“Hey, man. You want a beer?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“Jesus dude, what happened to your face?”
(sigh)
“What?”
“Well, normally I'd be all with the 'national security, I can't tell you anything' shit? But this time fuck it, alright?”
“What happened?”
(slurp)
“I was having a good day, you know. Some lunatics fucking took over Alcatraz and captured a bunch of tourists. They were going to attack San Francisco with nerve gas if—”
“Well, that... that doesn't sound good at all.”
“Can I talk?“
“Uh, sorry.”
“So anyway, we sent this SEAL team in and they got waxed. God knows how they managed to lose to a bunch of Marines.”
“Marines?”
“Yeah, this general was out there with about a dozen Marines, man.”
“Shit, and they killed SEALs?”
“Yeah, it was awful. A couple of noncoms survived but we couldn't talk to them after that all happened.
(slurp)
“...so like eight hours go by and we don't hear anything, the President's all 'airstrike approved' and the F-18s fly out, but then a spotter goes 'green smoke, green smoke!' just before the bombs are dropped and the agent in charge is all 'abort, abort!' and they get called off at the last second.“
“What was an FBI guy doing calling off a flight of—”
“Seriously man, it was some tense shit. It was like a movie. There was an explosion and everything.”
“What blew up?”
“Oh, one guy dropped his load just before they were called off.”
(snigger)
“Christ dude, why do I even talk to you?”
“What has any of this got to do with your face? It looks like a statue being restored.”
“Oh, well we take back the island, and this guy Paxton, the SAC? He says 'Willis, go get the STUs back.' I'm like 'Why do I have to do it? That's Navy gear. Also, there are like five of them — how am I supposed to get them all back by myself?' Asshole tells me to get on with it after I've started my club for whining jackasses, and we don't have all fucking day...
“Quit sniggering, man.”
“Heh, um, sorry. What are STUs?”
“Like those bright yellow things that tow divers underwater, only black and they cost about five hundred kidneys. The SEALs left them in the sea where they went in.
“So I've got to swim down there and fetch them. I get a wetsuit and flop all the way down there in these huge fucking flippers. I looked like a goddamned moron.
“I'm flopping through all these flooded tunnels, and I keep tripping over corpses and guns like some fucking idiot. I'm ready to kill someone by the time I get down to the cistern room.”
“Why didn't you just leave the flippers off until you got down there?”
“...”
“...”
“...”
“...”
“So there's this big pool in the cistern room that somehow leads out to the ocean. The only other way in is through this ridiculous door that you can only open from one side, or through this gap at the bottom of the wall with all these spinning gears and jets of flame underneath it. I have no idea what in the goddamn hell that's supposed to be for.”
“Why would something like that even still be working? I thought the place closed decades ago.”
“What am I, the fucking tour guide?”
“Jesus man, you're always so touchy.”
“Oh, so you're the one with the whining jackass club. Anyway I get down there, and prop open this stupid door. I go in and look around and there's a big pile of scuba gear on the other side of the room.”
“Some people are so untidy.”
“Shut up. Anyway, I start gathering up all this stuff and some crusty asshole jumps me out of nowhere and starts kicking the shit out of me. I'm all like 'Aaagh! What the hell are you doing? How did you get in here? Why are you British?'”
“Some British guy beat you up? Man, you'd better hope no-one finds that shit out.”
“Jesus, you're stupider than the door. You think this scaffolding just materialised on my face?”
“You could have told them something... made up a story, I dunno. You'd want to keep something like that undercover.”
“What the hell though, man? I just went to pick up some diving gear and I get my goddamn nose broken.”
“Guy was British and he didn't even teach you any manners? What a bastard. Didn't he say anything?”
“Not to me. Just grabbed a snorkel and a pair of flippers, muttered something about 'his day' and disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
(slurp)
“Yeah. I don't know where they learn that.”