Untitled

Chapter 1
It was foggy when we walked out of our house in the rain of the country. It smelled good but the mood was somber because of all the sadness of the year. We had lost all of our friends and family due to shootings, random disease, and old age. I had noticed that my parents were acting off.  They didn't seem as laid back and every time I did something even slightly wrong they would beat me. I have gotten used to the pain and had begun to fight back. Their styles changing with each time I beat them. I could see the patterns of their movements. After I beat them I thought I would see a smile. As we walked out of the house we turned down the dirt path. Dad had his gun as always. Mom, the paranoid one, had a walking stick and I had my fists. I was eight years old at this time. The rain came down slowly at first then intensified quickly causing the fog to thicken.
When we were half way to our destination my dad almost got hit by a car trying to get a $100 bill on the road. A figure appeared in the mist and began chanting. My mom and dad froze. I didn't recognize the language. I had heard Spanish, German, French and Mandarin; it sounded like none of those. I froze like my parents, mesmerized by this chanting apparition. I was unable to move as he talked to my parents.  Finally, I remembered the money in the road and went to grab it. As I stood back up I saw a man in black approach my parents. He moved around them taking various things off of them. He then shot them both in front of me. I just stood there, my mouth open on the verge of fainting. He wandered up to me, pointing the gun right at my head. Suddenly he grabbed his ear and listened to his Bluetooth, dropped his arm and walked away. I fainted shortly after from shock
Chapter 2
I was woken by a slap in the face. I lashed out and punched the offending person. It was a cop.
"Oops, sorry." I say.
He fell over sputtering. I reached out a hand to help him up.
"Thanks." The cop said.
"No problem." I said, my adrenaline was pumping.
He begins to survey the scene, examining the bodies. He noted the bullet wounds. I was beginning to feel faint again. He sealed off the area.
"Wait." I say, moving toward my father's corpse. I leaned down and prayed over his body. Prayed for a safe arrival in heaven for he and my mother. As I was praying I grabbed his gun and clip of ammo. I stored them safely in my pants and headed toward the store in the industrial district my parents and I were going to. I had the $100 bill, enough to buy needed supplies.
            Chapter 3
The wind was warm with humidity when I reached the store. Passing a deserted area I spotted a little girl about my age, if not younger, clutching a hammer in her right hand. I went over to her and she raised the hammer.
"Hey, calm down, I'm not going to hurt you." I say.
"Th-that's what the people with the needles said." she stammers.
"Who are they?" I ask her, hoping to help her feel more at ease, but her grip tightens on the hammer. I notice then that the hammer has dried blood on it. I tense and nervously step away from her.
"Why is there blood on that hammer?" I query.
"I use it to kill rats." she replies cautiously.
I realize she must have been here for some time alone.
"How long have you been here, in this harsh weather?" I ask her.
"A few days." she replies a little more relaxed.
"My name is Carter." I tell her.
"Cate... m-my name is Cate." she replies, completing the greetings.
Although she was still tense she was obviously less tense now than before. She loosened her grip on the hammer, which I was still wary about. She was cute and all but she was still dangerous. I forged on trying to talk her down.
"So do you need help?" I ask probingly. She frowned and tightened her grip on the hammer again. Not a good sign. I was thinking to myself, that didn't work, when she replied softly.
"Yes, I do n-need help."
"What do you need help with?" I ask her.
"I need a shelter." she replies.
I look around and see a small box soaked in rain.
"Is this where you have been staying?" I ask incredulously, pointing to the box.
"Yes." She said shortly still not trusting me.  
"I had to get out of the rain." She says defensively.
"Can I stay with you if I can help you?" I ask. "My parents were just killed, I pause, and now I have nowhere to go.”
"No, you cannot stay with me, but thanks anyway." She says bitingly. I had expected that but it made me frown anyway. I left her and continued on my journey to the store. I purchased as much wood and nails as I could and had $20 to spare. I bought a cheap guitar and some sheet music to play and headed back to where I had left Cate. I found her where I left her.
"Where and how did you get all that?" She was surprised.
"At the home depot, I had $100 that I had found." I replied nonchalantly. I grabbed some wood and nails and began to put together a crude foundation for our shelter. I planned to stay with her even if she didn't want me there. She handed me the hammer to use with the nails. I knew then she was going to let me stay. She trusted me.
"I won't break this on purpose." I tell her. She smiled as she realized how much I didn't want to make her mad or depressed. I nailed enough wood together to make the structure as tall as me. I was about three feet tall, she was shorter. It was big enough for a twin size bed. I didn't have enough wood left to cover the roof. Cate had gone scavenging while I was busy. She came back with a tarp and some cactus to eat.
"Nice find." I tell her. The tarp was a perfect fit to cover the roof. The cactus was cooked over a fire she built. I hadn't noticed how hungry I was. I pulled out the guitar after we ate. I tried to play a few chords. I needed more practice but it was a nice distraction. I didn't want to think about my dead parents and my uncertain future. I was beginning to feel very tired and my fingers hurt because I was not used to playing the guitar. I mastered the song at regular tempo. Cate came up to me and said,
"That was really good. I have decided you can stay with me, because you built me a home. You used all your money to help me. Thank you."
"N-no p-problem."
She laid on the ground inside our shelter and I followed her in. I lay down next to her and drew the gun from my pants. I laid it next to my head and quickly fell asleep.
When I woke Cate had her hammer in my face. Shocked, I asked her, "What are you doing?"
"Shh.....be quiet and get your gun". She whispered.
I reached for my gun quietly, wondering what was going on. Then I heard the helicopter overhead and saw the search light sweeping the area nearby. I pushed her to the back of the shelter to protect her from the light.
"We need to stay down, are there any trash cans around here?" I ask her.
"There is one across the road" She replies.
"Darn it, I guess we stay here then. We can't reach it from here". We huddled together quietly, both shaking in fear, until the helicopters passed us by. It took about 3 hours. There were foot soldiers searching the area near our shelter. They would come close to the shelter but never spotted it, we could hear the clunking of their heavy boots. They rested near our shelter. We kept a death grip on our feeble weapons, a forty five caliper pistol and a small hammer. The next morning we found an assault rifle and a forty five caliber gun left by one of the soldiers. I was so excited. Now we could both have adequate protection and an extra gun.
"I don't know how to use a gun or how to fight." Cate admitted.
"I can teach you." I offered.
"Yes, that would be great." She smiled.
"We need to feed ourselves first." I suggested.
"We can hunt, make a bow and arrow." She replied.
"Us, hunting, at our age? Deer?" I asked.
"Yes, we can do it. I know what plants we can eat. We just need meat." She said.
"Let's get to work then. We will need sinew to make the bow string." I began to think where we would be able to find some. Cate found a dead cat and began to gut it. Once she had the sinew ready I attached it to the bow I had made. She tried it several times but it kept slapping her in the face. We made arrows out of straight wood, discarded glass and feathers we found.  We started to hunt the next day. We tried small game first. We learned from our failures. Our first kill was a rabbit. It tasted like steak to us we were so hungry. On our second trip we had something fall on Cate's leg, cutting it pretty badly. Cate found some paper, surprisingly, and then began to wrap it with a 3 leafed vine. I didn't know what it was but it worked for now. After that a branch came whipping into our faces and knocking us out
Chapter 4
I woke spread eagle on weird table. I thought I was dreaming but as I couldn't get up. Panic set in as I realized I was strapped down.
"Huh!" I yelled, but I didn't hear my own voice. The door slowly opened to reveal a man in black holding a medical record. I could clearly see Cates name on it. The paper was spotted with blood. The man sees me looking at the file in fear. In a husky voice he says, "She isn't dead if that is what you think."
"The b-blood?" I said scared for once.
He ignores the question and keeps talking. "You see we need her to experiment on for our armor," he pauses, "the armor you see me in now is made of her skin and our armor combined."
"How does she have any skin left?" I ask.
"We let it regenerate then tear it off again." He replies nonchalantly.
"You monster! Using a little girl as some sort of toy! How dare you! She has not done anything wrong to you and yet you treat her like a rat!" I ranted.
"Yes we do, her parents gave her up because she is a freak of nature, and they didn't want her. We have many uses for her." He explains.
"Screw you! She is the nicest girl I have ever met!" He didn't listen to me, crossed the room and punched me unconscious.
When I woke up again I was still strapped to the table and I hurt very badly. The pain was so intense I passed out again. I woke some time later and didn't hurt at all. I experimented with moving my arms and legs; still restrained I was unable to budge. Suddenly I was set free. The straps cut. I sat up slowly and looked around wondering who let me free. Cate was standing back from the table, her face bloody. She motioned me to follow. I was so scared I could barely make my legs work. She was shaking with each step meaning she was scared more than I was. Understandably since they had done a lot more to her than to me.
"Relax Cate, please; I don't want you to be scared more than me. I am new here." I tried to joke.
"You don't want to be here. Before the experiments they stole me from my parents. My parents didn't want to give me up. They killed them because they fought to protect me." She informed me.
"Oh." I pause thinking that she has had it harder than I ever could have. A black suited man appeared right in front of me and swung at my head. I hit him in the stomach with a drop kick. He fell to the floor wheezing. He was standing up again to fight. I kicked him in the head. He fell back, eyes wide open and frozen. I had killed him. I looked in shock at what I had just done. I didn't mean to kill him. He was the first living thing I had killed and I felt horrible.
"Cate, what have I done?" I gasped.
"You killed him apparently," she paused, "thank you, he was my torturer." She said.
"B-but I-I killed him." I stuttered. I was shaking violently and vomited all over the dead man. Cate began to move away from the scene, not shaken by his death. I follow her out of the compound; she knew where she was going. She must have scouted the way out of the place. That or she was going to leave me here while she escaped. I couldn't tell with her. She seemed so cold I was determined to make her a little warmer towards me. I thought, maybe if I cook.... We trekked for 5 miles taking frequent breaks and talking. Well, I did most of the talking; she listened while I told her my story. I must have had some effect on her because I after I finished my story she started to talk back. She told me her story, how she was tortured with knives, experimented on, and kept in a cage too small. She told me she has back pain that keeps her from sleeping most nights. I noticed she was hunching a little as she walked. She continued to tell me about the torture. The doctors removed parts of her organs, fed her very little, gave her only drinks with dye in them for radiology purposes. She told me when she was out she would stand in the rain for hours drinking as much water as she could. I was moved by her emotion and spontaneously reached over to hug her. She looked at me in shock as if it was her first hug then pushed me away quickly.
"What's wrong?" I asked, worried.
"What did you just do to me?" She said, scared.
"I hugged you." I paused, realizing it was her first hug since being taken from her parents as a young child. I hugged her warmly again.
"Oh." She blushes. “Thank you." She says as we walk toward our "home". We both fell asleep as soon as we got there. I didn't fail to notice she was a little closer to me this time.
Chapter 5
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10 years later (This is after carter trains her in martial arts and had her strengthen herself by push-ups, crunches and pull ups I could do more than her but just barely) they begin to find out who they really are or aren't carter has made many advances to get Cate to go out with him to a movie for fun Cate said not to have fun until they were strong and self-sufficient, which they now were and actually got an apartment instead of their temporary home within a month as the company had found  them and they moved quickly and carter now knew how to play the guitar as a hobby and earned money occasionally for playing on the side of the road, his job as a welder being his real job with the welder he found, until now. Cate now could play drums pretty well they had kept their hobbies secret from each other for 3 years then when they could play very well they revealed their hobbies to each other and began to play together as a band and is when they try to go into the military even when they are 18 they try to get into the navy then to the seal teams. And surprisingly they only go on 5 missions; also the military did something special for them they changed their last names to carter’s last name of McGinnis because they realized that carter was Cate’s parent with all purposes as she had no records and they could tell some kind of bond had been made between them but before they went to the military they made knives thanks to carters skill as a welder they melted some metal with a oxy-acetylene torch and formed it with sand however they wanted them to be special and gave blood for the knife and cooled the knives with that blood they keep them at all  times  with them as a symbol of family and of the family that they have lost
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CHAPTER 6
Why do you want in this program anyways? You are just kids the first kids your age that have even come here I might add."  The recruiter says
"Just because we are young doesn't mean we aren't ready" I say to him cate joins into the argument
“What I want to know is why do you want in?"  He asks
"We came from nothing we live on our own we hunt and scavenge at our house we want a team to be a part of" Cate says
"We want a family as we have never really had one." I say
"I don't know should we let them Lieutenant Knob?"
"You know I don't like it when you call me that" Lieutenant Knob says
"I know." the recruiter said
"Kids you are in" lieutenant knob says
"Woo!!!" we exclaim
We are in the program and we head to the navy base, in a different location as it changed in ten years, and begin training most of the people there picked on us when we got there, but as the training went on we showed them that we were the best. The instructors never called our names, as we had looked up what we needed to do in base camp and had practiced , and we passed with flying colors we were so good that we were instantly recruited to spec ops that's when the struggle began for us we had trouble keeping up, as we didn’t have a formal education, but we helped each other out thought bullet wound after bullet wound , I was the medic most of the time so I knew what to do in the field, and even when she was wounded she would still go on and she became known as the ghost and I the missionary and we passed our training harshly but better than most and then we were told that the most dangerous missions were ours because we were so young and the enemies wouldn't expect us. We found a dog on the side of the road, barely alive it had been hit by a car, and fed it with some leftover meat from our hunting trip we had just taken. We trained the dog; it was eager to please us, made dummies for it and had it “kill” the dummies by ripping out their throats, we had packed the dummies throat with animal meat that wasn’t the best idea we found out later, we don’t want to reveal why. After we got the dog trained we named him Alex, after carter’s father’s name, the dog only responded to us after that and when we took him to the team they said he was ours for every mission, we hadn’t gone on one yet. But on this mission we were going to Russia

Chapter 7 Mission One
Operatives
Cate (ghost) McGinnis: weapons: m1911 45.caliber pistol and a 10gauge shotgun and regular body armor
Carter (missionary) McGinnis: m1911, m-16 assault rifle, 2 grenades, medkits, heavy armor
(Dog) Alex (lone wolf): teeth, claws, heavy armor
Daniel Harmon (flames): a grenade launcher and a LSAT Light Machine Gun, medium armor
(Inside man) Andrea (last name not known) (newbie): 1911 pistol, no armor
Juliana smith (gamer): 1911 pistol and an mp5 submachine gun light armor
“Alright people let’s get ready” carter yelled over the noise of the helicopter
Yes sir!” the rest yelled followed by a bark from our dog
There was the sound of cocking weapons as we got into the helicopter  Andrea was the last on after the dog she didn’t look to happy about that being humiliated like that and as she got on her straps on her combat vest got snagged on something ,she didn’t notice this,  in the helicopter as she sat down. We took off shortly after that as we checked our weapons for defects. As we got there 15 minutes later when we thought we were being stealthy something of someone must have detected us because before we could actually get off our repelling ropes an RPG hit out helicopter all of us got off even. Andrea except she didn’t make it this is what happened
(Censored)
As we got over her death it wasn’t too hard for Cate and I because of all of the stuff we had already lost so we were used to it but the rest of them started to break down so I and Cate stepped in and gave them a pep talk but they just called us cold and heartless and we were fine with that as we didn’t have much to say even our dog picked up on the mood and tried to help us calm them down. Our dog did try it seemed to work and we got our weapons ready and began to move through the dense forest and snow covered of the base we were trying to infiltrate we encountered a few buildings as we swept through the base and we searched each  one for documents on anything bomb related as we were in the new soviet Russia as relations with the soviets had gotten worse for the last year or  two and were suspected of building weapons of mass destruction our mission was to find out what was going on and sabotage if we could.
As we moved closer to the base we had to hunker down more and more because of patrols around the base freezing as we did as we didn’t bring any warm clothes to allow for more movement quickly. We were freezing by the time when got there but Cate and I forged on regardless of any complaints from our fellow squadmates and even our dog started to lose steam as we arrived Cate and I were fine from all of the training that we had done earlier in life. Suddenly, a three person patrol showed up in our face and they were as surprised as we were but Cate grabbed two of the muzzles from their guns and brought them into their face while I tripped the other and swiftly kicked him in the face knocking them all out simultaneously and then our dong pounced on the one I knocked out and tore out his throat while Cate slit the other two’s necks we talked after ward
“This is good but unplanned” I said
“How is this good?” Daniel and Juliana said together
“Because now we can actually get into the base without incident “
“But what about getting out?” Daniel said.
“Cate and I will figure that out along with one of you guys so who wants in?”
“I do “Juliana said
We called in to command that there had been a change in plans that Juliana, Cate, and I would infiltrate the base and be out within five hours and to have transport ready at the exfil spot after that time command didn’t like it but they knew it was our best chance to get information on the soviets plans. As we joined a soviet patrol and melded with them we didn’t say anything while they were talking, as none of us knew Russian, but suddenly two silenced shots ring out taking out two of the four then Cate and I sprang into action surprised someone would help them but took out the other two by snapping their necks after it was done the trees rustled and two heads popped up Cate and I drew our weapons on them
“Wait we’re on your side” they whispered
Cate and I didn’t trust the two men but figured if they had enemy uniforms on and helped them then they were ok but we still didn’t trust them all the way but they were our way in so we took it but we had our guns ready to draw except when they encountered other Russians we let them do the talking and the others just walked off after talking and raised their guns where they were going as if they were going to kill something we just continued without incident it took us an hour to get to the command post and we got out flash drives but as we did we heard the cocking of a gun behind each of us we whirled around and punched the offending people in the throat then Juliana fumbled with her weapon and shot the two “helpers” in the head then pointed at us with the gun the alarm begins to blare
“Put your weapon down Juliana!” carter yells over the alarms
“Get on the ground!” Juliana yells struggling over the alarm to be heard
Cate gets on the ground as told but carter still stands trying to talk her down and he figured he should figure out why Juliana would turn on them and be moving closer to her the whole time
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I want the soviets plan to go on unharmed”
“You know their plans?”
“Yes, I do and I want them to continue I don’t like America! The prices are too high the debt to big. People don’t care what you say unless you are their company. ”
Carter smacks her over the head with his pistol knocking her out and helps cate up and begins the download however as he does two soviet troops burst through the doors and carter releases two shots to the pistol to each of the men and they crumple
“Come on you dumb download hurry up!” carter said as it reached the halfway point then cate went to the console and began to type the override code to the base which she found on Juliana’s body and the download sped up considerably after about two minutes the download finished and we began to get out of the base by faking being hurt. We got into a truck and began to leave but the soviets figured it out and began shooting at us I concentrated on driving to the exfil point two as we called command and called in the second exfil point
“Copy that hunter we will send as soon as possible”
“We need it now!” carter yelled carter left the mic on for a second so command could hear them getting pummeled.
“Copy that” after they said that there was chatter on our radios then “We are sending one now!”
“Be advised exfil bravo is hot!” I said as a bullet went into the radio killing it
“Carter you ok?”
“Yup just keep firing!”
“I’m out of rounds!”
“Use mine!”
Cate fumbles with my magazines as I went over a bump and loads her gun and continues to fire at the soviets not even making a dent in their assault on us and the assault goes all the way to the second exfil point where we stood our ground with pistols only for two minutes while we waited for the chopper almost getting hit by two RPG’s on the way out in our chopper but we made it out with our lives and made it back to the base for our debrief

Chapter 8
“Good mission except for that last bit?” the captain said
“Not really cap two of our squad is gone one from chopper blades, the other betrayed us in the middle of the download and I knocked her out and left her” carter replied
“I cowered when she pointed her gun at me “ cate said shamefully
“Its ok cate everyone has their moments of panic you did well for your 1st mission “
“Yeah cate it’s ok at least your ok” carter says cheerfully
Carter hand s him the flashdrive full of information and smiles to cate and hugs her as she was crying because of her failure to keep bearing in the face of danger as carter hugs her however her demeanor changes from the warmth of the hug as carter and cate have been through enough together to know that they have each other’s back no matter what and as a surprise to cate I kissed her with a great passion and she pushed me away quickly as a result but I noticed she was blushing as she realized how close we were then she got up and left leaving me dumbfounded that she would leave after I finally did it because for months I was trying to get the courage to advance on her and she knew that because I had asked her on dates but she wouldn’t come with me even to paintball (which was her favorite past time) I sat there for an hour in the briefing room thinking that I couldn’t get her to go with me to anything and that I should stop trying but then she came back in and gave me hope by saying
“Would you like to go out to pizza for lunch?”
I must have looked dumbfounded because she smiled at me and pulled me up and hugged me saying in my ear
“Don’t let this slip through your fingers” then took her time walking out putting her guns away. Then I slowly stand up and follow her to pizza at Little Czar’s and we just talked and stayed in the restaurant for an hour just talking about our adventures as kids as we laugh about them now but we did some serious harm to ourselves back in the day and I realize now being a medic that Cate knew what she was doing even though she wasn’t a medic and I wondered what goes on in that head of hers after we were done we headed back to our briefing room at 1200 and as we grabbed our weapons and the captain walks in with a humongous stack of papers in Russian and English(translated for us as we didn’t know Russian)
“The Intel you guys recovered revealed something strange about their plans they are planning to make an anthro cyber dragon”