One Nice Afternoon
"Oh, no," Tom groaned, seeing Deb's eyes light up at the familiar-looking pink display window . "I can't handle this. You're on your own, dear."
"What's the matter, hun? Scared of a little women's underwear?"
"Not scared, just uncomfortable. It's the way those clerks look at you, like I'm crashing some stranger's party."
"You could help me pick something out for… later," Deb smirked.
Tom smiled and kissed her forehead. "As it turns out, I love surprises."
"Fine," Deb huffed in mock anger. "I'll just go alone, then. See you in a bit?"
"Yeah, sure, I'll be around. Call my cell when you're done."
"Sure thing. See ya, hun."
Tom headed into the bookstore first and flipped through the best sellers on the front rack. When that grew dull, he headed over to the Brookstone to take a look at some needlessly complicated grilling tools and lay down on the Tempur-Pedic mattress. Around the time he was picking up a pretzel with nacho cheese sauce, he started to wonder how long Deb was going to be looking at bras, anyway.
He was in the process of tucking the little white paper bag into his teeth to pull out his cell phone and call when the first shot was fired. At first, it sounded like firecrackers, but then he heard the shouting and saw the men and the guns. There were two groups of them, shouting and running around, hiding behind the white ceramic planters and tipped-over tables in the food court. One of them tried to move from behind a table to behind the counter of the Orange Julius: he fell down about halfway there, clutching his leg, then his head exploded in a spray of red and grey that splattered across the white tile floor.
Tom realized then that he was huddled behind one of the big white planters, his cell phone clutched in his hand in a white-knuckle grip. He'd lost his pretzel at some point: he could see the little brown twist of bread smeared across the tiled floor, little yellow footprints leading away where someone had stomped on his small plastic cup of cheese sauce while running away from the gunfight.
It was surreal. Things like this were supposed to happen in downtown Detroit or South Central Los Angeles, not in a Westfield Shopping Center in the Midwestern suburbs. There was a lot of shouting (mostly involving the word "motherfucker,") then there was a big boom, and a lot of smoke, and the shooting stopped.
Tom saw a big black man in a brown leather jacket, holding a small gun: it looked like a toy in his big meaty fist. Some men in grey uniforms ran up, then, and the man in the brown leather jacket slowly put down his gun and lay down on the ground with his hands on his head. Tom didn't wait to see what happened next: the moment the cops got the guy, he ran down the escalator and started running towards the Victoria's Secret, shouting Debra's name.
She met him outside, and they fell into each other's arms, holding each other tight, as if they would never let go.

"I felt so useless," Tom confessed that night, after the cops and the reporters and the much-needed shower. "All that was going on… and all I could think of was to hide."
"What could you do?" Deb asked. She was curled up in his arms and was resting her head on his chest.
"I don't know," Tom admitted. "But I felt like I should have done something."
Deb kissed him, and he kissed her back, and then they took each others' clothes off and let things go from there.
Two weeks later, Deb announced she'd missed her period.
Sixteen years later, they told their horribly embarassed daughter why her full name was Jennifer Victoria Firefight Nathan.
Seeing his daughter groan in horror as her younger brother made snarky comments and her boyfriend look on in jaw-dropped awe, Tom thought back to that afternoon in the shopping mall, and laughed. It was funny, he thought, how things tend to work out in the end.

+ A Closer Look

- Stepping Back

A Closer look
Gunshot, 9mm, double-tap, Jeff thought, as the first couple of cracks rang out. It was a sound that didn't belong in a shopping mall at 2 in the afternoon.
He dropped the big plastic bag and reached under his leather jacket for his concealed carry weapon. He checked the slide and the ejection port: both looked clear, and took off the safety. "Lie down on the ground and cover your heads!" he shouted to the other shoppers. "Wait here!"
He headed towards the sound of the gunfire, keeping his head low and the muzzle of his gun pointed at the ground. He glanced around the corner leading to the food court, and saw a bunch of knocked-over tables and some guys shooting at each other.
Jeff blinked in surprise: these weren't gangers. Gangers tended to stand up and run around holding their guns out in front of them: they usually relied on mass volume of fire, and they usually took a few shots then ran for it before the cops showed up. What they didn't do was set up lanes of fire, use cover, and coordinate their attacks. Especially coordinate their attacks.
"Center Peel, fall back to the counters, go!" someone shouted. "Peel one!" A rapid fusillade of pistol fire rang out, followed by two guys trying to fall back to the food counters. One of them made it, the second took a round in the knee and fell. Jeff saw one of the guys crouched behind the planters take a deliberate double tap and shoot the wounded enemy in the head, killing him.
Jeff's blood ran cold. He'd been a Marine in two tours overseas before retiring: that and six years in the force meant he'd spent just about half his life around guns and gunfighters in some fashion or another, and those fourteen years of experience were telling him that these guys were trained professionals: possibly Special Forces of some sort. Now that he knew what to look for, the lines of their clothing seemed strangely bulky in places: did they have body armor under their jackets and jeans? The small-caliber pistol in his hands suddenly felt very inadequate.
Then one of the motherfuckers in the food court jumped up holding a small, stubby black tube, and suddenly things went all the way bad.
Jeff didn't wait to see what happened next. "GRENADE!" he screamed. He ducked back around the corner, dropped to the ground, put his hands over his ears, closed his eyes, opened his mouth. The explosion felt like a full body punch to the gut. There were a few more shots, and then a lot of shouting. Jeff shook his head to clear his fuzzy vision and got back to his feet.
The carnage was incredible. Everyone on the planters side of the firefight was dead or dying. In the food court, he saw the guy with the grenade launcher lying dead on the ground with a bullet in his head. There was another guy standing over him, holding a submachinegun of some sort. "GET ON THE GROUND, MOTHERFUCKER!" Jeff shouted. The word "motherfucker" was very important in these cases: it let the guy know who was in fucking charge here.
He swept his eyes over the perp's body: eyes, face, hands…
Hands.
When the perp turned to face him, he saw the guy's hands start to come up, holding his little submachinegun, so Jeff put two in his chest and one in his head. It was done before his heart beat once.
The guy fell down and sprawled on the bloody and broken mall floor like a discarded doll. Jeff swallowed hard. It wasn't the first time he'd fired his gun at another human being, but all his fighting in the sandbox had been at long range, shooting his .50 cal at houses from the next sand dune over. He was sure he'd killed some people in his time in the Marines, but this was the first time he'd been close enough to touch the guy as he died. Seeing the light leave the guy's eyes from this close-up…
"GET DOWN ON THE FUCKING GROUND RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!" someone screamed, and Jeff winced inwardly. He was suddenly very aware that he was a big black man with a gun standing in the middle of a bunch of dead guys. He very carefully put his pistol down on the ground and slid it into the corner, then lay down in a puddle of sticky wet nastiness and put his hands on his head.
Someone ran up to him and put a knee in the small of his back. "Check my inside left coat pocket," Jeff said, slowly and calmly.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP, ASSHOLE! DON'T SAY A FUCKING WORD!" the guy screamed.
"Brad?" an older, wiser voice said. "Check his fucking coat pocket already before you say something really dumb."
Trembling hands reached into his leather jacket pocket and fumbled out the wallet from his jacket. A few moments later, the pressure on his back let up, and someone reached a hand down to help him to his feet. Jeff looked up into the face of a big, balding white guy with an impressive red beard, wearing a light grey rent-a-cop outfit.
"Officer," the guard said.

"Holy crap, Jeff, you look like hell," Captain McCoy sighed. "I thought this was supposed to be your day off."
"You know me, sir," Jeff said, smiling weakly. "I like to take my work home with me."
"Nobody likes a workaholic, Jeff. Did you give your statement yet?"
"Rog took it down a few minutes ago," Jeff admitted. "I'm just waiting for someone to tell me I can leave."
"Well, then, consider this an order: go home. Get some rest. Don't bother coming in tomorrow, you can have the day off. But don't leave town either, just in case someone needs to talk to you. Kay?"
"Yes, sir," Jeff sighed.
He got up and picked up the big plastic bag by his feet. It took him a moment to find Roger in the crowd: He finally found the detective standing in the parking lot, standing over a dead body lying on the concrete with its head at an oddly skewed angle. "What the fuck happened here?" Jeff asked.
"Not sure. Looks like one of the perps ran for it and fell down the stairs, broke his neck. What's up?"
Jeff handed the big white plastic bag to Rog, who looked inside and nodded. "I'll find someone to take care of it," Rog said. "Go home. Get some rest."
Jeff nodded back and wearily walked to his car. He got behind the front seat and took a moment to close his eyes and rub his forehead. Then he took out his phone and held down the "1" key for a few seconds.
The phone picked up before it rang twice. "Jeff?" a warm, female voice said.
"Hi, Tanya," Jeff replied. "How are you?"
"I'm fine… are you okay, Jeff?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Are you watching the news?"
"Yes, I heard… oh my god, Jeff, was that you?"
"Yeah," Jeff admitted. "That was me. I'm fine, but McCoy needs me to stay in town for a few days, in case the cops or press want to talk to me. So… I'm sorry, but I won't be able to make it out tomorrow for little Jeff's birthday. I'll have someone deliver his present, though."
"I understand. Do you want to talk to him right now?"
"Sure, Tanya. I'd appreciate that. Hi, kiddo, how's it going? You saw me on the news? Yeah, that's your dad, all right. No, I'm fine, son. It'll take more than a couple of bad guys to get me, you know that. Look, something's come up, and I won't be able to come to your party tomorrow: your dad's captain needs him to stay in town and help him to figure out who these bad guys were, but I'll make sure you get your present. So be good to your Mom, okay, son? I'll try to see you next weekend. And don't worry. Everything's gonna work out in the end."

+ A Wider Perspective

- The Original View

A Wider Perspective
I don't see why you need me to do this. You can just read the damn transcripts or look at the video records. Oh yeah? Well, fuck yer "subjective point of view." Fine, fine, whatever, don't get yer panties in a bunch. I'm just saying there ain't much I can tell you that you don't already know.
Where do I start… well, Tempest Night happened, and suddenly we've got a lot of agents being redirected to deal with the consequences. MC&D pokin' around our territory, tons of escaped skips all over the place, buncha MTFs being reassigned to handle that clusterfuck, which means a lot of missions are running short-handed, which means they had to reassign some of us to deal with, you know, actually finding and capturing skips.
So they put me and the kid into an investigative cell trying to find some guy who can bend bricks with his bare hands. Yeah, I said bend bricks. No, don't ask me how that shit works. Mine is not to reason why. That's your fucking job.
So as I was saying, this cell was short-handed because their former mission controller was reassigned to look for Vector: he was on the team that originally brought her in, so they decided they needed his "unique expertise." They didn't need the rest of the team, so they could keep on the mission. But the team needed a new mission controller… so, of course, they decide to tap good ol' Max and his newbie friend to watch the camera feeds.
So anyway, we track this guy to a shopping mall, and we're doing a shadow and investigate: two teams of two walking around the mall keeping an eye on this guy to make sure he's not trying anything too hinky. What? Of course they were armed, are you stupid? Don't give me that shit: you know what can happen on this job, and it's a damn good thing they were armed, or shit might have gone down different. Way different. Don't give me that bullshit, these guys were pros, not trigger-happy goons. No, I hadn't worked with them that long, but after enough years on this job you get a feel for this sorta thing. You can tell a pro from an goon easy, and these guys were pros. Yes, that IS my subjective opinion, but that's exactly what you wanted me to give, right? Shut the fuck up and let me talk.
Anyway, the guy's sitting in the food court eating a hot dog on a stick when shit starts to go down. Tsai saw it first: four guys coming in through the food court glass doors: could be four friends on a shopping trip, but they weren't looking at each other or talking, or even looking at the stores. They were looking at the people. Tsai and Ming decide to fall back to across the bridge to get a better view, and Carter and Wyatt move up to rendezvous with them. It's about when all four of them finally meet up that one of the four motherfuckers in the foodcourt pulls his .45 and starts shooting.
Shit starts to happen real fast after that. Our guys grab some cover behind some planters. The skip rabbits and starts running for it: so does everyone else, but our guys are pinned down by enemy fire and can't get out. They start returning fire, and Tsai manages to down one of them, which I guess pisses one of them off, because he pulls a motherfucking M203 from his backpack and blows the team to shit. Four flatlines: they're all dead.
And that's when I told the kid to get us the fuck out of there, because the op was blown. Ever fled the scene of a crime at 35 mph? Fucking nerve wracking. We got out of the parking lot about two minutes before the cops locked the place down. The rest you know.
What do I think happened? Ain't it fucking obvious? We were set up. You've seen the tapes: those guys were packing heavy heat and wearing heavy armor. Sounds like a gock strike team to me. Is it any coincidence that they found the skip dead of a broken neck shortly after? This was a message: stop fucking around in their territory, or face the consequences. Fucking gock assholes.
What? Fine, I'll answer one last fucking question, just for you. PDW? No, it was all pistols up until that M203 came out. What? Of course I'm sure. None of us had any, and the gocks were all using .45s. That GOC Personal Defense Weapon fires .223, which sounds completely different.
… well, I don't know what to tell you, then. Like you said, this was my subjective point of view. All I know is what I saw. I can't tell you exactly how everything worked out.

+ From the Other Side

- The Story We Know

Transcript of Communications Logs: GOC Strike Team 'Marduk,' ██-██-████, ████:██.
Marduk Six (Team Leader and Overwatch): Comms check. Six here.
Marduk One (Point Man): One.
Marduk Two (Lead Marksman): Two, ready.
Marduk Three (Support Marksman): Three here. I'm good.
Six: Four, please respond.
(pause)
Marduk Four (Heavy Support): Sorry about that, had a problem with my headset. Four here.
Six: Copy that. Eyes and Ears check… . confirm camera and mics operational. Equipment check.
One: One okay.
Two: Two okay.
Three: Three okay.
Four: Four good to go.
Six: Confirmed. Mission Control, this is Marduk Six. Team is go.
Control: Marduk Six, this is Control. You are cleared to proceed.
Six: Confirmed. Five minutes to start time. Remember, guys, this is Response Level One. Do not open fire unless attacked first. Just get eyes on the target and wait for further instructions.
One: Confirmed. Five minutes.
(pause)
One: Arrived. Exiting vehicle.
(pause)
One: We're inside. I have eyes on the target. He's in the food court, eating a corn dog and some fries.
Six: Confirmed. Why don't you guys grab a bite to eat? Looks like we'll be here for a bit.
One: Sounds good to me. Hey, guys, let's go grab some Sbarro's… HOLY SHIT!
Six: What was that?
One: SHOTS FIRED, SHOTS FIRED! WE ARE WEAPONS HOT!
Six: One, say again? I'm seeing no hostiles present!
One: Marduk Six, this is Marduk One, team is under fire from hostile forces, we require immediate extraction!
(shots fired)
Six: MARDUK TEAM, CEASE FIRE IMMEDIATELY! ABORT, ABORT!
Two: HOSTILES SIGHTED! BEHIND THE PLANTERS AT TWO O'CLOCK!
One: TEAM! WE ARE LEAVING! CENTER PEEL, FALL BACK TO THE COUNTERS, ON MY MARK, PEEL ONE, GO!
Two: MOVING!
Three: I'M HIT! I'M HI—
(Marduk Three's lifesigns terminated)
Six: MARDUK TEAM, ABORT ABORT ABORT!
One: MAN DOWN, MAN DOWN! MULTIPLE HOSTILES INBOUND!
Four: FRAG OUT!
Six: NO!
(explosion)
Six: Mission Control, this is Marduk Six, I'm going in.
Control: Six, this is Control. Do not enter the mission zone. I say again, do not enter the mission zone.
(Marduk Six exits the vehicle and enters the mission zone.)
Control: Crap.
One: Holy fuck! They're behind us!
Two: Fuck!
(shots fired. Marduk Two's lifesigns fluctuating.)
Two: I'm hit! I'm hi—
(shots fired. Marduk Two's lifesigns terminated.)
Four: Tango down, tango down! One, let's GO!
Six: MARDUK TEAM, STAND DOWN!
One: HOSTILE SPOTTED! SMG!
(shots fired. Marduk One's lifesigns terminated.)
Four: BASTARD!
Six: DON'T DO IT!
(shots fired. Marduk Four's lifesigns terminated.)
Six: Command, this is Marduk Six, team is compromised, I say again, team is compromised, I am exiting the mission…
Unknown: GET ON THE GROUND, MOTHERFUCKER!
Six: Wait! Don't shoo—
(shots fired. Marduk Six's lifesigns terminated.)
Control: Marduk? Marduk? Team Marduk, please respond.
(no answer.)
Control: Marduk?

+ The End

- End It

The End
He was running out of the shopping mall, away from the madmen with guns, when he felt a sudden blow to the back of his head. It carried him over the railing and down the stairwell, three stories straight down, to land on unyielding concrete with a bone-shattering thud.
The last thing he saw, as he fell, was a young Asian woman with long black hair standing at the top of the stairs, watching him fall to his death with cold, dispassionate interest in her yellow eyes.

+ The Truth

- Illusions

The Truth
That worked out better than expected, in the end, She thought. One troublesome GOC strike force destroyed. Four meddling Foundation agents dead. Tensions between the two groups heightened. And all for the cost of one young man's life.
Not bad for one day's work.