The last time I left my heart open to another was in, the year of our Lord, 1968. In my newfound religion and faith I can now see the sin of the life I lived, of the murder, and of the man I loved. These are the last words of a decorated man, a man who put an end to a lot of violence and bloodshed, and a man with a wife and three children. My name is Michael Sandser, but for the last twenty years I’ve gone under a different alias, one given to me by the CIA. You may call me Spy. Of course, in this day, Spying has been out of the question, there’s been no demand, no conflict; so I pass time by writing memoirs, playing with my children, and dying of Lymph Node cancer. The doctor let me come home yesterday, and I feel that if I wake up next morning it will be a miracle. Many things go when you get older, your prostrate swells, you get insomnia, maybe your drive for sex goes down; yes, all of these affected me, but I never lost my hearing, and as a result I feel my heart breaking as the wracked sobs of my weeping wife find their way to my ear. There was no war, aside from Vietnam raging in the background, not in the way the government played it off. There was a conflict, yes, but it wasn’t between us and another nation, it was between two rival companies with very deep pockets and ties in Washington attempting to run a monopoly. All of the official documentation was long ago destroyed, but back in 1967 one company (I believe it was R.E.D.) contracted the government for “extra security”, they flashed the correct amount of cash, and suddenly one out of every five hundred draftees are being sent to Nevada to act out their one year tour as “protectors of America’s foundation builders”. No outside connection, just a large complex fifty miles across from another large complex; nothing but heat, sand, and ghost towns between them. The other company saw this as a threat, and with their equally deep pockets they contracted the very same that their opponents’ had, and suddenly two out of every five hundred draftees went missing. Years later an elderly woman stepped forward in the media and revealed that it had been her that had tipped off Lyndon Johnson about the misuse of her son, Arthur McGreiry, which had consequently led to the CIA sending in their top operative to infiltrate both sides and collect as much information as they could, incriminating the corrupt parties in office, and leading to the downfall of the “War”. After much sifting through draft records and actual bodies present in ‘Nam, I managed (over the course of twenty years) to track down the names of all one thousand, two-hundred and eighty base draftees that were sent to Nevada. Put this number next to the amount of people who joined for the promised money, the number rises to about two thousand men who spent at least one year in the desert. Since the official documents are either classified or destroyed, this took a very long time to compile all of the names and contact all of the families. Of two thousand-ish recruits, only seventy-eight ever returned home, and none of them ever saw any money. McGreiry never saw her son’s body, nor even knew that he’d been so close to home the entire time. I arrived at the R.E.D. complex in the heat of midday, August 4th, 1967, no one greeted me at the door, and standing there I felt absolutely ridiculous dressed in their terrible uniform. I understand now that the uniform used for identification of a person’s specialty in the field; however, I saw firsthand the effect of heat exhaustion in that place. I remember feeling like I was cooking in that suit that entire time I was over there. Later I found out that the majority of the outfits were either thrown together by the recruits or found in the basement along with other antique items, usually old weapons. I arrived five days before the very first conflict took place, back before both sides were killing each other. R.E.D.’s entire team consisted of about two hundred people, most of them young, fast and spry. The R.E.D. radio bulletin dubbed them as the point Scouts, their entire job was to go ahead and report on what they saw in the first city, which stood about two miles to the upper left of the complex. The next day they all loaded up with whatever light weapons they could carry, under lever sawed offs’, pistols, hell, one of them left with nothing but a baseball bat. Half of Scout team Alpha took city one, the other half went ahead to the outskirts of town one A (which stood adjacent to city one, it was much smaller however). The eight Spies were to split up and follow, not to engage. We were not backup for the Scouts, we were there to record and to leave if things got ugly, which they eventually did. I left my weapons and radio, taking only a camera and my notebook. Six of us went to city one, the other two went to town A, I was newest, so I went to the city, where I had more backup if anything should happen. McGreiry was killed by an unidentified gunman three days after she revealed herself to be the fall of the R.E.D. and B.L.U. construction companies. All documentation of this day was destroyed; almost all the recruits who survived were killed before they were sent home. When I joined the CIA gave me a false name and address, four weeks after the fall of the conflict that street address was bombed, no doubt in an attempt to kill me. I broke rank, I travelled ahead, and as such I’m one of the few people who saw the start of the bloodshed and lived to talk about it, I even snapped a Polaroid. I remember that standing directly across from me was an enemy in a Scout uniform, his eyes affixed directly where mine were, on the ticking contraption in between us. It just sat lazily in the middle of the street, a little over waist height, maybe a car length across. The countdown was steadily ticking down from twenty. Terror clouded my judgment, and I leapt forward, grasping the young man by his shoulders and dragging him into the side ally near him. He babbled something, and leapt into the large steel dumpster, holding the heavy lid open for me to follow. I glanced back and took a wild picture, with no real focusing, and then I dove into the dumpster. The lid closed after my ankle and he and I sat in the dark for three seconds before we heard the exclamations of our respective teams reaching the bomb. I heard him whimper slightly as the question going through our minds taunted us: Do we leave cover and warn them, risking death? He didn’t move, and neither did I. He did, however, begin to cry. What followed was a blur of heat, fire, and screaming. The dumpster was picked up by the force of the explosive and thrown down the alley into an old parked car, in the chaos he yelled something and threw himself on top of me; the worst metal-on-metal sound I’ve ever heard tore into my ears and I blacked out. When I came to, the young man was dead, the product of a steel girder through the side his back was against; I was unscathed, save a few bruises around the elbows and shoulder. He had no dog tags (this was before the regular printing of ID tags among B.L.U) but his last name was hidden in a family crest he had tattooed on his left shoulder. It took a few moments, but through the fog I pieced together the facts: I was alive; the bomb hadn’t been ours or theirs, I managed to snap a picture of it, and the man sitting directly across from me had given his life to protect me. I remember wiping the blood off of his cooling face and kissing his forehead. His last name had been Liner. The sun had gone down, which meant I’d been out for about four hours; it was about a three hour walk, and when I got their once again, no one greeted me at the door. I made it into the foyer before I hit the ground asleep. The next day I gave my report, I told them that I’d hung back like ordered, and when the explosion happened I had been struck on the head and knocked out. The commander looked at me sternly, like she knew I was lying, but she dismissed me and told me to go and stay with the rest of the team in the basement. Two hundred was cut down to seventy in one explosion, there were three survivors, the Scout with the baseball bat had scathed through with two sprained wrists, which our on-staff Medic had wrapped up. Another Spy managed to survive, but he was well on his way out (this was before that ingenious B.L.U. Medic had designed the “Heal Ray”, which turned out to be nothing but a flashlight, but it did give people a psychological boost and kept them fighting) as he took the full brunt of a collapsed building on his chest, breaking all his ribs and puncturing his lungs. The doctor told me yesterday that I should get my affairs in order, say goodbye to my children, make love to my wife, and get a last good look at the sunset. I did all of these things. R.E.D. team had mostly Scouts, two other Spies aside from me (although I doubt they had the same credentials I did), a large black man who was constantly tinkering with a large tear gas launcher with another short man who was dressed like a construction worker, and an elder man who slept in the corner couch most of the time. The baseball bat Scout came to me that night and asked me to talk to him. He told me he’d seen the bomb, and that he’d seen that it wasn’t the B.L.U.’s fault, that they had lost just as many people as we had. I remember phasing in and out of his sporadic ramblings right up until he told me that the others didn’t believe him, and that they were all planning to go out as a large team and take out the B.L.U. complex soon. The next day baseball bat Scout went missing and I didn’t run into him until a few years ago, at a conference where I had been speaking about the horrors of war. We grabbed a coffee and he told me about his kids. We never touched the subject of where he had disappeared to. The seventy-eight recruits who came back legitimately have all been on various talk shows, written books, and basically sold their story to whoever paid the most for it; unfortunately after stepping forward they all died in one form or another. Two days after baseball bat Scout disappeared, the R.E.D. complex was closed, and all of the recruits were forced into teams of twelve and sent to the various cities and towns to hold them down against the B.L.U.s. I was paired with the large black man, and eleven Scouts (this was before the two companies began to advertise for help, so most of their recruits early on were young men from the draft; it wasn’t until January 22nd 1968 that the ads started hitting major newspapers); our mission was to secure city three, as it controlled the water plant that fed all the cities and towns with fresh water, drawn from the aquifer.
I decided to challenge myself by making TF2 as realistic as I could.This has proved to be far more difficult then I originally intended, as TF2 is an absolutley ridiculous game. So I did some research on draft numbers in 'Nam, and that estimate I gave of base draftees is correct. I just had a hell of a time trying to explain away that heal ray, but then it hit me, whenever I see people getting healed by medic in the heat of battle, they usually die anyways. I tried to sneak in the origins of certain things, like the baseball bat, the double wrist wraps... I have absolutley no idea how I'm going to explain how a Heavy is going to survive in a desert environment (or a Pyro, in that case). I was thinking about making the original Heavy be a out of shape retired boxer who joined for the money (which I plan to go into later).Making this realistic is a challenge, but I think it's safe to say that if I can make it feasible, and still good, it would be a feat indeed.Um, Dr. Tanner, you totally inspired this, so... If ya' like it awesome, if you hate it then it's your own damn fault.
>turned out to be nothing but a flashlightHAHAHAHA. That fits so perfectly!A valiant effort, young (?) Zahmen. You've definitely worked on this and it shows. Now don't leave us hanging. >:o
Nah man, I'm 19, so I guess I'm average age.Um, going to a theme park today, but uh, I should be putting more up tomorrow.
You did your homework!I like it!
>>2Dude, that's actually pretty freaking sweet. A lot of thought went into this, and I like that.Well done.
Making TF2 realistic? Now there's a crazy idea.I absolutely love the premise so far, your writing is top-notch. As others said, you've put a lot of thought into this. It really shows, and it makes the story all the more intriguing. I look forward to coming installments!
I can tell how hard you've worked on this, and I really enjoyed reading a realistic take on TF2. It's always cool to hear another interpretation of such a ridiculous situation, and you did a good job keeping the realism. Moar :)
Baww.... Okay, now before I move on, I need some technical critisism, like grammar errors or misspelled words.Also, I went to Bush Gardens today, it rocked the cock.
that was very good,Zahmen.definitely realistic as far as war recounts go.looking forward to more from you.
Dang man. Vrry Nice.XD, You should throw JJ in there somewhere as a Solly.
Who as a what?sorry, not good with the lingo yet.
A 'Solly' is a soldier.As for JJ, no idea.
OH SHIT I SHOULD.
>>14DO IT FAGGOT. XD
Weee, finally got round to reading this, and I really like it. The pragmatic and honest style works well with the premise of a dying old man detailing his shady life, and it's very reminiscent of a genuine confession/conspiracy revelation/type thing.
I like how its turning out kinda dard plot-wise.I NEED MOAR!
DAMNIT! DARK not dard! God im an ass.