Well this is inconvenient.

  Sweets slowly leaned forward in his chair, watching the bank of eight flat-screen computer monitors in front of him with no emotion visible on his pudgy, bearded face. He was shocked, which no one would know just from watching him, but that's because the whole situation was absurd and he hadn't had enough time to process it all. What had been a smoothly running extraction had suddenly gone off the rails and he had no good explanation for it. Not that he expected one, but still, it was unnerving, and he didn't enjoy getting blindsided. Not at all. A few minutes ago he'd been daydreaming about going home early, relaxing in his recliner and playing Call of Duty all weekend long. He'd pre-ordered the new one last week, which meant it should be waiting for him when he got back, but thanks to this mess he would have to postpone all of that. Because of someone's stupid mistake, he would have to stick around here a while longer and waste his time worrying about damage control.

  Which meant he needed to focus.

  Two of the monitors were connected to a laptop sitting on the desk in front of him, the other six were plugged in to a closed circuit TV system, each with four black and white camera views visible on the screens. Five of the monitors showed views from the interior and exterior of the Concord Hotel across the street, the site of the extraction. The sixth showed a few selected spots here in the Mormont Hotel, where his command center was situated in a small room on the 12th floor. Outside the Concord he could see about a dozen cars speeding away in pursuit of two white vans while two SUVs sat in the alley leading to the loading dock with flat tires and broken windows. At the Mormont, he noticed four more vehicles with heavily tinted windows pulling up outside the lobby entrance. A few seconds ago, erratic movement on one of the monitors to his right had attracted his attention, but he couldn’t look at it yet. Things had to be done in a certain order, but he already knew that was the roof camera for the Concord, a location where Deadeye should no longer be.

  Yes, this was not going well. Not at all.

  "Sweets." Big Man's voice came through the headset he was wearing. "You there?"

  "Here," he replied.

  "What do you see?"

  Sweets scanned the monitors methodically, cataloging everything, starting at the top left camera view. Top left, the entrance to the Concord, where police cars blocked the road. Top right, the Concord's lobby, facing the door. Bottom left, same lobby, facing the elevators. Bottom right, the hallway leading from the lobby to the banquet rooms. He had to follow the pattern for each monitor from left to right along the top row first, then the bottom. If he didn’t, he couldn’t think straight. If he noticed something happening on the bottom row of monitors and he looked there out of order then he would have to start all over.

  "At least a dozen police cars, LAPD, and unmarked federal vehicles, Scimitar I'm sure. They were blocking the escape route from the hotel's loading bay. Deadeye shot at some of the vehicles, taking out their tires, and our boys got free, although scanner activity says they're under hot pursuit. Deadeye’s taken cover on the roof for some reason, he may have been shot, I’m not sure. He’s out of camera view now."

  "What's my route look like?"

  "The lobby is clear but I can see a group of dark suits approaching the front doors so I'd take an alternate route to your vehicle. In fact," Sweets glanced back through the monitors, stopping at the sixth one for a moment before finishing, "they seem to be headed for my location as well. I'm going to have to break all radio contact and clean house immediately."

  "Do it. Assume the drop location is compromised, no matter what. We rally at safe house three. Repeat, safe house three."

  "Safe house three, roger. Killing all radio contact now."

  Sweets pulled his headset off and rolled his chair over to the locked metal case sitting on the table behind him, fishing the key out of his pocket. He unlocked the case, opened it, and pulled out several items one at a time and carefully set them in a line on the table - a small spray can, a handgun, a remote trigger, several small metal canisters, a stun baton, and two Tasers. He grabbed a small knapsack sitting on the floor and took out a pair of rubber gardening gloves and a gas mask. He put the gas mask on first, then quickly pulled the gloves on and grabbed the spray can, popping the top off as he rolled back over to the monitors. He scanned through the views one more time, left to right, top to bottom, and the last thing he noticed on them - that he cared about - was a small crowd of Scimitar agents entering the lobby, with six of them heading directly to the elevator.

  He frowned, then began spraying a thin greenish foam all over the monitors, the laptop, the wires, the connectors and the mouse. Everything he touched, used or stored data on was sprayed down thoroughly from left to right – including his small Styrofoam bowl of Skittles. Within seconds the equipment started to smoke as the foam ate through the metal, plastic and glass while the candy turned into a waxy brown stain on the table. The resultant gas from the foam was toxic, which was one of two reasons he'd put on the gas mask. After he finished spraying he put the can into a side pocket on his knapsack, then took off his rubber gloves and tossed them into the foamy mess on the table. He reached into the knapsack and pulled out some thinner, surgical-style plastic gloves and quickly yanked those on. He gathered the items on the table together, putting the gun in his waistband, the remote trigger in one pocket and one of the Tasers in another. He put the second Taser back in the pack, zipped it up and threw it over his shoulder, keeping the stun baton in one hand and one of the metal canisters in the other.

  He stood and used his knee to roll the chair over by the front door, then flipped it over onto its side with his foot, situating it as an obstacle for anyone trying to burst in. He stood quietly next to the door and listened to the sounds of the hallway outside, waiting. After a moment, he heard the elevator ding, followed two seconds later by a herd of footsteps approaching. He guessed they would be in the room in about seven seconds.

  He pulled the pin out of the top of the metal canister and dropped it on the ground in front of him, then retreated to the bedroom. White smoke poured out, filling the room behind him, and as he closed the door he frowned at the thought that he was about to live out a video game moment. That may be an exciting prospect for some people, but not for him. He'd much rather be at home, sitting in his recliner, eating some ice cream and experiencing it all through an HDMI cable. Video games were clean. Real life was messy. And messy just frayed his nerves. He flipped the light switch in the bedroom on and off three times, which settled him down, and then waited for Scimitar to burst through the front door so he could get this over with.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  10 days ago…

  “Vacation’s over, fellas. We got some serious work to get to.”

  Paul “Sweets” Ronson gently rocked in his oversized, extra-cushioned office chair, watching two of his four computer monitors, tapping his keyboard and drinking a 20oz Code Red Mountain Dew. He was at his loft in downtown Chicago, looking through fourteen different internet tabs spread out over two monitors, trying to find the best deal he could to pre-order the new Call of Duty, which was coming out in a week. His third monitor was displaying a secure video stream of the team's meeting in Tucson, courtesy of the laptop Crash brought with him, although he barely paid attention to anything they said. He already knew the plan inside and out. The fourth monitor had World of Warcraft up, which Sweets kept running in case anything interesting happened in his guild chat.

  “We’re meeting again in five days," Big Man's voice boomed through his surround sound PC speakers. "That’s how much time you have to get your shit together. Literally and figuratively. Deal with your personal issues, get everyone off your back and get everything off your plate. You’re gonna be busy in LA, and I don’t want any distractions. And I also want you guys in shape.”

  That wasn’t going to happen for Sweets and everyone knew it. He was forty-nine, and overweight, and he liked it that way. He made his living in an office chair, and he wasn’t about to ruin his doughy physique unless he had to. Sweets didn't even like leaving his loft, so he regularly attended meetings in this fashion. He had his groceries delivered, he ordered games and toys online, and got his movies through Netflix. He even had Tiffani, his regular girl from the service, come over here every few nights instead of going out. It's not that he hated being outside, or getting fresh air, or traveling, he just didn't like being around other people if he could help it. They bored him. Most people he encountered on a regular basis were mundane and unimpressive. They had nothing to say that interested him, and there was nothing in the world more asinine to Sweets than making small talk, especially about weather. Didn't these idiots know how cold it would be before they moved to Chicago?

  Sweets was an electronics and software expert. He used to be a hacker, but those days were temporarily on hold. Lately, his job consisted of sitting at a computer and handling logistics and communications for Big Man’s team, while the higher ups in the Organization took care of the more interesting parts of his job. If he needed access to a foreign bank account, he made a call and it was done. If he wanted files pulled from a secure government server in Washington, D.C., another call to the O-techs – as everyone called them – and he’d have the information within the hour. The Organization didn’t like employing hackers for individual teams, so they’d taken the best ones for themselves, created a central hacking group based in some secret location – a criminal Help Desk - and told all the rest to never get caught doing anything more than checking their bank statements online. It infuriated him that he’d been left out of that group, and was stuck on a fringe team with no way to show off his talents in what he did best. But what could he do about it?

  A system tray notification alerted him to a new email, from Oldham-Haynes Defense Industries in Fort Worth, reconfirming his start date in two weeks. He'd applied for a job there and unsurprisingly got it after a technical interview from a programmer who was barely mediocre. He casually skimmed through the email before filing it into his Pending folder while also reaching into the large glass bowl of Skittles sitting on the side table next to him. He deliberately pulled out a green one and set it on the desk in front of him. Then red. Then orange, purple and yellow. He set them out in a straight line, their edges touching and the ‘S’ logo standing straight up. Then he picked up the green and red ones and squeezed them together. He added the orange one to the mash up, followed by purple and yellow. He admired the mega Skittle, and then tossed it in his mouth like a piece of popcorn.

  “One last thing. Has anyone had any issues with Scimitar? Or the cops?” Silence. “Anyone tailing you, or asking you questions?”

  “I had one tailing me a couple hours ago.” Deadeye’s voice. “But I lost him.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yeah. Completely.”

  "How do you know he was Scimitar?"

  A pause, then, "He wasn't a cop."

  “Okay then. We can use that. They haven’t made any other contact with anyone else?” More silence. “All right. They’re on a few of us, which I expected, but I don’t know if they have the whole team pegged. So keep an eye out, and keep a low profile. I didn’t give you guys all that paperwork for my own health. Know your enemy. You got me?”

  "Always good advice." A female voice, Tox, cut in.

  Tox was an interesting surprise. She hadn’t worked with the team in over two years, and nobody had mentioned her name once that entire time. Now she was back, and acting as if she’d never been gone. He wondered if she was tight with Big Man again, and if he was gonna work his prison solitude off with her later. She was a stunningly beautiful woman – tall, with long blond hair and calculating brown eyes that made him feel small and uncomfortable when she looked at him. She had a confidence and an aura that made her seem more important than she really was. Not that he cared.

  Her past was well known to everyone on the team. She was Lanie Wilson, the spoiled, fame-hungry, socialite daughter of pharmaceutical billionaire Hugh Wilson. Lanie and her older sister, Lisa, had been tabloid queens for several years in their late teens and early twenties, and Lisa even had a sex tape floating around on the internet that Sweets had seen probably a thousand times. But after a few stints in rehab for cocaine and prescription pill abuse they’d both disappeared from public view. Lisa eventually got married to a hockey player and had kids, but Lanie had somehow parlayed her short stint with anonymity into a position in the Organization. No one knew how, although her knowledge of drugs, her incredibly persuasive demeanor and her contact list of public figures probably played a big part. Of course, in the grand tradition of Big Man’s teams, her nickname didn’t come from the toxic drug cocktails she could put together. No, Tox was just a shortened form of Botox, a jab at her need for minor plastic surgery over the years. Just like his nickname Sweets didn’t entirely come from his love for candy.

  "You got that right, babe. So, we meet again in five days. Crash, you got our shops ready?"

  "One of em. Workin' on the other. I'll know by tomorrow."

  "Good. Meeting adjourned. I don't wanna see you guys for another five days unless I need to. Sweets, we'll chat later."

  "Roger that."

  The video feed went dead from the other end, and Sweets ignored the static. He'd finally found the deal he wanted on Call of Duty, and he was working his way through the Shopping Cart on this particular website. It wouldn't be released for another seven days, and it wouldn't be overnighted to him until a day after that. He scratched his scruffy, graying beard and frowned. He'd be in LA then, so he'd have to wait to play it until he got back. That was annoying, but he at least had enough patience to hold out until then. He may live his life like a teenager who was used to getting what he wanted, but he was also a forty-nine year old man with a job that required some real responsibility. So he could wait until he got back to have some real fun.

  It’s not like this L.A. job would be complicated or anything.