Chapter Text
Undercover Guides
by breea1
Prologue.
“You know,” said Blair Sandburg breathlessly and with just a hint of panic, “This seemed like a really good idea at the time.” He chanced another look out of the window to his left and then ducked back down to the floor. “I’m starting to think we should have considered the ramifications a little more.”
Ray Kowalski, crouched down behind the only door leading into the room and clutching a cheap looking vase with grim intent as a makeshift weapon, turned his head and met Blair’s frantic expression with one of his own. “Sandburg, we snuck into the GDP headquarters and made them look like total asses in front of the entire world before sneaking back out with half a fuckin’ metric ton of their Guide stock. What the fuck did you think the ramifications would be?”
Blair looked wistfully forlorn. “I was kinda hoping it’d be something we could all look back on and laugh about some day.” He rolled his eyes at Ray’s incredulous expression and, scowling, muttered irritably, “Okay, fine, but I at least thought they’d stop short at following us halfway across the damn world just to haul us back for trial. I mean, come on man, it’s not like we hurt anyone. We didn’t even bond! We were like totally doing the humane thing here.”
Looking like he was seriously considering using the vase on Blair instead of waiting for the first unfortunate to crash through the door looking to apprehend them, Ray snarled bitterly, “Yeah, that’s great. Greatness. We should lead with that in our defence. Maybe they’ll be too busy laughing their asses off to catch their breath and sling us into slavery.” He pasted a mockingly bright expression on his face. “Then we can just sneak out the back and be back outta Cascade by nightfall!”
Blair’s handsome face darkened further and he snarled at his friend, “I’m just saying! No one died here. We were trying to do the right thing!”
Ray opened his mouth, paused at the sight of his friend’s stricken and despairing expression and then slowly lowered his vase to the floor. “Sandburg.” Keeping low he scuttled across the room and then sat up to huddle close to his partner in crime. After an awkward moment he raised one arm and wrapped around sturdy shoulders. “This is always a risk, buddy. Undercover work...it ain’t always pretty, okay? Even when you think you’ve finished a job the job ain’t always finished with you. “He turned his head and glanced blindly at the window over his head before staring down at his booted feet. “Yeah, we did the right thing, but the right thing ain’t always the easy thing.” His narrow, tanned face twisted in a rueful smirk. “Or the legal thing. We made the GDP, the Sentinels, hell, even the fuckin’ government look like a bunch of assholes. We were dumb to think we’d ever get away with that.” He tightened his grip when Blair slumped disconsolately next to him, all of the energy seemingly draining from the smaller man in one quick flood and continued, “But worse than that, buddy, we showed the whole damn world that Guides aren’t helpless and dumb and need the almighty Sentinels just to get out of bed and wipe their own butts in the morning. We showed them we’re intelligent, organised, capable, self-sufficient and really, really fuckin’ ruthless when it comes to protecting our own. There’s always casualties in war, pal.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head wearily back against the wall behind him, sighing wearily, “We were just the first ones in this one.”
Blair shuddered and then tipped his head forward, hiding his face behind his curtain of long curls. “It was worth it though, right?” Unseen by Ray his teeth chewed anxiously on his lower lip. “If they’re gonna give me back to Ellison when they’re done with me then at least I know it was worth it, right?”
Ray’s face tightened for a moment as he thought of the Sentinel that awaited him at the end of his own recapture and inevitable brutal rehabilitation at the hands of the GDP – assuming he made it through alive – and then he relaxed, thinking of the men, women and children now freed and the many others able to continue living free now that their testing records had been destroyed and they were lost to the system and he grinned, feral and sharp. “Yeah, buddy, this was worth it.” He couldn’t help the laugh that spilled bitter and raw from his throat. “This was definitely, definitely worth it.”
“Good.” Blair nodded to himself and took a shaky breath. “Okay. Good. I can live with that.” He brought his head up and looked around the bland hotel room where they had been cornered and had been forced into making their last stand. “So I guess we should give up, huh? They’re just gonna get madder the longer we make them wait.”
Ray snorted. “Don’t think that’s possible, Sandburg.” He opened his eyes and rolled his head to grin at his friend. “Fuck ‘em. Make them come and get us.” He winked. “Make the bastards dance to our tune one last time.”
“Whilst ordinarily I would applaud such notions,” said a crisp voice above their heads. “In this instance I would encourage you to take the avenue of escaping and living to fight another day.” Ezra Standish grinned, winked and nodded his perfectly groomed head from where it poked out of a loosened ceiling panel and then dropped a slim rope ladder down to the floor. “Gentlemen, your exit awaits.”
Ray and Blair scrambled to their feet, gaping incredulously at the man in the ceiling above them and Ezra rolled his eyes and beckoned impatiently.
“Quickly. We have less than two minutes to rendezvous with our getaway vehicle on the roof and the white noise generators I have used will only confuse things for so long. I estimate we have less than a minute before the Sentinels outside realise what has happened and make their move.” His eyes widened when a sudden roar of noise sounded from the street outside. “Or not. Hurry!” Blair and Ray, still in shock from the sudden appearance of their friend, gaped up at Ezra and didn’t move until he rolled his eyes and yelled frantically, “Hurry!”
They moved. Blair went up the ladder first, aided by Ezra hauling from above as he simultaneously shimmied himself backwards in the access tunnel in the ceiling, and then Ray – fast, graceful and infinitely more suited to boosting his own lanky frame under his own power than Blair’s short and stocky body. As soon as Ray hissed, “Clear!” the three men crawled – still backwards in Ezra’s case – as fast as they could until, suddenly, a sudden flood of light lit the darkened crawl space and Ezra dropped sharply out of view. Blair and Ray tumbled gracelessly after him and found themselves in landing in a filthy staff staircase of the hotel they had been trapped in.
Ezra brushed off his sleeves, grinned wide enough to flash his gold tooth and held up a hand clenched around a small detonator. “To the roof!” He depressed the button on the small device and a series of small bangs could be heard – followed by some frantic cursing and spluttering. Ezra grinned wider at Blair and Ray’s startled expressions. “Sage bombs. Harmless and utterly and completely debilitating to the Sentinels currently storming towards us. Come, my friends, away!”
Ray rolled his eyes as he and Blair pounded up the staircase after Ezra, muttering, “You are such a freakin’ weirdo.”
“But,” replied Ezra triumphantly as he flung open the roof door and bounded out into the bright Italian sunshine. “A freakin’ weirdo who has once again managed to save your worthless carcass at the last minute, Mr Kowalski. Points to me I believe.” He caught the door as it rebounded off something behind it and peered quizzically down at the female Sentinel who was curled up lost to a reaction to the sage bomb that had exploded directly above the door before the three fugitives had burst through it and the pain from the bump on her head when Ezra had unintentionally hit her with said door. “My dear young woman, I do apologise.” He knelt, helped her sit up and quickly stripped her of her jacket to pad it into a pillow and place it between her head and the wall. “There, there. I’m sure your Guide will be along shortly.”
The Sentinel spluttered through her pain and reactionary tears and tried to get a good grip on Ezra’s arm. “Gu...Guide.”
“Yes, my dear, but not your Guide.” Ezra patted her briskly on her hand and then looked up at the sound of a helicopter’s blades and engine overhead. “Ah, our ride. Gentlemen, shall we?” He patted her hand once more and then disentangled himself, looking around to note the three other Sentinels that had also been taken to their knees by other strategically placed herbal weapons. “Quickly now, the breeze is quite strong and the effects are already beginning to wear off.”
Ray looked around saw the devastation that his friend had wrought, grinned and took a firm grip on Blair’s arm as the helicopter overhead began to land. “I love it when a plan comes together!”
Ezra, laughing and indignant all at once as he led the charge to their getaway, yelled, “Then one would think you would give more thought occasionally to actually having a plan!” He tugged open the co-pilot’s door and scrambled inside. “A faultless entrance as always, Mister Dunne!”
JD Dunne turned his head and grinned despite not being able to hear a word thanks to the headgear he wore and shouted, “Let’s go, guys! Pony up!” His eyes darted past Ezra’s shoulder and widened dramatically in his youthful face. “Crap, hang on!”
Ray – just barely inside and not having managed to close the rear door – yelled and nearly tumbled back out when the helicopter lurched and took off again, but Blair grabbed hastily for him and heaved him to safety. Panting he leaned precariously out and just managed to grab the door handle to slam it closed before JD tilted the nose of the bird and took off into the sky. Blair fell across his knees and looked out to see a man sprawled on the asphalt of the roof they had just departed, a look of frustrated rage twisting his handsome face as he watched the helicopter make its escape and echoed JD’s words. “Oh crap, that’s Ellison!”
Ray shoved him aside and pressed his nose to the window to see Sentinel Prime Jim Ellison pick himself up from where he had hit the ground following his abortive grab for the helicopter in a bid to follow the rogue guides on board and his own eyes widened when he saw another familiar figure join Ellison in staring after them. “Shit. Fraser.”
They sat frozen staring out the window until JD whisked them mercifully out of sight and then Blair sank back and shoved his tangled and disordered hair out of his face with shaking hands. He took one calming breath and then another, picturing again the fury on Ellison’s face – the man who, up until a week ago, had thought he was Blair’s bonded Sentinel – and shouted to Ray over the noise of the helicopter’s blades, “Tell me again how this was worth it?”
Ray stared back at him, blue eyes huge and frantic in his slim face, and for once had nothing to say.
End of ‘Undercover Guides’ prologue.