And now for something else to get me over the Finals Blues
Title: Stacking the Odds
Author: americanjedi
Fandom: Due South AU
Beta: The Amazing primroseburrows who transcended both timezones and my inability to send attachments in the proper format to help me chop down my enormous sentences, except apparently this one of course. ;P Also keerawa for helping me get started.
Rating: PG for mildish angst, violence and threatening witnesses
Summary: The way Ray thinks about it, its not really treason to rat out all the things the United Systems had him do during the War, which is why he's looking forward to the trial. If only the Mounties would get there. (It's due South... IN SPACE!)
Based off of the super awesome, super amazing, super great Cutting Losses by Penfet. Which you should probably read first.
Ray sighed, digging the heels of his boots into the grass, flicking off a wandering ladybug; the Mounties were certainly taking their time. He couldn’t make it too obvious, couldn’t just run back to his old apartment, that would be too easy. All of his real stuff had been stripped out anyway, sent to Levon along with the flash drives that had made up his notes. All the drives would be destroyed, crushed and burned and ground up and let go on the wind, like his ashes. It would be good for Levon, Ray was certain at least portions of his trial would get flashed over the news-pod.
Closure. They called it closure.
Ray was ready for the trial; he had been prepared for it, taught what to say and how to say it to protect the people he was working for, or more accurately the people he was working with.
Two years ago a guy comes up to him in a bar, and at first he thinks it’s some sort of weird trap. Are our assassins really loyal? Which kind of hurt since he had just shot three special ops Mounties in the face until they died not four hours previous and he had the marks on him to prove it. All he wanted to do is drink until it makes sense for his government
(a wedding ring, one of them was wearing a wedding ring)
to need for him to kill three men in one sitting, bang, bang, bang; which is going to take a while. He’s already half way into his second whiskey and he can still see the surprised look on the second one’s face and the way he turns to get behind cover. Like the Mountie had more than just the stupid plans, to some place where even more people would get shot, to live for, something important. The guy at the bar is insistent though, says stuff about trying to make things work and Ray thinks, yeah, it’s like I’m married to the United Systems or something or like she’s my sweetheart. A real lovely woman, like in old paintings the kind with angels and windmills and stuff and you have those talks, I want to settle down, I want to have kids, I want to have a life and she just shakes her head all stern like you’re an infant and you’re always scrambling around just trying to prove yourself over and over again. But what the guy’s suggesting, its treason, it’s like … adultery.
And Ray is a lot of things that he has a sinking suspicion don’t make him any sort of human being, decent or not at all, but his not an adulterer.
And the guy says, “Sure, sure, okay, I’ll leave you to it then,” like Ray could even still walk because at this time he’s hit number four and he’s starting to slow down. He could have stood up and told someone, he could have arrested the guy himself but he doesn’t, he just watches the guy get up and leave him. Later, the morning he’s furious - shaking - that anyone would think he was willing to be a double agent, even though the guy said they weren’t strictly from the Empire or the U.S. Leaning against the wall in the shower he’s so mad he’s planning his testimony at the guy’s trial, never mind he never got a name; except he doesn’t. Something, like the instincts that have kept him alive up until now, hold him back.
***
It does take some time, but Ray gives in. One year and nine months ago he sits in a club where the music would normally make him feel better, a beat he can feel in his bones telling him secrets along the lines of ‘there is no pain here,’ and he doesn’t drink anything. The guy in the neat political suit comes and sits next to him with his tie loose around his throat like it’ll make him stand out less in this crowd. Ray wishes for a moment that he picked a different place, but it’s too late now.
Ray’s stares at his hands a second, “You said I didn’t have to kill anybody anymore. That I could have a new start, be a human again, a real one.”
“You’re going to have to die at the end of it,” the man says.
“Good,” Ray says. “That’s fine. Dot me, file me, stick me in a box marked done.”
He had killed a Mountie, that’s what had convinced him, an idiot kid whose tail was sticking out a mile. He had done it by accident, had cut too close, herding the kid to get him where he wanted him to go when the kid panicked and ran himself across an asteroid. What kind of person kills someone on accident? Every human life is special. And then Ray is done thinking, he's signed up to stop the War.
***
After three months Ray really gets into it, the meeting people, the nods and looks and the not quite code they speak, showing him the ropes, his code name is Mongoose. Ray’s waiting for them to ask him to kill someone, he never could have guessed, not where his head was then that they would ask him not to kill someone instead. What they do have him do is interrogation, getting information out of people. At first he thinks they mean interrogation, but what they really mean is Shake, Bad Guy, Shake. It’s a game. A child’s game. He’s an excuse for these guys to crack, which he can tell they really, really want to do, like he did. Then he sends them to the Duck Boys and these men and women are never heard from again, at least not most of them. He heard a lot out of Levon over the year he’s been bossing him around.
Dief helped him, the guy’s a total wolf, seriously; he’s half Canadian and half something else that the Canadians didn’t like and loved, probably still did, doughnuts. He always was bribing them off Ray, he had this kind of sing-songy thing he would do, “Who loves you Ray? Who loves you the best? Who loves you more than anything?”
And Ray said, “Not more than doughnuts you don’t.”
Then he said, “Monnnnngoose, don’t be cruel man, I’m starrrrrrrrrving.”
And Dief would laugh and the two of them would go look at girls.
“Gentlemen prefer blondes Ray, and blondes prefer me.”
“Sure, but you ain’t no gentleman.”
The higher ups decided they needed to Dief to stop hanging around the clubhouse and go do some actual work, the actual work that Ray hadn’t been asked to do yet. Instead Ray went on missions for the US, which thankfully hadn’t had anything lately to do with killing anyone in red or blue, wrote notes about everything from the color of the War Council’s socks when they called him in, to what he had seen on his way wherever he was sent, and gave those to the Boss. Then he went in and debriefed or chatted up the Sister, a hot number who wore, still wears, too short uniforms and teased him relentlessly. When he wasn’t doing that, his boot heels rested on the prefab metal desk he shared -before his noble martyrdom shared- with Dief, he interrogated.
That’s what he was doing when he first heard the name Fraser. He had fistfuls of this guy’s shirt, (his name is Bolt, specialty: cockamamie political excuses not even he buys and more importantly being a dirty little rat… a dirty little vole with access to explosives) and had him pinned against the wall, he would have lifted the guy to get him at eye level, but Bolt was on the tubby side and Ray didn’t know if he’d be able to hold him up there. “Do not even start with me Bolt! I will kick you in the head! I will kick you so hard you’ll be pissin’ leather and steel, you got that?”
“I don’t have any information,” Bolt shook his head against the black mirrors they had put up.
“You don’t have any information?”
“No!”
“Alright, alright then,” Ray stepped back and resettled his jacket popping his neck in an old boxing move he had needed back at the Academy. The skinny kid who only has a Ma left to make proud and doesn’t have that much money needs a lot of things to survive the Academy. “That’s it then isn’t it?”
Dief normally would have been sitting behind him, polishing through a box of doughnuts like he hadn’t a care in the world, but Dief had been shipped off to parts unknown so instead Ray was working on his lonesome. Didn’t work so good on his lonesome. He turned like he was gonna walk away and then suddenly was back in Bolt’s space, throwing one fist into the black glass so there was an oil spill colored shape there for a second before the glass recovered.
“Do you even know what you are other than a traitor?” Ray says real quiet.
“What?” Bolt says with big eyes.
And Ray knows he’s gonna get a confession just needs to lay on a little verbal abuse, he can do that easy- inside he’s a poet. True enough in half a minute Bolt’s sitting all meek at the table saying he doesn’t know who the people having him bomb the refugee transports are, which Ray believes, the guy’s just greedy enough not to care, and says that’s all he’s been doing, which Ray doesn’t. He knows he’s put enough fear into him to make those little eyes skate away when he lies to Ray and there they go skitter, skitter, shake, bad guy, shake. Reaching across with the speed that makes his ship slip like butter through enemy lines, Ray grabs Bolt’s wrists all gentle like they’re going to take a walk in the park or something.
“Robert Fraser, old guy before the war started, second generation colonist,” Bolt spills. “Started getting that something was going on, started costing the people I worked for money, they wanted me to take care of him, he’s a little out of my league though. He had a partner, not my kind of thing.”
“Where’s Fraser now?” Ray asked, two finger typing in notes, even though he knows the audio will be recorded just fine.
“Had an accident,” Bolt said with a laugh. “You know how it is, Mounties getting old.”
A white hot stab of rage hits Ray in the gut, makes him sick, “Wait, this guy’s a Mountie, what’s he looking into blown up independent refugee ships for?”
Bolt shrugged, “Truth and justice kind of guy.”
“Thanks for your statement,” Ray said and broke the guy’s nose with a solid smack to the face. It felt good.
***
He’s finishing mission prep; the physical from Doc who’s humming under his breath, Ray still has landing gear grease in the creases of his fingernails after going under as a mechanic, true to Their word They had made sure the U.S. hadn’t asked him to knock anyone off again. But he still had to kick some heads to get the job done and the Lieu wants Ray’s broken ribs to be fixed before he goes into HQ, getting ready for the endgame. Ray sprawls tiredly over one of the metal slab, definitely not thinking about how this place can and probably has doubled as a mortuary. Despite all the Mounties he’s done in, he's having to clasp firmly down on his stomach, and finishes his report over the pinching pain of the bone setter.
“Leave some of the bruising,” the Sister says working her gum, she’s Lieu’s aide and knows just about everything that happens here even though more often than not she just looks like she spends her time filing her nails and drinking fancy coffee. Ray believes she can probably nag anything into submission, and probably flirt her way through the rest.
"Sissy," he rolls his eyes at her, “Thanks for the concern.” He smiles affectionately, can’t seem to help it, she doesn't seem to mind he's all worn out inside. She just rolls her eyes and ruffles his hair and hands him his coffee with precisely seven Smarties dropped in.
"Mongoose," she says back with a smile, arranging the Lieu's lunch on a slab which Ray is definitely not thinking about. He likes the handle, even though he doesn't get it. "I'll let you boys talk."
Lieu nods at her, he always looks exasperated and longsuffering, but slightly less so when he looks at the Sister. "I've talked to the Upstairs men, we've discussed. They've arranged for Gerrard to be your contact, I still think you’re a little too emotionally involved."
Ray had never been asked to kill for them before, but he had almost been expecting death to show up one more time. It’d give the whole thing a sort of awful symmetry. “No sir,” Ray says his little finger tapping the beat to Putting on the Ritz against the side of his coffee cup. “You said I gotta pick who’d do this, Gerrard’s a sell-out, it makes sense.”
“This isn’t about That Mountie then? Because if it was I would have to express my confusion at having an order so completely ignored.”
“It’s like I said,” Ray barks and hops down briefly getting tangled up in his t-shirt. “I wanna talk to Levon before I head out.” He wanted to get that over with because he knew he was probably going to get all maudlin. He had a sneaking suspicion he might drop a couple tears afterward and he didn’t want anybody to see that, definitely not Levon and definitely not his War Council bosses.
Levon is the only good thing he’s ever done, that kid’ll be great - he’s a far better man than Ray already - if he can just stop being so cocky.
The Lieu’s quiet for a second and nods his tired bulldog head, “Fine, but you need to prepare to be cut off, I mean it. By the end of the next shift, no if, ands or buts."
"Yes sir, Lieutenant, I understand."
***
It had almost gotten to the point where Ray was considering paying one of his old snitches to inform on him when the Mountie Quarter Horse landed. He honestly was considering walking up with his wrists out and saying, “Where have you been all week?” But he had been briefed; he was expected to make a run for it. Apparently he was also in better shape than he thought despite a constant diet of dehydrated pineapple and chocolate laced coffee because when he looked over his shoulder the only red shape he saw over his coat tails was Colonel Benton Fraser and Ray’s heart was full of joy.
Finally.
Finally this could all be over.
He hopped the park wall and slowed his pace to a moderate sprint; when he noticed he was minus one Mountie. “Come on,” he said, getting ready to turn around and stand in the middle of a field if necessary when something big and red hit him in the jaw with a force that would make a mule proud.
Hitting the ground with a thump, Ray blinks as he is dragged up by his coat collar and held about an inch from Fraser’s face. Colonel Fraser’s face is blank, like a doll's without that creepy little smile, weirdly perfect and different than his ‘Queen and Country’ face which was attached to his personnel file.
Fraser's jaw is clenching, probably in time with his heartbeat and his knuckles twitch against Ray’s shoulders like he wants to strike him, Fraser must be even angrier than Ray thought. But like Ray expected Fraser holds onto justice, he’s furious, wants to break Ray’s jaw, but Justice has got a hold of her favorite son with both hands and so Fraser only twitches and reads him his rights, “In accordance with the Mars Pact and the Treaty of Regina, Stanley Raymond Kowalski you are under arrest for murder, intent to murder, intent to incite mayhem, espionage, impersonating a officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and treason against the Empire and Kingdom of Britain.”
He could feel the tension in Colonel Fraser’s arms; the guy’s built like a wall. A big pretty red brick wall and the piece of Ray that wants to just end it now, just make this stop, wants to see if there's any loose mortar.
“All but that last one,” Ray snapped back, “I’m not a British citizen.” Ray got a faceful of wall for his troubles, which he probably deserved, and relaxed his shoulders as Colonel Fraser slapped on the restraining cuffs. Fraser shoves him toward a second, out of breath Mountie, who’s staring at Colonel Fraser with frank admiration on his sweaty face while Fraser takes a few steps away to take a couple deep cleansing breaths before calling the capture in. Ray’s happy, he’s ecstatic, he wants to dance he wants to kiss a thousand pretty girls, he’ll get what he deserves and so will Fraser. The guy’s a white knight, he deserves the truth. Fraser’s a hero, and so was his father.
At first Ray doesn’t notice it, red on red like that, he never would have noticed at all if the laser sight hadn’t moved over Fraser’s shiny brass buttons. Very official.
No, Ray thinks. That isn’t the plan. There is no part of the plan that involves Fraser death. He pulls at Mountie Number 2’s grip, just testing it; the kid keeps a tight hold on Ray’s upper arms, which is stupid, because he completely ignores Ray’s feet. Ray nearly flips himself on his head kicking Number 2 in the chin, and twists his shoulders tightly to the side. His whip sharp momentum rips him loose, but he’s focusing now on Fraser who is beginning to reach for his gun. He gets into position just as the shot hits, just long enough to wince right before there’s a punch and a long stinging rip inside him, like someone went at him with the world’s longest, hottest needle.
Fraser’s big hands grab his shoulders, scrabble and hook under his arms as something wet and coppery bubbles up the back of Ray’s throat. Fraser has to twist the two of them to counter act the force of the shot, his knees nearly giving out, but Ray can see right away the guy’s uninjured. He’s filled with relief a numb and pulsing sensation and he has a sudden flash of thought, ‘the bullet’s still inside me,’ and nearly panics. He coughs and his lips bloom wet. There’s yelling, stuff about securing the parameter, and someone has his chin in their hands, shaking him.
“Stoppit,” he says irritably. “Ouch.”
There was a big hand on his chest pressing against the wound. ‘Open your eyes,’ Ray barked at himself and found that he actually could, he blinked at the pale face staring down at him with wide blue eyes.
“You okay?” he asked the pale face.
“Well, yes,” Fraser said a little unsteadily. “You took the shot.”
“Good,” Ray says and winces. “It smarts to get shot.”
“He’s fading,” Fraser barks all crisp and enunciating, forgetting they’re not on the battlefield. “Get a medic over here!”
There is no medic.
Ray knows he has something to do, can’t quite… “Robert Fraser, Bob Fraser,” he says, starting to snap his fingers, but his fingers didn’t work, because he just remembered what he was going to say, tell at the trial, he had some good stuff there. Make Fraser feel better cause old Bob Fraser wasn’t gettin’ old, he didn’t slip up, he died a hero’s death and that’s what you had to know, that your dad was a hero. And Lt. Halverson who was in charge of Ray after he got out of the academy and patrolled and stuff, basics, nothing but him and his set of wings, said he could hardly learn anything through that thick Polish head of his, could hardly remember how to signal properly. But that wasn’t fair, Ray had always signaled for back up when he needed to, always on the ball with that. He liked those old days, the ships weren’t the newest not in the fly zone he was sent out to, practically a frontier planet, but it was good fun, the settler’s all bunched together like a city all bustling and the patrolmen always got discounts on coffee on that place on…
“What?” said a voice, had a sharp military edge and Ray could help responding even lying in a pool of his own blood.
What? Ray thought, “Who’s that?”
“Colonel Benton Fraser,” the voice said. “My father, you said something about my father.”
“Oh, hi Fraser, you guys took for-freakin’ -ever,” he smiled softly.
“What about my father?” the voice said.
And then Ray died.
***
Benton stood next to the slab where the body of Stanley Kowalski was bared to the waist, the puncture marks for the scan probes running from collar bone to mid torso. His body, the body, is lean and well muscled as was probably necessary for a job as an assassin. He had broken Gerrard’s neck with his bare hands, and he had the feeling that Kowalski hadn’t been running at full speed. He had told his men to circle around because he had thought he would have to chase Kowalski down like a mad dog. He had looked at the academy picture, the loose blue uniform, one hand gripping his helmet while the rest of him had been relaxed, guarded. He had thought that that was a clue into the man in the picture, a sociopath barely gripping the edge of the acceptable range of society.
The sort of man that was allowed an outlet for his violent energies in time of war, forty-two men; Benton can hardly imagine killing one, not like that. His hands on another man’s throat. He keeps his face carefully schooled. But Stanley Kowalski had not snapped at him, at any of them. Far from being a ravening wolf he had acted more like a canine companion. A wide friendly smile when his eyes finally opened, as if nothing had pleased him more in the whole of the system than to see Fraser hovering above him. That made him start and clamp down on the thought, not bothering to take it to hand like a pebble and explore its surface with his fingertips like he usually did. Where was his discipline? The man’s record spoke for itself. He had tried to kill the Queen.
“…several other scars,” the coroner continued as Benton tuned back in, to quote some of the men he served with. “But those sorts of things are to be expected with someone who was… working in his profession. Most noticeably the difference between his final physical by the United Systems physician and his current condition is that, he had four ribs patched rather expertly by a bone setter.”
Dr. Merrill was small, compact and balding, tapping his fingers over the touch screen of his CLIP Board; he didn’t seem to be able to keep eye contact with anyone, although that habit seemed to stem more from day to day dealings with the deceased than low self esteem. “I can e-mail you the results.”
“Four ribs?” Benton said, wishing he had paid more attention. Maybe Major Baker was right and the shooting had affected him more than he had thought. “What about the bullet?”
“Standard sniper,” he shrugged, “You could get it at any RMCP armory. One of your boys got a little too enthusiastic.”
Benton stiffened, but didn’t say anything.
“You’ll have no trouble with that though Colonel, everyone knows a man like him frankly deserves what he got.”
Benton remembers the warm thump against his breastbone, the limp weight as Kowalski’s legs gave out and says nothing.
Author: americanjedi
Fandom: Due South AU
Beta: The Amazing primroseburrows who transcended both timezones and my inability to send attachments in the proper format to help me chop down my enormous sentences, except apparently this one of course. ;P Also keerawa for helping me get started.
Rating: PG for mildish angst, violence and threatening witnesses
Summary: The way Ray thinks about it, its not really treason to rat out all the things the United Systems had him do during the War, which is why he's looking forward to the trial. If only the Mounties would get there. (It's due South... IN SPACE!)
Based off of the super awesome, super amazing, super great Cutting Losses by Penfet. Which you should probably read first.
Ray sighed, digging the heels of his boots into the grass, flicking off a wandering ladybug; the Mounties were certainly taking their time. He couldn’t make it too obvious, couldn’t just run back to his old apartment, that would be too easy. All of his real stuff had been stripped out anyway, sent to Levon along with the flash drives that had made up his notes. All the drives would be destroyed, crushed and burned and ground up and let go on the wind, like his ashes. It would be good for Levon, Ray was certain at least portions of his trial would get flashed over the news-pod.
Closure. They called it closure.
Ray was ready for the trial; he had been prepared for it, taught what to say and how to say it to protect the people he was working for, or more accurately the people he was working with.
Two years ago a guy comes up to him in a bar, and at first he thinks it’s some sort of weird trap. Are our assassins really loyal? Which kind of hurt since he had just shot three special ops Mounties in the face until they died not four hours previous and he had the marks on him to prove it. All he wanted to do is drink until it makes sense for his government
(a wedding ring, one of them was wearing a wedding ring)
to need for him to kill three men in one sitting, bang, bang, bang; which is going to take a while. He’s already half way into his second whiskey and he can still see the surprised look on the second one’s face and the way he turns to get behind cover. Like the Mountie had more than just the stupid plans, to some place where even more people would get shot, to live for, something important. The guy at the bar is insistent though, says stuff about trying to make things work and Ray thinks, yeah, it’s like I’m married to the United Systems or something or like she’s my sweetheart. A real lovely woman, like in old paintings the kind with angels and windmills and stuff and you have those talks, I want to settle down, I want to have kids, I want to have a life and she just shakes her head all stern like you’re an infant and you’re always scrambling around just trying to prove yourself over and over again. But what the guy’s suggesting, its treason, it’s like … adultery.
And Ray is a lot of things that he has a sinking suspicion don’t make him any sort of human being, decent or not at all, but his not an adulterer.
And the guy says, “Sure, sure, okay, I’ll leave you to it then,” like Ray could even still walk because at this time he’s hit number four and he’s starting to slow down. He could have stood up and told someone, he could have arrested the guy himself but he doesn’t, he just watches the guy get up and leave him. Later, the morning he’s furious - shaking - that anyone would think he was willing to be a double agent, even though the guy said they weren’t strictly from the Empire or the U.S. Leaning against the wall in the shower he’s so mad he’s planning his testimony at the guy’s trial, never mind he never got a name; except he doesn’t. Something, like the instincts that have kept him alive up until now, hold him back.
***
It does take some time, but Ray gives in. One year and nine months ago he sits in a club where the music would normally make him feel better, a beat he can feel in his bones telling him secrets along the lines of ‘there is no pain here,’ and he doesn’t drink anything. The guy in the neat political suit comes and sits next to him with his tie loose around his throat like it’ll make him stand out less in this crowd. Ray wishes for a moment that he picked a different place, but it’s too late now.
Ray’s stares at his hands a second, “You said I didn’t have to kill anybody anymore. That I could have a new start, be a human again, a real one.”
“You’re going to have to die at the end of it,” the man says.
“Good,” Ray says. “That’s fine. Dot me, file me, stick me in a box marked done.”
He had killed a Mountie, that’s what had convinced him, an idiot kid whose tail was sticking out a mile. He had done it by accident, had cut too close, herding the kid to get him where he wanted him to go when the kid panicked and ran himself across an asteroid. What kind of person kills someone on accident? Every human life is special. And then Ray is done thinking, he's signed up to stop the War.
***
After three months Ray really gets into it, the meeting people, the nods and looks and the not quite code they speak, showing him the ropes, his code name is Mongoose. Ray’s waiting for them to ask him to kill someone, he never could have guessed, not where his head was then that they would ask him not to kill someone instead. What they do have him do is interrogation, getting information out of people. At first he thinks they mean interrogation, but what they really mean is Shake, Bad Guy, Shake. It’s a game. A child’s game. He’s an excuse for these guys to crack, which he can tell they really, really want to do, like he did. Then he sends them to the Duck Boys and these men and women are never heard from again, at least not most of them. He heard a lot out of Levon over the year he’s been bossing him around.
Dief helped him, the guy’s a total wolf, seriously; he’s half Canadian and half something else that the Canadians didn’t like and loved, probably still did, doughnuts. He always was bribing them off Ray, he had this kind of sing-songy thing he would do, “Who loves you Ray? Who loves you the best? Who loves you more than anything?”
And Ray said, “Not more than doughnuts you don’t.”
Then he said, “Monnnnngoose, don’t be cruel man, I’m starrrrrrrrrving.”
And Dief would laugh and the two of them would go look at girls.
“Gentlemen prefer blondes Ray, and blondes prefer me.”
“Sure, but you ain’t no gentleman.”
The higher ups decided they needed to Dief to stop hanging around the clubhouse and go do some actual work, the actual work that Ray hadn’t been asked to do yet. Instead Ray went on missions for the US, which thankfully hadn’t had anything lately to do with killing anyone in red or blue, wrote notes about everything from the color of the War Council’s socks when they called him in, to what he had seen on his way wherever he was sent, and gave those to the Boss. Then he went in and debriefed or chatted up the Sister, a hot number who wore, still wears, too short uniforms and teased him relentlessly. When he wasn’t doing that, his boot heels rested on the prefab metal desk he shared -before his noble martyrdom shared- with Dief, he interrogated.
That’s what he was doing when he first heard the name Fraser. He had fistfuls of this guy’s shirt, (his name is Bolt, specialty: cockamamie political excuses not even he buys and more importantly being a dirty little rat… a dirty little vole with access to explosives) and had him pinned against the wall, he would have lifted the guy to get him at eye level, but Bolt was on the tubby side and Ray didn’t know if he’d be able to hold him up there. “Do not even start with me Bolt! I will kick you in the head! I will kick you so hard you’ll be pissin’ leather and steel, you got that?”
“I don’t have any information,” Bolt shook his head against the black mirrors they had put up.
“You don’t have any information?”
“No!”
“Alright, alright then,” Ray stepped back and resettled his jacket popping his neck in an old boxing move he had needed back at the Academy. The skinny kid who only has a Ma left to make proud and doesn’t have that much money needs a lot of things to survive the Academy. “That’s it then isn’t it?”
Dief normally would have been sitting behind him, polishing through a box of doughnuts like he hadn’t a care in the world, but Dief had been shipped off to parts unknown so instead Ray was working on his lonesome. Didn’t work so good on his lonesome. He turned like he was gonna walk away and then suddenly was back in Bolt’s space, throwing one fist into the black glass so there was an oil spill colored shape there for a second before the glass recovered.
“Do you even know what you are other than a traitor?” Ray says real quiet.
“What?” Bolt says with big eyes.
And Ray knows he’s gonna get a confession just needs to lay on a little verbal abuse, he can do that easy- inside he’s a poet. True enough in half a minute Bolt’s sitting all meek at the table saying he doesn’t know who the people having him bomb the refugee transports are, which Ray believes, the guy’s just greedy enough not to care, and says that’s all he’s been doing, which Ray doesn’t. He knows he’s put enough fear into him to make those little eyes skate away when he lies to Ray and there they go skitter, skitter, shake, bad guy, shake. Reaching across with the speed that makes his ship slip like butter through enemy lines, Ray grabs Bolt’s wrists all gentle like they’re going to take a walk in the park or something.
“Robert Fraser, old guy before the war started, second generation colonist,” Bolt spills. “Started getting that something was going on, started costing the people I worked for money, they wanted me to take care of him, he’s a little out of my league though. He had a partner, not my kind of thing.”
“Where’s Fraser now?” Ray asked, two finger typing in notes, even though he knows the audio will be recorded just fine.
“Had an accident,” Bolt said with a laugh. “You know how it is, Mounties getting old.”
A white hot stab of rage hits Ray in the gut, makes him sick, “Wait, this guy’s a Mountie, what’s he looking into blown up independent refugee ships for?”
Bolt shrugged, “Truth and justice kind of guy.”
“Thanks for your statement,” Ray said and broke the guy’s nose with a solid smack to the face. It felt good.
***
He’s finishing mission prep; the physical from Doc who’s humming under his breath, Ray still has landing gear grease in the creases of his fingernails after going under as a mechanic, true to Their word They had made sure the U.S. hadn’t asked him to knock anyone off again. But he still had to kick some heads to get the job done and the Lieu wants Ray’s broken ribs to be fixed before he goes into HQ, getting ready for the endgame. Ray sprawls tiredly over one of the metal slab, definitely not thinking about how this place can and probably has doubled as a mortuary. Despite all the Mounties he’s done in, he's having to clasp firmly down on his stomach, and finishes his report over the pinching pain of the bone setter.
“Leave some of the bruising,” the Sister says working her gum, she’s Lieu’s aide and knows just about everything that happens here even though more often than not she just looks like she spends her time filing her nails and drinking fancy coffee. Ray believes she can probably nag anything into submission, and probably flirt her way through the rest.
"Sissy," he rolls his eyes at her, “Thanks for the concern.” He smiles affectionately, can’t seem to help it, she doesn't seem to mind he's all worn out inside. She just rolls her eyes and ruffles his hair and hands him his coffee with precisely seven Smarties dropped in.
"Mongoose," she says back with a smile, arranging the Lieu's lunch on a slab which Ray is definitely not thinking about. He likes the handle, even though he doesn't get it. "I'll let you boys talk."
Lieu nods at her, he always looks exasperated and longsuffering, but slightly less so when he looks at the Sister. "I've talked to the Upstairs men, we've discussed. They've arranged for Gerrard to be your contact, I still think you’re a little too emotionally involved."
Ray had never been asked to kill for them before, but he had almost been expecting death to show up one more time. It’d give the whole thing a sort of awful symmetry. “No sir,” Ray says his little finger tapping the beat to Putting on the Ritz against the side of his coffee cup. “You said I gotta pick who’d do this, Gerrard’s a sell-out, it makes sense.”
“This isn’t about That Mountie then? Because if it was I would have to express my confusion at having an order so completely ignored.”
“It’s like I said,” Ray barks and hops down briefly getting tangled up in his t-shirt. “I wanna talk to Levon before I head out.” He wanted to get that over with because he knew he was probably going to get all maudlin. He had a sneaking suspicion he might drop a couple tears afterward and he didn’t want anybody to see that, definitely not Levon and definitely not his War Council bosses.
Levon is the only good thing he’s ever done, that kid’ll be great - he’s a far better man than Ray already - if he can just stop being so cocky.
The Lieu’s quiet for a second and nods his tired bulldog head, “Fine, but you need to prepare to be cut off, I mean it. By the end of the next shift, no if, ands or buts."
"Yes sir, Lieutenant, I understand."
***
It had almost gotten to the point where Ray was considering paying one of his old snitches to inform on him when the Mountie Quarter Horse landed. He honestly was considering walking up with his wrists out and saying, “Where have you been all week?” But he had been briefed; he was expected to make a run for it. Apparently he was also in better shape than he thought despite a constant diet of dehydrated pineapple and chocolate laced coffee because when he looked over his shoulder the only red shape he saw over his coat tails was Colonel Benton Fraser and Ray’s heart was full of joy.
Finally.
Finally this could all be over.
He hopped the park wall and slowed his pace to a moderate sprint; when he noticed he was minus one Mountie. “Come on,” he said, getting ready to turn around and stand in the middle of a field if necessary when something big and red hit him in the jaw with a force that would make a mule proud.
Hitting the ground with a thump, Ray blinks as he is dragged up by his coat collar and held about an inch from Fraser’s face. Colonel Fraser’s face is blank, like a doll's without that creepy little smile, weirdly perfect and different than his ‘Queen and Country’ face which was attached to his personnel file.
Fraser's jaw is clenching, probably in time with his heartbeat and his knuckles twitch against Ray’s shoulders like he wants to strike him, Fraser must be even angrier than Ray thought. But like Ray expected Fraser holds onto justice, he’s furious, wants to break Ray’s jaw, but Justice has got a hold of her favorite son with both hands and so Fraser only twitches and reads him his rights, “In accordance with the Mars Pact and the Treaty of Regina, Stanley Raymond Kowalski you are under arrest for murder, intent to murder, intent to incite mayhem, espionage, impersonating a officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and treason against the Empire and Kingdom of Britain.”
He could feel the tension in Colonel Fraser’s arms; the guy’s built like a wall. A big pretty red brick wall and the piece of Ray that wants to just end it now, just make this stop, wants to see if there's any loose mortar.
“All but that last one,” Ray snapped back, “I’m not a British citizen.” Ray got a faceful of wall for his troubles, which he probably deserved, and relaxed his shoulders as Colonel Fraser slapped on the restraining cuffs. Fraser shoves him toward a second, out of breath Mountie, who’s staring at Colonel Fraser with frank admiration on his sweaty face while Fraser takes a few steps away to take a couple deep cleansing breaths before calling the capture in. Ray’s happy, he’s ecstatic, he wants to dance he wants to kiss a thousand pretty girls, he’ll get what he deserves and so will Fraser. The guy’s a white knight, he deserves the truth. Fraser’s a hero, and so was his father.
At first Ray doesn’t notice it, red on red like that, he never would have noticed at all if the laser sight hadn’t moved over Fraser’s shiny brass buttons. Very official.
No, Ray thinks. That isn’t the plan. There is no part of the plan that involves Fraser death. He pulls at Mountie Number 2’s grip, just testing it; the kid keeps a tight hold on Ray’s upper arms, which is stupid, because he completely ignores Ray’s feet. Ray nearly flips himself on his head kicking Number 2 in the chin, and twists his shoulders tightly to the side. His whip sharp momentum rips him loose, but he’s focusing now on Fraser who is beginning to reach for his gun. He gets into position just as the shot hits, just long enough to wince right before there’s a punch and a long stinging rip inside him, like someone went at him with the world’s longest, hottest needle.
Fraser’s big hands grab his shoulders, scrabble and hook under his arms as something wet and coppery bubbles up the back of Ray’s throat. Fraser has to twist the two of them to counter act the force of the shot, his knees nearly giving out, but Ray can see right away the guy’s uninjured. He’s filled with relief a numb and pulsing sensation and he has a sudden flash of thought, ‘the bullet’s still inside me,’ and nearly panics. He coughs and his lips bloom wet. There’s yelling, stuff about securing the parameter, and someone has his chin in their hands, shaking him.
“Stoppit,” he says irritably. “Ouch.”
There was a big hand on his chest pressing against the wound. ‘Open your eyes,’ Ray barked at himself and found that he actually could, he blinked at the pale face staring down at him with wide blue eyes.
“You okay?” he asked the pale face.
“Well, yes,” Fraser said a little unsteadily. “You took the shot.”
“Good,” Ray says and winces. “It smarts to get shot.”
“He’s fading,” Fraser barks all crisp and enunciating, forgetting they’re not on the battlefield. “Get a medic over here!”
There is no medic.
Ray knows he has something to do, can’t quite… “Robert Fraser, Bob Fraser,” he says, starting to snap his fingers, but his fingers didn’t work, because he just remembered what he was going to say, tell at the trial, he had some good stuff there. Make Fraser feel better cause old Bob Fraser wasn’t gettin’ old, he didn’t slip up, he died a hero’s death and that’s what you had to know, that your dad was a hero. And Lt. Halverson who was in charge of Ray after he got out of the academy and patrolled and stuff, basics, nothing but him and his set of wings, said he could hardly learn anything through that thick Polish head of his, could hardly remember how to signal properly. But that wasn’t fair, Ray had always signaled for back up when he needed to, always on the ball with that. He liked those old days, the ships weren’t the newest not in the fly zone he was sent out to, practically a frontier planet, but it was good fun, the settler’s all bunched together like a city all bustling and the patrolmen always got discounts on coffee on that place on…
“What?” said a voice, had a sharp military edge and Ray could help responding even lying in a pool of his own blood.
What? Ray thought, “Who’s that?”
“Colonel Benton Fraser,” the voice said. “My father, you said something about my father.”
“Oh, hi Fraser, you guys took for-freakin’ -ever,” he smiled softly.
“What about my father?” the voice said.
And then Ray died.
***
Benton stood next to the slab where the body of Stanley Kowalski was bared to the waist, the puncture marks for the scan probes running from collar bone to mid torso. His body, the body, is lean and well muscled as was probably necessary for a job as an assassin. He had broken Gerrard’s neck with his bare hands, and he had the feeling that Kowalski hadn’t been running at full speed. He had told his men to circle around because he had thought he would have to chase Kowalski down like a mad dog. He had looked at the academy picture, the loose blue uniform, one hand gripping his helmet while the rest of him had been relaxed, guarded. He had thought that that was a clue into the man in the picture, a sociopath barely gripping the edge of the acceptable range of society.
The sort of man that was allowed an outlet for his violent energies in time of war, forty-two men; Benton can hardly imagine killing one, not like that. His hands on another man’s throat. He keeps his face carefully schooled. But Stanley Kowalski had not snapped at him, at any of them. Far from being a ravening wolf he had acted more like a canine companion. A wide friendly smile when his eyes finally opened, as if nothing had pleased him more in the whole of the system than to see Fraser hovering above him. That made him start and clamp down on the thought, not bothering to take it to hand like a pebble and explore its surface with his fingertips like he usually did. Where was his discipline? The man’s record spoke for itself. He had tried to kill the Queen.
“…several other scars,” the coroner continued as Benton tuned back in, to quote some of the men he served with. “But those sorts of things are to be expected with someone who was… working in his profession. Most noticeably the difference between his final physical by the United Systems physician and his current condition is that, he had four ribs patched rather expertly by a bone setter.”
Dr. Merrill was small, compact and balding, tapping his fingers over the touch screen of his CLIP Board; he didn’t seem to be able to keep eye contact with anyone, although that habit seemed to stem more from day to day dealings with the deceased than low self esteem. “I can e-mail you the results.”
“Four ribs?” Benton said, wishing he had paid more attention. Maybe Major Baker was right and the shooting had affected him more than he had thought. “What about the bullet?”
“Standard sniper,” he shrugged, “You could get it at any RMCP armory. One of your boys got a little too enthusiastic.”
Benton stiffened, but didn’t say anything.
“You’ll have no trouble with that though Colonel, everyone knows a man like him frankly deserves what he got.”
Benton remembers the warm thump against his breastbone, the limp weight as Kowalski’s legs gave out and says nothing.