I hope you guys like, this is the first clear insight into Gustav's mind, and how he feels... but little does he know about the problems that his heart will cause.
If you think that there isn't as much action here, you're right, this chapter is more about recollection, and how Gustav deals with his unwanted thoughts and feelings. Patience friends, the action will resume next chapter.
Attempted rescue
Eight hours later, Gustav woke up with a headache, and a groan. All he could remember was being attacked by one of his assailants, one who Gustav could only assume had got past the guard of Terrik, Eugene and Dafs, then escaped.
Gustav stifled a yawn, stretched and walked around the helicopter. Slowly, as he walked himself through the cabin, he saw the extent of damage that the escapee had wrought: Terrik was knocked out, a heavy blow to the head being the most probable cause; one of his assailants was convulsing on the floor, possibly poisoned, lethally or non-lethally would only be determined if he lived or died; one was unconscious, still tied to a support shank, holding a datapad; Eugene had received a heavy blow to the stomach, knocking him unconscious and doing untold damage to his digestive organs; and Dafs was asleep.
Well, he couldn’t blame Dafs for being asleep, after all, he’d been awake for 36 hours, and then he looked again and noticed two discrepancies, first, Dafs wasn’t in the position he slept in, and also, his hydraulic arm was in a very peculiar configuration. Under the cargo bay door was his hydraulic arm, trapped. Why would he put his arm there?
Suddenly a notion appeared to him, Dafs was attacked mid-sleep by the assailant, woke up, and in the ensuing fight got knocked out and hauled under the cargo bay door, making it that much harder for him to escape when he woke up. If he woke up, that is.
The odd thing was he couldn’t see Carys anywhere, which was weird, as, ever since they’d been as a team she had never left the place Gustav and her friends were in. She might have gone for a walk, Gustav thought, but in an unknown territory that was unlikely. She never chose to walk into the unknown without support. Yet here were all her friends, Carys herself was missing. That thought was unsettling, for him to have risked his life to save her and have her go missing again, all his triumphs for nothing.
What unsettled him more however, was the fact he was starting to have feelings for this girl. It shouldn’t have happened, the assassin’s training should have wiped away all those emotions which could betray him. Yet, here he was, hoping she was alright, a slight pang of despair quaking through his heart, shadowed by a determination to make whoever did this pay. If they’ve done anything to her, I’ll rip their heads off.
He chose to go look for her, alone. No good in getting his friends involved. He swiped the datapad an unconscious Nakejama was holding and looked at the latest recording. The last three lines interested him especially:
“Yeah. Ok, fair enough. I do believe that High Command is currently in Spain.”
“Spain? Why Spain?”
“Who would think that he’d be hiding in a place he was so well known in?”
Gustav mused, this wasn’t much of a lead, but it would have to do. First however, he’d have to write a letter, explaining his actions, and saying why they couldn’t follow.
After a long hour or so he finally finished writing the letter. At long last he could continue on with the rest of the perilous journey. He copied the map chart from the helicopter’s limited databank, and went along the way. Location: Spain or bust. Time to rescue or die trying.
Outside the helicopter it was cool and temperate, a far cry from the bitter anguish Gustav felt inside. Inside his mind was bitter conflict. Part of his brain told him that not only would going after her be suicidal, it would also go completely against the assassin’s code of survival. The other part was saying that Gustav should follow his heart, and that he had already sacrificed himself for her once, and that, unless it was all for nothing, he should do it again.
He gritted his teeth and tried to silence the thoughts pounding through his brain. He was going to go through with this, he had to. He, Gustav, had got her into this mess, he would help her out. How, he reasoned, he’d have to think along the way.
Gustav packed the daggers into his bag, and opened the cargo bay of the helicopter from the back. Packing his bag full of rations and basic supplies he set off from the helicopter. Viewing the data-map he downloaded from the helicopter he headed east, towards the nearest town.
It wasn’t windy and Gustav could just make out footprints. Footprints of the person who took Carys. Gustav increased his pace, and quickly tracked his way.
Speed was a necessity, and he forced himself through top speed. He didn’t care what damage this could do, he forced himself to reach it, and through all the distance, keep it.
Nightfall came and Gustav forced himself to walk, he was growing increasingly tired and his muscles were burning. Sleep wasn’t going to come to him until he’d rescued Carys though, so, Gustav thought, he might as well walk through the night. He slowed his pace to a more leisurely stroll, to conserve some energy, and so he could doze while walking.
He noticed that the night sky was growing ever more beautiful, and wondered what it would be like, looking up at the stars, with Carys by his side. He shook his head resolutely. Now is not the time for romantic thoughts, especially when someone’s life is in danger, and the danger could turn out to be your own.
Admittedly though, the night sky was beautiful. All those stars, uncompromised and viewable without all those street lights. He could pick out some constellations. Then Gustav scolded himself, and picked up the pace. Look, you’ll have the time for sight-seeing later. When this entire mission, this charade, is done.
Turning on a miniature torch he looked at the datapad again. He was closing on the nearest town, and there he could allow himself to sleep. About thirty-seven miles to go. Within a days run he should get there. He sighed, five hours of walking. Five hours before he could run to the town. And even more before he could go to sleep.
Whoever tried to kill her nearly killed you. That same person is now probably headed to Spain, or is already there, giving Carys to Yugorovski, or to the head of the UN, baiting a trap, for you and for your friends. You’ve got to make sure that if anyone gets hurt, the only person who does is you, or the UN.
Destination: Spain. Time to sleep over the journey.
About 5 and a half hours later Gustav awoke. He was still walking. Whether he was still on course or not remained to be seen. Staring at the helicopter map he rubbed his eyes. He had made the journey extend about 8 miles further then it actually should’ve. Yawning he changed his direction slightly, checked that he was now facing the right way, and left off.
Once Gustav drank from the water reserve he started jogging, doing what he could to get to Carys quicker. Either I fight my enemies now, or forever will I be a failure. I will not betray my allies, no matter what circumstances brought our allegiance together. Whatever the circumstances, whatever twist of choice or impulse brought us together, my allies are my allies, my friends, and that I hold dear, I will not break an oath of friendship.
After half an hour he started gorging on the rations he’d brought with him, and found that with the consumption came a boundless strength, an energy he hadn’t felt for days. “All it needs is a bit of food and even the most pessimistic sod will start to feel good,” Gustav mused.
Pausing briefly he checked the map, which pointed directly where he was and where the nearest town was. Gustav yawned again, and eyed the map telemetry closely. Just under 29 miles to go, if I jog, I should arrive at the town in six hours. That thought alone spurred him on. Gustav swigged his drink, and left, his body begging for rest, his mind focusing at the job at hand. He bared his teeth in a grimace. He would enjoy getting to sleep. Sooner rather then later.
After a few hours the scenery, even though beautiful moulded into one never ending copy. Sure, the novelty of trees and a few dirt track roads instead of a bustling city, and an underground lair, wasn’t lost on Gustav and for the first half an hour he took in every detail. Then he realised that it would just be a never ending copy and just concentrated on following the map
Pretty soon though, he got through the forest and on to a flat grassland. This was a slight relief, but it was still green, and still had dirt track roads; and so became the same old boring and never ending cut-scene. Gustav was so bored he counted the vehicles that passed. Two tractors, or more accurately, the same one twice.
Given up caring about the scenery at all Gustav ran, and within three hours he’d reached the nearest town. As soon as he arrived he fell asleep. For five hours Gustav slept comfortably, his subconscious leisurely creating possible plans of action and a few hundred possible adaptations.
Slowly reality dawned back on Gustav. He checked his watch; five hours had slipped by without his noticing. Five hours of rest and relaxation, all things he needed, and was grateful for. Those five hours could spell the difference between success and failure, life and death.
However, he had forced himself to this town for a simple reason; transport for the rescue he was about to undertake, the possible movement of illogical suicide for a surge of emotions that surged through him. But, he realised, I have no choice, to not follow my instincts or my heart would be betrayal, to me, and to her. Damn! Why am I thinking like this?
He pushed the thoughts from his mind and focused on the most important: getting transport out of here, whether legitimate or not.
Scouring the town for bland vehicles he found a small Ford Cortina, possibly Yugorovski’s at some time. It was bland and unassuming, but it was yellow, and Gustav was loathe to choose it. Possibly because it wouldn’t provide any sort of camouflage. You might as well wear full ceremonial military dress in a flat desert. It would get you shot just as quickly too. The other reason was because it was just such a nasty looking hunk of junk that everyone would notice it gone!! Not that everyone would mind its passing; the car was rusting so bad it hardly looked like it would hold together for even a short journey.
Whoever owned the car was either a bad mechanic, or had a really bad attention span. Either that or was a nobleman of some kind, the idiot kind who never bothered looking after what he’d got, and was always lusting for more. Gustav sighed, idiots!
Still, he had to search for a car, and somehow prize it from the persons living or dead hands. Personally he’d rather leave the person alive and just borrow the car.
But, ironically, paranoia would just make them targets. Paranoia could make someone intent on harming them follow. Paranoia isn’t much of a good thing. Just makes the person over-cautious, and easier to break, and blind to the obvious. Whoever said paranoia was a good preserving instinct needed a brain transplant, and, Gustav mused, a visit from the local assassin’s guild. Plus a bounty on his head.
He groaned inwardly at the gravity of the task he’s about to take, the impossible requirements. Already he could sense people about to get hurt, and his conscience would rather limit the casualty to the job at hand.
Gustav walked uncertainly to someone and decided to play a poor bastard, trying to blank his emotions to something that he felt was so underneath him, for reasons he didn’t actually know.
“Excuse me?” he asked nervously, “but my family is in mortal danger.” His mind recoiled as he realised he meant every word he had said, and was going to mean each one that followed, “I was wondering if I could borrow your car?”
The person looked up, he had ear piercings in both his ears. and had blue hair with white streaks through it. He also carried tools of the mechanics trade, and his personal guitar. He moved with grace considering all the power that Gustav knew lay in the lanky but sturdy frame. This guy was not to be messed with, Gustav told himself.
“Borrow? Not as such, no. I’ll go one better. So long as you don’t mind me coming with you, I’ll see what I can do. My brother was one of the first kidnapped by the UN, and sent right into Yugorovski’s hand.”
He had bushy eyebrows, blondish, and had two bloodshot eyes… as red as the burning sun, surrounding light blue irises, like lava flow coming from an ice block.
Gustav looked rather sheepish, unsure of what to do. “Damn man, that must hurt.”
“Indeed it does, but now that I find out that the UN ‘crime-boss’ is working alongside Yugorovski. That thought makes my blood crawl. The UN has gone down in my books. I’ve asked them several times to return him to us, but,” the guys face darkened, “to no avail. I’ll fight, as it would give me a chance to do what I have so far failed to do. Besides, the car stolen was my friend’s,” his face temporarily lightened into a slight laugh, “and even though I’d be despised by most of the town, I’ll bring it back.”
Gustav got in the car, his face brightened at the prospect of having someone else giving their all against the unseen enemy. The car itself was a black Vauxhall Astra. Leather seats, full upholstery, the works. Gustav surmised this was more comfort then he had been given since the start of this mission. More comfort then he had experienced in his entire life. In a car… that was a new concept to Gustav.
A thought that didn’t remain in his mind for too long once the engine roared into life, and the car worked its way through the dirt track roads. The suspension was totally unreliable and the seatbelts kept on digging in. Not to mention the road was a poorly maintained dirt track one with pot-holes. On second thoughts[i/], Gustav surmised, maybe the car wasn’t the most comfortable thing he’d been in.
“We going to Spain then?”
“Yeah, the stupid leader of the UN forgot to turn off the radio transmitter. We’ll just follow it until we get to the point of which it’s strongest.”
“So he’s basically leading us to him without him even knowing?”
“It could be a trap, but I think that the radio transmitting was an accident.”
“What do you mean?”
“Assuming your friend is being used as bait, the radio transmitting is an ineffective method which could be used to plot the UN leader’s downfall. All you’d need is a car radio and a frequency. If the car was tuned in to a used frequency then we just move until the channel itself is plain static, or as close as it’ll get. Then we’d know we’re there.”
“But if everyone else followed the source of interference, pretty soon the leader would find himself with more then he could chew?”
“Supposing that there would be few people who would consider it a radio malfunction. But, sooner or later they’d find out it wasn’t. Then they’d go over to wherever the disturbance came from, and start complaining, loudly… and rudely.
“But we’ll talk more when we get there.”
“Got any music I can listen to through the silence?”
He grinned as if he had the best set of music in the world, which slightly worried Gustav, even though he was willing to listen to anything. So long as it wasn’t dance music, Gustav thought. He was quite willing to shoot someone if they decided to play dance music, or any sodding ring-tone, quite gladly.
“Stuff like Zombie Nation, Kool and the Gang, K-maro and other such stuff. Dance, hip-hop, rap... and normal pop.”
“Ok, everyone likes Zombie Nation, it’s one of the few sort of ‘dance’ tunes that I like. The rest is probably the worst selection of music I’ve ever heard. All you need now is some 50-cent crap and some stuff by Danzel and Lionel Richie.”
“I already have that stuff.”
“Fine, I’ll listen out for the signal, you listen to the music and I’ll point to you the way you should go,” Gustav said disgustedly. For once, couldn’t he end up with someone with a decent taste in music?! He’d already given up on this one. What happened to good old rock and heavy metal?
They wound their way up the road and through the forest, the music of the person next to Gustav blaring like klaxons in Gustav’s ears. He was cringing as he tried to find the start point of the disturbance.
“Left!”
“What?”
“You missed the turning, LEFT!!!”
“No need to scream in my ears.”
“There always was, especially with that racket.”
“You could’ve just asked me to turn it down.”
“I didn’t know how you’d take it, did I? Besides, unless I screamed it down your ear you wouldn’t have heard me anyway!”
“Ok, point taken.”
Slowly he reversed back to the turning. “Here?”
“Yep, same place as it was before,” Gustav muttered sarcastically.
“Cut the sarcasm, ok, unless you want me to leave you here.”
“You want to find the place or not?”
“I would rather be allowed to listen to what I want to listen to then be lead on a wild goose chase with someone who doesn’t like what I listen to, and is very vocal about it. You’ve got me wanting to go it alone, you’ve got my espionage and retrieval senses up on to full. And I always did that mission alone. Never caught once. I always did my own missions, never shared them with anyone. Not even in my army days did I want some hindrance watching my back. Currently you’re being as much a hindrance as a help.”
Gustav stared, intrigued. There was something in that man’s demeanour that was very familiar, like a distant memory from a hazy past. As if the other guy could read Gustav’s thoughts he said, “My name is Vektar Chorell. Chances are that name will be slightly familiar to you. I was one of those Terrik was sent to free. And yes, I escaped. Without his help, surprisingly. He was sent on an impossible mission against a numerically superior foe. The fool that he was, he accepted it.”
“Hold on, he said that he felt morally obliged to free those he felt he put in there in the first place.”
“His first misconception, him thinking the entire trouble was his responsibility. His second, him thinking he could play the hero and do anything to free them. We don’t know who was sent to ambush us, all we know is that we were shipped to one of Yugorovski’s secret prison bases. What confuses me was that I don’t think the ambushers were any of his.”
“Who do you think they were?”
“I’m not sure, it could have been anyone, including another UN team. The only question left if that were true would be why, why they hunted and imprisoned us. But it would explain a lot of things, like why the UN never rescued my brother. However, I cannot think of my friends as traitors until I have no other option. I’ll have to see all sides of the story before I make my verdict.
“Looks like we’ve arrived, time to free your girl, and free my brother.”
“How did you know my ‘friend’ was a girl?”
“It was all there in your eyes. I think you’re falling in love. And judging by the look of pure conviction on your face I’d say you’d give your all to free her, even though it goes completely against the assassin’s code. Honestly, the bounty hunters code isn’t that much different, except we work on the right side of the law.”
“Falling in love is impossible for an assassin, we are trained to kill, and any other feeling is blocked out. We have been trained to block out all feelings.”
“Including love? Face it; you can’t train yourself against an emotion, a basic instinct. You can’t train yourself against something you’ve never seen others experience. There is one thing you can’t block out, because it is the base of all feeling, the base of all instinct; that thing is love.”
“I can’t love. It’s impossible for an assassin, we are killers!”
“Assassinations are what you do; it’s why you do what you do that is important. It’s the person inside you, your mental and spiritual self that defines who you are. It’s the intentions, the reasons behind the work that define what you are. If they are good, then people will begrudge you less.
“It’s the person inside you, Gustav, that makes the truth come out, the job is not the person. And the person inside is what feels emotion, and try as you might, you can’t dull the mind fully, for it is who you are. Remember that, it is your mind and your soul which feels the love.
“And it’s in your eyes, you love her more then any other man could.
“But we must be careful, we have to take out their security first. I’ll deal with the main power unit, you deal with the CCTV. You know what must be done.”
Gustav stared stunned for a moment, “How do you know my thoughts and feelings? How do you know my name?”
“I worked with your father lad, the old tyrant appointed me as your God-father.” Vektar shrugged, “Luciano wasn’t the only person entrusted with your life should you be without a dad. Good fortune prevailed, and now, now we’ll get our allies freed.”
Assassins Curse Chap 10
Moderators: TheElf, Moderators for English X Forum
-
Dragon_Rider
- Posts: 239
- Joined: Wed, 18. Feb 04, 19:47
-
Urashima Keitaro
- Posts: 1247
- Joined: Thu, 21. Oct 04, 11:25
-
Urashima Keitaro
- Posts: 1247
- Joined: Thu, 21. Oct 04, 11:25