Operation Glitterberries

Chapter 04: Pit stop

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

As soon as the satisfaction from kicking a foe that was already on the ground faded she realized that the kick itself lacked the strength and grace that one of her hits should have. Hastily removing the rest of her clothes to avoid any sudden movement impediment she walked in front of an old and dirty mirror and then threw a tried to do a few of her most simple katas.

She didn't even finished the first, it looked so wrong that if told that she had ripped it off from a bad B movie she would have agreed on the spot. But what was worrying her wasn't how bad it looked, but how bad it didn't felt. For a trained martial artist a punch, a kick, even the way they move it's ingrained in the body, if for some reason they don't do a move as the way they learned to do the body let them know that something is not right.

For her body to accept the badly aligned punches and the off-balance kicks it meant that her muscle memory, born of thousands of hours of hard training and hundreds of fights for her life were lost just like that.

That brought home the hardest point of her mission, she didn't know anything. She didn't know who her enemies were; she didn't know who or where were her allies, if she had any; No objectives, targets or even a mission statement. Even her own body was now a mystery to her. Not to mention the fact that her mind was full of holes and she was unsure of even what she was missing.

She needed to change that; she needed to fill the gaps fast, starting with herself. So she stood in front of the same dirty mirror and took off her remaining underwear and then methodically examined every inch of her body. For starters she was small, even when considering that whoever had done this had probably aimed for the age on her I.D., If anything the first word that came to her mind was petite.

Then there was her general fitness, she had already discovered on the woods that her muscles were undeveloped and a few moments ago that whatever procedure done to her took away her muscle memory. Her legs were a little short for her body and she bet they weren't very good for either running or kicking, maybe the reason why she wore such boots, to play to her strengths? Her abdomen was flat enough without needing to suck in her gut, but it lacked any of the muscle development she had enjoyed from her early teens courtesy of a very active childhood. Other than that her body didn't look particularly fit, but neither did she look undernourished nor overweight.

Her hands right now where full of cuts, a natural risk on her line of work, but other than that were almost peerless, with few of the marks that a physical lifestyle would create, the only exception were some callouses on her right hand, her dominant hand. The callouses themselves weren't in a position common to either physical activities nor the ones left by the constant use of a gun, more like the ones that paper-pushers had on the old soviet union from writing forms for long hours for years.

On more general terms she had white skin which was itself of no notable characteristics, neither particularly soft nor rugged by exposition to the elements; she had no noticeable piercings or tattoos. One of the missing characteristics was it utter lack of scarring, something that surprised and saddened her in ways she didn't expected. They had been won in a lifetime of service to the United States and before that on innumerable athletic challenges, and everyone was a milestone in her life, from the time she had broken her arm climbing the oak behind the mansion, to the time when Igor Rossovosky had carved her with his huge knife as she impaled he on hers. Even the many cuts and abrasions caused by the occasions she had been captured and torture were medals of occasions she Would Not Break!

Leaving behind that train of thought she continued examining her breasts, which were smaller than she herself had at her current age, they barely stand out but at least they was visible grown. While the narcissistic segment of her mind missed those beloved parts of her anatomy and the fun she had with her many romantic rendezvouses, she immediately searched for tactical advantages. They weren't going to be the impediment to the acrobatics that came from her line of work, even if she couldn't do most of them in her current state, she would also be able to conceal them easily, allowing her to disguise herself as a boy if necessary.

The only other feature in that area was on her side, a large bruise that was pulsing with every movement she did, even if her ability to breathe probably meant that it wasn't broken after all. Just to be sure she touched it to see how inflamed it was and immediately recoiled from the pain, wincing as she did so. Then she realized what she had done, if that much pain was enough for her to step back then she might as well give up and put a bullet through her brain herself.

With deliberate movements she put her hand back to the bruise and pressed as hard as she could, not relenting even when the tears leaved her eyes and a bout of nausea threatened to overcome her for a moment. But after a few second of excruciating pain the nausea disappeared and she rediscovered the ability to survive being hurt.

Then she examined her face and hair; her hair was cared for, it wasn't oily and she hasn't split ends, and the length and volume of it was impressive if a bit unpractical. She was glad of the good maintenance, during the next few days she would need to curl, straighten, braid, and every other hair styling she could think of to make her appearance as different as possible from whatever photos they had of her. And when that wasn't enough she would need to cut it even if becoming bald and using wigs was what it takes to kept herself free and alive.

And then was her greatest weakness, her eyes and the glasses in front of them. As she had during her trip through the forest she tried taking them off to fully lose the ability to see beyond a few feet away. They reduced her peripheral vision to a dangerous level, were a noticeable feature that anyone would recognize anywhere and she was defenseless without them. If there was a fast way of crippling her it would be to remove them. Her first priority would then be to find an acceptable substitute for them as soon as possible… or at least a few additional frames.

Considering that she was naked anyway she decided to relax and take a bath, so she went for her knife just in case, and entered the bathroom for a long, hot and well deserved shower. She would then decide what to do next.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

She left the shower long after the water got cold, during a mission, especially one under enemy lines, getting a bath much less one with hot water was an almost unknown luxury. She scrubbed the dirt and grime out of her vigorously with the soap and shampoo that were on the bathroom. She almost turned the shower off after the water became lukewarm before scolding herself once more for becoming so soft and staying until it was ice cold and she was fully awake despite her exhaustion.

Still moving in her underwear she went and tuned the small radio of the room to the local news, she was still in the middle of an information blackout and every scrap of intel was vital. It was a disappointment that instead of an established and reliable news program the only thing she cold get was one of those failed DJs who loved to rile up people and weren't afraid of twisting the truth to do so. Even then it was better than nothing so she let him fill the background as she did a full inventory of her gear.

For starters she had another set of clothes, orange t-shirt and a black skirt plus plain white underwear set and black socks. It was for all intents purposes useless as any form of disguise. The T-shirt was identical to the one she was wearing and the skirt while being a little shorter and of a different cut and fabric was similar enough as to be identical as far as she was concerned. So tomorrow her first priority would be to find different clothes, ate least three or four sets. Her green jacket would be also replaced for a set of reversible jackets as soon as she had the opportunity, it was too distinctive.

Then she took her weapons and let them on the bed to give them a closer look, first it was the tranquilizer rifle in the helicopter. The model seemed to be a compressed air one shot weapon with low range and a precision that was unknown to her until she could test it on a firing range, a luxury that at the moment was beyond reach. In any firefight she would prefer even a civil war revolver over it any day of the week. It just wasn't worth its bulk, so she disassembling it for later disposal in different trash cans over the city.

On the other hand the darts were far more useful, having already demonstrated that they could incapacitate someone in more or less three seconds. And the effects seemed to be more or less long term. 'That particular field test is still in progress', she thought as she once again poked at the Casanova tied in the bed. The only problem was that the case had only come with six darts of whom she had expended already two and half expended a third one, if she was lucky and the amount left was enough to at least incapacitate for a few seconds, leaving three full darts for later use.

Her other ranged weapon was a flare gun with another three white flares remaining. And as far as she was concerned it was barely more practical as a weapon that the rifle. Their creators had designed it with the open sky as its only target and therefore it lacked even iron sights. And the flares themselves were probably unable to even penetrate a woolen jacket. On the other hand with a truckload of luck they might set the same jacket on fire and at least she could conceal the pistol on a pocket with no trouble.

Then there was her last weapon, unless she broke the whisky bottle, the survivalist knife. It was one of the smaller of its kind, with a four inches blade with a straight edge in front and a flat spine. As usual for these tools it had a hollow rubber handle that could be used for storage of small quantities of gear such as matches or string and needle. It was a fine tool, but in the end designed as a tool not a weapon, even if she had been able to use it as such with her current body. The handle was a little too big for her hand to get a comfortable grip, and on the first solid contact it would probably slip form her hands.

Money wise her situation as not good but wasn't urgent either, while the credit cards were probably bulletined by now and therefore she would only be able to use them as a way to attract attention, she had three hundred an fifty seven dollars with sixty eight cents. For the kind of expenses that she would incur just to keep a safe location they would last for a few days, but when adding other costs for disguises, additional gear and transport then she would be hurting for money in a matter of days.

And once more Ken would not help too much, other than a teacher's discount card and less than twenty dollars he was dirt poor, as expected from someone who thought that his book would be both a best seller and a piece of art while writing so bad. She decided against stealing the meager amount to keep him from calling the police if he recognized her in the news that sooner or later would break out.

'The only thing I'm provided well enough is my first aid kit' she thought as she rubbed some more Lidocaine gel over her ribs. 'And chances are that if I need it I'm not going to live long enough for the bandages to matter anyway.'

Then, after she packed everything again, including the rifle which she disassembled in its most basic components she finally heard something of interest in the radio.

"…And in other news it seems that our esteemed neighbors from Oakwood somehow managed to crash one of their choppers, they call it emergency landing but we know better, don't we? It doesn't even say if they were lazy bums who don't take care of their toys or if the pilot had one beer too many, I guess they don't want us to laugh too hard, how considerate. The two crewmembers and three of the passengers were sent to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries, and if their doctors are as good as their pilots we can expect for them to leave there on wooden boxes. But hear this, there were four, not three, four passengers, it seems that they missed one, a girl by the name of Darla or Melody or as I call her: Screw Up! The losers can't even decide on her name… Well this is Spatula Man replacing that reporter guy who had a heart attack this morning; see you after a word from our sponsors."

While this reporter wasn't as clear and concise as she would have liked, the message itself was quite positive, the passengers were alive and receiving medical attention, and the fact that it hadn't being covered up meant that whoever did this had no control over the media or most of the local government. She had expected that they would tell know about her name, but it was a little disappointing that they knew of her alias, she had being hoping that they would they would keep it under wraps, or even better being ignorant about it.

The other interesting detail there was what wasn't said, if the county had released the exact cause for the crash landing even that poor excuse of a reporter would have mention it, probably amongst insults and taunts, it was just too sensationalist to ignore. The correct question was why? If it was just to protect a federal investigation on how and why did terrorist infiltrated a government agency, even one as small as an ERU?, were they covering the terrorists from public scrutiny?, were they covering their asses?

She waited for half an hour of wildly inaccurate commentaries from the Spatula man before the so called news program was over, letting her with some answers and a few more questions than she had started with.

Since she had not way to get the answers she prepared herself for the rest of the night by tucking Edwards on the bed in such a way that he would act as a living decoy in case someone broke in, and then getting herself under the same bed with her knife ready just in case, hoping that if her enemies shot the fool they wouldn't use armor piercing bullets. As she felt asleep in the tight space one last thought came on her mind regarding the news bulletin on the radio.

'Maybe in the morning I can hear a slightly less biased story from a real journalist?'

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

The real reason why the story hadn't become public until then was a series of misunderstandings emanating from a reasonable mistake.

When the crew of the first helicopter was recovered, the pilot had managed to more or less tell what happened to one of his rescuers before falling unconscious again. When the police sergeant sent there to support the rescue operations had been told of the matter and had a look of the other victims of the glitterberries before they were airlifted for a second time he issued a series of patrols on the nearby roads and forest, reasonably believing that the girl would be as crazy as a goat in heat.

It wasn't until an hour later than when asking for additional backup, Mike the emergency dispatcher realized that they were working under a wrong assumption. While the rest of the victims were indeed evidently crazy and unable to interact with others, the 911 call had shown a level of sophistication when speaking that was way above of regular calls, too sophisticated and lucid to be of someone having hallucinations.

They had all expended hours searching the local woods under the assumption that no motorist would be willing or able to take a crazy and vociferous teen for a ride. To his credit once the sergeant heard the tape he immediately expanded the search radius to the nearest towns in both directions of the road.

This was further hampered by the simple fact that they had no idea what she looked like and that they wouldn't know for a few more hours until Henry and John received the counter agent for the paralyzing-anesthetic formula. Without a description an Amber Alert or an APB would be impossible to set up successfully so they had to wait until then for even the sparse information that was given on the press release that Spatula Man joked about.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"Girls, I just want you to know your mother and I realize it's not easy moving to a whole new town… especially for you, Daria, right?"

"Did we move?"

"I'm just saying you don't make friends as easily as... uh, some people."

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"It seems she has low self-esteem."

"What? That really stinks, Daria!"

"Easy, Jake. Focus"

"We tell you over and over again that you're wonderful and you just... don't... get it! What's wrong with you?"

"Is she going to have, like, a breakdown or something? 'Cause that could really mess me up with my new friends."

"Don't worry. I don't have low self-esteem. It's a mistake."

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

"So, you've got any brothers or sisters?"

"I'm an only child."

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

beep, beep ,beep…

The soft sound of the alarm in her watch startled Melody and she had to suppress a cry of pain when her head hit the bottom of the bed. She stopped moving for a few seconds to try hearing if her sudden movement had waked her lover/prisoner from his chemical nap. Satisfied that the only sound was the one of the soft whining of Ken she crawled out of the bed.

Once she was standing once more she finally noticed that her cheeks were wet. She had been crying? She could barely remember her dream, it felt so far away… but she could recall the feelings of isolation and hurt with crystal clarity. And also she half remembered that family of the chopper, the Morgendorffers, as if they had something to do with…

When she found who exactly had messed with her memory and feelings she wouldn't kill the bastards. No, killing them wouldn't be the right thing to do, she would take an icepick, a rusty one, and then she would perform a little memory alteration of her own. A lobotomy was after all a valid medical procedure a few years ago, and who knows, maybe part of the memories erased are of her time in med school.

The feeling of isolation are just natural for someone in deep cover, and even more for someone hunted like an animal after discovery, and no matter what the others members of the Farm thought, she wasn't made of stone, she could feel. The trick was that she usually used those feelings to her benefit, but now that she had yet to find a target to redirect those feelings her emotional control had a harder time containing them. On the other hand she knew exactly what would the perfect solution for her woes; to find who her enemy was and stalk him until he felt the fear of dying alone in the dark, and then proving his fears as painfully real.

Now that her philosophical concerns were taken care of she needed to see if Ken was still unconscious or just asleep, her current plans would depend of that. Resisting the impulse to just strangle him, she put her hand on his neck and searched once more for his pulse. Just like yesterday it was regular even if a tat slow. Next she opened his eye and checked how his pupils reacted to the light; still abnormally so and therefore she had enough time on her hands to properly prepare her departure.

After dressing herself she took the bindings out of him, now that she was going to leave while he was still out they weren't necessary, and instead took his clothes and poured a few drops of whisky on them, just enough to give them the aroma without being suspicious, before using them to methodically clean any surface where she could have left fingerprints. The rest of the bottle went to the drain of the shower, after she took all the stray hairs she could find

Then with the remains of the wine, more like cheap grape juice as far as she was concerned she stained the bed covers in the center, after all he took her virginity and she was sure he was going to check, if nothing else to brag it to himself.

Once that was done she wrote a letter on one of the pages of her notebook, and then she took his manuscript to avoid him from bothering anyone else with it; with a little bit of luck it was the only copy and she would be able to prevent a horrid waste of paper from polluting the world.

Then, when the clock marked it was six she left the room, before the maid from the morning turn, or the manager, or anyone else realized she had been in the room.

But not before one last kick between his legs, this time with her boots on.

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

Ken woke up in a sea of pain.

His head was being pounded by giant hammers, and the sounds coming from wherever he was sounded as if he had a bullhorn on his ear. Whenever he tried to open his eyes light would blind him and by some arcane method would increase the pounding tenfold for an eternity or two.

After a time, a long time, he was able to finally opening his eyes with just head splitting pain instead of the previous unending agony. It took a few moments to realize that the glass of water he always left within arm reach of his bed wasn't there, an a little longer to realize that he wasn't in his bed either.

It looked as if he was in the middle of a cheap motel, and he was naked on it. He also smelled like cheap booze.

"How the hell did I end here?" He asked aloud and immediately came to regret it as the pain in his head once again let itself know, and he dry heaved on the bed.

Then after it subsided he tried to walk towards the bathroom. He was just so thirsty! He couldn't give even half a step before he fell, wringing in pain. His groin felt on fire.

But soon he was able to stand up, even if only with great difficulty and then to walk once more towards the bathroom, this time carefully and with tiny little steps. Once he arrived he nearly drown himself drinking the water with desperation.

With his more immediate concerns satisfied for the moment he then tried to recall how he got there. It took a while, his thoughts were disorganized and blurry, but there was a woman… no a girl, Abigail. He found her on the road, abandoned and sad. They ate together, he took it to himself to help her and then… and then…

Then she asked to stop on the motel. To give him her maidenhood and turn her into a woman.

Where was Abigail?

He ignored the pain, or at least he tried, and went back to the room. His clothes were in different parts of the room, likewise the bed was just as much of a mess with the covers strewn everywhere, and there he could see in one of them some stains, red stains.

Now he understood, yesterday he had taught Abigail how to awaken her passion, and she had done so with him, probably all night. Her inner fire and resilience of youth against his experience (which truth to be told wasn't that much) and manly attributes. And for the pain he was feeling on his manhood the passion grew wild at some point. Maybe a little too wild…

Then he saw the folded piece of paper on the night table. When he opened it he could see the words written in beautiful longhand.

Ken:

Thank you for helping me yesterday, your kind words and your gentle touch allowed me to realize my inner beauty. And the night is one I'll never forget, it was simply divine.

Now I need to leave, I know of the problems that would occur if they saw us together, of how you wouldn't be allowed to help others as you did with me.

With Love:

Abby

He was so proud, at last he had managed to bring to live his more inner dreams, and done so while helping a lady in need. He would immortalize her in his books, describing the magical moment in all its glory for the world to see, and learn.

Now, if he could only remember what happened during the night itself?

** I ** II ** III ** IV **

A little psychological torture is always fun, especially if the victim doesn't even realize it.