Realization hurts(Darcy,cont.)

[darcyneumann]

"Don't you dare tell me I don't get it," she said, "don't you dare."
She was up on her feet now, glowering down at him, "yeah, sure, maybe I don't understand from your point of view. After all, my daughter is adopted, right? And grown up now. She can take care of herself. But you can't even begin to comprehend how Lisa feels. You don't know what it's like to have a father who's not there, or to worry about him all the time, putting himself in danger, whether it be in physical danger, like you, or just being a reckless, stupid drunk like my father. Seeing him hurt was the worst thing in the world, it ached in places I didn't know even know I could feel pain.

So don't tell me that I don't understand. Because you're wrong."

[hugodouglass]

Hugo was silent for a moment, obviously emotionally and physically drained from both the rapid exchanges of viewpoints(quite angrily) and the past few hours of tip, captivity, and realization that he was being held by a terrorist organization. A few moments of silence passed before he responded:
"Listen...I'm not trying to pick a fight, ok? I didn't want you, I didn't want anyone following me here. I know how nasty it gets." Hugo leaned back in the chair, continuing:
"Funny, isn't it? Here we are, arguing like children...over children." He tilted his head back, eyes closed for a moment, continuing once more:
"You know, I didn't want her to grow up like this. Always worrying, always asking grandma where I was..." A small tear trickled down his left cheek as he continued:
"She needs a stable home. I can't give her that."

[darcyneumann]

Darcy's shoulders immediately dropped from their high and tense position, falling into their normal place. She was shaking.
All the anger left her body when she saw the tear trickle down his cheek - it almost broke her.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, slowly descending down into a crouched position, her hands upon his knees, "I didn't..." she had to swallow back some tears of her own, "I didn't mean that you were a bad father in any way, you're wonderful with her, really. I just... I needed you to know... I needed to know that you knew how much it affected her. To understand. To maybe let someone help next time."
"I came after you because I didn't want you getting into trouble or getting hurt," she said, "or just being alone. I won't do it again," she promised, "so long as you tell someone where you're going."

[hugodouglass]

"I've worked alone all my life, Darc. I'm used to it." He looked her straight in the eyes(those deep, deep eyes of hers), seeing sincerity, a kind of sincerity that he had not seen in a very long time. Hugo was actually comforted slightly; here was someone who had some kind of sympathy for someone else. There was hope for humanity after all. Or maybe she's just special. Both? Possibly. His very mature and detective-like mind urged him to say something that he could possibly regret:
"You are one hot nurse, you know that?"

[darcyneumann]

Darcy spluttered; part disbelief, part amusement.
She felt the tears creep up in her momentary loss of self control, but they weren't of sadness any more, and they didn't break free.
"Hugo Douglass," she said, slapping his knee gently in a playful way, "you have the most wonderful timing, you know that, right?"
Easing back, she sat down on the floor, her knees pulled up to her chest. A smile crept onto her face.
"You're not bad looking either."

That had certainly been one rollercoaster ride of emotions right there - it was exhausting. The adrenaline ebbed away, and the pain in her scratched skin began to flare up, prickling and smarting at the surface.
"How are we going to get out of here?"

[hugodouglass]

"We can't. That's the beauty of it all. There are no other visible exits other than the one roid rage used to get out of here. It's quite brilliant how they designed this room." He looked over at Darcy, asking:
"How did you get in here anyway?"

Captain Halzon rubbed his tired face with his hands, grunting slightly as he listened(for the third time) the demands that this "Security for the People" group had sent him(terrible name). They had prisoners from the Venia and both would be executed unless blah blah blah. He had heard it all before. This meathead obviously wasn't very smart.

But he did have one thing going for him: two members of the UGAP's blackest project. Only the highest brass knew about this, and Halzon couldn't allow these two to be killed.

Looks like Echelon is go.

[darcyneumann]

"Shimmied up an old drain pipe, busted a window and three goons' kneecaps, then fell on Joseph," Darcy said, giving him the abridged of what happened, "that's what I get for panicking. The last part I mean."
She thought she'd done pretty well through the whole ordeal, actually, considering that she hadn't been trained for anything like this. Sure, she'd trained at a firing range, and taken a course on self defense, but that didn't prepare anyone for what they saw on these sorts of missions.
"I thought I was a goner back at the club," she said, "that explosion..." she swallowed; it was horrific, but also, she probably wasn't helping herself at all seeing as he hadn't wanted her to be here in the first place. "Well, I survived, anyway. I'm fine."
She cleared her throat.
"I guess we'd better hope that someone is coming for us."

[hugodouglass]

Hugo sighed as she mentioned the club, waiting for her to finish before responding:
"You're lucky. It could have been a lot worse. These guys aren't playing around. Just from the way they move, their communication: they're tough." He paused a moment before continuing in a mildly surprised tone:
"But I'm surprised you managed to make it in here. You've got guts, I can tell you that."

Halzon had his team assemble in the hangar a few miles away from UGAP HQ, the older man surveying the five man team that stood before him.
"You men have your assignment. Get them out of there, eliminate the organization, torch the place. Questions?"
"NO SIR!" all five responded in unison.
"Get moving."

[darcyneumann]

"Guts, stupidity, I think they sort of go hand in hand," she admitted, pulling off her hat and running and hand through her hair. She had surprised herself at the lengths she had gone to tonight in order to get here. Maybe all those years doing drama and theatre had paid off.
With a sigh, she closed her eyes for a moment. She was going to sleep for a long time after they got out of here.

There was a rumble from the lower floors of the building, and Darcy's eyes flew open, immediately zoning in on Hugo's.
"What was that?"

[hugodouglass]

Hugo could feel the rumble beneath their room as well. It wasn't as forceful as the one they had previously experienced at the club, but it had just enough force to cause the building to tremor slightly. He could only guess what it was...cavalry? Nah, it couldn't be. They couldn't get here that...

"Fast and easy, boys, fast and easy." The leader of the special forces group named Echelon called out to his men over the implanted comm system they all shared, said leader walking over one of the bodies that had got caught in the initial explosion. Captain said to get in here and eliminate.

Didn't say how he could do it, and if it was up to Echelon leader Kyle Kosier, it was going to be explosive, fast, and well...you get the point.

They had arrived a few minutes ago and managed to get near the base(the guy who sent the message was foolhardy enough to not encode the message so that location coordinates couldn't be extracted. Too bad.), Kosier having one of his men identify a weak point in the structure and place an explosive.

Boom, boom, pow.

Instantly the five men turned on their cloaking devices, more adversaries filing into the room to see what had happened. Wrong. Choice.

After mopping up the curiosity crew with a few well timed head shot, one of Kosier's men spoke quietly:
"Scanners show there aren't any others around except for the hostages."
"You're sure?"
"No thermal signatures detected, sir. It's as if the rest of them just vanished."
"Or they're setting a trap."

[darcyneumann]

Hugo didn't reply.
That's comforting.

Clambering up onto her feet again, she decided she didn't want to be lounging on the floor when whatever was causing destruction downstairs came bursting through the door.
She hoped it was someone on their side, that someone had come to save them, but they couldn't be sure.
The room lacked... well, pretty much everything. The only things in the room being her and Hugo, a chair, and the restraints keeping Hugo in his chair.
Nothing to defend themselves with if they were attacked by something hostile. Hugo couldn't even stand up.
Settling herself into a defensive stance, feet apart, she tensed her arms, remembering her training - she was prepared for whatever came through that door.

[hugodouglass]

"Recon the area anyway. Make sure we don't have any invisi's waiting for us. Edwards, Kalienko, second floor. Lobo, Hayden, third floor. Once area is secure, Lobo, get to work on the data transfer."
"SIR!" With that, the unit dispersed, cloaking devices back in operation. Kyle activated his own cloaking unit and brought up a blueprint of the facility on his wrist(technology is an amazing thing). Cargo is on the third floor. Got it.

As Kyle approached the entrance, he heard two "Area secure" calls over his comm system. Very strange. Where were these guys? The real question of concern though:

Who cares?

Kyle thrust his right hand forward, his wrist device sending out EMP pulses to de-activate the locking mechanism.

Bingo.


Hugo saw the door slide open to reveal a now appearing(what was it with cloaking devices?!) man. His gaze was sharp, determined, blue eyes piercing through both Hugo and Darcy like knives. He strode into the room, talking as he deactivated the energy restraints:
"You both are coming with us."
"And you are?" Hugo asked in a cynical tone.
"Your ride out of here...sir."

[darcyneumann]

Darcy only relaxed when she heard the words, "Your ride out of here...sir."
Finally, something was going right.
"What happened to the terrorists?" she asked, looking at Kyle as he ushered them both from the room and to the transport. Her question was answered for her when she saw the state of the lower floors. They had been 'taken care of', for want of a better term.
"Never mind."

As soon as they were safely on the transport, Darcy settled into a seat and let her eyes close, still listening, but relaxing for the first time in hours. Breathing.

Yes, she would be patching herself up then collapsing into bed at the first moment.

[hugodouglass]

"We eliminated the ones that were here, ma'am." As he guided them downstairs, Hugo could smell the usual scents that wafted through the air of the Third: urine, almost rotten food, and the occasional sweet smell of cheap perfume used by the ladies that roamed the streets at night. Even though this situation was resolved, would the Third ever be?

The transport waited for them just outside the building, a few onlookers staring at the now emerging group as if they were aliens. True, they were strangers to this part of the world. The Third's population didn't usually see people who actually looked decent. Sad. Just. Sad.

Four other soldiers loaded onto the transport and began jabbering with the commander, Hugo feeling the automated transport lift off the ground. No doubt they would be shuttled to the nearby UGAP base. Hopefully there's no debriefing. Those things were tedious.

The transport had dropped them off at a remote landing pad a few clicks off from the UGAP facility, said landing pad occupied by a small shuttle whose pilot was leaning up against it, smoking a cigarette(how typical). As the duo approached, the pilot stomped his cigarette into the pavement and got into the shuttle, preparing it for launch.

How social.

The ride back to the Venia was quiet except for the occasional laughter heard from the cockpit. Apparently the pilot was finding something on his portable nav screen funny(probably some kind of viral video). They docked after about twenty minutes of flight time, Hugo emerging into the familiar surroundings of the Venia.

Home sweet ho...
He was almost knocked over by something about waist high.
"Daddy! Daddy!" Lisa's face was glowing with excitement, her green eyes sparkling. Hugo laughed, taking her up into his arms as he asked her:
"Did you listen to the crew while I was gone?"
"Yes siiiiiiiirrrrrrr."
"I thought you would." He kissed her on the cheek, setting her down gently before she went over to Darcy, almost knocking HER over as well.
"I missed you tooo Darrrceeeeee."

[darcyneumann]

Darcy wasn't listening to anything on the way back, she'd completely tuned the world around her out. The Third was a place she hoped never to visit again, so long as she lived.
Her lasting memory of the place now was going to be nearly being blown to kingdom come.
How pleasant.

It was good to be back on the Venia, somewhere clean and organised.
Somewhere with a nice comfortable bed. She had a one track mind right now.

That thought was disturbed by the sudden interruption of Lisa almost pummeling her father to the ground. Darcy couldn't help but let out a laugh.
But then she got it too.
"H-Hey, sweetie," she said, managing to wrap her arms around the little girl, "I missed you as well." It was weird to think that only a little while ago she was practically screaming at Hugo about this little bundle of joy.
It was nice to have such a reception. It made her miss Casey.

"Well," she said, reluctantly detaching herself from Lisa, "I have to go get cleaned up. But, I'll see you soon. Both of you."
She looked back at Hugo, giving him a smile.