The smoke in the control room had doubled in thickness since the RED camera had gone dead, the Administrator dragging away tirelessly on cigarette after cigarette in an attempt to satiate her buzzing nerves. Improvisation wasn't her strong suit, but being a woman of innumerable hidden talents she found a place for it in her repertoire, sending out morale-boosting reports of how the RED intelligence had been captured and secured to all BLU mercenaries. Men in battle, she knew, would never stop to question the accuracy of a report - they were far too focused on sinking their teeth into blood and bones, into making bodies out of boys. The thrill of the battle, after all, wasn't always in the win - sometimes it rested solely on the shoulders of the body count.
As if on cue, the sole dark screen on an otherwise buzzing wall of pictures and plans flickered to life with a faint click. With a quiet hiss of excitement she stood up, eyes fixed on its tiny screen, and resisted the unfamiliar urge to smile. At least not all of her underlings were incapable, she mused. In fact, the girl on screen before her, a tiny, pixie-like thing with specks of blood on her face applied liberally in a pointillist masterpiece, crouched before the camera with a look of intense focus that seemed entirely genuine. Perhaps under different circumstances, in a different time, this girl could have actually been a valuable asset to The Company - something more than a doomed intern in a truly deadly corporate world.
Pity, really, that things worked out as they did.
Miss Pauling, glasses askew on her heart-shaped face, skittered up promptly from the endless darkness of the control room, a freshly printed report creased neatly in her hand.
"Ma'am, I've received word that the RED Intel room is back on-line."
"I see that, Miss Pauling." She growled, taking one last drag before finally putting out her smoldering cigarette on the control panel. "Good work." The mousy girl lingered with a palpable hesitation, glancing over the report once more before proceeding gingerly.
"Ma'am, what of the girl who repaired it - the intern we sent? Shall I send someone to pick her up?" The Administrator lit up her latest Salem with a dry sense of satisfaction, puffing coolly on its unfiltered end.
"She is to be left where she is." Miss Pauling faltered, taking a step closer despite her better judgment.
"But ma'am..."
"Leave. Her." She repeated, each word punctuated with a pinprick of venom. "Instruct the financial department to strike her from the payroll. I am confident that BLU will take her off our hands." Pauling paused and gathered her thoughts, gulping audibly for the sake of the poor girl. She quickly skimmed over the report in her hand just to be sure she had read right the first time; lo and behold, it was only the girl's first day. The pragmatic part of her wriggled to assure herself there was nothing to be done. Compassion, she found, had no foot-hold in the Administrator's heart, and although it was a successful method for running a company, it was dizzying when it came down to life and death matters such as these that reached beyond each band of mercenaries. Those men knew what they signed up for – they had been won over by their petty bribes and agreed to bloody their hands. This girl, though, had no such say in the matter. Miss Pauling paused, adjusting her glasses with a gentle nudge, before clearing her throat a little louder than she would have liked.
"Yes, ma'am." She repeated, this time her voice clear of all emotion. With a dutiful turn she drove herself back into the shadows of the room, exiting as quietly as she had entered.
Yes, the Administrator thought with a creased smirk, returning to her chair and all 137 screens before her. Pity.
It took three steps to line up a jump like that - three full-speed slams against the bullet-riddled wood floor to clear the gap between the second story and the bridge roof. Scout took four, stumbling on his last, and still missed, slipping against the cracked shingles with a bruised thud and careening head-first towards the moat yet again.
He pulled himself to the surface of that same icy water he had waded through in a mere twenty minutes earlier, taking in frustrated gulps of fresh air before shrieking out high cry of "Shit!" and slapping his hand against the water's freezing surface. He shook out his headset yet again, the static now multiplying into a full-fledged snowstorm instead of just that earlier mist of white noise, and waded angrily towards the enemy's base. He may have been in the middle of a battle, Force-A-Nature in hand and prize in sight, but his mind was still bolted down a hundred yards back in his very own intel room, thoughts focused on the pretty little girl who he had technically kissed before even knowing her name.
"Penny," she had told him, throwing a casual military salute. "It's technically short for Penelope, but I don't think anyone's ever called me that." She cocked her head to one side, eyeing his dog tags with a troubled smile. "And you're the 'Scout' for this team, right? There was a record of another guy dressed just like you back at HQ. Do all of you go by the same names?" Scout smiled smugly, tapping on the dispenser he leaned against in irritation - eleven PhD's and these things still consistently crap out towards the end.
"Yep. For 'privacy reasons'." Penny choked out a laugh.
"Where have I heard that before."
"We lose our names when we get here. It was part of our contract, ya hear. Change your name, work as a contract mercenary for six months, and never have to work another day in your life ever again. Deal of a lifetime, or somethin' like that." He turned away from the dispenser, giving it a tiresome kick for taking up too much of his time, then stretched out his freshly healed arm in a test-run. "Didn't work out. Honestly, I don't even remember my name. I didn't go by it much back home anyway. Think it was somethin' with J, but hell if I know what." Penny narrowed an eyebrow as he squatted down into a batters position, arms swinging.
"You've been here six months and you don't remember your name?" Scout shot out a hearty laugh between his practice swings. He dropped his arms to his sides, shooting her a weak smirk before gearing up again, duffle bag slung across his back and Force-A-Nature in hand.
"Dahlin', I've been here a little longer than six months."
"How long, then?"
"Four years, I think. Maybe five. I stopped countin' a while back." She gasped audibly, eyes wide. All Scout could do was smile. "So get comfortable. You're gonna be here a while."
He pulled himself from the chill of the water and into the BLU base's sewers, taking off his hat and shaking out his cropped hair like a wet dog. He was never off like this - never off enough to miss a jump or misstep in the middle of a battle - that was all just child's play. Even when matches stretched into the dead of night when the air got so cold that it hurt to breathe he could still keep his footing, steady and neat. If he didn't have that - his speed, his precision - what did he have left?
Tossing his hat back on his head, he shook off these thoughts and pressed on, doing what he did best: he ran. Clearing past Soldiers and Snipers, jumping over Pyros and ducking around Spies, he double-jumped up the stairs while firing off blasts behind him, not bothering to check the carnage. With one valiant jump he rocketed down the stairs, only to pick himself up at the bottom and run some more. He was in. Winding through the deep belly of the BLU base, he picked his way through the halls until he came face-to-face with the all too familiar intel room - the mirror image of his own in all ways, even down to the thick braided cords running like train-tracks across the floor. Their briefcase stood unguarded, a sentry in the room already sapped and immobilized rather neatly, and for once he actually saw some importance in that rat bastard of a RED Spy. He probably got himself shot in the process, though, Scout mused - why else would he just leave the intel behind?
"His loss." he whispered, tipping his baseball cap in an uncanny moment of respect. With that, he snatched up the intel, threw it over his back, and was gone in a flash.
This was always the worst part - taking the intelligence back without catching a bullet to the face or a rocket to the crotch. His heart pounded like a bass drum out of time with the rest of the band as he quickstepped through the BLU base, papers trailing behind him like a scarlet letter proclaiming his guilt. Within seconds he could hear the cries of an Engineer trailing after him, probably already sore over the loss of his sentry, and it wasn't long until the gunshots began. Bullets ricocheted past, striking walls only a few inches from where he stood, and without looking back he could tell his crowd of followers was only growing. The heat of a Pyro's flamethrower nipped at his heels and the charge of the BLU Heavy's minigun assaulted his ears, revving up like a death wish in high speed.
Just a little further, man, a little further - focus. Scout double-timed his way through those last five yards inside the base, holding his breath as he took the leap from the second story, papers still fluttering in a dizzying fury behind him. Despite how intensely he willed his head to stay clear, to keep focused, his mind flashed back to his own intel room - to this strange new girl - and his heart skipped a beat.
With an awkward stumble he landed on the bridge below, falling forward onto his hands in one crooked motion. His gun spun from his grip, smacking against the side of the bridge with a wistful clink, and suddenly the pain and shock of the situation rendered him frozen and dumbstruck. Had he just fallen? In all the years he'd been here he had never, never once fallen.
"Zere you are, leetle man." The words spoken behind him dripped with a throaty Russian inflection, and suddenly Scout noticed the sound of the minigun already revving. He rolled over onto his back, meeting the lumbering giant face to face, and within seconds he was stumbling to get up as fast as he possibly could. "Try to escape ziz!" The Heavy fired, the click of his trigger as loud as thunder, and leaving his gun behind Scout ran as fast as his legs would take him despite the searing pain in his ankle that jolted his senses with every step. A lone rifle shot rang out behind him, cracking through the battlefield, and he turned in time to catch a quick glimpse of that same Heavy falling against the clay with a thick thud, his precious Sasha, now splattered with his own blood, lolling out of his hands. At least someone was on their A-game, Scout thought, flashing a quick A-OK sign to Sniper who was undoubtedly perched up in the rafters, cup of coffee still in hand.
From the bridge to the Intel room he didn't once slow, afraid that the slightest sign of stopping would cause him to collapse in pain right then and there. She'll be there, though, he told himself. She'll be there. He chanted the words to himself like the holiest of prayers and willed his legs to take him faster, rounding the corner into the Intel room and throwing himself inside with one last heave of strength.
He crashed against the carpeting, out of breath and burning with pain, and after a few seconds of simply lying there like a fish out of water he finally willed himself to open his eyes. Nothing. His attention shot to every corner of the empty room in anticipation - to the intelligence, still propped up in place, the dispenser, the crappy potted plant which had been returned neatly to its original position against the wall. He pulled himself up onto one arm with a horrible sigh, drawing his tired eyes back down to the dirty carpeting below, and in one slow motion he pulled the BLU intel from his back and chucked it onto the desk.
His earpiece crackled to life.
"Victory."