GWOT 2 - Compliments
May. 30th, 2019 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT 2 - Compliments
You never know until it happens if your people will run in after you.
As it happens, they did. Two of them took up aggressive overwatch with their rifles, shouting "Stand down! Stand down!" as if at the crowd and being careful who they muzzled. The other seven slung their rifles and shotguns, took out their batons, and administered vigorous beatings in my wake.
I was headed right for Mr. Open The Gate like a seeking missile. Well, actually, hittile ... not missile.
I ended up holstering about two seconds before I pile drived into him. Fortunately for all of us, my muscle memory held and so did my high retention holster.
His breath was knocked out of him. So I immediately slugged him in the gut a few times, elbowed him in the face (costing him some teeth) and started searching him briskly.
I had the common sense not to shout "GUN" when I found his handgun. Deep conceal 2" revolver in his groin.
Player. Winner, winner chicken dinner.
That earned him a couple stunning slaps across his face while I reached into his brisket and removed it from his basket.
Then and only then did I flip him over and zip-tie his wrists across each other. Hard enough that his hands started turning purple.
While I was doing this, my team surrounded me doing short jabs with their straight sticks. Making room.
At a gesture, two of them slid their sticks back into their rings and picked him up, perforce to drag him over to the watching cops.
In another context, say the San Francisco Folsom Street Fair, a good if extremely homosexua[ time would have been had by all.
Then I saw the other item that had fallen out of his pocket.
A small and very expensive secure radio. A Motorola to be exact.
That is when I said loudly, but did not shout, "GUN." In the press of the crowd, I tapped one of my guards behind the elbow. He looked around frantically, saw what I meant and dove on it. It disappeared into one of his BDU pockets. A loose end I'd better not forget.
Then we expanded the bubble to get out of the crowd, dragged our prisoner and dumped him at the feet of ...
The Colonel.
He watched with a grin on his face until he recognized me.
"What the fuck are you doing here, sonny?" he growled.
We had last parted ways over a mass casualty incident. His people called it partying.
"Same as you, Homeland scraping the bottom of the barrel."
The shorter half of his female murder pair put her grenades away, pouting. Clearly she'd been looking forward to flinging them into the crowd.
The Dirty Mercs had full battle armor, including state of the art helmets and neck guards. They could engage in close range grenade work with impunity, ducking to take it on the armor while making everyone around them bleed like leaky colanders.
I was not presently wearing a helmet. I had left it in the truck, choosing my own visibility over dubious protection.
The crowd muttered now, and shrunk back from the gates. The cops stepped forward.
Then we all heard the sharp banging of sticks on shields and heavy boots.
Riot squad. And not before time, either.
They formed line across the gate and grounded shields.
My team and I melted into one side of the gate area, and headed back to our vehicles.
The Colonel walked with me, alone.
He's not a coward. He's a monster. One of his men had eaten the severed fingers of the sex worker who had offended him by asking to be paid for her work.
In that context, the Colonel put a hearty arm around my shoulders.
His touch stank. Not as an odor. As cold death and evil, laced with sadism and malice.
Oh, hey, Dad, I almost said out loud.
"I hear you think we owe you something,' he murmured under the crowd noise. "I think we're even."
I wanted the seven of them dead. That wasn't a debt. That was an ambition.
"You fucked up my mission," he said quietly, as his arm tightened.
That's when the point of my punch dagger lightly touched him just above the hole in his side armor, at the arm pit.
A little gift I'd picked up from a dead biker in Utah.
He immediately let go and pushed me back, squaring off. I made the punch dagger disappear.
"Even, we are. Evenly matched, we are not. Stay the fuck away from my campus. You of all people know defense is stronger, Colonel."
"Yes, play with yourselves in your little fortress while we work the hills and hunt insurgents and zhongui. Flashlight cop."
Jesus, Colonel, I've heard better insults from strung out junkies stealing copper wire.
Only when his face locked up did I realize that i'd said it out loud.
If it felt good to say it, I probably shouldn't have.
He thought about doing a quick draw and shooting me dead. His hand touched his pistol grip.
Then he looked at my people.
They saved my life once again.
If they'd looked like they would freeze, or hesitate, or move away slightly, he'd have done it and trusted his earned reputation with Homeland to see things through.
But every single one of them put hand to weapon.
So he turned and walked away.
The rest was anticlimactic. Water, first aid, food, shade tarps. Tactful processing which allowed any parade leader to vouch for his group, including the wild eyed ones with the bayonets who were American Legion.
I don't like people who bomb crowds with IEDs. Even as a tactic. It's outside the laws of war. It's an atrocity.
This time, the bomber had been hunted down and stabbed to death in the street many times.
If I kept not being able to make up my mind what side I was on, I'd probably be killed by one or the other, IED or bayonet.
Six hours later, we were released from the incident. We proceeded on empty streets to Valley Medical Center.
The Employee teams and ambulance had had a quiet afternoon providing security for the wave of mass casualties. At one point a lost out of county ambulance hadn't stopped and they'd almost lit it up, but after some yelling it was established that the driver was a firefighter-idiot not a homicide bomber.
I'd have lost my fucking mind on that evolution. Stanford, redux.
But if that had been the assignment, I would have done it. Apocalypse doesn't let you choose your sanity over other people's lives.
Two hours later, they were released and we all returned to site.
There was nothing in the propaganda. Not just that day. Ever.
You never know until it happens if your people will run in after you.
As it happens, they did. Two of them took up aggressive overwatch with their rifles, shouting "Stand down! Stand down!" as if at the crowd and being careful who they muzzled. The other seven slung their rifles and shotguns, took out their batons, and administered vigorous beatings in my wake.
I was headed right for Mr. Open The Gate like a seeking missile. Well, actually, hittile ... not missile.
I ended up holstering about two seconds before I pile drived into him. Fortunately for all of us, my muscle memory held and so did my high retention holster.
His breath was knocked out of him. So I immediately slugged him in the gut a few times, elbowed him in the face (costing him some teeth) and started searching him briskly.
I had the common sense not to shout "GUN" when I found his handgun. Deep conceal 2" revolver in his groin.
Player. Winner, winner chicken dinner.
That earned him a couple stunning slaps across his face while I reached into his brisket and removed it from his basket.
Then and only then did I flip him over and zip-tie his wrists across each other. Hard enough that his hands started turning purple.
While I was doing this, my team surrounded me doing short jabs with their straight sticks. Making room.
At a gesture, two of them slid their sticks back into their rings and picked him up, perforce to drag him over to the watching cops.
In another context, say the San Francisco Folsom Street Fair, a good if extremely homosexua[ time would have been had by all.
Then I saw the other item that had fallen out of his pocket.
A small and very expensive secure radio. A Motorola to be exact.
That is when I said loudly, but did not shout, "GUN." In the press of the crowd, I tapped one of my guards behind the elbow. He looked around frantically, saw what I meant and dove on it. It disappeared into one of his BDU pockets. A loose end I'd better not forget.
Then we expanded the bubble to get out of the crowd, dragged our prisoner and dumped him at the feet of ...
The Colonel.
He watched with a grin on his face until he recognized me.
"What the fuck are you doing here, sonny?" he growled.
We had last parted ways over a mass casualty incident. His people called it partying.
"Same as you, Homeland scraping the bottom of the barrel."
The shorter half of his female murder pair put her grenades away, pouting. Clearly she'd been looking forward to flinging them into the crowd.
The Dirty Mercs had full battle armor, including state of the art helmets and neck guards. They could engage in close range grenade work with impunity, ducking to take it on the armor while making everyone around them bleed like leaky colanders.
I was not presently wearing a helmet. I had left it in the truck, choosing my own visibility over dubious protection.
The crowd muttered now, and shrunk back from the gates. The cops stepped forward.
Then we all heard the sharp banging of sticks on shields and heavy boots.
Riot squad. And not before time, either.
They formed line across the gate and grounded shields.
My team and I melted into one side of the gate area, and headed back to our vehicles.
The Colonel walked with me, alone.
He's not a coward. He's a monster. One of his men had eaten the severed fingers of the sex worker who had offended him by asking to be paid for her work.
In that context, the Colonel put a hearty arm around my shoulders.
His touch stank. Not as an odor. As cold death and evil, laced with sadism and malice.
Oh, hey, Dad, I almost said out loud.
"I hear you think we owe you something,' he murmured under the crowd noise. "I think we're even."
I wanted the seven of them dead. That wasn't a debt. That was an ambition.
"You fucked up my mission," he said quietly, as his arm tightened.
That's when the point of my punch dagger lightly touched him just above the hole in his side armor, at the arm pit.
A little gift I'd picked up from a dead biker in Utah.
He immediately let go and pushed me back, squaring off. I made the punch dagger disappear.
"Even, we are. Evenly matched, we are not. Stay the fuck away from my campus. You of all people know defense is stronger, Colonel."
"Yes, play with yourselves in your little fortress while we work the hills and hunt insurgents and zhongui. Flashlight cop."
Jesus, Colonel, I've heard better insults from strung out junkies stealing copper wire.
Only when his face locked up did I realize that i'd said it out loud.
If it felt good to say it, I probably shouldn't have.
He thought about doing a quick draw and shooting me dead. His hand touched his pistol grip.
Then he looked at my people.
They saved my life once again.
If they'd looked like they would freeze, or hesitate, or move away slightly, he'd have done it and trusted his earned reputation with Homeland to see things through.
But every single one of them put hand to weapon.
So he turned and walked away.
The rest was anticlimactic. Water, first aid, food, shade tarps. Tactful processing which allowed any parade leader to vouch for his group, including the wild eyed ones with the bayonets who were American Legion.
I don't like people who bomb crowds with IEDs. Even as a tactic. It's outside the laws of war. It's an atrocity.
This time, the bomber had been hunted down and stabbed to death in the street many times.
If I kept not being able to make up my mind what side I was on, I'd probably be killed by one or the other, IED or bayonet.
Six hours later, we were released from the incident. We proceeded on empty streets to Valley Medical Center.
The Employee teams and ambulance had had a quiet afternoon providing security for the wave of mass casualties. At one point a lost out of county ambulance hadn't stopped and they'd almost lit it up, but after some yelling it was established that the driver was a firefighter-idiot not a homicide bomber.
I'd have lost my fucking mind on that evolution. Stanford, redux.
But if that had been the assignment, I would have done it. Apocalypse doesn't let you choose your sanity over other people's lives.
Two hours later, they were released and we all returned to site.
There was nothing in the propaganda. Not just that day. Ever.
