Something Assisted

Connor paced back and forth in front of Abigail's quarters as he couldn't just open the door and enter since she was not there. He had looked for her all over the carrier, but hadn't found her in any of the places he had looked. When she finally walked around the corner and entered the corridor, he simply walked up to her and handed her a document folder.

            "What's this?" she asked as she opened the folder and skimmed through a few pages."

            "The documents are vague and pretty nondescript but it does talk of the arrows we have managed to find at that burnt mansion during our second stop. And don't even let me get started on how effed of an assignment that was!" Connor breathed heavily and leaned back against his quarters' entrance as he watched his partner go through the pages more readily.

            It was highly unusual for him to be all excited - or was it anxious - about something, without making sure that he voiced his opinion beforehand. Abigail peered at him while she slowly read through some of the documentation he had handed her. Most of it had been blacked out with marker, and what had not been blacked out, was exactly as she was told -- vague and nondescript.

            What have been popping up more and more frequently was some mention of coloured crystals, energy, and something about fusion. She also read something about some kind of skin-altering projects, to which she looked up at Connor, who saw that she had finally gotten to the part which had him worried, walked up to her and extended his fingers as if to tell her that he had been talking about that all the time!

            "So?"

            "So what?" Abigail asked in return. Honestly she did not know what to make of Connor's 'findings' so she merely did not care about it at all. "Where did you get these anyway?"

            "So, don't you think we should go to someone about that? And where I got them doesn't matter any more."

            "You are a professionally trained killer. You take espionage and execution jobs at the price of absolutely nothing, thanks to the fact that we are always on the move, and now you're telling me that you care about some experiments probably not being done by anyone we know? Go back to bed, Connor."

            "I just don't like it, you know? Playing God and all that."

            "The organisation that have hired us and trained us, have been playing God since before your grandfathers' fathers' time," Abigail stated matter-of-factly, walked by him and opened the door to her quarters. "Now go to bed."

            Connor stared at her how she closed the door behind her, leaving him alone in the corridor. He stood motionless for at least another minute before he turned around and did what he was told.

Ed had just woken. His head hurt and his mouth was dry, indicating that he must not have been given nutritious while out this time. They must have gotten most, if not all, of their deliveries done. His vision, which was still a green blur made it impossible for him to determine the time of day, let alone exactly what the cargo hold must have looked like by now, given that they've stopped quite a few times now.

            He attempted to focus ahead of him, where he had come to memorise the door's location, in hopes that he would be able to make out a little bit more than the usual soldier at the door, or huge yellow - at least what he thought to be yellow - crates a few feet from them. He could feel his eyes rolling about as he turned his head, and his head's jerking had lessened over what Ed thought to be a few hours, so at least it seems that whatever they had given him along with the food was wearing off, and hopefully his vision with it.

            Ed noticed the small blur in the distance disappear as the door opened, and another blur came into view. By the way it swayed, Ed already knew that his usual visit had arrived.

            "Mr Swardt," Aaliyah's father said as he walked by Ed, up to a small security monitor at the other end of the hold, typed a few things and did some readings. "I am here to tell you that the other two agents seem to know a lot more than I had first let on. They know of what this carrier's actual mission parameters are, and they know that some of my regiment may not be 100% happy with the way things are at the moment."

            Ed said nothing as his Ed jerked in the old man's direction. He tried his best not to sniff, so as to focus best on what his visitor had been saying but could not help as he did out of habit anyway, which luckily he would be able to forget as it felt as thought the running-feeling he used to get seemed to dissipate slowly over time.

            "A few of my men will be attempting to confront the two agents. I can not tell you when, where, or how." The old man then walked back to Ed where he touched him on the shoulder. "You will be expected to stay here. Not make your way down to containment, get your girlfriend, and get the hell off of this plane."

            Ed hanged his head forward after he jerked, then spat in the same direction again that he always had. He listened to the old man walk out the door and close it, where Ed then began laughing silently under his breath.

Abigail used to be one that never doubted her mission. She had managed to pull off every assignment with 100% accuracy rate ever since she had been drafted by the Commander back when she lost her one and only daughter, yet she couldn't help but think about how Connor had reacted. Never in the life that she had known him, has he ever lost his cool as much as he had ever since they were given the assignment to track down the remains of the Betsy Killer's late husband, and find the data in his dermal-augmentations -- which they got to, too late as some shadow-thing had managed to beat them to it.

            Only after they had successfully tracked the Agency's sharpest shooter down and managed to capture him with little to zero effort, had they learned that their second mission in South Africa, to kill the Others informant, had also been a failure just like the assignment before that.

            Abigail was just about to close the folder that she had lay open in her lap and put it down onto the small steel table in her quarters when the alarm suddenly sounded.

            She jumped up and started dressing in her black and silver bodysuit, grabbed her firearms, and ran out, where in the corridor, she saw that Connor had already left.

Connor had a hard time getting his eyes closed and keeping it that way. He couldn't hell but think about their last few assignments, and how everything just did not seem to add up.

            His head kept jumping back to that Ed guy in the cargo hold, and how it was him and his little troop that came into the picture where everything just suddenly seemed to jump off the tracks and fall out of control.

            "Not that it really is out of control," Connor mumbled as he got up, grabbed his F2000 Tactical and walked out the door.

Ed looked up as the cargo hold door opened and a tall blurry thing came into view. His eyes lolled around as he figured who it was, and cursed under his breath.

            "I want answers," Connor demanded and pressed the silenced barrel of his firearm against Ed's cheek. "Why you?"

            "Afraid you might have met your match?" Ed asked with his best attempt at a smile. "Afraid of the teeny tiny rubber ducky your mommy had bought you?"

            "Shut up!" Connor yelled and hit Ed with a right hook. "Why you?"

            Ed said nothing as he hanged his head and tried to focus on his feet, which was just as blurry as expected. He fiddled withe bounds around his wrists and felt that they had been tied exceptionally loose. The old man must have had something to do with that.

            Connor walked a few feet away and circled Ed a few times. He did not want to do anything to the prisoner because he knew he was not allowed to. But he also did not want to follow orders and put at least two bullets in each of his kneecaps. Though something was wrong with him. He couldn't tell what, but he knew something was not right. "So?" Connor finally said as he turned back to Ed.

            "You want an answer?" Ed asked with a smile, "here's a little hint: No. Fucking. Idea."

            Just before Connor could lift his weapon and press it against Ed again, the alarm sounded. Connor looked back. Ed broke free of his restraints, and fell forward, which made Connor start and step back.

             Connor said nothing as he looked at Ed. He knew he had the power to take him out and get him back up on the chair. He also knew he had the power to eliminate him completely. Instead, he knelt down and unfastened the bounds around his ankles, turned him around and lay his weapon down in Ed's chest.

            "You better not fucking screw this up," Connor said and turned so he could run out the door. "The Commander better be right about you," he exclaimed as he hurried out the door and in the direction the alarm had come from.

It took Ed a while to regain his balance. He had no idea exactly why the old man and Connor seemed to be helping, but he was in no place to second guess the plan. He slowly retrieved the weapon which had fallen to the floor while he was getting up. He may not have known exactly what kind of weapon it was, but by how it felt, Ed was familiar with most of the design, minus what felt like a tactical scope, a silencer and an add-on for whatever under barrel additions you wanted to add. He gripped the gun in his right hand as he used his left to feel for small obstacles he may not have been able to see with his limited vision.