ic Cold Cold War

[Supercape]

GM

 

Gold, or Code Name Ground Zero, or whatever he was, dropped to his knees, then his hands. 

 

"Gave...all...of it....but...." he gasped, looking at Blue Jay. "Maybe...I...don't want to....hurt you...?" he asked himself, head nodding. 

 

With a jolt his eyes and head sprang up, contorting with effort.

 

"No! No! I remember the training! I am Ground Zero! Nobody must know!" he said, his voice seeming to flip into a Russian accent, a snap of conditioning, orders, discipline. 

 

"I will give everything! Everything I have! One more time! Even if it sucks the very life from me! Nobody must no of my existence! I am the greatest weapon!" he shouted, as much to himself as to Blue Jay. Again, his eyes flared, and his body. He was at the point of collapse. 

 

Whilst the explosion was awful again, it was the last breath of a man. It ripped through the air, shattering rocks around him. He gave everything he had. But he had not a lot left. With a sigh, he collapsed to the ground, passed out from effort. 

[Raveled]

The air exploded again, sending Blue Jay bouncing through the forest, and all she could do was curl into a ball and hope she didn’t break something vital. There was a furious noise and light, and then a short flight and a long roll, and then it went quiet. After a long minute she raised her head, and unfolded her limbs, and slowly got to her feet.

She felt bruises and pangs all over, but most of it radiated from her ribs and back. She checked herself out, and noticed that her coat had been ripped open in the fight -- In the bombardment she thought to herself -- but there wasn’t any spreading wet spot to indicate that she was bleeding underneath it, and she could breath without any pain. No real injuries then, just scrapes and soreness. She couldn’t tell about her back in any detail, but since she could stand she figured it couldn’t be that hurt.

The self-assessment took the trained fighter less than a second, and then she was moving through the forest, approaching Gold at an oblique angle that kept as many trees as possible between him and her. It turned out to be unnecessary, since he was face-down in the snow; she stood over him, glaring for a moment, before she sighed and picked him up in another fireman’s carry. Her back screamed at her, but she started back towards the same pine tree that she has stashed Cord under.

[Supercape]

GM

 

Cord groaned and slowly opened his eyes. 

 

"What...what happened? Did something hit me?" he groaned, disorientated. For a moment his eyes were glazed, but they swam into focus after a few seconds. As they did, he caught sight of Gold lying beside him. 

 

Cord tried to get up, but was still too groggy. 

 

"Damn, I'm getting too old for this. I need to cash in my retirement plan. Get out of this cold. Go and live in Tahiti" he complained, before trying to rise, successfully this time. 

 

"We got Gold. I mean, you got him...good..." he said, surveying the damage around him. The pine tree was half shredded from Gold's explosions. 

 

"Now to call in the cavalry..." he said, bringing out a radio transmitter. 

 

Which had clearly been broken. 

 

"Seriously? Come on! Give me a break!" he said, throwing the broken transmitter aside. "We got to trek all the way back? My head hurts, and we have an unconscious living bomb with us?" he sighed. 

 

He pulled out another careful small box. Inside it was a syringe and needle. 

 

"At least this hasn't broken. I can keep Gold Sedated..." he shook his head from the cobwebs before looking at Jay, as if for permission. 

 

"What do you think? Can we make it back carrying him? Its a tough call, but I would rather have him asleep than having to risk taking him back when he could explode at any moment..."

[Raveled]

Blue Jay considered the unconscious Gold. She rolled an arrow in her fingers, testing the point with her thumb. She could end it right here and now. It was what he had wanted, why he had come out here; to die of exposure or conjure an explosion so loud even he couldn't survive it. It would get the hunters off their trail, and she wasn't sure she could win a second fight against Gold, especially with Cord to handle.

But in the end, she just couldn't do it. In the heat of battle, if he asked her, maybe, but not like this. Not when he was out cold, helpless. Instead she started to tug at the tree branches, bringing down ones that had been weakened in the fight. "I need branches," she said. "Big, long ones. We're going to make a pull-cart -- and you're going to do the pulling."

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Oh joy" sighed Cord, patting himself down. "You do know I just got knocked out by a rock, yes? Big stone thing? On my head?"

 

That said, he helped Jay piece together a crude pull-cart. Gold was not a light man. The snow made it both harder and easier. Dragging the cart was a lot easier on snow than over rocks and uneven terrain. But on the other hand, even walking through snow was hard work. Pulling a cart behind did not make it any easier. 

 

And it was still cold. 

 

"I hope you know your way back. This is going to be a trek. And if I pass out, you better pull me too..." moaned Cord, struggling away. The sun was low, their shadows were long. And darkness, and the stars, loomed ahead...

[Raveled]

Blue Jay shouldered her part of the burden without so much as a grunt. "Time to earn your pay, Agent," she said with just a touch of acid in her voice. He has been borderline useless thus far; with luck, he would at least be able to drag Gold's body back to the car. She had to set the pace carefully, though. If they moved too far and too fast, they would sweat and the sweat would freeze and they would go hypothermic all the faster. At the same time they only had so long before Gold woke up again...

"Save the tranquilizers," she said as they started off into the forest. "We need to keep him as quiet as long as possible. He still has to fly home, remember?" She wasn't afraid of losing her way, as long as she could see the stars, but if Gold woke up while they were traveling it wouldn't even be a fight.

Thankfully, things were still quiet as they broke through the last stand of trees and saw their truck, parked precariously on the footpath leading to Gold's crashed rental. After a short, sharp argument with Cord, they jabbed Gold with the last of the tranqs and dumped him unceremoniously in the back. Jay took the passenger seat and vaguely wondered if the terror of the drive back would keep her awake.

[Supercape]

GM

 

Back at Breakwood...

 

The drive back was hell. It was dark, and Cord was even more tired than Jay. It looked like he had taken a dose of tranquilizer himself. 

 

"When I get back, I'm going to demand a month long holiday. Maybe Tahiti. I have heard its a magical place"

 

He slipped into sleep, and slipped off the road, on at least three occasions, and once into a tree. There was an awful moment when the pair thought the car was busted. But it limped on, although there was a  funny clanging noise from the engine that set nerves on edge. 

 

When they finally got back to Breakwood, Captain Torson was waiting, with two deputies. The stout sherriff looked grumpy, and was fingering his belt and revolver out of irritation. It was the middle of the night, after all. 

 

"What the hell ya got here?" he gruffed as the pair pulled up. 

 

"You been hunting people? Got yourself a prize, I see...well what the hell ya going to do with him?" he asked, tired and with little patience. 

[Raveled]

Blue Jay was exhausted and tried to slip into sleep, doing her best to ignore Cord's words. They washed over her, creating a comforting white noise, and when she closed her eyes she could almost imagine that she wasn't in a metal death trap hurdling far faster than anyone should reasonably go. That ended when Cord ran off the road the first time, and the adrenaline spike kept her awake when he drifted onto the shoulder the next time. By the time he ran into the tree, she was making tiny screaming noises through her teeth. If she had any idea how to drive, she could take over from Cord and let him sleep in the back.

Altogether she was feeling tired and ragged and over-stressed when they reached the edge of Breakwood. She got out of the truck slowly, keeping her arrow and quiver on the seat and hidden from the deputies. "I disarmed some men who fired at me," she said levelly, doing her best not to snap at the sheriff. "I took their guns away and sent them back here. Instead of tying them to a tree and leaving them to freeze their toes off. For trying to kill me." So much for not snapping.

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Helluva thing" said Torson, scratching his head. 

 

"You best give me the details of the assailants. Out here, its cold, dark and wild. We get the odd man go crazy, go shooting wild. But generally not at people" he sighed. "You can keep that in Freedom City, you can. Folks out here, we ain't used to getting shot out like you guys" he huffed. 

 

The vehicle Cord and Jay had travelled back in was still standing. Just. A big dent in its front and a wobbling sound in its engine didn't auger well, thanks to Cord's sleepy crash. 

 

Tosron scratched his beard this time. 

 

"I guess you guys be on your way, back on that plane. Let me give you a ride, and you can tell me all about your shooters. What a helluva thing in my backyard...." he said, shaking his head sadly. 

 

"Whatever, or whoever, you caught...lets shift him over to my car. Your's looks like its seen better days...?"

[Raveled]

Blue Jay's attention kept wandering, and she had to concentrate to keep it focused on the task at hand. When the sheriff suggested moving Gold to one of the police cruisers, she waited for Cord to respond. When eh didn't she glanced over and realized that he was dozing on his feet, chin nearly touching his chest. She slapped the body paneling of the truck, waking up the UNISON agent before she addressed the sheriff. "We'll keep the truck," she said. "It'll get us to the airport. But, uh, maybe one of your deputies should drive."

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Suit yourself" shrugged Torsen, nonchantly. 

 

"Ill drive with you, get my deputy, Otis, to drive that heap o junk" he said with a smile. 

 

Cord sighed with relief, and rubbed his eyes. 

 

Oris was a small man, for a cop, but quick like a snake. His eyes were black and beady, close together. He looked like a crook, but laughed and smiled all the time. He was a nice guy, too, sociable unlike Torsen, and ready to wake Cord up with a big pot of "Mama's special coffee!" and a wink. Cord was too tied to argue or inquire what exactly made it special. He supped it like it was nectar. 

 

It was a short flight to the UNISON plane, were the pilot was waiting for them on a cold wet runway. 

 

Torsen pulled up beside Otis, Cord, and Blue Jay

 

"Guess this is good bye then, folks. I'll take Otis back. I guess I'll have to swim through a heap o paperwork to find out what happened back there, and who you apprehended, huh?"

 

Cord was to busy "Resting his eyes" to answer. 

[Raveled]

Tona summoned up enough energy to give the sheriff a nasty smile. “Look for someone with aching feet,†she said. “I made them walk all the way back.†With a little help from the deputies they managed to wrestle gold aboard the plane and into a padded chair. Tona buckled him in and wished for a lot more rope. Of course, if the fight in the forest was any indication, he’d have in issues with detonating the entire airplane from the seat.

And then I’ll be falling through the air and when I reach the ground I won’t bounce, I’ll splat like wet meat, I’ll fall for minutes and be awake the entire time, oh god oh god oh god.

The archer blanched and swallowed hard, focusing on keeping her expression under control as she let the deputies walk out ahead of her. The only thing to do now was the get out of the town and get Gold back to the Blackstone as fast as possible.

[Supercape]

GM

 

In the air, back to Freedom City...

 

...on a small plane...

 

Gold was snoring. Loudly. Thanks to a sedative Cord had injected him with. 

 

Cord was snoring. Loudly. Thanks to being flat out exhausted, driven like a dog by Blue Jay. 

 

They were halfway back to Freedom City. The ride was pleasantly still, with only the odd mild patch of turbulance. The sky was clear, affording Blue Jay a magnicent view of the lands between Canada and the States, all the more picturesque  for the archers sharp eyes. 

 

The pilot of the craft, a fit middled aged asian man, put the craft on auto pilot, and got up. He took a look at Blue Jay and Gold. 

 

"That man..." he said pointing at Gold. "He is Matt Gold?...I...I think I remember something about him...." he said frowning and pressing his temples. "Where are you taking him?"

[Raveled]

Tona tried her best to get some sleep, but she just couldn't. Either she was staring out the window at the slowly moving landscape sooooooo far away, or she was staring straight at Gold. She could feel her nerves tensing up, just preparing for his eyes to fly open and fix on nothing and send everyone rushing out into the void of the --

Tona started when the pilot spoke to her. She hadn't been sleeping, exactly, but apparently her exhausted mind had lapsed into a sort of meditation. She berated herself internally for letting her attention lapse; Cord wasn't watching Gold, so if the living bomb woke up she would be the only one who could stop him before he killed them both.

The heroine finally answered the pilot's question. "Blackstone, at first," she said. "He can't control himself, so they'll teach him that. After that... maybe he'll be able to go back to his family." She inhaled deeply, remembering her father, the resistance, her doomed homeplanet. "I hope he can see his family again, at least."

Edited August 26, 2014 by Raveled

[Supercape]

GM

 

 

The pilot looked momentarily glazed, then shook his head, a smile on his face. "Sounds like justice will be served" he commented before moving back to the cockpit. 

 

A few minutes passed by, the landscape below rolling past gently. 

 

Then, there was a wobble in the plane. Then, another. 

 

Then a dip. 

 

The plane was starting to fall. 

 

The pilot appeared, wearing a parachute, running to the door. 

 

"I am sorry, American scum, the Sleeper is not about to reveal his secrets so easily! I may have lost an asset, but you will not have the pleasure of my exploding man either!" he said, in an odd voice. A trace of Russian, perhaps. 

 

Then, he reached for the door...

[Raveled]

Blue Jay once against entered that meditative, half-asleep half-awake mode where her thoughts wandered randomly, without any memory of it. It took her a few seconds to come out of it when the plane started tilting, and she almost started screaming at the thought. She caught sight of the pilot trying to jump out, and while he was making his big speech she reached into her quiver and brought out one of her grappling arrows. She didn't have time to use her bow, though.

She half-stood and whipped the line over her head, and then it fly. Her aim was true, and she caught the pilot around the throat, choking off his speech about sleepers and power. The archer set her feet as best she could on the tilting plane and pulled, tightening the line and pulling the archer back into the plane.

[Supercape]

GM

 

The Pilot grunted as the cord whipped around him. He made a reach for the pistol tucked into his belt behind him. No more than a peashooter, but bullets were bullets. He wasn't fast enough though. 

 

"Very well, young woman. This man will go down with the rest of the plane. A shame, but necessary. I have done far worse over the years, and no doubt I will do far worse again. You have no idea of the shades of grey that swirl around the political, know idea about the dirt that lies under the fingernails of spies. I am used to such filth. Perhaps I even no longer care"

 

The pilot looked glazed, his eyes glassy. Clearly now he was under some kind of telepathic control. 

 

"This pilot was innocent, however, and I prefer to spare the innocent. But prefer does not mean I will. In the Game of Thrones, only those who will sacrifice a few to spare many will win" he said. 

 

The plane began to dive. Cord rolled over, and bumped his head again. Gold was so drugged up he simply slumped, and carried on snoozing. 

 

"Are we there yet?" asked Cord, groggily. 

[Raveled]

Jay hauled on the cord and hauled the pilot deeper into the plane, twisting her legs as he slid in close and ended up kneeling on her chest. "This guy started the plane crashing," she yelled, "and the started yelling something about being asleep! So if you can't fly a plane, find three more parachutes."

She glared at the pinned pilot and tightened the impromptu noose. "What do you know about Gold," she demanded. "Who is the Sleeper? Are you the same one who was messing with the sheriff back in that town?"

[Supercape]

"I am the Sleeper" grinned the Pilot, whose name tag said Andrew Fields. 

 

"I am everywhere, unseen, unknown. My mind is in thousands of seeds. Ready to sprout at any time. This man is just one of my little seeds. Useful but expendable" he grinned. 

 

"You have ripped my asset from my grasp. Ground Zero, we called him. The most valuable of my little seeds. A walking time bomb. I won't forget your involvement in this, little girl. I have room in my schemes for Vendetta. At any time, at any moment, my seeds will sprout, and you will hurt. You understand? Hurt I have been playing this game for decades and I know how to hurt people. I know how to bend them. And I know how to break them...."

 

With a sickening turn, the Plane started to freefall. And the Pilot gave a manic laugh. 

 

Cord spun around the plane, crashing into the pilots chair. 

 

"Say, do you know how to fly planes?" he shouted at Blue Jay. 

[Raveled]

"My phone does everything," Jay said, bracing herself as the plane tilted even more. "But it is in my luggage." Which had been loaded into the belly of the plane. It wasn't likely the phone could help, anyway; Jay's knowledge of technology was roughly on par with a grandmother who treated text messaging like a long-form letter. She curled her fingers tightly together and struck the pilot full across the face; his skull bounced off the carpeted floor and his eyes closed.

The archer stood and lurched into the cockpit, and stared. It seemed like the entire front of the airplane was a solid wall of switches, dials, and blinking lights, none of which made any sense to the young woman. What arrested her attention instead was the view of the rapidly approaching ground outside the window.

"Nous allons mourir."

Edited August 30, 2014 by Raveled

[Supercape]

GM

 

Cord rolled an fell into the Pilots chair. 

 

"Now then...lets see....if I remember my training..." he said, foggy headed. 

 

"Then we would be quite safe. Unfortunately, either I hit my head too hard or I didn't go to flying planes class" he said, wiping sweat off his brow. 

 

The ground appeared nearer and nearer. Lights blinked and flashed. Alarms sounded. 

 

The Pilot laughed the laugh of death. 

 

"Farewell, little girl! Once less American to foil my plots!" he said, hysterically, before his eyes rolled upwards. 

 

Then downwards. 

 

"What? What? Where am I? Get me out of this! The plane is about to crash!" he yelled at the approaching ground. 

 

A few panicked instructions were shouted to Cord, who dutifully tried to pull the plane up. It straightened, rolled, yawed, but...

 

....but it was too little, too late!

 

Trees crunched into the plane, a few, then more. Blue Jay saw a wing being ripped off...an explosion...fire....

 

And darkness...

[Raveled]

Blue Jay felt her meager breakfast rise in her throat as the forest floor rose to meet them. At the last moment she let go of her death grip on the sides of the cockpit partition and covered her face, shrieking in an unnaturally high register. And then --

There was a terrible noise.

There was a terrible violence.

There was a terrible silence.

Blue Jay awoke, confused and hurting. She stood woozily and turned in a circle, trying to understand what happened. She could see a trench in the dirt behind her, and she realized that her own body must've dug that furrow. Beyond that was the plane itself, but horribly and sickeningly foreshortened. She could see that the window was busted out and missing, and her mind could only play horrible images of her being ejected from the plane like a cork.

The archer took a single stumbling step towards the plane and felt pain ripping through her frame. She looked down and saw a line of blood seeping down her pants leg. She groaned and limped towards the plane, calling out hoarsely. "Cord! Cord, can you hear me?"

Edited September 2, 2014 by Raveled

[Supercape]

GM

 

There was a smell of burning Aviation fuel, probably. But half the plane was strewn across a deep gorge in the landscape, marked by flattened trees. An explosion rocked the air. 

 

Cord was slumped in the cockpit, several dozen feet from Blue Jay. He was bleeding, and his leg really shouldn't be bent like that. She couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. If he was, it was pretty faint. The man looked white as a sheet. 

 

The Pilot, still wrapped up in Jays arrow, hung from a tree. He looked badly shaken up, but he was at least conscious and breathing. 

 

"I can! Get me down from here!" he said, weakly, swinging from a tattered branch. He had several severe abrasions, but he was alive. 

 

Gold was way off in the distance, still in his seat, which had departed from the rest of the plane. He was still unconscious from the powerful sedatives Cord had given him. At this distance, Blue Jay couldnt determine how badly injured he was, or even if was alive or not. 

[Raveled]

Blue Jay was breathing raggedly as she came up to Cord. She ignored the pilot at the moment; it wasn't logical, but she was still feeling resentful for how the plane had simply dropped out of the sky like a sack of potatoes. Besides, if he could yell and scream, he was a lot better off than Cord.

Jay knelt next to the collapsed UNISON agent, her leg screaming at her as she put her full weight on it. It didn't buckle, though, so she figured it couldn't be hurt too badly. She checked Cord over quickly and professionally, making sure he was still breathing and that he didn't have any major punctures or breaks. She had no idea where they were, and she didn't cherish the thought of dragging him for miles and miles through the woods.

[Supercape]

GM

 

Cord was breathing shallow, his face was white and sweaty. He had several injuries, and both his legs were broken, it was plain to see. Most worrisome, a large gash on his chest, bleeding heavily. 

 

"Well...we saved the world...huh...partner!" he gasped, wincing with the pain. 

 

"God it hurts....I feel faint....but....it is so beautiful here....I feel...at peace..." he said, eyelids sagging despite the pain. 

 

It was beautiful, in its own way. Snow laden trees, a sprinkling of snow on their faces. Silence now, the animals had fled. Even the wind was still and clear. It was a picturesque place to die. 

 

Some of the fuselage was still intact, and the Pilot had managed to half limp, half crawl to them. "There is a first aid kit...might still be intact..." he said, looking in enough pain himself. One foot had swollen to a balloon, thanks to a broken ankle. But he looked like he would live, at least. Gold was unconscious, but looked like all he had sustained was multiple abrasions and bruises. Ironically, he was the one who was in a sedative stupor.