One – Another Monday

Simmons was taking a long scan of the canyon with his sniper rifle when he heard someone coming up the side of the hill. Someone breathing very heavily. And cursing.

"What took you so long?" said Simmons. "You're an hour late!"

"No," Grif countered, "you're an hour early! No one needs to be up at seven. And I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for Donut trying to teach me Pilates." He paused and shuddered. "With his hands around my waist."

"Ugh. I did not need to know that."

"So what's today dumb mission from Sarge?"

"I'm glad you asked!" Simmons zoomed in on the rifle and did another sweep of the canyon. "Sarge thinks the Blues are going to try and sneak up on us before lunch. And then they'll take our flag. Again."

Grif laughed. "Man, they are getting really good at that."

"They've got an ex-Freelancer for a leader."

"Not to mention our security's worth shit."

"No, it's not!"

Grif turned and pointed at Red Base, located just below the hill. "Simmons, I just saw Sarge yelling at the teleporter and Donut flipping through magazines. All Wash would have to do is knock and ask politely and he'd have our flag."

Simmons could picture it all too well. Still, he sighed and said, "Well, at least we could avenge our team and steal the flag back before he got to Blue Base!"

"A badass Freelancer versus two Army rejects? Yeah, the odds are in our favor."

In the precise center of Blood Gulch, equidistant between the two bases, a small green cloud of static electricity formed. It soon took on the hazy shape of a grown man before climaxing in a shower of sparks.

When the smoke cleared, Agent California landed feet-first on the ground, wobbling terribly. His blue-and-orange armor was singed from the teleporter discharge. And for some reason, he had the worst headache.

"Agent Cal reporting," he groaned, mostly for the benefit of his helmet's recorder. "No sign of the target. Coordinates did not bring me to Sidewinder as predicted." He glanced slowly to his left, then to his right. "I appear to have landed… in the middle of a box canyon."

His headache was overwhelming now. Even the sunlight was too much for him. Cal dropped to his knees, fast on his way to passing out. But for the sake of his diary, he managed to add one last statement.

"Counselor, you'd better be here…"

Simmons lowered his sniper rifle. "Dude, did you see that?"

"Simmons, it's seven in the goddamn morning and I've had only two cups of coffee." Grif spread his arms out. "At this point, I could hallucinate anything due to lack of sleep."

"No, I mean that guy out in the middle." He passed Grif the rifle. "He's covered in black stuff. I think he teleported in."

"It's probably Tucker. He has the worst luck with teleporters."

"But check out his shoulder. Don't you recognize the insignia?"

"Uh… we can safely assume he's on our side?"

Simmons shook his head. "Nope. He's a Freelancer."

Grif was silent for a moment. Then he lowered the rifle and turned to his partner. "Great. And here I was looking forward to another boring Monday."