#alphateampilot

"Hey."

Hawk had taken to announcing himself before entering any space with Vector the worse his vision got over the years... if he wasn't announced by the smell of whatever plate of food he decided to fix his friend.

Today, it was asopao de pollo. For health. "How's the Black Plague treating ya?"

The Black Plague is an apt way to describe the situation. The Guild had become a hot bed of sickness seen only in old paintings of the sick scattered across the streets of medieval towns, with the reaper floating between them with a gentle hand to guide them beyond.

Vector's glad Hawk always announces himself when he walked in, because his eyes hurt and he barely gives himself the effort of lifting his head, let alone lowering his hands from his face.

The rapid restructuring of orders came from a close door conference room the size of a closet and hardly a second mention outside of a paper brief they were to hand back after reading.

It’d be shredded in the next room over.

The States East USS commander had flown down and started the conversation with, “In light of the deaths of Delta East-”

Thus, new objective’s got him shipped out in the morning a week off a hospital stint. Small victories that they got shuffled: Hawk’s been reassigned to Alpha. It’s just them two left. They didn’t want anyone else on the transportation part of it, the excuse being "less disclosure agreements and less to keep track of".

"And besides?" his operator had said, "You survived."

By some miracle. His legend grew with the passage of time. 

He ended up back in his company purchased hotel room with a reason to drink and commitment to sobriety. Those two things were bad bedfellows.

Hunk tapped his hotel keycard on the desk with the four separate prescription bottles lined against the wall. His jacket was still sticky with October rain from a convenience run to get a couple things he could actually eat without feeling like his throat’s seizing up. 

“They aren’t dead,” he starts, out of nowhere, to his companion.

"You look a little down, Doc." Not that there wasn't a myriad of reasons why she should be. From what he understood, CDC was breached, she was attacked at a Blue Umbrella facility, that bodyguard with her got infected- and treated. She's a high priority target for a specific whackjob. Coming here was meant to protect- or at least let her work in peace even if they didn't have state of the art R&D facilities like those places. She's staring out at the mountain range, wrapped up in a knitted throw. Quiet, contemplative- and hardly acknowledging him when he sets down a mug of hot cocoa on the coffee table in front of him. "Want any marshmallows or anything like that?"

She'd been lost in thought, her gaze lingering aimlessly on the spiraling mountain tops and the snow that decorated them, when a voice had caught her attention. Looking over slowly, her fingers clutching the throw around her shoulders, she watched as a mug of hot chocolate was placed down. "I'll take some." Words accompanied by a weak smile, Rebecca makes her way over, taking a seat.

"Just stressed is all." It was hard not to be, with a target on her back once again. The majority of her life has been far from normal, a target placed on her back since she'd been finishing college, Umbrella one of the places that had scouted her. This isn't the first time someone has been after her work, and she knows it won't be the last, but that doesn't change how tired she is.

"Okay, so, the important thing is that it's fixed now. It was touch-and-go, but I got there. You gotta admit, pretty impressive." Hector is clicking around the desktop of the lab computer, showing everything where it belongs. Hawk looks skeptical, "But you broke it in the first place. You and those junk programs you're always installing." Beltway cuts in, "Aht aht, but!" He raises a finger, his grin implacable. "I fixed it!"

The white numbers on the digital clock projected themselves against the back spackled wall of Eric's family ranch house. He was a stocky guy, and muscled. From the new land deal the Arklays struck with the government, Eric just so happened to grab twenty more workable acres.

All and all, he was the kind of guy The Big Boss himself got along with. Quiet fellow, a specialist on a few really intricate topics, and always remembered his friends. He sat drinking a beer on the front porch with Hunk and Hawk while she and Vector pretended to be reasonable people in his living room and wait for them to finish talking about "the escapee".

The escapee was a horse nicknamed by avid racing fans "Sleipnir". It was a huge breeding stud whose racing days made Eric the money he had today in Kentucky. The animal been retired for years, but he still made them money passing his genes down to the highest bidders.

Sleipnir had gotten loose, and before Carla could even ask why this was something they were dealing with, Eric showed them a few of the buck racks they'd found this season. Attached to malformed skulls, they weren't mounted in the barn as much as they were collected. Bone tumors and horns grew out of the sockets and between the cancerous looking horns.

"It's been happening for years," she heard from the porch. Crickets and cicadas were trilling.

"It's the T-Virus. It must have found a vector locally," she murmured in the low light to Vector. Their television was re-running old public broadcast programs.

"Running? Sun's not even out yet, it's freezing. Do you want coffee or tea first?"

"The cold wakes you up."

He's dressed for the very early morning already, coat tossed on and bundled around his neck and face. The mention of coffee makes him pause, deeply considering it for a moment, before he speaks up again.

"Hey, Vector," Nighthawk calls at the door of the mercenary's room, "You busy? I got a brief for a few things, trying to get a headcount for an outfit, and this one's something personal."

There's the distinct sound of a knife on a whetstone that Nighthawk's voice floats over when he calls from the door. Vector kept the lights low - it wasn't like they were any use to him - and he tilts his head up at being addressed before he tests the edge of his blade on his thumb.

"No, not busy. I'll come talk with you."

He tucks the blade away and stands with a slow, pointed stretch. Running around with Ahab had his body aching.