Welcome Back, Mr. Nightcrawler
- Thread starter Nightcrawler
- Start date
- Status
qlajlu
Member
Oh, mannnn...that is a crying shame. Thanks for the info, however.Correia said:
the 22 junkie
Member
No more blues bear? Aw man, that IS a crying shame... :'[
Cliff47
Member
I, for one, will miss his dry humor between segments. A member of the team has left.
xds&gsps
Member
Man that must have been some falling out Bluesbear was a veteran here he had over 7000 posts. That sucks hopefully he is still hanging around reading this stuff so he knows how much he is missed.
Nightcrawler
Member
bright side
The bright side is, writing on a day off gives me time to work it over and make it good. If you guys will be patient, you won't be disappointed.
The bright side is, writing on a day off gives me time to work it over and make it good. If you guys will be patient, you won't be disappointed.
Technosavant
Member
Take your time, Nightcrawler- it's been great so far.
You know, with all the talk about casting, I was thinking about the WORST POSSIBLE cast...
Nightcrawler- Chris Kattan
Lorenzo- Paul Reubens
Ling- Connie Chung
Sarah- Rosie O'Donnell
Jill- Paris Hilton
I could go on, but I'll spare you.
I'm a sick, sick person.
You know, with all the talk about casting, I was thinking about the WORST POSSIBLE cast...
Nightcrawler- Chris Kattan
Lorenzo- Paul Reubens
Ling- Connie Chung
Sarah- Rosie O'Donnell
Jill- Paris Hilton
I could go on, but I'll spare you.
I'm a sick, sick person.
RandomAvenger
Member
Techno-
I started reading your cast, and for a second, just a second, I thought you were serious. Then I read the part about the worst possible cast and realized it was a joke. I gotta tell ya though, I got a little sick to my stomach and nearly began a petition to the mods here to have you removed from THR.
I started reading your cast, and for a second, just a second, I thought you were serious. Then I read the part about the worst possible cast and realized it was a joke. I gotta tell ya though, I got a little sick to my stomach and nearly began a petition to the mods here to have you removed from THR.
Jamie C.
Member
Petition? Hell, I was in the middle of loading guns and doing a location search before I figured out he was kidding...
( Never ask anybody to do a thing you can do yourself, don't cha know. )Seriously... lists like that aren't for the weak-of-stomach. And they certainly aren't for the quick-of-trigger finger.
Damn shame about the 'Bear.... Certainly gonna miss his input.
J.C.
fiVe
Member
Correia said:
This is sad. He is a great contributor who will be greatly missed.
trickyasafox
Member
fantastic story
whatever made the mods and bluesbear part ways is their business, i dont mean this as a jab to anyone but it's probably best if we just let it lie as is. i know i haven't been here near as long as many, nor have i been as involved, but i've never seen the mods act in an excessive or abusive way. i don't think they would have started doing so now.
hope this didn't offend anyone, but just putting it out there.
whatever made the mods and bluesbear part ways is their business, i dont mean this as a jab to anyone but it's probably best if we just let it lie as is.
i know i haven't been here near as long as many, nor have i been as involved, but i've never seen the mods act in an excessive or abusive way. i don't think they would have started doing so now.hope this didn't offend anyone, but just putting it out there.
tomkatz
Member
Nope Just edited out for an unneeded comment.
BB is gone, It happened, Life goes on.
Last edited by a moderator:
[Original post deleted by moderator]
Dear moderator:
The next time you delete a post (at least one of mine), could you kindly resist editorializing in it? When I came to this post on rereading this thread, I found my comments rather strange, until I eventually realized they weren’t mine. That in fact my words had been deleted and replaced with yours. I realize I have no rights, and you folks may not have any desire to respect the wishes of a mere poster, but I would prefer not to have your words published under my name, even if it’s only a screen name.
patent
>>>>Also edited out for unneeded comments
>>>>And Now Back to the Story......
>>>>Its all your's NC
Dear moderator:
The next time you delete a post (at least one of mine), could you kindly resist editorializing in it? When I came to this post on rereading this thread, I found my comments rather strange, until I eventually realized they weren’t mine. That in fact my words had been deleted and replaced with yours. I realize I have no rights, and you folks may not have any desire to respect the wishes of a mere poster, but I would prefer not to have your words published under my name, even if it’s only a screen name.
patent
>>>>Also edited out for unneeded comments
>>>>And Now Back to the Story......
>>>>Its all your's NC
Last edited:
Nightcrawler
Member
Friends like these...
"Hello?" There was a soprano voice on the line that I hadn't heard in years. I suspected she'd be pretty surprised. Heh.
"Hey."
"Who is this?"
"You don't remember me, Melinda?"
"...my name's not..."
"Your name is Melinda Prescott. Your middle name is Ann and you hate it."
"Who the **** is this?"
"Remember Federov?"
"Federov...holy ****. 'Crawler, is that you?"
"Yeah, Darlin'. Been a long time."
"It has. Tell me, though, is there some part of 'I never want to see you again' that you didn't ****ing understand?"
"Well, technically you haven't seen me..."
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't hang up on you right now. And how in the **** did you get my number?"
"I can give you a hundred thousand reasons if you hear me out." There was a long pause on the line.
"I'm listening."
"Not over the phone. I'd like to meet in person."
"Not happening. I'm not getting involved in this **** again, and I'm not telling you where I'm at."
"Melinda, if I can find your phone number, don't you think I can find you?"
"Is that a threat?"
"No, no it's not. I need your help. I mean I really really need your help. Melinda, please."
"Okay, okay, fine. Don't beg. You know where my place is? My club, I mean?"
"Uh....yeah, yeah I do."
"Fine. Show up, tell them it's the 'Crawler here to see Delilah, and my security will let you in. Come alone and unarmed."
"Don't I always?" I grinned. I could hear the frustrated sigh on the line.
"Just bring the ****ing money. When will you be here?"
"'Bout a week."
"Make it next Thursday, eleven o' clock." The line went dead. It'd take me awhile to get a hundred grand out of my offshore account without raising suspicion, but I hoped that a week would be enough time. It's not like you can just go to the ATM for that. I also had a couple states to drive across before I reached Melinda's club, and that complicated things.
Still, this close to my goal, I was rather motivated. I clipped my cell phone to my belt, climbed back in my car, and got back on the road.
I suppose I should explain about Melinda. She and I went way back. Matter of fact, I met her when I was eighteen, shortly after I'd fallen in with...well, our team. Melinda was the same age as me, and she was truly brilliant. She was our resident tech geek, and she was invaluable to us. After the incident with the Russian, though, we had a sort of a falling out. I really didn't blame her. The sight of all those bodies in the water haunted me for a long time, too.
At any rate, that following Thursday I found myself wandering down a crowded sidewalk, briefcase full of money in hand, headed for her...establishment.
"Dark Obsession?" I said out loud, to myself. You have got to be kidding me. Looking at the long line of would-be patrons waiting to get in, and hearing the pulsing thump of electronic music coming from behind the doors...
Goths. Yeah, it would be right up Melinda's alley. Or Deliliah, now, I guess. I laughed at that. She always did have a flair for the dramatic (in addition to her flair for being a creepy goth chick). I supposed, however, that with a name like Manny Goldstein, I really couldn't talk. I took a deep breath, and approached the burly security guys standing around by the door. They were wearing sunglasses, black fatigue pants, combat boots, and were wanding patrons with a metal detector before letting them in. I told them that The Crawler (I hated being called that) was here to see Delilah, and they led me inside.
I saw that Melinda was doing quite well for herself. Her club was packed, and it wasn't even a weekend. Bass-heavy electronica music thumped in my ears as scores of pale, black-leather clad young people danced. Hardly my scene, but I had to admit that there were some pretty hot women in there.
Refocusing my thoughts, I followed the security goons through the morass and up a set of stairs. They led me to a what I presumed to be Melinda's office, wanded me with a metal detector, and pushed a buzzer button on the wall.
"Send him in," I heard Melinda say.
"Yes Miss Deliliah," one of the guards said, and opened the door. He scowled at me as I entered, so I smiled innocently at him and closed the door behind me. I was unarmed; it's not that I couldn't have smuggled a weapon past Melinda's third-rate goon squad, I just didn't feel the need to.
Perhaps I was wrong. Upon entering the office, I laid eyes on Melinda for the first time in years. She was reclined in a big leather chair behind a big wooden desk. She wore a tight leather miniskirt, fishnet stockings, thigh-high, high heeled boots, some kind of zip-up leather top, and had her previously brown hair died a deep purple, with black ribbons in it. Her skin was as pale as ever, and aside from the fact that I really didn't like her very much, she was looking pretty good. However, my attention was focused on the Glock .45 laying on her desk. Seriously, what is it with these goth-raver types and Glocks?
Squaring my shoulders, but saying nothing, I stepped forward and laid the briefcase on her desk. I stepped back, and waited. Without a word, she opened it, examined the money, and re-closed the case, apparently satisfied.
"Now," she said, looking up at me with her dark eyes, "what exactly is it you want me to do?" Her glare could've burned a hole in me. Ignoring that, I reached into my pocket and retreived Big Boss' flash drive. I leaned forward and laid it on the desk as well. She picked it up, obviously puzzled.
"It's encrypted," I said, "top level government stuff. I need you to crack it."
"I can do that," she said. She hadn't even looked at it and yet she simply assumed she'd be able to do defeat it. As cocky as ever... "But what's this all about?" I plopped down in the chair across from her and began to tell her my story, and what I wanted from her. It took about an hour.
"I don't know what to say," she said.
"You don't have to say anything. I just need you to hack that flash drive."
"Why?"
"I'm going to expose Project Heartbreaker and Gordon Willis. With your help, I'm going to put together all of the evidence and official documentation on this drive and release it on the 'net. In two days the whole world will know. If I guess right, the documentation on there will prove it all beyond a doubt. It names names, dates, places, events, and I can fill in a few blanks of my own."
"They'll kill you," she said flatly.
"They'll try. Plenty of guys have come after me. I've buried 'em all."
"I see you're the same as ever. Tell me, Michael, do you get some kind of pleasure from the act of killing?" I'd had about enough.
"Now you listen to me, God damn it," I barked, leaning forward. "I'm sick of your ****! How many years have you been blaming me for what happened with Federov? Christ, you think I wanted to kill all of those people? You think I planned it? You think I knew he was having a ****ing party on his ****ing yacht? ****ing Decker said it was all clear. He told me to fire! So it was fire in the ****ing hole! If he'd told me that all those people were on board, I wouldn't have done it, okay?"
"No, it's not okay," she said. "I never wanted to be a part of that!"
"I NEVER WANTED TO BE A ****ING PART OF IT EITHER!" I yelled. "And it's funny, but all of your moralizing sure as **** didn't stop you from taking your share of the money! And you know what? Federov was a sick-ass ****-stick and he deserved it! What'd you do with your share, donate it to charity? NO! You opened some weird-ass goth nightclub. So get off of your ****ing moral high horse! You've been blaming me for what happened for the last four years. You're just as guilty as I am and you God damn well know it!"
Melinda was silent. Cracking her icy demeanor was challening, rendering her speechless even moreso. But what I'd said must've hit home.
"I'm sorry," I said at last, looking down. "Look. I've got so much blood on my hands. I'm just trying to set things right by Sarah. After it's over, if I survive, I mean, I'm done. I tried to retire once, you know. I was in regular college for three years! And you know what? I loved it. I loved every minute of it. Now...Gordon took the only thing that got me out of bed in the morning. I loved her, Melinda. I really and truly loved her. And I just..." I had to stop. To keep going would be to risk breaking down in front of her, and that was bad for negotiations.
"Tell me, Michael," she said quietly. "You're tired of the violence, you say, tired of the death. Christ knows you should be. How, then, is killing another man going to set this right? That is what you intend to do, right? Why you want me to find this Gordon Willis' home for you? You think killing him will make it stop, will make it all better? This isn't a ****ing movie, Michael. Simply getting revenge isn't going to fix it."
"I know," I said, "but..."
"But what?
"But...Gordon is more guilty than I am. It wasn't just Sarah that died there that night. Almost all of us...almost all of my comrades, were killed. Left to be slaughtered because we were so good at what we were sent there to do that it became inconvenient for somebody. Gordon is directly responsible for all of that, and...." I paused, struggling for words. "He has a lot to answer for," was all I could manage.
"So do you, Michael," Melinda replied icily. I winced.
"I know. My turn will come soon enough. Will you help me or not?" She was silent for a long time, and rubbed her temples. Finally she spoke up.
"It'll take me a few days. Do you have a place to stay?"
"Yeah. I've got a room in town."
"Good. Now...please leave. I need a drink." I stood up to leave, but paused in the doorway.
"If nothing else, please believe me when I say that I didn't know those people were on that boat. I know I'm a monster, okay? But I wasn't then." I left, not waiting for her reply.
TO BE CONTINUED...
"Hello?" There was a soprano voice on the line that I hadn't heard in years. I suspected she'd be pretty surprised. Heh.
"Hey."
"Who is this?"
"You don't remember me, Melinda?"
"...my name's not..."
"Your name is Melinda Prescott. Your middle name is Ann and you hate it."
"Who the **** is this?"
"Remember Federov?"
"Federov...holy ****. 'Crawler, is that you?"
"Yeah, Darlin'. Been a long time."
"It has. Tell me, though, is there some part of 'I never want to see you again' that you didn't ****ing understand?"
"Well, technically you haven't seen me..."
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't hang up on you right now. And how in the **** did you get my number?"
"I can give you a hundred thousand reasons if you hear me out." There was a long pause on the line.
"I'm listening."
"Not over the phone. I'd like to meet in person."
"Not happening. I'm not getting involved in this **** again, and I'm not telling you where I'm at."
"Melinda, if I can find your phone number, don't you think I can find you?"
"Is that a threat?"
"No, no it's not. I need your help. I mean I really really need your help. Melinda, please."
"Okay, okay, fine. Don't beg. You know where my place is? My club, I mean?"
"Uh....yeah, yeah I do."
"Fine. Show up, tell them it's the 'Crawler here to see Delilah, and my security will let you in. Come alone and unarmed."
"Don't I always?" I grinned. I could hear the frustrated sigh on the line.
"Just bring the ****ing money. When will you be here?"
"'Bout a week."
"Make it next Thursday, eleven o' clock." The line went dead. It'd take me awhile to get a hundred grand out of my offshore account without raising suspicion, but I hoped that a week would be enough time. It's not like you can just go to the ATM for that. I also had a couple states to drive across before I reached Melinda's club, and that complicated things.
Still, this close to my goal, I was rather motivated. I clipped my cell phone to my belt, climbed back in my car, and got back on the road.
I suppose I should explain about Melinda. She and I went way back. Matter of fact, I met her when I was eighteen, shortly after I'd fallen in with...well, our team. Melinda was the same age as me, and she was truly brilliant. She was our resident tech geek, and she was invaluable to us. After the incident with the Russian, though, we had a sort of a falling out. I really didn't blame her. The sight of all those bodies in the water haunted me for a long time, too.
At any rate, that following Thursday I found myself wandering down a crowded sidewalk, briefcase full of money in hand, headed for her...establishment.
"Dark Obsession?" I said out loud, to myself. You have got to be kidding me. Looking at the long line of would-be patrons waiting to get in, and hearing the pulsing thump of electronic music coming from behind the doors...
Goths. Yeah, it would be right up Melinda's alley. Or Deliliah, now, I guess. I laughed at that. She always did have a flair for the dramatic (in addition to her flair for being a creepy goth chick). I supposed, however, that with a name like Manny Goldstein, I really couldn't talk. I took a deep breath, and approached the burly security guys standing around by the door. They were wearing sunglasses, black fatigue pants, combat boots, and were wanding patrons with a metal detector before letting them in. I told them that The Crawler (I hated being called that) was here to see Delilah, and they led me inside.
I saw that Melinda was doing quite well for herself. Her club was packed, and it wasn't even a weekend. Bass-heavy electronica music thumped in my ears as scores of pale, black-leather clad young people danced. Hardly my scene, but I had to admit that there were some pretty hot women in there.
Refocusing my thoughts, I followed the security goons through the morass and up a set of stairs. They led me to a what I presumed to be Melinda's office, wanded me with a metal detector, and pushed a buzzer button on the wall.
"Send him in," I heard Melinda say.
"Yes Miss Deliliah," one of the guards said, and opened the door. He scowled at me as I entered, so I smiled innocently at him and closed the door behind me. I was unarmed; it's not that I couldn't have smuggled a weapon past Melinda's third-rate goon squad, I just didn't feel the need to.
Perhaps I was wrong. Upon entering the office, I laid eyes on Melinda for the first time in years. She was reclined in a big leather chair behind a big wooden desk. She wore a tight leather miniskirt, fishnet stockings, thigh-high, high heeled boots, some kind of zip-up leather top, and had her previously brown hair died a deep purple, with black ribbons in it. Her skin was as pale as ever, and aside from the fact that I really didn't like her very much, she was looking pretty good. However, my attention was focused on the Glock .45 laying on her desk. Seriously, what is it with these goth-raver types and Glocks?
Squaring my shoulders, but saying nothing, I stepped forward and laid the briefcase on her desk. I stepped back, and waited. Without a word, she opened it, examined the money, and re-closed the case, apparently satisfied.
"Now," she said, looking up at me with her dark eyes, "what exactly is it you want me to do?" Her glare could've burned a hole in me. Ignoring that, I reached into my pocket and retreived Big Boss' flash drive. I leaned forward and laid it on the desk as well. She picked it up, obviously puzzled.
"It's encrypted," I said, "top level government stuff. I need you to crack it."
"I can do that," she said. She hadn't even looked at it and yet she simply assumed she'd be able to do defeat it. As cocky as ever... "But what's this all about?" I plopped down in the chair across from her and began to tell her my story, and what I wanted from her. It took about an hour.
"I don't know what to say," she said.
"You don't have to say anything. I just need you to hack that flash drive."
"Why?"
"I'm going to expose Project Heartbreaker and Gordon Willis. With your help, I'm going to put together all of the evidence and official documentation on this drive and release it on the 'net. In two days the whole world will know. If I guess right, the documentation on there will prove it all beyond a doubt. It names names, dates, places, events, and I can fill in a few blanks of my own."
"They'll kill you," she said flatly.
"They'll try. Plenty of guys have come after me. I've buried 'em all."
"I see you're the same as ever. Tell me, Michael, do you get some kind of pleasure from the act of killing?" I'd had about enough.
"Now you listen to me, God damn it," I barked, leaning forward. "I'm sick of your ****! How many years have you been blaming me for what happened with Federov? Christ, you think I wanted to kill all of those people? You think I planned it? You think I knew he was having a ****ing party on his ****ing yacht? ****ing Decker said it was all clear. He told me to fire! So it was fire in the ****ing hole! If he'd told me that all those people were on board, I wouldn't have done it, okay?"
"No, it's not okay," she said. "I never wanted to be a part of that!"
"I NEVER WANTED TO BE A ****ING PART OF IT EITHER!" I yelled. "And it's funny, but all of your moralizing sure as **** didn't stop you from taking your share of the money! And you know what? Federov was a sick-ass ****-stick and he deserved it! What'd you do with your share, donate it to charity? NO! You opened some weird-ass goth nightclub. So get off of your ****ing moral high horse! You've been blaming me for what happened for the last four years. You're just as guilty as I am and you God damn well know it!"
Melinda was silent. Cracking her icy demeanor was challening, rendering her speechless even moreso. But what I'd said must've hit home.
"I'm sorry," I said at last, looking down. "Look. I've got so much blood on my hands. I'm just trying to set things right by Sarah. After it's over, if I survive, I mean, I'm done. I tried to retire once, you know. I was in regular college for three years! And you know what? I loved it. I loved every minute of it. Now...Gordon took the only thing that got me out of bed in the morning. I loved her, Melinda. I really and truly loved her. And I just..." I had to stop. To keep going would be to risk breaking down in front of her, and that was bad for negotiations.
"Tell me, Michael," she said quietly. "You're tired of the violence, you say, tired of the death. Christ knows you should be. How, then, is killing another man going to set this right? That is what you intend to do, right? Why you want me to find this Gordon Willis' home for you? You think killing him will make it stop, will make it all better? This isn't a ****ing movie, Michael. Simply getting revenge isn't going to fix it."
"I know," I said, "but..."
"But what?
"But...Gordon is more guilty than I am. It wasn't just Sarah that died there that night. Almost all of us...almost all of my comrades, were killed. Left to be slaughtered because we were so good at what we were sent there to do that it became inconvenient for somebody. Gordon is directly responsible for all of that, and...." I paused, struggling for words. "He has a lot to answer for," was all I could manage.
"So do you, Michael," Melinda replied icily. I winced.
"I know. My turn will come soon enough. Will you help me or not?" She was silent for a long time, and rubbed her temples. Finally she spoke up.
"It'll take me a few days. Do you have a place to stay?"
"Yeah. I've got a room in town."
"Good. Now...please leave. I need a drink." I stood up to leave, but paused in the doorway.
"If nothing else, please believe me when I say that I didn't know those people were on that boat. I know I'm a monster, okay? But I wasn't then." I left, not waiting for her reply.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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CNYCacher
Member
More than worth the wait. That says it all.
Technosavant
Member
Well, I can try stepping up in the 'Bear's abscence...
<voice = deep movie announcer>
Will Melinda/Delilah/GothGirl help our hero?
Will she crack the encryption or crack our reluctant hero?
Will she somehow be introduced to Lorenzo's friend and like him?
Will they play Blue Oyster Cult at their wedding?
</voice>
OK, that's all I've got. Somebody else will have to kick in.
<voice = deep movie announcer>
Will Melinda/Delilah/GothGirl help our hero?
Will she crack the encryption or crack our reluctant hero?
Will she somehow be introduced to Lorenzo's friend and like him?
Will they play Blue Oyster Cult at their wedding?
</voice>
OK, that's all I've got. Somebody else will have to kick in.
sm
member
Hit Me With Your Best Shot -Pat Benatar
You're a real tough cookie with a long history
Of breaking little hearts like the one in me
Before I put another notch in my lipstick case
You better make sure you put me in my place!
Hit me with your best shot...
C'mon!
Hit me with your best shot...
Hit me with your best shot,
Fire Away!
You're a real tough cookie with a long history
Of breaking little hearts like the one in me
Before I put another notch in my lipstick case
You better make sure you put me in my place!
Hit me with your best shot...
C'mon!
Hit me with your best shot...
Hit me with your best shot,
Fire Away!
AKAMac
Member
Thank you NC. Now we know there is more to come.
BB, sorry to see you go, you dun' good. Mac
BB, sorry to see you go, you dun' good. Mac
Nightcrawler
Member
Choices
Four days later, I got a call from Melinda. She said she was ready, and for me to come over. She sounded tired, and she looked worse. She was dressed relatively normally, at least, in blue jeans and a black lacy shirt, but she had dark circles under her eyes and her purple hair was falling out of its black ribbons. Her desk had several empty energy drink cans on it, and her ashtray was full.
"'Crawler, do you know what it is you handed me?" she asked, lighting up a cigarette. She was seated at her desk, and focusing on her computer screen. The room was dimly lit, but morning light filtered lazily in through the blinds.
"Was there a lot there?" She looked at me wide eyed.
"Jesus Christ, you have no idea. It's everything!"
"Did you have trouble cracking it?"
"I've never seen this level of encryption on a ****ing flash drive before. It laughed at most of the cracking software I have, but some of the latest stuff was able to get me through. I was worried that I'd have to give you your money back, though." I caught a brief twinkle in her eye. I could tell she missed the challenge of her true calling; Melinda Prescott was one of the best hackers that ever lived, in my entirely uneducated opinion.
"Can I use it for what I want, though? Is there enough proof?"
"'Crawler, we can blow the lid off the whole ****ing thing if you want. It's all here. The original proposal, the approval of Project Heartbreaker, primary and secondary target lists, recruitment rosters, dossiers on all Dead Six personnel, including this Gordon Willis. You were right, 'Crawler, the guy's a ****-stick. He's been involved in every questionable black-op of the last five years. How the **** did you fall in with this guy?"
"I didn't really have a choice."
"Yeah, so I read. They've got a complete dossier on you, by the way. Psych profile, record, after-action reports, training results, everything. You were one of their best over there, you and a guy named William Tailor."
"Who? Wait, Tailor? Tailor's first name was William?"
"You know him?"
"He was my partner. We were in the **** together."
"And you never asked him his first name?" She raised her eyebrows.
"He didn't look like a William," I said absentmindedly. "Anyway, so it's good, right? Incontrovertible evidence? They'll try to say it's all a hoax, you know. And most of the witnesses are dead."
"There's just too much here for it to be a hoax. Too many names, too many dates, too much detailed info. Some of it goes way beyond Project Heartbreaker. Apparently Gordon is part of a genuine, no-**** shadow government organization. They don't have a name, but are referred to as "the Association". Pretty ominous, eh? They got their fingers in all kinds of ****, too, and there are a lot of powerful people mentioned. Senators, government officials, Presidents..." She trailed off. I could tell she could barely contain her enthusiasm now. Melinda had always been a paranoid conspiracy theorist, and a lot of this probably felt like vindication for her.
"But it can be proven, right? I don't want this to end up only being talked about on a few websites and late night AM radio. I don't want anyone to be able to say that this is a hoax. These people need to be exposed."
"You're going to upset a lotta people's apple carts, Michael," Melinda said quietly. "You know they're going to come after you."
"They think I'm dead."
"Do you want me to release the personnel dossiers also?" I had to think long and hard about this, and was silent for a full two minutes. On one hand, doing so might expose any surviving Dead 6 guys to danger. On the other, a lot of grieving families might never find out how their loved ones really died otherwise.
"Yes," I said finally. "I want a few of them left out, if you can do that, though. Guys I know for sure survived. If they want to, they can come forward, but if they want to stay hid, I don't want their pictures all over the news."
"What about yours?"
"Leave mine off, too. Michael Nightcrawler died in Qatar, and there are very few people alive that would miss him. I'm Manny Goldstein, now."
"Manny what? How'd the **** you come up with that?"
"Long story. In any rate, if I get through this alive, I don't want a bunch of paparazzi chasing me around. But tell me one thing. Does it say anything about how they turned us over to the Qataris?"
"Yes, but it's limited to your after action reports and incident reports from the guy you call Big Boss. It could be called into question, but it's got records of the reports being sent back to higher and confirmed, complete with authentication codes. They'll have a hard time saying it's fake. But that wouldn't make much of a difference; part of the original plan was to turn you all over to the Qataris if things got too dicey over there. This part wasn't explained to the top level guys that originally approved it, I don't think, but there are memos and directives from Willis and his superiors discussing this from the get-go."
"Those mother ****ers," I said quietly.
"I'm sorry, Michael. I mean, I'm really sorry. I saw Sarah's dossier. She was beautiful." I looked over at Melinda. Her expression had softened, and I believed her to be sincere. She and I hadn't been on such nice terms in years, and it felt odd.
"It's okay," I said, looking at the wall. "Can you put this together into something to release on the 'net?"
"Oh yeah, easy," she said, focusing on her computer again. "Just tell me what you want on it, and we can put it together right now."
I spent the next two hours doing just that. We put it together as both a website, viewable in a browser, and made it available for download at multiple locations. It would be uploaded to her network of friends, other hackers, mostly, and would probably circumnavigate the internet in three days. With luck, the major news media would pick up on it shortly after that, and from there there'd be no going back. As a final thought, we attached a note, describing how a Dead 6 survivor who wishes to remain anonymous received all of this information from the dying hand of Big Boss. It turned out that Big Boss' real name was John Carver, who'd gotten his clandestine career started in the 1960s by running missions into Cambodia. He had three children, and I was sure they'd be glad to know what really happened to him.
It was early afternoon by the time we'd finished. We sat in her office, facing each other across her desk, talking about the old days. Melinda hadn't always hated my guts.
"I remember how you and Corwin used to go back and forth," she said, blowing smoke into the air and smiling. "He'd come up, 'Hey Mike, you wanna hear a joke?', and you'd say, 'no', and he'd go and tell you the joke anyway, and no matter how funny it was you'd never let yourself laugh." She laughed out loud.
"I still remember when Corwin found out you're gay. He had such a crush on you." She tried not to laugh this time.
"I felt so bad for him. He was so sweet back then."
"Yeah, but the look on his face was priceless." I laughed msyelf. Hell, the three of us had all been eighteen at the time. Stuff like that is usually funny six years later.
"You're such an *******," she retorted. "Like you've got any room to talk anyway. You lost your virginity to a hooker in Reno!" I felt my face flush, and she laughed wickedly. "Do you ever see any of the guys?"
"I still email Corwin once in awhile, but with everything that happened...he probably thinks I'm dead. Haven't actually seen him since...****, February of last year? Yeah. I saw Hawk not too long ago, though."
"No ****. How's the old bastard doing?"
"Same as ever. He's mean as a snake and is as cranky as hell. Still puts together a top notch weapon, though."
"You know," she said, swallowing the last of her drink and loudly crunching on the ice, "I can't believe I'm sitting her talking to you about the old days. No one here knows anything about my past, or my real name, or anything."
"Well..." I struggled to choose my words carefully, "things got pretty bad at the end there. I don't blame you. How do you think I felt?"
"It was Decker, though, right?"
"Right. I went round and round with him later. Greedy son of a bitch. He knew all those people were there, and he lied to me. If we would've put it off, Federov probably would've gotten away, he said. I told him that was bull****, all we needed to do was wait until the party ended. Oh well, he said, too late now. I don't know how many people I killed when I triggered the initiator, but..." I trailed off.
"Decker got his, though," Melinda said, icily.
"That he did," I replied.
"I got the other info you wanted, too. Gordon Willis' last known address. It's a pretty swank house in Virginia. Money says he's still there."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me. I'm not helping you kill this man as a personal favor. I'm doing it because you paid me a lot of money to do it, and...well, ****, once a mercenary, always a mercenary, I guess. Are you really going to do it?" I was silent. I didn't know what to say.
"Yeah," I said at last.
"He probably deserves it," she said, looking out the window, still crunching on ice. "But...God damn it, Michael. I don't know why I'm even ****ing talking to you."
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry, Melinda. I didn't want it to end that way any more than you did." She let out a frustrated sigh, and took a long drag off of her cigarette.
"Just what is it about you that makes you so ****ing hard to stay mad at?" she asked sardonically. "You were right, you know. I needed somebody to blame, so I blamed you, even though I knew deep down that it was Decker's fault, not yours."
"Hey, it's cool," I said. "Ancient history."
"I want you to ask yourself something, though," she said, focusing her dark gaze on me. "Say you kill Willis. Say somehow you even manage to get away with it, to escape? Then what?"
"Then it doesn't matter," I said, looking away.
"Spare me the melodramatic suicidal bull****, 'Crawler," she said sternly. "I have to deal with these whiny goth ****s every day of my life, and I'm sick of that ****." I looked at her again at that, and raised my eyebrows in surprise.
"There," she said, "I said it. Don't tell anyone, it'll hurt my business. But if you can get off of your ****ing cross for a minute, maybe you can ask yourself this. Say you bust into this guy's house and blow him away, to avenge Sarah. Is that what Sarah would want? Is that the man Sarah would've wanted you to be?" My mouth fell open at her audacity.
"Where do you get off..." I started, but she interrupted.
"Spare me. You know I'm right. And you know killing that man isn't going to fix things, isn't going to make it better."
"I know," I said quietly. "But it's what I do. It's all I do."
"What happened before doesn't matter," she said flatly. "It's the choices you make right now that matter." I remained silent. I really couldn't come up with an answer to that.
Eleven days later...
It was dark as I made my way up the walk. I was dressed nicely, in collared shirt, slacks, and a suit jacket. I had on leather gloves, and held my suppressed Colt behind my back with my left hand. The palatial Virginia home stood before me, getting closer with each step. There was one car in the driveway, though the house sported a two-car garage, and lights were on inside.
I stopped at the door and with my right hand rang the bell. For what seemed to be an eternity, nothing happened. I could hear movement inside, though, and the anticipation nearly killed me. This was it. I was so close I could taste it, so near to my goal that I could barely stand it. Images of Sarah's violent death flashed through my mind again, and I wondered.
I heard someone behind the door. I stopped wondering and felt the calm wash over me again. The door swung open, and there stood...
...a woman. She was probably thirty-ish, dressed in shorts, flip-flops, and a t-shirt, with curlers in her hair. The TV was on inside. She looked at me, eyes wide.
"Yes?" she asked. There was no fear in her voice, just annoyance at being disturbed so late. My hand tightened on the grip of the pistol behind my back, and I smiled.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Four days later, I got a call from Melinda. She said she was ready, and for me to come over. She sounded tired, and she looked worse. She was dressed relatively normally, at least, in blue jeans and a black lacy shirt, but she had dark circles under her eyes and her purple hair was falling out of its black ribbons. Her desk had several empty energy drink cans on it, and her ashtray was full.
"'Crawler, do you know what it is you handed me?" she asked, lighting up a cigarette. She was seated at her desk, and focusing on her computer screen. The room was dimly lit, but morning light filtered lazily in through the blinds.
"Was there a lot there?" She looked at me wide eyed.
"Jesus Christ, you have no idea. It's everything!"
"Did you have trouble cracking it?"
"I've never seen this level of encryption on a ****ing flash drive before. It laughed at most of the cracking software I have, but some of the latest stuff was able to get me through. I was worried that I'd have to give you your money back, though." I caught a brief twinkle in her eye. I could tell she missed the challenge of her true calling; Melinda Prescott was one of the best hackers that ever lived, in my entirely uneducated opinion.
"Can I use it for what I want, though? Is there enough proof?"
"'Crawler, we can blow the lid off the whole ****ing thing if you want. It's all here. The original proposal, the approval of Project Heartbreaker, primary and secondary target lists, recruitment rosters, dossiers on all Dead Six personnel, including this Gordon Willis. You were right, 'Crawler, the guy's a ****-stick. He's been involved in every questionable black-op of the last five years. How the **** did you fall in with this guy?"
"I didn't really have a choice."
"Yeah, so I read. They've got a complete dossier on you, by the way. Psych profile, record, after-action reports, training results, everything. You were one of their best over there, you and a guy named William Tailor."
"Who? Wait, Tailor? Tailor's first name was William?"
"You know him?"
"He was my partner. We were in the **** together."
"And you never asked him his first name?" She raised her eyebrows.
"He didn't look like a William," I said absentmindedly. "Anyway, so it's good, right? Incontrovertible evidence? They'll try to say it's all a hoax, you know. And most of the witnesses are dead."
"There's just too much here for it to be a hoax. Too many names, too many dates, too much detailed info. Some of it goes way beyond Project Heartbreaker. Apparently Gordon is part of a genuine, no-**** shadow government organization. They don't have a name, but are referred to as "the Association". Pretty ominous, eh? They got their fingers in all kinds of ****, too, and there are a lot of powerful people mentioned. Senators, government officials, Presidents..." She trailed off. I could tell she could barely contain her enthusiasm now. Melinda had always been a paranoid conspiracy theorist, and a lot of this probably felt like vindication for her.
"But it can be proven, right? I don't want this to end up only being talked about on a few websites and late night AM radio. I don't want anyone to be able to say that this is a hoax. These people need to be exposed."
"You're going to upset a lotta people's apple carts, Michael," Melinda said quietly. "You know they're going to come after you."
"They think I'm dead."
"Do you want me to release the personnel dossiers also?" I had to think long and hard about this, and was silent for a full two minutes. On one hand, doing so might expose any surviving Dead 6 guys to danger. On the other, a lot of grieving families might never find out how their loved ones really died otherwise.
"Yes," I said finally. "I want a few of them left out, if you can do that, though. Guys I know for sure survived. If they want to, they can come forward, but if they want to stay hid, I don't want their pictures all over the news."
"What about yours?"
"Leave mine off, too. Michael Nightcrawler died in Qatar, and there are very few people alive that would miss him. I'm Manny Goldstein, now."
"Manny what? How'd the **** you come up with that?"
"Long story. In any rate, if I get through this alive, I don't want a bunch of paparazzi chasing me around. But tell me one thing. Does it say anything about how they turned us over to the Qataris?"
"Yes, but it's limited to your after action reports and incident reports from the guy you call Big Boss. It could be called into question, but it's got records of the reports being sent back to higher and confirmed, complete with authentication codes. They'll have a hard time saying it's fake. But that wouldn't make much of a difference; part of the original plan was to turn you all over to the Qataris if things got too dicey over there. This part wasn't explained to the top level guys that originally approved it, I don't think, but there are memos and directives from Willis and his superiors discussing this from the get-go."
"Those mother ****ers," I said quietly.
"I'm sorry, Michael. I mean, I'm really sorry. I saw Sarah's dossier. She was beautiful." I looked over at Melinda. Her expression had softened, and I believed her to be sincere. She and I hadn't been on such nice terms in years, and it felt odd.
"It's okay," I said, looking at the wall. "Can you put this together into something to release on the 'net?"
"Oh yeah, easy," she said, focusing on her computer again. "Just tell me what you want on it, and we can put it together right now."
I spent the next two hours doing just that. We put it together as both a website, viewable in a browser, and made it available for download at multiple locations. It would be uploaded to her network of friends, other hackers, mostly, and would probably circumnavigate the internet in three days. With luck, the major news media would pick up on it shortly after that, and from there there'd be no going back. As a final thought, we attached a note, describing how a Dead 6 survivor who wishes to remain anonymous received all of this information from the dying hand of Big Boss. It turned out that Big Boss' real name was John Carver, who'd gotten his clandestine career started in the 1960s by running missions into Cambodia. He had three children, and I was sure they'd be glad to know what really happened to him.
It was early afternoon by the time we'd finished. We sat in her office, facing each other across her desk, talking about the old days. Melinda hadn't always hated my guts.
"I remember how you and Corwin used to go back and forth," she said, blowing smoke into the air and smiling. "He'd come up, 'Hey Mike, you wanna hear a joke?', and you'd say, 'no', and he'd go and tell you the joke anyway, and no matter how funny it was you'd never let yourself laugh." She laughed out loud.
"I still remember when Corwin found out you're gay. He had such a crush on you." She tried not to laugh this time.
"I felt so bad for him. He was so sweet back then."
"Yeah, but the look on his face was priceless." I laughed msyelf. Hell, the three of us had all been eighteen at the time. Stuff like that is usually funny six years later.
"You're such an *******," she retorted. "Like you've got any room to talk anyway. You lost your virginity to a hooker in Reno!" I felt my face flush, and she laughed wickedly. "Do you ever see any of the guys?"
"I still email Corwin once in awhile, but with everything that happened...he probably thinks I'm dead. Haven't actually seen him since...****, February of last year? Yeah. I saw Hawk not too long ago, though."
"No ****. How's the old bastard doing?"
"Same as ever. He's mean as a snake and is as cranky as hell. Still puts together a top notch weapon, though."
"You know," she said, swallowing the last of her drink and loudly crunching on the ice, "I can't believe I'm sitting her talking to you about the old days. No one here knows anything about my past, or my real name, or anything."
"Well..." I struggled to choose my words carefully, "things got pretty bad at the end there. I don't blame you. How do you think I felt?"
"It was Decker, though, right?"
"Right. I went round and round with him later. Greedy son of a bitch. He knew all those people were there, and he lied to me. If we would've put it off, Federov probably would've gotten away, he said. I told him that was bull****, all we needed to do was wait until the party ended. Oh well, he said, too late now. I don't know how many people I killed when I triggered the initiator, but..." I trailed off.
"Decker got his, though," Melinda said, icily.
"That he did," I replied.
"I got the other info you wanted, too. Gordon Willis' last known address. It's a pretty swank house in Virginia. Money says he's still there."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me. I'm not helping you kill this man as a personal favor. I'm doing it because you paid me a lot of money to do it, and...well, ****, once a mercenary, always a mercenary, I guess. Are you really going to do it?" I was silent. I didn't know what to say.
"Yeah," I said at last.
"He probably deserves it," she said, looking out the window, still crunching on ice. "But...God damn it, Michael. I don't know why I'm even ****ing talking to you."
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry, Melinda. I didn't want it to end that way any more than you did." She let out a frustrated sigh, and took a long drag off of her cigarette.
"Just what is it about you that makes you so ****ing hard to stay mad at?" she asked sardonically. "You were right, you know. I needed somebody to blame, so I blamed you, even though I knew deep down that it was Decker's fault, not yours."
"Hey, it's cool," I said. "Ancient history."
"I want you to ask yourself something, though," she said, focusing her dark gaze on me. "Say you kill Willis. Say somehow you even manage to get away with it, to escape? Then what?"
"Then it doesn't matter," I said, looking away.
"Spare me the melodramatic suicidal bull****, 'Crawler," she said sternly. "I have to deal with these whiny goth ****s every day of my life, and I'm sick of that ****." I looked at her again at that, and raised my eyebrows in surprise.
"There," she said, "I said it. Don't tell anyone, it'll hurt my business. But if you can get off of your ****ing cross for a minute, maybe you can ask yourself this. Say you bust into this guy's house and blow him away, to avenge Sarah. Is that what Sarah would want? Is that the man Sarah would've wanted you to be?" My mouth fell open at her audacity.
"Where do you get off..." I started, but she interrupted.
"Spare me. You know I'm right. And you know killing that man isn't going to fix things, isn't going to make it better."
"I know," I said quietly. "But it's what I do. It's all I do."
"What happened before doesn't matter," she said flatly. "It's the choices you make right now that matter." I remained silent. I really couldn't come up with an answer to that.
Eleven days later...
It was dark as I made my way up the walk. I was dressed nicely, in collared shirt, slacks, and a suit jacket. I had on leather gloves, and held my suppressed Colt behind my back with my left hand. The palatial Virginia home stood before me, getting closer with each step. There was one car in the driveway, though the house sported a two-car garage, and lights were on inside.
I stopped at the door and with my right hand rang the bell. For what seemed to be an eternity, nothing happened. I could hear movement inside, though, and the anticipation nearly killed me. This was it. I was so close I could taste it, so near to my goal that I could barely stand it. Images of Sarah's violent death flashed through my mind again, and I wondered.
I heard someone behind the door. I stopped wondering and felt the calm wash over me again. The door swung open, and there stood...
...a woman. She was probably thirty-ish, dressed in shorts, flip-flops, and a t-shirt, with curlers in her hair. The TV was on inside. She looked at me, eyes wide.
"Yes?" she asked. There was no fear in her voice, just annoyance at being disturbed so late. My hand tightened on the grip of the pistol behind my back, and I smiled.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Chupacabra
Member
Wow! Nicely written dude. Well worth the wait!
Q-Lock
Member
ah man this is great stuff! You've got me sitting on the edge of my computer chair...just itching for more.
Great work! Keep it up!
Great work! Keep it up!
Hooo boy! This is really great ****! I can hardly wait for the next **********ing installment!
**** my *** if I don't find myself ****ing signing on just to get my ****ing daily fix of "what's ****ing next"? I **** you not, it's that ****ing addictive!
Sometimes I can't get on each day to check and it really ****** me off! I mean, ****, it's a real ****** when daily life intrudes like that.
When it's been a couple of days or more before I can get here, I say to myself, "Holy ****ing ****, what the ****'* up with this? How the **********ing **** have I allowed **** to **** with my ****ing life like this? Really! That's a ****ing load of ****"!
Geez.......
**** my *** if I don't find myself ****ing signing on just to get my ****ing daily fix of "what's ****ing next"? I **** you not, it's that ****ing addictive!
Sometimes I can't get on each day to check and it really ****** me off! I mean, ****, it's a real ****** when daily life intrudes like that.
When it's been a couple of days or more before I can get here, I say to myself, "Holy ****ing ****, what the ****'* up with this? How the **********ing **** have I allowed **** to **** with my ****ing life like this? Really! That's a ****ing load of ****"!
Geez.......
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