#8: Reunion
(AKA Taylor Meets the Reds. Again.)
Simmons' incredulous shout was not without merit, thinking back on it. I mean, really, how else would you react to seeing three soldiers gathered around a fourth soldier, all staring and fiddling with his lower half?
"Who the hell?" Church tried to look over his shoulder and see who was talking, only to curse when he realized his lower half wouldn't move with him. "Tucker, who's that?"
"The Reds," Tucker said simply.
"What?! Caboose, why didn't you say anything?!"
I get the feeling I was going to sigh a
lot while I was here. "Because you wouldn't let him, you idiot."
"W-whatever! One of you turn me around!"
"What do you guys want?!" Tucker called out. "We're, uh, kind of the middle of something here!"
"No shit, we can tell." I got the distinct impression Grif was rolling his eyes under his helmet. "Are you guys seriously this desperate?"
"Fuck you! At least you have a girl that you can actually bang!" He paused, then turned to me. "Uh, no offense, kid. I mean, don't get me wrong, your cute and all, but I'd rather not go to jail for touching a girl ten years younger than me, you know?"
I waved a hand in dismissal. "Don't worry about it." It took me a second to realize what he just said. "Wait, did you just—"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Simmons asked out of genuine confusion.
"Oh, they mean the pink lady who blew up Sheila!" Caboose chimed in helpfully. His voice turned dark a second later. "
She'll be the first to die."
"You mean Donut?"
…please tell me that's an alias and not their actual name.
"Donut." Church said. "The pink chick who blew up our tank and killed my ex is named
Donut. Wow. I don't know whether to be impressed or laugh my ass off."
"For the record, Donut is a guy," Grif corrected. "A really touchy-feely, sensitive guy, but trust me, they're a guy."
"Okay, fine, the pink chick is actually a pink guy!" Church huffed. "So, what do you assholes want?"
"How about you turn around and actually talk to us face-to-face?"
"Uh…"
"He's shy!" Caboose told them.
"What are you guys back here for anyway?" Tucker asked. "We already surrendered and gave you the medic, didn't we?"
"Uh, yeah, about that…" Grif sighed. "We want to give him back!"
That made me confused. For about ten seconds. DuFresne admitted he wasn't a proper medic, because I refuse to believe that 'making you comfortable as you die' was the
only job you had.
"Uh, hello?" Vic said from my helmet's earpiece. "Everything okay over there, dude?"
"Sorry, Vic. I'll call you again. Something just came up. Thanks for finding that manual, though." It was a shot in the dark for the most part, hoping Command would somehow have a manual for repairing robots. To my surprise, Vic managed to find one. Surprisingly comprehensive, if maybe a little nonsensical at times.
Vic chuckled. "No problemo, dude. Feel free to call again anytime."
"What?" Tucker was confused. "He's a
prisoner. You can't just give prisoners back!"
"Yeah, we, uh, don't want him anymore. Got another prisoner?"
"Nope!" Church said. "Fresh out! You take what you get, Red! Now beat it!"
"Wanna say that to my face, punk?" Grif challenged, raising his gun just a little higher. Church was silent. The orange-armored man grunted smugly. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Bitch."
Evidently, that was the one thing Church wouldn't let slide. "Private Hebert," he bit out. "Shoot them."
"Can't. Not officially part of the Blue Army, remember?"
At the foot of the base, the red-armored soldiers sputtered. "Wait, Taylor?!" Simmons called out in shock. "That's really you up there?! Y-you're with the Blues?"
"Not willingly!" I called out. "This jackass shanghaied me and said Command would find me a way back home. Been here a month, and still no word!"
"I coulda told you they're incompetent," Tucker said. "They sent us
Caboose."
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Caboose asked. I swore he was pouting under that helmet.
"What do you think it means, moron?"
"…wooow," Grif said after getting over his shock. "You know, I thought you guys were doing alright after losing your big scary freelancer chick, but you must be really desperate if you roped in a civvie of all people."
"Up yours, Red! At least I didn't aim a shotgun in her first when I first met her!"
"WE never shot at her!" Simmons shot back.
Tucker growled. "That was because of fucking Caboose and his damn trigger finger!"
"Tucker did it!"
"Okay, you know what?
That's it." Finally reaching the breaking point, Tucker leaped at Caboose and knocked him off Blue Base. The sounds of a struggle and cries of pain, mostly Tucker's by the sounds of it, followed afterwards as dust flew about everywhere.
Church and I sighed in unison.
"Do you ever feel like you just wanna burn down the whole fucking world?" the sniper asked me.
"Ever second of every minute of every day since I got here and the world stopped making sense."
The Reds eventually up and left. DuFresne did try to return on his own, but Church wasn't having it. I protested, of course. As…
questionable as his 'profession' was, I wanted to believe he had some level of medical expertise that might help me. That, and that scanner thing could prove useful later down the line. Unfortunately, my objections were ignored.
I called Vic back and resumed progress on getting Church's legs to work. It was going well…at first. I made the mistake of taking a break and asking Caboose to make small talk with Church, my way of getting vengeance on him. When I got back, Church's groin area was a mess of wires, Tucker was laughing his ass off, and Caboose was sulking.
"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Church roared with such intensity I swore the air shook. "HOW?!
How can you fuck this up?!"
"Oh, for—what happened
now?!" I asked.
"C-Caboose thought he saw a loose wire, so-so he tried to shove it back in," Tucker wheezed between laughs. "T-then he tried yanking it, and everything just… Whoo! Oh, man. Oooooh, I needed that."
"I-I was just trying to help…" Caboose moped.
I let my helmet fall into my hands. I shouldn't be surprised by this, I really shouldn't, but here we are. God I fucking hate this place.
"
What?!"
Simmons winced, his CO's shout somehow ringing across Blood Gulch.
Learning Taylor was indeed part of the Blues was something a sore spot for him. It shouldn't have mattered since they only met once, but he couldn't forget the look in her eyes. Scared, frightened, terrified out of her mind. Not to mention the state of her clothes. Whoever dumped her in the canyon really wanted her gone badly, if not
dead. Worst of all, she was just a kid. Barely even in high school assuming he was not mistaken.
Despite his…problems…with women in general, Simmons was wholly willing to put those problems aside. He wanted to help her in any way he could.
…well, he supposed it could be worse. She seemed fine, at least.
"You mean to tell me the Blues forcibly recruited that civilian from last month?!" Sarge bellowed. "Those darn, dirty, backstabbing Blues…! Monsters! All of them!"
"Backstabbing?" Grif muttered. "How is that backstabbing? That'd actually mean we were working with them at some point, right?"
"Wait, you mean there's a civilian here in Blood Gulch?" Why was Donut so—oh, right,
duh, he was guarding the base when Sarge took them to the cliffs for recon. "Like the girl you guys found a couple weeks ago?"
"Same girl, actually," Grif said. "Said her name was Taylor. Blues must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel if they recruited a civvie."
"Grif…"
"Yeah, I know, okay? But seriously, what're we supposed to do?" Simmons' partner asked pointedly. "It's not like we're gonna just load up and—"
Sarge pumped his shotgun. "Saddle up, boys! We're going on a rescue mission!"
"—going on a rescue mission and… wait, huh?" Grif and Simmons did a double-take and stared at Sarge in shock. "What? Sarge, are you nuts?!"
"Of course not! Don't you see, Grif? They've brainwashed the poor girl! Right now, they got her doing manual field labor! Sprucing up the place! Maintaining equipment! But what if she starts learning how to use guns?! Training her to be an assassin?! As a member of the glorious Red Army, it's our civic duty to save that poor girl from the clutches of the cerulean devils!"
"Uh-huh…"
Simmons grimaced under his helmet. "Um, sir, as good as that sounds… You
do remember you aimed a shotgun in her face when we first met and accused her of being a spy, right? I don't think Taylor would appreciate a rescue mission from the people who aimed a gun at her face."
"You mean Sarge," Grif pointed out. "We actually tried to talk to her like civilized people."
"Simmons," Sarge grunted. "Remind to tell you to poison Grif's next meal."
"Consider it done, sir!" Ever one to butter up his superior in the hopes of acknowledgement (and more), Simmons saluted.
"Gee, thanks for reminding me you're still a kissass, Simmons."
"At least I won't be shitting out blood for the next week, cockbite."
"Can the pillow talk, you two!" Sarge ordered. "Grif, you and Donut stay here! Simmons, load up the turret! It's time to commence Operation Red Saves The Day!"
I tried. I tried very,
very hard not to scream in frustration or punch something. Despite what TV and novels tell you, they don't work. Trust me, I've tried. Sophia disabused me of all those notions.
"Look, can't you just come with me?" I pleaded for the umpteenth time. "I promise, I'm not going to do anything to you. I just want to fix your legs."
"¿Por qué debería escuchar un azul sucio?" Lopez said.
To give a brief recap, I was taking a break and talking to Vic about the next tests for my medical license when Caboose mentioned Church should de-possess his body so Lopez could possibly fix himself, and then fix Sheila. It sounded like a good plan, and it would have given me a chance to determine for myself what in the hell Church
was. Unfortunately, I came back just in time to see Church—or more specifically
Lopez making a getaway, with Blue team none the wiser.
I naturally chased after him and tried to talk to the robot. Key word "tried"; I don't know if he was designed that way or if Church messed with his internal settings or Caboose did something, but for some reason, Lopez only spoke in Spanish.
"…translation, Vic?" I sighed.
The spokesperson of Blue Command chuckled awkwardly. "Sorry, dude. Don't know a lick of Spanish."
"D-don't you people have a translating system, or-or google translate or something?"
"We, uh, don't have that. Or at least I don't. And nobody's used google for, like, eight or nine centuries, dude."
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me…"
Perfect. Fan-
fucking-tastic. How incompetent do you have to be to not have a translator or something?! You people have POWER ARMOR for fuck's sake! Futuristic tech that'd make Tinkers green with envy!
How do you not have something as basic as translators?!
Lopez stared at me oddly. "Eres... una persona muy enfadada."
"Taylor, duck!"
Tucker's shout brought out from my rage-induced thoughts. I saw a flashing glint atop Blue Base and—
shit! I threw myself to the ground, just in time for a sniper round to fly past me and Lopez. The robot cried out in alarm and ran away.
"Tucker!" I cried into the radio. "The hell was that for?!"
"Sorry 'bout that," he apologized. "But we've got a plan! We're gonna try and push the guy towards the teleporter!"
"The
what?" Teleporter? Okay, this just reinforced my point. Advanced tech, and
still no translators!
"Just trust us! Small green-looking thing north of the base! Can't miss it!"
"Can you just explain for…" The radio feed cut out.
I tried. I tried really hard. I took a deep shuddering breathe and…
"Uh, sir?" Simmons called out nervously from the turret seat. "W-what was that?"
"That, Simmons, was the sound of a girl screaming in pain and agony! Time to double-time it, otherwise we'll be too late!"
From his command station, Vic listened to every word being screamed out in Taylor Hebert's helmet. Due to the rules of Sufficient Velocity, and even Fanfiction.net, what Taylor said into the radio cannot be transcribed here. Not that it mattered, since Vic's station was automatically equipped with a BLEEP censor in case of Agent South.
"Huh," he said simply. "Looks like Agent South's no longer the most foul-mouthed chick this side of space."
And another new chapter! A bit later than I intended, though.
Nothing new to say here, other than trying my best to make slight changes than just "Taylor lives through Blood Gulch Chronicles".
Also, google translate for Lopez all the way.