Bad Soldiers.

19Mar08

It is the normal performance on a different stage. Brock lunges and Molotov dodges. Bullets fly and miss, steel clangs against steel. The usual game played with the usual moves. He manages to knock her off her feet, but she plays dirty and grabs the hem of his jeans, tugging him down as well. When he falls on her, she kicks him over her head. He grabs her ankles and pulls her after him.

He lets go of her in mid-air. She spins and lands on her feet, but in the time difference between their landings, he has gained the upper hand, and tackles her. They fall back together, her arms wrapping around his neck in the descent. Brock grins and anticipates hitting the snow.

Except that when they do land, the ground caves in under them and they continue falling. Molotov shrieks, surprised, and Brock flips them so that he will not land on top of her and crush her lungs. He lands, back down, on icy dirt, with Molotov still clutched in his arms. They blink at each other for a moment, then she clambers off him and stares up at the hole in the cavern roof. They are at least fifty feet underground.

He stands and joins her in gaping, but she turns and shoves him roughly. “What the hell did you do, Samson?” she demands, glaring.

“Me?” he echoes angrily, pushing her back. “Why the fuck would I trap myself in an underground cavern?”

“I do not seek to understand your thought patterns,” she sneers. “Get us out of here.”

“Yeah, let me just pull the five-story tall ladder out of my ass, Mol.” He lights a cigarette and looks back up at the hole.

“While you are up there, perhaps you could dislodge your head as well,” she shoots back, seizing the cigarette from his lips. She takes a drag and exhales, then acknowledges his glare with a smirk. “You did this to me, it’s the least I can do to repay you.”

Brock punches her in the jaw. Molotov kicks him in the crotch. He groans in a strangled manner, then crumples to the ground, waiting for the pain to subside. She walks away, inspecting their temporary prison.

When he can finally stand, she glances over at him and crosses her arms. “So? What do you suggest we do, Samson?”

Mind still hazy with pain, Brock shakes his head. “I don’t know. My communications don’t work more than 250 miles outside of the nearest base. Yours?”

Molotov cocks her head. “Communications? Oh, you mean what you use when you fail at your assignments. I do not have any.”

Brock glares for a moment. “You don’t have any?”

“I do not have any, Samson. Why is that hard to understand?”

“You have at least four guns on you, and no way of communicating with your base?”

“How I do my job is none of your concern. Besides, where the hell do you think I would put one if I wore it?” She spreads her arms. Brock scans her quickly; she has a point. Even her coat doesn’t leave room for any kind of excess baggage. He wonders where, exactly, she keeps all those weapons and smokes.

“So we’re stuck here?”

“Until we starve or freeze to death, I suppose,” she answers off-handedly. Brock looks at her in horror. Molotov shrugs. “Do you have anything to make a fire with?”

He digs through his pockets, coming up only with his wallet, which she immediately snatches and yanks anything paper from. He gawks as she forms a little pile with receipts and dollar bills that were useless in this country anyway, then sets them ablaze. The fire is tiny, but it’s light and warm, and Molotov plunks down in front of it. At a loss for anything else to do, Brock sits down next to her. She snorts at his closeness and crosses her legs, indian-style.

“Mol,” he says, staring into the fire.

“What,” she responds flatly.

“There has to be something we can do.”

“Samson, even if either of us could get in contact with our bases, someone would get killed.”

“… We could try and get in touch with your people.”

She turns and looks at him, stunned. “Setting aside the impossibility of what you just said, Samson, did you actually just offer to die?”

“No, I just meant –”

“You did,” she interrupts. “Samson, I have never met a bigger idiot than you. Besides, if you really are suicidal, I am right here.”

Brock rolls his eyes. “Shut up. I just meant that we could figure something out if we could just get some help.”

Molotov holds her hands out to the slowly-dimming blaze. “Well, we can’t, so make peace with your higher power, my dog.”

“We’re not gonna freeze,” he insists. “There are plenty of ways to keep warm.”

She groans irritably, ignoring his comment. “Even if we do not freeze, neither of us have anything to eat.”

He swallows all the innuendo that immediately threaten to come blurting out of his mouth and instead stares at the fire again. It is almost out, and Brock wishes there were at least some loose roots this far down in the ground. The blaze whittles down to nothing, and they sit there in silence.

After a little while, he hears Molotov rub her hands up and down her arms. He reaches over in the dark and touches her wrist. “Are you cold?”

“It’s fine,” she answers. “It is not that bad.”

“Are you sure?”

“Da.”

He takes his jacket off and wraps it around her shoulders anyway. She scoots closer to him, arms wrapped around herself, and leans against him. Brock puts his arm over his coat. They go back to silence, trying to conserve energy, and because neither of them know what to say to the other anyhow.

Several hours later, Brock starts to doze off, head drooping forward. Molotov pokes him sharply and he jerks awake. “Do not sleep, Samson,” she hisses. “It is too cold for that.”

He yawns. “Then keep me awake. Talk to me.”

“What?”

“Talk. You never have a problem with that when I want you to shut up.”

Molotov scowls. “Fine. What should I talk about?”

“Anything. What were you going to do before we ran into each other?”

“Go to dinner.”

“With?”

“A friend.”

“Who?”

“Do not worry about that. What were you going to do?”

“Find you.”

She curls closer to him. “What else?”

“Last movie you saw.”

“Serpico.”

“You guys just get that here?” he asks, amused.

“Ha-ha,” she says, sarcastic. “Last book you read.”

“Biography of Teddy Roosevelt. Where was your last assignment?”

“Italy. What did you do before you became OSI?”

“Marines. You, before the KGB?”

“I have always been KGB.”

“Before the government.”

“Gymnastics.”

“Why’d you quit?”

“I would rather kill people. Why did you?”

“I got tired of only killing people.”

“Why didn’t you advance your rank?”

“Because I changed my department.”

“Only bad soldiers,” she says under her breath.

“What?”

She looks up at him. “Only bad soldiers do not want to be general,” she elaborates.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks.

“Figure it out for yourself.”

Brock rolls his eyes. “You still cold?”

“Very. You?”

“Freezing,” he answers. He turns her head so that she is looking at him. “Kiss me.”

She does. Brock shifts her body so that he can grab her hips and pull her onto his lap, and Molotov grasps his face to kiss him harder. His jacket falls from her shoulders to the ground, and he leans forward so that she is lying on her back on top of it. Her legs lock around his hips, and he can feel her ankles pressing down on his tailbone. Growling, he runs his thumb under her right breast, over her catsuit. She moans against his mouth, and clutches at the back of his head.

He is about to start pulling off her clothing when a light shines down into the darkness and they both hear a voice.

“Samson! Samson, goddamn you, are you in there?”

Brock looks up toward the voice, and Molotov looks up at him. “Hunter?” Brock calls. “Is that you?”

“Of course it’s me, you dog-cock son of a whore, who else would it be? Where are you, I can’t see you.”

He scrambles to his feet and pulls Molotov up. After hurriedly putting his jacket on, Brock grabs Molotov’s wrist and yanks her toward the light and Hunter’s voice. They can just barely see Hunter grinning down at them, and a rope ladder being lowered.

“Climb on, boy-o,” Hunter tells Brock. “Took me damn hours to find you, I’m tired as a bastard.” The ladder reaches them, and Brock glances at Molotov, who is calmly smoking, then looks questioningly up at Hunter. “You too, you rat bitch Commie,” Hunter orders. “The death you have coming to you doesn’t involve becoming a Pinkosicle.”

Molotov rolls her eye, but climbs up the ladder anyway. Brock follows her. When they reach the surface, she nods curtly at Hunter, acknowledging his help and, in her own way, thanking him, and he nods back. She then starts trekking in the opposite direction through the snow.

“What about your car?” Brock asks loudly.

She doesn’t stop or turn around, but holds up a small remote with a red button on it. She presses the button, still walking, and there is a huge explosion behind the two men. Both watch fire shoot into the sky, then fade. “Good-bye, my Samson,” Molotov calls to him, almost out of sight.

Brock and Hunter turn in the direction of the explosion and start back. Hunter sighs. “It’s doesn’t matter how many times I tell you stay away from her, does it, boy? That succubus is going to be the death of you if you keep this crap up.”

Rolling his eyes, Brock looks ahead. “Hey, Hunter, you ever heard of a phrase that goes ‘only bad soldiers don’t want to be general’?”

Hunter lights up a new cigarette. “Uh-huh. Means if a man doesn’t want to advance his station, he’s no good at what he does. Why?”

Brock glances back over his shoulder, unsure of what he’s looking for. “No reason, heard it around.” He looks forward again and keeps walking through the snow.

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