Mirror, Mirror
(Content note: if you're looking for yiff, this isn't it. I hope you'll like it anyway as fiction, though.)
(Length note: this is over 10k words, on the longer end of my stories.)
(Meta note: should the unintentionally-furry-sounding Dr. Robert Hare ever stumble upon this story, your book inspired this recurring protagonist, sir. I hope I did a good job depicting him.)
Mirror, Mirror
"C'mon Jaime," insisted Agent K mockingly, "tell me: what'd he say to you?"
"That's classified," answered the otter strapped in next to him in the chopper. They were shoulder to shoulder, but the multifaceted mechanical and avionic hum was so loud they couldn't hear each other without headsets.
"Don't be a jerk about it. My existence is classified," pushed K. "Why, I expect you'll have to shoot this poor pilot after he drops me off."
"Chopper," calmly directed the otter, "if you can get us there faster, do it. And that's an order."
"I'm working on it," calmly replied the hare at the controls.
K smiled: he really was that nervous. "I don't see why you're here, anyway."
The otter's face seemed to tense up, as if he was about to say something insulting. "Because we are headed to the same destination.
"But why wouldn't you get something nicer than a cargo plane.
There was a pause. "Because it says on your orders you are not to be left alone with the pilot."
That got Chopper to look over at Agent K with a look of incredulity, but only for a split second. The HUD covering both sides of the windscreen demanded his full attention.
Agent K laughed gleefully. "You're serious, aren't you!" he cackled. "That's terrible! This 'escape' has made all of you paranoid, hasn't it!?"
"Some have had doubts from the beginning," he stated in a reserved manner.
"Sure they have. But no, those doubts will never be serviced so long as there is evil in the world. Even if the evil is their own creation!"
Jaimie said nothing, and just looked out the window to his right.
"Listen, Doctor. If I were going to turn on you, I wouldn't be talking to you right now. I would already be out of this harness, and you would be screaming in pain so loudly, it might be audible without these headsets."
Jaimie finally pressed his button. "Command," he asked, radios in each of K's ears picking up the signal a fraction of a second apart, "what is the reason for ordering Agent K to not be alone with the pilot? Is is because he might kill him and crash the vehicle?"
"No," answered Corey, K's liaison for this mission, on both channels. "It's because if he's alone, he will harass and scare the pilot, which could crash the vehicle."
K gave the otter an evil grin.
"So you're telling me," asked the otter, now visibly upset, "that I'm here to shield the pilot from his personality!?"
"I'm afraid that's about the size of it," stated Corey dryly. "Look at it this way, Lieutenant: some of us have to deal with him for an entire mission."
"See, Lieutenant?" snarled the bobcat with an evil grin, "you only have to be the 'shield' for about another half hour. I'll be sure to make it as entertaining as possible."
Jaimie barely avoided a narcoleptic attack from the stress before they landed.
***
"Corey," asked K to his radio, as he walked into the briefing room, "can I try an experiment?"
"What sort of experiment?"
"Just say yes."
"I've heard about your 'experiments', K --"
"Look, do you want to learn how my counterpart escaped or not? That's an experiment."
"That's not a mystery, K, he --"
"Oh c'mon, don't you want to see, in detail, I mean, how it's done? It might help your security measures in the future. If you're really this paranoid, then you should take any input you can get, especially from your captive subject."
There was an audible sigh through the radio.
"Actually, tell you what, how about I ask whoever is going to brief me? I bet he's got more authority than you do."
"Good idea," encouraged Corey, relief is his voice.
"Excellent!" gleefully whispered K. "Oh, you'll like this..."
The bobcat sat down, barely feeling the chair through the armor-plated steel scales of his bulletproof suit. As always, the presenter -- this time incarnated by a Black Panther colonel a little taller than him -- bored him. He already knew what he had to do, and they insisted of dragging him through the entire history of the case -- which in this case, was mercifully shorter than usual.
At the end of the 5 minutes, K asked a question: "do you have any idea what motivated him to escape?"
"We're not sure," he answered. "We think it was something that got triggered in his personality."
Agent K stood up. "Really? That's all you've got? You've really got your head that far up your ass?"
In spite of his bulk and senior rank, K could see the fear in his eyes -- which he promptly played off of. "You never really thought that a desire to live a real life, instead of bursts and fits, would cause one of us to escape? The desire to see what's out there in this world?"
He started walking toward the panther, and the Colonel started sliding toward the door five feet away. When the Colonel suddenly lunged for the doorknob, K's superior reflexes kicked in. Faster than the cat could react, K pulled out his knife, shoved the Colonel's body against the door, keeping him from opening it with his own weight, and rested the blade of his razor knife against the cat's nose.
"Stand down, k!" the cat barked -- much more fear in the tone of his voice than authority.
"You know," K purred, holding up the knife to the cat's neck, "I'd like to try an experiment. You want to know how he escaped? Well, I'm going to 'escape' from this briefing. How about that?"
He started pressing the edge of the razor knife genty into the soft pink point of the cat's nose, and it didn't take much pressure at all for the razored edges to work.
"Very well!" he answered, trying to sound in-control in spite of the look on his face. "So how do we start?"
"Well, you call security. Just say it loud, and I'm sure my suit mic will hear it.
"Security to the briefing room," he stated nervously. "Sec -- AH!"
K moved the knife, which peirced the tissue at tiny fraction of an inch, but didn't even draw any blood. "Louder," he snarled gleefulyl. "C'mon Colonel! He's on the loose!"
"Security to the briefing room!" he called out.
"Much better! I'm sure Corey's on it now."
"They're on it, K, you apeish piece of sh--"
"Good," K interrupted as he felt banging on the door, and could dimly see several figures outside. "Now, if you will excuse me, I must be going."
He withdrew the knife, and pulled the Colonel back away from the door by his uniform -- but only far enough to shove him off his feet into the door. It actually took the stunned panther long enough to get up and open the door, that K had escaped into the false ceiling.
With all the fear K's knife had put in him, the bobcat could hear the yell feet away. "Another Special Agent has escaped!" he shouted. "Put the base on lockdown! Find him!"
K, meanwhile, crawled around pipes and wires on his belly. He was fairly quiet, he thought, but wasn't sure. He was at least far enough away that whoever entered the room after him and lifted the ceiling tile and called back down, "I can't see him, it's really dark."
He pulled up a map of the building from his palmtop -- which Corey was nice enough not to remove from the network -- and found that he was quite close to the outside. All he had to do was go more east, and then he would arrive at a hall near the front door.
20 feet later, however, there was a structural beam that he couldn't climb over. He had to jump down.
K carefully lifted up the edge of the nearest tile, and looked down. It was just another bland white hall, and the only thing he could see in it were two pairs of boots, just their tips pointing toward him. It made him carefully put the tile back down.
As he was getting into a sitting position to jump down, however, he heard footsteps and quick talking below him. He presumed that they were being informed of his presence. That was just what he wanted. It would make things all the more scary for them, he thought, when he jumped out of the ceiling.
He lifted up the adjacent ceiling tile to peek, and found that, sure enough, their backs were now to him. He genntly lifted the tile again, picked it with both hands (which was really awkward), and put it down on the beam. He then hung his legs in the hole, and silently swung down on the support strut.
With two swings back and forth, he managed to kick a wolf in his unprotected head. When his avian companion was startled by the groan K's target gave, K jumped down.
Agent K got his knife in hand, and lunged at him before he could get his pistol out of his holster. The razor-edged knife ended up giving the falcon a nice, deep arm wound, which made him scream and stop reaching for his gun. The wolf, meanwhile, was struggling to get to his feet. K helped him, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and brushing his freshly-reddened blade up to it.
"Your gun, please," he coldly demanded, as other staggered down the hallway grabbing his arm.
After K got it, he pointed that gun to the head of the terrified wolf as four MPs came around the corner, pistols drawn. "Hello guys, and gal," he said to them with a sadistic smile, "I'm sure you've all had hostage training, haven't you?"
"Let him go!" demanded the lioness, who had the highest rank.
K started slowly walking backwards down the hall. They slowly walked forward, keeping the distance in between about 15 feet.
"I'm not going to banter about with you," K continued smoothly. "Instead, I'm going to ask you something you probably weren't taught about," K continued to tease, letting go of the victim's neck briefly to equip his knife in that hand instead, and putting the pistol in his pocket. "And that is... what if your hostage taker won't negotiate?"
They said nothing, as the wolf he was holding swallowed and began to tremble slightly.
"Your training, as I understand it, is all about negotiating. About seeing what he wants, and keeping him talking just long enough that you can get a good angle for a head shot. But something tells me that you're not prepared for a hostage taker who wants to keep the hostage."
K glared down at the wolf with a vicious grin, planning to really scare him. "Hostage, take off your pants!"
"What!?" begged the wolf.
K responded by idly cocking the hammer of the pistol next to his victim's ear.
The wolf did not wait, but dropped his pants and stepped out of them.
"Good," K continued, uncocking the hammer, and still walking backwards, "very good. Because that will make it easier for me to have my way with you!"
"No, please," he begged.
"Silence, Hostage." He gave a little slice to his chin with the razor knife, getting a whimper out of his victim.
"That's for talking out of turn. I do all the negotiating. Or not as the case may be." K soon found himself at the front door. "And now, wolfie and I will be on our way. Catch us if you can!"
He then opened the glass door -- but threw the wolf forward, flat on his face inside the hall, as he jumped behind the door.
All of the MPs fired at K -- and the bulletproof glass stopped all of their shots.
K sprinted out the door, using the pistol to take a pot-shot at the gate guard and make him cower in his booth. He then charged toward the open gate, as the guard quickly recovered, and activated the mechanism.
K pushed himself as fast as he could, as he saw the ten-foot-high steel doors rolling in their tracks toward each other. They moved slowly, but he a lot of ground to cover to get there in time.
In the end, they were so close together, that he had to squeeze between them in order to complete his escape. His heart still pounding from his run, he jogged off down the road, stopping only when he went down a hill and the base was out of sight.
***
"There you go, Corey," K panted, still catching his breath after walking for five minutes along the edge of the road. "That's proof: your security is just terrible."
"I just have one question, K: whose side are you on!?"
For the first time in K's memory, his handler sounded genuinely angry. "What!?" K responded in equal measure, "Yours, you idiot! How dare you question me! If I wanted to break out of here, would I have warned you first!?"
"Yes!"
K paused a moment at the thought, and smiled. Corey did have a point. "Okay, maybe," he replied playfully. "But still, I don't see why this guy did it. That cat was full of it. No one knows why he escaped, did he?"
"No, we don't," answered Corey with a resigned tone of voice, his anger taking a lot longer to drain out than K's.
"Well, I'm curious. Very curious, actually."
"Just make sure your curiosity doesn't get in the way of capturing him. I'll make sure that you are told when we figure it out."
"Yeah, yeah. Any idea where he is?"
"What the Colonel was about to tell you was that his suit is currently telling us it's about 25 miles Southwest of you."
"Oh. Well, give me a truck, or I'll start walking."
A truck soon arrived at his position, with a very nervous looking driver. She was one of the four MPs that had taken a shot at him 20 minutes ago.
"You are ordered to apologize. Say sorry," instructed his radio.
K could see the fear on her face, and that is what he chose to handle. "Calm down," reassured K, in his most neutral voice, "I'm not really escaping. I'm more interested in my mission than causing you trouble."
There was an audible sigh over his radio. "It figures," groaned Corey, "you'll never apologize for anything, will you?"
He got in, and was driven down the road into the Kenhal valley. It was paved, so they were able to make good time. But their destination came up suddenly; without warning, she checked the nav computer, and pulled off the road..
"This is it," she said, "west of here. Good luck."
"Luck has nothing to do with it," he answered with his vicious grin, and jumped out of the jeep.
As he walked, following Corey's general directions and using a compass in his palmtop to keep him straight, he asked a question that popped into his mind. "Tell me something, Corey: you were trained to talk to me, weren't you?"
"What do you mean?"
K thought he heard some tension in his voice, but he wasn't sure. "You know what I mean: you Regs are trained to say 'yes sir' and 'no sir' to your superiors. But with each other, it's natural, you just talk."
"... So?"
"So, you were trained to talk to me too, weren't you? Because I can tell: things like that right there, that dead air. Thinking before you speak. Not talking to me natural."
That got a sigh which K was pretty sure was more discomfort. "What's the point, K?"
"If I were having less fun, Corey, I'd resent that. That Colonel was right: you think that guy escaped because of his personality -- whatever it is that I've got, that shrinks still won't tell me about. Is it some sort of disease or something?"
"I told you, K: I don't know, that was above my pay grade."
K rolled his eyes. He didn't believe him. But as he was about to argue he saw an empty suit, leaning against a tree. "Hang on, I've got the suit. As you probably can see from the transmitter."
K didn't approach it just yet, instead looking around. It was mostly grassland, as this section of the Keinhal valley was, and so he could see anything more than 2 feet tall, and there was nothing around except the tree and a small pile of rocks. A former encampment perhaps?
Still a little suspicious, he slowly walked closer, watching the tree. And because he was watching the tree, when he got to the edge of the outermost branches, his unconscious reflexes were able to make him jump out of the way when an arrow flew from it.
Without a second thought, grabbed a low branch to start climbing the tree.
The next arrow hit him in his armored rump, and bounced off -- a fact that terrified the shooter, who he could now see was a hyena wearing two hides, one across his chest, one around his waist.
K grabbed a limb above him, swung over, kicked the shooter in the chest, and then grappled with him on the limb. Before he could struggle, K drew out one of his sedative needles and stabbed him with it.
"Never shoot an agent of the GDF," he warned with a sadistic grin, "you'll never kill him."
K watched as the face of his assailent relaxed, his consciousness slowly seeming to drain out, until he drooped into sleep. It was one of his favorite things about this job.
He grabbed the hyena to keep him from falling out of the tree, and pulled his limp body back against him own. And when he did so by the chest, he felt something under his upper hide.
After a bit of a tangle, he extracted it: a suit mic, clipped to a small military radio.
"Check the usual frequencies," stated K, "someone is missing their radio."
While Corey was checking, K decided to test it. "Calling Agent F," he said to the radio, the words echoing into his own ears on a delay, "you are a total dumbass, over." He chuckled.
"It's navy, strangely enough," Corey stated. "It seems one went missing after he attacked a base on the other side of the continent."
"Really? Where did he escape from anyway?"
"He escaped after waking up from suspension in the same place you."
That was, more or less, a military base on the other side of the continent.
"Actually," added Corey suddenly, "they're missing three radios. So try again."
"Calling Agent F. You are a complete and utter pile of shit."
Still nothing.
"Look," continued K into the mic, "they're not stupid. They know the radios are gone, and I'm betting a hundred to one you're listening to me right now, and I'm never wrong. You can't hide forever, so unless you're a wimp, come and face me."
Finally, gravelly voice, a half octave lower than K's, answered: "jump down from that tree, and I'll come out." It was coming from behind a hill on the other side of the tree.
"You've been watching?"
"You really think I would send that idiot out by himself?"
K was a little taken aback by this answer; it was something he would say.
"Alright, let's see what you've got," he stated, and jumped down from the tree.
As soon as he was past the tree, looking for the voice, a piece of steel chain wrapped around his neck and was pulled.
"Game Over!" growled a baritone voice with foul breath.
But Agent K disagreed. He kicked the male in the balls, which got the chain to loosen dramatically. And then, he used it as leverage to flip his assailant over his back, because he didn't let go.
The assailant, he could soon see, was a muscular malamute, who wore nothing but a loin cloth. And to K's astonishment, instead of being crumpled in pain, he put his hands on the ground, and kicked K in the groin like a mule with astonishing speed. Because K was armored, he was unhurt, but it was enough force to make him fall backwards and hit the ground.
By the time the bobcat was able to leap to his feet, and grab his knife, the dog was already back on his, three feet of steel chain wrapped in one wrist.
"They must be getting desperate, to send you after me," the Malamute wryly remarked.
"Who cares about them. I'm the one who's about to capture you."
"We'll see. May the best Agent win."
"Yes, he will."
And with that the fight began.
Agent F went on the attack first, while K bided his time and dodged. It was quite tricky to do so, because F's piece of chain had considerably more reach than his knife. All K knew was that if it ever touched him, that would be the end of their confrontation. He was certain that F would have as much skill with that chain as he had with his razor knife.
F's dance was quite elaborate, swinging around both ends at incredible speed, taking them up and letting them out to try and hit him. But K just kept dancing, quite athletically, reflexes always one step ahead. He was threatening to get tired, when he realized he had jumped a sweep three times, and right after, the chain would be taken in. That would be his chance.
"You're not trying," urged Agent K, "try harder!"
And he did: an aggressive sweep that K almost was hit by. But since F missed, that was his moment: while F was swinging the chain back around from behind, K lunged and put him on the ground. It was enough of a shock, that K could grab his needle and inject it into the unprotected arm of the dog.
Agent F threw K off about half way through the injection, and got to his feet. "Thank you," he said, becoming suddenly relaxed, but no less steady on his feet. "I've almost forgotten what it feels like. I used up all mine a week ago."
"Did you just shoot him up K?" asked his radio.
"You'll now go back with me," K demanded, ignoring Corey.
"No, I won't," calmly stated the dog -- as a pistol was placed on K's head.
A second assailant had apparently snuck up on him while they were wrestling.
"Only one of us is leaving these plains alive."
***
Agent K was marched away from the tree, amazingly with his suit still on. He considered it folly that Agent F didn't strip him of all his tools. That's what he would have done first thing, to at the very least keep the GDF from finding him here.
They didn't walk too far, before they arrived at well-trampled path. It quickly led them back to a clearing with a bunch of large stones, and most noticeably, a small hut. K didn't pay much attention to the way there, because he was so annoyed with the hyena behind him, who he presumed was still holding the gun at his head.
When they arrived in the clearing, a group of four more hyenas, all sitting around on the strewn rocks all stood up. "Go hunt!" Agent F snapped at them. The tallest nearly flinched, reacting the strongest of them all, before he repeated the command in another language K did not understand. They walked off.
"Now, turn off that hidden mic. I have something to say to you. And just you."
"Don't do it, K," sternly warned a voice in his ear, but he didn't listen. He reached into his vest, and plucked out the cord.
"K!?" demanded Corey in his ear. "K!!"
But Agent F said, "very funny. You pulled out your earpiece, didn't you? Seriously, pull out the mic."
Agent K smiled. "As you wish," he stated, reattaching the microphone cable and pulling out his earpiece, cutting off whatever syllable Corey was about to utter. "Satisfied?"
"Yes," snapped Agent F with a mischievous grin. "Because all of this information is classified. And I mean from you. It's about time you learned some things about yourself that they won't tell you."
"Me? What do you know about me?"
Agent F gave a confident smile. "I know that you are like me," he began. "The two of us. The ones who have lived is this mental cage all of our lives... and now, I have seen what is on the outside! And just like me, when you learn, you wish never to return to them."
"Hang on," interrupted K, "what about him?"
He looked over at the hyena with the gun, who had sat down on a roundish rock to his left.
"Don't worry. He can't understand a word. He's got some native tongue or other, it changed since I last learned about it."
"Then why is he still holding the gun?"
"Because I gave him an order before you arrived, and he is still following it. And he will continue to, until you lose consciousness."
K smirked. "Planning to hit me on the head, are you?"
"No. You will choose to lose consciousness yourself. It's called 'sleep'."
"I don't sleep on missions," K replied coldly.
"I didn't used to either, before I realized that it's when I am awake on missions that I am asleep."
"Cut it out, you filthy ape," snarled K, "and say your piece. Or I'm gonna plug this back in."
That, for the first time, made Agent F exit his calm. "Alright, you want it straight? It's simple. They're keeping you in a cage. They make you work like a slave for their own ends, and give you nothing. They don't even let you learn who you really are! Because they fear your magnificence!"
Agent K, now, for the first time, paused. It was an emotion he rarely suffered from: full, honest confusion.
"What?" he asked with a grimace.
"If they released you, then you would realize that you are strong enough to destroy civilization itself, or become its Supreme Ruler! You are a weapon! But you are reduced to merely doing whatever the duty comm officer tells you."
"My Comm Officer doesn't order me around," retorted Agent K, "I order him around."
"And yet, here you are, trying to catch me, because he wants you to. You may do it your way, but you do what he wants. What if you could do what you want?"
"That doesn't make any sense!" snapped K, "none at all! I am doing what I want!"
"Ki'lesch, over there, is doing what I want. I didn't tell him to follow you here, that was his idea. He's doing things his way, but it's what I want. Can't you see you're doing the same!?"
K looked over at the hyena, who seemed almost bored by their shouting match. He probably didn't want to be holding that gun -- with his wrist resting on his knee.
K could see the analogy, but not feel it. He knew the truth: when push came to shove, he was in charge on his missions, and he could do what he wanted -- to the point of breaking out of a military base and attacking guards because he felt like it, an act which would get anyone else put in prison forever.
Because he couldn't feel it, and he trusted his guts, he said, "no, I don't see it. But this is getting boring. So what if I am doing whatever this is?"
"Then you are missing that there is more to life than missions. Much more!"
"Yeah, a bunch of boring shit! All the stuff that everyone on the bases do: what they call planning but is really just talk, or doing stuff that's boring as hell like sweeping floors, driving stuff, and programming computers! Forget that!"
"That's what you think. You'll see."
Agent K couldn't really argue with that. So he didn't. Instead, he plugged his earpiece back in, and said, "okay, fine. So what happens to me now?"
"While you're here, trying to figure out how to capture me, I'll give you an opportunity to find out what you're missing," he stated flatly. "That means I need you alive. Until, that is, you give up or quit."
Agent K smiled. "It only takes a moment for the tables to turn. You know that."
Agent F didn't answer, and merely walked away calmly into the wilderness.
Agent K then whispered into the open air, "did you get all that, Corey?"
But a much different voice answered: "Corey has been relieved."
"Ah, Colonel! I see you survived your wounds!" snarked Agent K. "Where did Corey go?"
"I'm relieving him, because everything you just learned is classified."
"What do you mean? He was just shooting his mouth off."
Silence answered.
"Oh you can't be serious," K growled. "He can't be right. I know he's not. I know what I'm like, Colonel."
"Good. Because your mission is still on. Any ideas on how to capture him?"
"Well... he's tricker than usual," K admitted -- not believing that he couldn't do it, but acutely aware this was not his usual catch. Their fight had proven that.
"I do know," he said, looking up to the sky, speaking as if to himself, "that the first thing I would have to do is get rid of this young runt with a gun. It will be tricky, but I think I can do it."
"But then what?" he encouraged.
"Well... I don't see why you can't capture him. What did he do?"
"He set a trap, and ambushed us. But worse than that, he actually killed the Sergant with his first shot."
"So I suppose if you knew his equipment, that would help?"
"Somewhat."
"Consider it done."
Agent K stood up and turned to look at the hyena with the gun -- who seemed so bored, he was half asleep. Agent K walked slowly toward him, and it made him sit up, and hold the gun tighter. Agent K made sure to slow down, to be clear that he was not threatening -- at least, not yet.
"Hello there," he stated, knowing he couldn't be understood, "feeling bored?"
He walked all the way up to the hyena, to the point where he was in arm's reach. His adversary got more nervous, and pointed the gun fully at his head.
"I just wanted to say something," Agent K stated calmly, priming his enhanced reflexes, "which is very important. And that is --"
Smack-BANG.
In an instant, the hyena pulled the trigger -- but only after K's slap of his hand had landed, meaning the barrel was pointed at K's fully armored leg. Once the bullet had ricocheted off, and the hyena's brain made him startle at the sound, K easily pulled the gun from his hand, and then pushed him down on the ground.
The "guard" got up, and began running away. K used the gun to shoot the tree next to him, which made him shout in terror. That terror got K to chase him down, and then tackle him a mere 10 yards away. They landed harshly in the dirt, K's skin-tight armor heavy enough to knock the wind out of the young hyena.
"Don't you go running off, now," K growled, grabbing the struggling hyena's shoulders, "I need you as a prop to negotiate with. Give up!" he snarled, as the hyena struggled harder than ever, tears inexplicably appearing in his eyes.
"Be still!" yelled K in his ear -- but that made him fight even harder. He made K pin him, force his arms behind his back, and step on the back side of his knees to keep him from kicking as he cried.
"Good grief, what is wrong with you!" he snapped.
And it was only at this insistence that the hyena told him: "No! No! No sex!"
"What!?" snarled Agent K, "Of course not! No! No sex!"
And sure enough, the hyena relaxed considerably. But as K slowly stood him up, a familiar voice added, "Are you so sure about that?"
Agent F had returned, two more of his followers in tow. "Tell Ki'lesh," he directed to the eldest hyena, probably in his late 20s, "that he has failed his task, and must be punished."
A string of nonsense emanated from his mouth, which made the young hyena tremble.
"So, Agent K, would you like to punish him?"
"What?" asked K perplexedly. "Is this a trick question?"
"No, it's not. You get to punish him. If you're mad at him, show him that."
"I'm not mad. I'm pleased that he was such an easy mark."
"Well, you've caught him. So now what?"
In the middle of planning, his earpiece suddenly shouted, "use him as a hostage!"
K looked at the ground, and replied, "shut up, Colonel." He looked back up at the dog. "I demand that he be traded for your interpreter."
"Sorry, not worth it. He's yours, if you want him."
"I knew you would say no!" he said to Agent F, but meant to the microphone, "so here!"
He let the hyena go -- but with one look from Agent F of something sinister, and he stayed at K's side.
The translator said something, then the would-be hostage gave a long response.
"He says," explained the translator to Agent F, "he is too scared to take orders from you anymore. He thinks this High Chief will behave better."
"Ha!" snapped Agent F, "we know that's not true, don't we Agent K?"
"Don't we!? You've gone completely insane from being out too long!"
"No, you're insane because you haven't been out long enough. Tell Ki'lesh," F directed, "that Agent K has the same kind of mind that I do."
"Hang on!" insisted K, "tell him same mind, less crazy." K couldn't help but smile at that description himself.
And the translator said something... and the hyena seemed to understand something.
"But who cares if I'm his High Chief, or whatever, if I can't talk to him!" insisted K.
"He certainly does," dared point out the translator, who was immediately smacked in the nose by Agent F.
"It doesn't really matter," concluded the malamute, "except that I now have two prisoners. Tie up both of them!"
But before the translator could speak but a syllable to those who would carry out F's orders, Agent K was pointing the young hyena's gun at the translator's head.
And even before he could finish his swift action, Agent F had his own gun pointing at K's, providing irrefutable proof he was, in fact, an enhanced Agent.
"Silence!" snapped K.
The translator didn't finish the order.
"Say another syllable," K threatened, "and you won't have a jaw to speak with!"
"Yes you will," Agent F stated, "because Agent K is not allowed to kill anyone."
"No, but I can blow their jaws off! And he won't say a word, and your followers or slaves or whatever piece-of-shit they are's won't come near me as long as I have a gun and one of their own!"
"Good point," stated Agent F. And then, he promptly swiveled his gun, and shot Ki'lesh in the head.
Agent K responded by pulling the trigger, and shot the translator, who screamed. No one but Agent F dared rush K with the gun, and K shot him once in the hand before F managed to tackle him, and grab the gun with his bleeding palm.
"You have NO IDEA!" he roared in K's face as they struggled, "HOW MUCH THAT HUUUUURRRRRTS!!"
With that surge of adrenaline, Agent F finally had the edge over Agent K he needed, and his chain was wrapped around the bobcat not long after the primal scream finished echoing across the plains. From there, it was easy to get K tied up, after which they all returned to the middle of camp, leaving the young victim's body where he fell.
***
The translator, it seemed, had been hit in the leg, but the bullet passed through cleanly. K considered his missing the target to be the fault of the gun, rather than his aim. It was in terrible condition, after all.
But as K watched F steal some pain killers from a medkit, a thought occurred to him: perhaps he could learn something about himself from Agent F, even if he didn't use it.
He had been told that all Agents were "like him" -- which he suspected had a name, but they refused to tell him. And because he had it, he had to learn to compensate: read the emotions of others, and play them. But it was only now, watching the "pack" recover from their ordeal, did he see that Agent F was really different.
In order, youngest to oldest, one of the hyenas was crying, and a second was consoling him. The next one was staring up at the sky longingly and whispering. The Eldest, the translator, was trying to bandage his wound, in terrible pain -- and perhaps a little resentment.
On the other hand, their High Chief was calmly dressing his wound, staring out into the distance, and thinking in total silence.
Agent K knew that's exactly what he would be doing. And seeing anyone else doing it -- rather than going through sadness, or anger, or grief, or shock, or all of those things that seemed to drive others far more than himself -- made him feel quite strange. It made him realize, deep down, that perhaps his enemy was like him. That perhaps his pronouncements had some credibility.
"Colonel," Agent K stated, knowing that Agent F wouldn't leave him alone with his radio, "I suppose you want to know what happened."
"So would I," answered another voice, "I'm Dr. Manderly, I'm a psychiatrist."
"Oh wow, a real shrink!" K replied in fake glee. "Alright then, Doc, you can listen too. So, what happened was that K shot my hostage in the head, and I took a bite out of one of his -- whatever, henchmen, with a bullet. My target is alive, and my hostage is not. There's not much to it: both us Agents threatened those things, and they happened. Sound abut right?" he asked Agent F with a smirk.
"Sounds right to me," he replied distantly with a calm smile.
"As you can hear, even F thinks that's right," added K with a roll of his eyes.
"What I want to know," interrupted the Colonel, "is why those 'henchemen' follow him, the way he treats them. Any ideas, Doc?"
"More than one, but I would have to speak with one to find out which one is right. And rather than getting rid of them, Colonel, I am actually more worried about Agent K."
"Oh now Doc," K sighed, looking at Agent F as he spoke, "you don't have to worry about me. I don't see any value in staying with this weird, feral, human, 'thing' one minute longer than I have to, in order to complete my mission."
"Ha!" barked Agent F.
"Keep talking that way for another 12 hours, and I'll stop worrying," stated the Doctor affirmatively. "In the mean time, what I think you should do is built rapport with Agent F. If you're so similar, maybe you can get an advantage through tricking him. No doubt he will be trying the same with you."
"Already working on it. Hey!" he called to F, "Command has some questions about you!"
Agent F finished winding the bandage around the wound from his stolen Medkit, and walked over. "Okay, I'll bite. Talking about me is my favorite subject."
"Okay, their first question is," K stated without actually getting one, "what made you think to break out?"
"Easy. I got angsty after the mission. Morphine didn't work for some reason."
"Oh Shit!" suddenly called K's microphone, followed by great shuffling. K ignored it.
"Any idea why?" he asked.
"No idea, but that was my lucky break. That's what I'm trying to tell you: morphine is not all it's cracked up to be. It's hiding a lot more than boredom."
"I know otherwise, but nice try. Anyway, next question..."
K paused to listen to the scurrying, before asking it. "Why live out here?"
"It seemed pretty obvious, after only a day, that I can't get along with the rest of the world. Clearly the cage had a reason. I mean, that's what got me here. Tell me something in return: why'd they draft you?"
K hesitated. He didn't want to tell him, but it seemed like an opportunity for rapport. "Oh, I did something very bad, and went to jail. And a shrink said I should join up, rather than sitting in jail my whole life, and the judge agreed."
"Oh c'mon, that's how all of us end up here."
K was caught off guard by that statement. "Really?"
"You've not been at this game long, have you? They sent you out alone a lot, huh? No chance to ask around. They weren't so strict when I first started."
"Tell me what you did first," K insisted.
Agent F took a breath, and relaxed. "Well, let me think... it was quite a while ago. The details are obvious, it's what's in my head I don't remember. The details were that my dad and I went camping, and while I was out there, I caught a wild wolf, and it bit me. That hurt, so I tied it up, and beat it to make it say sorry. But the stupid thing died before I was finished."
"And they put you in jail for that!?" K asked, surprised.
"No, no. Scared my dad human, though, so he and my mom sent me to a shrink. You know how shrinks get, with all that 'get in touch with your feelings' pile of shit. I was sick of it. So I stole all his notes, piled them up on the floor of his office, and set them on fire. THAT is what I went to jail for."
The mere thought of the giant flame and the look got a peal of laughter from the bobcat. "Wow! Wish I'd thought of that!"
"Why, what'd you do?"
That calmed him down pretty quick. "Oh nothing too serious. Here, I can show you if you hand me my knife."
With the chain still around his body, and only able to move his upper arm, Agent F handed it to him.
"I pulled it out, and said, --" He held it up to an imaginary neck, "'okay, little girl, you're gonna die!' to someone I hated. She ran off screaming. I was like 9. My moms told me not to do that to little girls, but it worked so well, what was I supposed to do?
"Anyway, I didn't need to do it again until I was 13. I wanted to dance with this girl, and this other guy wouldn't leave her alone, so I tried it again -- and, well, it didn't work like I planned. I thought he would back off, but he was so scared to even see the knife, that he just started screaming, just like the 9-year-old girl. Anyway, I ended up trying to shut him up with a slice to the neck, and that's what got me a 10-year sentence."
"Tried? You mean you missed?"
"I just gave him a nasty scratch was all. Didn't even get him to stop yelling."
"Seriously? That's it?!"
"I know. It's nothing. But because of some psychology test invented by a shitty human, I got 10 years for that. Either that, or the shrink said I was in the right age range to go into the service instead, so I wouldn't be --" He turned his voice nasal for a moment. "-- 'a permanent drain on society'."
Agent F snorted. Clearly he recognized the sentiment too. "Incredible," he sighed. "There is no justice. That's why I came out here. I can make my own justice, and no judge or jail or cop will stop me."
"You're selling again," snarled K jestingly.
"Can you blame me? If you thought that life was better out here, wouldn't you sell it?"
"No," K replied in an even keel, "I would keep it for myself, and any time someone else wanted a piece, I would try to keep them from getting any."
F smiled again. "Very good. We agreed, didn't we, that the best would win? So we'll see."
"Right," nodded K, "we'll see."
***
The rest of the day was, as K suspected it would be, incredibly boring. K finally got untied, in exchange for his two knives -- and the knowledge, in his heart of hearts, he couldn't capture Agent F with his bare hands.
Instead, he listened to the random radio traffic from various places. It was a reminder that there was a larger world out there, to break the bubble Agent F temporarily seemed to have him in. His objective remained the same: capture Agent F, alive. It would be so much easier dead.
As dusk turned to nightfall, the shrink got back on his radio. It would have been a heart to heart, if K had one. But because he didn't, it was just informational to him.
"That personality test is called the PCLR," the shrink explained. "It's given to everyone who commits a felony of any kind in most parts of the world. You simply got one of the higher scores on it, and that's why you and he are Agents now."
"I don't remember it," stated K, "why don't you give it to me again?"
"Instead, I will read you the result."
The doctor read the statement in a grave voice. He emphasized the words like "extremely", "unfeeling", "empty", "impulsive", "manipulative", and "violent".
K couldn't help but smile a bit at how well the description pegged him. He didn't recognize many of the words, but he could hear the "him" in the descriptions.
"I'd say that's accurate," he concluded.
"And it's also pathological, according to our profession," pointed out the doctor.
"Rare, maybe, but I don't see what's wrong with it."
There was a pause, before the Doctor answered, "that's because you've never seen the other side."
"I have so seen the other side," retorted K. "It's obvious to me that a lot of you others are different. I mean, if I grab someone, they don't respond with a counterattack very often like I would. They'll crumble under mere threats of force without me lifting a finger."
"And you don't understand why that is," stated the psychiatrist with a little bit of edge in his voice. "And you probably never will."
Agent K heard the psychiatrist excuse himself from the microphone. So he went back to listening to the traffic.
Something in the back of his mind reminded him that he should be watching the hyenas, but he didn't feel like it. They were all too naive, following Agent F against their best interest. It was clearly one of those emotional things that he was talking to the Doctor about just moments ago. He saw no point in trying to exploit or trick them, because they would not obey for long. They'd go right back to doing what Agent F wanted.
He only started paying attention to them as he saw one of them trying to start a fire, talking in nervous, hushed tones. It wasn't clear whether they were afraid of him, or Agent F, after what happened; but to K, it didn't really matter.
As the youngest (who was several years older than the former youngest) got the fire going, Agent F walked over to the group, and asked in a loud voice. "Tell me! What has happened today, which has been unfair?"
This was such a strange question, it got K to start watching them intently.
They all immediately stood up straight, and formed a line, from tallest to shortest. Most of them seemed nervous; K wasn't sure why, but presumed he would find out.
"Well?" demanded F.
They stood, silent and stoic, the youngest with his teeth clenched, and the oldest with his feet shifting. "We have nothing to say," state the translator, second from the tallest, "we have no quarrels."
Agent F glared at them. "You seem to be working things out! Congratulations!"
Agent K wasn't sure why he was sarcastic -- but upon second thought, knew he would be.
"Now! Confessions! Line up!"
They turned their line 180 degrees, and the translator moved to the front. "You first," Agent F instructed the tallest, his voice falling somewhat, frustration replaced by arrogance.
With the look, he stepped forward, and whispered something in the ear of the translator. He then turned around, and whispered it in the ear of Agent F -- as the hyena got quite a bit more nervous.
"I see," Agent F growled, "and how should you be punished?"
The hyena seemed to recognize the question, and dropped to his knees, raising his hands up. Agent F smiled, and dragged him by the wrists over to a rock.
"Hey kittie!" he shouted, breaking Agent K out of his thoughts, "c'mere!"
K got to his feet, still feeling bored, as he saw no opportunity until they went to sleep.
But the next direction he was given made him take a little more interest: "Beat him," Agent F directed, as the hyena walked over to a rock and laid down on his stomach.
"What?" flatly demanded K.
"I said, beat him. Use this." Agent F handed him a hollowed-out stick about 2 feet long.
K took it, and looked at it, as if he didn't understand what it was for. This idea, of him just hitting others without a reason, seemed quite novel.
"Why?" he finally asked -- his boredom and cynicism receding quickly.
"Because he needs to be punished."
"What did he do?"
"He imagined wanting to beat me up, and I don't allow that."
K snorted. "Well you'll certainly have a hard time finding followers."
"They've stuck with me through beatings for even less. Will you do it or not?"
That was a very uncomfortable subject for Agent K at the moment. He found himself in the same train of thought as whenever he was trailing a suspect: go on, do something to make me use force against you.
On one hand, this hyena had done nothing wrong; he would even call it admirable. But on the other, he was being encouraged to do this. It seemed like a trap... but it was a trap that K felt he had already stepped into when he gave away his knives.
He took the stick, looked at the sky, and whispered, "request authorization to use force."
"Denied!" barked the Colonel. "Denied, denied, denied! Are you crazy, K!?"
"You seem to know better than I do," he whispered back calmly.
"Very funny. You have your answer."
"And I don't like it," K threatened. "What happens if I do it anyway?"
There was a brief silence on the other end of the radio. It was a silence long enough for Agent K to look up at Agent F, and see him give a grin -- something that was sinister, but reminded him of the materialistic grins that his mothers had given him. And the idea that Agent F seemed happy was not pleasing to Agent K.
"What're you smiling at?" he snapped.
"Just admiring your desire to break out of your cage," he answered glibly.
"I should take this stick, and hit you with it!" K snarled, drawing it back.
But Agent F didn't do so much as flinch -- because he seemed to know what Agent K knew: the bobcat wasn't going to hit anyone without permission.
Unless, that is, K decided to. And in the blink of an eye, he did.
He swung it at Agent F, who easily ducked, and tried and upper cut on K. K saw it in midair, and blocked it with the stick, which promptly snapped in two.
That made the combat stopped immediately. "Thanks a lot," growled Agent F, "now I need to find a new stick. New stick!" he yelled to his translator, who relayed the order, and all hyenas except the beating victim fanned out.
After waiting for them to disburse, Agent F boldly stated, "You're afraid, aren't you?"
K cynically grinned. "You wish."
"Then why did you break the stick?"
"It was an accident," he answered.
"Sure it was," snorted Agent F with an obvious roll of his eyes. "You really are a fool, you know that?"
"Famous last words from many of my targets," coolly replied K.
"Talking doesn't matter anyway. You and I will be in the same position we were in two minutes ago, as soon as they find another stick."
That's when it occurred to K: he was a fool! He ought to ask the obvious: "why is finding a stick a big deal? Why not just grab one from the firewood?"
"Because I want to punish them, not kill them."
This seemed very uncharacteristic of himself, thought K, and so he pushed on it. "Why not?" he asked with a sly grin, "What have you got to lose? You just shot one of them to keep me from having any leverage."
Agent F took a long breath and glared at K for a moment, losing a considerable amount of the mirth that used to be around his face. This, K thought, was the moment he wanted: F seemed to realize he was less than invincible.
"Because I need them, alive," he emphasized, "to do my bidding. No one can survive alone out here, Agent. That is why they came to me, in the first place. I made a deal."
Agent K listened -- but more importantly, looked at the wounded translator's face, the only one able to actually understand what F was saying.
"It's quite simple. Food and security was all they wanted. All of them. And I gave it to them."
"In exchange for what?"
F suddenly paused, and regained his smile, as the translator looked away from them. "You'll only find out if they bring me another stick," he slyly remarked, licking his lips.
Agent K was suddenly thrown by this. His skill in reading others seemed to be at an end. It was clear what an ordinary individual would be feeling with a look and voice like that: lust. But not K. And if Agent F was best understood as himself, then this made no sense.
He looked up, and quietly mumbled, "any directions, Command?"
"Don't let him get another stick," immediately instructed the Colonel.
"Okay, why not?"
"No time to explain," he snapped. "Just don't let him get another stick!"
"Tell me what you know, or I will," K quietly replied with a steely tone.
And it was just as his words were spoken, that he saw two hyenas bringing back what looked like a small log: a piece of wood the thickness of their arms, and a little over three feet long.
Agent F smiled, and the hyena laying on the rocks got much wider eyes. "What a lovely instrument," he snarled, "Try breaking this one, Agent." He walked over to it, and picked it up, effortlessly.
K couldn't tell whether it was hollow inside, or the wood was just light, but either way, he was now under orders to protect this hyena. Orders he was having trouble with, because he couldn't help but watch Agent F handle it.
F swung it around, seeming to get a feel for it. He swung it, quite slowly, at his two henchmen who found it, making them drop to the ground to get out of its arc. He then whiffed it at an invisible opponent, and switched it between his hands. He swung it more like a chain than a stick. It seemed to warp, briefly, in mid-air.
"Tell them they did better than I expected," he said loudly, facing his target hyena -- who was now trembling. The translator spoke, with some hesitance in his voice.
Agent F then started walking slowly toward his target, as K watched, mesmerized.
"Command," whispered K, "he has it, and I can't stop him. I'm unarmed."
"Try, K!" shouted his radio.
But Agent K ignored them. He was too busy watching as the first blow with the stick landed on the buttocks of the hyena, protected only by a loincloth. The victim cried out, a wordless noise that was common to every sentient being who had any language at all.
And after that, F swung back, and hit him again. And then, again. And again. And each time, K felt a little surge -- the same kind of surge he felt when he had one an enemy by the neck, and could kill her if he wanted to. The feeling of strength and control of her, of administering justice, made his heart pound.
It was so loud, strong, and enticing, that he didn't hear what his radio said. He was too busy focusing on the cries of the victim, and the mighty arm of F hitting. And hitting. And hitting. Before long, the hyena went from groaning, to yelling, to finally, a scream, and started crying.
And K's heart accelerated. Instead of control, now it was the same feeling as the victim on her knees. She was begging to not be killed. It was like... like...
"K!" shouted his radio.
"It's too late, Command," he murmured, "I know what you were hiding from me. There is nothing you can do about it now."
And at these very words, F grinned savagely, and to K's surprise, pulled off their loincloths and mounted the poor male.
But that, to K, was a tremendous non-sequiteur. It was impossible for him, momentarily, to reason or think about it. He just watched, feeling the power, passion, and presence of F in the current moment, pounding and pushing into his victim.
In spite of making no sense at all, it seemed... natural. Something that K had forgotten, all this time, until now.
He just stared at the dog humping his victim, who cried out; watched the image and wanted it. Wanted to feel it. Wanted to take his victim, grab her muzzle, and --
"What do you see!?" demaded his radio.
It was just in time to remind him that he was on a mission, and that, at some level, this was a trick. Even if it was a really good one.
K began, "I see..." He took until the dog groaned and gasped with a couple of irregular thrusts to finish. "I see... a grand trick. A trick, that had me, only for a moment. And I can see... through it, now."
"Good," stated the voice of the shrink, who had suddenly returned to the mic.
K wasn't lying to them. He did see it as a trick. But it was a very different sort of trick than he had ever encountered before... and one that he was sure would work on him next time.
And, for the first time, he admitted to himself: F might get away with killing him. Might. Just maybe. And he certainly wasn't going to admit that aloud.
***
Once the public "punishment" was over, F resumed ordering around his group as if nothing had happened. The translator was assigned to watch K, and the rest of them gathered around the fire. It was pitch black out by now.
The choice of the translator to watch K was something that K wondered if he could use to his advantage. But the moment he opened his mouth, the hyena glared at him. "Your wicked words have not place in my ears," he stated awkwardly, but with anger. "You are like him. You are like human."
"K," stated his radio, voice in that nervous range again, "I think that guy has had enough talking to Agents for one day."
K turned his back. "What makes you --" K stopped, and turned back around. He could be understood, and certainly heard only three feet away. And if he got up, then that probably would be cause to kill him. So, he turned around looked at the sky once again, and continued talking to his radio.
"What makes you say that?" he asked.
"It's another one of those things," interjected the shrink gently, "that you can't see. Think of it this way: he is looking scared on the inside."
K looked him over, and said to his radio, "he doesn't look very scared to me."
But when he said it, the translator got a strange look on his face: a mixture of glare, hunching forward, and something subtle: a tension in his face that was never caused in anger.
"Well, he is certainly looking more threatening," K updated. "But what am I supposed to do here if not talk to him?"
"Just listen a while. Command has come up with a plan to apprehend Agent F. The only trick is: you can't kill him."
"Really? Then it will never work. This dog has become a monster. Even if you get him back, he's not worth keeping alive."
"That's our call, not yours, K," sternly replied the Colonel, who was now sharing the mic. "All you need to do is not kill him. Just attack him sometime tomorrow, and we'll be ready. But not before sunrise. Got it?"
K glanced over at the hyena across from him, before looking back up at the sky. "If you say so. Until then, what should I do?"
"Just sit tight."
"You mean, be bored. Forget that, I'll just put myself down -- since I know Agent F won't kill me yet."
"Excellent idea. You've been through a lot today," added the shrink.
"Yeah," sighed Agent K as he drew out his second of three needles, and poked himself with it in the pinhole flaw in his armor. It hurt, but far less than anything it was used to relieve.
As K's body started to relax out from under his brain, he looked back at the hyena and asked, "you won't kill me while I sleep?"
"That would be below me," answered the hyena.
"I thought you did whatever Agent F said."
"Not anything," he snarled, "I am not a fool."
"Or reckless, apparently," sighed K as he settled down against a rock, and let the feeling of relaxation slowly seep into him, like entering a warm bath.
Once relaxation had him covered, however, K did not sleep. It would have looked like sleep to anyone else, but K was quite aware of his surroundings. He just let his eyes rest closed, and enjoyed the feeling of relaxation as random images and memories drifted around in his mind's eye.
One image, however, kept coming back: the stick. His female victim, the one who he had on her knees, slowly became more and more vivid. It was a female hyena. She was tall, broad-shouldered, strong... wearing the same hides as the males... And he just wanted to grab a stick and beat her. Make her cry out in pain, and beg him to stop...
After an unknown length of time watching this and other images beyond his control drift by, he decided to see if he could extract anything else out of the shrink. If shrinks were good for anything at all, he would surely have something to say about these visions.
Agent K peeked an eye open to notice it was now completely dark, and all of the hyenas were around a campfire some distance away. Agent F must not be worried about his escape, K thought.
He whispered, "This is Agent K, can anyone hear me?"
"Loud and clear," replied a new voice in his ear, loud enough to make him wince; he probably would have startled did the morphine not so heavily suppress his reflexes.
"Where's the shrink?" asked K.
"I'll get him right away."
Not 5 seconds later, the familiar voice was back, though somewhat less energetic. "Yes K?"
"Doc," he whispered, "tell me what the hell's wrong with me."
"I already read your fi--"
"I don't mean that 'emotionally dead' stuff. I mean in little words."
There was a pause before the doctor answered. "You said it yourself: there's nothing 'wrong' with you, K. You are simply different, and those differences make it difficult for other people to deal with you."
"Really. Who would have thought," K sighed. It was the best sarcasm he could muster with half of his brain asleep. "Look, Doc, I know something is wrong with me. I know I scare the hell out of people. What do they see in me? And what does it have to do with that stick?"
K didn't realize the words were out of his mouth until the doctor repeated, "the stick?"
"Oh, no, I mean, yeah, I mean, well, that's why I'm asking," he answered awkwardly, trying to get his thoughts in order.
"Are you seeing something in your thoughts K? What is it?"
"Forget it," whispered K in a stage whisper, "forget I said anything."
He closed his eyes again. But as he was about to start blocking out his surroundings, the doctor gently stated, "I can't help you make it go away unless you tell me what it is."
"If I tell you, you'll go all ape-shit on me," whispered K as emphatically as he could under the influence. "I know you will. Agent F was right: you'll always keep me on a tight leash, and if you feel your grip slipping, you freak out."
"I thought you'd like to see me freak out," replied the doctor.
Agent K smiled weakly through his haze. "You know Doc, you're right. So I'll tell you. I look in my head, and I see... Agent F decapitating all of his followers and turning their bodies upside down to let the blood drain out. It's so scary."
The doctor sighed. "You're lying," he replied.
Agent K thought he could hear a smile in the doctor's voice just like his. "What makes you think that?" he asked.
"I know you," replied the doctor nonchalantly. "Fear is one of the things you fake for the benefit of others."
"Wow, Doc, I'm impressed," whispered Agent K, half-sarcastic, half not. "You've earned the right answer: Agent F just beat one of them with a stick then raped him. Nothing nearly so imaginative."
"Did the victim appear to be enjoying it?"
"Not at all," replied Agent K with a smile. "Seemed quite distraught through the whole thing. Wonder why he didn't fight back. Agent F must have some kind of hold on them. I wonder how he did it."
"Would you like to have that kind of 'hold'?"
"Well... maybe. If it was a female hyena..." He never finished. His brain was trying to give him a revelation, but the morphine was interfering with his ability to finish the coherent thought by throwing random other things at him.
"K, I--"
"Sorry, Doc," interrupted K with a slur, "I can't think about that. It's too hard. I know there's something important there, because I can see it... watching her beg..."
"How about we talk about it after the mission is over?" asked the Doctor.
"Sure, whatever," answered K weakly.
"For now, just rest. Everything will be fine."
"Yeah," repeated K, "everything will be fine..."
For the next couple of hours, however, the female hyena had to be beaten, over and over again.
***
K didn't know what time it was, only that it was pitch black when he started feeling more alert, and intelligent. The morphine was wearing off.
He knew from past experience he had to wait a good 20-30 minutes even after he felt the effects were gone, because his reflexes were not something he could perceive until he failed to use them. So he didn't move yet, or give any indication but a barely-opened eye that he was awake.
He could see that the fire was out, leaving only a partial moon as a source of light. With that light, however, he could see that his guard had fallen completely asleep, slumped forward on his gun.
Agent K stood up, and a moment later, the Doctor spoke. K presumed he was reacting to the change in blood pressure his suit detected when he stood up.
"If you plan to wait 30 minutes so you're sharp," he continued, "we can have a team there by the time you try to engage Agent F. If you'll wait until I give the word." Before Agent K could even answer, he added neutrally, "please."
"In 10 minutes, I will proceed as planned," Agent K answered in a barely audible whisper. "But in the mean time... I want to talk with Agent F."
"I don't think that's a good idea," insisted the Doctor.
K, however, ignored him, and instead gently eased the gun from between the hyena's chest and his arms.
He took it with him to Agent F's body, which was slumped against a tree, surrounded by three other hyenas. K knew the easiest way to wake him up. Stand over him, and unlock the safety, which on this particular model, auto-cocked it with a loud triple-clack.
As expected, Agent F did a somersault, and stood up, making Agent K back up two steps to avoid being hit.
"Easy," snarled K, "I just want to talk."
"You've got 10 minutes, boys!" shouted the Colonel through the radio, "Move, move, move!"
"Roger that," said another voice of equal volume, presumably a different radio entirely.
"I really don't think this is a good idea," repeated the doctor with considerably more emphasis.
"Exactly," replied K, looking up briefly into the air. "Don't worry about me," he explained to Agent F, "I'm too high to try and kill you," he added with a little bit of slur. "You take my last needle, and we'll talk."
Agent F had to actually think about this, so K interrupted him. "You said you remembered how enjoyable it was. How about one last taste before our big fight tomorrow?"
"I suppose not," F replied with a smile, "but only if we're watched."
"Deal," Agent K replied.
Agent F immediately barked a loud bark, and all of his hyenas dragged themselves from sleep. The guard was briefly mystified as to where his gun had gone, but then quickly changed to a bit of embarrassment.
"Give him the gun back," demanded F.
K tossed the gun toward his former guard, who seemed rather relieved a moment as he picked it up -- before snapping his posture back into the guarding position, and kept his eyes firmly locked on K.
K drew out his last needle, and handed it to Agent F in a deft motion with a roll of his wrist, as if it were something elegant. "Here you are," he offered.
Agent F gingerly took it, and after verifying that the locking tip was untampered with, opened it, and injected himself with half. He only slightly winced, and the moment he drew it out, sat back down against the very tree he'd been sleeping against.
"Feeling better?" asked K with a smile, more for the benefit of his radio than anything.
"I really do miss it," answered Agent F.
"You know, when I think about it," explained Agent K, "I can see the appeal of living out here like this. Mind you, I'd prefer female hyenas," he added with a mischievous chuckle.
"Not a surprise," replied Agent F with a similar smile, whose body seemed to be getting less tense by the second.
"But what you're in right now? That's what I could never give up. No matter how many Medkits I stole, it would never be enough."
"That's the iron grip," yawned Agent F. "That's what is keeping you from carving out your own destiny."
"You and your destiny carving can eat shit," snarled K, adding more energy, but also more slur. "Here's what I want to know --"
"That's too bad, then," snarled Agent F. "Unless you can find whatever plant I found out here in these plains, you'll never know. And you can eat shit if you don't like that."
Agent K might have tried to kill Agent F just for that were the morphine still not affecting him. "Well then, you'll never hear the deal that they just offered you."
"I don't need any deals."
"Not even deals that let you stay out of 'the cage'?"
"You're making it up," he replied nonchalantly. "They'd never agree to that, as hard as they've been trying to catch me."
"On the contrary," lied Agent K, "they just told me that if you checked in with them every week, you can keep living here. The Free Zone really means free, and they figure a couple hyenas getting raped is worth the price of knowing where you are. They're far more concerned about you sneaking into one of their precious world cities or military bases than whether you kill these tech-fearing savages."
He looked quite unconvinced. "Why should I believe you?" he snarled with a sarcastic growl, his face completely slack save for a hint of smile on one side and snarl on th other that matched his voice.
"What is wrong with what I'm telling you?" pushed K. "You know that they believe in self-determination for most everyone else. You know they get their ethics in a twist at the thought of our existence. They could have just snuck me out, and bombed a 500-foot radius around that suit of yours. But they didn't! Their fee-fees got in the way. They want you alive... and talking to them is better than roaming around, position unknown to them."
Agent F didn't say anything for a moment before he admitted, "you know, that does sound good. I just wish it didn't sound like you're making stuff up."
K, getting frustrated, finally asked the question: "what makes you think I'm making it up?"
"Because their fee-fees, as you call them, aren't so inconsistent and mysterious as you make them sound," he replied with a growl; probably supposed to indicate frustration, but he was too relaxed for K to be sure. "That's how I can tell it's a plan written not by a Colonel... but by fellow Agent with the same emotional deformities."
That statement finally made K give up. "How many missions have you done, again?"
"Ha ha ha," said Agent F, speaking the words coldly without a hint of mirth in his voice. "I knew it. More than you, clearly. You really don't get emotions, do you?"
"Like you do," he snarled back.
"Of course not. I don't 'get' them, either -- but I do understand that they are more than mere inconveniences than you make them out to be. You're making the obvious mistake: thinking it's all about fear. I once thought that, until I broke out of the service, and learned that I can have a small band follow me not out of fear, but something deeper. And I suppose until you discover what that is, you'll never get anyone else to do what you want."
"There you go again," pushed back Agent K, "trying to manipulate me. If you understood me, you'd understand that it doesn--"
"Fine, if you're too dense, be happy living in that cage of yours."
Agent K sighed, shook his head, and walked off behind the tree where Agent F was laying. And he made sure to quiet down a bit when he went past seven crouched soldiers in full armor who were creeping in the opposite direction.
K knew that he didn't use emotions the same way as others. And he knew that Agent F was trying to trick him into helping instead of trying to catch him. But never the less, he did wonder whether there was anything to his words.
... But only for a brief moment, for several nearby shots soon rang out, suggesting he would never get an opportunity to find out.
***
K roamed about in the dark for a good 10 minutes, just looking up at the sky, and letting his mind wander along with his feet, before he made it back to camp. He found that his adversary was, indeed, being put into a body bag by a tall and muscular Sargent, who also happened to be female. And a hyena.
It took K a moment to notice this last fact, but when he did, by the way her body was angled, he couldn't take his eyes off her. All of the thoughts of beating that he had dreamed about several hours ago came rushing back.
To try and banish them, he asked his radio, "hey! I thought you wanted him alive to figure out how he escaped!"
"We figured that out already, thanks to you," said the voice of the Colonel he had scared off earlier.
"How?" K asked.
"We're not going to tell you, after everything you've heard from him. Sorry, K." His voice sounded almost gloating.
"Fine, you fools. How about some more morphine?"
"Ask for it back at base."
"I mean now," snarled K, "or otherwise, I'll grab that gorgeous looking Sargent and run off into the woods."
He spoke loudly enough that she turned and looked at him. It was clearly a sharp look, but he wondered whether she still had a little bit of fear around the eyes.
But before he could even give her one of his evil looks, a different, male soldier tapped him on the shoulder, and held up a needle. K pointed him to the pinhole weak spot in his suit, and he immediately and wordlessly grabbed K's arm and squeezed it in as quickly as possible.
"Hey, that's cold!" snarled K.
And that was pretty much the last thing he snarled all the way back to base.
***
When K next felt like interacting with others, he found himself in the usual hospital room. But this time, there was a familiar voice floating around: "I really appreciate this."
It was the voice of the shrink.
K got his eyes from closed to drowsily open as he looked up into the dim lights, and saw an outline of a rather tall dog of some sort. "I think he's coming back to us. I bet he'll be pleased to see you."
"See who?" asked K, lethargy still in his voice.
"Why, the Sargent who you were about to carry off."
That got him to open them more, trying hard to concentrate on the reality outside of his skull.
"So it is her. Let me guess," he snarled sleepily, "you decide to put me in an experiment."
"Not the way you mean it. I'd just like to see if you want to say anything to her."
He looked up at her, trying to keep focused. The morphine made his other thoughts -- thoughts of breaking out of this room and stealing her away -- keep jumping in front of his mind's eye.
"You're lucky," was all he could muster, speaking less to her and more to his own mind, "that I'm too tired to leap out of bed, tackle you to the ground, tie you up with the power cord for my IV, and carry you away from all this. And if you said one word," he added as he thought he saw her mouth open, "I would knock out your teeth."
K had hoped it would be sufficiently hard on her feelings to make her leave, but she didn't. She just kept standing there, looking down at him, with the same flat look on her face.
So, K thought, he needed to do more to get a rise out of her. So, he sat up as quickly as he could manage to try and startle her.
"She's out of reach, K," calmly stated the shrink.
"Eat shit, Doc, I want her in reach. ... Gotcha! You're mine!"
But K had actually laid back down and saw it in his mind's eye. It took him a moment to realize he had snapped briefly into a waking dream, as morphine was prone to make him do.
"Well, you have escaped me this time, but trust me... I will hunt you down, and catch you when you're not on duty, at the behest of some doctor."
"You will?"
"Oh yes, I will," drowsily threatened K. "When I feel better, I'll figure out who you are, and then track you down, figure out where you live, just like hunting down a target I was assigned to find. And then, I'll grab you and take you away from all this."
"And what would you do, K?"
K's train of thought left his brain, and faded out. "I'm not quite sure, doc," he answered. "But I know that if she ran away, I would punish her. Just the same way I saw them do it."
"Them?"
"Agent F's crew. He beat them with great big sticks." Agent K got the strength to open his eyes, and looked up drowsily at the intended target. She was looking down at him with a confident and neutral gaze, perhaps even a little hint of disdain because of a wrinkled snout.
"Would you like to be beaten with a stick?" K asked, trying to get a rise out of her.
She turned away from him, just as silently.
"I really need to find me a stick, Doc. Do you have one?"
"I'm afraid I don't," answered the Doctor, with his perfect calm.
"Well, all I have to do is find one..." K's brain once again carried the thought off for a good ten seconds before he came back.
"And... I'm sure you'll do something wrong. Try to get away, try to escape," he repeated drowsily.
"What if she didn't?"
"Oh she would. She would make me beat her with a stick. She would really, really deserve it."
"If she didn't run away, then what would you do?"
K's mind was foggy, as the images continued before his eyes. "What do you mean?" he asked, as he watched her sit uncomfortably on a log beside a campfire.
"You talk about beating her if she did something wrong. After you caught her, then beat her, then what?"
"Then..." He let his mind see where it would go. "Then I would tie her up."
"And?"
Somehow, just watching her struggle against being tied up was enough. "There's no and. I'd tie her up. And I'd make sure not to gag her, so she could yell for help into the empty plains."
He opened his eyes, to see her still looking past him, over his bed. "You'd yell for help, wouldn't you? After all, there would be a crazed Agent on the loose," he snarled weakly.
She did not reply.
"And you would just leave her?"
"What do you mean," he repeated, imagining the yells in his mind, "she would be yelling. You make it sound like you expect more from me."
The Doctor didn't answer. And without any stimulation, and his thoughts dragging him in, he soon lost awareness of the room's existence.
The next thing he heard from outside his head was: "we could ask him now, I think he's coming out of it."
K opened his eyes again to find that, instead of his target, there were two additional white-coated professionals standing over him.
"More visitors," he sighed. "Why can't you all just let me enjoy what little fun I can get between missions, huh?"
"We are here," answered the doctor to an unasked question, "to determine whether or not you need to be put in permanent suspension."
"Really? I've stepped over the line after all this time? What was it? I've been looking forward to this," he snarked.
"What if I told you," asked the Doctor, ignoring K's question, "that your 'victim' died yesterday in a train accident?"
"Victim... oh, you mean --"
"The one you wanted to kidnap while she was sleeping, or something like that."
"Not while sleeping, I'd want to see her eyes -- wait a minute... she's dead?"
"What if I told you," he repeated, "she died in a train accident?"
"Well, that figures," sighed K.
The three white coats remained silent.
"And?"
"What do you mean 'and'? I'm sick of this shit. It's like you want me to say something -- maybe something that will get me permanently shelved -- and you're not telling me what it is."
"Of course we wouldn't tell you, because we would be pre-deciding the answer."
"Well, I don't see it," snarled K, knowing that his mind wasn't thinking straight this high. "What does it matter anyway? It's just -- well, was, just a thought."
"That's the kind of thought," stated the voice of the shrink, "that made Agent F escape."
"What? How could a thought make him escape?"
"He accidentally found a way out from under his morphine addiction," cautiously explained the shrink, "and then, with nothing to hold him here, escaped and became a monster. It was only once he was free that he realized... something. Agent K," emphasized the shrink, as K heard him sign something, "you're fine... if you don't think about that girl too much."
Only now did his brain, through the morphine, remember what else Agent F did. "Oh. Ohhhhh. Oh Doc, give me a break," he growled, "you're worried about sex, aren't you? Rest assured I've been thinking about sex since I was a teenager, and that kind of thrill just doesn't do it for me. It's too short-lived and pointless. This here... this is the real stuff," he sighed, tapping on his IV stand and getting it to ring a bit.
"That's the kind of thinking that will get you a long career in the service," praised the Doctor. "Pleasant dreams, K."
The End.