Six – Sweet Home Carolina

"Hello, Freelancer Calvin! My name's Caboose!" The blue soldier paused as Cal turned away from his disassembled teleporter. "Um. Would you like to be friends? Just for today?"

"I don't have time for friends," Cal snapped. He turned back to his workbench. If he plugged in a new battery and cleaned off the carbon scoring, he just might get the module working.

After a minute of quiet, steady work, he said out loud, "Are you still there?"

"Hello!" said Caboose.

"I said leave me alone."

"Can I stay if I offered you a cookie?"

"No."

"How about a juicebox?"

"Buddy, what is your problem?" Cal looked over his shoulder at the idiot. "Are you seriously a soldier? You sound like you barely made it out of kindergarten."

"Hey, that's not true!" Caboose stepped back defensively. "I made it all the way to the fifth grade!"

"I guess they'll let anyone be a sim trooper." When he looked down at the teleporter, Cal picked up the battery. He turned to Caboose, feeling an idea form. "Okay, tell you what. This is called a plasma battery. I need a new one to make the teleporter work. Why don't run along like a good little soldier and find it for me?"

Caboose stood up straight. "Does this mean we're friends?"

He hated himself for saying it, but it was the only way Cal could think to end the conversation. "Yeah. It means we're friends."

"Yes! In your face, Tucker! I will find you a new plastic buttery, new best friend!" The blue soldier pointed excitedly at the teleporter unit. "And then… we will play."

On that ominous note, he ran off like a little kid. Cal stood at the workbench, trying to wrap his head around this crazy place. Sim troopers in pink armor, retired Freelancers, and far less brain cells than firepower.

Good thing he wouldn't be here for long.

From the moment she set foot in Blood Gulch, Carolina knew something was wrong. She crouched on the hilltop and surveyed the landscape.

Church appeared on her shoulder. "Hey, I'm picking up a lot of discharge in the air. Didn't you say Cal was equipped with a mobile teleporter?"

"It was another of the Director's experiments. We wanted to see how they'd work for hit-and-run ops. It worked all right, but there wasn't time to develop it."

"Because they were working on the Alpha," Church concluded. He shuddered. "Fantastic."

Carolina stood up and turned toward Blue Base. "Come on. Let's go say hello."

Wash sat up in his chair the moment he heard the smoke alarms go off. "Caboose!"

Almost immediately, the soldier in question appeared in his doorway. "Um, please don't be mad, Mr. Washington. Our new Freelancer buddy needed a plasma thingy and there was one in the ice machine—"

"How…? Why…?" Wash shook his head. "Ugh, never mind! Take me to Cal!"

Caboose fidgeted. "Oh! I couldn't do that. See, he put the plastic butter in his teleporter and now he's… disappeared."

"Just great! You're doing a fantastic job, Caboose!" Wash shouldered past him into the corridor.

"Thank you!" Caboose replied sincerely.

"That was sarcasm!"

"I think your hair is nice, too!"

He found Cal outside Blue Base, repeating running forward with his teleporter module. The Freelancer would vanish in a blur of green sparks, only to reappear on the exact same spot two seconds later.

"This! Can't! Be! Happening!" he said over the course of his micro-jumps.

"Slow down, Cal!" Wash came up to hold him back. "You haven't fixed it yet!"

Panting furiously, Cal turned on him and shook the module. "Actually it's working fine, Wash! It's this canyon that's broken!"

"That… doesn't make sense." Wash thought for a moment, then added, "Most of the time."

"Some asshole set up an interdiction field!" Cal screamed. "I can't jump anywhere while it's up!"

"Huh." Wash looked out at the canyon. "They haven't rebuilt their robot yet, but I suppose that would be Red Team's doing."

"Good, so I know who to kill first!"

Wash put a warning hand on his Magnum. "You're not killing anyone while I'm around, Cal. I'll put one right between your eyes if you do."

Cal stared back in silent fury for a moment. Wash never flinched. His hand tightened on the pistol.

Finally, the Freelancer nodded and put away his module. "Okay, you win. But the sooner I can leave, the better."

"Why?" Wash and Cal turned to see Carolina with a pair of plasma pistols drawn. "What's your rush?"

"Son of a bitch," Cal breathed. "It's really you. Been a while, Carolina."

"Same to you, California." She holstered her guns and crossed her arms. "Now what brings you to Blood Gulch?"

"I'm going after the Counselor. You want in on that hunt, just say the word."

Something blue rippled over Carolina's shoulder. Church soon appeared in full-form armor. "I can already tell this is going to be a long-ass adventure."

"It can't be…" Cal glanced at his former friends. "Is that the Alpha?"

"Alpha, Epsilon, Leonard Church… I got lots of names, buddy. I'm just that awesome."

Wash noticed that Cal had gone completely silent. He didn't like that one bit. "You need a second?"

"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine."

Carolina looked at Wash. "What's this about an interdiction field?"

"Cal spooked the Reds when he showed up. They've probably set up countermeasures to keep him from teleporting into their base." Wash turned and stared at his old compatriot. "I can't imagine why…"

"I guess Sarge overdid it a little," Church observed. He glanced up at the sky. "I've got a reading that says this field is covering the entire canyon."

"So I guess that means you're stuck with us for a while." Carolina walked over and slapped Cal on the back. "Let's go inside. We'll work this out."

"Okay, but let's do it topside." Wash slid an uneasy glance at the new plume of black smoke rising up from the base. "I keep forgetting what happens when I let Caboose into the kitchen unsupervised."

"…Tucker did it!" Caboose called out from somewhere in the base. Wash sighed and followed the others.