Val's eyes widened. "No kidding."
"Not a bit." Dirk's eyes twinkled. "Now go get your damned uniform, soldier, on the double!"
Val grinned and saluted. "You got it, Captain." He then turned about, heading down the hall to catch his father and Colonel Petrovsky deep in discussion. He bowed to his host when the man chose to glance his way.
"Good evening, sir."
Andrey's eyes crinkled in a smile. "Val, damn glad to see you on the mend. How are you feeling?"
Val smiled. "Much better, sir. I'm grateful your wife is such a brilliant doctor. I didn't even recognize the equipment she had by the bed, and I've seen more than my share."
Andrey nodded. "My wife is one of a kind. Would you believe she designs all her own equipment? You already felt her version of a stethoscope once before, of course. A bitch of a shock, but it maps your nervous system better than any MRI or EKG ever could. Her specialty is actually genetics and longevity research. I honestly think she takes ER shifts just because she enjoys being in the thick of it."
Val's father smiled. "You showed me a couple of her patents. They are quite literally groundbreaking. I wish she'd let me run with them, I wouldn't be surprised if we could get them in near every hospital in the country."
Andrey chuckled. "You'll find her quite stubborn on that score. She has her hangups about capitalizing on her inventions, but perhaps we'll get a chance to talk it over with her, now that both of our children seem to be well on the road to recovery."
For some reason Val found himself blushing under the Colonel's appraising eye. He bowed his head. "Forgive me, sir. I've just gotten a request to present myself in dress uniform, so I'm hoping my father wouldn't mind if I borrowed the car."
Andrey frowned. "I'm sorry, Val, what was that? I thought you were honorably discharged. I wasn't aware you had reenlisted?"
Val flashed a placating grin. "It seems I have, in fact, been serving my country honorably and well, if in an unexpected capacity, since my... accident. And I just found out my enlistment has been indefinitely extended, with very generous hazard duty back pay. I am, of course, honored to be able to serve once more."
Andrey blinked, schooling his features. "I see. The army is very lucky to have you back in her fold, Val, of that there can be no doubt." He frowned, "does that mean..."
"My understanding is that things will continue as they have, sir. I guess you could say I'm now just being appropriately commended and compensated for my time."
Andrey frowned. "Should I be concerned for Julia?"
Val swallowed under the Colonel's intent gaze. For the sake of his daughter, he'd damn all nuance and diplomacy, placing her safety above all else. Val respected that, and hoped Yin would understand.
"Yin's a civvie herself. When things got serious, there was some concern. But when she made it clear that she was happy to play ball for appropriate compensation, she was welcomed on board as an independent contractor with a monthly compensation that almost makes me jealous. No one's attempted to coax her into formal enlistment. So far as I can tell, Yin's quite happy with her carrot, so no one's showing her the stick. If I had to guess, I think Julia might be offered a lucrative contract position. One might even think about setting her up with her with her own company like Yin did, which would increase her negotiating pull that much more."
Andrey gave a thoughtful nod. "Thank you for your candor, Val, and for always looking out for my girl."
Val bowed. "Always, sir."
"Then I'll leave you to it." He nodded to Val's father. "I won't keep you any longer, Johnathan, I look forward to seeing Val in uniform."
Val's father smiled. "Come on, Val. There's no way I'm letting you drive after what you've been through, and you haven't driven a car stateside since you enlisted. Now let's get you appropriately dressed to meet your de facto boss."
Val nodded and within minutes they were pulling away from Julia's beautiful home, Val leaning back and letting his thoughts drift.
"How are you feeling, son?" His father asked, turning on some classical music, the car awash in Beethoven as Val let his mind drift through the crazy whirlwind of happenings that had occurred since the instant he had woken up, struggling to breathe, fighting for his life.
"Sorry, dad, a lot's happening kind of fast. I just need to gather my thoughts."
His father nodded. "I understand. Good news, by the way, I reached out to some of your former associates, offering what I think was a very generous security contact. Johnathon Lewinksy, a friend of yours, I think, wasn't only happy to accept, he's back at the house right now. I just finished orienting him while you were under, before things got crazy."
Val swallowed and nodded, grimacing at how close he had come to death. "Thanks, dad. Julia was surprised to see him when she and her mother had stopped by earlier. She had a good feeling about him, though, and her intuition's dead on. Johnny was a solid friend. It will be great to catch up with him again."
His father smiled. "I think it shook him just as it did me, seeing how close you came to peril just with the use of a VR helm. If this wasn't already so serious... but never mind that. I'll never second guess your decisions as a soldier, in whatever way you choose to serve. But I wouldn't be surprised if Johnny wants to join your crew on your cyber adventures, and I, for one, think he might make a great addition to your team. I can always hire more security, after all."
Val chuckled softly. "He just might, at that. If he has the rare knack to actually port in with the official servers down? I don't doubt for a second that Dirk will welcome him into our guild."
His father nodded. "I can tell you have a lot on your plate, son. I'm here if you want to talk, but more than anything else you still look beat. Get some shuteye while you can. I'll wake you when we get home."
Val smiled, closing his eyes, sensing that his subconscious was trying to tell him something.
A hitman trying to take him out, the moment he woke up. A game that was turning out to be anything but. Two hundred former kidnap victims bearing scars of an ordeal unlike anything on Earth. Were they all interconnected? Why was anyone trying to kill him, anyway?
He grimaced at the wall of fog that had torn near two years of his life away. Waking up in a warehouse with 200 fellow victims, he alone free of exotic implants hinting at terrible abuse. But why? And Yancey... Val swallowed, drifting reverie turning hard and cold as diamonds and steel. He had been given a command by a man he respected like no other, a man that had forged him and his friends in fire, and the only reason why even half of Val's team was alive today.
And the more he thought about that final day, how groggy he had been, and then all hell had broken loose. As much as he had blamed himself for not sensing trouble just a few seconds sooner, before all became screams and the awful stench of charred flesh and hot crackling pain that would not end, now he wondered if perhaps he really had been too hard on himself. If he had missed the obvious.
Had someone set them up? Had he been drugged?
A chilling thought.
Val grimaced when the station breaked for news, a high pitched reporter's voice cutting through his reverie.
"The lieutenant governor is now insisting upon quarterly utility inspections for all public venues in the city after the devastating gas explosion took out the Poisoned Apple nightclub. Inspectors on the scene suspect shoddy equipment and nonexistent maintenance are to blame as the families of the victims prepare a class action lawsuit against the estate of Vincent Dominic. Despite alleged mafia ties, however, there was no evidence of foul play to be found at the scene of the accident..."
Val turned off the radio, heart hammering, catching his father's gaze. "When the fuck was Papa Dominic's club hit?"
Val's father frowned. "While you were under. Relax, Val. You better believe I got a heads up the minute it happened, and I called in some favors. My contacts checked that site far more thoroughly than the cops or even the ATF. And Val? The explosion matched exactly what you would expect from a vola
tile gas leak unattended for a considerable length of time. There was nothing significant about the blast pattern save the intensity, and a very careful examination of the scene found no traces of any external accelerant or secondary explosive. It was gas, plain and simple." He flashed a reassuring smile. "But I'm no fool, Val. That's why Johnny busted his ass getting here pronto, and he knows I appreciate it. Now why don't you relax and focus on what you can control. Making as good an impression on your new boss as you can tonight."
Val grimaced and nodded as his dad flipped on the classical music again, looking forward to seeing his old buddy despite the tension of the night, Johnny Ace's maverick smile flashing in his mind's eye as large as life itself.
Johnny and Val had gotten into plenty of trouble on their own before their reputation caught the eye of the colonel. They had been known for getting things done in ways other people would never see coming. Skills the colonel had honed to chilling effectiveness in Val and Johnny both.
And making a calculated strike look like a gas explosion would be nothing for Val's old unit.
Shit.
Their final mission. Intercepting strange communication hinting at an invasion, but the encoded particulars had been so bizarre as to make no sense, to be deemed mistaken, and demand closer inspection of the source.
And that's when it had all gone to hell.
Val suddenly hissed as his father pulled into their neighborhood, crickets from the forest nearby drowning out the soft classical music with the wild songs of spring.
Mordare.
That had been one of the words in the coded communication. A man he was now ostensibly working under.
A man his old CO expected him to kill.
A man who knew exactly where Val lived, Val now having no doubt that his new boss and the crimson-eyed man who had interrogated his father were one and the same.
Val flinched as their home came into view.
"Dad, turn around!"
His father frowned, turning his way. So many levels of disbelief he would have to talk the man through.
And there was no time.
He needed to break instantly through the fog.
"Sniper!" Val hissed in the time it took his thoughts to roar forward, his father's blink and cold gaze making it clear that Val had broken past all resistance, his father smoothly dipping the car into a nearby driveway they were just passing, a credit to his skill to make such a desperate move look so natural, just a car that had made a wrong turn, saying nothing as he backed out, preparing to drive away.
Then the back window shattered.
Bulletproof glass pierced by ammo Val didn't dare think about as his senses screamed with sudden panic as time seemed to slow in a way that had nothing to do with magic.
Don't think, do.
Val snapped open the glove compartment, relieved beyond words to see the Beretta M9, all but made for his grip as his father immediately slammed his foot to pedal and they took off like a rocket. For half a second, as a van out of nowhere rammed into them, Val's father desperately regaining control, skidding off the road, hitting the brakes just before they slammed into the treeline of the woods just outside their neighborhood.
His father blinked, momentarily dazed. "No time!" Val screamed. "Get out and head for the woods, now, now, now!"
And as one they did, Val instinctively dodging and rolling as he felt hot lead sear through the air where his head had been only moments before, already knowing the role he had to take, relieved beyond words to see his father make it to cover even as Val caught the faintest outline of figures dressed all in black pouring out of the van that had slammed into them, the hot flash of a fired gun as Val dove once more, slipping at last into the trees.
The peaceful night was suddenly flooded with terror and death, and Val grinned like the predator he was.
Tasting his own frailty, his own mortality, just one more piece on a board dark and terrible beyond his imagining.
Feeling an incredible rush, giddiness washing over his terror, once more dancing with his old friend.
Safety off, slipping into ever darker shadows, sensing his father some distance ahead.
Val forced his breathing to slow, feeling his footsteps shift from panicked rush to softest rustle, feeling himself all but flow into a sense of his surroundings, as if his footsteps were the rustle of leaves, his outline just the shadows of rustling limbs, his sense of self deliciously, miraculously, slipping into an odd feel of everything around him, a single idle thought wondering if it was vibrations released from the pad of hurried feet, the crackle of leaves crunching carelessly underfoot that let him sense his fellow pieces on the board.
Val smiled.
It really didn't matter in the end.
He was one with the night once more.
Back where he belonged.
24
"Damn it, you had a clean shot!" High pitched. Excited. A young merc, perhaps on his first assignment off the ranch.
"Fucker got lucky," said a voice rough with tobacco and whiskey.
"Well, now we gotta chase them in the damn woods. Bossman says they're both former Special Forces."
Dark laughter. "We blindsided them. You see what they were wearing? Going to a goddamned play, or some such. They sure as hell weren't dressed for war. Well, tough shit for them. They're about to get a goddamned war."
"Took, Gilmore, take point. We got your back." Said the urgent voice of what Val thought was a former lieutenant. Maybe one who had potential and took a bad turn. Or just too hungry for the big score, not afraid to roll with the big boys if he could boost his O-1 pay.
"Bossman gonna pull his weight, or act like a stuffed piece of shit?" Whiskey did not sound happy.
"Relax. He knows what he's doing."
"Well, fuck it. As long as we get paid."
Val breathed slow and steady, back against thick rough bark, so deep in shadow he might as well be the night itself.
He sensed death approach, heart racing as the first pair passed. Took and Gilmore, he guessed. Both wore next gen night vision goggles and Kevlar armor, armed with HK416s and AAC suppressors, capable of shooting 900 rounds a minute accurately up to 400 yards out. And quiet enough that the well-heeled community nearby would have no idea what was going on until it was all over.
Val forced his breath slow and easy even as his heart roared, knowing the NVGs might pick him up if they turned 120 degrees, but neither turned around. Val flashed a bleak smile. Peripheral vision was shit with those things. People tended to turn their heads deliberately back and forth just a few degrees and not bother any further, tricking themselves into thinking they had scanned far enough out. Within moments, the woods swallowed them up once more. Only then did Whiskey and the maybe lieutenant approach, Val able to hear their muttered conversation as they passed to either side.
"Damn, this is just like hunting. I love this fucking unit!" enthused Liuey.
"Don't get too cocky, kid. They trained for this terrain," cautioned Whiskey.
Lieuy laughed. "That's not what my uncle says. He calls Special Forces a bunch of puffed up idiots training for the desert, nothing like the old days, like as not to get their brains jellified by IEDs."
Whiskey suddenly stopped. "Something doesn't feel right."
And Val squeezed. Crack! Whiskey crumpled as the vulnerable area between helm and backplate puckered with a small crater that tore out the front of his throat as the bullet expanded, rupturing completely through.
Lieuy's eyes widened, cocky sureness turning to surprised shock, and Val couldn't help noting how young and innocent the kid looked before surprise turned to the choking horror of death, the icy second between bullets allowing Val to strike his foe with pinpoint accuracy, Lieuy's neck spraying blood front and back, dropping him instantly.
Now!
Val dove forward in the heartbeats between gunfire and the lead gunman completing their turn, after all too human surprise wore off, desperate to tear free one of the fallen HKs before ro
lling back under cover.
Crack!
Dive! - And even as Val screamed warning to himself, it was almost too late. The sniper's bullet tore through his left bicep and he hissed with pain, rolling desperately, no chance in hell of grabbing the assault rifle now.
Run!
And Val was off like a bolt, sliding in and out of the trees, grateful beyond words that the forest was so extensive by his affluent neighborhood that so valued its privacy, rare enough in Illinois that Val had no doubt it had been deliberately landscaped years before, but wild enough in its own way now.
Laughter. Somehow chillingly familiar. But Val did not let up his pace, even as his arm throbbed. Shit. He clenched his fist, relieved to find he still had full use of his limb, even if the pain was throbbing. Good. He would heal, should he survive this night.
He lurched, near tipping over, feet crackling against the thick underbrush. He heard the soft pop of bullets fired, quickly stumbling between trees again.
Don't be stupid, Val. You know the trick to running through these woods. A strange voice. He didn't know if it was his own, or the echo of Colonel Yancey, gazing at his troops like a disappointed father whenever they let him down. No matter if their performance was good enough for most commanders, if it wasn't good enough for Yancey, it wasn't good at all.
Val took a deep breath, forcing panic to ease, deliberately bending down, gun to his side, tightly knotting up his one loose shoe, carefully drawing his pistol once more, forcing himself to calm.
A deep breath. Hearing the far-off crackle of limbs broken by frantic feet. Tasting the scents of anger and fear, the stink of their sweat alive in the air. Val smiled, slipping between the shadows, sinking into his sense of the forest once more.
His pace was slow but his steps were sure, and he made not a sound as he deliberately pivoted deeper into the woods, sensing the furious pair pass by.
Endless Online: Oblivion's Price: A LitRPG Adventure - Book 3 Page 37