The Siren's Code

Jay's mission

Jay felt a dull thumping in his chest, his brain translating the pulses into a string of numbers – GPS coordinates, mission code, alert status. Some people have pacemakers fitted, Jay had a biometric device tattooed on his chest. Undetectable of course, but it could restart his heart if it stopped, transmit vital readings and trauma quickly to MAT and locate him even when he has no idea where he was or if he was alive. Standard issue for all PMCs, and all features had been of great use in the past, but mostly it vibrated, like an alarm set on silent, when he was mobilised.

His team called the device Pavlov, as their bodies were conditioned to prepare for action the moment the alert went off, within fifteen minutes he had his kit bag and was waiting as the familiar thrum of the Firefly increased in volume towards him. It was three am.

Jay's job wasn't your average, even on the Island very few people knew what he actually did, 'security' being the loose term he used but he'd been doing it for fourteen years, was still alive with a bank balance even more healthy than he was.

It was uncomplicated and he was happy with it that way – although his mind wandered to his chat with Bear. She had saved his life, only Lucky Number Seven and possibly Five, if he was being generous, had that badge of honour but she had no recollection, he could just forget it too and move on, so why wasn't he?

A few hours later he walked into the makeshift comms room that was getting way too permanent for its own good.

"Alright, Two how's it hanging? Damn Four you look like you just crept out of a brothel, and not the nice kind."

Four gave him the finger. "This is my third of these in a row One. These CIA contractors are behaving like children."

"Or maybe you're getting old. Ok gringos heads up lets get this show on the road. What's the intel?"

"Illegit contractors creating surveillance software for the US Government here on our doorstep. They call themselves CIA but they're not, they are a bunch of tech nerds doing it for the money whilst battling with their morals."

"I'll stop you there Two, those illegit contractors are as legit as we are, so we don't treat them any different, I expect their TECINT runs us, so less of the them and us, we are all INNIT together, if you see what I did there!"

"Yes Sir, but when not running genius algorithms that... inform us, they are trying not to see the consequences of their actions, but these kids are left alone with their own thoughts and time on their hands. Not a great combination and lets be honest there's not a whole lot to do on the campus so they go out to the bars, fall into the hands of a friendly fixer and before they know it they are buying RecS and blabbing all to their new friend – who sells their intel and subsequent kidnap to the highest bidder. So here we are again to get them back without any more money lining the pockets of cartels, and deliver them home to Mummy."

"Ok, well we know the drill then don't we? It's not Last Night at the Proms but an in and out, no one's any wiser and we all go home for breakfast. Or back to whichever whore hole we came out of," he gave Four a wink.

Intel came in fast, there was never any shortage of what needed to be done, just people who would do it and Jay's unit were the best guns for hire, but they were not mercenaries, they had standards and worked for governments, although when the jury was out, it was pretty trickery to decipher which government was on the right side.

Jay, known as One, was the natural leader, he and his team had a hive-like connectedness, banter was a way to see how far buttons could be pressed, flare-ups a signal that something in that area needed investigation, cracks in human emotion were as dangerous as faulty hardware. Not everyone could be as pure as he was.