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Outside Petrenko's Dacha June 10, 2008, 0255 hours The stream of urine splashed out on the leaves of the bush he was standing in front of. He sighed as his bladder emptied himself, feeling satisfied at removing that particular discomfort. The aches that were starting to build in his muscles was something else entirely, but at the moment he didn't have much of a cure for them apart from exercise, and movement was something he had to keep to an absolute minimum, lest he alert any `hostiles' to his presence. Hostiles, he snorted. He was calling a potential group of demonstrators `hostile'. Well, who ever said there couldn't be a little humour in his occupation? He finished up and then buttoned his trousers. The woods around him were silent; he could hear the sounds of various creatures scuttling around, going about their lives in the darkness, looking for prey in some cases, looking to avoid becoming prey in others, all caught up in the game of Life. It was something that he found fascinating: each creature trying to survive in the world, at each moment knowing that the end could be round the corner in the form of a predator, one whose purpose in life was to consume whatever living thing it could kill� much like me, except without the consuming part, he thought with a grin. Things did get interesting when there were two predators hunting each other; two well equipped creatures looking to sink their razor sharp teeth into the other. And when they were evenly matched? Hmmm, that was a thought. He remembered back to all the documentaries he had watched, looking for the answer to his question. Luck. It usually came down to luck then, one predator getting the breaks and defeating the other. The only other thing he could think of was innovation. He remembered watching two opposing groups of chimps once, in some damned-fool rainforest, fighting each other. The victorious group gained victory courtesy of one particular individual who climbed a tree and, from his position on a branch that overhung the small clearing, began pelting the opposition with fruit. Suffice it to say that the element of surprise he had tipped the battle in his group's favour. Time to go, he told himself. The image of the chimp left his mind and he turned his attention to navigating his way back to Secondary. It wasn't going to be especially hard; he had done it often enough to know the route by instinct. Something felt wrong. He didn't even question the feeling, merely accepted it. He was being watched. Fuck. He hadn't picked anyone up, hadn't had any indication that he was being tailed. He was good. He was fucking good, and yet he was being tracked. There was no way this could be a group of fucking protestors, no way in hell. They, he had to assume there were more than one of them, had to be trained and skilled in order to be able to do this. Not a chance in hell an amateur could beat him, it just wasn't possible. He wasn't an ego-orientated person, so he didn't think himself as God-like, but he did know that he was better than almost any other person on the planet at what he did, and yet he had been caught. It kept coming back to that. He had gotten careless. He knew that he hadn't taken his fieldcraft skills with him on his toilet breaks and he was going to be punished for that. He just had to figure out a way of making sure that he lived to learn his lesson; if these were trained individuals then he had to assume that they were armed and willing to shoot, and despite his burning desire to fight back he knew that his hands were tied and his only means of escape resided inside the little black control box he had foolishly left at Secondary. He moved his head round, ostensibly picking his way through the trees that lined his path, and he was rewarded with a brief glimpse of a black-clad figure clutching a weapon. Fuck. He continued walking, wondering what each new step would bring, when they would finally make their move and force him into action. It didn't come. A few more steps. Nothing. Snap. The noise made him turn instinctively, his mind asking his body for a status report, fully expecting some part to report the entrance of a bullet. His mind got the all clear at about the same time his eyes reported further movement from a different direction. Hiding. The figure had dived for cover. He had little time to act. Moving as quickly as he could without creating noise he picked his way back to Secondary and settled down, his hand reaching for the control box at the same instant. He felt his hand tock the plastic, the matte finish displaying itself for his fingers. There were two switches: one for the lights and the other for the fireworks. He flipped the first switch. Immediately the clearing became bathed in the harsh beams from the various lights, chasing away the darkness from the area like a hyena defending its territory. He saw brief flashes of black figures before they disappeared from his view behind trees of bushes, cowering from the force of the light. He flicked the second switch and watched as the various fireworks ignited and flew up into the sky, whistling up like rockets to the moon, only for their journey to be stopped short by the dramatic and colourful explosions that showered the night sky with a multi-coloured rain, a blanket of reds and greens and blues. He dropped his gaze from the sky and looked into the areas illuminated by the lights, hoping to see the figures reacting to the fireworks but they were still out of sight. Then the lights began to explode, the darkness finding it's way back into the woods in isolated patches. And then it all went quiet. Return |
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