#operative45

Mark undid his protective mask and returned her smile. “Yes ma’am. Radio Technician Mark Zimmerman and Operative 45.”

Under his mask, there was the faintest hint of a smile on Operative’s face. For once he’d actually called him a name he went by instead of his normal insistence on calling him Herbert.  Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. Especially since...”There don’t seem to be any orphans here to teach.”

Zoey  waved towards the window with the wrench in her hand, “They’ve still got a little recess left. Classes will start soon.”

Mark walked over to the window and looked out at the children. There were kids of all ages out there; the civil war and border fighting had been productive in that regard. They seemed to be playing on or around a pair of statues. The first was of the outpost’s own Lieutenant Morgan, second in command, heavily armed and looking dangerous enough to make even the most violent soldier proud.  The second was of. Of. Mark hadn’t had the chance to see it before and he stared for a moment, waiting in vain for the image to resolve as something else. The children were happily darting around large metal spikes impaling a sculpted raider, who was falling, defeated, from the more formidable statue. The statues had been the talk of the outpost, a gift from a raider woman who had her eye on the LT, but surely they could have been put somewhere else?

Mark was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice Zoey talking to them again. “I’m sorry, that was rude of me, can you repeat that?”

“I said have you two worked out what you will be teaching?”

Mark nodded. “I figure I could help teach them how to take cover in case we get attacked, that way they can help keep themselves safe, and also maybe some radio operations and repair instructions for the older ones.”

Operative just nodded and say “Yes.”

Zoey put down her tools and stood up. “Well, I’ll go bring the children in and we can get started.”

 -------

“Well that was an interesting success.” Zoey sat on the counter of her workshop. The day had passed, and now she was looking at the journal entries her charges had written about what they learned that day. She picked up the one on top, by a boy named Jimothy, and started reading.

Today we had soldier teachers. Mark is a radio magician and he says that Operative doesn’t bite because he never takes his mask off. Charl says that an operative is something to do with math but Charl thinks that bugs are good to eat. I think an operative is one of the cool kinds of soldiers cause he seemed cool.

Operative said that he would show us how to make ners. nerfv. nerfegas grenades. Zoey said it was okay. Mark got really worried but Operative said they’d be empty and harmless so it was okay. He brought parts with him and we took turns putting them together and he said I did a really good job.

Then Mark was showing us how to hide in case bad guys come. Mark hid and we had to try to find him. He is good at hiding and runs fast. Then we all hid and Operative would try to find us. He was better at finding Mark than we were. Then they were going to show how to take cover if there is a grenade by you so it doesn’t hurt you as much. Operative said that it would be a good use of the empty grenades we made and Mark agreed to have one thrown at him.

Operative through one at Mark and Mark dived away from it but it made gas and Mark started coughing and had foam in his mouth and Zoey said he had to go to the hospital. Operative was laughing when it happened, it is funny because he accidentally used a real one instead of the ones we made.

I wonder if I can be an operative when I grow up.

In return for his services, he was paid, fed, and had a place to live. His usefulness had managed to get him into one of the nicer residences, as opposed to the “In Progress” tent-city district. With the Empire having been broken by the death of the emperor at the hands of the rebels, there was something to be said for hanging around one of the few remnants of order left. He heard the door to the house opening.

“Of course there are drawbacks.” He mumbled to himself. The house supposedly would fit four, but for a while he’d had the place to himself as the first occupant. It seemed nobody was brave enough to try to get one of the other slots, being too intimidated by his mysterious presence or how casually he killed people.

“Herbert! Mail came!”  Op heard the voice of his house-mate. The man was apparently too stupid to be afraid. Bravery certainly had nothing to do with it. Op had seen Mark in a fight. The rank and file troopers had gained some of his respect by being strong and willing to jump right into the front lines and fight. Some of the higher-ups that ran the outpost had gained a fair deal too. One of them had apparently taken the news that the Rebels had one particularly hard and had went AWOL to cause a blood-soaked one-man war. *That* was a man after Op’s own heart. Not this cowardly little moron that spent the entire fight cowering behind a tank. He knew that Mark’s job was to provide target information for missile strikes, and the missiles that came down turned the tide of the. Op was ready to concede that he did his job well. He was not ready to respect Mark and his lack of composure.

Or put up with him in day-to-day living, for that matter. Op heard Mark making his way around the house, probably searching for him. It wasn’t that Op thought Mark was a bad person; this was a war zone and he didn’t really care about moral judgments.  He was just really annoying to be around. Too friendly, too happy…Op heard the door to his room open, followed by Mark’s voice. “Oh, there you are. We got mail.”

And invasive like a weed. “Hello Mark. Supply run successful?”

Mark smiled, and unloaded a few of the packages he was carrying onto Op’s bed. “Yep! Sorry I took longer than normal; there was a Raptor problem over by the distillery. Actually, since it was near the Chemical defenses, it was less of a “Raptor” problem and more of a “Waiting for the fumes from the oozing raptor remains to disperse” problem. Got everything on the shopping list though. And the mail.” Mark looked at the stack of mail in his hands. “You only got one letter.” Mark handed it over.

Grabbing the letter, Op opened it and started reading. A word jumped out at him before he got too far into the letter. “Orphanage?”

Mark nodded. “Oh right, that. Construction on that just finished last week. Between the rebel problem down south, fighting with the raiders, and Bernmouth getting sacked….there are a lot of orphans around. We’re the best equipped to take on feeding the extra mouths, so we built an orphanage to house and educate them.” He smiled “Everyone in the outpost has been pitching in somehow; it will even be staffed by volunteers.”

Operative started to tune Mark out and focused on reading the letter as Mark started happily gushing about “Giving back to the community” and something about the “next generation” needing help. He didn’t see a particular reason that he needed to know about an orphanage. He skimmed the letter, realizing that it was full of the same drivel that Mark was spouting. Almost to the word in some parts. He skipped down a bit and found something that looked a little more important.

As a resident of Unit 3 you and your housemates will be the inaugural members of the rotating teaching staff, being the first to set a good example for the rest of the outpost.

“...We’ve been voluntold.”

“What?”

“We’re supposed to report to the orphanage in a few minutes.” Op stood up, getting his mask on. He was annoyed at it, but it was an order.

“Oh, right. Yes. They said we can teach whatever we want as long as we can convince Zoey that they’ll be able to use it.” Mark stepped outside the room to let Operative out. “I was thinking maybe survival tips, maybe radio repair or something depending on what age we get and how quickly they learn. But at the very least we should make sure they are able to help keep themselves safe. This is a war zone after all.”

Mark almost didn’t notice Operative stop in his tracks before running into him. “Mark. ‘Thinking’...You planned this didn’t you?”

Even though he was sure the man couldn’t see his face, he wore a sheepish grin. “I volunteered myself personally. The Commander decided to go by housing unit and was laughing pretty hard when I left for some reason.”