(no subject)
And here we have present-time story, of a Scottish former agent-turned-solider and his re-recruitment. And so forth!
Midnight, and Ramsey (who once was a boy who once was a diplomat who once had another name and another face entirely) is flat on his stomach in a thicket of brambles with what feels distinctly like the bristles of a thistle jabbing into his ankle. The sky is cold and partially clear above him, the moon a sullenly gleaming half-crescent, the stars the pin-pricks that make poets swoon for joy as they scramble for pens to detail the moment with adjective and adverb.
Once, long ago, he thinks he might have been fond of poetry.
But that was long ago and this is a now where he cannot afford to catalogue the appearance of the stars with ink and paper-
His mind is wandering away from him now, and so he twists about, prickling himself in a host of new places as he peers down the scope of his sniper’s rifle, trained on the head of a wandering German sentry.
The man is just as uncomfortable as he is, clearly observable in the way he walks with shoulders hunched up, hands balled into the pockets of his coat, pursing his lips into an idle whistle. They have been partners in this dance for hours now-he, the sniper, wary and watchful, his target, the private, bored and sleepy as he paces back and forth, rifle resting against his shoulder.
A sudden backfiring of an engine in the camp below-he thumbs the trigger-and the boy crumples soundlessly into the tall grass.
Ramsey pulls out a tiny penlight, flashes a short coded message to his squad, then he’s packing up his rifle and scrambling away and-
there's a woman standing there as if she grew up from the ground itself, leaning on a cane and holding something small and boxy outlined against the shadows cast by her body.
His pistol jumps from its holster before the surprise of her appearance truly registers.
"I wouldn't do that, were I you. Alistair Finley, I presume?"
Her voice is tinged with the slightest traces of a German burr and an amusement belying the fact that he's stepped close enough to press the muzzle of the gun against her forehead.
"Wrong," he bites out, a finger pulling the hammer back with a chink of sound that echoes (too loudly, too loudly) and now instead of shooting this woman (who knows the name of the boy who was once a diplomat) he's tackled her, throwing them both into the scant cover of brush and fallen branches.
Searchlights swoop down from the hill crest and then drift upwards to bisect the sky and they can hear the rumble of motorcycles being gunned into motion, distance-blurred shouts and outcries, and then as suddenly as that noise begins, it's ended in another: the choppy roar of his squad's machine guns that then too fade away, leaving the hush of early morning and frost on the thicket.
"I do have a boyfriend, you know," the woman points out calmly, and then her head smashes up, sending him rolling away from her as blood spurts from his nose. He scrambles for the dropped pistol, twists with an arch of his back that'll mean aching for a week at the very least- and with that same almost maddening calm as before, she's sitting there with a gun of her own trained at him, her hands steady and sure on the barrel.
"Détente, Finley."
"Not my name," Ramsey growls, fingers twitching at the trigger again. "Drop the pistol, or you're not just a crazy bint, you're a dead crazy bint."
But it is his name, the name of a boy he left behind in a cafeteria with a girl named Theresa and a bit of electronics that sang hallelujahs in his hand, the name of a boy who once was a diplomat who had a mother who recited poetry as she hacked away at the rocky soil in her flower garden and a father who always seemed to have bull's eyes in his pockets and sisters with feet that flew with the speed of swallows against the hills and a brother with the solemn gravity of the elderly in his small round face.
The name of a boy who stumbled through the blackened, burnt out ruins of his home calling their names with only the ghosts to answer.
"It isn't? Funny, Finley-may I call you Finley?-but if an agent really wants to vanish from all the dimensions, he really shouldn't take his fucking handheld with him when he goes."
A hand moves, almost without thought, towards his coat pocket that holds the tiny computer he's carried with him for so long.
"That's right," and now her speech has almost a taunting lilt to it. "Operative Alistair Douglas Finley, late of T.H.E.Y. Tracked down by the same chip in that little gadget of ours that lets us push through the dimension walls. Nice irony there, by-"
"So you wankers finally found me," he interrupts and a part of his mind that remembers what it was like to be Alistair Douglas Finley wonders for a bitter moment why they didn't try before, why all that the last eight years brought was the hiss of static and silence. "Top marks for effort."
"Finley, we need your help."
"The hell you do," he says flatly. "Go find yourself another war to wander into."
"Fuck you." The words are accompanied by a defiant finger flicking up and then with a great rush of words she tells him of a near crippled Hub and agents captured and tortured; pirates who stole from the worlds, destroying and corrupting all they touched as they moved through the dimensions; and of the few surviving agents fighting a war of steady attrition.
Silence, then, for long, almost timeless moments that stretch between them, until finally she flips her pistol towards him and reaches her hands up, letting them bracket either side of her face.
This war is almost over. He won't stay here when it is; there are too many ghosts woven and buried into the land. This island belonged to a boy named Finley, and the man named Ramsey fought for that boy, taking back the towns and the cities that boy once knew as a sort of peace offering and a consolation.
It's time to put that ghost of a boy and all the rest of these spirits to rest. Time for new battles and a new war. Time to put down his guns and try using subtler weapons again.
"Ramsey," he growls, returning his own gun to its holster and shoving hers back towards her feet.
"Is that all you can say, you bastard-"
"It's my tupping name, girl. Not Finley. Not Alistair. Ramsey. That’s all."
"Jung," she returns quietly. She climbs to her feet, stiffly leaning on the cane as she does and brings up her handheld. "Let's go."
And once again, the world dissolves into darkness around them.
Midnight, and Ramsey (who once was a boy who once was a diplomat who once had another name and another face entirely) is flat on his stomach in a thicket of brambles with what feels distinctly like the bristles of a thistle jabbing into his ankle. The sky is cold and partially clear above him, the moon a sullenly gleaming half-crescent, the stars the pin-pricks that make poets swoon for joy as they scramble for pens to detail the moment with adjective and adverb.
Once, long ago, he thinks he might have been fond of poetry.
But that was long ago and this is a now where he cannot afford to catalogue the appearance of the stars with ink and paper-
His mind is wandering away from him now, and so he twists about, prickling himself in a host of new places as he peers down the scope of his sniper’s rifle, trained on the head of a wandering German sentry.
The man is just as uncomfortable as he is, clearly observable in the way he walks with shoulders hunched up, hands balled into the pockets of his coat, pursing his lips into an idle whistle. They have been partners in this dance for hours now-he, the sniper, wary and watchful, his target, the private, bored and sleepy as he paces back and forth, rifle resting against his shoulder.
A sudden backfiring of an engine in the camp below-he thumbs the trigger-and the boy crumples soundlessly into the tall grass.
Ramsey pulls out a tiny penlight, flashes a short coded message to his squad, then he’s packing up his rifle and scrambling away and-
there's a woman standing there as if she grew up from the ground itself, leaning on a cane and holding something small and boxy outlined against the shadows cast by her body.
His pistol jumps from its holster before the surprise of her appearance truly registers.
"I wouldn't do that, were I you. Alistair Finley, I presume?"
Her voice is tinged with the slightest traces of a German burr and an amusement belying the fact that he's stepped close enough to press the muzzle of the gun against her forehead.
"Wrong," he bites out, a finger pulling the hammer back with a chink of sound that echoes (too loudly, too loudly) and now instead of shooting this woman (who knows the name of the boy who was once a diplomat) he's tackled her, throwing them both into the scant cover of brush and fallen branches.
Searchlights swoop down from the hill crest and then drift upwards to bisect the sky and they can hear the rumble of motorcycles being gunned into motion, distance-blurred shouts and outcries, and then as suddenly as that noise begins, it's ended in another: the choppy roar of his squad's machine guns that then too fade away, leaving the hush of early morning and frost on the thicket.
"I do have a boyfriend, you know," the woman points out calmly, and then her head smashes up, sending him rolling away from her as blood spurts from his nose. He scrambles for the dropped pistol, twists with an arch of his back that'll mean aching for a week at the very least- and with that same almost maddening calm as before, she's sitting there with a gun of her own trained at him, her hands steady and sure on the barrel.
"Détente, Finley."
"Not my name," Ramsey growls, fingers twitching at the trigger again. "Drop the pistol, or you're not just a crazy bint, you're a dead crazy bint."
But it is his name, the name of a boy he left behind in a cafeteria with a girl named Theresa and a bit of electronics that sang hallelujahs in his hand, the name of a boy who once was a diplomat who had a mother who recited poetry as she hacked away at the rocky soil in her flower garden and a father who always seemed to have bull's eyes in his pockets and sisters with feet that flew with the speed of swallows against the hills and a brother with the solemn gravity of the elderly in his small round face.
The name of a boy who stumbled through the blackened, burnt out ruins of his home calling their names with only the ghosts to answer.
"It isn't? Funny, Finley-may I call you Finley?-but if an agent really wants to vanish from all the dimensions, he really shouldn't take his fucking handheld with him when he goes."
A hand moves, almost without thought, towards his coat pocket that holds the tiny computer he's carried with him for so long.
"That's right," and now her speech has almost a taunting lilt to it. "Operative Alistair Douglas Finley, late of T.H.E.Y. Tracked down by the same chip in that little gadget of ours that lets us push through the dimension walls. Nice irony there, by-"
"So you wankers finally found me," he interrupts and a part of his mind that remembers what it was like to be Alistair Douglas Finley wonders for a bitter moment why they didn't try before, why all that the last eight years brought was the hiss of static and silence. "Top marks for effort."
"Finley, we need your help."
"The hell you do," he says flatly. "Go find yourself another war to wander into."
"Fuck you." The words are accompanied by a defiant finger flicking up and then with a great rush of words she tells him of a near crippled Hub and agents captured and tortured; pirates who stole from the worlds, destroying and corrupting all they touched as they moved through the dimensions; and of the few surviving agents fighting a war of steady attrition.
Silence, then, for long, almost timeless moments that stretch between them, until finally she flips her pistol towards him and reaches her hands up, letting them bracket either side of her face.
This war is almost over. He won't stay here when it is; there are too many ghosts woven and buried into the land. This island belonged to a boy named Finley, and the man named Ramsey fought for that boy, taking back the towns and the cities that boy once knew as a sort of peace offering and a consolation.
It's time to put that ghost of a boy and all the rest of these spirits to rest. Time for new battles and a new war. Time to put down his guns and try using subtler weapons again.
"Ramsey," he growls, returning his own gun to its holster and shoving hers back towards her feet.
"Is that all you can say, you bastard-"
"It's my tupping name, girl. Not Finley. Not Alistair. Ramsey. That’s all."
"Jung," she returns quietly. She climbs to her feet, stiffly leaning on the cane as she does and brings up her handheld. "Let's go."
And once again, the world dissolves into darkness around them.