Collateral Desire [ENG/Complete]

𝟏. 𝑯𝒐𝒕 𝑯𝒖𝒎𝒊𝒅 𝑯𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒂𝒓

It was a hot and humid summer day on the Air Force Base. I hated these middle European humid summers. One would expect these in the rainforest: hot, humid, sweaty, and everytime you take a step outside the hot air constricts your breathing.
"It should be unconstitutional to work on the 4th of July. Independence Day! What a load of bullshit!", I thought to myself knowing my co-workers were enjoying their BBQ's and their German beers. It was just me who had to melt his brains in the hot sun, while patroling the premises.
"No one's even here", I thought. 

As I was walking towards the big, empty hangar to conclude my rounds, I thought I had seen something. It must have been nothing, but I could have sworn I saw a shadow in the corner of my eye. It was probably just a fata morgana of the scolding hot concrete. I would have walked right past it if protocol would not force me to check it out. So I took some steps towards the hangar and lifted the scolding hot metal door. Unfortunately, the lights in this hangar were short-circuited by a stupid engineer working on the machines on Monday and the Air Force wasn't able to fix it yet with the holiday coming up. The darkness in the hangar was total. I walked towards the back of the hangar and found a stack of crates with various parts for the plane the engineers were working on. But there it was again, I thought I had seen something moving next to the emergency exit door. I slowly moved around the boxes to see what I was seeing.

"Hey, whoever you are ... I have a gun," I jokingly said into the void and shone my flashlight across the dark crevices of the empty tall storage room.

"So do I," emerged a deep-sounding, female voice responding out of nowhere. 

My training kicked in. I grabbed my handgun out of the holster and kept searching for the voice with it pointed, while criss-crossing around some boxes. Where did it come from? Was that a foreign accent I heard? Was that even real or am I hallucinating from this feverish heat? I quickly overcame my surprise and shone the light across the room, then in the corner, I stopped. Into the light stepped a little figure that had uncannily blended with the darkness. A brunette, smallish woman appeared before my eyes holding a matted, gray handgun pointing right at me. She wore a black, fitted romper, black combat boots and her wavy hair was messily put up in a bun. A few strands were undone and stuck to the side of her face.

"You were not supposed to be here," her voice ominous and dark emerging from the corner. Her stern look revealed that she had no intention of lowering her gun. By protocol this was my sign to pull the trigger, but I couldn't just yet. I didn't understand. She carefully took some steps towards me. Slowly closing the gap between us. Just now I realized, I heard it again: that thick Russian-sounding accent. I looked stunned at this female. How did she even get here?

"Take a few steps back or I will sho-," I warned, but was cut off.
"No you won't! You don't have real ammo. You received gun of blank rounds. I made sure of that," she exclaimed sporting an unamused smile.

Could that be? Surprised at that revelation, I immediately pointed my gun at the concrete floor and fired a shot. When the bullet had burst it didn't leave any damage on the surface of the floor. Still, blank rounds are loud as hell, why didn't she even flinch at the sound of that? Her little eardrums couldn't have possibly handled that. Well, shit. Okay! I am basically unarmed, but before my panic could take over, I needed to find out what she was looking for - or who she was. After accepting my defeat, she came even closer and the closer she got, the more I realized that she was indeed tiny. How old was she? Her pretty face didn't even have one wrinkle but, damn, she had this stern, bossy look on her face that let my kneecaps melt like ice.

"Sit here," her voice demanding, her finger pointing to the ground next to a mechanic's work station. She had me put down the useless weapon, so that she could kick it aside, then she stood over me.