Blackout

[Faust]

(Note: This may well be the last story I type for CoDz. I really wish I could have been the writter you needed me to be, but I could never find enough time in the day.

The story I began back two years ago with Wesley and his marines was what gave me a place here at CoDz, and for that I am proud. However, as the story grew increasingly inaccurate, I needed to stop and pick up a new story. Data Servant was my second attempt. As the story became more and more cinematic, I felt less of a need to create a story for a pre-existing story.

Tales from Vietnam was a social experiment to see if I was capable of creating a fanfiction worth of placement in the story, however a lack of interest in it's advancment led to it's downfall.

With Delta, I found were I belong, and all too late. Allow me to spin for you my last tale, one that I hope will tie together everything I've learned from my past stories to write for you a story you will remember me for long after CoDz has closed shop.)

I: Paradise Ranch

Davis had dreamt of this day all his life. He hated Nevada. Sure, he got few days when he could go on leave and fly out to Las Vegas, but when he did he wasn’t Davis J. Isaac, he was Robert Greening, Joseph Smith, or whatever name Majestic-12 decided to make him use for those 48 hours before once again returning to Paradise Ranch. Even here at Groom Lake no one called him Isaac. Davis Isaac died in a fatal plane crash sixteen miles off the coast of Cuba in 1959. Harris, as everyone was told to call him, was still alive, well and does not exist. Yeah, living out here at Area 51 had some great perks. Free beer at the club, an indoor swimming pool, brilliant views of nearby mushroom clouds from the atomic testing sites, and a Winnebago he got to share with two other CIA contractors he knew only as Jack and Chris. Hell, on a few good nights they were able to sneak out in the night and screw with the German Paperclip scientists who slept in campers across the tarmac. They’ve never gotten caught coving the outside of their campers with sauerkraut or blasting their camper’s tires with piss, but they knew the risks in doing it. Fuck with a Paperclip scientist, you’ll get hit with a charge for espionage.

Despite all this though, Area 51 was a bombed out shithole in the center of the desert. All Isaac seemed to ever do here was run combat training exercises in the heat, stand watch, and occasionally help prepare evening meal for the U2 pilots. He couldn’t even ask anyone as why he was placed here, he didn’t have the need to know. That’s why it came as such a surprise when he was sitting in a lawn chair watching the heat rise off the rocks and the airstrip when a man donned in colonel’s insignias came up to him and told him to report for duty in bunker 10A. He ran to where he stood now in his RV, unloading his gear underneath his bunk, which was really just the camper’s dinner table pulled out with a cot spanning the gap. From underneath his cot Davis pulled out his personal foot locker and began to get dressed for duty. It had been a hot day, and he and a few other CIA boys had been participating in a water sports challenge that day, leaving him in drench swim trunks and a wet shirt. There was no way he could report for his first official sortie looking like this!

Chris, Davis’s roommate, tossed in his bed at the back of the camper. At the end of every month Davis, Chris, and Jack help a friendly game of Toss-Across to decide who got the privilege of sleeping in the actual bed for the month. Three grown men playing a game of Toss-Across in the middle of a desert military base may have seemed childish, but there was reason behind it. When a game of baseball in a nearby field ended with the only baseball in Groom Lake landing in an area roped off for hazmat clean-up after a dirty bomb test, Jack might have gotten caught climbing a wire fence into the Nevada Test Site to retrieve it. When one of the higher ups at the base heard of this, the Paradise Ranch Diamond Field’s home plat was replaced with the bean-bag oriented game with a note stating “Entertain yourself with this shit!” Davis suggested that they make things interesting with some healthy competition. Hey presto, a tradition was born. Davis still swears that Chris cheats every time he makes a pot-shot from fifty feet away.

Chris finally awoke, bracing himself up with one of his pillows to get a good look at Davis. Although it was four o’clock and the sun was blazing, it didn’t seem to affect his ability to nap. His sleeveless shirt and poke-a-dot boxers lay wet from his own sweat. The RV was excruciatingly hot, which appeared to be a fact you could not escape even with a power nap. After a long drawn-out yawn, he began to speak.

“Oh, hey Harris, how are you?”

“Alright,” Isaac spoke, still feeling a bit weird to be called Harris, “You missed the water sports earlier.”

“Oh, did I?” Chris spoke with false enthusiasm, “Who won?”

“Betas.”

“Aw,” Chris spoke, “I hate those guys. Christ, they're six people crammed into one camper, they don’t need to make their own fraternity. You know, I heard two of them are in the U2 program. Does that even qualify them to compete? I thought the water sports were for CIA guards only!”

“Yeah,” Davis began, pulling out his military police uniform and carefully unfolding it, “But only one of the U2 guys showed up, and the second had to leave ten minutes in. Something about training exercises.”

Chris took notice of Davis taking out his MP uniform.

“Are you lowering colors tonight?” he asked curiously.

“Nope,” replied Isaac, “General alert for CIA/MP contractors, I need to report for duty.”

Chris rubbed his eyes. MPs were never scrambled unless there was a security breach or search and rescue in progress, and both would have had an alarm to go with it. It mattered little to Chris himself, as he was permanent Chief of the Watch at night, hence the sleeping during the day. He already had a job, leaving him to disregard. With a wave of his hand, Chris gave an unsaid “Good luck” then went back to bed.

Isaac chuckled quietly to himself has he dug through his crate for his last, most cherished item. From the very bottom of his footlocker he pulled out a seven inch bowie knife in a leather sheath. Years ago, his father used it in the Korean War. He closed his eyes and thought back to the day he earned it hunting with his father in the hills of northern Tennessee. It was his sixteenth birthday, and his father knew he was placing his treasured dagger that he had used to kill Communists in good hands. For the first time in ten years, his blade would see service. Isaac just wished it would be something important instead of some half-baked security sweep. Once he finished lacing up his boots he was out the door and headed towards his first official mission.

[MyLittleHellhound]

well faust, good characters, good intro, you better damn well continue this story or i will shrivel up, having not continued any of my own stories. faust, your my only hope.

[zXRenegadeXz]

[brains] to u Faust

I really enjoy ur stories and do wish for u to continue posting stories but if u can't i wish u success in any other ventures u may take. I have enjoyed ur stories since the beginning and would like to say u r my favourite writer here at CoDz.

:cry: Its just extremely saddening for u to leave :cry:

[Faust]

(Thanks guys. Sorry I've slowed down, but school just started here.)

II: Game Day

Davis had never broken in his MP uniform, so as he made his way to bunker 10A he pulled and scratched at his clothing as it rubbed and chafed on his skin. Walking out in broad daylight in the middle of Groom Lake was bad enough. Doing it in a black military police uniform with long sleeves, pant, and body armor just plain sucked. The sun beat down hard on his back, and every step he took towards the command post was a struggle against his own weight. As he approached a series of aluminum bunkers buried deep within the foundation of the lake bed, Davis began searching for the one he was called to. Eventually he found it.

While are architecture of these bunkers may have seemed impressive on the outside, the inside were little more than crudely slapped together hovels. Bunker 10A was no exception. The aluminum design was just a façade made to distract from the wooden framework that held up the roof and scaffolding that laid a mere two feet above Isaac’s head. The room itself was filled with about twenty CIA guards from across Area 51. The roommate Isaac knew only as Jack sat on a backwards chair in the opposite corner of the room, looking impatient as ever as the chatter in the room swelled and lowered between different groups of people. It had appeared that all the guards in this room had never been on an official mission either. Passing by several groups of chatting friends, Davis went over to Jack to say hello.

“Welcome to the crew Harris,” Jack replied, a certain tone in his voice that Isaac couldn’t identify.

“Hey Jack,” Davis shot back, “They’ve got you on this op too?”

“Hell, they’ve got everyone,” Jack replied. He looked around the room, “Well, everyone that doesn’t already have clearance on certain sections of Area 51.”

“What are you saying Jack?”

“Command doesn’t want any one person knowing too many secrets, so they split up the workforce evenly so one guy only knows one thing another might not. That’s why you haven’t had a mission yet, they’ve been saving this lot for something special.”

Davis looked around the room. Jack might have had a point. In every direction he looked, each person appeared to be savvy, experienced, and lethal as hell. A few looked like they had seen combat. If the higher-ups really had been saving this group, it meant two things: Davis was considered useful and this operation must be a tough one.

Eventually a man with a military build and a buzz cut took to the podium in the front of the bunker. The chatter in the room went silent, everyone paying close attention to their next orders. With a booming voice, the man gave the group their mission briefing.

“Gentlemen,” he began, “I am briefing you tonight with the mutual understanding that this conversation never happened. Tonight, at 9:43pm Hanger 18, or largest storage facility here at Groom Lake, will be seeing a series of fluctuating power levels. I am here to tell you that while this is of no concern, we will need a amplitude in the amount of guards needed to protect the facility.”

“Hanger 18?” one of the men in the rear of the bunker spoke, “That hanger is inactive. I thought it was for mothballing, cold storage.”

“I am not able to tell you the cause of the sudden activity in Hanger 18,” the military man spoke, “But your orders are very clear. You will each be assigned separate areas of the compound surrounding hanger 18. Do not let anyone into the facility… or out. Am I clear on this? You do not stop and ask for identification, you do not ask for a call sign, you do not even check to see if whoever is in your sector is wearing an MP uniform. If you all stick to your patrol schedules you are assigned you will not run into one another, so there should be no chance of friendly fire. You shoot to kill, am I clear?”

The room exploded into a “Yes sir!” before the man at the front of the room dismissed the group and told them to report to their handlers for their patrol schedules and partners. Davis looked around the room bewildered, unsure of wear to go. He had never had a handler before. Jack tugged on his uniform.

“Hey Harris, can I talk to you outside?”

“Sure Jack, I just need to go… go find my schedule.”

“The name is Mitch, Davis,” Jack responded, “And I’d like to speak to you outside. I was just assigned as your new handler. Come on, we have a lot to talk about, and I need to get you to the armory.”