Base Camp November

[monique_minx]

((Closed for Minx and The_gladiator))

Flashes of gunfire, a man lying on the ground, clutching his chest and covered in blood.

“Jesus Christ Cross!” He wheezed out as she emerged from the bushes laughing; on closer inspection it appeared to be red paint not blood.

“Those fuckers hurt at close range ya know!” He gasped and grabbed her hand as she offered it; she hauled up the 6 foot, 5 inches worth of man with little hassle though she continued to laugh.

“Oh come on Jake, you’re a big boy. You can take it!” She pressed her gun to his chest and tapped the red band on her arm with her fingertips, “you’re mine sergeant!”

He groaned and handed her his gun just as two shots rang out, she stumbled forward, gasping with wide eyes as Jake moved quickly and took his gun from her. He started laughing as he saw the blue paint on the back of her shirt and she spun around as the other soldier emerged from the scrub with a grin on his face.

“You shot me in the back?!” She asked exasperated.

“Yeah, looks like I did, doesn’t it?” He chuckled at the incredulous look on her face, “oh come on Lieutenant! I saw you shoot Jake, if you’d had the chance I’d be on my back covered in red paint right now! Take it like a man!”

She scowled at first then licked her lips as she threw her gun to his feet and laced her fingers behind her head in surrender.

“I’d prefer to take it like a woman actually.” With that she turned on her heel and wiggled her ass as he grinned and led her off.

“I think I’d prefer it too…”


"Who is he?" The voice broke into her thoughts and Joan blinked away from the ceiling to look over at him.

"What?" Joan asked dumbly.

"Who is he?" The psychiatrist repeated himself for her, ignoring the fact that she'd spaced out while describing the dream.

"I don't know." She admitted, "I felt like that was the first time I met him, he is...familiar from other dreams but in that moment...I don't know. It was like I hadn't met him until then."

"I see." He said and scrawled something down on his notepad.

"And is he the only one who recurs in these dreams?" He continued.

"Well, no. I've seen a few others vaguely before but he's like...the focus. I mean it's always in the same area too, the same buildings and wilderness. It's always there." She explained.

"And where is this place?" He asked.

"I don't know. I've never been there but it feels like I have...at the same time. It's very confusing and frustrating." She huffed and folded her arms.

"Alright Joan, I think that's enough for today. You've done great but I think we should track these dreams better and the recurring...characters in them. I'd like you to keep a dream journal, do you think you can do that?"

She sighed and rolled her eyes like an irritated teenager who'd been given too much homework, "I suppose."

"Excellent, I'll see you next time."

Joan got up and left without so much as a goodbye. Why should she feel grateful? She'd been returning for five years now, switched between plenty of medications and therapies and she was still blacking out with ridiculous frequency. Joan's blackouts were unique too, they weren't a few hours long or even a few days - they could last months. Joan had lost chunks of her life to these debilitating blackouts and she still had no reason for it. The psychiatrist had once had her totally convinced that it was due to the trauma of the horrific car accident that claimed the lives of her parents but as time went on and the grief subsided, Joan was less certain.

Joan was left unable to work after she suddenly didn't show up for 4 months and couldn't remember why. She was fortunate to have been born to a rather wealthy family and retained their estate after her parents passed. Without their money, she'd have landed on the streets by now. She was only 25 for heaven's sakes! She should have been in the prime of her life, she was fit as hell and physically healthy - the doctors couldn't find a single medical explanation as to why she was blacking out and Joan was sick of seeing so many. She'd sought a hundred second opinions and only ever came up empty.

Joan slid into a waiting vehicle and the female driver closed the door soundly behind her before rounding the car to take up position behind the steering wheel, "Good session?"

Joan sighed, "About the same as always Melissa. We just talked about my dreams more this time."

"Oh the one you had last night? The paint and the cutie soldier?" Melissa sounded so bubbly.

"That's the one." Joan, in contrast, sounded miserable.

"Does he have any ideas about it?" Melissa asked as she peeled into the heavy London traffic.

"None that he shared. Just wants me to keep a dream journal now." Joan told her assistant.

Melissa was about the closest thing she had to a friend these days. She'd become a recluse and her friends had peeled off one by one, finding her 'condition' too difficult to handle or manage in their picture perfect little lives. So Joan was largely isolated in her parents rather large mansion these days and spent a good chunk of time surfing the internet and working out. Melissa managed her life and her accountant managed her finances, Joan took a few online classes here and there so she didn't go absolutely insane. She was extremely intelligent and would've made valuable contributions to society were it not for the blackouts.

 

[The_gladiator]

Subject L-1411a

Birth Name: Joan Brenner

Project November code name: Anna Cross

Age: 25

Last known location: subject was last seen at the birth identity’s home.

Status: presumed to be compromised.

Summary: Lieutenant Cross has missed 3 consecutive trainings. Chip is not registering more than her location. Recommend retrieval and reconditioning at Camp November.



General Reginald Callahan leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers as he read the terse summary on Lieutenant Cross, who seemed to be absent without leave. He could no longer ignore the loss. Such an asset was not allowed to go native. He personally had put too much effort into Cross and her fellow technic personality soldiers.



Not every soldier here at Camp November was a conscript like Cross, but there was a fair few, embedded throughout the world, just waiting for the technocrats to activate them. Callahan had spent years, no decades preparing for the inevitable war between his people and the genetiformers, those bastards that wanted to create real life werewolves, and make humans that could breathe under water. A human was not a fish, and he would be damned if he let them win. However, technology wasn’t in vogue the way it once was, their forces had seen far less recruits over the past years. This gave rise to the secret soldiers as he jokingly called Cross and her companions.



He brought them here, set them up with some of the best special forces the world had to offer, and trained them to be the perfect soldiers that he could activate with the push of a button. His plans had never gone wrong until now. Cross was the first suspected failure. Well, if you didn’t count those 4 or 5 suicides ten years back, but Callahan didn’t talk about that. He could not lose another one. She must be retrieved.



He reached for his phone and dialed. “Prep an extraction team, Cross is 56 hours over due, yet again. Send Blakemore’s team…yes, I’m aware that’s her unit, tell them that she may have been compromised by the Genetiformers, that she’s been programed.” He paused, “There orders are to retrieve her at almost any cost, but if retrieval is impossible, she must be eliminated. Oh, and Johnson, prep squad 7 as well.” After another pause he continued, “Their orders are to Eliminate the asset and Blakemore’s extraction team.” He smirked to himself; he was quite the genius. This way there would be no loose ends, either Cross would be alive in his hands, or she would be dead, and a little real life war gaming wouldn’t hurt his men, may only the strong survive. Such a mission had only a 50% mortality rate. Callahan knew that he could form one squad from the survivors, one even stronger than either squad alone.



The chopper’s rotors were almost deafening to Captain Brandon Blakemore. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves. This would be easier if he knew what he was getting into. Extraction, rescue, those were the words he liked from his orders. Brainwashing, termination order, and others hunting her, these were words from his orders that Blakemore didn’t like.



“You alright? You look kind of tense.” Brandon spared a look at Jake his sergeant. The hulking man, at 6 foot 5 made the seat look tiny, as tiny as the rifle he carried.



He bit back the sarcastic retort he wanted to feed his old friend. Of course he was tense. He knew what the mission was, well, some of it. Brandon had kept the part about terminating her to himself. As far as the guys knew they were to rescue their communications specialist. Simple mission, drop in, grab her, get out, take her to Camp November for treatment. Simple, cut and dry.



It didn’t look so simple or cut and dry 2 hours later when they were on the ground, Brandon leaning forward as Jake gunned the motor. “Drive faster,”



“The hell you say, we do not need arrested,”



“That car is still tailing hers. Who are they.”



` “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Jake assured as he wove through traffic to close in on the SUV that was following the vehicle they had Seen Anna get into recently. Two others of their 9-man squad was in the car with them at the moment, others were at their safehouse, locking things down, preparing for any trouble.



“Hey Captain?” One of the two in the back leaned up between the seats, “Isn’t that gunfire?” Brandon swore as he and the others all reached for guns, even Jake who was driving.



“You drive; we’ll shoot.” Brandon snapped at Jake. “But no one fire yet, we don’t want to blow our cover yet. Just get us closer and we’ll get them.”



“Almost there,” Jake muttered banging one hand on the steering wheel, as the passenger in the car ahead of them opened up on the car holding Joan and Melissa.

 

[monique_minx]

The first crack split the quiet hum of the London traffic before Joan even noticed it. She'd been spaced out in deep thought mulling over how she could possibly write out all these dreams in a way that would make sense when she didn't even fully understand them herself. By the second though, her body was already moving, pulling against her seatbelt to fold herself down and tucking her head between her knees as she drew them up. She didn't even think about it. It was as if some deeper part of her took control.

"Down!" She shouted, her voice sharper and louder than she'd ever heard it, "Don't stop! Drive!"

Melissa jerked her hands on the steering wheel, "What...what's happening?!"

"Go!" Joan barked at her, the words snapping like a drill order.

Her pulse was trilling through her wrists and the blood was pounding in her ears suddenly. Her breathing was shallow, yet precise. She didn't know what the sounds were but every part of her was screaming gunfire and every nerve and muscle acted as if it had done this a hundred times before.

The rear window exploded in a spray of glass all over Joan. Melissa shrieked and slammed her foot down instinctively, the car lurched forward and swerved hard across two lanes of traffic to the sound of horns blaring. Joan stayed low and pressed herself flat against the back seat, her heart pounding with terror. And something else...not confusion, not panic. A cold, steady focus that she had no business possessing.

Melissa was an unpredictable civilian driver in utter panic, merely trying to pull them as far away from the threats behind them and not hit anything in front of them. She peeled down a narrow alley sharply, losing a side mirror in the process.

"What was that?! Was that...gunfire?" Melissa asked exasperated, her knuckles turned bone white on the steering wheel as she peered wildly into the rear-view mirror as if she expected the city itself to open fire on them next.

"I-I think so." Joan's voice sounded strange and far too steady, she was still hunched up on her seat.

"Don't stop, keep going, we should get somewhere crowded." Joan told Melissa.

Melissa looked at her in the mirror now, her face plastered with fear and confusion, "How do you know that? How do you know what we should do?"

In all honesty, Melissa was a wreck but Joan had been a reclusive basket case for five years now and Melissa had worked for her most of that time so if anything, it was Joan who ought to have come apart at the seams.

Joan's mouth opened but nothing came out. How did she know? She'd never even heard gunfire before. Never even visited a shooting range or done defensive driving classes. Yet everything just felt like it came to her automatically.

"I don't-" Her voice was smaller than she meant it to be, "-I don't know."

But even as she spoke, another voice, silent but undeniable, it pulsed beneath the panic. It whispered assessments she shouldn't understand: 'Two shooters. Rear flank. Suppressive fire. Get off the main road.' Those words, that instinct, none of it belonged to Joan.

Melissa's hands tightened on the wheel again and the car sped deeper in the maze of London's streets. The silence between them wasn't the worst part, it was Joan's desperate scramble to find that voice when she wasn't in dire straits because it had disappeared from her grasp.

 

[The_gladiator]

“You want me to do what?”



“Execute a pit maneuver on that car tailing Cross’s.”



“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” However, Jake was putting them in position to complete his orders. He gunned the engine and started to pull alongside the other vehicle. This got them noticed and the passenger shooter switched to firing at them. “Well, at least the civilians aren’t being shot anymore,” Jake’s tone was dry yet laced with tension as he tried to pull them in closer to their opponent.



Brandon had to brace himself as Jake suddenly lost speed. “What are you doing?” he asked even as he saw it, following the car that held Anna and the other woman had cut down an alleyway and their pursuer had turned as well. With no room Their SUV slid in behind their opponent. Recognizing the chance they’d been given Brandon gave the order to fire at their opponent. Now less civilians were in the firing line he was willing to open fire.



He breathed deep and pulled the trigger; certain he’d make it onto the news firing a semiautomatic rifle in town like this.



“They’re going round the block, request permission to join them and warn Cross?” Kyle one of the men in the back asked.



“I’m certain she’s aware,”



“She’s clearly not armed sir, or she would have fired back. I’ve even got an extra carbine.” Brandon considered, and nodded finally.



“You’re with me Stevens, Don…” before he could give the 4th man his orders he spoke up.



"I’ll make sure big and ugly here doesn’t get killed performing that pit maneuver.” And even as Brandon and Kyle both were preparing to exit the vehicle, Don the last man was already standing up in the sun roof to get a clear line of fire at their opponent, and was now firing his m4 in fully automatic.



“On that note,” Brandon muttered. He and Kyle bailed out, both firing grappling hooks from their grappling guns, a handy piece of technology as their antigravity boots kept them a few inches off the pavement, almost skating along until they were jerked upward by the retracting ropes. The pair reached the roof and started running. Neither ever hesitated, both unfolding polls they retrieved from the sides of their packs. They used the now nearly 2-meter-long polls to vault over the gap in the buildings. Not having traffic and a straight line, they actually were able to outpace their opponent and close in on Joan and Melissa’s car.



“They actually stopped for the redlight?” Kyle asked sounding surprised.”



“They’re clearly trying to blend.”



“With bullet holes and a missing mirror?”



“Do you criticize everything?” Brandon growled as the two of them leapt from the building, rappelling in reverse with their ropes and grapples and boots until they landed on the roof of Joan’s car. “You ok in there cross?”



Ducking his head through the glass he gazed in on Joan upside down while Kyle, now laying on the roof alongside Brandon, was aiming behind the car ready to shoot the pursuing vehicle from this angle. Brandon could clearly see that Anna was unarmed and staying low.



Snatching the extra m4 from Kyle’s shoulder he tossed it through the broken window to Anna. His mind suddenly flashed to the part of the report that said she might be compromised, and even one report one of his team had uncovered suggesting Anna had a twin named Joan. What if she was brainwashed and he’d just thrown an enemy a rifle with which to kill him. Brandon had always been a little reckless, this was no different. “Catch,” he offered as he completed the throw to her.

 

[monique_minx]

The booming sound of the boots hitting the roof made Joan swallow and Melissa yelp, she wildly peered around for what made the noise as she peeled away from the traffic lights as they turned green.

“You ok in there, Cross?”

The voice was somewhat familiar and yet Joan couldn't place it. Perhaps it was all the adrenaline coursing through her veins or her hammering heartbeat but she faintly registered that name too. Was he talking to her?

"Catch!"

She lifted her head and the rifle hit her palms before she even saw it coming. The cold weight of it in her hands felt impossibly foreign and yet her hands closed around the grip as if they'd done it a thousand times.

"What the hell-?" Melissa's voice sounded thin and terrified from the front seat.

"I don't know!" Joan barked back but even as she said it, her fingers brushed across the safety and her thumb slid into position. Her shoulders squared up, she didn't think about any of it, the motions just came to her.

Joan flinched as another spray of gun fire hit the car and suddenly a strange sort of clarity and focus took over her mind. Her vision narrowed in the window like a surgical telescope and numbers started pelting into her head like hail - wind speed, distance, angle. Things she couldn't possibly know whispering to her.

"Cross!" Kyle called out from the roof, "You with us?!"

Cross. They kept calling her that, she hadn't imagined it.

"I don't know how to use this!" She shouted back and yet, even as the words tore from her throat, she was lifting the barrel to the rear window.

Melissa's wide eyes caught hers in the rear vision mirror, "Joan! How do you know what to do?"

Melissa could keep asking but Joan didn't have a response for her. Because she didn't know how she knew. She just did. Something deep in that black place inside her, where she had blacked out for months at a time, somewhere in there...something woke up.

"Melissa! Take us home! Now!" Joan would rather discontinue this chase, the other car was not deterred by the public and something told Joan someone else would get hurt and she couldn't let that happen.

"I hope these boys up there can hold on then." Melissa muttered as she swerved into the far right lane and sharply took the corner thereafter.

Joan held fast against the vehicle's sway and more bullets pinged around her, one hitting the seat inches from her as the other car pulled alongside them. They'd hit the M25 - London's orbital motorway and now there were several straight lanes next to them. It wasn't great but it wasn't the centre of town either.

"Melissa, take the shoulder!" Joan yelled at her as she returned fire on the other car, "we need to get off of here as quickly as possible!"

Melissa peeled left to take the empty shoulder, "Better pray for no breakdowns today then Joan!"

"Way ahead of you!" Joan shouted back.

Although Joan was running on pure adrenaline and what she thought was instinct, there was a tiny voice whispering to her the whole time. It seemed to become most prominent whenever she was in grave peril but in the moment when it was quietest, a fleeting shadow of a second, Joan could have sworn she heard it tell her, 'don't get us killed'.

Just who the fuck 'us' was...that was anyone's guess but Joan knew she was part of that 'us'.