Chapter Text
Meeting with the Administrator in person was a strange privilege that Miss Pauling rarely got the chance to partake in. Her job, quite frankly, rarely ever required live meetings. There would be a weekly phone call to assign her off-base duties and in exchange, Miss Pauling kept the Administrator up to date on the status of the interior workings of the RED and BLU bases.
These were quick calls that with time became more and more efficient in their delivery. There was no time wasted with a woman like the Administrator, who was the living definition of obsessive micromanaging.
Miss Pauling was halfway through burying the bodies of several unrecognizable men when her phone rang, and it wasn’t long after that she hopped onto her scooter and headed towards the middle of nowhere. The Badlands themselves were secluded, but the Administrator’s office was private in every sense of the word; secluded even from new technologies like satellites.
The office lay far beyond the outskirts of human life, inside the depths of a rocky valley of all places. Nervous energy welled in Pauling’s gut as the metal elevator descended into the earth.
She pulled out her clipboard, noting to bury the rest of the bodies she had left behind after this short notice meeting with the Administrator was completed. It was just another simple job of burning fingerprints and burying bodies, her normal Tuesday routine. But the Administrator never called Pauling away from her jobs, let alone called her outside of their routine at all. She scribbled down some more notes in an effort to ease her worries on the matter.
The elevator clunked to a stop and released Miss Pauling into the vertically impressive room, wires hanging and technology blipping with life. She didn't think she’d ever get used to the strange sight, but all the same, Miss Pauling knew to wait for the metal bridge to mechanically meet at her quickly tapping heel.
The door on the other side creaked open with little effort, the lights from the many screens flooded Miss Pauling’s vision when she said, “You called, Administrator?”
“Yes,” she sighed between the static cracklings of her screens. “Come in. Quickly.”
Pauling shut the heavy door behind her and stood behind the Administrator, who was currently watching the ongoing match too intently to turn around. She took a long drag of her cigarette before she turned to address her, “Miss Pauling, why is it that we run intensive background checks on the raving lunatics we hire?”
“To ensure our privacy,” Miss Pauling responded confidently, well adjusted to the Administrator’s use of questioning to arrive at her line of logic. “To ensure we aren’t hiring people that are exposing us or any of our clientele.”
“Exactly.” The Administrator’s eyes darkened, she clicked a button to play footage on her lower right screen. “Then why might I ask is this man, from the middle of bodunk Australia, talking about how our teleporters work?”
The Administrator clicked another button and the video plays, revealing a lanky, clearly balding older man explaining the concept of a teleporter to his bartender. Through chatter of the bar, Pauling can hear the man clearly answering questions on the machines, knowing far more on the matter than any common crazed government conspirator.
Miss Pauling’s eyebrows rose. “He must be related to—”
“—The RED Sniper. I figured as much,” the Administrator said. “His name is Lachlan Mundy. And the bartender he was talking to is a field agent of mine. It’s hard to know if he talked to any other civilians on the matter.” She bitterly snubbed out her cigarette in an overfilled ashtray. “It’s regrettable, but I’m sending you out to kill the old fool. And his wife too for that matter.”
Miss Pauling shifted uncomfortably. “Are we certain—”
“—I am undeniably certain, Miss Pauling,” she interrupted again, sharper this time. “It’s one thing to call home to a bunch of nobodies, and it’s another to give company secrets away to the general public. You know as well as I do what has to be done.”
“Of course,” she said as the Administrator spun back to her screens.
“You fly out in three days. I’ll have the tickets sent to your quarters.” A click came from her lighter as she lit another cigarette. “You’ll be given a large selection of weaponry for this mission.“
The Administrator certainly knew how to bribe her. Miss Pauling hadn’t held a quality rocket launcher in a while, and her old pistol had been acting up lately. She smiled slightly. “I appreciate your generosity.”
“Don’t get used to it,” she huffed, chair still turned to her. “After this trip I’ll also need you to check on some of our equipment in Teufort. Our communication lines haven’t been working properly for sometime.” She rubbed her temples. “Not that I’ve missed hearing every imbecile civilian phone call, but it’s important to keep tabs on that sort of thing I suppose.”
“Absolutely.” Miss Pauling lifted her pen from writing the instructions in her clipboard. “Anything else?”
“See if there was anyone else the RED Sniper had been talking to. His past calls all go to his old residence, but since the outage we have no way of knowing who else he’s been blabbing company secrets to.” She huffed. “I’d hate to have to kill him. It’s hard work finding such specialized idiots.” The Administrator cringed at the screen as she watched a Soldier get blown to bits. “And while you’re at BLU base tomorrow do something about their Soldier — he’s making a mockery of his team.”
A final “Yes Administrator,” was all Miss Pauling had left to give before she made her long journey back to the Badlands. She mounted her scooter, secured her helmet, flipped the kickstand, and sped off towards her unfinished job. She sighed and hoped vultures hadn’t found the bodies yet. They were always a pain to chase away and generally unreliable to take care of the whole body themselves.
Believe it or not, Miss Pauling did not consider herself a particularly wicked woman. After all, it was easy to see that there were far worse men out in the world then her. You wouldn’t know it from the way she expertly pointed her pistol, her stance steady like a seasoned killer, the coldness behind her eyes when she pulled the trigger. And like many of the skills Miss Pauling had picked up in her lifetime, she threw her whole being into becoming exceptionally talented. It wouldn’t matter what job Miss Pauling would be tasked with, she would carry it out to the highest degree — any less was simply below her personal standard.
Her job just so happened to be ripping out molars, burying bodies, and ensuring the continued frivolous war for dirt. It never mattered why she was carrying out a job, but rather that it was to get done no matter the cost. So for the time being, she would continue to be good at that.
In this field, there was no use for morals. They would only slow you down, waste precious reaction time on questions of moral ambiguity. But even still, a thought gnawed at the back of Pauling’s head. To kill an evil man was an easy task, one that took little thought and left very little guilt. To kill a man you don’t know was occasionally even easier, ignorance simply blocked any qualms you might still have. These tasks, were again, ones that Miss Pauling had mastered repeatedly.
But killing an innocent man? Now that was much more troublesome. Killing the loved one of a colleague even more so. She wondered if this old man deserved to die because of loose lips after one beer too many. Certainly, the many men Miss Pauling had taken care of were guilty of far worse crimes than this.
Pauling held her helmet as her scooter sped down the highway, the wind whipping her bangs at the side of her face and her mind finally clearing of all the noise. Because at the end of the day, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t Miss Pauling’s job to question the Administrator’s orders, her job was to follow them. And like every other job set before her, she was going to execute it perfectly.