Operation Fortnight

Zwei: Partei in der Percival

0600 hrs, 9949

In a limosine in front of the residence of Winston Percival, prince of England. 

HQ was it's usual pleasantness. Nothing quite like the military to make a person feel totally comfortable...

By the time I got out of a long and very much necessary shower, I felt very much refreshed. Plus, I really needed to change my socks. The pair that I had been wearing was so totally soaked through that I could have used them to put out a small fire if I needed to just by wringing them out. 

Okay, maybe that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but only a little. Seriously, the things were drenched. 

There's a good reason that I always kept two spare pairs of socks in my accessory pack, just between the extra ammunition and the emergency grenade. 

If there was anything that I hated, it was the trip from the showers back the bunkhouse. For one thing, the showers didn't include a changing room. Which meant that, unless you were okay with getting your clean clothes a little wet, one would have to walk all the way back to their room with nothing but a towel on. It was even worse for those souls unfortunate enough to have been born with a name that started with any letter between A and G, and hadn't had a towel issued to them due to supply shortages. Because my last name starts with a J, well... 

I was one of those unfortunate souls. I couldn't stand the catcalls and sideways glances from all those immature bastards who dared to look my way as I marched to my quarters, still dripping a little from the shower. Each time I caught someone galking in my direction, I would shoot them the look of death, and that would make them look away lightning quick. Even naked and wet, the other soldiers knew that I was not someone to be fooled around with. Too many broken bones and even more broken dignities had been suffered by my hands for anyone to even attempt to come near me when I was in a killing mood, which just so happened to be now. Besides, these small fry couldn't approach me even if they wanted to because I severely outranked them, in just the same way that it would be unseemly for an antelope to approach a lioness to ask for food. 

One fresh stealth suit, which was the only clothes that I was willing to wear by choice, and I was where I always was, the library. I'd rather read a book than talk to any real person any day of the week, although these days I had spent most of my time specifically reading up on the history of my home country, Germany. It was almost like I was looking for something specific, some kind of answer to some question that I was asking deep down, an answer that I simply couldn't find. 

Either way, I had been so engrossed in the book that I was currently reading, a hilariously diabolical exposition entitled Mein Kampf, that I almost jumped, and almost doesn't really do it justice since it was really more of a twitch than anything else, when the all-call came on the internal communication system that the boys over in the research had so generously implanted in my brain when I first enlisted. 

 As usual, I was the first to respond, the room which was basically nothing more than a giant ovalure table with seven chairs spread out all around it and a massive shield-bearing eagle with the letters ATRIUN enscribed into it painted in vibrant patriotic colors in the center. A single 80 inch television screen built into the wall opposite the door. Your basic conference room. At each of the respective seating arrangements sat a single manila folder marked in bold red letters which said Confidential. Only one chair was different from the other chrome covered ones surrounding the table, a much larger fabric office chair, where sat a muscular silver-haired man who always reminded me of the main protagonist from that ancient but no less enjoyable movie, Minority Report, wearing the same thing that he always wore, the sweat-stained tank top and camo pants of a drill sergeant.