G.H.O.S.T. Teams (Book 2) Shifters (6 page)

“While one hopes that you’ll never lose your tag or allow others to read it, your proper name is necessary. You see, when the brothers created the armor they wanted to make sure it would never fall into the wrong hands. In order to guarantee that the armor was used for their intended purpose, they built in safeguards. The first refers to the bearers cause. The armor will only function if the wearer is in fact serving the proper organization. Now the brothers were referring to god and the order of knights, and engraved it thusly, but as we have repurposed the armor, we must list the actual organization that we serve or it will not function. Hence the GHOST organization must be engraved. The magic is more than capable of discerning the false nature of the SIA. Second, is the requirement of your true name. This is the magical link to your person. If someone were to steal your tags and wear them, they would reap none of their benefits. The third and final safeguard is your employee number. While the organization has been able to twist the nature of the three defenses, they cannot remove their intention without destroying the armor’s magic. So your employee number acts as a link between you and the GHOST organization. The original warriors engraved their pledge to their god. In our case it serves as your commitment to the GHOST organization. I assure you that these things are all necessary,” Freddy said.

“Fine. I’ll just wrap duct tape or something around it so at least our organization and everything isn’t out in the open like that.”

“Unfortunately, the magic may act up if the declaration is intentionally obscured in anyway. Some part of the magic that requires those of their cause to be proud of it we believe. However, you may wear it under your shirt. To date this has had no adverse effects,” Freddy smiled.

“Is around our necks really the smartest place to put ‘em?”

“This is also for a good reason Mr. Chang. The magic functions best when it is close to your heart,” Freddy stated.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Dare I ask the next question?

“Please, don’t tell me these are powered by love.”

“Of course not,” Freddy laughed, “But the heart has long been a symbol of ones’ purpose, dedication, and true nature. This belief was instilled into the armor.”

“Okay, wear these around the neck and we get to be bullet-proof for a couple of days. Got it. Anything else I should know?”

“They can also find each other,” Kara added.

“Sorry?”

“If you say, ever did lose your tag, we could use the others to track it down. Because they have all been carved from the same piece of armor, and then linked to our team, they share a kinship of sorts. That link could be used as a crude homing device,” Kara said.

“What the hell. Did you just Lo-Jack me?”

“Not quite,” Hunter laughed, “this is a very passive thing and isn’t giving your location away. It’s more of a compass. One tag will point the way to another.”

“Kevlar compasses. Awesome.”

“BD here won’t even carry a cell phone because he doesn’t want to be tracked,” Danny laughed.

I gave him a look and a fake smile. He just grinned in response.

“There is nothing to fear, Mr. Chang. Only members of Team Thirteen can attempt to locate your tag,” Freddy smiled.

“I wonder who might use that feature?”

I winked at the girls and they rolled their eyes. Kara even went as far as to shake her head and mouth “no chance”. I couldn’t help but smile.

“Besides,” Freddy continued, “the tag only points in a direction. It does not reveal your location.”

“Exactly. For that, some kind of a genius would have to position the rest of your team around the city and then use basic triangulation to find you,” Hunter winked.

“Good to know.”

“Here to help,” he smiled.

I looked back over at Elvis, who was lip-syncing to whatever Presley song was playing now, and paying us no mind.

“So they are fully charged and ready to go?”

“That’s right baby,” he replied.

As his huge weasel-like mouth spoke, I couldn’t help but notice it rise up on his left side, much like the King’s famous lip curl. It was truly a sight. I looked over the rest of the team, each of them wearing their tags and fiddling with them in their hands. Their excitement was a long way from wearing off.  Assuming that the team wasn’t going to be much good for anything other than smiling at the moment, this seemed to opportune time to test Hunter’s combat abilities.

“Now that everyone has their toys, how about we go see what the kid can do?”

“Works for me,” Hunter said.

Everyone else took their attention away from their tags long enough to nod an acknowledgement and follow us out.  I hollered back at Elvis as we left.

“Stay cool, Elvis.”

“Thank you. Thank you very much,” he replied.

Everyone smiled at that and we headed out.

Directly across from the armory is the shooting range. The kid had a pair of pistols under his arms, so I figured that was a decent place to start. We all shuffled in and stared down the long line of shooting lanes. There were two agents down on the left end, practicing, and a range master who waved a greeting our way. Everyone threw on a pair of earmuffs and glasses and we headed past the sound barrier and into the range. I went to the far right lane, so as to not disturb the other shooters. There was a target already hanging on the line, the outline of a person, backed with a few pieces of tough cardboard to keep the paper target from flapping about. You needed a stiffer target when you used some of our range’s fancy functions. For example, a target could be pre-programmed to move back and forth and even a bit side to side if you wanted to increase the difficulty of your practice. I wasn’t planning to start off with anything that complicated with the kid. For now, I just hit the button, and set the target stationary, about fifty feet down range. 

“Okay little man, follow my lead.”

With that I twitched my left arm and felt the throwing star fall from my short-sleeve and land between my fingers for a split second before I flipped it downrange. I mirrored this movement with my right hand, sending another star into the target. Left, right, left for three more stars before I stopped to admire my work.

“I call that my shuriken face.”

All of my stars were sticking in the head of the target, two of them as eyes, and the other three as a smiley mouth. I looked over at Hunter, who was staring down-range at my handiwork. I could see the team behind me, trying to hide their smiles. They’d never want to admit it to me, but they were impressed. I waited for Hunter to say something, but he just turned to face me, his body perfectly perpendicular to the target, and he smiled.

Moving at a speed that even impressed me, he drew a gun with his right hand, pointed it down-range, and fired without even looking at the target. In fact, he kept his eyes locked on mine, smiling at me the entire time. His gun looked like nothing I had ever seen before. It was long and angled, comprised of both metal and wood, and thanks to its shape, I was reminded a bit of the old flintlock pistols. But in contrast to its single shot predecessor, I saw no hammer on the top of the weapon and this gun had a metal bullet drum in front of the trigger guard. The drum was narrow and unlike your standard revolver, there were no grooves to reveal how many bullets it chambered. In fact, it almost looked at if there were two drums, one seamlessly positioned in front of the other. The shot was incredibly quiet and no shell was ejected from the weapon. As he stood there holding the gun outstretched, I could see a wisp of smoke rising from the barrel.

Before I could even turn to look down-range, I was distracted by the gasp of my team. I glanced back to see them staring, jaws agape, looking at the target. At that point I turned to see where his shot landed. Considering how my team reacted, I wasn’t the least bit shocked when I noticed the nose he perfectly placed on my “shuriken face”. I smiled at the kid.

“Holy Crap,”
Danny yelled, “How’d you do that without looking?”

Hunter shrugged, “It’s all about angles and vectors.”

“Vectors, huh?” I smirked, “Okay, Vector, how about we up the difficulty a bit?”

He actually laughed more than I expected at that, “Really? Is that what you’re planning to call me?”

“It seems fitting somehow, doesn’t it?”

“If only you knew,” he smiled, “But one shot hardly seems enough for a nickname. I’m not sure I’ve earned it yet.”

With that he clicked a couple of buttons in front of us and sent the target moving. The little cardboard man was not only moving further away from us, but also swaying side to side, creating a much more difficult target. Hunter started whistling as he waited for it to get further down-range. When it reached the point he wanted, he spun to face it, drawing his other pistol in a fluid motion as he turned. Again he moved with frightening speed, every muscle in his body seeming to be under complete control. The pistol in his left hand was identical to the one in his right, and it fired first. As he pulled the trigger, the overhead range display read a distance of one hundred and twenty feet. 

The shots were incredibly quiet, the guns clearly possessing some kind of incorporated suppressor. But there was a loud “tink” as the round struck its target. Hunter fired
again, another “tink” rang out from down range. He made three more shots, each one making the same “tink” sound, before bumping the button with the back of his hand and stopping the target. Timing his shots every ten feet or so, the target now sat still at just over one hundred and sixty feet. He bumped another button with his knuckles, as he was still holding his pistol, and the target started moving back towards us. I already knew what the sound was, but once the target got closer, we could all see that he blasted each of my stars straight through the face. He spun each gun once, like some kind of tiny Wild West cowboy, before re-holstering the weapons and turning to face me.

“So, did I pass?” he asked.

“It’s a good start.”

At that point the rest of the team rushed forward, Danny at the lead, patting Hunter on the back. Although they were talking over each other, it was clear that in addition to complimenting him, they were asking for shooting advice, making target requests, and in general gushing all over the place. While Freddy and Danny were clearly the more enthusiastic fans, Kara and Erika were also impressed. Erika even gave me a look that said something to the effect of “you have some competition”. I just shrugged and smiled.

At that point the target had returned and Danny went up to grab it. He spun excitedly towards Hunter and myself.

“Can I keep this?” he asked.

I shrugged and Hunter nodded. Freddy’s face looked a bit sad and Hunter noticed.

“Would you like one too?” he asked.

“To trouble you with such a trivial thing seems completely unprofessional Mr. Richardson,” Freddy said, a sigh at the end.

“Tell you what. If you promise to stop calling me Mr. Richardson, I’d be happy to shot a few more targets. Besides, BD here might still need some convincing of my skill,” Hunter smiled.

He walked down the next three lanes, hitting a button and sending a target moving backwards on each one. Then he made his way back to the first, drew a single pistol and fired eight shots in rapid succession. Again the gun was very quiet and again there were no shells. He then stepped over to the next lane and fired eight more shots. In the course of firing on that second target, the bullet drum closest to the trigger dropped and the second one slid back into its place. Without having to even slow his shots, Hunter pulled another drum from of his coat pocket and slid it into the weapon, continuing to fire as he did so. Eight more shots on the final target and he spun his gun and re-holstered it. Walking back over to us he pressed the return button on each lane.

“There, one for each of you,” Hunter smiled.

“I am honored. Thank you sir,” Freddy bowed in return.

“Seriously? How come you don’t act this way when I do cool stuff?”

Erika gave a slow walk over to retrieve her target gift. She was putting a bit more sway into her hips than normal. She grabbed the target and turned a pair of suggestive eyes my way.

“I guess guns are just sexy. This is going in my locker,” she said.

“Ha, ha.”

“Erika is right. These are pretty sexy,” Kara said.

She also did the sexy walk over to her target, although with Kara that is pretty much her normal walk. She isn’t very good at hiding her sensuality. Both her and Erika held their targets in the hands, slowly looking from each other to the targets and making sounds as if things tasted yummy.

“Enough. I get it.”

Like a pair of schoolgirls, they both started giggling and pointing at me.

“You should see your face,” Kara laughed.

I sighed through a fake smile and turned back towards Hunter. His expression was part smiley and part curious.

“That was fun, what’s next?” he said.

I waved him on and we all walked out of the range. After removing our protective gear, we would be able to talk to each other without shouting. Although every one stayed pretty quiet as I think they knew where we were heading. I waved “thanks” to the range master on duty and we all walked out and down the hall. Further down on sub-level six, past the armory and the range, was one of my favorite rooms, the gym. Unlike the weight room upstairs, this was mostly a large open space. While various pieces of gymnastic equipment sat around the room’s edges, the center was covered in mats and great for training. This was where I worked out with Erika.

We walked into a mostly empty room. There was a guy and girl
sparring on the far side of the mat and another guy doing pull-ups on one of the bars. They all glanced our way as we entered, but didn’t seem to pay us much mind past that. The guy and girl were wearing full sparring gear and really going at it. There wasn’t much to see because of their helmets and chest pads, except her blond ponytail whipping around as she caught the guy in a chokehold. He tapped out fairly quickly and they reset. She moved pretty good and I made a mental note to find out who she was the next time I saw her. For now, there was work to do.

“Okay, you made it very clear you can shoot. How are your hand to hand skills?”

“Like all team members, I had basic hand to hand training,” he said.

“Okay, how about you show me.”

I gestured towards the mat and he nodded. After tossing off his coat and pistol holsters, he started circling me on the mat. Again, as he moved, I could see the insane muscle control. There was an athleticism here that one normally only sees in world class gymnastics competition. His balance was perfect and he held his hands up ready for me to make a move. At this point I knew the kid had skills, so this was less about me embarrassing him and more about understanding his baseline ability. I started off slowly.

He began in a full defense. I threw a punch with my right and he bobbed to his left. I threw my left and he bobbed to his right. Then I kicked low, towards his midsection, and he turned to the side and bent his body out of the way. I followed with a round kick and he leapt backwards out of range. I started throwing a few combinations and he continued his defensive stance. The kid was amazingly fast and he clearly knew how to stay out of trouble. But I wanted to see a bit more of his fighting instincts, so I started leaving openings in my defense.

At first the openings were small, and he paid them no mind. I was starting to think that this was clearly not his forte. So, I left bigger openings and he finally took the bait. With that staggering speed he threw a punch. I blocked and even though I had an easy open to counter, I was more interested in watching his offensive abilities. I gave him another big opening and he punched again. Another opening brought a kick and I just continued to block and watch. I learned some very important things there, the first of which was that Hunter was incredibly strong. Much stronger than any normal person his size should be. I was pretty sure that my little five-foot tall friend was stronger than me. Before I had too long to wonder why, I found my answer.

I had just blocked another of his powerful kicks when I decided to see how he reacted to my counter strike. I kicked out a bit faster than my earlier attacks, with enough oomph that he would have great difficulty getting out of the way. But that was enough to push him into overdrive. Every muscle in his body sprang to life and he surged to his left, just avoiding my kick. The look on his face made it clear that he barely got out of the way in time, but that wasn’t nearly as fascinating as his hair.

I mentioned before that Hunter had shoulder length white hair. It hung down around his head, framing the sides of his face. But when he had to move his fastest, his hair trailed in the air behind him. I am not telling you this because it looked like some type of cool action movie slow-mo sequence, but rather because I saw his ears for the first time. They were pointed. I relaxed my stance a bit as he landed.

“That’s why Freddy freaked out.”

Hunter tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t quite sure what I was talking about.

“Oh, sorry. I couldn’t see your ears before.”

Hunter smiled and then ran an index finger over each of his ears, tucking his long white hair behind them. There was some mumbling from the team as they realized what Freddy already knew. Hunter was an elf.

“You didn’t know?” Hunter asked.

“No idea. But, I think we’re good here. You can throw your coat back on.”