#272
Among The Trees And Insects
BREAKING NEWS: Not a joke, several members of the U.S.
Congress have put forward a notion of getting the military to present plans for
the first steps to building a new empire to settle economic issues…
BREAKING NEWS: The trial of Bernard Jennings, who hunted
down a Beyond Human teenager and killed him, ends as he gets off on grounds the
boy shouldn’t be on the streets and being there made him a threat. The boy,
Manny Tenner, was a friend of his sons…
BREAKING NEWS: Virginia man charged with fraud on a
government document because he didn’t give his email address on Jury Duty form
and is arrested. Man doesn’t even own computer or TV. Said he isn’t stupid,
knows what email is, but “working as a carpenter for a local furniture store
never gave me course to need one”…
BREAKING NEWS: S*BL team, Florida Whale Skulls, walk off
court in protest after Bernard Jennings verdict is announced…
Aryballo used to be a roller derby girl. Girl in this cause
is ok, at least I think it is? because saying roller derby girl isn’t using
“girl” in a condescending way.
Plus, roller derby woman just doesn’t sound right to my
ears.
Anyways, she was a roller derby girl while in college. She
needed something to do when not studying and couldn’t really stand any of her
classmates. It only took her three months to come to the conclusion that the
only thing that would keep her from climbing a tower with a rifle was finding
ways of getting away from these people.
The roller derby team she joined was called The Florida
Rusty Hooks. Their logo is a rusty hook sticking out of the cheek of an old
woman. Kind of fucked up if you think about it. If I remember and have some
cash to hire an artist maybe that will turn out being nice t-shirt.
When you do local roller derby, which are usually nonprofit
operations, everyone kicks in. From skating on the team, to working the
concession table, to selling merchandise, to announcing, to cheering to roar up
the crowd and get them screaming.
The Rusty Hooks were in the middle of their season and so
far had only suffered one lose. In a couple years they have gone from losing
just about every matchup to being one of the best teams in the state and a well-known
part of the community, especially among small business and the local artist
community.
Aryballo was working the merchandise table for this home
game. So far she had skated one game and the rest spending time on the bench.
She thought to herself, “at least it was something different to do” and fans on
the team’s official website were starting to call her a Bench Babe.
Her coach was really happy she had volunteered for the job
as most people don’t want to do it since the universal term for the person
working the merchandise booth is Merch Bitch, but she didn’t mind, I mean her
derby name was Aryballo Bitch anyways.
As long as no one tried to call her a Merch Bitch she was
fine with it. Anyways, her teammate ZePuss told her if anyone did she would
body slam them.
She wasn’t the best skater but loved just being part of
everything the Rusty Hooks did. Her teammates had taken to her too as she was
game for all their fun including matches, charity work, and most important
after event bar crawls.
After the announcer explained the rules to anyone in the
crowd not in the know with skaters from both teams giving a visual of what he
was talking about and the national anthem was sung by a local talent the
matchup started.
On this particular night The Florida Rusty Hooks were going
up against The Tampa Bay Hurri Hits. The Rusty Hooks were in red and black and
the Hurri Hits in yellow and blue.
While The Florida Rusty Hooks were made up of artists,
athletes, and cool people, The Tampa Bay Hurri Hits consisted of girls who
cheat on their girlfriends, people who part in front of Wal-Marts in fire
lanes, and those who own four-wheel drive vehicles and still drive around speed
bumps.
They’re the baddies.
The assholes.
The Rusty Hooks home games were at a local recreational
centers gym. It was flat track roller derby event so they had the glory and fun
of suicide seating for those interested in the art of having a half dressed,
face painted, sweaty female in their laps.
I love suicide seating.
The game got heated from the first whistle. The first jammer
to hit the pack was brought down with a bad elbow but the referees didn’t see
the contact and had one pissed off Nurpooto of The Rusty Hooks bleeding and
yelling at him.
From there it just continued. One of The Hurri Hits went
down with a bad ankle. ZePuss directed someone into suicide seating aiming
right at a couple of old ladies. That action alone should tell you who designed
the teams logo.
You would think things around the gym were placed there as
targets because there were skaters that went through the exit door, into the
wheelchair area, and into the announcers.
So a normal derby day and one of the tamer ones Aryballo has
ever been involved with.
One thing that Aryballo had never noticed before, because
she was usually really nervous about the game and just focused on what was
going on from the bench, she had never noticed the basketball hoops which had
been pulled back while not in use. And that painted on the backboards was NO
HANGING.
Now everyone knows anything knows this is telling players
not to hang after dunks or trying to dunk or just acting stupid because most
gym rims and backboards are pretty cheap and couldn’t take that much weight.
For some reason though seeing those backboards clicked a
memory back into her head. Something she had put away and had forgotten to
disappear as a childhood horror but it had just found her again.
The memory was of a night when her family visited Virginia
when she was five years old but the memory was triggered by what some might
think is a very racist joke which passed through her mind. But it wasn’t a thought
as a joke, just a recall and feeling. When she first saw the backboards her
thought was, “They put those signs on trees in Virginia.”
Her family went to Virginia to check out a number of the
national and state parks in it and the surrounding states of Tennessee and
Kentucky.
One of the places that grabbed hold most to Aryballo’s five-year-old
mind was Cojo’s Cave. Now I think it’s officially called something else now but
only the people paid to call it that and strangers to the area called it
anything but Cojo’s Cave.
When her family visited Virginia she got separated from
everyone within the cave because of some snotty so called professional hikers
when one of them fell down into the cave.
Aryballo wondered off with her little Pulpy flashlight
trailing a bunch of baby bats.
Cojo’s Cave by the way is actually in Virginia, Tennessee,
and Kentucky. Or just two of the three, I always forget.
She somehow got way ahead of everyone else on the tour group
before any noticed she was missing and ended up coming out of the cave way
before the rest and wondered off into the woods.
She walked around in the woods for a while. As a child she
was rather known to do without a care or fear before she started to get scared
but she hadn’t felt real fear in her life yet so this was mainly the same
feeling a cat gets when you leave the apartment, a feeling of holy shit the
people who feed me aren’t here.
Real fear isn’t the fear of death, real fear is the fear
after you have faced something horrific that you might live with this
experience for the rest of your life. For some death is choice made as a final
way to get away from some experiences.
What a young Aryballo faced that day were seven men, seven
black men of various ages and stages of death decay hanging from trees by their
necks.
When they found her she was sitting under one of the hanging
men as drops of blood dripped down onto her head. Her eyes were wide open and
she didn’t speak again for days after and never spoke of what she saw.
Until after a roller derby match.
The derby match between The Rusty Hooks and The Hurri Hits
stopped and everyone was watching as Aryballo’s best friend on the team had
raced over to her after hearing her screaming and was walking her out of the
gymnasium in tears.
It was a mild breakdown she went through that night. Her
friend wanted to take her to the emergency room but she spoke again when she
told her no and then the story of what happen to her when she was five.
She was helped to recover from the reemergence of that memory
by her friends on the team, but she would grow to find out the best thing that
happen to the growth of her life was that memory returning. Until that point
she thought the world was black and white. It isn’t. And the shades of gray can
drive a person insane and she would need insanity to survive what her future
held.
When you work for a government top secret black operations
group at the beginning you think it’s going to be all secret gadgets,
interesting locations, and cool codenames.
I mean Hell, the very first thing they do when you sign on
the dotted line that says you will be hanged if you reveal anything about what
you do, is wipe everything from any official documents that show you ever
really existed at all.
You don’t get that working for McDonalds.
At least not yet.
Soon you find out when working the black ops shades even
though there are some really cool spy gadgets stuff, your most reliable weapons
will never be a decoder ring or unusually placed buttons in your car and will
always be keeping your head about you at all times.
It’s not long on the job until the notion of visiting
interesting locations is replaced with decontamination showers, shots to keep
things from crawling under your skin, and days of of bleeding out your ears as payoff
for visiting these places.
You kind of wish the group you work for had some sort of
cool code name like Operation Condor or Operation Black Sheep Pissing or The
Florida Rusty Hooks but no for style points you get digits when you work for
51222B and you will just have to deal with it.
And made fun of by the guys at Operation Application.
51222B is the United States governments operation to prepare
our government in every way for a modern world that includes overpopulation,
daily uprisings, rebellions, terrorists, Beyond Humans, aliens, climate change,
and auto tuning.
Yep, they are responsible for him dying in that hotel room.
Auto tune singing can be a dangerous career.
On the surface 51222B looked like a simple research and
development operation but they have more layers than an onion, and they get
darker with each layer, unlike an onion.
Today’s layer involves a 51222B agent code named Aryballo.
This is her first mission so her assigned code name fits her first assignment.
Yes, I didn’t reveal her real name in the flashback portion
to start things but that’s because it’s Top Secret.
I’m a good little American drone.
Aryballo is young, freshly recruited out of FIT in Florida
showing that even among frat boy future date rapists and mommy paid for cars
you might find a sparkler or two.
Ok, she’s the only one.
To be honest several government agencies have had their eyes
on her since high school because her I.Q. is through the roof, and when groups
like 51222B go recruiting they look at two things to start, I.Q. and if the
person is damaged.
You can’t do this type of work if you are stupid as an empty
bucket and also if you aren’t just a little damaged.
Aryballo had taken to wearing men style suits of various
colors to go with her blonde neck short hair and yellow work boots. If you work
in black ops and do something like dressing unusually that draws attention to
yourself.
Others in your line of work have a name for people like you,
they call you Future Dead.
Still a bit of the roller derby standout individuality in
her and if she wasn’t one of the best young agents 51222B had they would push
back against her individuality.
Her debriefings for this mission was done on her plane
flight from Florida and at a well known Argentina airport by another 51222B
agent code named Llama.
Llama is a shortish turtle looking guy who channels old
school Elton John for his eyewear choices. Another one screaming against all
logical reasoning and drawing attention to himself.
Aryballo’s mission was supposed to be an easy one for her to
start with as her first mission outside the United States. Before this she was
for the most part handling digging up dirt on politicians and celebrities and
industrial espionage.
She’s here alone, also a new one for her, with no backup.
Working alone is one thing. That’s how she likes to operate but when you do so
knowing that no one is going to come charging in if things go all tits up or there
isn’t even someone talking to you on the other end of an earpiece, it sort of
gives you a new set of thoughts that dance in your head.
Getting this type of mission and it being different from her
normal assignment tells her they are testing her to see if she can handle the
next level up of mission.
This level up of mission involves Aryballo going to a Ryan
Industries phantom company to retrieve some information an undercover 51222B
agent had acquired.
The company, called Program Machines, is located out in the
middle of nowhere.
A great way for keeping secrets and also for a writer who
doesn’t know much about Argentina.
And is admittedly a little lazy sometimes.
Like today.
Aryballo took the rented old Range Rover Llama setup for her
and drove it into the deep overgrowth for about an hour. She crashed through
blinding masses of trees, stumps, and one or two abandoned bicycles before
reaching a parking lot and a small warehouse building.
Her rental was even worse for the trip now having a busted
front windshield and a missing left rear hubcap.
She went through the normal procedures that are her routine
before heading into the lion’s den of an enemy location. The only difference is
this time she’s basically going in unarmed and completely valuable. If this
shits up a bit, there won’t be much of a chance of her making it out alive.
Aryballo kept telling herself what she was told. This is a
basic pickup, no problem, there is no reason to think anything has or will go
wrong. And those lies were good enough for her to be ready to get this going
but before she got out of the rental security guards were at her door.
‘Can we help you miss?’ Security Guard One
Aryballo gave the guard the type of smile most men love from
a woman. Not too bold, not too happy, almost sad.
Even with a fake company setup Colin Ryan makes sure he has
American blonde white guys working security in a South American country.
That’s from his personal a cookbook of douchbaggery.
The company manufactures computer casing, well they are
supposed to, well they do but that’s a cover for what they are really up to.
51222B has been trying to keep a good eye on a lot of Ryan
Industries activities for a few years now. They put an agent inside this
particular location to find out what was going on after a number of ghost net
hints that something else was going on here besides what company tax forms say
and that agent who was sent in undercover signaled not too long ago that he had
information for them to pick up.
He was undercover as Roger Mas and Aryballo was going in
posing as his wife, Varn Mas. Randomly computer generated names means some
funky shit comes out sometimes. 51222B agents have a running pool for who at
the end of the year ends up having to use the worst undercover name.
The white breadest of the Ryan Industry security guards
escorted Aryballo from her Range Rover to the buildings front reception area;
which to Aryballo looked like it had once been some sort of meat slaughter
room. It still had a few hooks hanging from the ceiled which they had tried to
hide with really tall plants.
There were a couple dumpster found couches and one very
large desk that the receptionist was using that looked like someone had taken
two large wooden desks and bracketed them together.
‘This is Roger Mas wife,’ Guard Guy informed the
receptionist.
Aryballo smiled at the receptionist, ‘Varn.’ But the only
thing the receptionist returned was looking her over. She had disregarded her
normal choice of dress for work boots, blue jeans, a button up shirt and tie.
‘I’ll call production to let him know, until then have a
seat Miss Mas.’
Aryballo sat down on one of the couches trying not to think
about the smell of piss and the stains. Better than the other couch though;
which looked like a monkey had been using it as its home for a good few days.
She was sitting reading the latest Warren Ellis novel,
because all spies love Warren Ellis, when someone came out to show her to the
breakroom.
If everything went smooth she would be in and out and back
home just in time for the sea food festival in Grant Florida.
They were walking Aryballo, and she was noticing this place
looked like shit. They sure weren’t trying to act like this place was any sort
of great place to work. Though she had been in a few legitimate American
businesses in Mexico and they full take advantage of not having to deal with
all the work place rules and regulations you have to in the U.S.
Or until some dipshit voters vote for dipshit politicians
who will unrestrict them from the gays and foreigners, and all they have to
give up for this is freedom and safety.
She was starting to think the breakroom must be on the other
side of the building and how bad of a design that is, she dated an architect
once, did you notice.
The security guard who didn’t respond to her sad smile came
up from behind and grabbed Aryballo in a bear hug that immediately took all the
air out of her lungs and cracked a rib. This guy was incredibly strong.
Beyond Human?
She didn’t know about that but he was a lot taller than her
so her reaction had to be to push herself forward in his grip, surprising him
with her own strength, and then a double back kick that took out both of his knees.
But before her feet even hit the ground she was tasered
several times into piss, shits, and drools.
Aryballo opened her eyes to find herself hanging upside down
in a dark room that smelled really bad.
Worse the couches in the reception area.
Sort of like hamburger gone maggot factory bad.
She tried to put her hands over her mouth but discovered
they were handcuffed behind her back.
How does someone not notice her hands are tied behind her
back?
Tasering by a taser that’s illegal in most countries, even
some of those fucked up human rights ones, probably helps in getting your mind
in that sort of state.
She was ready to throw up and possibly die alia Momma Cass
but that feeling was sidetracked by a door opening and the image of a man
standing in the shadows with a rogueish British accent.
If you are wondering what a rogueish British accent is…well,
so am I.
‘Now what are we going to do with you?’ said British accent
guy in shadows
‘Tickets for me and my husband to Paris?’ Aryballo
‘Your husband hey?’
The man flicked on the rooms lights and then he shut the
door leaving her hanging in a room all by herself with a decaying corpse.
Aryballo was guessing this is how her undercover husband
died. For the past week every day a tour of the security staff would come into
the room she was hanging within and take turns working out underpaid tension.
She survived through the security guards and now it’s the
office staffs turn to get some office space anxiety out.
Her fake husband must not have lasted this long because
these people were talking about being left out of things last time.
Most of these office workers probably hadn’t ever been in a
fight before because most of their punches didn’t even hurt. Though to be
honest most of her body was numb as the security guards had made their way
through her pain threshold pretty well.
She was waiting for the right moment, when they would have
gotten to use to her being there, and for the right one to make a move that
leaves her an opening.
She got that opening she was looking for with a gym whore
who had a name tag that said he worked in the shipping department. During her
time working for 51222B and dealing with frat boys in college those who muscle
up to this degree are compensating because they have a huge weakness when it
actually comes to trading blows. Dog fights, beating their lover, kicking the
shit out of a homeless man, those things they could handle.
The shipper muscle guy, let’s call him Benjamin, because
that was on his name tag, came into the room thinking this is the moment that
has fueled all of his wet dreams, the chance to punching bag a women hanging
from the ceiling.
She has met his type so many times she can spot that look in
their eyes.
He walked up to her and for a second she thought he was
going to pull down his pants and wackoff but instead he just rubbed the front
of his pants a few times and then went for a haymaker punch. She swung her legs
sending her head up to his neck were she dug in and start chewing.
He was trying to scream but was doing more of a sad whimper
than anything else.
‘uns te me. Ow,’ Aryballo
Benjamin reach up and started untying her. She could see
through all the blood pouring down on her face that he was getting weak in the
knees but he lasted just long enough to untie her hands and then he hit the
floor with a thud.
She unhooked her feet from the hook she was handing from and
hopped down. She was on her knees searching the room for cameras but it seemed
like the room didn’t have any so she then started searching Benjamin but he
didn’t have any sort of weapon on his person. She took his ID instead and looked
out the door to see if the hall was clear.
They didn’t have any cameras in the room but she did notice
when coming down the hallway when they tasered her that the hallway was full of
them. She would have to head straight out. No time to check out the rest of the
place. Only enough time to get out and call in some help. If this place is
killing people they know are government agents then this place is worth a raid
from 51222B, Home Land Security, just someone else, just not her.
This isn’t the first time Aryballo has been captured and not
the first time she’s had to fight through a shit beating to get out of a
situation alive.
She was personally trained by one of 51222B’s best agent.
Agent Kage spent a lot of time with her before being transferred over to
Project Chicago Freaks.
Aryballo wasn’t waiting until the hallway was clear.
She turned back into the room and kicked Benjamin in the
head to shut him up.
Then she stood on top of the man’s body and unscrewed the
hook she had been hanging from.
She laid in wait until a security guard passed by and pounced
out of the room to attack.
The hook embedded into the back of the guard’s skull.
He fell to his knees and then slumped against the walk.
She pulled the automatic rifle away from the guard.
The buildings high alarm went off before she even took a
step further.
Two guards came into the hallway behind her, she gunned them
down. Then she turned back around and took out two more from the other hallway
entrance.
Aryballo didn’t have time to realize this was the first time
she ever killed anyone…by shooting them. She’s really good with garrots,
knives, poisons, hand to hand combat, and other such tools of her trade.
But she was trained in the use of most known firearms and
all that training was hitting her and she was staying alive because of it
because her body had been through hell.
She fired a full clips into each hallway entrance and then
slapped in the last clip she had taken from the hooked security guard.
Kicking open doors along the hallway had her searching for
an out or something to blow up the situation. She found both in a chemical lab.
They would be rushing in with numbers soon; so she had to do
something and do it fast.
The air tightness on the door would keep things from getting
in. She grabbed several glass containers of bleach and ammonia and tossed them
into the hallway and quickly shut the door.
She leaned against the wall for a second and let the
realization set up. She was cornered without much chance of making it out of
this alive. She wasn’t giving up. Going down means she’s going to scorch this
place and she will do everything to keep herself fighting because there is
never a suicide time because this was not quitting time.
She surveyed the room further. One window but high level
bullet proofing in case of accidental explosions.
Some caged animals looking as experimented on animals would
look, a wall lined with chemical after chemical bottle, and a walk in freezer
labeled Live Bacterial Specimens.
She opened the freezer door a crack then opened fire on the
cages, chemical bottles, and dived in as she heard things exploding on the
outside.
Standing to her feet she noticed the cold right away, a
smell something like feet, and then that freezer was full of plastic containers
with pieces of animals and humans.
Before she could think about a next step she noticed a pink
gas coming through the sides of the freezer door. Guess it wasn’t air tight.
The response to a call to Ryan Industries ordered the head
of the facilities security to burn the place down. They figured if she wasn’t
already dead she would be and the security of the operation was out the door.
They napalmed the location a day later but they also found
signs of someone that walked away from the location and deep into the forest
and in time all signs disappeared.
At the end of this trail Colin Ryan’s right hand man
Envision, who was leading the search, called back to his boss, ‘The trail ended
at the highway. Do you want a sweep of the nearby community?’
‘I need you back here. This Orchid Secret chatter is getting
loud. Let your team follow on with this.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Envision
She broke into the back of an auto repair business that
looked like it was ready to fall down in the all of it at any moment.
She found and dialed the secret international number. She
could barely breathe. Her lungs felt like they were burning away.
All the way from the facility something has been pouring
from her mouth and just stopped. Her mouth tasted like burnt popcorn.
‘Identify yourself agent.’
‘51222B, Section 12, Agent AY, Help…please.’
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The sale of this book without its cover….well, is, sort of,
impossible since it really doesn’t have a cover but let us go through the legal
spray out anyways. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be
aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Hands up
to you who have books like this in your collection? Now that I put my hand down
we can continue with the credits and copyright and legal and stuff that people
just don’t ever pay attention to unless it is pumping their own horn.
An Original Publication of System* Publishing,
a Tin Universe book published by System*Publishing, a
division of System*Productions, Melbourne, Florida. This book is a
work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events
or locales or persons, living or dead or living dead, is entirely and very much
so in the coincidental.
Smashwords Edition Copyright © 2015, Brian
C. Williams, System*Productions. Tin Universe Daily, and
all related titles, characters, and elements are trademarks of System*Productions.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions
thereof in any form whatsoever. While unauthorized reproduction is sometimes
needed, please remember us writers types are for the most part a poor lot just
in search of a ways to tell our stories and enough money to add to our Doctor
Who collections….well, at least that fits me. For more information on Tin Universe Daily, the artists who
contributed to this book, and Tin Universe contact System*Productions at
hangofwednesday@gmail.com
Written by Brian C. Williams
Edited by Brian C. William
