Chapter Five
When I woke up private Robins was piloting an old F-5 freedom fighter; the base giving us the oldest and out of date jet they had. To be fair, we were going away from the fighting to Langley Falls, and they gave me a private so that way nobody would be standing in the way in the dogfight. She seemed nice, but she's just a kid; I bet the captain didn't want to see her plane getting shot down. That Compton fellow is rather peculiar, he looks like he's in his late teens early twenties, and already he's a commander in the air force and he also works for the CIA and seems like a respectable figure to the FBI. So how in the hell does someone that young rise that fast and accomplish that much?
I look down and see the mountains, and I know that we're close. I could sense the concentration on Robin's face as she piloted this jet, despite it being so old, she was determined to do her job right. That's the determination we need for this war, determination that will crush those damn Soviets and Chinese so that I can go back to drawing humans for that fandom. If they were real it'd be great if they blasted Russia and China to pieces, or the whole world, there have been so many wars and genocides that all sentient life deserves to die. Well not me because I'm a very important person, the last of my kind, and who knows, maybe the humans did create me and we can have discussions about their advancements in science and what really happened to this earth, if they're even real.
I sigh softly and look down to the land rushing beneath us. Robin took notice and asked me what was wrong. I just waved me hand telling her not to worry about it.
"You know, I only graduated from the academy a month ago," she began. "I was supposed to be deployed to Alaska and fill up the jets that were going to bomb the government in Moscow, but then this war broke out, and now they need everyone some bit of training to go out and fight. I honestly didn't expect the ceasefire to hold, but I mean I wanted it to, everyone did. No one wants another world war because it's all this unnecessary death and destruction, and with evenly matched superpowers going at one another, this war is gonna go on for awhile, or at least until one of us uses the nukes and cause a Nuclear Armageddon."
"We're animals, what do you expect?" I replied. "It's killed or be killed in this world now. We're turning back into our primitive selves. As Einstein said, 'I do not know what weapons will be fought in world war three, but I know that world war four will be fought with sticks and stones.' Though maybe this world needs to rid itself of sentient species, at least until it can repair itself."
There was a long pause as I sensed her digesting what I said, surprised at how I could be so apathetic to the war, the future of all antrokind. "Then why join the war effort?" she asked.
"It was either this or prison, and because of my ability, solitary confinement," I answered indifferently.
"Is this ability the reason why you're going to Langley?"
"Yes."
"Well I'm glad you're on our side," she murmured softly.
"What's not to say that I go to Russia and join the Soviets? Or be a double agent for them?" I questioned her, curious at what her response would be.
"You wouldn't dare!" she exclaimed. She turned around and looked at me, and I saw fury in her eyes. "You would betray your own country in a time of war?!"
"I just might," I replied smartly.
She pulled out her pistol and aimed it dead at my helmet. "I'll have you arrested for treason!" she hissed.
I just laughed at her for how incredibly she is. "You would honestly fire that thing at me in here and either depressurized the cockpit or dismantle the systems that are keeping us up in the air? You should know better from the academy. Speaking of flying, have you failed to notice that we're going in a nosedive?"
She turned around and quickly pulled on the steering wheel to lift the jet, then climbed back up to cruising altitude then caught a good air current and trimmed the plane. "Besides," I continued, "I don't know how to speak Russian, so I couldn't help them if I wanted." She was about to say something, but decided against it. The rest of the trip went on in silence.
We landed at an airport outside of Langley, and I mockingly saluted the private. "I hope the next time I see you you'll be a Lieutenant, private." I said.
"And hopefully this war will be over when I see you again," she replied. I walked to my escort and proceed to go into the SUV's with little American flags on the each side of the hood. My chauffeur was a German Sheppard dressed in a black uniform with a police cap and white gloves on the steering wheel. He was looking spick and span, and the pride that radiated off of him was obvious. He sat up straight with dignity and looked back at me every once in awhile, those light brown eyes observing me. The trip was silent as my chauffeur drove me to the CIA headquarters.
We drove up to a ghost town as the chauffeur pulled up in front of a phone booth. I looked around me, puzzled as the German Sheppard got out the car and held the door open for me.
"This is the real CIA headquarters," he began pointing towards the booth. "The one in Fairfax is just for show. Go inside the telephone booth and give them your name and tell them who referred you. Seeing how you are priority number one they should let you in. Good day sir."
He got back into the SUV and left me there. I looked around at the empty buildings of what once used to be a thriving part of the city, with local restaurants and hotels all desolate and empty. The place was eerily quiet, so quiet that you could hear a pen drop. So when I heard a loud crash coming from a building, I naturally went to go investigate it.
I walked to the empty hotel and walked past the reception area up the stairs. I heard more movement on the second floor and crept up around to find the source of the sound. I suddenly heard two voices speaking in what I believed was Russian, and I quickly hid in a room next to me. I looked around and saw that there were two beds in here with an old television set and a mini closet, but everything was incredibly dusty. I saw them walking past me, and one of them was a Siberian tiger with a sniper rifle on his back, another was a Snow Leopard carrying an assault rifle, an AK-47 by the looks of it.
The sun was starting to set and the sky was starting to get dark. If I was going to do anything it would have to be soon. I overheard them talk on the walkie-talkie, but since it was in Russian I had no idea what they were saying. I sat in the corner thinking of ways to take them out when dust went up my nose the wrong way. I was struggling to prevent myself from sneezing, but when I realized that nothing could be done, I tried to make the sneezing as quiet as possible. When it finally came I sneezed into my arm covering my mouth, but what I didn't expect was for me to sneeze several more times. When I was finally done I realized that they stopped talking, and I had a bad feeling about this.
Bullets sprayed through the door as I scrambled for cover. I quickly ran to the closet and I shut the door, but I got grazed by a bullet in the process. It was only a flesh wound, nothing to be worried about. I just spat on it and waited for what the Russians were going to do next. I heard the snow leopard reload their assault rifle as they came in. They didn't see a body on the floor, so they went around looking for me.
"Hello Mr. American," the tiger said in a thick Russian accent, his sniper rifle was out and poised at anything that moved. "I just want to know where your CIA base is and your referring agent and then we'll be on our way comrade. But if you don't want to talk, then you will feel the might of Soviet weaponry."
They began looking under the bed and in the bathroom, but no luck, so they came in front of the closet. The Siberian Tiger in front of the door with his rifle out in front him while the snow leopard had his rifle pointed at the door. The tiger opened the door slowly, but I pushed against it and did a three-sixty revolving around the door. I grabbed the tiger and used him as a body shield while his partner shredded bullets into him. The tiger screamed in pain as blood poured out of his mouth, dropping his sniper rifle on the floor.
I charged at the snow leopard using the tiger's body and pushed the body onto him them quickly disarmed the leopard. The Russian recovered quickly and punched me in the jaw. I rolled with the blow and went on to throw two blows to his gut, but he blocked both of them. We traded blows with one another, punching and kicking one another, but I took more blows than he did. We glared at each other in hate, and then I remembered that I should be using my height to my advantage. I'm five foot three, and he's about a foot taller than me. When we went at it again he over punched and I grabbed his arm and used his energy to flip him. He quickly got up and grabbed his partner's sniper rifle that was next to him and began firing recklessly, his bullets missing their mark, and I ran around, jumped onto the bed, and used the springiness to propel myself upward as I did a back flip. He was firing at me, but I flipped elegantly and dodged his bullets while in the air, and I landed my feet around his neck then immediately twisted them sending us both crashing to the ground. I grabbed the rifle in his hand and butted him in the head with it.
I knocked him unconscious and I took a seat on the bed, breathing hard. My lip was busted and blood was dripping from my nose, and I felt my eye started to swell. I looked like shit and I even felt like it, but these will all heal. I didn't even transform this time, so all this was normal me. I'm pretty sure I'll do fine in the physical training for becoming an agent. I rolled over the tiger's body and looked through his pockets to see who he was and what he was doing here. I found his wallet but it only showed a fake American ID. I took off his clothes to see if I could find a dog tag but nothing was there. I continued to strip him until he was just only in his underwear.
I didn't pull them off but I dug my hands inside his boxers, and I felt something that didn't feel organic, so I took it out and sure enough there was his dog tag. I held it close to my and tried to read it with the remaining light that was left, and sure enough I saw KGB on it. I placed the dog tag in the pocket of my now ruined tux, and I placed the rifles on my back. I took the walkie-talkie attached to the leopard's hip and attached it to my own hip, and then I went out to the hall to find a luggage carrier and found one around the corner. I put both of their bodies on the carrier, the tiger's on top since he was dead. I pushed the cart down the stairs until I was on the bottom floor. I walked past the reception desk and pulled the cart.
I opened the door and pulled them out when I heard guns cocking. I turned around and saw at least twenty men in black with black sunglasses on and carrying assault rifles all aimed at me. I put my hands up as they came and disarmed me, and checked the bodies of the Russians.
"State your business here!" one of them shouted.
"My name is Glare and I was referred by Commander Compton of the US air force to come here because apparently I'm priority number one. I got sidetracked when I heard a noise coming from the hotel, and I went to go check it out. I found out that they were Soviet KGB agents, and they were talking to a person over a walkie-talkie in Russian. If you check my pocket you'll see the tiger's dog tag and on my hip is their walkie-talkie." I replied.
The agent came to me, his gun pointed at me while he searched my pocket, and he took out the dog tag. He flashed a light at the dog tag and read it then gave it back to me. He took the walkie-talkie from me and started speaking in Russian to it, and the voice I heard from earlier came on. They conversed for a few minutes before the Russian ended the conversation.
"So a rookie like you took down two KGB agents and you haven't even been trained by us yet," the agent said, lowering his weapon. "The director is going to love this."
"What did he say on the walkie-talkie?" I asked as I started following him to the phone booth.
"They had an idea from where we were based they wanted to take you out because apparently the Russians found out about you and want to take you out. It's pretty much confirmed that we're based here, so the whole base of operations is going to have to move. I told him to send back up but I'm going to lead him into a trap because more agents are on their way up. Bur right now you and I need to go and see the director," he answered.
We walked at a steady pace to the telephone booth with the agent having the unconscious Soviet agent on his shoulder, and we went inside. He took off his glasses and focused his eye on the O in phone as a laser scanned it. We began descending underground as we were surrounded by a small elevator and it was a little cramped.
"My name is Chris," the agent began as the elevator started to slow down and stopped, "And this is the CIA." He gestured his hand behind me and I saw the large underground facility that was the Central Intelligence Agency.