The following is a chapter from an improvisational fanficiton posted at
http://indiemadnesse.sandwich.net.
This chapter was written by A.o.D. (no current email available).
* * * * *
"All the world's a stage, and the people merely players."
- William Shakespeare,
"All the world's a stage,
and the people merely
players"
"I'm not a very smart man."
-Tom Hanks, "Forrest Gump"
Self-Extraction 2.
It's rather amazing, you know, the timing one chooses to
introspect about one's existence. Here Carver is, unloading
moderately ludicrous amounts of firepower at someone who just knocked
someone else into orbit with a subcontinent, and for some unknowable
reason, he decides to reevaluate what was, up until that point, a
career that he was fairly comfortable with.
That's not to say that recent events caused him to doubt the
validity of his profession, not at all. If nothing else, every time
he went out on a job, his belief that he was doing the Right Thing
was reaffirmed. Perhaps the reason for his current moment of
self-doubt wasn't due to something as dramatic as a sudden revelation,
however, one would be hard pressed to find a reason as to why his
current hesitation is inappropriate for the situation at hand.
You see, Carver had brought with him a significant amount of
heavy firepower with the deliberate intent of putting Sayan666 firmly
in the dead-book. Most of his complement of weaponry didn't adhere to
the laws of physics of over half of the worlds that he knew of, to
include the one he's currently in. Furthermore, this aforementioned
weaponry afforded a person a level of firepower roughly equivalent to
the bomb dropped on Nagasaki on a Earth that might make a more
familiar reference point to some.
It was the complete ineffectiveness of the firepower leveled
against Sayan666 that was the very reason for Carver's sudden lack of
confidence. Carver is a very pragmatic man, it's something of a
requirement in his field of work. With that said, he's also not a
nihilist. In his current situation, that comes in rather handy.
Carver fires another volley from a shoulder mounted rocket
launcher at Raiford Yablonski, nee Sayan666. Just like all the
previous volleys, the projectile found it's mark, but Sayan666 failed
to even notice the impact. He was much more engrossed with beating
the snot out of Goku, who was suffering badly at his hands.
"God damnit" he says. "This is worse than I thought it was
going to be. Try the railgun, Hale."
Hale fumbles with the cumbersome weapon for a bit. She seems
confused as to how to be operate the mechanism.
"What seems to be the problem?" Carver asks.
"I, uh, this may seem unbelievable, " Hale responds, "but... I
can't seem to figure out how to make this thing work. What's weirder
is that just a few minutes before we got here, I'm pretty sure that
you told me exactly how it works."
Carver nods for a bit before speaking, "This could be another
aspect of what happened with the Kelsey case. I'd be willing to bet
that if we fire this weapon at Yablonski, it would be ineffective."
"So what do we do now?" Carver says just as Goku is finally
piledriven deep beneath the surface of the planet, "Do you have any
ideas?"
Hale smiles briefly for a moment before responding.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. We'll need to get his
attention, though."
"Hand me that weapon. One wake-up call coming up."
Carver takes the massive railgun from Hale's hand and sights
in on the hole in the ground that marked where Sayan666 slammed Goku
into the planet's crust. He waits a few minutes for Sayan666 to
re-emerge from the hole in the ground, and finally his target hurtles
from the hole that was made just a few moments before.
Carver sights in and gently squeezes the trigger between
breaths. As he does, the front of his weapon jerks wildly, sending a
depleted uranium slug flying through the air fast enough to cause the
surrounding air to incandece. The slug, designed to punch through
heavily armored vehicles and continue on with minimal loss in velocity,
slams into the back of Sayan666's head; Carver is nothing if not a
good shot.
Yablonski rubs the back of his head and looks around for the
mosquito that bit him.
"Un-fucking-believable." Carver mutters in a disgusted tone.
He'd dealt with some hard cases before, but this is the first he's
ever seen someone shrug off a direct hit from an anti-tank weapon.
What's worse is that he still doesn't have Sayan666's attention.
"Oh fuck this." he says as he flips a small switch on the side
of his weapon.
A second pull of the trigger releases a barrage of projectiles
at Yablonski. It's a credit to Carver's expertise with weaponry that
most of the rounds hit. Those rounds that do hit either riccochet off
wildly, or are stopped cold. However, Carver does partially succeed.
"Ow! Hey! OUCH! OWWWWWwww! HEY! Stop.. OW! Stop that!!"
Sayan666 yells heroically.
The barrage continues for a few minutes and Yablonski feebly
tries to fend off the slugs as he whines. Even though Carver knows
that his efforts are all but ineffective in neutralizing him he still
finds a measure of satisfaction in what he does. That is, until
Yablonski recalls that he can move faster than the eye can follow, and
does so.
In a heartbeat Carver finds himself disarmed and flying
backwards through the air. He lands 100 meters away and skids to a
halt another 25 meters past that. When he finally stops, he does not
move.
Hale, who until this point had been watching from cover,
realized that she had to act quickly or Carver would be killed.
"WAIT!!" She shouts as she leaps from her hiding spot.
Sayan666 turns and looks from where he's hovering over the
servo-assisted battlesuit that contains Carver.
"Another Mecha-suited bozo? Don't you know that you can't
hurt me?" boasts Yablonski.
A quick check of her armor's communications suite tells Hale
that Carver is still alive, if unconscious.
"Ha! You Sayans are all alike. Do you not realize that it is
you that cannot harm me?"
For a moment, Hale wonders if she has lost her mind. She
knows full well that Raiford Yablonski is capable of popping open her
battle suit without so much as working up a sweat. She also knows,
though she can't explain it, that she now has Raiford's undivided
attention.
"Oh really? Don't you know that was Goku that I just beat
up?" Raiford says, preening.
"Insignificant insect, the Dark Queen of Mecha cares not!
Neither Goku nor you can even begin to defeat me without the
Nega-Dragon Ball, and that is so carefully hidden that it would take
even the greatest of Super-Sayan months to locate it in it's hellish
demesne!"
Hale hopes that her performance was haughty enough, and that
the powersuit she was wearing didn't convey the fact that her legs
were very literally shaking. More importantly, she hopes beyond hope
that Raiford buys that line of complete bullshit.
Sayan666 scratches his chin for a moment, and slowly a sly
grin crosses his face.
"Months? I'll find it in a day, and you shall know defeat,
for I am the strongest there is!"
Without saying another word, Yablonski is gone. Hale turns
around to see Carver painstakingly shuffling from where Yablonski had
left him a few moments before. There is a massive dent in the chest
of his powersuit, and he seems to be favoring his left side.
"Geez, are you going to be alright? I tried to stop him
before he could do anything, but he was faster than anything I've
ever seen!" Hale said as she rushed to help Carver.
"Nah, I'll be fine. I think the worst I've got is a couple of
bruises. I've had much worse. Besides, we'll need to get ready for
when he comes back. How long do you think it'll take for him to find
that nega-dragonball thingy?"
"I honestly don't know. I made it up."
"Made it up, huh? Somehow, I don't think that he's gonna
worry about that. Come on. Let's get to the car. There's something
I'm gonna need from the office to put this case to bed."
"What's that, a bigger gun?"
"No. Sometimes there's just no gun in all the earth's big
enough to take out an ego that bloated."
"You're not calling off the hit, are you?"
Carver stopped dead in his tracks and stared Hale straight in
the eye. Rather, he would have if both of them weren't wearing opaque
visors on their helmets.
"Hale, there's one thing you've gotta learn about this
business: No one, but no one calls off a case in this business.
We're the first and last lines of defense against those egomaniacal
usurpers. Now I'm not angry with you, but I need for you to understand
something from the get-go. If the job is too big, you regroup, or you
get backup. Under no circumstances do you just walk away. If we
fail, then that's the end. I don't just mean death, either. If
Sayan666 were allowed to have free reign in this universe, eventually
this alternate universe would literally fall apart."
"Listen, I'll have to explain this in greater detail later,
but for now, just know that if guys like this don't get put away,
eventually everything falls apart. This planet, this galaxy, this
whole universe, and if this universe goes, the effects would be felt
across all of the other universes. Now do you see why our job is so
important?"
Hale doesn't say anything. She just nods once.
"Let's go." She says.
Carver is nothing less than certain that Hale was born for
this kind of work.
---------
"Are you sure we won't need those battlesuits?" asks Hale
somewhat pensively, "Better yet, are you absolutely, positively sure
that I need to wear this.. this.. bondage gear?"
Carver shrugs and tries his hardest to suppress a wry grin.
"Yablonski could punch through those battlesuits like they weren't
even there if he wanted to. As for that delightful ensemble that
you're wearing, you're the one that said you were a 'Dark Queen', not
I. Even a lobotomite like our target might get suspicious if he saw
you wearing operations fatigues."
Hale takes a moment to appraise her appearance. She's
dressed, and that's being generous, in a variety of straps, buckles,
and harnesses. Normally she's against killing animals to make
clothing, but she's pretty sure that a cow's tail would yeild enough
leather to make five outfits like the one she's wearing. She's also
not exactly thrilled with the fact that the outfit was probably
designed for the flesh and blood equivalent of a blowup doll. Not
only is the outfit skimpy, but it is incredibly uncomfortable as well.
It pinches in places she'd rather not be pinched, and pushes in others
that are clearly only for the benefit of a third party. Make that a
teenaged third party with raging hormones. Just to add insult to
inconvenience, the long, flowing black cape that she's wearing does
absolutely nothing to protect against the chill winds that are blowing
across the windswept plateau that she's currently on.
"G-god damnit. Will he hurry up? It's f-f-freezing out
here." Hale stammers as she tries to wrap herself up in the cloak that
she's wearing. She is, of course, referring to the person they've
been hired to kill, Sayan666, also known to his mother as Raiford
Yablonski.
----------
"Are you sure he's gonna fall for it?"
"He fell for your Evil Queen of Mecha thing, didn't he?"
There's a few moments of silence.
"What if he's on to us?"
"They're almost never that smart."
Hale looks at Carver for a moment, unsure if she should say
the next question on her mind. After a moment, Carver turns towards
Hale with a very candid look on his face.
"If he is that smart, we're dead. It's better not to think
about it."
----------
When Sayan 666 finally arrives, the sun is rising on Namek,
and the whole affair is almost anticlimatic. That is, if one can call
a pillar of light accompanied with blasting theme music, and a
Seven-foot tall muscle-bound freak with ten-foot long flowing spiky
hair anticlimactic.
"Where is that music coming from?"
"It's a world-specific property. I'm not exactly certain as
to how this works. Get ready, he's almost here."
Sayan666 gracefully touches down on the barren earth. He
grins smugly as he holds forth a black orb that seems to absorb
light. Hale steps forward to deal with him.
"I see that you've found the nega-dragonball. I'm impressed.
I had thought that it did not exist." Hale says in her best attempt at
haughtiness.
"I did not find this, I made it! My amazing Sayan abilities
know no limits. Now that I have this, you shall know defeat! Prepare
yourself for an ass whipping!"
With that, Sayan666 drops into a ready stance and his battle
aura flashes into existence. His aura is so bright that Hale and
Carver are forced to look away.
"Alas," Hale says hurriedly, "you have the nega-dragonball. I
am already defeated. It is a well known fact that I cannot stand
against any who possess the nega-ball. Very well, I must present to
you the source of my power, for it is so decreed that I must do so."
Hale turns to Carver, who nods in her direction.
"Slave, bring the orb of ultimate translocation to Yabl.. er,
Sayan666!"
Carver bows, and with a flourish pulls out a glowing white
ball. It is clearly a product of technology, as it has a panel of
buttons attached to it, and several metal panels are interconnected by
ribbed tubing. He cautiously steps towards Yablonski and presents the
device to him. There is a tense moment as Yablonski regards Hale and
Carver with suspicion. When he finally accepts it, the pair breath a
sigh of relief.
"Now that I have this orb, all will know that I am the
mightiest Sayan in the universe!" proclaims Yablonski. There's a
maniacal glint in his eye, and a dangerous edge to his voice.
"No, you're not the mightiest. Just the dumbest," retorts
Carver whom, until this point, had remained silent.
Raiford only manages an unintelligible "Wha..?" before the orb
in his hands activates. The surrounding plateu disappears, and there
is a brief moment of discontinuity. Suddenly, the trio is standing on
a crowded city street. Where they were standing on Namek moments
before, they now found themselves in a city that could be no where but
Earth.
"You tricked me! I do not know why you brought me back to
Earth, but you'll know defeat all the same!" Yablonski shouts as he
leaps into the air...
...and promptly falls back on his face. He quickly scrambles
to his feet and thrusts his hands at Carver.
"Shiryuu Hoten Jinrai Haken!" he shouts.
Nothing happens.
"This is the wrong universe for that sort of thing, Raiford."
says Carver cooly.
"But.. but.. how?"
Carver exchanges glances with Hale.
"We've been at this job long enough, don't you think?" He says
as he pulls a revolver out of his belt.
"Hurry up, I need to get out of this ridiculous outfit."
"Right, get the car. I'll finish up here."
Raiford's body is still warm by the time Hale changes into
something less revealing.
---------
"You know Russell, this is starting to become a running joke."
"Carver." Russell says by way of greeting.
Russell is once again sitting in the darkest corner of The
Middle of Nowhere. Carver was hoping to unwind after that last
assignment, particularly that last assignment. It was more stressful
than most. He didn't like having his entire arsenal rendered useless
because he'd underestimated his assignment. If it hadn't been for
some quick thinking on his part, and even quicker thinking on Hale's
part, he's pretty sure that one or both of them would have ended up
dead.
Russell's presence here didn't help matters any. Carver
figures that Russell has his reasons, but the fact that he staged his
own death and became a loose cannon doesn't help his blood pressure
any. Russell used to put Carver on edge in the past, but that mostly
due to the fact that Russell dealt in things that made large
explosions. That feeling of edginess is only increased. It's almost
as if Russell himself was primed to explode.
"What makes you say that?" asks Russell idly as he runs his
fingers around the rim of his beer glass. Carver notices the fidget
and catalogues it in the back of his mind.
"I haven't said anything, but everyone knows you're alive.
Frankly, Russell, I'm not sure what to make of you. You're an
explosives expert. Your very livelihood depends on your ability to
make sure every detail is covered. The way I see it, if you really
meant to stage your own death, then I wouldn't be talking to you right
now, and no one would know that you were still alive."
Russell takes a drink from his beer.
"What makes you think I staged my death?" Russell stares at
Carver intently, "You might want to order a drink. What I'm about to
say may sound less like a line of bullshit."
Carver orders a double scotch with a vodka chaser. Russell
gets another beer.
"I got the assignment to take down Kevin Kelsey about four
weeks ago.."
"Four weeks?" interjects Carver, "I had no idea you operated
so slowly."
"I'm nothing if not thorough." Russell says with a grin, as
though he'd just hit upon a private joke.
"As I was saying, I arrived at #43157MA roughly four weeks ago
and made contact with the client. After learning about the nature of
the case, I began to reconnoiter the situation. 2 weeks ago, the
target 'contacted' me."
Carver shifts in his seat slightly. In his line of work, the
people he's assigned to eliminate must under no circumstances know
about their existence until its too late for them to do anything about
it. All too often, the targets are too powerful to be taken down in a
direct confrontation. Not only that, but given the extradimensional
nature of the agency, there is simply no means by which a target could
know that he's been contracted. Normally.
Carver knows that when a target 'contacts' an operative, it
means two things. One, the field operative is dead meat. Two, the
target was tipped off.
"Kelsey found me as I was setting up a booby trap to take him
out. I don't know why he was there, or who sent him, but as soon as
he saw me fooling with the claymore mine, he attacked me. No, I
didn't survive the attack." Russell states gravely.
Carver takes a slug of his scotch. "If you died back there,
then how are you talking to me right now?"
"I'm not sure. I have my own theories, of course, and I've
been doing some research. It seems that in some worlds, death isn't
very permanent. I don't know if that applies or not in this case, but
at least it's a lead."
"Could you be some kind of mind swapped clone?"
"I doubt it. I clearly remember Kelsey breaking my neck. The
shock of the sudden spinal trauma alone was probably enough to cause
permanent brain damage, not to mention the fact that it only takes 5
minutes after respiration ceases for brain death to become all but
permanent."
Russell pauses to knock back another beer, Carver joins him by
finishing off his scotch.
"What gets me is, if someone went through the trouble of
bringing me back, who was it? Was it the agency? Was it someone
else? I just don't know. All I do know is that I feel like I'm being
used, and I'm sure that the agency is either directly or indirectly
responsible for this. I'm going to find out."
"What does this have to do with me?" Carver asks.
Russell stands up and leaves some money on the table. Carver
looks at it and immediately places its origin and relative value.
It's a large amount, even by the most inflated standards.
"I think you know more than you're letting on."
---------
Carver is sitting at a conference table across from a Japanese
man and two of his assistants. The man is wearing dark, ruby colored
glasses and has the habit of talking from behind his steepled, gloved
hands. Carver is alone this time.
"I must commend you on your agency's promptness," the man,
Gendou Ikari, says, "I've only informed them of my, problem, just this
morning. I must say that I'm pleased to deal with such efficiency."
"We try to be the most professional outfit in our line of
work," Carver says with a smirk, "now, if you don't mind, I've already
read the sitrep provided by NERV to the agency, but I'd like to be
given an appraisal of the situation by yourself."
Ikari places his hands flat upon the table in front of him and
leans back in his chair. He regards Carver carefully for a moment
before pressing a button on his desk. The room darkens and a
photograph appears on the wall behind him. Depicted is a teenaged
caucasian boy whose medium-length black hair seems to have never seen
a comb in its entire existence.
"Five days ago NERV accepted a new pilot into its program.
This is an unusual event in and of itself, due to the specialized
requirements we place upon applicants. What is more unusual is that I
cannot recall ever authorizing this pilot's admittance, nor is my
staff able to locate any record of this person's existence.
"Furthermore, this new pilot, Chyld-X, as he calls himself,
has displayed mecha-piloting prowess beyond even the level that our
best pilot has achieved. Simply put, his ability to interface with
his Eva unit surpasses even the theoretical limits of the technology,
not to even mention the supposed practical limitations."
Gendou presses another button on the table. This time,
footage of a towering, somewhat hunchbacked humanoid machine is
displayed. The mecha is seen engaging two massive, nigh indescrible
entities with multiple limbs. After what seems to be a ludicrously
brief battle wherein the two monstrous organisms do nothing but get in
each other's way, the mecha stands victorious over the two fallen
creatures, and even does a victory dance. The film freezes at this
point and Ikari resumes speaking.
"The Eva unit depicted in that footage is unit-69," he says
without the slightest trace of amusement, "The highest numeral
nomenclature we have reached up to this point is 03.
"Furthermore, and perhaps most distressingly, he has
comprimised my team of pilots. Within hours of arriving on the
grounds of this facility, he cowed my son, Shinji into submission."
Gendou scowls as he speaks his son's name, "I grant that's no great
feat; my son wouldn't show any backbone even if you surgically
grafted one into him. Before I was able to use this fact, but now,
he's less than worthless to me.
"However, that is not my greatest loss. He has somehow
managed to compromise the other two children in the program. He is
romantically involved with both Asuka Langley and, " Ikari's face
displays a nervous tick as he draws a breath to complete his thought,
"Rei Ayanami. I wasn't concerned when Langley became involved with
this interloper, she's both impulsive and irresponsible, furthermore I
expected the affair to end in one of the Langley girl's fits. It
wasn't until he seduced Ayanami that I realized how far things have
gone. I was under the impression that Rei becoming involved with
another person in such a manner was... impossible."
"Normally NERV keeps all of its affairs in house, and if I had
my way, this incident would have been no exception. In fact, the
footage you just saw was one such effort to minimalize future
disruptions on his part.
"Three Eva units operated by our pilots were calculated to
have only a thirty-five percent chance against both angels, with a
near certainty that one or two pilots would be lost in the
confrontation. We sent this 'Chyld-X' into action alone.
"I don't think I need to go into any further detail. This
individual poses an almost unimaginable threat to my authority and
this project. He is a master of manipulation and is capable of doing
things that no one thought was ever possible. I fear that he may be a
double-agent, or worse, even work for the angels. I cannot tolerate
such a thing. Take him out. I do not care how. I only want it done
soon. My resources are now your resources."
With that, Ikari becomes silent and glares at Carver
expectantly.
"Mr. Ikari, have you received the package that I informed you
about?" inquires Carver.
"Yes we have, and it is situated in our auxiliary hangar. My
technicians assure me that it is ready for immediate use. I would
like to say that if I had known you required an Eva, I would have made
one available to you." replies Ikari.
"I appreciate your offer, but your Eva units would have been
of no use to me. It was necessary that I provided my own equipment.
"On the other hand, I will need one thing from you."
"You have to but name it."
"In exactly two hours time, tell Peter Groat, I mean
'Chylde-X', that another angel attack is eminent. That is when I'll
make my move."
"Consider it done. Good luck, mister...." Ikari's voice
trails off, clearly expecting Carver to finish the sentence.
"Smith. Agent Smith. I make my own luck, Mr. Ikari."
"I.. see. There is one other thing. I was informed that
there would be two of you. What became of your partner?"
"If you must know, my partner is a new recruit. At the moment
she's being trained by another agent in special operations. She was
only with me for initial indoctrination and procedures. Should you
need to employ us in the future, you'll get a chance to meet her."
---------
The heads-up display of the vehicle Carver is in is dark, as
are all of the tell-tales and indicators. The machine that he's
firmly strapped into is, except for him and his radio, completely
dead. Carver has been sitting in this darkened coffin of a machine
for an hour without even basic air filtration systems operational and
the effects are showing. The small area he's in smells like a dirty
sock and sweat is beginning to pool in his seat. As if to
deliberately make things more uncomfortable, the helmet Carver is
wearing covers his entire head and neck except for the face, and is
clamped in place. A bundle of cables extends from the back of the
helmet, and trails back into the darkness of the compartment. There's
an itch on Carver's ear that he can't get to.
Carver couldn't be happier.
It has been several years since Carver was in the cockpit of
one of these machines, and at first he was unsure as to whether or not
he'd still be proficient enough to control one. His fears were laid
to rest the moment he strapped in, as years of experience flowed back
to him. He was reminded of his home universe, and the life he lead.
He'd piloted one of these machines on a garrison force on his
homeworld. That is, until the day he recieved the message from the
agency.
The radio crackles to life, interrupting Carver's reverie.
"Agent Smith, be advised that Chylde-X is en route to your
location. ETA: five minutes."
Carver sighs and closes the channel. Except for that one
incoming warning, radio silence is to be maintained in order to
maximize the element of surprise. The only upper hand that he's ever
had in these assignments is surprise. It's a good weapon, too.
Carver cannot begin to count the number of times he's terminated an
assignment where the target didn't check out with a look of dumb shock
on their face.
Carver flips a swith on the console in front of him.
"Welcome to MechOS '35. Please enter the voice key." chimes a
computer generated voice.
"Lima, Lima, Mike, Foxtrot." intones Carver, and the computer
confirms the correct entry.
Deep within the heart of the machine Carver pilots, a fusion
engine roars to life. Systems are initialized and actuators perform
diagnostic checks. The environmental systems inside the cockpit whirr
into life sending fresh, cool air into the cramped compartment.
Carver's heads up display flashes into operation, giving Carver an
immediate update on the surrounding conditions and displaying the
approaching Eva's position. The status indicator comes online as
well, informing Carver that the humanoid ATL-7K Atlas that he's
piloting is undamaged and has a full complement of munitions.
"Battlemech online," the vaguely female sounding computer
says, "all systems nominal."
Before Carver spurs his war machine into action, he reflects
on the nature of the missions he's done.
In his experience, all of the missions he's done have been
completed in four different ways. The first involves catching the
target unawares. Jimmy Polowski went down like that. The second
involves getting lucky. That's how Kelsey bought it. The third
involves taking the target outside of the milleu that they've situated
themselves. That's reserved for only the most daunting of missions,
and was necessary to take out Raiford Yablonski. The fourth type of
mission involves cheating, where you take some piece of equipment from
one world and transport it to another. Carver's current mission is
just such a case.
The first type is practically modus operandi for the agency,
but more than a few missions depend on dumb luck. The last two types
are strictly non-standard methods of operation. Normally, Jack Carver
likes to keep things by the book, but for once, he doesn't mind at
all.
------------
Next Section by Arthur Monteah-Carr, King of the Britons.
------------
A few closing notes:
Self-Extraction was originally co-created by Thomas Wilde
(aka Wanderer), Myself, and several others.
Mad Props go to Wanderer for actually getting this started and being
insane enough to hand off archiving this thing to a third party.
I can be contacted at aod1@home.com
------------
.---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
| Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
| Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
| Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject |
`---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'