Chapter Text
Mcnamara waited patiently with a straight back outside the landing bay to welcome General Cross back from his mission.
He liked to greet him when he returned from his Hatchetfield missions, they were more dangerous than anything the average PEIP soldier was tasked with and it was reassuring to see him come back safely from that warped place.
The General hadn’t assigned it to him, but he took it upon himself to clear the way upon his arrival. Cross hated being crowded, often exhausted from his missions. The beasts and creatures that thrived in that abandoned old island were brutal and vicious and it wasn’t unusual for him to come home with scars or bruises. But Cross kept his chin high and remained confident with his missions. So Mcnamara tried to give him the grace of having a moment to breathe before returning to his duties.
So there Brigadier Mcnamara always stood when the General touched down on the landing pad, keeping a sharp eye on the halls. If a soldier had a question or any urgent needs they could simply come to him, the General had mentored him himself after all.
“Brigadier,” Cross greeted him as he trudged out into the halls, exhausted as usual. He stifled a yawn, rubbing a gloved hand across a fresh scar on his face he had already bandaged up.
“General Cross,” he saluted.
“General Cross!” Mcnamara flinched as a voice rang out. Colonel Schaeffer was marching down the hall to him before he could so much as turn the corner.
Cross turned around, brow raised in frustration.
“Colonel, can I help you? The General has just returned from Hatchetfield, if you need anything direct your attention to me.”
She ignored him. “Welcome back General. How was the Hatchetfield mission? Have you found anything new?”
He jolted. ‘New?’ Did she know something he didn’t? He shook that thought from his head, if General Cross suddenly started sharing his Hatchetfield reports he would be the first to know.
“Same old same old,” he answered, waving a hand to shoo her off as he headed down the hall to his office. “Don’t even worry about it. Just another meteor I had to check out.”
Mcnamara followed behind him as he walked but Schaeffer kept pace so there was no room in the hall for him to walk beside them.
“I’d like to join you on the task force next time,” she said.
He turned her way with a poorly masked grimace, adjusting his beret. Quite frankly Mcnamara was the same. The Colonel was persistent about the Hatchetfield business, she had been ever since it was cut off from the mainland at Cross’ orders and after thirteen years it was starting to get a little bit grating.
“Colonel, my answer is always the same. Hatchetfield is festering with Black and White anomalies. It’s practically radioactive. I hardly make it out alive myself sometimes, what could you do?”
Her face hardened, “with all due respect I’m not a cadet. I’ve been working with this organization for almost thirty years. Perhaps if you stopped taking exclusively solo missions you might not find them so deadly.”
“Colonel!” Mcnamara snapped a warning but she was yet to even acknowledge his existence.
“Schaeffer, I get it. You’d like to help, but there’s no one worth saving over there. Anyone still out there has been corrupted by the Black and White. Respect your General’s orders and go handle some paperwork for me, okay?” He waved her off, giving Mcnamara a look with his bright green eyes to tell him to handle her so he could rest.
She stopped in her tracks begrudgingly, her hands balled up in tight fists that were stiff by her sides.
Mcnamara hurried after Cross. “Is everything alright, General?” He inquired.
“Classified, Mcnamara. There are samples in the helicopter, get them to the lab for me. I need to rest.” And he left the both of them standing in the hallway. “Boy, they put up a fight,” he muttered in his gravelly voice, rubbing his scar and stifling a wince.
He turned to Schaeffer with a warning look. “You can’t even give him ten minutes after returning?” He asked. “Your General asked you to drop the topic, Schaeffer.”
“Pull your head out of your ass, Brigadier.” She never respected his General much, he was quite aware. And where they really butted heads was the Hatchetfield situation. But that was not an appropriate way to speak to her commanding officers, and Cross was his mentor. He’d hardly let slander slide.
“He’s our General and my mentor and you will respect him, Colonel.”
“Didn’t you hear him? ‘There’s no one worth saving.’ A shitty attitude for a General if you ask me.” Her shoulders were still hunched up angrily despite the cooling of her tone. “Everyone is worth saving, well, unless they’ve committed some bad crimes of course but that’s outside our jurisdiction.”
“Schaeffer, that’s exactly the point. The Black and White corrupted Hatchetfield, if anyone out there is still possibly alive, they are committing ‘bad crimes’ as you put it!” He reminded her, crossing his arms.
“So you admit it, someone might still be alive out there?”
In his frustration he pursed his lips shut, widening his stance into an at ease position to suggest she calm down. “I highly doubt that. It’s likely a battle royale out there.”
“Do you know for certain?”
“General Cross would help anyone if they were still alive. Or if anything could be done about their condition. They’re all monsters at this rate, I imagine anyone living there is highly mutated by the Black and Whites forces.” His mouth itched for cigarette smoke, he didn’t want to have this argument with her again because it never went anywhere. He doubted she’d ever change her point without seeing it for herself, and that was not something that would be very easy to arrange in Hatchetfield’s case. “It’s hit by meteors every other week, I don’t know what you think you’d find.”
She turned to look him right in the eye with a bright look, and he realized he had only encouraged her. “You’re the Brigadier, what has he told you?”
He bit down on his tongue, brows furrowing as his face grew hot. “They’re classified.”
“So not even you know? He was your mentor wasn’t he?” She gave a bothered sigh, her head swiveling back and forth to scan the hall, surveying her other options.
He cracked his knuckles behind his back, cheeks red. Hatchetfield was essentially a dead zone, but did the General not think he was prepared to deal with that? When he dies, and it would likely be to those monsters over in Hatchetfield he keeps risking himself to keep contained, Mcnamara would almost certainly be the next in line, and yet he still knew nothing about what was happening in that town.
“Well he’ll entrust me with the details when it’s time,” he answered. “But right now all you need to know is that Hatchetfield is the town equivalent of Chernobyl.”
“I believe the town equivalent of Chernobyl is Chernobyl, Mcnamara,” she corrected him sharply, “and if that’s the case it’s still a risk to the surrounding towns and it has to be dealt with and the reports need to be properly filed. Not ‘classified.’”
“And are you planning on doing that paperwork? They’re classified for our own interest, Colonel. And that’s the last I’ll have about this topic, I have more pressing matters to attend to, and I believe you do too,” he declared, dipping his head to her to gesture her off.
“We can’t just leave it to rot, Brigadier. I’m not frightened of a little radioactivity. I dispatch aliens on my weekends,” she reminded him. “It’d be the right thing to do and you know it.” She stormed off, and he was untrusting that she’d mind her own business. She was harder than usual to shake off this time after what Cross had said.
He took in a deep breath to steel himself. She’d make it easier on the organization and all of them if she left Cross to his business. It wasn’t like he didn’t have equal experience handling PEIP’s many affairs, he had watched soldiers perish in an array of horrific deaths. But frankly that was what made him so scared of Hatchetfield, what could be so harrowing that it had to be left classified? Kept even from him?
Well, unlike the Colonel he respected his General’s decision. With a stiff upper lip he marched on down to collect the samples from the helicopter as he was ordered.
He delivered the box carefully to the lab. It was chilled to preserve whatever substance was inside.
“Delivery from Hatchetfield?” Xander pulled back from the microscope he was looking down and peeling off his gloves.
“The General has just returned,” he confirmed, setting the box down on the table while Xander washed his hands. “What is he delivering?” Mcnamara decided to inquire, the General might have never told him but if the samples were opened in the lab to be analyzed by the first officer available they couldn’t be confidential.
Xander pursed his lips shut to think, eyes rolling to the side as he pulled on a new pair of blue gloves, opening up the box. “Usually samples like this.” He pulled out a small tube of a thick, dark blue liquid.
“Any color you want,” he added, selecting a pink tube. “Well, as long as you only want five different colors. But we’ve got shades.”
That didn’t really answer any of his curiosities, but he chided himself mentally. He shouldn’t be trying to get around his General’s classified order. It was confidential information kept from him for his own good.
He had no clue what these liquids were. And coming from Hatchetfield they could be anything, poison, venom, acid, or something entirely new.
“If you’re interested,” could Xander read him that easily? “From the past studies I’ve completed for the General...” he trailed off to slot the vials into the centrifuge, his back to Mcnamara. “The substance is strikingly similar to blood.”
“But not quite?”
He shook his head, sealing the lid and turning around again to face him. “But not quite.”
For a moment, the whirring of the centrifuge filled the silence as it started its revolutions and Xander watched John.
“What’s wrong?” He finally asked, and the tension he had felt building up around his throat snapped.
“I don’t understand why the General hasn’t entrusted me with the Hatchetfield situation yet.” As his old apprentice, part of it stung, or well, all of it. He completed his training under the General, how could he possibly think Mcnamara was unprepared?
Admittedly, he was frightened of Hatchetfield. But he had never spoken a word of that to anyone. He’d go there if it meant helping protect the public because that was his job.
“Ahh I don’t think it has anything to do with that. Maybe you just need a certain resistance to the Black and White’s energy, and I mean, he certainly does.” He didn’t mention Cross’ accident. “I’ve seen some dangerous, infectious stuff brought through this lab to be analyzed.”
He was amazed but certainly not surprised at his General’s ability. Some soldiers attributed his talent on the Hatchetfield case as a side effect of falling into the Black and White all those years ago. They said he wasn’t quite the same soldier he was before, but Mcnamara knew Cross best. He knew he had worked for his skill. He had come out of the portal different, but so would anyone. It was still Wilbur Cross, still his mentor.
“I have some concerns about the Colonel and her persistence with the Hatchetfield case. I don’t trust she’ll mind her own business.”
“She’s been minding her business well enough for the last thirteen years. What rubbed her the wrong way today?”
He huffed, brushing a hand through his beard. He needed smoke in his chest. “Cross said something new this afternoon. I think she’s going to disobey a direct order.”
Xander returned to his microscope, adjusting the dials in silence as he pondered McNamara’s words. “I’m listening to your voice and it sounds a bit like jealousy.”
“It’s not jealousy, she should follow her orders. She’s the Colonel and she should know better.” He wasn’t jealous, he just expected her to follow orders. And yet the thought of her seeing Hatchetfield before him because she cared less about Cross’s orders struck him unpleasantly, sending a chill down his spine.
“You’re gonna try and sell me on that one?” Xander challenged, although he was more preoccupied with handling Cross’ samples. He always liked his reports back in a timely manner, which was very understandable. A close eye had to be kept on his findings. Whatever they were.
“I’m going to go and sort the Colonel out,” he stated, rolling up his uniform sleeves. “No one is going to Hatchetfield without the General’s orders.”
“Yup. Didn’t have to repeat it to me,” he shot Mcnamara a look, but the Brigadier couldn’t quite read his intent. “The town is sealed off for a reason, John.”
Schaeffer was never a hard soldier to find. She worked on a strict schedule that Mcnamara had learnt quickly over their shared decades at the organization, so when she was not in the gym during after hours he already knew where she’d be.
When he turned away from the gym doors he caught sight of her, headed down the hall with long strides.
His eyes narrowed as he watched her go, too fast to notice him following behind her a few paces back. At this hour of the night she had no reason to be headed through these halls. The DFAC was already shut for the evening.
Really, he knew where she was headed. There were only so many facilities of interest in this branch of PEIP, but he wanted to see if she was actually going to do it, enter the helicopter bay.
“I know you’re following me, Brigadier.” She didn’t even turn around to face him as she pulled her flight jacket down from the hooks, zipping it up.
“What are you doing in the helicopter bay at this hour, soldier?”
“Just a patrol. Responding to a quick call.” It wasn’t even half of an excuse. She knew he knew, she just didn’t want to talk to him.
“If there was a call I would’ve heard about it,” he widened his stance, arms crossed over his chest as he watched her strap her helmet on.
“Maybe you missed it.” She pulled herself up into the front seat, buckling herself in.
He pulled himself up on the handle with one arm, catching her eye that she refused to give him. “Mind if I tag along? No soldier should answer a call alone.” He sat himself down in the passenger seat before she could turn him down. Because surely she wouldn’t have the guts to go to Hatchetfield while her Brigadier was observing.
“Sure thing, Brigadier,” she pulled her visor down. “More than welcome.”
He wanted to catch her in her lie, just to see her squirm. Because she shouldn’t be inviting herself to Hatchetfield. If he couldn’t go, if his General didn’t trust him, she shouldn’t find it so easy to bend the rules.
Through the cockpit windows night had fallen. As they rose up high above the facility all they could see were the dots of light from the city down below, its lineless form sinking into a vast black shadow as they flew above it.
He adjusted his headset, clearing his throat to ask her. “So, where is this so-called ‘call’ we’re answering?” He inquired, a smug tone catching his voice. He was curious to see what lie she’d try to sell.
“Hatchetfield,” she answered plain and simple. “Is that a problem?”
Now that, he was not prepared for. “Hatchetfield is off limits, Colonel!”
“Want me to turn this helicopter around and drop you off then?”
He had the option to agree. He was the Brigadier and he could order her to turn around and land this helicopter, punish her for insubordination and yet nothing came out of his mouth.
He put a hand to his headset like it would do the speaking for him, opening his jaw to come up with something, all he had to say was yes, and yet...
“Didn’t think so, Brigadier.”
She was going to Hatchetfield, and he was letting her.
———————————————————
Dark clouds knitted across the sky, leaving wisps of mist that tumbled through the broken streets of the abandoned town down below.
Schaeffer was watching intently, for what, he didn’t know. But she didn’t seem to take any care to the nature reclaiming the town, crawling over the roads and cracking through the asphalt.
What had once been the Witchwoods had grown to swamp a significant portion of the town. Through the dense canopy he could make out flickers of industrial grey rooftops and flickering street lamps poking out from underneath.
A morbid curiosity made him squint, trying to make out any figures below. From up here would it be possible to see what made Hatchetfield so classified?
For now, the town seemed to sleep. “Satisfied?” He asked her. “That’s Hatchetfield. No one down there.”
“No.” She answered, and there was a change in the whirring of the helicopter blades as it began to lower to the ground.
“Colonel, what are you doing?”
“Landing.”
“You aren’t allowed to land in Hatchetfield it’s strictly off limits!” He had to remind her, firm in his orders as they got closer to the ground.
“If you don’t like it, stay in the bird. I’m getting out.”
“Colonel Schaeffer it’s off limits for our own safety, I cannot allow you to leave on your own. Return this helicopter to headquarters now, and that’s an order, soldier!”
She scoffed at him, elbowing his arm off her bicep. “If it was as terribly radioactive as Cross makes it out to be I’m sure our skin would be peeling by now.” She took in a deep breath of air, “it’s only smoky.”
“Schaeffer, I’m ordering you to stop!” He commanded again, and the order seemed to go right past her as she focused on landing the helicopter down in the open patch of land underneath them. Something that might have once been a park.
As they got closer and closer he could see more and more, through shattered windows and the number plates on abandoned cars. He was just waiting to see one of them, the brutes Wilbur always warned him about.
The ones that had survived like cockroaches, living in crevices and eating each other to survive. Incessantly clawing for survival they no longer deserved in this wasteland town.
“You should’ve told me to turn around when you had the chance, Mcnamara.” She raised a hand to her headset to switch it off and he slapped her hand away.
“Claire, I don’t care what personal business you have breaking direct orders but if you don’t turn around now I’m reporting this to General Cross.”
She turned to him with a cold glower, landing the helicopter with a thump to the ground, and jostling him in his seat. “Don’t call me Claire,” she warned, switching off her head seat.
She slid out of her seat onto the dry, brown grass. “Stay in the helicopter if you like.” The dead grass crunched underfoot as she walked away and he hopped down to follow after her with a scowl, pulling the collar of his uniform up over his nose just to block out any gasses in the air.
“I can’t let you act on your own, soldier. Why are you so insistent on coming to this shitty old town?” He had a hand on his gun. It wasn’t silent, only quiet enough to be eerie. Somewhere, far in the distance and long out of sight he could hear something like voices. All mingled together and deep like a chant, or perhaps a song. He didn’t want to stick around to find out.
“It’s none of your business, Mcnamara. Come with me or not, but don’t slow me down.”
He grumbled, keeping a high alert. “Are you deaf, soldier? You’ll get us both killed.”
“I said you can stay in the helicopter if you’re scared,” she stopped in her tracks to turn around and glare at him, lip curled back in a snarl. “We‘ve been here for five minutes and we aren’t dying, we haven’t even seen anyone. We’re both highly trained and armed soldiers and if General Cross has made you believe you aren’t capable take it up with him. But I am.”
He opened his mouth to make a remark when something lit up the sky, crackling through the air towards them. Heat roared over his skin as a bolt of fire barrelled past him, leaving smoke in its wake.
He hopped back, drawing his firearm as he coughed on the smoke. He dropped down, rolling out of the way behind the shelter of a stray witchwood pine whose roots had cracked through the pavement.
His breaths were shallow as he turned around, expecting to see that Schaeffer had followed him. “Schaeffer?” He called, rising to his feet as he peered out from behind the gnarled bark for the source of the fire. Undoubtedly from one of those Hatchetfield beasts.
“Schaeffer?” She wasn’t there.
“Hey,” a new voice spoke up behind him and he whipped around, face to face with one of the island’s brutes. “You’re on the boss’s turf, stranger.” There was an unspoken threat in her tone, she stared at him with mismatched eyes, one green, one purple.
Before she could attack he cocked his gun, only to feel his hands close in on nothing. He jolted, his firearm vanishing right before his eyes and appearing in hers.
“I’m taking you to the boss,” she ordered, reaching to apprehend him.
He dodged her hand, he didn’t want to touch them, if they were infectious like Xander and Cross told him there’d be no one coming to help him. He would do himself no favors fighting someone who wasn’t safe to touch. “Understood! I’m following.” Maybe one of these beasts had already taken Schaeffer.
She gave him a cold glare, pocketing his pistol into her jersey jacket. “Good. You’re coming with me, buddy.”
———————————————————
Schaeffer had only stuck around long enough to make sure that her Brigadier had gotten out of the way safely.
Perhaps it was things like being attacked by flaming balls of fire that made General Cross keep Hatchetfield to himself.
She wasn’t afraid, maybe she was shocked. Whatever she was feeling didn’t bother her for long though as the gentle ringing of a bell caught her ear.
At the end of the alley she had thrown herself into for cover there was an animal.
Schaeffer knew what a cat looked like, and that looked... cat like enough.
It was bigger than what she remembered cats looking like. Not quite tiger or lion status but big enough to command her attention.
It was a well groomed, long furred cat-creature, and it sat there contently licking its paw to clean behind its ear.
There was a collar around its neck, a sign it was definitely being looked after by someone. And as she moved in closer to it she swore it gave an amused meow, staring at the space right behind her before something smacked into the back of her head and everything went dark.