The Great Botch-Up, part 1

Continued from: The Great Botch-Up -- ProloguePresent day

Somewhere, 30,000 ft. over the Pacific Ocean…

Like its mythological namesake, the Roc soared effortlessly overhead, thousands of feet above the seemingly-endless expanse of tossing waves below. To the lone mariner, tossing and lurching in his tiny vessel below, a gargantuan bird of prey was about to swoop down and claim him and his boat as prey.

As if.

Thanks to drunken mutterings in coastal watering-holes, and word-of mouth between contraband smugglers, the Roc had become the Nessie of the Pacific, inspiring far-fetched tales of fiery breath, soul-shattering screams, and chilling eye to eye encounters.

Not t

The Great Botch-Up – Part I

The Tartarus Facility…

Angel Falls, USA…


Around 5:30 PM…

"Take this job and shove it," Senior Guard Russell Moran muttered to himself, marching back to his post, the security room, with a vigor and determination he had not felt in years.

Not since the day he marched into Tartarus fifteen years ago, a young man then, idealistic and filled with the desire to serve his beloved city, had he felt so decisive and sure of himself and his choices. "Serve and protect," the brightly colored posters had said, and he was determined to do just that; he owed it to everyone else.

Now he could barely get through a day of work without his usual after-shift indulgence: Jameson, hold the ice, leave the bottle.

Where had all that enthusiasm gone, Russell frequently pondered to himself, while cleaning up the messes left behind by Tartarus' more frequent guests, or resisting death by boredom during his security room shifts.

He knew the answer, though. It had gone the same way as his wages and benefits: down the shitter.

The memory of that day three years ago (or was it five?) was still vivid in Russell's mind. How Warden Athena had assembled him and his colleagues for a long, boring talk about how they were valued for their sacrifices and risks, and how theirs was a thankless but noble calling, yada yada yada, blah blah blah. It was little more than an officiated and prettified way of informing them that the powers that were had decided that their living standards should take a backseat to military expenditure, tax breaks to undeserving millionaires and billionaires, missions to space, and other such boondoggles. A working class guy with working class parents,

Russell knew all too well that this was hardly the first time American workers had been shortchanged by the fat cats. Though hearing about cuts never in a million years could compare to feeling their effects on your wallet and fridge. He couldn't quite remember the last time he'd been able to treat the wife and kids to a decent meal, on the town or at home.

Trooper that he was, Russell had been able to brush off the sting of the first round of cuts; he had kids on the way, and Lisa had been just too happy for him to bear discouraging her with the bad news. "We'll make ends meet somehow," he'd confidently told himself. Besides, someone had to keep the nice, law abiding people of Angel Falls safe from the crazies; might as well have been him.

That'd been years ago. With every new cut in wages and benefits, and every successive day of take-out Chinese on the dinner table, Russell had found himself growing less and less optimistic, and consequently more and more pissed off.

The final straw hadn't been when he had been given the headache of babysitting that crazy bitch, Jane Smith, in solitary, but it was damn close. Nothing to do for four hours at a time, listening to that busty neocon rant and rave about Obama the Muslim Socialist, the Soviet Superwoman, and how they were destroying America. That had smarted; his own mom and dad had both been union activists, with the sort of politics Bill O'Reilly regularly denounced as "far left." If anything, they'd tried to impress upon him the importance of knowing his right to a decent wage, and a relatively comfortable life for his kids. He wished he'd taken them seriously back then. He sure as hell did now.

The final straw had come about a week ago, when he was busted for revising his schedule to coincide with his acquisition of overtime in the security room, watching Smith after her attempt at self-harm. Since his new workday wouldn't allow for a whiskey at happy hour, he had decided to have happy hour at work instead. The janitor's discovery of a bottle and shot-glass in the security room had landed Russell an hour long riot act reading from the Warden, about responsibility and the importance of sobriety on such an important job. What had REALLY been the final straw was when Athena had tried for the sympathy routine, talking about how she "understood," and how the newest round of cuts were tough for "everyone." Russell knew bullshit when he heard it, but was too angry to call it. He'd seen the Warden's husband and kids out. Shopping. Eating out. Well dressed and fed. She couldn't fool him. He'd had enough.

Naturally then, when the synthesized voice over the phone asked him for help with a little jailbreak, he was only too happy to agree.

"You all, out," Russell barked impatiently at the guards in finishing their shift in the security room, "Warden wants extra guards on Smith tonight." They looked at their immediate superior suspiciously; they weren't used to such briskness from him.
All the same, they quickly geared up and filed out, in anticipation of another caffeine fueled night of Solitary duty.

Russell wasted no time in hurrying over to his workstation. He surreptitiously looked over his shoulder at the security camera in the corner before getting down to business. Fishing around his pocket, Russell finally produced a small USB drive, and rammed it into the port without hesitation. A couple of seconds later, and his little toy had done its work; the security monitors all went blank.

"Coast is clear," Russell said, seemingly to no one, as he got up. Although he knew the drill, the sight of ten masked, but unarmed, commandos materializing from thin air in front of him still gave him quite a shock. "Christ! You almost gave me a heart attack," he exclaimed.

"Our apologies, Mr. Moran," the man in point spoke through his mask in an accent that Russell couldn't put his finger on. "Our associate wanted to make sure we had the element of stealth on our side; we don't want this to be a massacre."

"Down to business, then," Russell replied. "That neat little gizmo your friend sent me should have surveillance out for a good half-hour, so I'd better give you guys the rundown quickly." He quickly input a code into his workstation, before turning back to his guests. "As per security protocol, surveillance outage of such a magnitude warrants a lockdown." He handed a piece of paper to the commando he had spoken to earlier. "First code is the override, second one opens Smith's cell. Since lockdown is in effect, the rest of the facility will be sealed off; no one else will be able to get into solitary while you nab Smith."

"What about the guards already assigned to Smith?" the leader inquired. "I believe you were instructed to acquire some hardware for us."

"Way ahead of you guys," Russell replied. He dragged a footlocker out of the closet, revealing a collection of pistols. "Requisitioned these from the armory," Russell explained, tossing a pistol to each of the commandos. "They fire high-velocity tranquilizer darts. We use 'em for some of our more 'resilient' guests. Should put the guards in dreamland for at least six hours." He stood up from the footlockers. "They won't work on Smith, though. Even she's too tough for them."

"Don't worry about that. We possess other means to incapacitate her."
Russell nodded. "By the way, I trust you have a getaway planned?"

"Our associate has 'requisitioned' transportation for us," the leader replied.
Russell walked briskly over to the door, meaning to open it. He stopped, and turned back to his guests. "Before you go, how about what I was promised?"

"Way ahead of you," the leader replied, mimicking Russell's unfamiliar expression. He was handed a briefcase by the commando behind him, and in turn handed it to Russell. "As promised, $1.5 million upfront; all in untraceable twenty-dollar bills. More later on, for future services our associate will require. He'll contact you shortly. Make sure to be out of the city by tomorrow, and don't spend it all too quickly."

Russell was too busy gazing at the briefcase's contents, and pondering his family's new possibilities, to give much thought to hearing one of the commando's address their leader as "major," before turning their stealth back on and leaving.
"Time to blow this joint," Russell gleefully chortled, heading for the door. He was suddenly stopped, by what sounded like a metallic "flick" behind him. He whirled around; no one. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a smell hit his nose, that he would remember in odd moments throughout his life. He could have sworn that he smelled smoke. Cigar smoke…
___________________________________________________

"ANOTHER security failure?" Jane Smith mockingly asked the guard just outside her cell, having heard the lock-down alarm raised. "Looks like it's not just the economy that's gone belly-up around here."

"Shut up, Smith," Alisa, the guard, snapped. As if having to put in more time babysitting a southern psychopath wasn't bad enough, now she and her colleagues were stuck inside with her because of the stupid security protocol. Goddamn whoever decided to have lock-downs whenever the surveillance cameras glitched. It'd be another espresso-free night…

Or it would have.

Alisa's attention was drawn to the security door suddenly opening. Expecting Moran, Alisa walked towards it, shocked to see no one at the door.

"Hey, who…" Alisa suddenly clutched at the side of her neck, gasping in pain before collapsing. The other guards had barely enough time to go for their guns before following suit. A team of masked commandos gradually shimmered into visibility, obviously having used stealth units.

"Erhalten sie ihre uniformen und ausrüstung in der ecke, und schließen Sie die tür," ("Put their uniforms and equipment in the corner, and shut that door.") ordered the one clearly in charge. Two of the commandos complied, and set to work; another shut and sealed the door. The remaining commandos unmasked, and turned towards Smith.

"Betrachten sie 'baldy',"("Look at baldy!") a pale, hook-nosed commando guffawed, setting his comrades off laughing.

"Das ist genug,"("That's enough.") the one in charge, a lanky blonde-haired man, ordered in a reedy voice. He turned towards Smith, an insincere smile on his face. "I think introductions can be forgone here; I trust you already know who we are?"

Smith returned the smile. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was the Chairman himself, and his boyfriends. What're YOU doing here, Fuchs? Kurt decide to let you take the training wheels off for once?"

Fuchs ran his eyes appraisingly over Smith. "Charming as ever, fräulein," he returned, "it's certainly a displeasure to have to see you again, especially with this new look of yours. Ugh!"

"Likewise, Major Fuchs. Don't you have a gay pride parade to get to, or is this your idea of boys night out on the town?"

Fuchs took a deep breath, and exhaled. If he could take NVA hazing, he could damn well stand this fascist bitch's homophobia. "Careful what you say, liebling," he said smugly, brandishing a combat knife with a consciously exaggerated daintiness. "I might be inspired to rearrange your face after we've incapacitated you." He put on a patronizing voice, as if speaking to a petulant little girl. "And I'm sure we want you looking nice and pretty for the chairman, don't we? Maybe a nice dress would do the trick. Of course this new hairstyle of yours will never do, but I don't think anything can be done about that."

Smith chortled. "Real tempting offer there, Fuchs. Afraid I'll have to disappoint your commie-in-chief, though; I've got a day in court coming up, and I aim to make the most of it."

"The Chairman thought you'd say that," Egon returned in a mock-sympathetic tone. He quickly punched in the cell's keycode, and the door opened; Jane prepared to go for him, not noticing the odd-looking device in his left hand. She was was caught in the face by a flash of light from the device, and slumped to the ground with a shocked expression on her face. "That's why he sent this along with us. Reverse engineered from Alien technology. It's designed to put creatures like you out for days. I don't envy you when you wake up, though."

Remembering the time limit, Fuchs checked his standard issue chronograph. Fifteen minutes left. "Wir müssen jetzt gehen!" ("We have to leave now!") he called over at the other commandos. "Hast mit jenen verdammten Uniformen!" ("Hurry with those damned uniforms!") The two men in the corner picked up the pace, hastily hauling the sleeping guards out of their uniforms and equipment.

Out of nowhere, a banging noise issued from outside solitary. Fuchs looked at the door, sensing that something was very rotten in the state of Denmark. "Gruber, kontrollieren die quelle dieser geräusche," ("Gruber check the source of this noise.") he ordered the commando who had heckled Smith. Gruber inched towards the door, gulped audibly, punched in the override code, and walked out. No sooner had he left the room, than Gruber was hurled back in, hitting the opposite wall with an unpleasant thud. In stormed a vision: muscular, yet unbelievably womanly figure; unmistakably Russian features, topped off with cropped jet black hair; grey-and-black spandex, a red hammer-and-sickle emblazoned on the collar.

"None of you are going anywhere," the Soviet Superwoman thundered at the commandos, staring in awe, "except to intensive care, if any of you are stupid enough as to put up a fight."

Fuchs stood gaping at the titanic costumed woman, menacing him and his comrades. He couldn't believe that she had actually come. He'd been more than merely skeptical of the colonel's belief that she would come. He reminded himself that, deep down, that he was only trying to convince himself that she wouldn't have come; he wanted to prove that he could handle these operations without supervision. He silently cursed himself for his bull-headedness, and prepared to give the order for his men to defend themselves.

"Quite unnecessary, major. This is no way to reward punctuality."
Fuchs and the Soviet Superwoman now shot startled glances around Solitary. The voice seemed to echo around the room, as if that of a ghost. The odor of cigar smoke affirmed to Fuchs what he did not want to be true.
"You may all stand down."

Fuchs spluttered, "Aber mein herr, ich kann…"("But sir, I can...")

"Nicht können sie nicht, Egon!" ("No, you can't, Egon!") his superior's voice reverberated throughout the room. "I will handle this personally," it continued, in English. Humiliated and bemused, Fuchs gritted his teeth and motioned for his comrades to back down. He folded his arms and glowered at the costumed woman.

Olga Yezhov could smell the overpowering odor closing in on her, causing her to tear up, circling her. She could remember the smell, but wasn't quite sure from where; she had never smoked a cigar in her life. A face came to her memory, but the name was still hazy. "Where are you?" she demanded, apprehensively. "Show yourself!"
The smell became stronger than ever. Smoke suddenly billowed from behind, enveloping her head, and eliciting an irritated cough from her.

"So good to see you again."

She whirled around. "Kurt!"

"Olga."

To be continued…

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This amazing piece of artwork was provided by my generous and fantastic friend who managed to whip this up in a record amount of time. Thank you so much my friend, your skill and talented are not unappreciated!

The story was concocted by . He pitched a great idea for a story and has created a bevy of interesting characters. There are a few other stories on his page to enjoy involving Kurt Albrecht.

Kurt Albrecht, Egon Fuchs, Hector Blanco, and Langston Ross all belong to

Soviet Superwoman and American Hero are my property and creations.

Tartarus prison belongs to the charitable

This story takes place in