Book One.Chapter 3

-Chapter 3

"Something spooked these people, bad. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't me." Jim said. "Not even the Thai translators are able to get a word out of any of them. That, and there's no sign of their being any paper trail I could've picked up, even before I had got sucker punched. Not even that chick who did the sucker punching is anywhere to be found."

"At the very least, you seem to be alright. You have to forgive me, as I had called in another agent to pick you up and out of there. I had assumed the worst." said Mr. Card. "You will have to explain the situation to him. It is rather difficult to communicate with him...-when he travels, I mean. As you would say, hang tight for now. My associate will arrive momentarily. You should know when he shows up."

...Jim made his way back onto the pier, and crawled into a bar after he briefed the NCIS agents. In a back corner was a rough hewn man in rather well trimmed attire, as if he was going to a much richer night club. Curly blondish grey hair spun underneath a white hat with a wide brim and a tiger fur pattern cloth tied around the top. The man dipped his million dollar sunglasses and gazed with hazel eyes at Jim.

"Now that you aren't busy," the pimp said, "let's share a drink or two, like old times."

The pimp motioned to the spare booth seat across from him. On the table was a bottle of scotch and an extra glass. Jim sat but neglected the booze.

"What's all this then, Jack?" said Jim after a lengthy minute of the pimp smelling and taking a torturously slow sip of scotch. The edge in the much younger Jim was given more room to fall into silence as yet another hit of liquor came passed Jack's lips.

"Do you remember the first time we met in a place like this?" said Jack, disappointing Jim with how well he chose to avoid the current question. "Have you ever remembered how much fun you still to this day could not recall having, we were so wasted."

"I'm still on the clock with the UN Feds," said Jim, crossing his arms. "So, if you could cut to the point."

"Heh! No point. Just thinkin back on the good ol' days." Jack acknowledged with such a smoker's rasp.

"Now that you mention it, though," he continued, "M Tack has some trouble going on with the chief project. They are callin' you in, of all of us, to, ahem, sort the matter out."

"So the thing finally escaped, I take it?" Jim said, reaching the bottle to fill Jack's glass.

"Obliged." Jack said, referring to the sudden gesture. "Nothing that we were ever unprepared for. Still. The buzzards want you in on this, and in a bad way. Figure I would tell you myself to give you a head start on it."

"On what?"

Jack paused for a good while longer more, tipping his hat up and looking over the rim of his sunglasses intently.

"On doing what you think is right in this situation," he said, pouring scotch in the extra glass before handing it over to Jim. "Or... doing what you, uh, know is the smarter way to go."

Jim stared at the glass, contemplating his next choice of words as if he would never be able to think them carefully enough.

"You know what it is that I have now, and what I could do to the buzzards." Jim then said, as if no thought was required at all. His hand itched to reach in his golf bag and give another demonstration. Instead, he picked up the glass offered to him.

"To the good ol' days." said Jim. He took a single swig from the liquor. Just then, a man close to fifty feet tall it seemed entered the bar. He was wearing a classic leather pilot's jacket and cap; goggles, scarf, and everything. The pilot burst in, yelling "Fly guy, mister, yah!?"

With a curious grin, Jim dumped the remainder of the glass into the ash tray.

"I think my ride is here." he said, getting to his feet. Jim grabbed his bag and made to talk with the stranger possibly calling for him. Jack calmly snagged his arm as Jim passed by.

"It was last sighted in Port Crane, some obscure town in upstate New York. Consider looking into it."

And with that, Jim broke free of the pimp coming face to face with a giant speaking with a very thick Netherlands accent.

"I'm Agent Fly. Are you my lift?"

"Lifting, no? Wind like fly!"

"You mean 'fly like the wind'? So, you're a pilot then, right?"

"Okay, no!"

"But, you're here to pick me up? You have a super secret submarine then?"

"Sandwich okay, no! Up picking okay yes!"

"So... You are a pilot?"

"Okay, yes!" the stranger said, with a nod and smile finally getting to a point of understanding, so it seemed. The pilot motioned toward the door, and Jim nodded as he walked in the indicated direction. He made to walk toward where he figured a car would be waiting to take them to the air strip, or to a helipad. Jim was in for a rude awakening as a harness was suddenly forced on him from behind. Not much could be done before he was strapped to the hulking pilot. Then, they suddenly took flight.

"Up, up, and good bye!!"

Book One.Chapter 2.

-Chapter 2

"There's men frozen in ice? I thought we were about to put out a fire?" came shouts between a petty officer and a chief amidst the confusion.

"This has been one jacked up week to have a coolant leak AND a fire within three minutes." said the petty officer. The chief was in doubtful silence until he took first glance of the anomaly on their hands.

"What the hell kind of coolant do we carry around here that does something like this?" he said. They stood in front of what appeared to be a wave of water that came over the pier and somehow froze the gang of sailors in place up to the knees.

"What the flip happened here?" the chief shouted to his shipmates. They were all quite astonished, as if woken from a dream.

"Not sure. We just found ourselves here!" they began to say, not quite convincing the chief as he made a rush to get them out as well as get their story straight...

A sailor was sitting in a shack in front of a ramp leading onto a freight ship, an open word search in front of him. He hardly noticed Agent Fly come up. Jim handed his ID.

"Don't I get some bell or whistle while I walk across, or at least some kind of salute? Anything?" he said in response to the questioning look from the watchman.

"You are not on the crew or guest list for today." explained the sailor, reaching for the phone. He stopped short when Jim pulled his gun out at him.

"Let's just take it easy, alright? See, I'm actually a CIA agent working with a classified subsidiary of the UN, and I am going to inspect the contents of this ship. Understand me?" he said. Placing the receiver back down, the sailor relented.

"Man, they don't pay me enough for this kind of BS." he said, clearing Jim to come aboard. As he did, Jim reached for the bell and rang it, the sound putting a smile on his face.

Jim was back on his phone while staring through the hatch, at the many people that were being kept in this rather small compartment for so many.

"You can call in those Navy cops now. We got something bigger than we thought, I feel." he explained as he met eyes with some of the passengers. "Card'nal, these don't seem to be human trafficking victims. I think these people are refugees."

"Astonishing. It sounds like there are far too many of them to be from North Korea."

"Who ever they are, where ever they're from, they look as though they were desperate to get anywhere else by any means. There's whole families in here... I'll try talking to them."

Agent Jim ducked into the compartment, addressing those within.

"Sukoshi te o kashite kuremasen ka. Nihongo ga wakarimasu ka...? Eigo ga wakarimasu ka?" he said, with as best pronunciation as gaijin could.

"Hai!" came a sudden female voice, turning shaky. "I mean, yes. I speak English."

"And Japanese, apparently. Where is this ship headed?" Jim said.

"I think to... the United States." She replied. The girl was young to an extent, yet she was in far better dress and condition than any of the others.

"Are you all from North Korea, by any chance?"

"I think they are from Thailand, mostly..."

Her eyes were saying she was in some amount of distress.

"And you?"

"Uh, Japan."

"So maybe this is partly a human trafficking ship, I just found-" Jim began to say into the phone.

"No!" The girl interrupted.

"Then what's your story? How did you get on here?" Jim said, being answered in silence. "I need answers if I'm going to help anyone."

"Sumimasen. Sorry. My English is not good." said the girl.

Jim let out air through his nose and stepped back out of the hatch.

"One of them is Japanese. I'm not getting any answers from her, though. When is NCIS getting here?"

"Did you ask for her name?" said Mr. Card. "...Are you still there, Jim?"

He couldn't answer as he was laid out flat by the girl, who had snuck behind and clocked him with a fire extinguisher. She made sure the man was out cold. Then the girl put her lab coat back on. Her name tag read "Alice." She turned her head back to the compartment, gazing at one particular little girl. Alice waved her hand, and the little girl's eyes went wide. Before she was able to wave back, Alice seemed to evaporate vanishing before all the eyes that were watching...

Parallels.Book One.Chapter 1.

To Adam

We choose our battles, because

not only do they not always end in our own triumph

yet sometimes

conquest does not always get us what we wanted to begin with

•Parallels•

Book 1

-The Path to Victory-

-Chapter 1

A typically warm sun beat down upon the palm trees, sand, gravel, and pavement. The air smelt of the sea, and was filled with the sound of helicopter blades chopping along. Countless personnel were making their way along the pier, as it was a busy day at Okinawa Naval base after a typhoon struck southern Japan like a ton of bricks. One man seemed to stand out from the rest of the passersby, mostly due to the fact that he was in civilian clothes and carrying a golf bag instead of being in uniform and carrying sandbags like so many of the rest. He ignored all the dirty looks until a linebacker of a sailor with three chevrons on his cap had a few inquiringly crass words to say.

"Lieutenant Commander Brussel. I'm the, uh, new J.A.G. officer on base. Just looking for a nice place to stow these bad boys I got while on leave." He replied,sticking a thumb toward his clubs clanging on his back. The Petty Officer simply shook his head and carried on with his duties.

"No salute?" added Brussel with a frown before going on his own way. As he neared the officer barracks, Paul Robinson singing "Swing Low" could be heard. Brussel then answered his cell phone.

"Y'ello?"

"Mission parameters are set, Mr. Brussel. My apologies once more for pulling you into this on such short notice." came in a voice on the other end.

"Yeah, well I figure you'd find some way of squeezing more out of me here since I haven't had much leeway in leaving Asia. Not since Operation you-know-what." said Brussel, giving a casual nod at a nosy looking junior enlisted. "The guy won't get off my back. Keeps spouting all this nonsense about the great demon and the end of the world. Kinda like the stuff you talk about sometimes. Y'know. Minus the monotheism."

"Right. Anyway, I appreciate you willing to help in this matter. What I can assure you is that there is a direct need for someone with your particular skill set in this case, I am told." said the voice on the phone. Brussel always found the faint Spanish accent hypnotizing in some weird way.

"I have yet to see why you couldn't have just called NCIS on this one, Mr. Card." said Brussel, before looking over his shoulder. He now realized he was being followed by a small gang of sailors. The difference with these ones aside from the murderous expressions on their faces was the purple and crimson light shining from their eyes. "Now that you mention it, though, I think I see your point."

As the gang clenched their fists and brandished their crowbars and pipes, Brussel pulled out a unique looking 9mm pistol at them.

"Hang tight! Got another call coming in." he said, pressing a button on the phone.

"We have business with you." said the supposed leader of the gang in an unworldly sound of voice.

"I wasn't talking to you guys, but you may as well hang tight, too." Brussel said, taking off the safety and clicking back the hammer. "Listening."

"All work and no play." came the other caller.

"Makes Jim a dull boy." returned Brussel.

"Indeed."

The other voice was disguised by a filter, making it sound nearly as unworldly as the gang.

"Now's not a good time. Give it a few minutes." said Brussel.

"Special Agent James Edward Fly," then the gang leader began to bellow, "otherwise known as Hanshi Kaidan. We have business with you."

"Did I just hear your cover get blown?" said the caller.

"Don't worry about it." said Jim, formerly LTC Brussel, closing the phone and pocketing it. He tilted his head then sighed, looking back at the gang.

"You know that much, do you? Then you know what it is I have?" he said, reaching his right hand toward his golf bag. "And what I can do to you with it?"

The lights in the eyes of the gang started to fan out like flames.

"What did you get me involved with this time, Card'nal?" Jim muttered before a sudden light flashed out from what he drew from the bag, followed by a cloud of black smoke...