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Chapter 3: Fly Away

Blake

"Alright, fuckers, who changed my damn ringtone to this fluffy unicorn shit?!"

Travis stormed into the briefing room, caring more about the state of his cell phone than he cared about the state of his brain matter on most missions. Pavel Svrbada, our group's token nerd, was sitting in a desk, his feet propped up on another one and his face hidden behind his own phone, evidently texting someone. The wolf briefly looked up from his phone and validly asked, "Travis, what the hell are you talking about?" "You know exactly what the hell I'm talking about," Langley retorted in his obnoxious New York accent, "or at least somebody here does."

"Hey, hey, calm down," said Kris Zimmerman, the Canadian Doberman who was widely-regarded to be the most level-headed of the team, "We don't know what happened. Why don't you explain a little more?" "Alright, fine. So I woke up in some random bimbo's room this morning-" "And there's mistake number one," I interjected. "Hey, shaddap you stripey piece of flea-bait," the brown fox came back, utilizing my being a raccoon as the fulcrum of his attack, "I didn't really even start yet. SO, I was in this bimbo's room and-" "Wait, what kind of bimbo was it?" asked the last member present in the room, Manny Carlisle, a cheetah in his mid-20's, "Was she hot? Was she ugly? Old? Young? Was she the ever-rare case of 'whoops, turns out you're a male'?"

"She was- Fuck, you don't need to know! And she wasn't a fuckin' trap either ya fuckin'... fucker..." "God, Travis, take it easy. You sound like a twelve year old," I said, rolling my eyes at the admittedly still young fox's overuse of the swear word, "Now continue. Bimbo's place." "Right," Travis nodded, "I was there and I woke up, huge headache, lots of suspicious bottles on the floor, tried to get out as fast as possible. Was about to leave when I realized I didn't have my phone. I tried to find it, but before I could, it found me, by going off right next to her bed. And it was playing this stupid Katy Perry shit." He held up his phone, and out came something that was not at all Katy Perry, but still great nonetheless.

I raised an eyebrow, Kris and Manny's eyes widened and shot over to Travis, and Pavel gave a weird wrinkled expression from behind his phone as Travis' device started blaring the lyrics, "I just met you, and this is crazy, but here's my number, so call me maybe." Kris and Manny began laughing hysterically, and Pavel and I chuckled at Travis' musical Schadenfreude. Pavel also corrected him, "By the way, Travis, that's Carly Rae Jepsen, not Katy Perry. And I know I didn't do it, but I really wish I did because that's hilarious." "Okay, fine," the fox sighed, "One of you still did this though, and I want to know who." All of us professed our innocence, and Travis carried on, "Oh come on! Somebody just fess up already!" "Hey Travis," Kris said calmly, "You realize that a piece of the team is still missing, right?" Travis stared into space for a few seconds then growled, "It was Alex, wasn't it? I'm gonna pound that fucker when he gets here!"

I sighed and wondered aloud, "And you're going to do this despite his being much bigger than you?" "I can take him," Travis assured me, "So where is our fearless leader anyway?" "Fuck if I know," Manny declared, crossing his arms, "Though if I had to take a guess I'd assume it has something to do with another team 'associate' that also isn't present right now." "I swear," Travis said, shaking his head, "That guy is the luckiest male in the world." I raised an eyebrow and asked him, "What, you actually want Elise? Do you love causing immense amounts of pain on yourself?" "Nah, nah, I didn't mean Elise specifically. I just meant that girls literally fall all over that guy. I mean, all of you saw that sweet little vixen he hooks up with outside of work. Come on, all of you would and you know it."

Kris and Manny looked at the floor and Pavel looked up at the ceiling in contemplation, and all three of them essentially admitted that the statement was true. I didn't, but that doesn't really matter. On with the banter. Travis laughed to himself, "Yeah now the truth comes out," then glanced over at Pavel, who was still texting on his phone, "Speaking of hot girls, hey Pav, how's Stacey doing?" The wolf widened his eyes briefly then quickly told the room that she was fine. "Wait, Pavel," Kris said from another side of the room, trying to keep things straight, "Stacey's your girlfriend right?" "Yeah." "So, logically, we can assume you're texting her now right?" "Yeah, of course I am."

Kris gave a skeptical look, then nodded at Travis, who was stealthily moving closer to Pavel. Before the wolf could react, the fox lunged at him and ripped his phone away before reading off, "Alright, one new message from Toni. Hey is that Big Tits? Anyway, it says, 'yeah I know I already miss you too'- uh, that's followed by a heart, XOXO, another heart, and a winky face- 'have you gotten a chance to use my present on the dingo yet?'" Travis stopped and stared at the screen, mirroring the emotions of myself, Kris, and Manny. "I have... so many questions," Manny said slowly, scratching the top of his head through his closely cropped black hair, "Number one: is this that one German Shepherd from Alex's thing a month ago?" "Yeah, that's the one. And she's more than that, Travis. Not that you'd ever bother looking past superficial features," Pavel confirmed, throwing in a nice burn for Travis.

The fox was a little offended, "Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" "You know exactly what I mean." "Well fine, if that's how it's gonna be, you should remember that I still have your phone. All I have to do is look in your pictures here and- whoa. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. I'm gonna be honest here, Pav, I wasn't expecting to find anything, but this is fucking phenomenal. How'd you get these?" Pavel tried to lunge at Travis, trying to get his phone back instead of answering the question, and unfortunately he missed. Fortunately for the wolf, however, I had seen enough from Travis, and I extended my leg out, causing the fox to trip over it when he jumped backwards from Pavel. The phone flew out of his paw, and I (quite gracefully if I do say so myself) grabbed it out of the air.

"There's only room for one resident asshole on this team," I said to Travis, "And it isn't you." Chuckling at the now discombobulated fox, I briefly glanced at the photos in question before returning the phone to Pavel. They were about what I expected: pictures of Pavel's "friend" in various poses and stages of undress. Not really my cup of tea. "Ok," I opened up again once Pavel had returned to his seat, "We've established that we're most definitely talking about that dog. Can we assume that you're regularly cheating on Stacey with her?" "Yeah, that's true." "And you prefer Toni over Stacey?" "Drastically." "So why don't you just date Toni?"

Pavel just stared blankly for a second, like he couldn't find a reasonable answer to that question. Probably because that was the case. "'Ey Tannehill, you're asking the team genius to put logic into his mind. You're gonna overload his circuits or some shit," Manny informed me. "Yeah, I should... probably do that," Pavel mumbled. "Oh and one more thing," I added, "What was her present for Elise?" Pavel sheepishly looked down, then retrieved a white glove from his pocket. I started to laugh uncontrollably, and everyone else followed suit when they got the joke.

And just then, at the worst possible time, the door to the briefing room opened. In walked the Golden Boy himself, strutting tall and confident, the fingers of one of his paws entwined with those of a provocatively dressed dingo. Our group quieted down, awkwardly looking around and snickering to each other like a classroom of seventh graders, and Elise broke the silence with the obvious, "What's up with the glove?" Nobody was willing to answer the question, but Alex quickly picked up on it, mouthing "That's awesome" to Pavel and telling Elise that she didn't need to worry about it and that they should go sit down. The husky pulled two desks together and he and the dingo sat on top of them. Alex wrapped his arm around Elise's waist and Elise put both arms around Alex, setting her head on his shoulder as Travis walked over to them with his phone out. He called Alex's name and asked him to call his phone. The husky obliged, and promptly laughed hysterically when he heard Travis' fabulous ringtone.

Travis glared angrily at Alex, "So it was you then?" "Bro, I have no idea what you're talking about. I haven't even been here all week," Alex replied, still laughing. "It's true. I've noticed," interjected the dingo attached to him, prompting Travis to respond, "Nobody asked you, Elise." Elise rolled her eyes as the fox continued, "Right, forgot you were still in high school... Um, yeah this is awkward, I'm totally fuckin' confused now." Travis couldn't see them, but behind him, Kris and Manny were cracking up so hard they were practically falling over each other. In fact, literally everyone saw this except for Travis, and he wouldn't have ever seen them if Elise, put into a slightly bitchier than usual mood by Travis' comments, hadn't told him to look.

Alex said something in a low tone to Elise, probably something along the lines of asking why she killed the joke, and she didn't give any observable verbal answer, but he kissed the top of her head anyway. They're a really fucking weird couple. I honestly do not understand how they function, especially since I'm pretty sure Alex isn't even considering giving up his real girlfriend for Elise. But I guess it's not my job to get involved in these things. Elsewhere, Travis was absolutely flipping out on Kris and Manny, both of whom admitted to changing his ringtone in crippling fits of laughter.

The fox looked about ready to assault the Doberman and cheetah, but fortunately (or unfortunately, actually. It would have been really funny to see the shit kicked out of Travis) the door opened again, this time with Director Mansfield, Bronco Shadowstep, and Zechariah Bourne entering. The first two I understood; they always give us our briefings because we're the special team. Bourne was a new one though. I had thought he only worked with the intelligence, secret-agent-y types. In any event, it looked like we had a big job ahead of us, and another really terrible operation codename.

"Gentlemen, lady," Mansfield began stepping to the front of the room, "I hope none of you have any pressing engagements for the next week or two, because you won't be seeing the Eastern Seaboard for a while. Our project today involves stopping a megalomaniac from potentially destroying the United States, and since it was Mr. Shadowstep's turn to name the operation, its designation is Operation Frost Glacier Freeze." "Frost Glacier Freeze," Manny reiterated, scratching his head, "That sound familiar to anyone else?" "Yeah it does," Alex answered with a colossal roll of his eyes, "It's the flavor of Gatorade that was in the fridge this morning at our house." The team was not impressed. Personally, I facepawed at the revelation. Shadowstep tried to throw out a feeble explanation, "Look, I went for a run this mornin', and I was thirsty, and I got some sort of divine inspiration from a refreshing beverage. No one honestly cares about the names anyway so just go with it. And Pavlov, McAlester, stop touching each other. You're being disgusting."

"Aw, come on Bronco," Bourne said from the other side of Mansfield, "They're just kids. Let 'em relax before they go throw themselves into the fire." "Alright, fine," the black cat gave in, "Y'all can keep cuddling or whatever, just keep your pants on." I could make out Elise mouthing a "thank you" to Bourne as Mansfield looked from side to side, making sure everybody was finished. "As I was saying," the Rottweiler continued, "You are going to be participating in Operation Frost Glacier Freeze. This will be your first mission as a team off of American territory-" Everybody held their breath, anxiously waiting to see where we would be going. I wouldn't have minded Jamaica, but that was too much to ask apparently. "-and you'll be starting in the wonderful city of Vancouver, Canada."

Alex was the first to react, throwing a paw into the air, "YES! NOT SOMALIA!" Manny was next, "Hell yeah! We can all go stop and see Zimmerman's momma. I hear she makes great pies." Elise gave a look at the cheetah that I can only describe as pure disdain, and although Elise's wrath is often unnecessary, I could totally see where she was coming from on this one. The big Doberman responded with a questioning look, "Whoa, Manny, uncalled for. Besides, I'm not even from Vancouver, I'm from Banff, Alberta." "Bless you," commented Shadowstep sarcastically. "Yeah, Kris, that's not a city, that's a sound effect," I mentioned, and the dog responded, "A sound effect for what?" Manny backed me up, "Fo' punching someone in the face. Like 'I was walkin' down this alley, and some fool tried to mug me, and BANFF, popped him right in the jaw.'"

Travis furrowed his brow at me and Manny, and changed the subject, "So it's Canada, huh? Does that even, like, count as a foreign country? Is our contact Dudley Do-Right?" Pavel glanced at Travis quizzically, "Who's Dudley Do-Right?" "Cartoon character that represents a stereotypical-" Kris started to explain, but Alex finished, "Canadian Mountie. And by stereotypical we mean it is an accurate representation of the RCMP, and basically every Canadian ever." "Wow, thanks, Alex," Kris commented, and Elise dug her claws into his fur, both prompting the husky to clarify, "Unless they work for H.U.R.T. Then they're badasses." Mansfield sighed, a little frustrated with the five-second attention span of the most lethal strike force in the world, and attempted to continue his briefing, "Right, nice save Pavlov. You narrowly avoided having your salary bifurcated. Now, if I could please continue?

"Good. You're going to Vancouver to investigate a fur named Pierre Lebowski." A picture appeared on a screen on the wall of a black wolverine with light brown, well-groomed hair. He was a little stocky, but not obese or anything, little below average height, was wearing a suit in the picture, looked to be a typical upper-class corporate type. Mansfield carried on, "He's the CEO of Ernest-Wilkes, a major investment firm in Western Canada and the United States." "Yeah, I've heard of Ernest-Wilkes," Kris commented, "They're big with hedge funds I'm pretty sure." "So he's a rich motherfucker," Manny declared. "I'd assume so," I chimed in, "But then again, so are we." "Yeah, but, shit, man. It's different, ain't it?" said Manny. "Yeah," Travis contributed, "I'd like to see him blow up practically an entire Caribbean island with five guys on foot." "Hey Travis, don't start talkin' bout experience now," Shadowstep chided him, "Would you like to recount your encounters with little Miss Anastasia? I'm fairly certain Lebowski hasn't gotten beat up by a girl before."

Travis crossed his arms and stared angrily at the wall as the rest of us hooted and hollered at our boss's slam, and Pavel slapped him on the arm and snidely remarked, "At least someone will touch your balls. Even if it's with her knee. She's a keeper either way." "Yeah, alright, alright, mission briefing let's go," Travis said agitatedly, "What's so special about this guy?" "We have reports of him investing lots of money overseas in Russia and building up his private security forces," Mansfield explained. "Okay, so he's in some sketchy business dealings," Alex recapped, "Sounds like a fantastic job for the CSIS. Where do we come in?" "We're hauled into this mess because Lebowski's dealings have been with a certain personality all of us are quite familiar with," the Director further explicated before changing the picture on the screen to one of a scarred stark white wolf. "Yep. That'd do it," I commented as Alex lost most of his humor, tightening up and practically snarling. Our group's solitary female tightly gripped our fearless leader's paw as he spoke, "So Kossenko's involved. What business dealings are we looking at here?"

"We're not sure," the Rottweiler director confessed, "But we have tracked lots of money being wired through Vladivostok all throughout eastern Siberia. Lots of old Soviet goodies out there. God knows what he could be after." "Okay, quick summary here," Pavel said, trying to keep up with the information presented to him, "Rich asshole, has his own security force, enlisted help of literally the one fur no other unit will touch, now has the most powerful mafia in the world leading him to Soviet military secrets, and we don't have a damn clue what for. Today was such a good day, too. How directly involved is Kossenko in this?" Mansfield asked him what he meant, and Alex jumped in and killed all the subtlety, "Will we get a shot at him?" The response was a verbose "probably not", and that didn't really help Alex's mood very much.

As much as I hate to admit it sometimes, Pavlov really does run our unit, and that's because he's probably one of the best damn soldiers that's ever lived. Not that you'd ever catch me saying that to his face, but the statement is true regardless. He's good. Real good. And his state of mind influences in a big way our effectiveness as a team, so I thought maybe I'd try to divert some of the negative energy against Kossenko right then. Generally I'd say this falls under Elise's job description, but he's an orphaned teenage guy in a job that most males would piss down their leg at the prospect of doing. Even Elise couldn't suck all the angst out of him. So yeah. I did something nice. Happy birthday to me.

"How about other mafia leaders? Surely he's got to have some sort of lieutenant out in BC to make sure operations are running smoothly," I suggested. Taking the hint, Mansfield picked up, "We haven't uncovered anybody noteworthy yet, but yes, I'd imagine there's gotta be somebody important that we could... ahem, remove from office. We can definitely make a dent in Kossenko's organization." I noticed Alex's spirits lifting a little and I decided to cap my play off, "I wonder if we'll find anyone really special. Hell, maybe we'll run into Travis' girlfriend again." Alex fell to chuckling at that point, and so did the Director, "Well, we haven't seen any signs of Anastasia thus far, but she does seem to always have your team's number for some reason. Be wary of her, all of you know how dangerous she is. Travis, we'll send you up to Vancouver with a cup for added protection."

All of us continued to laugh at Travis' Schadenfreude , but we also knew that severe dangers came with Anastasia Kossenko's presence. She's an assassin, and a brilliant one at that. Basically a female Alex, in almost every way: Trained from puppyhood by her father, under the employment of her father's organization as a teenager, generally does not screw up. Plus, since she's the boss's daughter, whenever she's not in mid-assassination, she's surrounded by the best the mafia can offer, and she can command her goons to do whatever she wants. To a certain extent though, her bodyguards are really nothing more than glorified human shields and distraction devices. She could probably take any one of us one on one and win, kinda like what happened to Thoresen a few months ago. Guy was a professional soldier, HURT strike team leader, got cocky, thought he could take Anastasia on his own. He's in a box six feet underground now. Hell, Travis even saw the whole thing. He would've been dead, too if the girl hadn't spared him. We still don't totally know why she did that. It certainly wasn't out of love for Travis. In fact, from what we've gathered, while she at least respects most of our team, especially Alex, her opinion of our obnoxious vulpine member is akin to food poisoning; she dislikes both of them because they make her want to vomit (though this is probably the normal female reaction to Travis Langley).

"I wish I could give you more information on your objectives," Mansfield confessed, "But we're really playing this one by ear. I can assure you that we'll have a contact for you once you're in country. But until then, and even after then I guess, when you're not actively shooting things, you're all in spy mode. That's right, we're avoiding all suspicion on this one. You've all been assigned cover identities that have been grouped with the fur or furs who will be your roommates. You'll all be in the same hotel, but in different areas, and your equipment will be waiting for you there. Shadowstep will now inform you of your aliases and give you their files. Memorize them. This could make or break the entire operation. Mr. Shadowstep, you have the floor."

All of us waited in anticipation to hear who we would be for the next week, and the black cat started, "Alright, first off, we've got Zimmerman, Carlisle, and Tannehill. Y'all are Kevin Malone, Dante Pollard, and Kenneth Radkovic, representatives from a small DC bank with the highly original name of Columbia Community Bank. You're goin' to Vancouver to seek business partnerships, and this should provide some, albeit very very little, legitimacy for any snooping around you have to do with Ernest-Wilkes. Svrbada, Langley, you two are Mischa Galanov and Paul Fiorenti, indie video game designers and developers looking for sponsors and maybe even a big money deal in Canada. You're both impulsive and reckless, however, and you've spent much of your meager income on first-class airline tickets and a fancy hotel room."

"Brilliant," I commented, "What a fantastic combination of Pavel's genius and Travis' retardation." "Jesus, Tannehill," Shadowstep sighed in response, "I think Travis might have taken just enough abuse today. Anyway, y'all are gonna love this one. Mr. Bourne, the props please." The puma brought a box over to Alex and Elise, and when Alex opened it, both of them blushed, Alex facepawed and Elise started straight-up beaming. "That's right, folks," Shadowstep chuckled, "Our last pair is Leonardo and Mia Tarkin, a young newlywed couple both hailing from wealthy families. For some reason, you have picked the least exciting country on the planet for your honeymoon. Probably because you're rich, and you don't know how to have fun." "Oh, I know how to have fun," Elise responded, twirling a finger in the white fur around the middle of Alex's collarbone. "Yeah. We know," Shadowstep sighed, "Look, your covers are pretty sheltered. They're a tad bit nervous about being in the open, and that means they are NOT on top of each other in public. We don't care what the hell you do in the privacy of your room, I mean, that's where a honeymooning couple would get to baby-making anyway, but don't draw unnecessary attention to yourself when you're out and about."

However excited Elise might have been about her and Alex's living arrangements for the week, our fearless leader looked pretty nervous. The dingo held her paw out, admiring her shiny new diamond (we found out later it was cubic zirconium. Guess even HURT has to cut expenses somewhere.) ring, and the husky blankly stared down at the gold band on his finger. Maybe it had something to do with his real, vulpine girlfriend, but apparently Alexei Pavlov was not ready to be mated, even if it was imaginary. At least Alex could feel some emotion about his alias, though; mine was about as dull and uninteresting as it gets.

"Alright males, and, um, Elise," the black cat commander of our unit finished, "I know investigation and snooping around ain't your specialty, but y'all shouldn't really have to worry much. CSIS already has some information on this guy, and as we said, we'll get you a contact once you get there. Hiding in plain sight is our best method of avoiding Kossenko's eye though. Even once he figures out we're there, the first places he'll look will be military locations. He won't expect us to be staying at a swanky hotel. Should you encounter any trouble while you're not in super-soldier mode, however, Mr. Bourne has some presents for you. Zechariah, take it away."

"Thank you, Bronco," the puma tech-whiz said before moving over to a desk with a large-ish box on it, "This box here holds an assortment of little nuggets to help you out of sticky situations. As an added bonus, since you're all flying commercial up to BC, you can get these through airport security. Unfortunately, seeing as deaths take longer to cover up than hospitalizations, all of these gadgets are nonlethal, though I -might- have made some capable of serious damage. You'll find all your standard life-removing tools when you get to Vancouver. First up, Carlisle." Bourne tossed Manny a benign looking silver pen with some sort of wheel on one side. "Now Carlisle," Bourne instructed, "I want you to turn that wheel as far as it goes toward the clicker, put that end against someone and move the clip to the left." The cheetah followed the orders and put the pen up to Kris' arm and flicked the clip, causing the Doberman to flinch and say, "Ow! It zaps you!" The cheetah smiled at the device and asked, "What happens if I turn the wheel completely the other way?" "Let's just say you should NOT test that on one of your teammates," Bourne answered.

"Alright, you're next Zimmerman," Bourne declared, producing a touristy rectangular Canadian flag keychain with a hole in one end and a switch on the other, and throwing it to the Doberman, "Ok, this one's a pretty simple tranquilizer dart gun. Flick the switch to turn off the safety, press down on the maple leaf to fire, and watch your target get to experience what narcolepsy's like. Holds 3 darts, and you can pull it apart to reload it. You'll find extra ammo with the rest of your stuff in Vancouver. Okay, Tannehill, this is yours." Bourne threw me what looked to be a generic brand 9-volt battery, and I looked at it suspiciously, "I thought we already had an electric-themed gadget. This seems unoriginal." "Quit yer bellyachin'," Bourne shot back at me, "This one's got nothin' to do with electricity. It's a flash-bang grenade. Just hold down the protrusions, for lack of a better term, considering I cannot for the life of me recall what they're actually called right now, until you hear a beep, then chuck it and cover your ears and eyes. This is one of those gadgets that you should only use in public as an absolute last resort, for several obvious reasons."

"Svrbada, I don't got much for you, considerin' ya probably already have a bag full of gadgets that I don't know about, but I did want to give you this, maybe you can use it," the puma said, tossing the smallish wolf a flash drive, "It's a communications interceptor. Should tap you into phone lines, internet communication, and stuff like that." "Thanks, this should definitely be helpful," Pavel thanked him. "No problem. Langley, I figured I'd give you somethin' really simple." Travis caught Bourne's next projectile, what looked to be a can of Axe spray deodorant, something that I'm sure Travis was probably familiar with. "Use it just like a normal can of Axe, but there's tear gas in it. So I guess technically I could've just given you a normal can of Axe, but I felt this was snazzier.

"Elise, I apologize in advance for this one." The puma threw the Australian what appeared to be a fuzzy brown stuffed bird. "...You're kidding, right? You want me to snuggle with a stuffed kiwi. I'd rather hug a giant tarantula. I'll take my husky, thanks," Elise reacted, hugging Alex and looking at the bird with disdain. "Right, so before you hate me forever, let me explain something," Bourne said meekly, even the hardened survivalist shriveling up under Elise's piercing gaze, "the kiwi explodes." The dingo's eyes lit up like Christmas lights as soon as she heard this revelation, "Oh, lovely! How does it work?" "Thought that might make it better. There's a patch on the bird's back. Pull it off, press the red button embedded in it, chuck it, and boom, instant smokescreen." "Oh damn, only a smoke grenade?" "Well yeah. Had to be nonlethal, remember? What did you want, a tactical nuke?" "...Maybe."

Alex mumbled something under his breath, and Elise giggled and kissed him on the cheek in response, commenting, "I know. And you're lucky to have me." "And Pavlov, you're the last one," the mountain lion announced exhaustedly, clearly tired of us, our antics, and hell, probably his own presents, "Here's #1. Since you're the team leader, and Elise's, ahem, significant other, I thought I'd give you the classic." Yeah. Story of our team's life. Alex can have all of the nice things while we get second rate shit. Makes me really feel like all those years in the FBI were really worth it when some crazy kid's making millions out of high school bossing me around. Yeah, I understand he's really damn good at his job, but still. It's annoying how he's treated as the golden boy all the time. And Elise doesn't help. She just dotes on him all the time. I'm surprised he doesn't spend half his time at HURT wiping the drool off his clothes. Also, while we're on clothes, Elise has a very misguided view of fashion. But that's a story for another time.

Bourne threw Alex a set of car keys, the new kind that doesn't actually have a key per se, but more of just a fob due to the car being a push-start ignition. Which, personally, I hate those cars. But that doesn't matter I guess. "Alright! I get a car? And it's a Mercedes?" "No," Bourne responded to the husky's questions bluntly, "There's no car to go with those. But the key fob does have a cutting laser on it." "Oh," Alex uttered, a semi-blank expression on his face, "Well, I guess I'm still okay with that." "And I've got one more thing for you, Chief," the research director stated before personally handing him a plastic square with a rubber ring in the middle. "Um... okay," Alex started uneasily, "So is this like... a bomb or something?" "No, son," Bourne chuckled, "That's just a condom." Alex's face went from its normal snow-white tone to red as a lobster in a split second, and Elise appeared similarly mortified as the squad leader squeaked out a "Why?". "Because," Bourne informed him, casting a smoldering look at Mansfield and Shadowstep about halfway through his explanation, "even though our administration seems to be totally okay with you two shacking up all week, I just wanted to make it clear that, super-soldier or not, if that little girl comes back pregnant, I'm gonna feed you your own balls. Understood?"

"Uh... yes sir," Alex answered meekly, with the normally intrepid leader a mess of embarrassment and confusion. "Bourne," Elise said quietly behind paws covering her face, "that's not even physiologically possible at this time of the year." "Never hurts to play it safe," the hardcore survivalist and tech nerd shrugged. Mansfield let out another heavy sigh, "I can't believe this is the best team in the world. It just doesn't make sense. I wouldn't be surprised if the Mayans' prediction turned out to be correct because you lot cause a world-destroying event sometime in December. With that said, I still wish you all good luck in the coming week, and get the hell out. You've got a plane to catch at Reagan in an hour and a half. Oh, and some of you should change into something a little more suiting your roles. Elise, you especially. Dismissed."

We filed out of the briefing room, heading to the nearby locker room to change into our predetermined outfits. Elise complained, "'Elise, you especially.' What the hell was that?" Now, it never hurts to tear down Elise at times, as much as it frustrates our king and fearless leader the venerable Alexei Pavlov, so I responded quite bluntly, "It's because you dress like a slut." The dingo stopped in her tracks and stared blankly at me, and Alex opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. "Does anyone object to that statement?" I asked. No one refuted the claim, and Elise tried to play it off as best as she could, "Well, I'll see you all later then," before kissing Alex on the cheek and going to get dressed in a separate changing room from the rest of us. Which I didn't necessarily understand, considering her normal outfits didn't leave much to the imagination anyway. And there was also the thing where I guess Shadowstep had her change in front of him when he first got to HURT because he chose her for some practice mission. I don't know the full story of that. I didn't really care about him at that time. He was just some kid with good genes who showed up on base. Little did I know I'd be taking orders from him in under a week.

We entered the locker room and I immediately caught some flak from Alex, "Did you really need to go there, Blake?" "Look, maybe if the other guys had spoken up against Yoko Ono, we'd still have the Beatles," I replied. "But John Lennon got shot," Kris interjected. "Butterfly Effect," I shot back. "And what about George?" Pavel asked. "Also irrelevant," I rejected, frustrated at my teammates' looking too far into my comparison. "Okay, besides your analogy's various shortcomings," Alex replied, nodding to Kris and Pavel, "what does that have to do with anything? Elise is a valuable member of the team." Uh-oh. I didn't really like where this was going. I generally didn't want to start shit before a big op, but fuck it, I wasn't backing down, "Of course she has some skills. She wouldn't be at HURT if she didn't. But if you look at it realistically, she's not on ST 13 because of her communication skills. Think about it: couldn't Pavel handle that on his own now with all the practice he's had? Alex, the only reason she's with us is to keep you happy and to give you something to empty into every night this week while we have to go and look for that."

I don't know what exactly I was expecting to come out of that. That was a terrible idea, all around. I got some astonished looks from the other guys, but before I could even open my mouth to say something else, I was violently shoved up against some lockers, and I looked into the husky's snarling face as he growled, "Don't you ever refer to Elise as an object again. Are we clear?" "Yeah, crystal." He dropped me and stomped away to where his stuff was located, and Kris came up to me and reminded me, "God damn, Blake, what were you thinking? Don't you remember the first rule of Pavlov?" "Yeah," I rolled my eyes, "Stay off his females. They're the fastest way to piss him off." "So maybe next time, don't start shit before we go off to save the world?" The Doberman rhetorically asked me. I moved further down the hallway and found my allocated "costume", a full, top of the line business suit. I changed into it, and Kris and Manny changed into similar outfits.

Alex came back, apparently already having gotten over our disagreement, in a grey argyle sweater with the collar of a blue polo sticking out the neck and khaki slacks. "I want to kill myself," our squad leader said bluntly. Pavel and Travis walked out looking much more comfortable, the wolf wearing a gray thin hoodie and dark green cargo pants, and the fox clad in a t-shirt displaying the name of an energy drink, a pair of jeans and a backwards New York Giants baseball cap. "You are two lucky motherfuckers," Manny commented to them. "Perks of having the cover of a game designer. It's Casual Friday every day," Travis laughed. We exited the locker room and promptly ran into Elise, wearing a blue dress and white sweater that exposed practically no fur. "I feel like I'm being suffocated by fabric," the dingo complained, and then she proceeded to grab Alex's arm and said, "Come on Alex. You know what Mansfield said. We've got to get to the airport to catch our flight. We've got some honeymooning to do."

She said the last bit batting her eyelashes and sliding a paw over the front of his shoulder. As they walked off, we all could hear their last exchange before disappearing from sight. "So E- ahem, Mia, we're married now, right?" "Well, for the next week, yes. And I think you can call me by my real name. We haven't left headquarters mind you." "And that means all of our possessions are shared right?" "Um... sure? Where exactly are you going with this?" "Can I drive the Lotus?" "Alex, I don't think that's the best-" "Aw, c'mon. It's not like I've never driven a car before." "I... I guess it's alright, just this once." "YES."

The rest of us laughed to varying degrees and followed their general path toward the motor pool. The journey there was fairly uneventful, with the only occurrence of note being Travis' comment that I fix my hair too much. Which was totally unfair. My hair may be cut short for occupational purposes, but it's fabulous and deserves all the attention it gets. When we got to the garage, Alex was already peeling out in the Lotus with Elise hanging on to whatever she could in the passenger seat. Travis hopped into the driver's seat of a black Jeep Wrangler, still somewhat keeping in tune with his and Pavel's covers, and the smallish wolf got into his passenger seat, and they took off behind Alex, apparently determined to catch up with the team's token power couple.

That left only the losers in suits in the garage. Kris moved over to a stunning silver Maserati Granturismo, ran his paw over the hood, and said, "I bet we can beat all of them." That was a pretty lofty goal. I mean, the Jeep wasn't very fast, but it was Travis at the wheel, and he knew what he was doing in a car better than anyone on the team, and the Lotus was just plain quick, though there was a high chance Alex had already smeared it into a building or something by that point. Manny smiled and looked to Kris then to me. Well, who was I if not a male up for a challenge? "I have one word to say to that," I answered, looking Kristoff Zimmerman right in the eye, "Shotgun."