Blue Tasks. The nice quiet observational missions. Just
simple surveillance.
Like now, right now. Sitting at a table outside a cafe
with a coffee and some really cute biscuits, watching the frontage of a
specific building. Waiting and watching.And drinking coffee.
+ Focus:
Ocular performance optimal: Advise end coffee consumption +
Oh, really Angel? Just relax, let me sit back, just let
me enjoy this one.
After all, this time last week, I was in a different carcass,
running along roads and railway tracks, chasing down some lunatic suicide bomber
with 10kg of plastic explosive wrapped around himself. This nice sit-down
spy-time relaxation I earned when I caught that maniac and pushed him under
that truck. So if I want to drink more coffee, I will.
+ Adjust:
caffeine intake high: Task parameters may be affected: Threat Level: Low +
Nope. I’ll order another, just out of spite.
I smile at the rather attractive girl who’s clearing away
cups and cake plates, and she smiles back and nods. Within minutes I have a new
fresh hot coffee, and a smug petulant feeling.
Not one of the faces I have implanted in my memory has
come anywhere near this building. Their faces, pictures of their postures,
candid photos even, endlessly cycle back and forth on a screen inside my head,
and nothing I see in the street ahead matches with what I can see inside of me.
Blue tasks. Quiet and easy surveillances. And sometimes
just slightly dull.
I’m not really agitated, it’s more of an irritable
impatient feeling slowly nagging away at me, like some annoying stray cotton
thread hanging from a shirt button. I could – I should – just simply ignore it,
let the moment pass me by, but I could also pull it, snap that little bastard
off. So what if the button pings off...
+ Focus:
Task objective: Observe arrival of five suspects +
Angel! Just – shut up!
Focus. I summon a keepsake – a strange projected view of
looking at myself, my normal self, sitting at a table outside a cafe, with a
coffee, and my mind takes a sliding lurch to the left, upsetting the pictures
flashing past my mind’s screen.
And then I’m standing stock still in the middle of a
heaving throng of people, all jumping and gyrating, dancing to a tune or some
sort of music I cannot hear. I scan that crowd around me, sweating faces and
bodies, coloured lights flicking over upraised arms and hands, and I know I need to
rouse myself.
+ React:
Now: React: Three targets: Arrival noted: React +
A child’s laughter
reels me back into my seat, my arm lashes out, and a part-drunk cup of coffee
sails away from me to clatter onto the pavement. I am upright, standing – no running
– as I sense the disdain, the tuts and the head-shakes around me, as I run, running across the street like I'm chasing mad people again.
Running hard, towards the building I’ve watched for two
hours, I see the backs of three people I was supposed to be looking out for.
Blue tasks. Such a doddle. Normally. Repeat fifty times and remember.
Listen to Angel. Listen to Angel.....
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