That Which Cannot Be Seen ((UnHolyPimpHand & Gamina))

[UnHolyPimpHand]

It was no easy task, gaining access to the highly secretive world of the “Invisibles” street gang had taken Agent Palmer months of working informants and building his cover. Most people, when asked about the Invisibles, would answer with the same reply from rote—like an instinct programmed into them.

“Don’t search for that which can’t be seen…” over and over, no matter who or how well Palmer thought he’d cornered them, they all said the same thing.

The junkie who’d given him this tip paid for it with his life, fortunately the wire he’d been wearing picked up the information. New supplicants—that’s what they call them, “Supplicants”—were supposed to wait under this specific overpass until the stroke of midnight.

You’d never know that this underpass was anything special. Dirty, public and pretty bare of graffiti aside for one very basic banner across the middle, the gang’s tag letters, not even a proper burner: NVS with BL running vertically down the outside of the S. The Invisibles were typically known for their artistic flair.

Aside from the bare-bones tag, the presence of nearly a dozen eager looking thugs and THOTs validated the info that Palmer had ascertained from his informant’s sacrifice, one such would-be supplicant was his fellow agent, who he hoped would help him to get deep within the organization. She was breathtakingly beautiful, but strictly for the ladies—as all the good ones seemed to be in this line of work.

Three minutes til’ twelve. The tension was almost suffocating…

They heard them before they saw them—the high-pitched buzzing noise of dirt bikes, the bass rumble of unmistakable Harley exhausts, sputtering diesel truck engines and moaning sport bike motors all pierced the night and seemed to be coming closer like a fossil-fueled swarm of metal insects.

In an instant the entire tunnel was flooded in bright, hyper-white light strong enough to make even the toughest among them turn away and try to block the light with their hands as the cavalcade of trucks and bikes descended upon the underpass from both sides, blocking any potential escape and blasting the potential recruits with light.

Once everyone was suitably blinded by the rolling mob’s high beams, all the lights cut out at once—complete black. Impenetrable darkness. Someone could walk right up and stab Palmer in the chest if they had a mind to.

The darkness hung until there came a great and oppressive silence—then, just as suddenly as the blackout, all the vehicles lit after-market, iridescent, black lights that suddenly illuminated hyper-neon paint—only visible under this concentrated form of black light.

The walls, ceiling and floor of this unassuming underpass were painted every inch with huge, elaborate works of art in electric oranges, dayglow yellows and neon green. The basic tag on the far wall bloomed into a literal butterfly of colors as the rudimentary lines of the tag were incorporated into a much larger and more evolved work of art.

Also glowing in the black light were the plain white masks and white gloves that were the trademarks of the Invisibles. Their love of anonymity being the primary reason their prosecution was proving so difficult. Every set of gloved hands was gripping some sort of firearm—though the black guns were tough to clearly see in the black light.

“You’re all here because you wish to disappear—well tonight, you will all get your wish,” one who appeared to be the de facto leader announced from astride his black Ducati motorcycle, the others stood their bikes on kickstands and began moving through the crowd, performing compulsory pat downs and dropping bags over the heads of each person trapped in the center of the tunnel, “all of you are going to disappear right now—and none of you will ever be seen again. Most will just be dead and rotting in a tub of acid, but a few of you—a few of you will disappear for a while and be reborn. You will become a profound no one. An Invisible.”

The hissing of plastic zip ties rang out from all directions, Palmer’s wrists were bound and before he knew it he was tossed into one of the Hummers, pressed in close with the other male supplicants—that meant she was riding in a different vehicle…

He hoped she was alright.

“Where are you taking us?” Palmer’s own voice sounded pathetic under the hood.

“Shut up back there!” it wasn’t the guy who gave the speech… someone else.

When the truck stopped at last, Palmer and the others were led out of the truck and into what sounded like a busy automotive garage… a chop shop… if he could figure out where they were, maybe he could get a warrant…

When his hood was removed, Agent Palmer was quite dismayed to see his former snitch, bloodied and beaten—but alive.

“Yeah, that’s him,” Kyle, the heroin addled fucking rat nodded, “he—he—he said he was gonna lock me up in the hole—make me sweat out the withdrawls in the dark if I didn’t wear a wire for him. I—I never meant to cross the unseen, please!”

The others were all gathered behind the masked men, he was relieved to see that she was still among them, maybe her cover was still in-tact. They were all watching—shit, he was going to be an example.

“Enough now, snitch. You can rest in peace,” a smooth draw, casual as a pat on the shoulder his cut was—Kyle didn’t even feel the blade, he looked so confused as he held his hands up into the shower of blood streaming down from his neck, he was dead before he hit the ground, “you, I’m afraid, won’t be so lucky, Pig.”

“That guy was a fucking junky—I never seen him before in my life!”

“You’re just embarrassing yourself,” the leader said, removing his mask and speaking over his shoulder to the remaining Supplicants, “my name is Knives and I will be deciding who gets to be reborn, and who just fades away.”

Another cut—damn, he’s quick. Someone who wasn’t trained might have missed it, it was a small cut on Palmer’s inner thigh—just a warm-up maybe. Within moments, Palmer was aware of his pants being wet, had he pissed himself? No, it was blood—fuck! Why was there so much blood?

By the time he realized that his femoral artery had been severed it was too late to try and slow the bleeding. When Palmer tried to cover the gushing wound he was cut again—more precisely stabbed. The tendon in his elbow that allowed him to work his hand was severed.

“Before you die, pig. Tell us who else is here with you…”

Palmer’s eyes were already swimming in his skull. One of the other still-masked gangsters leaned over and whispered something into Knives’ ear. As he turned back to the group his gloves were soaked through and dripping with blood. The pool around palmer widened as Knives pointed a red finger at her.

“You! How did you hear about the Supplicant program? One of my associates thinks that nobody sponsored you!”

 

[Gamina]

" So we know very little about the organisation, except off course that they are big players on the global market" Elisabeth said, taking a drag of her cigarette. Camila was quite surprised at this admission as her superiors in Langley had spoken highly of the old CIA recruit turned FBI's highest ranking undercover handler. The woman had already over two decades of work as a shadowy information broker, using her position to insert countless of agents into criminal organisations.

"That is why I requested someone of your skillset. You need not only to blend in, but also able to creatively deal with what is in front of you."

The Fed pulled out another manila envelope and handed it to the young agent. The girl smirked as she opened the file. "Ah so the real reason you tagged in the agency." Pulling out the file it was the FBI file of an special agent Palmer. Pretty standard stuff although there seemed to be some irregular behavior around his cases.

"We think someone has a mole in the FBI, and we think that mole is agent Palmer. So while on this assignment it would be good for you to build a report with him. I have no doubt, that if he is the mole he will try and recruit you."

Camila nodded, after all the CIA was so used to double agents that it was hard at times to remember on whose side you were supposed to be. The Broker then gave her a picture of a athletic looking asian man. "This is my contact, codename Knives. He is ruthless but what I saw from him is that he takes good care of his people. If shit threatens to go sideways, make sure you stay close to him. Also since I sponsored you, don't get caught and burn down my whole operation" She said then looking at the clock she waved her off as indeed it was time to leave for the rendezvous spot.

***

Looking around at the ragtag bunch of people gathered under the underpass, C was a bit surprised, next to having quite an eclectic assortment of people, it was also clear to her that while some showed signs of skills, others looked like your garden variety tugs. As agent Palmer arrived she made it a point to ignore him as she had the other men. No need to tip her hand to whomever was surely watching over this little gathering. Then just like clockwork the sound of engines reached them and they were treated to the standard intimidation tactics.

While the bbeg type leader made his speech on of his minion patted her down, taking a suspect amount of time checking her breast and ass for weapons, forgetting to pat several obvious hiding places for weapons. Not that she had any on her that is. Then she was unceremoniously bagged and thrown into a van, she remained silent, but as the dude who was in there with her started to freak out. "Dude chill the fuck out" she hissed but as she didn't seem to get through to him she visualised him from the sound he was making and delivered a kick to the face. While it connected, the man wasn't fully out so she followed up with a second kick. Thinking let them see how I handle things.

Arriving at what seems to be a garage, it was pretty obvious to C that nobody would just walk out of here, if they got cold feet. Then she caught the look of pure panic in agent Palmer and saw the scene unfold. She didn't know how she would get away from this situation but the cogs in her head were already spinning, when Knives addressed her.

Taking a calming breath she just shrugged. "Why should I snitch on my sponsor because your associate is being an idiot." She said thinking that she now would find out of Palmer was dirty or not depending on how he handled this loss. " you know who sponsored me. Is that not sufficient for your associate?" She fired off sounding far more confident in this taunt than she actually was.

 

[UnHolyPimpHand]

”Snitch,” she said, ”Idiot!” she went on—at that word someone among the supplicants gasped. The nerve of her… already suspected of involvement with police, now she was flinging insults at Blooded Faceless members of the gang. The tension was oppressive and the masked man who had whispered took an aggressive step toward the mouthy young woman—only to be halted by Knives holding up a bloody finger, halting what seemed destined to be an attack.

“Oh, so you’re that candidate, huh? I wouldn’t think someone with such a pretty face would want to join us faceless,” an oil-slick enameled karambit folding knife seemed to appear from nowhere in Knives’ hand with a click, the tip just gently touching Camila’s chin, steering her face from side to side for his appraisal, “you sure you’re ready to become no one?”

While Camila answered, Knives slowly traced the tip of the blade sown the angular line of her throat, coming down to the collar of her cropped hoodie. When she’d finished giving her answer there came a loud, interruptive ripping sound as the edge of the angular blade split her top completely in half—exposing her bra-clad breasts and chiseled torso. One of the mask-wearing “Faceless” whistled when her shirt fell open.

“Good. I was worried you might be wearing a wire…” Knives smirked, getting closer to Camila and plainly staring down at her breasts. He deftly flips the knife over in his grip, handing it handle first to Camila, “if you’re here to blood in, then do it. Take this knife and go finish that pig over there. Once you do that, I’ll accept you as a Supplicant.”

“That’s not how we do things.” The whispering guy cautioned.

“I tell you how it’s fucking done, don’t forget who’s the Sandman here!”

Whispers just bowed his head in obeisance and Knives thrust the handle at her again.

“Go on, if he bleeds out you can’t kill him.”

“What about the other two?” Whispers asked, nodding toward the other two women who were applying to the supplicant program.

“Hm..” Knives seemed deep in thought for a moment before tossing a butterfly knife onto the ground between them, “I only need one other. I’ll take the survivor.”

The two women suddenly lunged at one another, clawing at eyes and pulling hair. Within moments they were on the ground, grappling for control of the swing-fold blade. They were still screaming and fighting while Knives watched Camila, waiting to see if she had the sand to kill off this exposed, undercover agent.

 

[Gamina]

Camila supressed the urge to swallow as one of the other faceless took umbrage at her boldness. It was always a gamble but a long time ago she had learned that wether in polite company or with affiliating with the scum of the earth, being assertive got you closer to the goal than being meek. As her target stopped his buddy, she relaxed a little, even if she didn't like the glint in his eyes.

As he talked to her it was clear that Elisabeth, hadn't told him much about her if he didn't know who she was by her looks alone. It also betrayed that this gang might be less prepared for anything than advertised. As the karambit flashed into the mans hand, Camila didn't even have a chance to flinch before the the blade was on her chin. Trying to relax as much as she could she let the man guide her head during his inspection.

"Well as our mutual friend already told you, I am nobody already"

A shiver went down her spine as the man moved his blade to her throat, and then started to cut down her hoodie, exposing her more than she had intended to the group of people. As the man said something about making sure she was not wearing a wire she was about to smart mouth him about better places to hide those, but the way he handled himself she swallowed that thought back in. Not daring to push her luck too far.

Her stomach knotted when he told her to finish off Palmer, luckily for her, the whispering guy stepped up and challenged knives. Covering up for the split second hesitation Camila had felt. But as the man made clear he was in charge she got her act together and walked up to Palmer. Then Looking at the blade in her hand, and realizing the angle of the blade was quite different of the normal knive she is used to, she changed her approach and kneeled behind the agent and unceremoniously slipped his throat from ear to ear.

The cut was professional and fast, yet Camila felt sick inside. This was off course not the first time she had to take a life, but it was the first time she had to take a life in cold blood like this. But then she noted to herself, this isn't in cold blood, he was dead already, i just saved my own life by helping him cross the distance faster. Then standing up and whiping the karambit clean with what was left of her hoody she handed the weapon back to the man, while keeping one eye on the desprate fight taking place in front of her

 

[UnHolyPimpHand]

When Camila handed the blade back to him, Knives just closed her fingers around the handle, gently pushing the weapon back toward her. As he did this, a hoarse scream came from the women rolling around on the ground as one managed to grab the knife but the other had mounted her and was gouging at her eyes with her thumbs, fighting for their lives.

“You’re going to need it again. Hang on to it,” Knives said softly, stepping past her to join the crowd of shouting men who’d gathered around to watch the last moments of the fight, the screams of the women growing more urgent and agonizing.

The woman on the bottom had managed to get an arm free and was stabbing blindly, piercing the arms, chest and legs with the five-inch-blade again and again—but the pain only made her more desperate, baring down with her thumbs, there was blood streaming from the other woman’s eye sockets, her thumbs sank deeper and deeper.

Then abruptly, like she’d found a pair of off buttons in her skull, the screaming and stabbing from below ceased all at once and the woman on the bottom became a corpse.

“Help her,” Knives gestured and one of the masked men rushed forward, quickly cutting away the survivor’s bloody sweater and rushing to stop the bleeding from numerous knife wounds, “that’s unusual… usually the one who gets the knife survives. I like a comeback story, your new name is Rudy.”

Knives slid his own mask back down over his face and looked back at Camila.

“You still haven’t earned a name yet, so you remain no one. Drag these bodies over to those blue, plastic drums. Open whichever feels emptiest and drop these in there. When you’re done, I’ll give you a ride.”

The rest of the Supplicants and Blooded Invisibles packed up quickly, back into their SUVs and bikes. With two less joining them at their next location, it left room for Knives and Camila to ride alone together.

“You know this ain’t right. She’s supposed to fight for this too,” the stern-voiced masked man who objected to Camila’s truncated initiation from the beginning remarked before getting into his own SUV, “it ain’t right, Knives.”

“Think of her as my pet then, if it sets your mind at ease, Bones. She’s supposed to be blooded in and she is. She killed for us. That earns her a mask. You got a problem with that? Challenge me some time.”

The other man, apparently ‘Bones’ closed his door and rolled down his window as ‘Rudy’ continued to have her wounds treated in the back seat.

“Still ain’t right,” Bones remarked through the window before leaving a small patch of rubber behind as he sped out of the garage which could have been anywhere.

When Knives felt certain they were alone together, he whipped his mask off of his face.

“Are you trying to get us both killed? You really couldn’t think of a better excuse than you know who? I was trying to give you a chance to distance yourself from me—not link yourself to me!”

 

[Gamina]

Camila nodded as Knives pushed the knives back into her hands, telling her that she is going to need it again. A thought that she was not comfortable with. As their attention was drawn back to the fight, she also made her way to it and witnessed this brutal fight for survival. Suprissed at the lack of skill involved.

As Knives told her she had yet to earn her name, Camila's pride got stung a little. Outraged that killing someone apparently was not enough of proof to begin with. As he instructed her to clean up the bodies she just nodded and grabbed the dead woman under her arms and started to drag her to the drums. Kicking the drums to see which one felt as empty as possible, not wanting to see what were in the full ones, she undid the lid and heaved the woman in it.

After that she moved to Palmers body and did the same, even if this time it went a lot slower as she struggled to move the man as he was easily twice her own weight. For a second she considered asking for help, but then thought better of it.

When they were alone Camila was surpised at the man's words. "What do you mean a chance to distance myself? Our mutual friend said this gang would be a good fit for me, that she would sponsor me to someone she knew high up. So why would I lie when asked? " She said flustered as she couldn't fanthom what kind of organisation would be like this on a legit introduction.

 

[UnHolyPimpHand]

Knives sighed and shook his head briefly, before canting his mask off to the side, perching the nose just above his temple. He leaned over and grabbed the ankles of the expired agent and helped her carry him over to the barrel where the least qualified female applicant was already beginning to dissolve—the smell was unlike anything else.

“That bitch didn’t tell you any of this? There’s a mole in your agency, they knew who Palmer was—which means they’re only one or two conversations away from finding out about me! You’re so new, you had the advantage that nobody even knew to look for you, but now Bones is suspicious—which means your cover story is going to need to evolve.”

Knives gave a faint grunt as he hefted Palmer’s body in on top of the recently deceased woman, pushing her deeper into the puddle of genetic filth and residual acid. He opened a combination lock to a locked steel cabinet where he meticulously pulled on thick, plastic gloves. He grabbed what looked almost like a plastic milk carton labeled with the letters “HCl”.

He poured the clear liquid into Palmer’s lap, splashing some up on his chest, letting the acid make the process of fitting him into the barrel slightly less daunting.

“From now on, you’re going to need to act as my bitch—that includes servicing me sexually, publicly and often. They need to believe that you’ve got me completely and irrevocably cunt-struck enough to justify risking my position in the gang to vouch for you, which is going to be necessary now,” he said this all calmly as he put the jug and the gloves back into the locker and spun the dial.

Knives tapped a pair of Lucky Strikes out of a paper pack in the breast pocket of his jumpsuit. He lit both in his mouth at once with a quick flick of a Zippo lighter, iridescent like the knife he’d given her. He slipped the other cigarette between her lips, his bloody finger leaving a small, red blush on her bottom lip.

“Unless you’ve got a better idea,” his eyes moved back down to her split open shirt and back up to her eyes.