Author's Note: Gasp! Plot! Anyone remember that? Yes, in addition to being a transition chapter, this one is gearing us up for more plot-related stuff to come. Hence the title. (Anyone sick of my dumbass cooking puns yet? No?)
Rating: T for language.
Disclaimer: G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.
Chapter Twelve: Thickener
The convoy reached its destination around sunset, and the real work began. Despite being stiff and irritable from sitting in the backs of trucks all day, there would be no rest for the Joes; the new base had the bare bones in place, but that just meant there was a safe place to put all the crates that needed moving. Annie tumbled out of the back of the deuce-and-a-half feeling like the entire stretch of bumpy highway that they had driven over, but rolled her shoulders and resignedly fell in with the rest of the greenshirts. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howled, only to be cut off by an all-too-familiar bellowing voice.
Tanks and high-security battle wagons were rolled out of the eighteen-wheelers and hurried down the long ramps hidden in the desert floor. Joes formed chains to help unload the many, many, many boxes and bales that the convoy carried, hurried along as ever by the twin Cerberuses of Beach Head and Sgt. Slaughter.
Annie worked hard, trying to ignore her bone-deep exhaustion and almost convincing herself that she'd managed it. The light faded into the distance, half-hidden behind the rocky foothills that were scattered across the uneven desert, and the work continued. It was almost a relief when Whiskey Down fetched her out of the greenshirt group to distribute the evening's sandwiches.
Forming an orderly line or actually taking time to sit down and eat would disrupt the work; since they only had a limited amount of time to get the contents of the convoy under cover, and national security was more important than sitting and digesting, the quartermasters just passed among the troops with plastic-wrapped food and water bottles.
Not for nothing was the kitchen considered the hub of gossip, and that was in effect even without a kitchen. Moving from group to group with the trays of food, Annie once again found herself taking an informal poll of the Joes' moods. The predominant attitude was sarcasm in a variety of flavors—resigned, irritated, and extra-sarcastic. The one thing everyone could agree on was that a certain terrorist organization, never popular at the best of times, had ensured that not only did the Joes consider them enemies, but were thoroughly annoyed at them too. In fact, there was now not a single person left in the vicinity who didn't have an exquisitely personal grudge against Cobra.
Annie said as much to Chopper while they picked their way down the sandy ramp into the Pit, carrying dinner for the men guarding the prisoners. "What were they planning?" she said, frowning as she stopped and reknotted the sweaty bandanna that kept her hair out of her eyes. "A bunch of robots and half-trained nutjobs, just so they could sneak one shapeshifting—I can't believe I just said that word—one shapeshifting guy into the base? Does that make sense?"
Chopper shrugged his massive shoulders. Despite the cooling desert evening, his own short-cropped, pale blond hair (what Annie thought of as a "fuzzcut") was also darkened with sweat. "Been in this job for years, and I still don't get how they think. You oughtta ask Murphy; he's the guy who's been posted here since the beginning."
The woman made a "tch" noise between her teeth. "He told me earlier that I should get used to being on the front line."
"Kind of." Chopper stopped, balancing his parcel with one meaty hand while he unlocked an unpainted steel door. "We do tend to get into scrapes more than the usual burger-flipping fuckwit. Sometimes you'll get tapped for a mission when they need an undercover operative at a restaurant, or in a hotel, or something. And what's your secondary MOS—sniper?"
"Eh," Annie said glumly. "Not really. I had the shots for sniper school, but I get too nervous and give my position away by humming."
"'Old MacDonald,' right?"
"I was hoping people had forgotten that."
That got a snort from Chopper. "If you piss people off, they're going to remember the rumors. You didn't make any friends shoving that Marine under a sink. Hell, only the fact that Storm's a ninja master keeps people from ragging on him about the Cobra thing, and even then you can still hear all kinds of stories."
Annie shifted uncomfortably, trying to balance the stacked pans of sandwiches and cold cuts without losing circulation to her arms. "Cobra thing?"
"Yeah, he used to be a Cobra operative. Put some serious dents in Joe, too, until he switched sides." Chopper was fumbling with another locked door, completely unaware that all the blood had drained from Annie's face. "Nobody's going to forget that he sent a few of our people home in body bags, vow or no vow, but he gets respect for what he's done since then. Still, there's going to be rumors. A greenie ninety-two-golf who copped an attitude with a devil dog? You're not gonna get any slack for a while."
"Wait a minute," Annie said faintly. She wasn't quite sure that the last few seconds had actually happened. "Storm Shadow—a guy who's known for being one of the, if not the, deadliest on the planet—used to work for Cobra. The people who attacked our base and nearly got more than a few of us killed. And nobody is . . . I mean . . ."
Chopper shot her a sharp look. "Don't even think about goin' in that direction, 'Stack. Storm's paid his dues." He shouldered open another door, wavering for a moment as he almost lost control of the trays piled up in his arms. "It's never gonna bring back the Joes he dropped, but he's saved a hell of a lot of lives since then. None of us have the right to judge him."
Behind that door was a steep, half-lit staircase, and the effort of negotiating it while loaded down like they were thankfully saved Annie from having to answer. She just bit her lip and concentrated on the steps, one at a time, trying to calm her suddenly-quaking nerves and telling herself that Chopper was right. She hadn't even been here for two weeks; she couldn't possibly know everything about the way things were done. Still, the mere thought of Storm Shadow being on the other side was enough to send chills down her spine.
They had reached the second sublevel. The generators were up and running—Hawk had sent an advance team to make sure that the new Pit was operational before the convoy arrived—but a lot of the mechanisms still hadn't been fired up, and the elevators and special security doors weren't operational yet. In absence of a fancy high-tech cage, the two Cobra prisoners had been locked in a room with only one exit, suitably tiny ventilation ducts, and a large guard surrounding it. It was proving remarkably efficient so far.
Annie and Chopper were vetted three times by different guards before they were allowed access to the temporary cell itself. Most of them she recognized, having encountered them in the mess more than once, but about a third of the group was completely unknown to her. The thought bothered here more than she liked: I can't be sure who's on our side. Then, directly followed by: 'our' side. Yeah, you had the briefing . . . you're in with this crew for good now.
Chopper, at least, had no such issues: he chatted amiably with the various Joes and greenshirts while their passes were checked, completely at ease. Slowly, Annie took a breath and tried to calm down. She balanced the trays carefully, trying not to drop any dishes as she set them down. The guards received their plates of—yes, sandwiches—with resigned looks and not too much audible grumbling.
The prisoners, on the other hand, couldn't have looked more out of sorts. Not that Annie blamed them: one was still firmly shackled to a makeshift cot and dosed up on painkillers, while the other appeared to be having trouble sitting and was carefully resting an icepack on what must have been the bruised groin of the century. The quartermaster felt a small stab of guilt at the sight of the drugged-up toxo-viper—especially the heavily-bandaged place where her bullet had been taken out of his shoulder—and quietly set down the rudimentary rations on the folding table next to his cot, trying not to wake him.
Zartan, on the other hand, was getting none of her sympathy. With the guards watching every move like a hawk, Annie briskly checked the level in the water bottles the shapeshifter had been provided with, deposited his sandwiches next to his shackled hands, and did her best to ignore the fact that Zartan would have gladly murdered her, Hall, and every Joe on base. (That briefing had been very instructive. She would never go to sleep without a knife under her pillow, ever again.) Then she stepped back while the guards frisked the prisoner, just to make sure Annie hadn't passed him anything she shouldn't, and then submitted to a frisking herself. Throughout it all, Zartan maintained a chilly silence, apparently forcing himself to tolerate the presence of the weak idiots that now surrounded him.
Chopper noticed too. "He's not mainlining coffee any more," he said curiously as the guards locked the cell door again. "Did the transfer shake him up?"
That got a smirk from one of the guards. "He's been in a better mood ever since he found out this part of the new base doesn't have man-sized vent ducts."
"Like that ever stopped Storm or Snake," Chopper pointed out dryly as he and Annie stacked up the empty trays. Annie's grimace went unnoticed by the guards or the other quartermaster. "I swear those guys can walk through walls."
"Maybe, but Hawk stood 'em down. Now the chameleon's sure he's safe, and he's been smugging the place up ever since." The guard, whom Annie vaguely recognized as a newly-minted Joe named Failsafe, grinned and shouldered his rifle. "Nah, I'm waiting for Sgt. Scarlett to come down here on interrogation duty. It's gonna be better than prime-time."
"How'd he take the news about the rupture?"
"Not so well. When Scarlett nuts 'em, she nuts 'em good."
Instead of taking the empty trays back to the trucks, as Annie had anticipated. Chopper lead her down a different set of corridors and deeper into the new Pit. A set of security doors had been propped open, and the harsh glare of fluorescents flickered ever so slightly as someone wiped a thin layer of dust off the glowing tubes. Here was the new kitchen, very much like the old kitchen—except that the equipment was older, the griddle was much shorter, and Whiskey Down was making a tsking noise as he examined the meat locker.
"I was hoping we wouldn't get transferred here," he said, pushing the door closed. "This kitchen isn't specced to feed the kind of volume we deal with. Still, needs must when the devil drives." Crossing his arms, he eyed the assembled quartermasters (and one desert trooper fiddling with the meat locker's temperature-control gauge), clearly mentally planning out new and more intensive work shifts. Everybody endeavored to look as busy as possible.
Annie dived right into the routine, cleaning and moving things and doing whatever one of the senior quartermasters told her, but inwardly she worried. Just when she thought she had a handle on things, something else happened. The worries about terrorists and robots had been slightly calmed by General Hawk's briefing (it was hard not to be calm when Hawk said you could be), but the sight of the glowering shapeshifter and the mention of . . . well, hell, why hadn't anyone told her that Storm Shadow used to work for Cobra? Did most of them consider that an inconvenient detail? Oh, and so much for Dusty's "good commandos, a little freewheeling." He wasn't going to be getting any Miss Nice Quartermaster for a while.
Shifts ended late that night. At 2300 hours, the kitchen finally began to empty out, and Annie was one of the last left on duty. She moved on autopilot, wiping down every flat surface with indeterminable amounts of disinfectant and scrubbing until it shone—the programmed responses from a life of this kind of work. All of it had to be cleaned in one form or another: the counters, the ovens, the refrigerators, the messhall tables and chairs, the steam tables-
Annie was startled out of her reverie by a small, distinct chink noise. Surprised, she glanced down. The light caught the warm gleam of a copper jacket.
"Another one?" she muttered, dipping her hand into the otherwise empty steam well. Definitely: a bullet, hollow-point by the shape of it, though the exact type escaped her. It was new, too, with no marks or smudges to show that it had ever been part of a magazine.
Now that was just downright weird. Bullets in the steam trays at the old base she could almost, almost understand; people went heavily armed in this kind of unit, and if they didn't accidentally lose some while leaning across to get their food, a particularly dim joker might drop one or two in the trays to see if they would go off. But the troops in the new Pit hadn't even been served a hot meal yet, and nobody would have had the opportunity to lose or plant a bullet in the trays. And the quartermasters, the only people spending their time in this section currently, weren't even going armed while cleaning.
Not to mention that hollow-pointed ammunition wasn't something you shlepped around in your pockets while you were on base . . . or, she conceded, something most people wouldn't shlep around. Maybe a third of the Joes probably wouldn't do it.
"Where did you come from?" she murmured, cupping the bullet in her gloved palms.
Well, my mother was a fifty-cal installment on the U.S.S. Woodville, but I'm pretty sure my dad was only a peace-locked Mossberg, the bullet did not say. Annie shook her head, blinking rapidly and rubbing her eyes with one hand. When the sarcastic voices in her head started sounding more like her hand-to-hand teachers than the PT instructor, she'd been spending too much time worrying.
Maybe it was a superstition? Annie's mother was a rigidly down-to-earth human being, much more so than her rather flighty father, but she would still threaten any employee with public execution if he wore red dishwashing gloves in her kitchen. Put a bullet in the steam trays to . . . christen it, or something? She'd heard stranger things. Shaking her head again, she tucked the bullet into the pocket of her BDUs and got back to work. She could think about it in the morning, when her brain would be working better (or sgt. major would scream at her until it did).
It wasn't until well after midnight when she and the last of the stragglers streamed out of the kitchen. Annie went straight to her newly-assigned bunk, flopped onto it, kicked off her boots, and was asleep before another thought crossed her mind.
When she woke up the next morning, the bullet was gone.