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Kurtis wouldn’t say he was exactly choosy when it came to company, but after a few months at the Agency, he was starting to actively dislike his… colleagues. At first he thought it would be fine, he’d spent four years in the Foreign Legion after all, this couldn’t be that far from it.
Yeah, right.
Mercenaries and legionnaires were both armed and ready to fight, but who they worked for and what the work consisted of made for quite a different sort of people who decided to join.
There were mercs who actively searched for opportunities to kill. Most were here for the generous pay and were more than happy to do anything without asking any questions. Well, asking no questions was a prerequisite and Kurtis too was pretending to be here for the paycheck, but he doubted many others internally shuddered after some of their missions.
If he didn’t have such a good, important reason to be here, he’d disappear in a blink, leaving no trace for Gunderson to find him. Kurtis was well aware this wasn’t the kind of job one could quit easily – at least not alive. He took all the dangers into consideration before making the decision to infiltrate the Agency to learn of the Cabal’s next steps.
But the one thing he didn’t take into account was the one that currently made him walk a deserted hallway, with a plan to find the deepest corner and have a smoke in peace and quiet. He wasn’t exactly a saint, but the annoying, sometimes downright nasty company of the other mercs was really getting tiresome.
Two days ago, Kurtis had had a very pleasant chat with a maintenance worker. The guy complained about his aching back in his old age and Kurtis nodded in commiseration and offered him a cigarette. The best conversation he’d had in months, and that was just depressing.
Kurtis walked the narrow hallway, his boots squeaking on the worn linoleum. He made a turn to the right and stopped.
Up ahead, maybe fifteen meters away near another turn, was a person. If it were just another merc, Kurtis might be mildly surprised but mostly just annoyed. But this strange figure was a little small and slight to be a mercenary, and wasn’t wearing the uniform anyway. Turned away from Kurtis and entirely motionless, it looked like a creepy lost child.
Kurtis mentally thanked that maintenance worker for repairing the power lines two days ago. The lights in a good quarter of the building had been flickering. Kurtis did not need additional horror mood by seeing this scene in flickering light. The person was doing pretty well by themself.
K urtis had two options. Continue on, or turn back. It wasn’t that he was afraid of a confrontation with someone… (something?) creepy. That was the story of his life. He just wasn’t in the mood for that and actually had the rare opportunity to back out.
If he went back… how long before he’d lose the fight with himself and came here to check it out anyway? And if that person was gone, it’d just keep niggling at his brain. Was it a human? Was it dangerous? Would it come back?
Fuck it, he had to go forward.
The person didn’t move as he walked closer and he stopped good four metres away from them.
“Hi, you lost?” he tried because what the hell, if it was a demon he’d rather get the fight over with instead of standing around and waiting when it reacts to his presence.
The small person cocked their head slightly, slow enough that their chopped-short white hair didn’t even move. Then they turned to him at their leisure, not quite the precise movements of a martial artist, yet there was something decidedly deadly in that motion.
Unnaturally pale eyes glared at him from behind a shaggy fringe, ringed by black smears that surely couldn’t be make-up. Or maybe they could, Kurtis wasn’t one to judge. He was more focused on the fact that the person – the girl – really looked very young. Not a child, but a teenager for sure, and staring at him like a predator at her prey.
Unfortunately for her, most of the demons and monsters he’d fought also fancied themselves predators so it was a look he’d grown immune to, if still wary. He’d never backed down because of that though, and he had no reason to back up now.
A staring contest then? She didn’t answer him, she was just shooting anger and death from her eyes and Kurtis was fairly sure it’d work on plenty of mercs here – her whole getup and creepiness screamed unknown danger and the smart ones knew to assess new situations carefully and if possible from afar – he just had lots of experience with the weird and creepy.
So he looked. And he dared to look at more than her face, after all if she were to attack, she would probably use a different body part. Unless she decided to bite him? He wouldn’t put it past her, with that stare. But because he looked elsewhere, he noticed… other weird things. Mostly hidden by her clothes, but there were… there were pieces of metal sticking out near her collar. And past her shoulder, if he saw well enough, a sort of tube, leading, he had to assume, into her body. And he had to admit, she looked very pale and sickly, he skin almost translucent, showing veins.
A small ill girl with medical tech attached to her body wouldn’t be prowling the mercenary barracks though, and certainly not with a glare that expected everyone to scuttle or die violently. The daggers attached to her thigh didn’t slip his attention either.
She was in the barracks. She was weird but with lethal self-confidence which he was sure she would back up if prompted.
He knew who the Agency worked for, that’s why he was here after all. It made him sick to even think about, but he knew, he’d read… he’d seen some illustrations of what Eckhardt had been doing in his alchemical labs. Kurtis had the sinking feeling of growing certainty that this was a more modern take on his medieval experiments.
So the staring contest somehow continued, although it couldn’t be more than five seconds for his eyes and thoughts to cover all that.
And despite her murderous glare (was it intensifying? Maybe just his imagination) it suddenly felt a bit awkward, to just stand there, looking at each other in the middle of the hallway and not say anything.
He was fairly sure she didn’t share his awkwardness.
“Uh, you work here?” he blurted out and then forced his own hand to not slap his forehead because then he’d lose visual.
But hey maybe that question wasn’t a completely wrong call because the girl’s stare turned slightly less murderous to accommodate the additional confused bafflement. Or just a silent judgement that he was an idiot, he couldn’t tell for sure.
Then her mouth slowly opened. “Yeah,” she said, he voice high but a little raspy, like she wasn’t used to talking much, and then she blinked like she herself couldn’t believe she actually answered.
“Uh, okay,” Kurtis took the opportunity that they were communicating and quickly ended the conversation. “See you around then,” he casually strolled past her with a small wave of his hand.
It wasn’t until he took a few more turns that his nerves started to calm. She didn’t follow him, he had checked. Finally outside, he pulled out a cigarette – his nerves could still use a little bit of calming.
Who the hell was that girl?