The RED Spy flicked his bloodied knife shut expertly and strolled over suavely to the BLU intelligence briefcase.
Really, it had all been so simple; that little twerp was so easy to mimic, his urgent and cocky manner. And he had the fortune to have that BLU Spy taken out, the one who was actually starting to piece together the puzzles. Those simpletons! That lunkhead Soldier really was unskilled.
As he hauled the intel briefcase over his shoulder, he brushed off dust, lint, and blood off his suit. He had to look the very best. After all, his beau was looking back at him.
Sifting his hands through the compromising photos of his beau – oh yes, the Scout’s mother – he picked one out delicately. It was the one with him and her, going together for a romantic evening on his moped. He smiled wistfully.
“Ahh…ma petite chou-fleur.”
He took the photo and put it delicately in a little frame in his disguise kit; a reminder of the woman he loved.
As he strolled down the now empty hallway, he turned a corner.
Mmpph mmphh mmpphhh
As the Spy walked past the struggling figure, it only struggled and mumbled even harder. It shook violently, apparently not at ease.
Though he was bound up and gagged, the Spy took out his Ambassador – a gun he had procured from one of Europe’s finest smiths and engravers – and pointed it at the figure as if to prevent it from making a sound or escaping. Maybe he wanted to show the beautiful engraving of the figure’s mother on the side of the barrel. Either way, though, he had no intentions to kill him.
The BLU Scout struggled furiously on the ground as he looked at the disappearing Spy with pure hatred. That son of a bitch!
He stretched his grazed wrists in an effort to somehow break the bonds. No luck. And he couldn’t call for help – everybody on his team was basically dead.
He shut his eyes and tried to gather his scattered thoughts together – it had all started with an assignment from the Announcer. Apparently, there was a lead to RED’s new weapon. He was to go check it out.
First of all, he noticed that the subtle blue dot that always accompanied him wasn’t there. By the time he came back, he saw the Sniper’s corpse, the latest victim of the RED Spy.
Exploring the base further, he found the Engineer’s beloved creation, in smithereens. There was the Engineer, shot right between his freakin’ eyes. And the Demoman, shot while he was in the crapper.
The Spy had gotten deep when he reached the hallway to the intel room. The Medic was dispatched, though he was missing his glasses.
Then he had finally encountered the Spy, ready not to take the intel, but to ambush him, the last remaining one. He couldn’t believe how deftly the Spy fought. All those years fighting on the rough streets of South Boston meant absolutely nothing, as the Spy bound and gagged him, as well as slipping him a tranquilizer to keep him immobilized for a while in a discreet hiding spot.
Finally, he had witnessed with horror as the Spy took his form and tricked the Heavy and Soldier. He didn’t see what happened in the intel room, but he heard the struggles. And the stabbing noises proved that the RED Spy was successful even before he came out.
What to do? It was wearing off, but he couldn’t get help. Everybody was dead. What he would do now, he reasoned, was enter the intel room and see the carnage for himself.
As he inched his way to the door, he saw, through the crack, the Soldier and Heavy’s stunned, lifeless, blanched faces. Even more grisly was the BLU Spy’s decapitated head. Friendly fire? The Spy doesn’t tote a shotgun.
The intel was gone, but what was this? Photos? A parting gift? The Scout peered over the counter.
Hours later, when the Medic finally respawned, he arrived at the crime scene to find three corpses – one without a head – and a body that looked a lot like the corpses. It was too much for the poor Scout.
* * *
The Scout sat in his room, thumping the Sandman in his hands. In shock. Without a thought. A daydream.
He had kept the photos, but what for? To constantly remind himself of the horror? No, he needed it somehow. It was essential in a way he didn’t know how.
He had escaped the fury of the Announcer today, but that didn’t matter. Everything was coming together like a jigsaw puzzle. He now knew why his Mom skipped out on his baseball games back at Boston. He now knew why Dad was never heard from again.
Dropping the bat, he put his head in his hands, shaking it in despair. The Announcer had just given him another assignment – the RED Spy had to be dealt with, yet sending the whole team in was not an option. He was to go track him down; after all, he was the lone survivor of the massacre.
The Scout took off his hat and scratched it, ill at ease. He was going to have to face his worst nightmare, once again. But he was going to have to pay a visit to somebody before he went spy-hunting.
* * *
The Sniper drove the camper van into the parking lot, where he parked it so that the window was facing the apartments.
I like the feel of this thought the Sniper as he gripped the leather wheel of the rented camper van. When the Scout asked the Sniper to accompany him, he immediately listed his contacts in South Boston. Lucky him – he rented a good camper van, and with discounts too.
The Scout hopped off the van, hiding the weapons in his backpack. He almost forgot that he could no longer carry weapons out in the public. As he made his way up to the apartment, he tried to act casually. It wasn’t easy – the receptionist looked at the Scout funnily when he failed to greet her; he used to do that all the time when he still lived there.
The smell of the musty hallway hit him as he took in the nostalgia. Second room from the left he had told the Sniper. He didn’t bring him for nothing, as he entered the room. The door was unlocked.
He almost shed a tear. He was home after years, home after all that had happened ever since he was taken away. There was his Little League trophies, his multiple awards and a picture of his brothers’ mug shots. He smelled his ratty old glove, taking in the odor of the ballpark as well. He even saw his mother’s purse.
“Honey?”
A familiar voice. He turned around to see his mother, dressed in a blue dress as usual. Her hair was in a pony tail, and though she had eight kids to feed and care for on her own, she still kept her form. Good o’ Ma. Her shining, motherly eyes nearly made the Scout break down into tears.
Nearly. Instead, the Scout took out his bat and advanced on her. He scowled and snarled, “Where’s my Mom?”
For a moment, Mrs. Scout looked confused. It only lasted a few seconds. Then she smiled. “What gave it away?”
“She never puts her hair in a ponytail. It’s always pinned-up.”
The RED Spy sighed, dropping his disguise as he flicked out his knife. His back was to the window. “I’d knew you would come back and try to discover for yourself. So predictable. For an answer, it’s yes; your mother is my little darling.”
The Scout felt a pang of grief and shock seize hold of his guts. He advanced on the Spy.
The Spy sighed. “I don’t want to give you trouble, but it looks like it’ll have to wait until your mother is here to give you the harsh truth.”
“Where is she!?”
For once, a look of anger crossed the Spy’s face. “Where is she?” he mocked the Scout in a whinny voice. “She’s with me! Why must you give me so much trouble?”
He circled the room, lighting a cigarette as he paced. The Scout kept his eyes on the professional.
The Scout’s face contorted to reveal his utter disgust. “You don’t love her; she’s just another woman that you’ll toss away! Like all the other ones you encounter in your…little…missions!”
The smell of cigarettes filled the room. The Spy blew a smoke ring before responding. “Before I went to South Boston, all the women I’ve met were shallow, mere playthings that cared nothing more than money and mystery. And they wanted me. I didn’t want them; I only used them for my own purposes, no more.”
He continued. “That’s when I met your mother. She was not rich, not famous, and merely middle-class. But all she cared about was her sons, you! You! And where were you? Playing soldier boy in a petty conflict!”
The Scout breathed heavily. He never answered Mom’s postcards to him.
“She needed me, she needed someone who could care for her when you and your petty brothers weren’t there. And for once, I found someone who craved not the physical pleasures of the world, but for something much more.” He pointed at the Scout. “You.”
The Spy looked at the Scout, but this time without the steely, cold eyes. “I could’ve killed you, but I didn’t because you were her son. I still wonder why I spared you; you don’t really care for her anyways.”
The Scout’s throat burned. He was right.
And for once, the Spy looked back with passionate eyes. And he said the following with such conviction, that if you didn’t know him, you had to have believed him.
“Will you end this petty struggle with me? I have contacts; you can be my son, and we can finally start new normal lives, not ones dedicated to meaningless killings and slaughtering.”
Unfortunately, the Scout knew him all right. And at that moment, all he felt was a burning desire to kill that man. All thoughts of Mom and her suffering left him; he remained cynical yet.
“No. No freakin’ way! You’re lying. You never tell the truth! That’s impossible!” cried the Scout as he took out his scattergun. And from the looks on the Scout’s face, the Spy could see someone who could not be changed – someone who was brainwashed by his past life as a mercenary.
The Spy, with a disappointed, weary sigh, shook his head. “I hope enough sense comes to you soon enough, boy.” And with his back to the window, he disappeared.
A shot cracked out, shattering the window and knocking over the purse by the windowsill. The Scout ducked, realizing that the shot, inadvertently, was a distraction that helped the Spy escape.
“Get back, you -”
And with that, the Scout rushed into the hallway, full of malice. Ready to kill. Ready to get rid of the man whose latest victim would be his mother. He felt a cry rising to his throat, ready to ram his bat down the Spy’s throat. He now had a single target. He had a vendetta. That cursed RED Spy.
He had broken some bones in the fall from the window, but no matter. As he sped away in the moped, the RED Spy thought to himself bitterly. That boy could not be changed. And yet…he couldn’t kill him. Not the son of the woman he loved. His thoughts preoccupied him, as he sped off into the distance, into a future where he would never be able to start a new life.
The Sniper looked up from his scope, confused. What was the commotion? Had he hit him? He saw the Spy by the window and shot him. Was he dead?
He saw a shadowy figure pick up the purse that he had shot down from the windowsill. It looked familiar…who was it? The mysterious figure picked up the purse, examined it curiously, and disappeared from the window.
However, he was too preoccupied to think any further about the stranger. He was thinking all about the past few days. He had been sent, on a similar mission, to take out that RED Spy.
The Sniper sifted through the extra photos he had taken on that mission. The RED Spy and the BLU Scout’s mother. He had been gunning for the RED Spy before the massacre, trying to prevent the horrible truth from being leaked out to the Scout. But it was too late.
As he sat back, he was contemplating. He had always thought of the conflict as being between men, nothing more. But what happens when those men’s loved ones were dragged into the fray? What was that?
The Sniper smoked a cigarette. And he only did that when he was extremely stressed out. In which he was.
I guess that’s war thought the Sniper grimly, as he burned the photos and watched the extra evidence turn to ashes.
