Scoped

‘Rancid’ and ‘regret’ both came to mind, as the Rifleman stirred the cheap, dispensed coffee in his styrofoam cup. No spoons, so he had to resort to a plastic stick, hooked onto the side and barely able to extend enough to slip his armoured finger under to get a grip on it. He cursed, fumbled with the stick as it slid back down to the lip of the cup, and tried again.

After the third try, the Rifleman gave up on trying to stir the congealed, conglomerated ground beans and milk powder, and, instead, tried his best to take a sip. Fighting the urge to gag, he gave up on enjoying the beverage, too, and settled for getting as much caffeine into his system as possible.

Unslinging his rifle from his back, he stepped out of the break room and into the office proper. As the Rifleman passed upturned desks, pushed up against windows, sniper nests, broken glass and bloodstains, he rationed that Imotakan Plaza just didn’t have good coffee. He had no idea how the people that worked there even survived, consuming such sludge on a daily basis.

A man at the far end of the office, just by the stairwell, looked up at him as he passed. Nodding his head, the Specialist said something that the Rifleman didn’t quite catch, busy as he was consuming the mud in his cup.

“What?” He said, wheezing out the words and coughing just seconds after.

“I said,” the second man began, “did you get me one?”

“Do you really want one?” the Rifleman asked, moving the cup so the Specialist could see inside it. He recoiled with a sharp noise of disgust, and the Rifleman laughed.

“Thought not.” He took a seat in a fold-out camping chair, next to a tripod, urban camouflage tarp, and picked up a pen from the floor. “So,” he said. “How’s things outside?”

The Specialist leaned forward, slid halfway under the tarp, and pressed his eye to the scope of the mounted SR 99, gently angling it downward out of the broken window. “Slow,” he said. “Not much has changed. You’d be forgiven for thinking we’ve been forgotten.”

“We can’t have that.” The Rifleman put his coffee down on one of the only desks still standing, and walked over to the edge of the window, peering down at the world below.

Swathes of reporters stood outside the building, illuminating by vast floodlights, banishing the darkness of night. Wind whipped the Rifleman’s hair about his head. He could barely make out the green and olive camo of UNSC tents. Gathering spit in his mouth, he let it drop over the side, down into the dark below.

“Ey, knock it off, man.” The Specialist grabbed him, pulling him back from the yawning void.

Laughing, the Rifleman sat back down and slapped the Specialist on the shoulder. “C’mon, man. It’s dead out there. They can’t do much, when we’re sitting on about 300 office workers.”

The Specialist grumbled, and shifted in his seat, putting one leg forward under the tripod and locking it back in place. “You keep mucking about like that, one day you’re gonna get a bullet in your head.”

Shaking a head, the Rifleman downed the last of his coffee and stood up. “Whatever, man.”

“Hey!” The Specialist grabbed the Rifleman’s arm and pulled him down. “What do you think this is?” he hissed. “We had enough supplies to last us three days. We’ve already been here for two. If we don’t get what we’re after, then this whole thing is for nothing. UNSC won’t care about hostages, they won’t care about collateral. They’ll only care about killing us, and keeping their little projects safe.”

The Rifleman looked down at his arm, and shook the Specialist off. “Calm down.”

“Calm down?!” the Specialist stood up and came face-to-face with the man. “I haven’t slept since we got here. I’ve been busy watching, making sure no one sets up in the windows across from us and turns this," he waved a finger around in a circular motion, "into a pretty little carnival duck shoot. Everyone has. Your flippant attitude and jokes don’t help! So excuse us if we’re a little on edge!”

The Rifleman leaned back while the Specialist had pressed forward. The rest of the men stationed on the floor were looking over at the pair of them. The Rifleman gave them all stares before they went back to looking out their assigned windows. All of a sudden, the Rifleman could see the bags under the Specialist’s eyes clearer.

The Specialist sighed, and sat back down, sounding dejected and morose. “Just, forget it, man.”

The Rifleman ignored the outburst as best he could. They were surrounded on all sides by enemies, their only means of extraction was the roof, and their only leverage; a small handful of hostages, and one defector.

Tensions and fears he kept suppressed began roiling up to the surface, and he made a vague motion with his hand, turning to one side and peeking back out the window. The tents and vans, blockades and piled-up abandoned cars suddenly looked a lot less comical. They were hemmed in like rats, and starting to feel it in their souls.

“Right. Well,” the Rifleman cleared his throat, fiddled with his rifle for a bit, and motioned away down the office. “I’ll leave you to it, and get out of your hair before you, uh…” he stifled the quip on his tongue, swallowed around an empty, dry throat, and thought better of it.

“Be seein’ you later,” he said, turning away, and walking back down the office.

He ended up two floors down on his walk, where the rest of the crew had taken over by blowing the stairwell, severing the elevator cables, and barricading the doors, just in case. Machine gun turrets watched the entrances on either side, and the windows were boarded up with broken bits of desk and office table.

The Rifleman passed them all, ducking into the bunks, which were just sleeping bags and rucksacks deposited in a conference room. The saving grace was the blinds, as the entire building was dark save for floodlights hooked to generators, thrumming in the corners of each open space. Not here.

The soft sounds of snoring could be heard from a few other inhabitants. The Rifleman took off his helmet and sat it down on a table. He wasn’t planning on sleeping. He couldn’t anyway, after the coffee.

“Rough day?”

The Rifleman looked towards the source of the voice. The regional director of the corporation, and de-facto corporate ruler of Imotakan Plaza, Alistair Lane stared at him from his position behind the desk.

“You could say that,” the Rifleman replied.

“Ja,” Lane replied. “I know the feel.” He took a deep drag from a cigarette, poised between two of his fingers. “One day you’re doing some harmless digging through ONI contracts, next you have to stage an elaborate kidnapping because the UNSC wants your head on a stick.” He blew the smoke out of his lips and stubbed out the lit cigarette, staring at the Rifleman with a wry smile.

The Rifleman shook his head. “I know my problems are barely anything compared to yours, but we’re in the same boat, now, and, well, I didn’t quite realise how stressful it is.” He leaned over, lacing his fingers together, and jolting his foot up and down.

The Director stood up, laughing, and stepped over two sleeping soldiers to slap the man on the shoulder, comfortingly. “Do not worry, my friend. In another day, this’ll all be over.” He walked over to the door, leaning up against the frame, bathed in light. “We’ll be long gone from here by the time the UNSC thinks up a plan of attack.”

Turning around, he went to say something else. Something along the lines of ‘you’ll see’. Something to further settle the racing mind of the soldier.

He never got the chance. His head blossomed outward in a shower of red, and he crumbled to the floor.

The Rifleman’s eyes went wide as the man dropped, diving for cover only after two seconds had gone by. “Sniper!” he screamed. “We have a sniper!”

Everyone around him was up in an instant, but the words didn’t register, because they jumped up and stood. Two of them collapsed before the rest got the hint, and threw themselves behind cover.

The sounds of return sniper fire filled the office, and the Rifleman crawled out of the door, into the office, as the rest of the Innies scrambled into defensive positions.

The Specialist, cradling his SR99, sans tripod, rushed over to the Rifleman, and slid behind a mahogany desk. “Where the hell is the Director?” he asked.

The Rifleman pointed back into the conference room. The Specialist hit the desk with a fist and screamed. “Dammit! They knew! Of course the bloody well KNEW!”

Other sounds joined the cacophony, now. The sound of explosions that rocked the dust free of the ceiling overhead, and the sound of whirring, high-speed Falcon blades. The Rifleman crawled, not daring to do anything else. His heart hammering in his ears, blood rushing past his drums in a whooshing sound.

A trio of lights shone into the building, and guns began to rev and chatter. Two Innies were cut in half while trying to drag one of the mounted machine guns towards a window.

“Jesus Christ! Jesus CHRIST!” The Rifleman yelled, clutching his helmet and rocking back and forth. “Jesus Christ!”

Something hit him on the head. “Snap out of it!” the Specialist yelled. “We have to get to the upper floors. C’mon!”

The two began moving, keeping low as the chainguns kept rattling, chewing up the linoleum floors, desks, and anyone who happened to be hiding behind them. Those few still in the Conference room shouted something, one tried to make a break for it, before all three of the Falcon’s guns revved up, focusing on the only clear, moving target in the room.

While they were distracted with the designated runner, the rest of the Innies who had pushed him out the door, fled towards the stairwell. The Specialist pushed the Rifleman down as they passed, and covered him up. They couldn’t move now.

The Falcons banked to the side, exposing their side-mounted chain guns, and complement of ODST shock troops. Two in each Falcon hefted large weapons with barbed hooks on the end, launching them at the building. The rappel lines embedded themselves into the concrete, and the ODSTs began sliding down towards the windows.

A whooshing sound from above made the Rifleman reflexively duck down even more. An explosion hit the side of one of the Falcons, neatly bisecting the bird and leaving the two halves, and all the occupants, to drop towards the ground.

The ODSTs on their rappel lines smashed through what remained of the glass, unhooked themselves, and began popping anyone that was moving. Two Innies returned fire, knocking one ODST back out of the window, and he fell with a wailing scream.

Two more took his place, their shots precise, their movements calculated.

The Specialist pushed the Rifleman towards the stairs and ran after him. “Keep going!” he yelled. The Rifleman looked back at the frantic, vicious carnage, just in time to see the Specialist slow to a crawl, blood gushing from a three inch hole in his chest, and slam face-first to the floor.

He looked to the side, at the window, expecting to see the sniper that killed his friend. He never saw me. Before he could look anywhere else, I had moved my scope over his head, and pulled the trigger.

All was quiet in the office. I looked up from my scope, watching for any muzzle flashes, moving shadows, or insurrectionist RPGs. I saw none. Not anymore. The pincer attack, from above and below, was a success.

While the Falcons took most of the fire, a team was inserted at the roof by a fourth, breached down, and took the top floors while a Falcon assault team worked from below. All I could see across from my rooftop perch, rather than the casual comings and goings of Insurrectionists, were ODSTs sweeping the side rooms, rounding up hostages, and policing the bodies.

I slung the rifle over my back and stretched. Two days, watching everything that went on in the Office, had taken a toll on my back. It was nice to finally see the world without having to look through a lens.

For a second, I caught myself thinking about the Rifleman and the Specialist I had been following around, purely in an act of whimsy. It was the duty of a sniper to maintain distance, and that was far more esoteric than a regular infantryman could understand. I, despite being across the street, on the roof of another building, without interacting with a single man I was watching, had nearly gotten too close.

Now, the two men I had watched eat, talk, sleep, memorised their tics, and even started lip-reading their conversations, were dead. And I was the one to pull the trigger.

I squashed any feeling of remorse, turned my back to the warzone, and didn’t look around again.