33. Listeners
Missing persons, implied past torture and captivity, referenced blood, animal death [dog], and gore, military mention
AU Masterpost / Previous / Next
‘Road closure ahead’ my ass, Jennings thought glancing between the detour sign and the stretch of open highway ahead of them. They slowed their van, rolling to a stop on the shoulder.
It wasn’t like there was any traffic to worry about out here.
Harrison wasn’t picking up from the number Katie gave them. The area code only had three possible towns: Duck Creek, Cedar Hills, or Ashford.
They visited Ashford first, it being the west most town on their list. Military families of a nearby installation - Jennings honestly assumed that’s where Harrison would be. But if the locals knew of a dark eyed revenant Marine, they weren’t giving Jennings any clues.
They were trying to keep a low profile and stopping in town for more than a meal and some gas would raise some eyebrows, so they headed to the next destination:
Cedar Hills.
But the road was out for construction, so they followed a detour that deposited them to the last stop on their list.
Duck Creek was a bust as far as finding Harrison. It was a Shoshone community, so Jennings felt comfortable probing a bit more about any strangers in the area, but all had been quiet the last few days. Save for a few more helos in the distance, which they had been keeping an eye on since their little patch of land was a no fly zone for the US military. The folk they talked to did promise to keep an eye out, and give Jennings contact information if the reporter happened to need a hand.
And that left Cedar Hills, and it was looking like Jennings had found their target.
Not only was the eastward road to Cedar Hills out, but so was the westbound road. Jennings shoved down their self flagellating curses for skipping the town in their rush to rule out the others. They had a job to do. They clicked on the radio, listening to the long haul truckers crackle into range.
—
Somewhere in a familiar bunker, gloved hands were rifling through the ash of burned files and the shredded wires of gutted computers. For all their rush, it seemed they were too late.
“Are ye havin’ better luck down there than I’m havin’ up here?” The voice that crackled through the radio was a bit too pitchy, thick Irish accent catching on the static. “Medical ward’s a bloody massacre. Jesus - just shot ‘em in their fuckin’ beds.” The harsh breathy voice that followed was only slightly annoyed, fond but focused.
“Stay on target Specter-4. We’ll leave them to the clean up crew. Just take samples, pictures, and move on.”
“Nothing down here.” Agent Walker sighed into her radio, glancing to where her hired help had disappeared into the hallway. “Nothing we can use, anyway.”
There was a short whine, drawing Walker’s attention. A sharp whistle pierced the cold air, the freelancer signaling their dog to stay put in the hallway. Walker could tell why as she followed Specter-3 through the last door.
The air of the holding cells was tainted with decay, rot thick where her flashlight illuminated coagulated blood and drying viscera. Her lips curled in disgust, making out the mangled corpses of both a dog and a man - half mummified from the lack of flies or worms to help them rot.
At the very least they would have DNA to work with.
“Spec-3, give me a swab kit - Spec?” Walker was still getting used to her new coworker’s quirks. Specter-3’s silent focus was as frustrating as it was insightful, or so the Ghost had insisted. “What is it?”
They glanced back at her, brow furrowed. Something in her chest curled at their young face, frustrated she couldn’t convince the Ghost to bring older associates. He trusted these two Specters more than he trusted anyone else in the business, so Walker had let it slide.
But that didn’t mean she trusted them as much.
Specter-3 shined their flashlight into the open cell at the end of the hall, rough hewn stone stained with blood. Still fresh, at least compared to the long dried gore elsewhere in the holding cells.
“How recent?” Walker asked, hovering over Specter-3’s shoulder. Her eyes were drawn to the footprints she could now separate from the dirty and old blood on the floor, starkly leading from the cell to the main hallway.
“A day or two.” Their voice was husky, rough from disuse but soft as they used a sterile piece of gauze to soak up the blood where it was still wet. Too much blood for one person.
“We have fresh blood down here. Looks like they left before this place went dark.” Walker’s radio hummed, a few seconds passing before another voice crackled through.
“Left or taken?” Ghost’s voice rumbled through the static, tone musing with morbid curiosity as Specter-3 stalked back to the hallway. Their dog’s tail began to wag as they held out the blood soaked gauze.
“We’ll know when we track them down.”
—
“How long do we have?” The director’s voice brought a hush over the room, the shouts and accusations of blame silenced by the reminder that they were all on borrowed time.
Unless someone caught the missing asset, of course.
“A few days at most. I’ve locked own the town as best we can. Stationed what PMCs we can spare to keep watch on the perimeter.” The grizzled security officer looked haggard, anger and annoyance in equal measure. “We can’t keep this up forever and we can’t go in guns blazing - ”
“Why not?” The director scoffed, taking a sip from his coffee. Everyone knew he spiked it just to get through this meeting. And no one was going to outright defy him.
“There’s civilians - ”
“And that’s stopped you before?” The security officer shrank under the director’s knowing stare, grumbling about duty and other meaningless platitudes. “Cedar Hills is a speck on the map. A dying frontier town. And unless you want it on the front page of the Times we need to either extract or destroy the assets there.”
“It’s your agent that fucked up - ”
“They’re good, loyal US citizens, sirs.” One of the agents finally spoke up. He had worked closely with the asset’s original handler, but he was taking the situation well for a man who found his coworker’s mutilated corpse less than 24 hours ago. “If they understand that they’re harboring a terrorist, they’ll turn him over.”
“And if they don’t?” The security officer was tense, but the question was rhetorical. They could not risk the asset or the project being discovered.
“Cliff, they’re just redneck hicks. Half of them will drink themselves to death before the year’s out.” The director, shrugged, nodding to the agent. “Agent Anders you have permission to head operations in Cedar Hills. Cliff, I want you to assist - ideally, I’d rather not have to deal with you bitching about this for the rest of my career. I know our PMCs are getting expensive so see if you can pull some men from the local installations - keep ‘em in the black.”
The meeting adjourned, Cliff stalking up to Anders.
“If this gets messy, we’ll need to clean it up. Quickly.” Cliff had been regulating the town’s exposure to their operations for years now, and this wasn’t his first time dealing with a leak. The last thing they needed was more attention. “No witnesses. I want that town untouched or razed. Whatever’s faster.”
Anders scoffed, as though there would be any question to his methods. He wanted the asset alive for personal reasons, he wouldn’t burn the town down until after he got what he came for.
Besides, if things settled down and this all blowed over, the project could resume. Under new management, of course.
“Yessir.”
AU Masterpost / Previous / Next
(An AU of my Freelancers series)
Taglist: @i-eat-worlds @whumpy-daydreams
7 notes
·
View notes
I’d love an Oromë pov fic of seeing Tyelkormo Turkafinwë as a child and instantly recognizing one who could, should, will grow up to be one of his finest hunters, and watching over him through adolescence, welcoming him into the forest and then into the Hunt, maybe a little ritual hunter/hunted sex if that’s your thing…the teaching of animal languages, the gift of Huan…watching nearly helpless from ever-more-afar as he falls with his father and brothers, as he proves that Beleriand under Morgoth’s influence is a terrible place to have a well-honed sense of predator and prey…and one day, finally, many ages hence, welcoming him home again…
And the whole thing is draped like heavy furs in metaphors of spotting prey and stalking, lying in wait, trapping, chasing, capture and even bloody fight and feast. Because Oromë is the Vala of the Hunt, and how could his point of view be otherwise? Tyelkormo is, will be, a great predator, but all creatures are prey compared to the might of the Hunter himself… But while the language is entirely predatory, and there is an edge of It Is A Grand and Terrible Thing, To Be Beloved of a God, the intent is never “predatory” as we might define word today. Oromë is the Vala of the Hunt; he could no more disrespect the prey than he could the predator (perhaps that’s where Celegorm went wrong in Beleriand). Hunting with intent to love vs hunting with intent to kill, and the overlap. Hunting with intent to consume vs hunting with intent to be worshipped, and the overlap.
Also something something untamable wildness but also natural order; something something the nature of Valar in ruling vs embodying their domains, and how those who worship/follow/serve/love them fit into that. Something something a person’s nature (not nurture, just nature) and everything goes wrong when you deviate from that into too much competition and cruelty—or maybe something something competition and cruelty, too, are natural (both broadly and person-specifically), but if you want to spend time with people whose natures are inclined towards things like pretty gemstones and diplomacy (and you do want that, they’re still your family), you have to learn how to tamp down the more violent wildness for at least the duration of a dinner party, much as the Vala of the Hunt must tamp himself down at least a little to spend time with even the fiercest and finest of his young hunters.
163 notes
·
View notes