A/N: Ignoring any sequels, this is a glimpse into the life of super spy Kate Archer from the 2000 game "No One Lives Forever" after the events of that title.
Torch Bearer
What a Gas
Kate Archer waited, flattened against the side of the building just around the corner that led into the alleyway. The sky was beginning to turn light, the city was quiet, and she calmed herself as she prepared. Taking a very small compact, she opened it and knelt down, placing it on the cement pavement before carefully pushing it just slightly beyond the corner with the toe of her boot. She straightened up, checked the viewing angle, and was satisfied.
She heard him before she saw him. Somewhere in the distance, a trash can was shifted and a disturbed cat wailed its displeasure. Shortly after, rapid footsteps could be heard getting nearer. Finally, a form emerged from down the street as it ran towards her. Dark overcoat, dark hat, and definitely NOT trying to be stealthy; the man was fleeing. She readied her Shepherd Arms P38, silencer in place, and tucked it in her wide belt. She glanced down again and saw the figure had almost reached her corner - it was time for Plan A.
She counted three and sprayed a large cloud into the air from a perfume bottle, where it hung in the air long enough for the fleeing man to run through it. He stopped, turned to look at Kate and started to pull out a revolver before the gas took effect and he collapsed on the street, falling into a deep slumber. Kate looked at the sleeping foreign agent while an older man ran up, huffing and puffing.
"I...am...getting too old...for this work," the older man said. Distinguished grey hair sat atop a tweed jacket as Bruno Lawrie, senior UNITY field agent, struggled to get his breath back. His debonair sense suffered somewhat as he gasped for air.
"That's the first time I've ever heard the hound complain the foxes were getting too fast," Kate quipped.
"I guess it takes one to know one," he retorted. He knew full well that Kate Archer had been a high level burglar and thief before he recruited her into the services of UNITY. The fact that her alias during her days of crime had been The Fox only made her comment all the more relevant. "Besides, I'm afraid it isn't the foxes that are getting faster - it's the hound that is slowing down."
"What you lack in speed you make up for in wits," Kate said, now supporting her mentor. "You flushed him right to me perfectly."
"Maybe. Lucky for me he...wait...shhhh!" Bruno said, hushing their talk as he pointed upward. Kate listened carefully and could just make out a conversation.
"How are you going to spot the target if you don't stand on the edge, Hans?" a voice asked. It was coming from the rooftop opposite the alley of where the two agents were standing.
"Max, you know I'm afraid of heights. Why do they put me on rooftop duty, anyway? Those spies are probably miles from here. I could be staking out a nice café or at least something on ground level."
Max scoffed. "H.A.R.M. agents are supposed to be fearless."
Hans responded in a hurt tone. "Nobody is fearless, not even Valkov. All I'm saying is that I could be quite formidable on the ground or in a nice building. Out here, I'm...getting a little woozy."
"Don't let Valkov hear you say that - he'll tear your spine out just to see if you even have one."
"Okay, so I'm afraid of Valkov AND heights. Also spiders. But everyone has their weaknesses. Even UNITY agents, if we can just get ahold of one. Maybe if we would try capturing them instead of killing them."
Max chucked. "Do YOU want to suggest that to Volkov?"
"Not on your life, or even mine. And for the record you never heard me say it, either. Wait, what was that noise?"
"Probably someone throwing a coin to distract us. Now move away from that stairway door and get to the edge so we can make sure that noise didn't come from the street below. And stop talking, do you want someone hear us?"
Kate and Bruno waited down below until first one, then two heads appeared over the edge of the roof. "There they are!" one of the enemy agents shouted as both drew their weapons. Kate sighted on the left agent while Bruno targeted the one on the right. She heard a shot being fired, the *zip* of a bullet and a strike on her bulletproof vest. She returned fire at the same time Bruno shot, and the two agents screamed in unison as they both fell off the building, landing lifeless in the alley at their feet.
"Good shooting," Bruno commented as he watched for any signs of breathing from the bodies. There were none.
"I learned from the best. Besides, I like getting the bonus from UNITY for saving ammo. Speaking of saving ammo, that agent I gassed should be out for quite a while. Don't you think we should get him out of sight?"
"Good idea," Bruno agreed. "It may be like any other sleepy European town, but at some point someone will come by. Let's drag him into the alley and sit him up against the wall. He'll look like someone sleeping off a good bender from the bar down the street." Together they dragged the body into the alley and leaned him against the wall. Looking around, they found a discarded bottle and put it in the sleeping agent's hand. They then dragged the two rooftop shooters over and likewise propped them up. "There, no sense him being lonely."
The More the Merrier
"Looks like it was quite a party," Kate giggled. A movement from above caught her attention and she glimpsed a form quickly dart back from the edge of the roof opposite where the men had been. "Cover the exits!" she said as she quickly ran to a ladder and started climbing up the side of the building. Her bright orange and white jumpsuit provided quite the contrast to the grimy brick of the building as she climbed several flights before disappearing onto the roof.
"I hope the rest of the windows are boarded up like they are on this side," Bruno grunted as he hurried down the alley to the back to check the rear entrance. A perimeter check revealed no unlocked doors or open windows - whoever it was wasn't getting out on the ground floor. He returned to the alley and noticed a laundry line extending from an upper floor of the building to a window next door. Playing a hunch, he waited underneath and listened to the sounds coming from inside.
Doors slamming.
Kate shouting.
Some furniture being knocked over.
A crash of glass and possibly a goat bleating.
Silence, followed by a sneeze and then running footsteps.
A body emerged, grabbed the laundry line and started crawling across it. Before he could react, Kate emerged with some type of metal brace, using the laundry line as a zip-line. She slid across the alley and collided with the other person, and both fell into a trash bin on the ground. Bruno drew his Petri .38 and aimed it at the bin while there was obviously a struggle going on inside.
"Hold still!" he heard Kate order.
"Let me go!" another woman's voice said.
"I want to talk to you."
"I wasn't doing anything!"
"I didn't say you were!" Kate said as her upper body emerged from the bin, with a somewhat younger and smaller woman in her grasp. "Bruno, help me with this one - watch out, don't let her wiggle free."
"Right." Bruno reached into the bin and hoisted the woman out, protesting and thrashing all the while. After a minute or two of fruitless struggle, she seemed to calm down a bit but Bruno was still leery.
Kate climbed out and brushed herself off a little. "Bruno, allow me to introduce you to a former associate of mine - Sarah Herriot."
"How do you do, Miss Herriot."
"I wasn't doing anything - you can't arrest me," Sarah said. She had a much thicker Scottish accent than Kate, and nothing like the clipped English accent of Bruno. Bruno guessed that she didn't have the privileged start to life that Kate had before her father's habits made her destitute and orphaned.
"Arrest you?" Kate asked. "I want to do nothing of the sort. I think we should HIRE you."
"You got a new gang now?" Sarah asked. She looked over Bruno. "It must be an old gang."
"Something like that," Kate answered before addressing her mentor. "You see Bruno, I have a confession to make - Sarah here helped me with what was perhaps my biggest job before you recruited me."
"You mean the Fitzwald Diamond from the Royal Museum?" he asked.
"You KNEW that was me?" Of all the things they had talked about over the years, Bruno had never once asked her about it and she certainly hadn't admitted to it.
"Long suspected, anyway. Whatever The Fox did before is not important though - we wiped your criminal slate clean when we hired you. We assumed you had help, but didn't have any evidence to support the idea."
"Well, Sarah here was a big help." The young woman had given up struggling for a moment as she tried to understand what was going on. "I think she's definitely UNITY material. A little rough around the edges maybe, but so was I when I started."
"Don't I know it," Bruno said as he smirked. "Do you really think she would make a good agent?"
"I do," Kate stated firmly.
"Who's Unity?" Sarah asked.
"UNITY is...well...an organization that helps keep peace in the world, mostly through intelligence gathering and the occasional bit of sabotage. We get to go after the bad guys!" she said, almost gushing.
"You mean like spies?"
"I mean very much like spies. You get paid well, travel the world, and there's this man they call Santa that makes all kinds of cool gadgets for you to use on your missions. Camera sunglasses, exploding lipstick, perfume that..."
"Don't give away all our secrets just yet," Bruno interjected. "You can play with the new toys AFTER you spend some time paying your dues. It will take some time to learn about how and why we do things, and you'll have to go through lots of training to be ready when your chance comes. That's what Kate did when I recruited her. Like I had to do when I got recruited."
"You might even meet a handsome fellow spy," Kate suggested. "Just hope he's on our side, though." With only a slight pang she remembered Tom Goodman, or at least the man she thought was him until it was revealed he was an imposter. It was an odd feeling now that she thought about it, because she actually never cared for Tom's character at all.
"You mean I could be like that Bond guy, only a woman?" Sarah asked.
"That was a movie," Bruno cautioned. "Spy work isn't as glamorous as that. But once you become a field agent on a mission, your life can and will be in danger, you'll live on no sleep and eat when you're lucky."
"Sort of like my life right now," Sarah admitted. "This ain't the safest place to live."
"No, it isn't. Care to join up with us?" Kate asked.
"What do I have to do?"
"First thing, help us deal with that man with the bottle. He's been knocked out, but he might have some information that the office would be interested in learning after he wakes up again."
"What about the other two?"
"They're dead," Bruno stated flatly while he watched for Sarah's reaction.
Sarah stared at the bodies, and a brief glimpse of pity crossed her face before she wiped it away and it was strictly business. "Okay."
"That's the spirit. I'll take the arms while you two take the legs," Bruno said as they moved toward the bodies.
Such is the Nature of Life
Bruno and Kate sat at a café across town from the alley where they had recruited Sarah, finishing up a late brunch. "How do you think she'll do, Bruno?" Kate asked.
He sat back in his chair and dabbed his mouth with a napkin. "Resourceful, young and healthy, and not too squeamish - I think she will do just fine. UNITY has done well to include you as an agent, and I think we need more women in the service. Let's face it, there are places and things a woman can do that a man can't - excluding them just because it's been a tradition is absolute rubbish and foolhardy, too. I don't know Sarah's background, but you had a hard life after losing your father at twelve. No wonder you escaped from the Brighton Home for Little Wanderers Orphanage and the foster homes after that. I see a little bit of you in her."
"How long do you think it will take before she has her chance as an agent?"
"It took you four years before you beat that door down in the organization. The next woman shouldn't take nearly as long now that precedent has been set. And you did manage to ferret out Mr. Smith as the double agent, which was only fitting since you created him, in a way."
"What do you mean? I never met the man until I was promoted to the field," Kate said with skepticism thick in her voice.
"Didn't you know? It was the Fitzwald Diamond case that broke Smith. He was the lead agent on the case and yet completely failed to get any leads on you or bring you in. He was taken out of the field shortly after that, and then he started his campaign to ruin UNITY from the inside to get even."
"I never knew," she admitted. "I guess I didn't think about anything except getting away with it."
"And I suppose now it will be Sarah's turn to follow in your footsteps. There's always a need for good agents; evil never rests, and...even good agents retire."
"Of course they...Bruno, what are you saying?" Kate asked.
"Listen, Kate - I admire you greatly. I think I even love you, although I have to admit I didn't think I'd ever burden you with that by telling you. But I'm too old for this, and I have to turn it over to younger and more capable hands. We faked my death at Volkov's hands; if I keep going, someday that funeral will be real. This way I can still enjoy myself while I have a few years left." Bruno hadn't looked at her while he said this. He now looked up at her. "That's the way of life, Kate. The old give way to the young in the world and we just step away into the shadows to fade away."
"Not MY damn world!" she said, surprising herself with a sudden surge of emotion.
"Don't be a child, Kate - it's beneath you."
"Bruno Lawrie, I am NO child. I grew up on the street since I was fourteen, I've seen sights no one should ever see, and my work has given me blood stains on my hands just the same as it has you. You can't just quit and disappear and...you...oh shite!" she exclaimed, knocking over her tea cup onto the floor below with a crash.
"You're upset," Bruno said with a pained expression. "I really hoped that you'd be happy for me."
"It's not you, it's...oh damn," she said as she grabbed her napkin and hid her face. Bruno waited and listened as he made out the sounds of muffled weeping. With the patience born of countless stakeouts through the years, he waited until she finally collected herself. Now it was her turn to look down while she spoke quietly. "Bruno, you're my mentor. Almost a father, really."
"I appreciate that, Kate. I've tried to be there for you..."
"And I love YOU," she said "and I just now realized it sitting here on my arse. It wasn't Tom that I was getting attached to, but you."
"That's more of a compliment than you can ever know. Maybe if I was twenty years younger I could sweep you off your feet."
"Taking away twenty years wouldn't change who you are, and that's the part I'm in love with. I love your kindness, and your intelligence, and part of me just wants to hear you talk about anything and everything. We've risked our lives together - shouldn't we share the rest of them, too? Now before you object that it's just a passing phase, let me tell you that crushes don't go on lasting for years. It's not idol worship or a schoolgirl crush, and it's not parental love..." she said as she looked up at him. "I love you Bruno Lawrie, and you're not getting away from me this easy. I thought I lost you once and by God I'm not losing you again. You've swept my heart away - my feet have nothing to do with it."
"Kate, I...I don't know what to say. I really don't." Bruno looked genuinely at a loss for words. "What can I do? I'm just...me."
"I'll tell you what you can do," she said without pausing when a sudden idea flashed into her mind. "You can tell Mr. Jones that you're taking Smith's spot as Deputy Director, and then you won't be risking your neck out there in the field every day while I get distracted wondering if you're still alive."
"And you?"
"You'll know exactly where I'll be because you'll be sending me on my missions. And when I get done I expect to come home to a wonderful husband who is holding out tickets to some exotic vacation spot I've never heard of before. And when you get too old for THAT job then you can stay at home while I leave the field and become one of the directors. Because THAT'S the way of life, too, isn't it?"
"Are you sure that's what you want, Kate?" Bruno asked. He reached out and took her hand - he didn't recall ever having done so before with her, even though the temptation had been to do so for a long time. "I'm still much older than you. So much older," he said wearily.
"Then we'll enjoy every minute that we have," she said as she returned his grip with an equally firm but tender one. "Who knows, maybe Santa will invent a rocket-powered wheelchair when you get old enough or at least an atomic-powered walker. I pass the professional torch to Sarah, and still carry a personal one for you. After all, no one lives forever and quite frankly I don't think anyone in their right mind would."
The End
A/N: No One Lives Forever is one of my all-time favorite computer games. A first person shooter for much of the game, it was more of a homage to the 1960s spy movies than a spoof. That doesn't keep it from having hefty doses of humor at times, usually from bad guy dialogue that you can listen to by sneaking up within earshot. The game/story was also broken down into chapters, which I've done here to a degree. If you are REALLY interested, there is a YT video of a playthrough that is very long but the beginning will at least set up the background.
Since the original game disks won't install on modern Windows, I found an abandonware site that had the game and started it again to refresh myself before writing this story. Unfortunately I had to drag myself away from the game to start writing :)
