WSIM24B Ch. 02

For the next two weeks, I was assigned clerical duties in an office building on the edge of a medium-sized city. I could see the urban landscape from my cubicle, but neither I nor the three other trainees with me (all male) were allowed anywhere near it.

The work was tedious at best, soul-crushing the rest of the time. On our breaks, we were encouraged to use the basement gym, where we could practice marksmanship with hand projectiles and bows. Two of my colleagues joined me fairly regularly. Other than that, we didn't speak all that much.

Every night, we were hooked up to sleepread headsets. More languages, more protocols, and a whole host of technical applications. We absorbed knowledge like sponges.

Why the written tests in our training camps, then? Why the classroom sessions?

You could learn all of the rules of a sport - say, tennis - in sleepread. You could also inculcate all of the best strategic advice. Would that make you a star tennis player?

You would have to practice - physically - over and over. Muscle memory could not be acquired through sleepread (not yet, anyway). The only way to get better was to play - though a coach, or trainer, who watched your every move could really help.

I could now understand eight languages (on top of my mother tongue and the one I'd been educated in). Was I fluent in all those languages? Not hardly. A Colombian would know that I'd learned Castilian Spanish. A native of Aix-en-Provence would never mistake my French for their own.

I'm not trying to say that I was beginning to like our training; let's say that I understood some of the reasoning behind it. And my appreciation was probably heightened because I'd met Silent Girl, Destiny, Becca, and Erika.

After a week of clerical work, the four of us were given a night off, and let loose to blow off steam. For two of the men, that meant getting wasted. The third was more obvious about his intentions.

- "Fuck it ... I gotta get some. I haven't gotten laid since training started."

- "Uh ... good luck with that." I said. What I meant was 'Thanks for the warning'. His desperation was a little too obvious.

We had a shuttle driver assigned to us. He drove us to an intersection that featured a suburban nightclub with loud music, a low-brow tavern with cheap beer, a fairly clean brothel, and a cafe that served exotic coffees and teas, plus a selection of mild narcotics.

- "Be back here at 2:00." said our driver. "If ye're late, I leave without ya."

Desperate Don wanted to try out the nightclub with me, first. He should have gone straight to the brothel. I was prepared to be patient, so I got a drink and found a good vantage point.

I zeroed on a quartet of girls dancing together. Three of them were doable. The obvious leader was the prettiest, but she would play hard to get, to impress her friends. The second was pretty enough, but she was a terrible dancer.

The third girl was dark-haired, and not especially attractive. She was cute, at best, flat-chested, and her hips were almost negligible. But as I watched her dance, a smile broke out on my face. She could really move. She had a fabulous sense of rhythm, and her gorgeous little tush was monopolizing my attention.

I ignored the others, and concentrated on her. She looked up, and saw me watching her. I smiled. The second time she looked up, I toasted her with my drink. From then on, she danced her ass off - for me. She wanted to put on a show for her appreciative audience of one.

Desperate Don hit on half of the women in the club. He even tried two of my little dancing queen's more attractive friends. He finally returned to me.

- "Fuck this!" he shouted, in my ear. "Let's go across the street!"

- "You go ahead." I told him. I'd paid for sex twice before (well, with Cadet Fournier's money); the results were disappointing both times. Even if I got nowhere - which I didn't anticipate - I'd rather not waste my money.

Little tushy noticed immediately that I was still there. She started dancing - really dancing - for me. It was an excellent show. I didn't know for certain if there was going to be an after-party, but she did a wonderful job.

I ventured down onto the dance floor. I leaned down to shout in her ear.

- "You must be thirsty! Can I get you a drink?"

- "Dance with me, first!" she shouted back.

I did. Now, dancing isn't one of my skills. However, I can do a reasonable job of weaving in place and looking good. Tushy's more attractive friends were impressed enough that they started gravitating into my orbit, but I ignored them, concentrating on my little dancer.

She lapped that up. The tall, handsome stranger - best looking guy in the club - was paying attention to her (modesty is not one of my failings - there wasn't a guy in the place better than me). Her dancing now devolved into rubbing herself against me, semi-humping my leg, and then grinding her delectable little ass on my other leg (she wasn't tall enough to reach my groin - her intended target).

I steered her to the bar (she couldn't help grinning back at her friends) and bought us both a drink. The height disparity between us was too great. I sat down on one of the high stools, and picked her up, lifting her and settling her down on my lap.

- "You're a fabulous dancer." I told her. "Semi-pro?"

- "N-no." She was squirming on my lap, just a tad too proper to go ahead and set her ass down right on top of my erection. "I just like to dance."

- "I couldn't take my eyes off you."

- "I haven't seen you here before. Are you new in town?"

- "I'm an assassin. I'm here on a job."

She heard at least half of that, and looked up at me, alarmed. For another second or two, she wasn't sure, but then she decided that I was joking. I took advantage of her indecision to kiss her.

She whimpered a little, but accepted my tongue in her mouth. Hey - I might as well find out right away if this was going anywhere. I was on the clock, so to speak.

Tushy squirmed a little more. She was definitely into it. This was her chance to show her stuck-up friends that she had ended up with the hot guy.

- "Let's go some where quieter." I suggested.

She dragged me out of the club, and grabbed the first cab in line. Our shuttle driver was watching me.

- "Two o'clock, Thorn!" he called out.

- "Is that you?" said Tushy. "You're Thorn?" She was positively creaming her pants.

- "It's a code name." I said. "But I do have to be back by 2:00."

Her name was Amethyst, and she was a swimming instructor, but that was all she told me, because I got my hand down the front of her panties. I fingered her, but still kept track of time and distance, because I wasn't sure that our driver was making idle threats.

Tushy-Amethyst lived on the third floor of her building. She groaned when I picked her up and carried her up the stairs. Her roommates (or roommate) were out. Privacy, then.

She was more than willing to suck my cock, but I was on the clock. I stripped her for action, gave her a lick and a promise, and then entered her from behind, on her hands and knees. Tushy-Amethyst had a wonderful little ass, and her dance moves weren't restricted to the nightclub floor.

I got a little carried away, and gave her a second ride, seated on my lap. I knew that I was going to be late, but I couldn't help myself.

I came, I dressed, I left.

To my intense relief, our shuttle was waiting just outside her building.

- "Ye're lucky I'm in a good mood." said our driver.

I tipped him generously.

***

Our Saturday move was a non-event. Our next training session was to be here - in an urban environment. We moved across the street, into a barracks disguised as a motel.

The other trainees began to arrive in the late morning, and continued throughout the day. I had my eyes pealed. Yes, I was hoping that Erika might appear.

On Sunday morning, I saw a familiar face.

- "Destiny!"

- "Hey, Thorn." she said, with very little enthusiasm.

She was still tired, despite two weeks of (relative) rest.

- "Talk to me." I said.

She didn't want to - nor did she want to partner up for the month. I was disappointed - and curious. What had happened to her?

Our training was to focus on urban activities: tails, and spotting tails. Break and Enter, impersonation, pickups and seduction. I didn't realize it right away, but our shuttle driver had given me a commendation for fucking Tushy-Amethyst the night I'd met her.

There was also a lot of marksmanship training. Some was in the basement of our office building, but we were also taken to a shooting range for pistols and rifles. We got basic training in automatic weapons, lasers and launchers, but the emphasis was on single targets - so, precision.

I had no trouble with any of it. Tailing was perhaps the hardest part, because it wasn't easy for me to pass unnoticed, while following someone else. I covered my deficiencies by being bold, by ogling the pretty women, and hitting on some of them. Would any covert operative make such a spectacle of themselves?

In terms of exhaustion or stress, this was a cakewalk. Sure, they took us out for a 5k run on Wednesday morning, but otherwise it was child's play.

I kept an eye on Destiny, when I could. She was struggling, a bit. I asked her about it, but she didn't want to talk. I even approached her after the first week, offering to study with her.

"I can't, Thorn." she said. "Thanks, but ..."

The second week was a breeze, too - for me. But I could see that Destiny was having a hard time.

- "Tomorrow morning. Stand next to me. Get yourself assigned as my partner."

She resisted the idea, at first, but at the start of the next day, she was right beside me. Trainer GE loved it: I was nailing the urban tech, and the marksmanship. He saw a way to drag me down, by pairing me with the weakest link so far: Destiny.

Our first task was tailing.

- "Don't try to hide." I said. "You can't." She was dark-skinned, statuesque, and imposing. She simply stood out too much. But she could provide excellent camouflage for me.

Destiny showed a little more cleavage, or bent over to adjust her sandals. At the same time, she could tell me exactly where our target was and where he/she was headed.

When she was being followed, I taught her how to enlist the people (male and female) who were leering, or perving on her, by alerting them to that suspicious person that she suspected of following her.

For the first time in a week and a half, the trainers didn't single her out for criticism. Destiny found a moment to give me a hug, and thank me.

By that Saturday, she had recovered a bit of her swagger. She came to tell me about it.

- "I may not be a great tail." she said. "But I know how to shake one, now - thanks to you. I'm sorry, Thorn. I should have connected with you that first day. Forgive me?"

- "You had a rough month, last time?"

- "Brutal. But that's not your fault. I should have trusted you. How can I make it up to you?"

Late-night archery practice hasn't really caught on. But if you were to do it with Destiny, I suspect that it could become a fad. She went out of her way - orally - to show her gratitude.

We spent Sunday together as well. Unlike in the camps where I'd been before, there were no semi-private places to go to, if you wanted to have sex. There was no seashore, no beach, no secluded grassy spots. There was an alley beside the building, but it stank of urine and vomit. And before you ask, we didn't have the money to rent a room in a halfway decent hotel.

Destiny showed her ingenuity (and her fearlessness) by moving her bed in the female dorm into a corner, and then hanging a sheet from the ceiling. It was semi-transparent, and it certainly wasn't soundproof, but it provided the illusion of privacy, and that was good enough for Destiny.

There were other women in the dorm room, and they were left in no doubt as to what was going on behind the sheet. Destiny was a strapping girl, and the two of us were making her bed creak rather loudly.

She eventually stood up, and had me take her from behind while she leaned against the wall. I have to admit that it was quite a turn-on.

Destiny's performance improved the next week - and not only her street skills. Her marksmanship scores were better, too.

That weekend, we didn't repeat the sheet in the dorm room technique. There were simply too many people there, studying their asses off. We'd been told that we had a major test coming up the next week. But where there's a will, there's a way: we found a storage room with an old-fashioned lock, and were inside in a matter of seconds. I took one for the team, and lay down on the dirty floor so that Destiny could ride me.

The final week of training began with a Monday morning meeting. It was very short. One of the trainers told us to check our comms. We'd all been sent a picture of a nondescript middle-aged man.

- "He is somewhere in the city. You have five days to find him. He must not know that you're coming."

None of the trainees spoke aloud, but you could see people's lips moving: How? One man, in a city of 4 million? Without letting him know that he was the target of our search?

- "How the hell are we supposed to do that?' Destiny asked me.

It took me a good ten minutes to remember that I still had Amethyst's contact info. Well, it was worth a shot. She didn't answer right away - she'd have been at work - but later that morning I got a reply.

- "Thorn?" She sounded very pleased to hear from me.

- "I need to ask you something." I said. "Can I come see you at work? Which pool are you at?" She told me. "I'll meet you for lunch. Is that okay?"

- "What is this going to achieve?" asked Destiny.

- "Everybody knows somebody else, right? You know hundreds, or even thousands of people that I don't. Six degrees of separation? Maybe she knows someone who knows someone who ..."

- "Alright, I get it."

- "As soon as you think of something better, I'll be ready to help. In the meantime, let me try this."

I went to the pool alone, bearing some very appetizing offerings from a street vendor (I didn't know how much time Amethyst would have for lunch).

She really was quite happy to see me. She looked a little plainer than I remembered - but I suppose that swim instructors don't wear a lot of makeup. I kissed her on the cheek, and her arm went around my waist.

- "I can't stay long." I said. "Believe it or not, I'm working. And I need your help." I explained the task at hand. "I have to find this man. And I have to surprise him."

- "Why? What are you going to do to him?"

- "Do? Nothing? I just have to find him. It's a test of my detective skills."

- "You were just kidding, when you said you were ... an assassin. Right?"

I laughed. "Yes. I'm more of an investigator. In training."

Amethyst was a nice girl; she didn't ask me what was in it for her. She immediately sent the pic to everyone on her mailing list, asking them to help find out who this was and where she could find him.

- "Will that do?"

- "It's a great start." I said. "You know, if this works out, I may get a night or two off. Any chance that I could spend one of them with you?"

She beamed at me.

Destiny wasn't as thrilled when I returned. In her view, we were no further ahead than we'd been hours ago. That's not to say that she had any productive ideas of her own. Her mood wasn't improved when we found out, Tuesday morning, that two of the trainees had already found the man.

- "Already? How?"

We only learned the truth at the end of the week: they had hacked the trainers' comms, and followed their trail of messages. Illegal, but ingenious. What we did find out, right away, was their reward for succeeding: a hotel room, theirs to enjoy until the end of the week.

That was quite an incentive. Destiny, in particular, was very jealous. She wanted us to go out and pound the pavement. That was pointless, in my opinion.

- "We'd have better luck standing in the middle of the street and hoping that he runs into us."

She didn't appreciate my sense of humour. She stormed off, to 'do something useful'. I went to the shooting range, and actually did something useful.

I didn't see much of Destiny on Wednesday, either. She seemed to think that she was the only member of our team contributing. It didn't help that we were told that a second pair of trainees had found the man. Nobody had a clue how they'd done it.

Amethyst contacted me on Thursday morning. "I may have something. We - I think that your man works at the Water Plant. His name is Walter."

- "Day shift? Or night shift?"

- "Oh, shoot. I don't know."

- "Doesn't matter. This could be gold. I'll be in touch."

Destiny and I checked out the plant. There was only a small parking lot, for management types - most of the workers probably didn't make enough to own personal vehicles. There was a main entrance and exit, conveniently close to a transit stop.

She covered the parking lot, while I watched the main gate. Sure enough, a few men trickled in - none of them our guy. Then there was an exodus of about twenty workers. And there he was. Walter wasn't hiding - just going about his daily routine. I buzzed Destiny just before I approached him.

- "Walter? Could I have a word?"

- "What? Again? That's like the third time this week."

I buzzed our trainers. Destiny came running, a minute later. Two of the trainers arrived less than five minutes after that.

- "How did you figure it out?" they asked.

- "Do we have to say?"

- "Only if you want the reward."

I told them. Destiny would have killed me if I didn't get her that hotel room. When I explained how we'd found Walter, the trainers only grunted.

- "Hunh. You were lucky."

- "Lucky? How so?"

- "Lucky that you knew someone in this city."

Destiny agreed with them. The trainers made a call, and then had a shuttle driver come to pick us up. We were told to have no contact whatsoever with any of the other trainees, on pain of severe consequences. Honestly? We were at the mercy of the trainers for another six months; there was no way we would risk antagonizing them.

The hotel was... okay. Compared to our lodgings for the last four months, it qualified - barely - as luxurious. Two double beds, a bathtub and shower with hot water. It was pretty sweet. I was picturing a long romp with Destiny, followed by a bath, and then another long romp...

- "Why don't we rest up, for now?" she said. "We can go out tonight. Party a bit. Come back late... and spend most of tomorrow in bed." She stretched sensually.

That was a good plan, except that I had to see Amethyst at some point. She deserved a thank you (which I hoped might involve some more time in the sack). I tried to explain the timing issue to Destiny. She wasn't impressed.

- "Let's see if I understand you correctly: you want me to fuck you now, so that you can rest later on, and then go fuck the skinny wench that found Walter. Is that about right?"

Somehow it didn't sound as good when she said it that way. Telling Destiny that I would much prefer to have sex with her wasn't going to score me many points, either.

"How about this?" she said. "I'm going out tonight. You can stay here and jerk off, and then go see your little sweetheart tomorrow. Have a good time."

Destiny slammed the bathroom door, and then took a long shower. I did the only thing I could: I called Amethyst.

- "Take the day off, tomorrow." I said.

I got a good rest. Destiny made a lot of noise when she came in, about 5 am., to make sure to wake me up. That was fine. I suppose I deserved it, sort of.

I arrived at Amethyst's apartment about noon. For some reason, whenever I remember her, I still think of her as Tushy, or Tushy-Amethyst. Weird. I brought food, and two bottles of wine. She was ecstatic. Either it had been a long time since she'd done something truly naughty, or she was just excited to be with a hot guy.