02-04-2014, 10:46 PM
Meditation. Who would have guessed that some new agey hippy shit would be the greatest weapon for making war ever discovered. Andrew looked up from the bullets orbiting above his fingers in lazy ellipses. The mission was stupid--everyone in the room knew that: drop into Custody territory in stolen suits of custody combat gear and blow up some hajis. Still, the orders came from the top. Dawson wanted it done, and whenever the stubborn bastard thought he could play Machiavelli the Subversion Group were the first people to get dunked in the shit bucket. Andrew wondered if the so-called commander in chief had even heard of the word blowback. Probably not since his last visit to a porn theatre bathroom.
The first time Andrew channeled the power--yeah, the words were cheesy but he couldn't figure out any better ones--on record, it'd been on a special reconnaissance mission in Argentina. The Custody had been field testing some new weapons tech and his squad was tasked with observing its capabilities. Long story short, they were spotted and Andrew had to save a few lives. Now that was an interesting debriefing. "So you're telling me you killed twenty-two Custody soldiers. With magic."
That wasn't exactly true--they'd had to use some bullets too. He still almost got a medical discharge before they realized five SEALs couldn't all have the exact same hallucination at the exact same time. The fact that they'd managed to secure twenty-two experimental Custody combat exoskeletons was just gravy.
After they proved he hadn't gone crazy, shit just got worse. All that shit about BUD/S being mental, not physical? Try being locked in a cell for days until you finally figure out how to blow the door out with your mind. Still, as he watched the bullets continue their orbit of his fingers, he had to admit the training was worth it. Now all he had to do was convince the most conservative bastards in the country that magic was a thing.
They’d gone over the plan dozens of times, and his input had already been taken into account. Command had them sitting pretty on one of America’s last military bases on the African continent, within spitting distance of Mogadishu. Mohamed Al-Hasan had more than enough followers crossing through Somalia, but there was an old saying about not shitting where you eat. Besides, the intel was solid: they knew where the big guy himself was going to be. A little mosque at the King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University outside Mecca. Al-Hasan was, by all accounts, an effective little rabble rouser. He’d make a much better martyr. It’d almost be worth the risk just to see Custody fucks and arabs blowing themselves and each other up.
That said, Dawson still wanted the impossible made real, and General Delhi had already decided to send Andrew on a suicide mission. It didn’t matter what country you were in, the military hated change. Magic, sorcery, "psychokinesis"--that kind of thing didn’t get far. Even if you had the best kind of proof.
The first time Andrew channeled the power--yeah, the words were cheesy but he couldn't figure out any better ones--on record, it'd been on a special reconnaissance mission in Argentina. The Custody had been field testing some new weapons tech and his squad was tasked with observing its capabilities. Long story short, they were spotted and Andrew had to save a few lives. Now that was an interesting debriefing. "So you're telling me you killed twenty-two Custody soldiers. With magic."
That wasn't exactly true--they'd had to use some bullets too. He still almost got a medical discharge before they realized five SEALs couldn't all have the exact same hallucination at the exact same time. The fact that they'd managed to secure twenty-two experimental Custody combat exoskeletons was just gravy.
After they proved he hadn't gone crazy, shit just got worse. All that shit about BUD/S being mental, not physical? Try being locked in a cell for days until you finally figure out how to blow the door out with your mind. Still, as he watched the bullets continue their orbit of his fingers, he had to admit the training was worth it. Now all he had to do was convince the most conservative bastards in the country that magic was a thing.
They’d gone over the plan dozens of times, and his input had already been taken into account. Command had them sitting pretty on one of America’s last military bases on the African continent, within spitting distance of Mogadishu. Mohamed Al-Hasan had more than enough followers crossing through Somalia, but there was an old saying about not shitting where you eat. Besides, the intel was solid: they knew where the big guy himself was going to be. A little mosque at the King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University outside Mecca. Al-Hasan was, by all accounts, an effective little rabble rouser. He’d make a much better martyr. It’d almost be worth the risk just to see Custody fucks and arabs blowing themselves and each other up.
That said, Dawson still wanted the impossible made real, and General Delhi had already decided to send Andrew on a suicide mission. It didn’t matter what country you were in, the military hated change. Magic, sorcery, "psychokinesis"--that kind of thing didn’t get far. Even if you had the best kind of proof.