Mechanic Chapter 6, a black lagoon fanfic

A/N: B-Bird. I understand some of the trepidation you had regarding the last chapters. However your points are not really well founded. It is quite easy to tell the general style of a pistol by feel. A Colt style automatic feels quite different from a Beretta due to their respective slide designs. Plus he has been a mercenary for almost sixteen years, he has had more than one gun held to his head. I never said that he gave Balalaika her name, he just planted the seeds for it. And Fabiola had no weight behind her words, Ethan represents what she was, is, and could become. He has, as was said in the story, been the worst of humanity. He is probably one of the few people who could get to her soul with words. As it is this is a fanfic, and my interpretation of the characters.

Chapter 6

Ethan managed to find the door to the key he had picked out of the drawer within a couple of tries. The room was smaller than what he had been living in, but he could live with that. Here he had a closet, a bed and a bathroom. He really didn't need anything else that he could think of.

He threw his duffel bag down on the bed and sat down on the edge, setting the suitcase by his feet. He could admit to having lived in worse places. He shuddered when his months in Albania came to mind. He wasn't sure he would ever get the smell of rancid grease out of his nose.

A mercenary was rarely able to be picky about where they bunked down. Either they had a room and a bed, or they slept in a tent. Either there was a dry bed, or they slept in a murky swamp. Ethan had slept in both extremes. And he preferred a good bed and a solid roof over his head, less chance of malaria that way.

Ethan stood up and opened his duffel bag and started putting his clothing in the closet. There was a small dresser that he put his shorts and socks in. Any drawer that was left empty he put pistols in. He reassembled his carbine and placed it under his bed in easy reach. He placed a knife down the side next to the wall. Even when there were no reasons to be afraid it never hurt to have a weapon close at hand just in case.

He heard steps approaching the door. As light as they were it could only be Revy, and that meant he was possibly marked for death. He really didn't think she would kill him here though, or anywhere unless he gave her a good reason. She may have a love of death and killing, but she still had some humanity left, or was gaining some due to Rock's influence.

"So you are suicidal enough to move in here. I really misjudged you," She said to him, not bothering to wait for him to acknowledge her presence.

"Suicidal, you kinda have to be to do the things I've done in my life. Your from New York City aren't you? Chinatown," He said in reply.

"Yeah. Mott Street, biggest shithole in the whole place, but it was home for a while."

"Home? I wish I knew that concept. I may have at some point, but that was a long time ago. Though I guess Roanapur is starting to become like home to me. Better than a couple of places I lived in North Korea. You can actually get a decent meal here without having to massacre an entire village. I do miss Abilene sometimes though, I was born and raised there for my first fourteen years of life."

Revy, sighed, a strange sound coming from her, "I don't really remember when I left the NYC. I went down the East Coast, and then I ended up over here somehow. I quite thinking on it. Wasn't much to think on to tell the truth."

"I remember when I left Abilene," Ethan began, "My Dad had gone into the hospital with severe alcohol poisoning about two hours earlier. I sneaked into his office and stole my pistol, never had even touched a gun before then, and I ran. Jumped the border and headed for Chihuahua. I never looked back. I sold myself to anyone willing to pay me enough to eat and buy a box of cartridges when I needed to. Some of the older mercs took pity on me and started giving me some training. A couple of years later I was boarding a ship in Panama headed for South Africa. Went all throughout Africa and the Middle East for a while, around that time I gave up trying to keep track. I got good so that I could survive, I never could keep money for a long time, I ended up blowing it on liquor and whores. Before I came here I was working a job up in Siberia, some rich dude wanted a decent commander for his security contingent, but someone managed to get past the guards and killed him. His family held me responsible, and I hit the nearest port, found a boat that was headed this way and hired on as the ship's mechanic. I had heard of Roanapur several times over the years, but I never thought much about it. When I was out of a job this last time I decided to retire, come to the City of the Dead and let who I was die. I hope to finally bury that man."

"There was a woman came through here about two years ago, a former assassin for the F.A.R.C.. She came here to rescue her employer's son, he had been kidnapped by the Colombians. She succeeded and left. About six months ago she came through here again chasing the men who killed her employer, this time she had kind of an apprentice. Her apprentice made a speech like the one you made yesterday, I shrugged that one off. I couldn't understand why your words broke me down like they did until this morning, yours had a weight to them that the girl's didn't. You were right that you don't know me, but don't think that I am going to give up this life, it's all that I know. You can give up what you had, but don't expect the same from me," with that she turned on her heel and left.

Ethan sat back down on his bed. She had just given him something to think about. Did he actually remember anything clearly besides death? Was that the only purpose he had held in the last years? Who was he?

He shook his head to clear it. If he got into one of those philosophical states he would end up going somewhere he didn't belong. He was just the mechanic on a PT boat, nothing else. He gave up years of wandering namelessly through the world. He knew where his next paycheck and meal were coming from. He really didn't have anything he needed to worry about.

Ethan stood up. There was no point in sitting and moping. The day was still young, and there were beers to be drank. And he would be damned if Revy came between him and a beer.

Depending on the person their favorite place was either in bed asleep, or in bed with somone doing more aerobic activities at six in the morning. Ethan was among the first group nowadays, and had been among the latter in the past. He didn't mind being in the Lagoon's engine room though.

Chang had called Dutch with a job the night before and needed a rush on it. Dutch hadn't given any details and Ethan hadn't asked for any, he just went to work with the engines. Dutch had finally told him that they were custom built Detroits that had originally come off of a tug that had sank, they were damn good engines since the tug was half the size of the Lagoon and was used to pull supertankers that were fully loaded in Saudi Arabia.

The job from what everyone could glean was their usual pickup and delivery. They meet a cargo ship or a small tramp steamer and transfer cargo. Then they turn around and delivery the cargo to one of Chang's warehouses. Wasn't a very difficult operation. They weren't expecting trouble.

Ethan climbed up the ladder out of the engine room and started to go into the crew cabin. He stopped short. For some reason he felt some was just... wrong. He couldn't place the feeling though. It wasn't mechanical. The hull was sound. Revy wasn't wanting to kill him for any reason he could bring to mind. Something just felt wrong.

He stepped through the hatch leading to the cockpit. Dutch was sitting in his chair like he usually was. He didn't acknowledge Ethan's entrance, but there wasn't any reason for him to. There were five people on-board. Revy and Rock were in the armory. Benny was in his electronics cabin. Ethan was usually in the engine room, but it wasn't uncommon for him to sit around in the cockpit to escape the air down there.

"Hey Dutch," Ethan started.

"Huh," came the distracted reply.

"Do you feel like something is just, not right."

"What do mean?"

"I just feel like something is wrong, but I can't place what it is."

"Maybe you have an exhaust leak, I feel really good about everything."

"One, I go over the exhaust system every time you start the engines. Two, I think this job is not going to be real smooth going. I just can't figure out why I feel like something is wrong."

Ethan absently drew his pistol out and checked the cylinder to make sure it was combat ready. He hoped that maybe he had contracted a stomach bug or something of the like, but with his track record with luck it was unlikely. He had one thought during all this: Taiwan. He wished he had had a better family.

He was under the command of a Taiwanese officer to act in a trainer capacity to some special forces troops training them in irregular warfare tactics. They got called out to do maneuvers for training in a section of forest land. Ethan had expressed how he felt that it was a mistake. During the maneuvers they stumbled upon a drug smuggling compound and were engaged in a firefight. Twenty five men had gone in with him, he only had six left when the dust settled. They had wiped out the smugglers to a man. He had been fired when he had told the brass that he thought that they needed to get their heads out of their asses and see what was going on.

He tended to trust his feelings of when things didn't feel right. He had survived because he trusted his gut. Why did nobody listen to him until something bad occurred. Really, it wasn't like he was saying that the sky was falling.

A couple of hours after he gave Dutch his concerns they arrived at the rendezvous point. They waited another couple of hours for the other vessel. Rock shouted from the machine gun stand. Looking out to the port side bow a small ship was seen. It appeared to be a small freighter, about 10,000 tons. The name was in Chinese characters so most of the crew was unable to read it.

"Hey Rock, whats that say," Ethan called up to the Japanese man.

"It says the Shining Tiger."

"ETHAN, REVY," Dutch called out.

It took the two requested people seconds to reach the hatch.

"They were supposed to give us a sign, three long blows of their foghorn. They haven't given it. You may have been right about something being wrong. Make sure your ready for the shooting."

Revy touched the grips of her Cutlasses, and Ethan undid the snap on his holster. Both killers silently prepared for the death that was coming. Ethan let his emotions fade. Revy let her excitement build. For one killing was tiring, the other plain ecstasy.

Dutch couldn't help but notice how different the two reacted. Revy wanted to do this, she lived for this. Ethan was resigned, killing was just another action to him, he had lost any joy the kill would have brought when he was younger. They were the two extremes. And it scared Dutch. It chilled him to his very core.

The two went to the bow, waiting for Dutch to bring the Lagoon alongsides. Revy was stroking the trigger guards on her pistols like she was getting some kind of sexual release from it. Ethan just stood there, his hand hanging with his wrist even with the butt of his gun. Out of nowhere Ethan started singing in a deep low voice.

Fifteen men on a dead man's chest.