care. They then continued on their night with enthusiastic arm wrestles, which then turned to fist fights, which then escalated into full-on brawls. Once the clock struck ten, Scout and Soldier were tangled over each other on the floor, trying to drunkenly land a punch on the other, while Pyro mumbled praises. Heavy eventually joined the fray, landing clumsy punches onto both teammates, who decided to gang up on the giant Russian. Sniper guffawed at them, clutching his #1 Sniper cup in his hands before a glass of water shattered over his head. Hastily, he retreated down the hall to the safety of his own camper. All in all, it was a normal night at RED base.
Medic chuckled fondly, turning his gaze from the fight to locate the remaining mercenaries. Demoman was splayed over on his seat, drool spilling from his lips as he slept with loud snores. Operator and Spy, however, had disappeared.
Spy listened to the distant cries of his raucous team members as he crept down the halls, his cloaking device activated and masking his presence. Normally, on the battlefield, his invisible form would shimmer every time he moved, unable to copy the surrounding hues quick enough to provide sufficient cover under dire circumstances. However, inside the base, his watch had memorized and calculated every crevice of the base, every dent and faded red wall burned into its mechanical reminiscence. At times, the Spy would amuse himself with his cloaking device, sneaking up on unsuspecting prey and knocking things over to startle them, preferably Scout. The Bostonian was far too thick to suspect Spy behind these happenings, and always yelped, babbling about a 'freakin' ghost' coming to haunt them. Never had he had an important reason to use his watch. Up until this point.
Up until this point, there had been an Engineer, wise and cheerful, as he tinkered with his products, muttering about advanced mechanical additions that would enhance his machinery greatly. Even when he seemed so enthralled by his work to not notice even a nuclear detonation, he always jolted at the slightest of sound, looking up from his work to smile kindly to whichever mercenary had stumbled upon him. The man always had his teammates' backs, a trusty sentry beeping an almost gleeful tune behind them. But the Texan was now replaced with a mentally impaired girl with an overzealous fondness of pain, death, and screams of her enemies. She told them nothing about herself (although Spy could certainly overlook that, seeing as he was a master of secrecy), held no cooperation to her teammates when they specifically told her of the tactics meeting, and then left them to stew in their own anxiety for the next twelve hours when she disappeared from sight. It was enough to bring suspicion and massive annoyance to the Frenchman.
Spy pressed himself against the hallway as he reached Operator's dorm, staring at the open door through narrow eyes. The room was dimly lit with only one light bulb hanging at the ceiling, casting a golden light over the room. The floor was cluttered with metal plates, bolts, and nuts, wires entangled over the clutter like a spider's web. Operator sat at her desk, fiddling with an odd mechanical chip, blue sparks bursting from the metal, hissing like furious snakes. The girl hummed an odd tune as she poked at the chip with metal tweezers, readjusting wires in a complex arrangement. She was too engrossed in her work to notice the Frenchman slip in, who then retreated to the farthest corner to remain concealed in shadow.
Spy had been suspicious before, at the time Pyro joined their ranks. The pyromaniac seemed far too cheerful and incomprehensible to trust. It didn't help that his counterpart held a hobby of setting the Frenchman on fire, which bared its sweltering teeth into his skin and began to feast, the flames encasing his body like a second suit. Spy had watched the mumbling psychopath under a keen eye, tensing every time the man (or woman?) had come near his teammates in fear that he (or she) would deceive them all and begin a blood bath. However, as the weeks turned to months and the odd teammate had done nothing to reveal any treachery, Spy had reluctantly accepted him as a fellow RED, even if the babbling maniac had eagerly tried thrice to light his cigarette with his flamethrower, an act he did not appreciate.
But the Operator was different. She was not polite like the Pyro—or at least tried to be—and made no move to socialize with anyone. Despite the fact that she and Scout had conversed the day before, the runner did not seem to know anything about her excluding her 'bootiful face' and skills. And yet, without any effort, Operator had gained the trust of at least half of the team in only twenty-four hours. Sniper and Demoman seemed distant with her and Medic was neutral, as far as Spy knew. But the Frenchman had seen too many double-agents in his line of work to write off the Operator as a cackling lunatic.
And so, he watched her with grey, steely eyes, his face hardened and fingers brushing against his butterfly knife as he calculated her every move. He did not care that she was a female. He did not care that she was utterly helpless in this situation.
If Spy's team was threatened, he would give her Hell.