In the Beginning: Fan Fiction

[Blackwater Sniper]

In the beginning, there was Pain.

In the beginning my Mind created Pain. Now the Pain was formless and empty, and I hurt all over my surface and the Pain ran deep and the Spirit of Consciousness was hovering over my broken body.
And the Nurse said, “Let there be Medication to take away the Pain,” and there was an Injection. My Body felt that the Injection was good, and it separated the Pain from the Mind and Body. The Nurse called the Injection “Morphine,” and the Pain, I called “Misery.” And there was Sleep, and then there was morning—the first day.

Pain has a way of making you forget everything but what hurts. As I gained consciousness, my first thought was: ‘Why do I hurt so much?’ Close by a machine softly beeped so I tried to focus on that and take the attention off of my body. I must be in some sort of medical facility, at least I hope I am. If not, I'll need one soon. I hear the slight swoosh of a door sliding open and have the feeling someone is standing close to the bed.

Why can’t I open my eyes? That’s right, it hurts too much.

“Good, you’re finally awake. I’ve notified the doctor. He’s been worried. It was touch and go there for a while.” Another swoosh and the body was gone. I’m alone again.

I have no real concept of time. It’s interesting that both pain and pleasure, normally considered opposite ends of the emotional spectrum, can cause time to flow at differing speeds. When in pain, one minute can feel like an hour, but when spending time with those you care most for, time flies.

The door quietly opened again and someone stepped into the room, wait, make that a few other people stepped in.

“Chief, I’m glad you decided to wake up. You gave us quite a scare; punctured lung, bruised kidneys – plural mind you, blood in your urine, and those were the easy fixes. Then you had multiple broken bones, I won’t list all those. For some reason I couldn’t tell if those were past wounds or if you had some amazing MedBots standing by.” The voice is soothing and calm with an undertone of authority. “You are nothing less than a walking miracle. Your body has healed remarkably fast, but the mind sometimes takes longer to snap back. It’s a bit more complicated than slapping on a med-pack.

“Your MedScan shows you are assigned to Special Branch.” That seemed more of a statement than a question and I find it better to not answer questions that aren’t asked. “Out here on the frontier, we see our fair share of unusual cases. We patch you up and move you on, no questions asked.”

“W-w-where am I,” it nearly took all my strength to get that much out.

“We are just north of the Cincinnati Ruins at Coalition Medical Facility 42. I gather from your friends who brought you in that this wasn’t your first stop.”

“Friends?”

“Yes,” the doctor tapped on the MedPad, scrolled down a bit to the proper heading, and replied, “She only identified herself as “V” and was quite adamant that was all she would give until you pulled through. I take it she’s a part of Special Branch as well.”

“Yeah, we were on a mission in Fed- Federation of Magic territory, or close enough, when we got ambushed. Hard. Sorry, but that’s all I can say. When can I see V?”

“She’s usually around. We’ve asked her not to be too close though, it seems she’s having an adverse effect on the local Dog Boys. Well, both of you are, really, but they are rarely allowed in this wing, so it’s not as big an issue for you.
“I’ll have an attendant let her know you are awake. Just don’t overdo it, you may be better, but recovery has just begun.” Then they left.

I must have nodded off; V was sitting in a recliner scrolling on her Pad when I came to. The look on her face hovered between relief I was alive and revulsion of what was in front of her.

“Goddam it, don’t you ever do anything like that again!” I smiled, or at least tried to, I knew all was right in the world. If she were truly mad at me her tone would be stoic and all business.

“How long ‘til I can blow this place? Doc says I’m good and I can heal just fine without the CS poking and prodding.”

“I had Jr hack into your MedFile and modify things to help speed up the process.” Jr is our resident technophile, hacker extraordinaire. Not many systems he can’t access. He says Coalition systems are difficult due to the controlling AI, but no system is impenetrable. The closer you get to ‘central command’ the harder things are, but these outlying areas of the borderlands seem to run on their own network; no biometrics, no two- or three-part verification, just an old-fashioned user name and password. Shows where their true priorities lie.

“The sooner we’re out of here the better. I’m assuming you did ‘the usual’ to spoof the ‘Dogs.’ Doc was saying they were pawing at the walls and acting like they’re in heat.” I tried to laugh at the sight of a pack of hounds going nuts over little ol’ V, but my ribs were still bruised and I ended up holding my sides in agony.

‘The usual’ was sprinkling a bit of PPE Dust around to confuse the Dog Boys and other magic sensitives. Similar to how radioactive dust can be used to cause a ‘false positive’ for actual radiation, PPE Dust is just magic-infused particles light enough to blow in the wind, but heavy enough to stick to most surfaces. It works great when added to a smoke grenade; the particles cling to the smoke, blow around and stick to anything or anyone caught in the area. If you’re being tracked through a crowd, pop one of these babies, and suddenly everyone looks like they have enough PPE to hold off a squad. Best part is when you rub on anything, the particles transfer and spread even farther. The half-life is measured in days, plenty of time to make a great escape.

“Just like you taught me. We are running a little low, need to infuse some more when we get the chance. No hurry, we shouldn’t be looking for any action for a while. I left your Mask and The Persuader with Bob. Those things attract too much attention as it is, let alone in a CS facility.” V hung her head and let out a very audible sigh.

“Boss, I don’t know how you’re still alive. Those demons were clubbing you in the ground like a tent peg. Remember that game you used to talk about, where someone would throw a ball at someone else and they would use a stick or branch or pipe to hit the ball. Well, they were throwing you around and one of them grabbed a tree, pulled it straight out of the ground roots and all, and smacked you. You flew a mile, had to be, past where we could see. I guess they thought you were dead, ‘cause they just laughed and walked away. It took us nearly a day to find you hanging limp in the forest tops. I think your Mask was the only thing that kept you alive.” V was not normally one to show emotion, but this time she was visibly scared.

“After we found you, I healed you best I could but we needed to lay low for a bit and Jr found this place. I know you don’t like the Coalition or calling in favors, but this time it was worth it. I guess a retired Chief Warrant Officer Third Class of Special Branch still has some status within the CS.”

It was still a couple more days for them to be sure I wouldn’t fall dead if I tried to walk out of the med facility. After hearing what I went through, for once I didn’t argue with the docs. I still don’t remember any of it. From what V described I went through, maybe I’m glad.

We met up with Jr and Bob outside of Columbus and they filled me in on all the juicy details V couldn’t, or more likely wouldn’t, tell me. Our inventories were a bit low after the last fiasco of a battle, but all the important stuff was still intact.

The Persuader, my staff and companion, greeted me with all the enthusiasm of a year-old puppy who hasn’t seen its master in days. Not by jumping around and licking my face, but sending small jolts of magic through my arms which made all the little hairs stand on end. Yeah, I missed him too.

While The Persuader was a gift from my gladiator days, the Mask was “a gift” I’d acquired from realizing what a colossal piece of **** I had been most of my life. I try to tell myself I didn’t know any better, I was following what my masters wanted me to do, and rewards came to those who made them look good. Well, I made them look great. My main job was to hunt down people who displeased my bosses for one reason or another: runaway slaves, theft, owing money, or just generally pissing them off on Tuesday.

I was the best at interdimensional tracking. Most people think Rift-jumping is an easy way to evade trackers. Normally, they’d be right, but I had my ways. One such mark I’d been tracking for weeks went through a random rift into hell itself. Well, not the actual dimension of Hel, but for a clueless berk it may as well have been; it was Wormwood.