F.E.A.R: Origins
By Genoscythe
Chapter 3: Mr. Fix-It
"How often do you mistake possessed furniture for playful little animals?" Jankowski cried over the roar of the Ikea cart's wheels. Jin sat crouched on the platform, scanning the warehouse aisles for couches.
"Not often, it's usually the real deal," she answered, gripping the edge as Jankowski made a hard right. "What color did you want, sir?" She spoke into her headset this time.
"The same color as the old one!" The caller cried. "And please…before the wife gets home?"
"What was the old color?" Jin asked.
"I thought it looked like a taupe," Jankowski put in. He couldn't believe he had gone from a revered military unit to shopping for couches in just a few month's time.
"It was too dark for taupe. It was mahogany."
"Mahogany? That's, like, the other end of the spectrum!"
"It's still brown!" Jin countered.
"Why don't we just settle on praline?"
"Hold it! Sofas!" Jin cried. Jankowski dug his heels into the tiles, and the cart shrieked to a halt after skidding halfway across the aisle. Rolling into a pile of tastefully-colored ceramic pots, Jin staggered to her feet and helped Jankowski lift a box onto the cart. However, she stopped as soon as the box came to rest. "Wait. It's the wrong color."
"Fuck the color," Jankowski growled. "Unless Ikea's got a pet shop too, we've got a long way to go."
"You're telling me you remember all this?" Betters Jr. asked, leaning back in his chair. The cameraman on his right was twitching again, and this time he peeked over the lens.
"Good, she moved…" The reporter just barely heard the cameraman mutter. He ignored it.
"We kept all that shit on record," Betters Sr. replied. "F.E.A.R. operatives have little cameras on their shoulders. We used to put up clips on the internet. That thing with the cat and the sofa got a four star rating, 'cause you could pause it right before the slug hit and see the cat peeking out from under the cushions."
I'm just gonna cut that for ethical reasons…the reporter mused. "This sounds nothing like what I've heard about F.E.A.R. Are you telling the truth?"
"Well, what have you heard about F.E.A.R?" Betters countered.
"Uh…" This was much harder to answer than Betters Jr. thought it would be. "It's a paranormal response team. Very secretive. Very off-the-record stuff."
"Yeah. Well, nobody knows we used to spend our time buying couches and literally blowing shit up, so I guess we've been pretty secretive and off-the-record, haven't we?"
"I guess…" The reporter looked to his cameramen for help, but neither of them were trained for that sort of thing. "Look, just keep going. I want to see these records when we're finished."
"You got it, champ."
Not very many people choose to work as a cashier at a pet shop. There are people who, of course, enjoy the company of animals so much that they can withstand breathing in toxic amounts of animal waste just to have a few poodles nearby at all times. There are other people who think that a pet shop is the last place in the world anybody would want to rob. The latter are paranoid people who have seen too many movies and believe that most stores are robbed on a daily basis, especially in Los Angeles.
Reagan was a paranoid person. He nearly jumped out of his mortal coil when the front door of Mick's Pet Heaven blew inward. Out of the smoke, a man in a soiled white uniform rushed by the counter. He was holding a massive gun out in front of him. Reagan the Cashier, frozen in place, stared at the wall until the man ran back in the opposite direction cradling something that mewled.
All was still, until someone else walked casually through the doorway and slapped a wad of cash on the counter.
"Sorry," a Korean woman murmured, herself wearing a green version of the man's uniform. She turned around and strode calmly out the door. When Reagan's hearing started to come back, he could swear that he heard a helicopter taking off outside.
"C-4? Honestly," Jin groaned as Jankowski stroked the orange tabby's head.
"It's a military thing," Jankowski explained defensively. "Why did you have to pay the guy?"
"Because we took one of his cats!"
"What's the point of working for the government if we have to pay for stuff?" As he spoke, he failed to notice the cat licking some grime off of his glove. It coughed once, then pitched over the side of the helicopter. With a swear that could shatter stained glass, Jankowski ordered the pilot to go back to Mick's Pet Heaven.
Reagan hadn't moved, but his face was wet with tears as Jankowski swept through the store again. There weren't any more cats on display, so the soldier rammed the butt of his cannon on a cage door until it came open. As he left with a calico under one arm, he stopped in front of the register.
"You don't even keep a fucking shotgun under the counter?" Jankowski reprimanded. "Grow a pair!" he roared as he jogged back to the helicopter waiting in the street. Reagan collapsed.
"I'm done with this shit," Jankowski mumbled on the return flight. "Send me back to Delta."
"We can't demote you if you haven't done anything wrong!" Jin protested, hugging the newest cat tightly to her breast. This just gave Jankowski a very off-set grin. With determined ferocity, he grabbed the cat out of Jin's arms and chucked it out of the helicopter.
"There. I did something wrong. Now kick me off the team."
Jin gave him a withering glare. "That was disgusting. You feel terrible about it."
"Yeah, I do."
"You're going to buy that man a new cat yourself."
"Yeah, I should."
"And you're definitely not going to quit the team."
"I'm not?"
In the end, the helicopter made a third trip to the pet shop. This time, Jankowski simply applied a cutting torch to the problem and emerged with an entire store display. However, he found the pilot's seat empty and Jin showed him the quickly-scribbled resignation note. It read along the lines of 'FUCK YOU AND YOUR GODDAMN CATS.'
Jin flew the helicopter back herself, lowering it so that it nearly touched the ground and allowing Jankowski to shove the couch and the cat onto the pavement without serious damage to either. He had taped the pilot's resignation notice onto the Ikea box, because it was just as appropriate then, if not more so.
After flying aimlessly for half an hour, the helicopter descended of its own volition onto a random hilltop in the outskirts of town. Instead of landing on solid dirt, the helicopter kept going down as the hill opened up beneath them.
"Isn't this place a secret?" Jankowski asked from the passenger compartment. "Won't I know where it is now?"
Jin shot a look back over her shoulder. "Do you?"
The point man hung his head. "I lost track."
Jin nodded. "It's been on autopilot for the last half hour. It's designed to keep us disoriented."
"That's so…" Jankowski dug for the word in his vocabulary, buried under all the easier words like 'fuck' and 'shit' that pretty much covered anything a military man ever needed to say. Finally, he found it. "…needlessly complicated."
"Well, you know why F.E.A.R. exists, right?" Jin asked conversationally as the helicopter spiraled into darkness.
"No. Hell, I never even thought about it."
"You wouldn't, right? The government needs people to do the dirty jobs. The special jobs. Why wouldn't they have people to do the supernatural jobs, too?"
"Exactly, but if there aren't any supernatural jobs…"
"Here's how it happened. Some senator caught Ghostbusters on TV and he thought 'wow, ghosts, I'd better get someone on that.' And then he did. That someone is us."
"Just like that?"
"He's the kind of person that hires other people to watch his house for burglars. To him, we're probably just watching his country for burglars that normal guards won't deal with."
"Bullshit."
"Probably. But where else is this funding coming from?"
Jankowski noodled this for a moment. Fortunately, before he could come up with a wrong answer, the walls opened up into a gigantic hangar full of helicopters and jets. The senator obviously hadn't counted on hiring a total of two field agents and one pilot for his new organization.
Jin! Can you hear me? Betters's voice sizzled through the helicopter radio. We've got another call. Rick, turn that bird around.
"We're landing right now, sir," Jin answered.
…huh? Where's Rick?
"He resigned. Vulgarly."
Well, fuck me. You said you're landing?
"Almost touching the ground."
I'll reverse the autopilot. There's a situation going down near Ravensdale. Water heater's gone nuts, started pukin' hot water everywhere. Won't let anybody near it. What's the new guy armed with?
Jankowski was about to say something he would regret, but the helicopter lurched upward and the words caught in his throat. It was going much faster this time.
This is the real deal. The water heater wants 'em to sacrifice a virgin to it. You'd better be able to blow that thing to high hell.
"We'll take care of it," Jin assured him.
It's not really high hell, is it? 'Cause that doesn't make sense.
"I don't think that matters," Jin spoke calmingly.
You're right. I'll put in the address. Shortly, a row of numbers appeared on the pilot's GPS monitor.
"Got it. We're en route."
You make it sound so official. You're just blowing up a fucking water heater.
"Let me humor the new guy," Jin muttered dryly. Jankowski, now absorbed in spinning the barrels on the end of his repeating cannon, had lost interest. When they landed on the roof of an apartment building near Ravensdale, he decided to follow Jin this time.
Guided by Betters's voice, they made their way to the basement, where a crowd of people were blocking the entrance.
"Excuse us," Jin offered politely. "We're here to fix the water heater."
The man who had established himself as the Alpha Male of the situation sidled up to her. "Lady, this appliance don't need no fixin' 'cause it can't be fixed. It's been shoutin' offensive things to our womenfolk, an' I just called a priest."
"Oh yeah?" Jankowski barked, pushing past Jin and instantly establishing himself as the Guy Who Wants to be Alpha Male. "You've got better than a priest."
"What, you? An' who the hell're you?"
Jankowski whipped the repeating cannon out from behind his back. "I'm the repair guy."
The Alpha Male jumped backward, as if slapped – proving that, if you have a big enough gun, you don't even need to fire it to reap the benefits. With the tip of the barrel, Jankowski pushed the fat man aside and descended the stairs. Less than halfway down, a gargling roar could be heard resounding off the walls.
"Ahahahaha! Won't bring me a virgin, huh? Let's see how you cunts like drowning in boiling water!"
"Just follow my lead," Jin told the new point man.
"What the hell does that really mean?" Jankowski asked. "It's a pretty vague order."
"Alright. Don't shoot it until I tell you to," Jin clarified. With the same grace that Jankowski had observed when she first opened the door to the interview room, Jin slipped through the basement door. It glided back toward Jankowski, but he violently kicked it open again.
Switching on her shoulder lamp, Jin swept the basement. Shelves, washing machines, and less identifiable debris were scattered all across the soaking floor. It seemed the water heater was insecure about its position in the basement appliance hierarchy.
The possessed device itself lay against the far wall, and if Jankowski had doubted the existence of evil spirits before, he wasn't going to think twice about it now. The water heater loomed. A ragged gash split it nearly in half, and whenever it laughed water sloshed out of it. Two more cracks formed what could only be eyes, and a mass of pipes snaked out of the top like Medusa's hair.
"Whoah, hey!" The water heater chuckled, the two cracks opening wide and spilling crimson light into the room.
"Don't shoot it yet," Jin muttered. Aloud, she said, "Having some fun with these poor people, are you?"
"One o' them Vietnamese?" The appliance gargled, going out of its way to guess the wrong nationality and pronounce it as badly as possible. "Or maybe Taiwanese? I love Asian food."
"How about Jesus?" Jin asked, taking a brave step forward.
"Why do you care?"
"Just curious."
The water heater's eye cracks narrowed, and it chewed thoughtfully on itself for a moment. "I've got an idea!" It finally burst, gushing pent-up water out of its mouth. "I'll tell you…what you want me to tell you if you'll say 'me love you long time.' Eh?"
Aw, shit, Jankowski thought. She's not gonna do it.
In front of him, Jin hesitated.
"Why are we asking, again?" Jankowski questioned her.
"Because we have to be sure," she replied under her breath. "Don't tell me you already forgot about the cat."
"Yeah, well I'm pretty fuckin' sure that that's the real deal."
"I don't want to jump the gun again. If this is a bona fide demonic entity we're dealing with, then we won't owe these people a new water heater."
"Well, then say it!"
Jin gulped, and took a step forward. "Me…love…you long time," she stuttered.
"Really? Whoooooo!" The water heater whooped, waving its pipe-tentacles in the air.
"Alright. Now, can you – " Jin was cut short as the water heater stuffed a pipe into her mouth. Before Jin could scream or even turn red, Jankowski was firing so many slugs that the repeating cannon's barrels were glowing. Each shot punched a clean hole through the water heater, crashing into the brickwork and throwing out minute shockwaves with every impact.
The tentacle dissolved into papery bits in Jin's throat, as well as the entire water heater. Jankowski dropped the repeating cannon, partly because he was confused but mostly because the barrels had fused together.
"What just happened?" Jankowski asked as Jin rummaged through the debris for a ladylike place to throw up. Once she did so, she turned to glare at him.
"Astral projection!" She cried. "That was a hallucination!"
Jankowski caught an ashen speck floating through the air. "So the real one is probably right behind me."
"Dunno." Jin aimed her shoulder lamp at the wall behind Jankowski. The water heater, sans glowing eyes or tentacles, sat knowingly. "Yeah, it is."
Jankowski failed to escape the first blast of projectile boiling water, but once he was writhing on the ground in agony he managed to avoid the second volley and get behind a washing machine.
"Jesus Christ!" he cried, rolling on the floor as if to put out a fire.
"Oh! For your information, I'm not your good ole' Christian demon," the water heater announced. "I got no problem with Jesus. Hell, I was just the janitor here before a mob lynched me, thinkin' I gave their kids nightmares."
"It's a wandering soul," Jin informed her prone ally. "I can usually sweet-talk these ones into going away."
Jin stood up. The water heater bubbled curiously, loosening the valve it used to spray water on Jankowski.
"You must be very angry," Jin began. "But revenge can only go so far. I guarantee you'll feel better once you move on."
"Ha! Haha! I feel great right now! I just got deep throat from a Japanese chick!"
This time, Jin turned red. She also ripped a grenade off of Jankowski's belt and rolled it across the floor. It came to rest underneath the possessed water heater.
"Lady, are you craz – " The next few seconds were filled up by a deafening boom, and the ones after that featured dust and caulking raining down on the two F.E.A.R. operatives. Somehow, Jin remained standing.
"Whoah," Jankowski felt it was necessary to say. There wasn't much else to do. "That's something I'm gonna need counseling for."
Jin shook the dust out of her hair. "Try doing this as long as I have."
Did you get it, Jin? Betters asked.
"Yes, sir." Jin paused, looking at Jankowski, who had been trying very hard to pretend he was in a respectable military unit all night. "Threat neutralized."
You okay, Jin?
"Yes. I'm just trying to make Jankowski feel more at home."
…who?
"The new guy, sir."
Oh, that's his name? Betters asked innocently. Jankowski growled under his breath, standing straight as several tenants ran down the stairs. Led by the Alpha Male, they stopped short when they saw the smoking crater in the corner. The stunned silence was unbearable, and Jankowski felt like he should say something anyway.
"Now, here's your problem right there," the F.E.A.R. point man kicked a chunk of brick and pretended to hitch up his pants. "You don't even have a goddamn water heater."
End