Chapter 4: Codename - Nano
The night sky was flooded with city lights drowning out any stars that might have been there. Music bled out of the building that Val and Reaper stood in the back alley of, the lights on the opposite side flashing brightly, advertising the business to the street, while the two mercenaries minded their business.
"You plan on going by your real name for every mission then?" Reaper said, arms crossed and with the same gritted voice he always had. His well dressed partner was leaned up against the car they brought, smoking a cigarette. Val gave a sideways glance, before turning his head away and breathing out a cloud of cigarette smoke.
"You can call me Nano." The younger replied. "Don't call me that back at base though, I hate it." Reaper tilted his head at the other, and was quiet for a moment before he spoke.
"Why's that?" Reaper rasped, a little bit drawn out, and Val couldn't tell if the typically stoic man was more intrigued or afraid to ask, not that either was a good sign.
"I hate it 'cause I've been stuck with it since I was 19, and wish I'd picked something else. As for why Nano…" Val trailed off. He took a last puff of his cigarette before tossing it on the asphalt. He stood up, crushed it under the sole of his shoe, and dusted himself off, preparing to do his little show.
With a flick of his wrist, he summoned a pistol into his right hand. Val smiled smugly at Reaper's un-enthused change of body language, holding up his empty hand, before he continued speaking.
"I know, I know, hold your applause, because there's more." Val gave a glance down the alley to make sure they were still alone. "Can I look at your shotgun for a moment?" The younger held out his empty hand, holding the pistol behind his back giving a gracious bow, all part of his performance, which got him a tentative stare at his hand for a few seconds.
"Look, don't touch." Reaper didn't take his focus off of Val, quickly pulling his shotgun from his cloak and holding it out sideways, finger off the trigger.
"That's all I needed." The younger said, looking up at the other, before gently bringing his hand forward from behind his back, trying not to alarm his teammate, revealing a replica of Reaper's shotgun in place of the pistol. Not perfect, missing small details and off color, but at a glance they were near identical. This did reward another head tilt from the stiff mannered man, and Val smiled, sufficiently satisfied with his showboating. The shotgun then started to collapse onto itself, small black beads skittering across his hand, until there was nothing left. "I know, I should've picked Houdini or something." The younger stood up straight, and smugly brushed against Reaper's shoulder as he walked towards the back door.
"Quit goofing off, he should be waiting for us already." Reaper growled, as he turned to follow.
"First of all, he's waiting on me. Second, that's the point, we don't want to look desperate." Nano after reaching the door looked back and found Reaper standing a little too close, trying to follow him inside.
"You should wait out here." Nano said.
"No. Doomfist said to go with you on your first mission, I'm going." Reaper spoke bluntly, making Nano sigh.
"I thought you didn't like babysitting?"
"I wouldn't be here babysitting if you and your piss poor attitude didn't get us in trouble."
"You're one to talk about attitude." Val mumbled under his breath, "Look, you don't want to be here, and I don't want you to be here. I promise this will go faster if you just listen to comms. You can come in if things go bad." Lifting his hand slightly, Nano gently placed his hand over the door lock. Though no one could see it through his long hair, the small light at the base of his neck lit up. Underneath the blazer jacket and loose dress shirt he wore, a stream of dark nanobots began to flow down from the hidden compartment on his shoulder, down his arm, to his hand, and onto the door, into the lock. With a click, he was able to pull the door open slightly. Nano turned back to see Reaper still standing close behind, causing the other to sigh.
"We are just going to be sitting and talking, and you're gonna scare him off. It's a negotiation not a death threat, that's why I'm here." Reaper stood stubbornly. Nano sighed and quickly pulled the door open, stepped in, and pulled the door closed behind him.
"Hey!" Reaper's clawed hand quickly grabbed the door, keeping it from closing.
"If the boss man can trust me enough to send me back on the field why can't you. You're staying outside Grim, he said not to make a scene, you can come in later if things go bad.." Nano said.
Reaper gripped the door tightly for a few moments.
"Just give me five minutes." Nano said, looking at the other through the cracked door, still holding it open.
"Five minutes." Reaper hissed, before letting go of the door so Nano could pull it closed. Stepping into the club hallway, Nano's footsteps were drowned out by the heavy bass of the music as he walked deeper into the club. Quickly, he brushed his hair back on his left ear, checking his ear piece was in correctly, and brushed his hair back in place. The hallway opened up to the main floor of the club, and Nano stopped to take in his surroundings.
The club was dim, only the most important facets being lit on their undersides by bright LED's. He stood at the back of the club, the hallway he came from leading to restrooms. To his left, a long and packed bar counter, lit purple underneath, with the various liquor bottles on display behind the counter being lit from below in color changing lights. In the center of the room, the dance floor was the main source of light, on the right, a glowing DJ booth where the music was radiating from. Along the wall opposite to him was the main entrance in the center, with some small tables and stools to place drinks on either side. Scanning the room for his target, he spotted a familiar figure on the second level balcony overlooking the dance floor. A slender suited figure stood leaning at the long bar counter that ran along the balcony rail, speaking to a young woman holding a drink tray, clearly a waitress.
"Is he there?" Reaper spoke, making Nano's earpiece growl.
"Yeah, I think I see him." Nano replied. He stood next to near the base of the stairs leading to the upper level, watching the suited man shake his tall glass at the waitress. The waitress tucked her tray under her arm, and quickly paced through the crowd, coming down the stairs where a second bouncer stood to check IDs at the bottom. Val noticed a sign next to the bouncer that said "21 AND OVER ONLY", which he found quite interesting, thankfully he brought his ID, if they even did ID him- he was clearly old enough. His eyes flicked back to the waitress as she paced to the bar to claim her drinks. Nano, calculating a plan in his head, watched her load up her tray, and stop at several tables at the lower level. She only had two glasses on her tray when she started to approach the stairs quickly, Nano quickly following her behind. He reached for his wallet in his pocket and quickly flipped it open to show his ID to the employee at the foot of the stairs, who let the waitress pass by easily. The bouncer peeked at it quickly and nodded, waving him past.
Nano stepped up the stairs to catch up to the waitress, seeing she had already dropped off the tall glass and stopped to drop off her second drink further down the balcony. He quickly calculated the distance mentally, and as the waitress was walking back towards him, he matched her pace. They met in the middle, right next to his target, and to avoid colliding with the speed walking waitress, Nano side stepped directly into a barstool, and his hand hit the full glass on the counter, just barely enough to slosh some of the drink out.
"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! Let me get that!" The waitress exclaimed. Nano quickly grabbed the drink across the brim to keep it from toppling over, for only a moment.
"No, no, you're ok, I should watch where I'm going." Nano said, projecting his voice to be heard over the music. He heard Reaper groan in his earpiece at his little stumble, while the waitress pulled a couple napkins from her apron and quickly wiped the counter. "And I'm so sorry I'll replace your drink." He turned to his target, who he could see the details of much better now. The man seemed too young to be a CEO, but I guess they get younger everyday. Or maybe Nano was getting older.
"No, no, I will comp it, it's my fault! Let me go get some more napkins." The waitress said and scurried away.
"Sorry, I made a really bad introduction. You must be Mr. Fairfax?" Nano held out his hand to shake the man's hand, who reciprocated with a gentle handshake. "My boss sent me to meet you here." Nano leaned one leg on the barstool.
"You can call me Sebastian, and who exactly is your boss?" The man said, leaning over his glass and taking a drink. Nano reached into his blazer pocket and placed a metal card on the counter, the Talon logo glinting under the spotlights moving across the ceiling. The man, Sebastian, looked down at the metal card for a few moments before turning back to face forward toward the balcony again.
"You can call me Nano. Do you know what my boss wanted to discuss?" Nano asked as he slid the card back into his inner pocket. Just then, the waitress scurried back with a stack of napkins.
"I'm so sorry about that again, I went ahead and comped your drink. Oh, is this who you were waiting for? What can I get you to drink?" The waitress clicked her pen and took a napkin to write on.
"I'll just have the same thing he is, thank you." Nano said, smiling gently, the waitress quickly scurrying off again.
"He said he wanted to discuss a business venture as he put it." Sebastian took another drink from his glass, staring down at the dance floor.
"You have a big tech company, that's what he told me, right? Particularly, a research and development department, the uh, smart guys I would say, not like me." Nano smiled, trying to get the man to relax a little.
"I do, that's not hard to find out. And I know you guys are not exactly good samaritans, what is it that you want?"
"Alright, then you know we don't fool around. We're a little short handed, we want to be able to borrow your R&D guys from time to time."
"You gonna make it worth my while?" Sebastian said, taking a drink from his glass. The waitress sped over with her tray in hand, and set another tall glass next to Nano.
"Jack and coke, double." The waitress said.
"Thank you. I'll pay this one cash, you can keep the change. Can I borrow a pen for a few?" Nano said, handing her a bill. While the waitress patted her apron down searching for a pen, Nano removed a hair tie he had been wearing around his wrist, that conveniently also stored a drink cover, and placed the cover over his glass before sticking the straw back his drink and placing his hand over it. She handed him a purple pen, and scurried off before Nano turned back to Sebastian. Nano clicked the pen, picked up a napkin from the stack between them, quickly wrote a number down, and slid it over. Sebastian looked down at the napkin while hovering over his drink, then looked at nano through the side of his eye.
"Are you serious?"
"Afraid so, that's what the big boss told me, and he said that was generous."
"You know who you're talking to right? This is a joke, no way."
"I would think about who you're talking to for a minute before you tell me no."
"Hmm, ok, let me think. Hell no."
"Damn. That's too bad. You should really get one of these drink covers by the way." Nano tapped on the piece of waterproof fabric atop his drink. Just then his earpiece made a new noise.
"You're out of time, and I'm not liking what I'm hearing." Reaper suddenly gritted in his ear. If he could have yelled at him to shut up and give him a second he would have.
"Why would I need one of those?" Sebastian asked, taking another big drink from his glass.
"Because I spiked your drink when I got here." Nano said, watching the other stop drinking from his cup and look over at Nano.
"W-What?" Sebastian said, stuttering slightly.
"A powerful guy like you should really watch your drinks better, especially out at a club by yourself." Nano said.
"You're joking, right?" The CEO asked, and Nano shook his head.
"You see, my boss doesn't take no for an answer, so if you want what's in your drink to not kill you, you're gonna want to say yes."
"And if I don't say yes? There's cameras, they'll see it was you, they'll find traces of poison." The CEO started to raise his voice. Nano raised his hand up in front of his face. The nanobots began to flow down his shoulder again and up his arm, streaming across his hand in a DNA pattern.
"You're right. That's the great thing about these guys. They're nanobots. That means I can get up and leave with you alive," Nano leaned forward so the CEO would be able to hear him clearly without raising his voice "and my nanobots will tear you apart from the inside. And when I'm done, I can call all of them back, so I don't have to waste a single one on a cocky skeeze like you." Nano leaned back, then sat and waited for a reply, but only the club music played.
"I told you that it was being generous. In fact, the money should already be in your account by tomorrow. So you can leave here a happy man, or you can not leave at all."
The CEO sat and stared blankly out at the dance floor for a minute, not responding. Nano sighed.
"I would start sending emails now. We'll be in touch, right?" Nano stood up off of the stool he sat on, and straightened his jacket.
"Right. Right, we'll be in touch" Sebastian said, pulling out his phone absentmindedly.
"You can have that, by the way, on me." Nano moved his glass next to the other's, leaving the drink cover on the glass. Smoothly he headed away from their seating back down the stairs, nodding at the employee at the bottom step before turning sharply into the hallway, picking up his pace on the way down so he could have another damn cigarette, and finally cracking open the back door.
"That was more than five minutes." Reaper said, leaning against the brick wall as Nano stepped out into the quiet alleyway.
"I said you could come in after five minutes, and you stayed outside, so I'll take that as a good job. Let's go." Nano said, pulling a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his pants pocket. The two walked toward the dark car parked in the alleyway, ready to drive off into the night after another day's work.
