Prompt Swap for tdscott8
Sunday, January 1st, 2017 01:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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mindcrackloveSorry, happy new year I guess...
The prompt I used was:
1) Spy-esque AU: Person A is a former spy and has a trigger word that causes them to act in specific ways, or perform specific acts.
I had great fun writing this, and although the prompt is in a way, finished ( however I am sorry I haven't put a massive focus on it), the story is not, so more will be on the way ASAP: think of it as a gift that just keeps on giving (It's mainly because I was trying to write a whole novel on new years eve, which wasn't happening)
---
In a small, quaint cottage in South Wales, a man named Millbee was (he considered) rudely awakened by the clanging of his letterbox. He promptly sat up in bed. And fell back down again. A sharp pain had seared through his head and everything ached.
At last, he managed to just about stumble down the stairs, to find a glass of water and something to numb the pain. He made a mental note to never drink that much again (Although, this was his third hangover this week). One mug of coffee later, his head has stopped spinning enough to comprehend words and went to pick up the one brown envelope lying on the doormat. Inside, there was a plane ticket and a note, reading:
“An agent will pick you up at the airport and take you to your destination”
No signature. No nothing. The ticket was for 12:30. Which was in… 1 hour (bloody Royal Mail). Millbee sighed and ordered a cab. The whole business was very mysterious. He thought that when they said he was ‘Retired’, that’s what they meant. ‘You can live a peaceful life,’ they had told him (at least as peaceful as you can when you’re constantly under surveillance). He assumed this was authorised by them, this looked like their work – not something he’d missed in the recent years. He looked at the ticket again, decided it was too mentally taxing to deduce where he was going and instead went to pack some clothes, which turns out is much harder when you don’t know where you’re going or for how long.
The cab brought him to the airport just in time to be fast tracked straight to business class, collecting many haughty looks from his unshaven face and scruffy attire. He was especially delighted by the free booze on the flight and by the time the plane touched down, he was out for the count. By some stroke of luck, he managed to retrieve the correct bags and groggily stumble outside to be met by a line of classic yellow taxis so he deduced that he was probably in New York (There had also been a massive sign in the airport saying “Welcome to New York”, but apparently he had managed to miss that).
A finger tapped Millbee as he was attempting to search for a sign with his name on, and he spun round to meet a woman dressed in a smart black suit and wearing sunglasses, her dark red hair tied up in a ponytail. Without saying anything, she took hold of his arm and escorted him to an unassuming black car then jumped into the driver’s seat. They zigzagged past all of the waiting cabs and sped onto the highway, the buildings rising up around them. Millbee had never been to New York before, in fact, he’d hardly ever visited anywhere outside the UK, so he spent most of the journey in awe of the thousands of people rushing through the streets and the overwhelming aliveness of the city. Finally he had the sense to ask the woman driving the car where she was planning to take him.
“You don’t read the news much, do you? I thought you were meant to be a superspy?” Was the answer he got from the driver’s seat.
The slightly drunk man decided that this was probably as useful a response as he was going to get and instead of asking more questions, decided to contemplate whether he was a ‘superspy’ (Nobody had ever called him that before, he got ‘nuisance’ more often), and watch the buildings and piles of rubble glide by accompanied by car horns and shouts from the traffic all around.
Finally, after a huge traffic jam, the car pulled up to a skyscraper somewhere in Manhattan, he was once again escorted into the building’s clean and light but very generic foyer, and into an elevator which whisked them up almost to the top floor. They emerged into and expectant audience sitting around a meeting table. The man at one end gestured to a seat somewhere in the middle, next to a man in a very dapper orange suit. The woman, who had been very quiet until now, moved to stand at the end of the table and cleared her throat.
“Now, we all know why we’re here, except maybe Mr. Millbee, who will be joining us temporarily”
Millbee could feel all the eyes round the table move to him and he suddenly wished he had managed to neaten himself up on the plane. He wasn’t sure if he was meant to say anything, so instead just gave an awkward half wave and a nervous smile. Looking around he detected a lot of poorly concealed distaste directed at him but he chose to ignore it. The man next to him, who Millbee had just noticed had blue hair, gave him a slightly comforting smile.
“Anyway, on to the issue: In the past week there have been a large number of random attacks on sites in New York, completely demolishing the buildings.” The woman brought up a map with four red dots on a projector behind her. “The media, as I’m sure you have seen are hyping it up to be a large scale terrorist attack, but there have been a total of 1 death and 12 casualties across all of the attacks.”
Another man stood up wearing a green shirt with a ‘G’ embroidered on the pocket and jeans and continued. “We can’t find any correlation between the attack sites, and we’ve had next to nothing on evidence from any of them”
“As of yesterday they’ve launched a full scale police investigation,” responded the woman, “but there's nothing from them either”
Millbee turned to the man next to him and whispered groggily “So that's why the traffic is so horrible then? Police blocking up everywhere?”
“Actually, no, it's just always this bad,” The man in the orange suit started cleaning his glasses anxiously.
Oblivious to the fact that everyone round the table could hear his whispers, Millbee continued “and so who's Ms Business over there then? Seems like a tough boss-”
“I'm sorry to forget the formalities, Mr Millbee.” The red haired lady raised her eyes dubiously at him but motioned to herself, “I'm Aureylian, head of the FBI here, then this man is Guude, my second in command, and the man you are sitting next to is MC, our new recruit”
Millbee was slightly lost for words as he had thought he was being a little quieter than in turned out he actually was, so only managed a stuttered “Thanks.”
As if nothing had happened, Aureylian turned back to the rest of the table and addressed a man on the other side of the table who was browsing a laptop in front of him “Any news, Sev?”
“It seems as if…” Sevadus looked at least as confused as Millbee felt, “I don't know if the Police have authorised this, but they're starting building work on the first bomb site already”
“It's almost as if they're trying to hide the evidence,” Aureylian wondered quietly, “but anyway, next order of business: who will accompany Millbee on the fieldwork for this mission?”
All eyes frantically searched for someone to nominate, some ducking lower in their chairs until they found a blue haired figure. The man in question nervously stood up and addressed the meeting “I suppose I can do it… I haven't got much experience though, it seems like a pretty high profile case, y’know...” But there were no objections round the table.
Aureylian stood up again, her aura of business drew everyone's eyes. “Meeting adjourned.” She stated and motioned to Guude to follow her into an office at the back of the room.
Most attendees were now returning to their work, but Millbee aimlessly stood alongside MC. “Maybe we should ask Aureylian for the plan of action?” He suggested, They ambled up to the door to hear muffled shouts coming from inside;
“He's not a superspy, he may as well be a drunk you've picked off the streets!”
“He was only a suggestion! Why can't we do this by ourselves anyway?”
“I had a feeling. Plus he was meant to be one of the best! He got so much intelligence for the Russians during the Cold War.”
“Well, there may have been a mixup!”
MC gently knocked on the door and the voices stopped at once. “Come in,” a voice called and they opened the door. MC timidly asked “We were just, er, wondering what the plan was?”
“Ah, yes, sorry” Aureylian turned away from Guude who was standing next to her, disgruntled. “There is an event at the Strand Hotel this evening: a business awards do. All of the victims will be there, try and see if you can get any information out of them, here are your tickets. In the meantime, see if you can find Mr. Millbee a place to stay and… smarten him up, let's say”
---
Several hours later Millbee found himself in a five star hotel room and a new suit with MC, face shaven, for once. He stared out of the full height window at the sunset behind the New York skyline feeling a new air of sophistication. His head was still gently throbbing, but nothing that a few glasses of champagne wouldn't fix, he thought.
“You're not nervous at all?” MC asked from where he was perched on the bed behind him. “I suppose it's not your first time doing this kind of thing though, is it.” MC looked rather glum, and Millbee though he could detect a hint of fear in his voice.
“How can you be scared? You look like James Bond, you gotta act like him now.” Millbee turned, MC was dressed in a full suit, complete with orange bow tie, blue hair slicked back. “I mean, what can go wrong?”
“I guess. Your experience will protect me then, I hope” MC looked up almost respectfully at him and gave a small smile.
He turned towards the door. “Would now be a good time to say I don't remember ever spying at all?”
“What?” A startled response from behind him.
“It's just supposedly I worked for the Russians during the Cold War, but I don't remember a thing. Maybe they wiped my memory or something...”
MC panicked. He started pacing round the room waving his hands wildly muttering thongs about “going in blind!”, and “no experience!”
Motioning for him to stop and failing, Millbee just pinned the panicked man's arms to his sides and stated “We will do fine.” He escorted him into the lift and the proceeded into the hall where the party was taking place.
They mingled in with the other businessmen and women milling around and standing in clumps having conversations. MC flicked through a set of pictures on his phone of the owners of the buildings demolished in the attacks. While MC was finding a person to interrogate, Millbee sauntered over to the drinks table, almost bumping into a tall thin man who was standing there, surveying the gathering. The man cast him a thoughtful look but seemed unwilling to talk, so he sidled back to his companion who was making conversation with an old man and his wife.
“And, you see, they were making us such a good offer, it made so much more sense to sell it. I see they've started rebuilding already. I'll miss that place, you see, but all things move on of course.” The man was droning on.
“Who did you sell what?” Millbee interrupted, the champagne he had just downed clearly taking effect. The man was evidently taken aback, and MC took the liberty to introduce him.
“This is Mr. Boone, of Boone enterprises. He recently sold his property that was destroyed to Atlas, a worldwide corporation. Well, er, thank you Mr Boone, we should mix with some others now. Networking, you know how it goes.” MC promptly led Millbee off into the crowds in the ballroom.
“Well that was smooth… I bet we could have gotten more information out of him but you interrupted.” MC whispered, fustrated. “Just leave the talking to me, ok?” Millbee nodded and slid a glass off the passing tray.
After a few, not exactly exciting hours of conversation, they had only managed to find out the name of one other buyer: Stala, a Norwegian Bank. However all the victims had confirmed that their destroyed properties had been sold. At present they had gotten trapped in a conversation with the Mayor of New York who was rambling about various policies of which he had no interest at all. MC was trying his best to sound interested but Millbee’s mind had wandered. He was awoken from his thoughts by a waiter car ring a tray of food.
“Hors d’oeuvre, Sir?” Millbee gratefully took a couple, and swayed slightly before standing straight up, eyes fixed forward. MC turned to talk to him but was pushed away as Millbee reached into his pocket to pull out out a gun. MC flustered to try and hide Millbee along with whispers along the lines of “ What the hell are you doing?” He quickly directed the crazed man towards the bathroom and into a stall.
Running a hand through his blue hair, MC turned to Millbee. “What the hell? You don't just pull a gun at a party! A gun nobody knew you had, no less!”
“You need to be prepared.” Millbee replied monotonously. No signs of panic were visible In his face. “Who is the enemy?”
“That's what we're trying to find out!” Exclaimed MC, exasperated, “And what you have consistently mucked up all evening!” his only hope was to escort Millbee quietly back to his hotel room and hope nobody noticed.
---
“Sir, is this an anomaly? He hasn't been active for years; I thought he was dead…” A dark figure stood in front of an array of monitors scanning them.
“We must see what he is up to, I think” Another figure walked to stand beside his partner. “A holiday is in order, my Comrade.”
The prompt I used was:
1) Spy-esque AU: Person A is a former spy and has a trigger word that causes them to act in specific ways, or perform specific acts.
I had great fun writing this, and although the prompt is in a way, finished ( however I am sorry I haven't put a massive focus on it), the story is not, so more will be on the way ASAP: think of it as a gift that just keeps on giving (It's mainly because I was trying to write a whole novel on new years eve, which wasn't happening)
---
In a small, quaint cottage in South Wales, a man named Millbee was (he considered) rudely awakened by the clanging of his letterbox. He promptly sat up in bed. And fell back down again. A sharp pain had seared through his head and everything ached.
At last, he managed to just about stumble down the stairs, to find a glass of water and something to numb the pain. He made a mental note to never drink that much again (Although, this was his third hangover this week). One mug of coffee later, his head has stopped spinning enough to comprehend words and went to pick up the one brown envelope lying on the doormat. Inside, there was a plane ticket and a note, reading:
“An agent will pick you up at the airport and take you to your destination”
No signature. No nothing. The ticket was for 12:30. Which was in… 1 hour (bloody Royal Mail). Millbee sighed and ordered a cab. The whole business was very mysterious. He thought that when they said he was ‘Retired’, that’s what they meant. ‘You can live a peaceful life,’ they had told him (at least as peaceful as you can when you’re constantly under surveillance). He assumed this was authorised by them, this looked like their work – not something he’d missed in the recent years. He looked at the ticket again, decided it was too mentally taxing to deduce where he was going and instead went to pack some clothes, which turns out is much harder when you don’t know where you’re going or for how long.
The cab brought him to the airport just in time to be fast tracked straight to business class, collecting many haughty looks from his unshaven face and scruffy attire. He was especially delighted by the free booze on the flight and by the time the plane touched down, he was out for the count. By some stroke of luck, he managed to retrieve the correct bags and groggily stumble outside to be met by a line of classic yellow taxis so he deduced that he was probably in New York (There had also been a massive sign in the airport saying “Welcome to New York”, but apparently he had managed to miss that).
A finger tapped Millbee as he was attempting to search for a sign with his name on, and he spun round to meet a woman dressed in a smart black suit and wearing sunglasses, her dark red hair tied up in a ponytail. Without saying anything, she took hold of his arm and escorted him to an unassuming black car then jumped into the driver’s seat. They zigzagged past all of the waiting cabs and sped onto the highway, the buildings rising up around them. Millbee had never been to New York before, in fact, he’d hardly ever visited anywhere outside the UK, so he spent most of the journey in awe of the thousands of people rushing through the streets and the overwhelming aliveness of the city. Finally he had the sense to ask the woman driving the car where she was planning to take him.
“You don’t read the news much, do you? I thought you were meant to be a superspy?” Was the answer he got from the driver’s seat.
The slightly drunk man decided that this was probably as useful a response as he was going to get and instead of asking more questions, decided to contemplate whether he was a ‘superspy’ (Nobody had ever called him that before, he got ‘nuisance’ more often), and watch the buildings and piles of rubble glide by accompanied by car horns and shouts from the traffic all around.
Finally, after a huge traffic jam, the car pulled up to a skyscraper somewhere in Manhattan, he was once again escorted into the building’s clean and light but very generic foyer, and into an elevator which whisked them up almost to the top floor. They emerged into and expectant audience sitting around a meeting table. The man at one end gestured to a seat somewhere in the middle, next to a man in a very dapper orange suit. The woman, who had been very quiet until now, moved to stand at the end of the table and cleared her throat.
“Now, we all know why we’re here, except maybe Mr. Millbee, who will be joining us temporarily”
Millbee could feel all the eyes round the table move to him and he suddenly wished he had managed to neaten himself up on the plane. He wasn’t sure if he was meant to say anything, so instead just gave an awkward half wave and a nervous smile. Looking around he detected a lot of poorly concealed distaste directed at him but he chose to ignore it. The man next to him, who Millbee had just noticed had blue hair, gave him a slightly comforting smile.
“Anyway, on to the issue: In the past week there have been a large number of random attacks on sites in New York, completely demolishing the buildings.” The woman brought up a map with four red dots on a projector behind her. “The media, as I’m sure you have seen are hyping it up to be a large scale terrorist attack, but there have been a total of 1 death and 12 casualties across all of the attacks.”
Another man stood up wearing a green shirt with a ‘G’ embroidered on the pocket and jeans and continued. “We can’t find any correlation between the attack sites, and we’ve had next to nothing on evidence from any of them”
“As of yesterday they’ve launched a full scale police investigation,” responded the woman, “but there's nothing from them either”
Millbee turned to the man next to him and whispered groggily “So that's why the traffic is so horrible then? Police blocking up everywhere?”
“Actually, no, it's just always this bad,” The man in the orange suit started cleaning his glasses anxiously.
Oblivious to the fact that everyone round the table could hear his whispers, Millbee continued “and so who's Ms Business over there then? Seems like a tough boss-”
“I'm sorry to forget the formalities, Mr Millbee.” The red haired lady raised her eyes dubiously at him but motioned to herself, “I'm Aureylian, head of the FBI here, then this man is Guude, my second in command, and the man you are sitting next to is MC, our new recruit”
Millbee was slightly lost for words as he had thought he was being a little quieter than in turned out he actually was, so only managed a stuttered “Thanks.”
As if nothing had happened, Aureylian turned back to the rest of the table and addressed a man on the other side of the table who was browsing a laptop in front of him “Any news, Sev?”
“It seems as if…” Sevadus looked at least as confused as Millbee felt, “I don't know if the Police have authorised this, but they're starting building work on the first bomb site already”
“It's almost as if they're trying to hide the evidence,” Aureylian wondered quietly, “but anyway, next order of business: who will accompany Millbee on the fieldwork for this mission?”
All eyes frantically searched for someone to nominate, some ducking lower in their chairs until they found a blue haired figure. The man in question nervously stood up and addressed the meeting “I suppose I can do it… I haven't got much experience though, it seems like a pretty high profile case, y’know...” But there were no objections round the table.
Aureylian stood up again, her aura of business drew everyone's eyes. “Meeting adjourned.” She stated and motioned to Guude to follow her into an office at the back of the room.
Most attendees were now returning to their work, but Millbee aimlessly stood alongside MC. “Maybe we should ask Aureylian for the plan of action?” He suggested, They ambled up to the door to hear muffled shouts coming from inside;
“He's not a superspy, he may as well be a drunk you've picked off the streets!”
“He was only a suggestion! Why can't we do this by ourselves anyway?”
“I had a feeling. Plus he was meant to be one of the best! He got so much intelligence for the Russians during the Cold War.”
“Well, there may have been a mixup!”
MC gently knocked on the door and the voices stopped at once. “Come in,” a voice called and they opened the door. MC timidly asked “We were just, er, wondering what the plan was?”
“Ah, yes, sorry” Aureylian turned away from Guude who was standing next to her, disgruntled. “There is an event at the Strand Hotel this evening: a business awards do. All of the victims will be there, try and see if you can get any information out of them, here are your tickets. In the meantime, see if you can find Mr. Millbee a place to stay and… smarten him up, let's say”
---
Several hours later Millbee found himself in a five star hotel room and a new suit with MC, face shaven, for once. He stared out of the full height window at the sunset behind the New York skyline feeling a new air of sophistication. His head was still gently throbbing, but nothing that a few glasses of champagne wouldn't fix, he thought.
“You're not nervous at all?” MC asked from where he was perched on the bed behind him. “I suppose it's not your first time doing this kind of thing though, is it.” MC looked rather glum, and Millbee though he could detect a hint of fear in his voice.
“How can you be scared? You look like James Bond, you gotta act like him now.” Millbee turned, MC was dressed in a full suit, complete with orange bow tie, blue hair slicked back. “I mean, what can go wrong?”
“I guess. Your experience will protect me then, I hope” MC looked up almost respectfully at him and gave a small smile.
He turned towards the door. “Would now be a good time to say I don't remember ever spying at all?”
“What?” A startled response from behind him.
“It's just supposedly I worked for the Russians during the Cold War, but I don't remember a thing. Maybe they wiped my memory or something...”
MC panicked. He started pacing round the room waving his hands wildly muttering thongs about “going in blind!”, and “no experience!”
Motioning for him to stop and failing, Millbee just pinned the panicked man's arms to his sides and stated “We will do fine.” He escorted him into the lift and the proceeded into the hall where the party was taking place.
They mingled in with the other businessmen and women milling around and standing in clumps having conversations. MC flicked through a set of pictures on his phone of the owners of the buildings demolished in the attacks. While MC was finding a person to interrogate, Millbee sauntered over to the drinks table, almost bumping into a tall thin man who was standing there, surveying the gathering. The man cast him a thoughtful look but seemed unwilling to talk, so he sidled back to his companion who was making conversation with an old man and his wife.
“And, you see, they were making us such a good offer, it made so much more sense to sell it. I see they've started rebuilding already. I'll miss that place, you see, but all things move on of course.” The man was droning on.
“Who did you sell what?” Millbee interrupted, the champagne he had just downed clearly taking effect. The man was evidently taken aback, and MC took the liberty to introduce him.
“This is Mr. Boone, of Boone enterprises. He recently sold his property that was destroyed to Atlas, a worldwide corporation. Well, er, thank you Mr Boone, we should mix with some others now. Networking, you know how it goes.” MC promptly led Millbee off into the crowds in the ballroom.
“Well that was smooth… I bet we could have gotten more information out of him but you interrupted.” MC whispered, fustrated. “Just leave the talking to me, ok?” Millbee nodded and slid a glass off the passing tray.
After a few, not exactly exciting hours of conversation, they had only managed to find out the name of one other buyer: Stala, a Norwegian Bank. However all the victims had confirmed that their destroyed properties had been sold. At present they had gotten trapped in a conversation with the Mayor of New York who was rambling about various policies of which he had no interest at all. MC was trying his best to sound interested but Millbee’s mind had wandered. He was awoken from his thoughts by a waiter car ring a tray of food.
“Hors d’oeuvre, Sir?” Millbee gratefully took a couple, and swayed slightly before standing straight up, eyes fixed forward. MC turned to talk to him but was pushed away as Millbee reached into his pocket to pull out out a gun. MC flustered to try and hide Millbee along with whispers along the lines of “ What the hell are you doing?” He quickly directed the crazed man towards the bathroom and into a stall.
Running a hand through his blue hair, MC turned to Millbee. “What the hell? You don't just pull a gun at a party! A gun nobody knew you had, no less!”
“You need to be prepared.” Millbee replied monotonously. No signs of panic were visible In his face. “Who is the enemy?”
“That's what we're trying to find out!” Exclaimed MC, exasperated, “And what you have consistently mucked up all evening!” his only hope was to escort Millbee quietly back to his hotel room and hope nobody noticed.
---
“Sir, is this an anomaly? He hasn't been active for years; I thought he was dead…” A dark figure stood in front of an array of monitors scanning them.
“We must see what he is up to, I think” Another figure walked to stand beside his partner. “A holiday is in order, my Comrade.”
no subject
Date: Sunday, January 1st, 2017 04:05 pm (UTC)Millbe as an agent is definately not something you see a lot of. Although, judging by the last bit, it seems more like he is someone you hire to get rid of others. Which isn't exactly your first thought when you hear the Name Millbe either. XD
I am curious where you'll be going with this. =)
no subject
Date: Monday, January 2nd, 2017 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, January 2nd, 2017 11:36 pm (UTC)-Observing Anon
no subject
Date: Monday, January 2nd, 2017 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, January 3rd, 2017 06:30 pm (UTC)-Scott