"Nick."
“Justin.”
"Nick… Justin… “
“Guys! Come on, Project Scythe
has to be in here somewhere!" Pearl cried ahead of them, weapons in hand,
a leather toolkit swinging around her waist, adorned with what she would need
to deactivate the very thing their mission was after. Justin was next to him as
they ran through the dark halls, the power disabled thanks to their scientist
partner for the mission. Jay was ahead of them, fighting terrorist members left
and right, providing their distraction while they had shut the power down. The
trio of friends glanced to the one female as she gazed down at a small handheld
device that beeped shrilly as they grew closer to their goal.
"Left hall..."
Justin glanced at her and
Nick, who had an automatic, personalized for him by their friend, ready in his
hands. "Yo, how long do you think we got before these dawgs try to make
Swiss cheese outta us?"
"Twenty minutes tops,
Drums," Nick replied as they began hurrying down a new direction.
"They mean business. They need to get laid."
"Is everything about
sex?" A chuckle came from
Footsteps came from behind
them, and the three sharply ducked down as their hands instinctively aimed
their weapons at the figure before them, until they realized who it was. Nick
stood along with them with obvious relief at their mentor being before them
rather than the enemy. Agent Jay tilted down the night vision sunglasses he
wore, coffee eyes watching them in question.
"Are we close?"
The scientist checked once
more as they weaved their way through the darker depths of the building. The
two blonde males put on night vision sunglasses to improve their vision in the
cold, dank place. "Pretty close; the signal is getting stronger. Once
we're in the room with It, I can lock it down."
"Let’s move it
then..." A smirk appeared on their superior's face as he rubbed his goatee
thoughtfully. "If we can make it back to the States by tomorrow, I might
get a quickie with Emerald before she's off on her mission."
"Boys... lord."
Snickers came from around
"Man, what died?!
NICK!"
Nick rolled his eyes as he
kept his gun trained. His curly-haired,
blonde partner stood near the pipes, snickering. "Not me," Nick replied, his eyes
narrowing.
The two nodded in reply as
they stood still in the shadows. “Yes, sir.”
“Alright, once I lock the
signal down on it, I can release that sonic charge at it and fry the system. I
know it’s down there, but its being worse than one of Nick’s one night stands
in committing to its signal location. I can‘t blast it till I know ‘cause this
baby‘s only got enough juice for the one shot.”
“We don’t have much time; we
need this done fast.”
Justin smirked as he gazed at
his fellow 00-Agent. “So guess who I had
fun trying to tame last night? Your
favorite agent, Diamond Divine…” he whispered into his Communi-com device, the
little microphones and ear buds equipped on them for this mission.
Nick rolled his eyes and
decided not to respond. Justin was his friend, had been since the beginning,
when they’d joined Himitsu Takana at the same time. They had bonded over basic
training and had been friends ever since. Sometimes, however, Nick felt Justin
always wanted what he had, and it secretly infuriated him. Still, Justin was
almost like a brother, as close as you could get to family inside Himitsu
Takana, anyway. But the rage remained.
Sure, he knew Diamond wasn’t
his; their relationship was purely casual sex and flirting. Yet it felt like
Justin only did it because Diamond had a liking for Nick in particular.
Sometimes, as good a friend as 009 was, Nick wanted nothing else but to see
Drums gone.
“Don’t assume.”
An almost inaudible piercing
high note of sound filled their ears, followed by a heavy feeling in the air as
they felt the electricity travel around them. She had set off the sonic charge
towards Project Scythe.
“Yes! That baby is fried. Set the bomb, Jay, we’re
ready to blow.”
“Done, we have fifteen minutes
to get our asses out of-”
A shot rang out within the darkness,
interrupting Jay, followed by wild screams. Nick threw the gun he had used just
then down on the floor, covering his face as a fiery red fluid burst from the
pipes, hitting his upper right arm. He couldn’t help but scream out in pain as
the intense burning attacked his upper right shoulder without a thought of
mercy. His cries of pain blended with Justin’s own as the now apparent
chemicals splashed against his very face.
“Oh my god, that’s
“Shit, Pearl, don’t go near
them, or you’ll get hit too,” Jay growled at her, pulling her back by her arm
as she was forced to watch her two friends suffer until Nick finally regained
his senses and pulled Justin along behind him, away from the broken pipes.
Agent Jay just nodded.
“We’ll take care of it
outside; we have little time!”
They ran through the halls, as
shots flew like scattering birds around them. Jay shot without feeling or
remorse, it seemed to Nick, as his arm throbbed to the beat of its own drum. He
had been lucky; not much had hit him compared to Justin, who was being dragged along
behind him. When he had shot that bullet, he hadn’t meant for this. Oh god…
what had he done to him!?
They raced out of the
building, in need of air to breathe. As
they finally paused to catch their breath behind some rundown homes a ways
away, the place they just escaped from exploded and was consumed by greedy
flames. Nick watched it burn as stars twinkled above them, almost mocking the
idea of them having a night that was anything but peaceful. Yet their mission
was accomplished.
His hand covered the arm that
tortured him now. Always, there was a price.
A gasp escaped the scientist,
and Nick’s ocean eyes met Justin’s, but not for long.
“My god…Ju…your head!” she
cried as he shrieked in immense agony. His head had begun to swell at a
frightening pace. His blonde curls were drenched red, looking as if they had
been dunked in fruit punch. But in the
much crueler reality, they’d been soaked by the
“My god…JuJu… Jay we need to
contact Jewel and now… we have nothing here to slow it down. She needs to help
us until we get back to HimTak!”
“We’ll contact The Rok and see
if he can get a jet sent our way since we don’t have ours yet. We’ll get back as soon as we can.”
“Fuck, dawgs, my eye!” Only Nick saw the gruesome event that
happened next. His right eye, getting
squeezed ever so painfully, began to fill with the redness of Justin’s own
blood, accompanied by howls that resembled a wild animal’s when caught in a
steel trap.
He had done this to him, all
because of one moment of emotional stupidity.
It was his fault… all his fault…
Nick shook
his head, wanting to forget the memory of how it happened. His first mission
back, and he had to face what he had done to a man whom he had once almost
called a brother. Jealousy was so petty. Justin’s life had been ruined beyond
compare.
Now
he stood before him, shockingly enough, with metal robotics replacing what had
been done by the chemical in the mission that felt like years ago, when really,
it had only been months.
“Fancy
meeting you here, Drums.”
“008...
and my inadequate replacement… heh, Diamond Divine, the vixen of HimTak. Or should I say slut?”
Diamond
crossed her arms over the breasts that were begging to pop out of her tight
little shirt. “I don’t like having to beat up men who slept with me... and who
were actually good, but I’ll make the exception for ya.”
“You’re
going to fight me? Me? Yo, dawgs, I was your bro once. You gonna diss me like
that and try to knock me down?” Justin always had reverted to ghetto imitation
slang just before he was about to get some action on a mission, or when he was
excited and happy. His trademark was that, actually. But a fire of hatred burned within his steely
blue eye in a way Nick had never seen in Justin before; that made it clear it
wasn't the latter.
He
took a breath sharply. “What do you know about this FANS, Justin?”
“FANS?
Oh, FANS are the ones who didn’t try
to ruin me, and now are off to bring down those standing against them, 008. I
have a whole new life now; they saw the wicked skills you didn‘t.”
Nick
had the gun in his hand aimed at the one before him, his finger pulling the
trigger. A sharp kick knocked it out and went for his throat next. He did a
back flip, his hand reaching for the gun he’d lost on the floor, as Diamond
went for the attack, keeping Justin somewhat distracted.
Nick
stood as he wiped his brow, aiming his gun. A bullet rang out across the room,
missing his old friend by an inch alone, hitting the wall next to the sound
equipment. Voices could be heard in the distance, growing closer with every
step their ears could catch in the air.
Justin
smirked smugly as he reached for an abnormally hefty sandbag that was tied to a
rope next to the curtains, hanging from the catwalk. He grabbed on as he rose
quickly in the air after the shift in weight.
“Been
fun! You’ll remember this as the time
when J to da Timbalake beat yo asses!” he called out and then vanished in the
shadows as if he were never there.
People
came as Diamond covered for them with a story she made up as she went along.
She was always good like that.
Nick’s
thoughts went back to the one who had once been his partner, before Diamond had
risen to her 00-Agent status. Why was he here? Where had he been since his
injury during that mission?
One
thing was true: the hatred against him was
evident. And the saddest thing for Nick was that he couldn’t blame him, after
what he had done to a man he’d once called friend.
± ± ±
The
two agents sat behind the female one’s flat screen, their eyes locked on the
image of the two agents on the field that appeared in front of them. Jay and
Jay’s
eyes locked on the figure, which nodded and acknowledged the two agents
standing before him. At the same time,
the same words poured from Jay’s lips.
“Justin.”
A
sharp silence fell to the room where the two agents were positioned behind the
screen. From the corner of his eye, Jay
saw that
And
now, only a blurry sight of their former agent on the screen brought back every
single memory he had experienced that awful night. He could watch every scene he had witnessed
at the night of the accident, he could still hear Justin’s heart-breaking
shriek, and he could never fully get rid of that moment where his eye had just
popped out. For his nature, he was quite
not capable of handling such distress, as he was known to be the collected one
among the agency. He wanted to move, he
wanted to say something, but his body was numb, and his lips were awfully
dry. Yet again, he knew he had to get
himself together and think wisely, which was his usual escape when he dreaded
his emotions would take over his rationale.
Finally,
he found the composure to build a sentence as professional as he could make it
sound.
“We
need to inform Agent K about the situation.”
With that, he slowly removed his hands from the stainless steel desk he
was leaning on, darting his eyes away from the screen only to catch a glimpse
of
He
took a deep breath the second he left
“What
a fucking sick déjà vu this is,” he muttered under his breath. Glancing down the hallway, he noticed he was
all alone, and he realized he was fighting hard against the ultimate urge of
screaming at the top of his lungs. I need to get this done anyhow, he
thought. Is this some kind of a sick joke?
As he
started to make his way towards the elevator and to the upper floors, he
couldn’t help but reminisce that only a few months ago, he had been moving to
the same direction with the same feelings storming inside him and the same
statement he had to make to his superior.
Agent Jay fidgeted slowly in
his seat across the table from Agent K, who was talking on the phone to get the
updated news about something – something that Agent Jay couldn’t focus on. Words were playing around in his mind, yet
they were not coming together to form a reasonable sentence, as reasonable as
it could be in such a situation.
He had no idea how they had
kept it from him that long, if you consider the fact that when such accidents
did happen, Agent K was always the first to be informed, usually at the moment
of the accident. But to his
astonishment, he and the fellow two agents had kept it undercover until Agent
009 was safe in Dr. Jewel’s office.
But now here he was, facing his
superior and trying to find a way to tell what had happened. A couple of seconds later, Agent K hung up
the phone and looked at him questioningly, his thick brows furrowed.
“So what’s the emergency?”
Agent K spoke up, trying to read his agent’s face. He could easily guess that the news was no
good, but he was trying to keep his calmness.
“We had an accident,” Agent
Jay slowly replied. Noticing that his
superior’s frown was growing deeper, he added quickly, “No one’s dead, though.”
Relieved, Agent K shifted in
his seat. The stiffness he had been
feeling in his back since morning was a bit softer now. Dreading that the name
he was going to hear was that of a certain 00-Agent and, at the same time,
getting angry at himself for favoring one of his agents, he mouthed a question.
“Is someone injured?”
Knowing he couldn’t avoid it
any longer, he nodded. “Agent 009.” Realizing that K’s eyes were growing large,
he added, “Justin.”
“Justin?” Although he was partly relieved that he
hadn’t heard the name of Agent 008, a new rush of worry took over K. Rising up from his seat, he hurriedly walked
to the door, Agent Jay behind his tail.
“There we go,” he muttered,
silently cursing how the hell this accident had happened to one of their most
talented agents. He knew nothing was
going to be same again; he knew it in his heart.
“Agent
Jay? Are you alright?”
The
stern voice brought Jay back to reality.
It didn’t take him more than two seconds to realize that he had ended up
in Agent K’s office, though he could barely remember how he’d made all the way
up there – he didn’t even remember if he had knocked on the door or not. Apparently he hadn’t; one quick glance at his
superior’s face showed that he’d been disturbed against his will.
“May
I?” he asked, motioning to the seat across K’s desk, and carefully positioned
himself there with his nod.
“I
believe there is some information about the current operation we are pursuing,”
Agent K started, “and I suppose it’s pretty urgent, since I cannot think of any
other logical reason for your sudden burst into my office…” he continued,
pointing out the blueprints of various buildings laid on his desk, “… when I
was busy.”
Playing
with the eccentric rings he had on each of his fingers, Agent Jay cleared his
throat, getting ready to spill out the news. Sucks to be at a higher rank in the chain of command, he thought
glumly. Why did he always have to be the
one to break the bad news?
“Well,
I regret to tell you that the operation didn’t succeed, as a whole…” he trailed
off, noticing that familiar frown appearing in his superior’s face.
“What
do you mean, as a whole?” K persuaded, slightly irritated. “Don’t tell me that Agent 009 and 008 blew up
the whole undercover…”
“No,
it’s not that. They were perfectly able
to disguise themselves, and they could trace down the signs in finding the
target…” Agent Jay took a deep
breath. “But they missed him.”
“Do
we have a clear facial image of the fellow target? Maybe Agent Pearl can trace it down through
the system…”
“We already
do know who he is, sir,” Jay interrupted, as the same annoying but familiar
feeling of déjà vu captured him instantly.
“The target our agents were following was Justin.”
I know this expression, he thought inwardly, when he
saw Agent K’s eyes growing large with surprise.
“Justin?!”
he questioned, unbelieving. Rising up
from his seat, Agent K made his way towards the door, determined to see the
image with his own eyes before actually believing what he had just heard. Getting up from his seat, Agent Jay followed
him closely.
“There
we go,” he muttered silently. “What a
fucking sick feeling of déjà vu this is.”
± ± ±