Chapter One

It was a quiet evening, all we could hear was the sound of the crickets and frogs and the soft whirring of the trucks engine. The radio was on as well but it was too quiet for either of us to hear clearly, it just served as background noise while we waited. "so these lady friends of yours gonna show any time soon?" my voice had a hint of sarcasm as I spoke, Max sat in the driver seat of the truck. he was fiddling with his knife and chewing tobacco. we had been sitting there for nearly an hour so I couldn't blame him for being bored. there wasn't much to look at out here seeing as he decided to park us out in the country side where there was little to no building at all. "yeah yeah they will be here, I just texted them a few minutes ago." as he spoke he rolled his window before spitting the chew out the window. before looking my way again with a grin on his face. "you know me better then that, I wouldn't have texted them if I thought they were gonna waste our time. have a little faith at least." Max was one of my best friends, we both served together in the Marine Corps, and went into special forces together, so when he dropped the corps to go into contracting he basically dragged me with him, he is the type of guy that wouldn't let a good opportunity pass him by, and because of that we had ended up on a lot of good jobs, and getting paid damn well for them. however his "go getter" attitude constantly landed us in situations like this one. sometimes they ended well, it could end up with a wad of cash in my hand or a beautiful lady in my bed. or it could end with me being drunk in a jail cell, which was issue. even if it knew it would end badly I always had to stick around and make sure the dumbass didn't get himself killed. "Your always worrying about this shit, just relax! it's tradition to have a little fun before a job." he seemed excited as useual, I didn't blame him but I was always the one to see the possible bad outcomes. "I hope your right." i wasn't even looking at him, but I could practically feel him rolling his eyes at me. "come on Josh just lighten up already. how bad could it be? four chicks and that's it, just me you and four beautiful ladies. do not tell me that doesn't sound like a good time!" i chuckled and turned my head to face him. "of course it does, I'm just worried about you getting drunk again and punking all over them like that one time you dragged me to the strip club." we both burst into laughter, I may have acted like I hated him, but I've always thought of him as a little brother, even if we got ourselves into some big messes, it always made for a great story.

At this point it was pretty dark, it was about 7:46 PM, and we were told they would meet us at 6:00 PM. "face it dude they dipped out on us, let's just head to a bar and grab a drink. we start our contract tomorrow anyway." i picked a very bad time to speak, just as I finished talking we saw a pair of headlights speeding through the trees, the wound of obnoxiously loud pop music. "hah! I fucking told you they would show up!" Max exclaimed excitedly before flashing the trucks headlights on and off letting them know where we are. "oh Jesus I'm never gonna hear the end of this..." i muttered before sighing. before I knew it Max had climbed out and gotten onto the hood of the car, at this point I should come to expect something like this from him. it wasn't long before the car has driven up beside the truck. it was a red jeep with no roof and a jacked up suspension. and as promised, four wemon inside all in bikinis. one of these days I'm max is gonna mess one of these up and I'm gonna be there to shove it in his face, however id be lying if I wasn't a bit relieved, as much as I love contracting, it got to be a bit stressful at times. and I was long over due for a good time.

The night went well, surprisingly neither me or Max were completely hammered by the time things had settled down. Max being the guy that he is ending up taking two of the wemon home with him. and due to my slightly drunkenness I ended up going home with one of the girls who didn't even realise she was getting into the wrong car. and things went from there. all in all I've had much worse nights when following one of Maxs plans. the next morning I was rudely awoken by the most annoying alarm a human being could out on their phone, and a splitting headache from hell itself. it was probably safe to say that today is gonna be pretty miserable. I sat up to find the other side of my bed empty with a note on the pillow. it read "had to get home and get ready for work, sorry to leave you so soon!" after that was just a phone number. i didn't think a ton of it at the time bad just slipped the note into my wallet before getting up to get ready for the day. today I started some contract working for the local government, I was supposed to be helping to crack down on illegal genetic testing facilities and operations. From Maxs description it would be a pretty easy contract, we just had to sit around as a back up in case any swat raids when bad or if there was a threat swat wasn't qualified for. this was the one field that experience in special forces came in handy.

I woke up slowly as I felt the warmth of an arm gently wrapping around my torso. it took a minute for realisation to hit me. i may not have been completely drunk but I sure as hell didn't remember bringing someone home with me. i rolling onto my back to see the half naked woman laying next to me with her arm draped over my stomach. judging by the fact that I had my jeans on still and she was only half naked, it was safe to assume we probably didn't have sex. which was good, the drunk version of me tends to forget about the condoms in my wallet. i looked over at the time, and sighed. i was gonna have to leave her here, I only had about half an hour before I needed to leave, and being late to a contracting job isn't a good idea. i was pretty quick about getting ready, I left a note on her hand, telling her she could make herself breakfast if she wanted, and I left a bit of cash for a cab. as well as my phone number obviously.

the drive wasn't too long thankfully, it only took about fifteen minutes to get there so I was only a few minutes late. we were operating out of a small outpost like building, it was a temporary set up so the buildings were able to be quickly moved if they needed to be. we were set up in a small part of the forest, it wasn't a huge base, it only consisted of a vehicle garage, a control room, and armory and a few break areas. the control room was pretty high tech, I didn't know the specifics but I knew they could run three oporations from that one room. the break rooms weren't much to see, just some places to eat and a few TVs, they were rarely used. the armory only consisted of empty lockers, the only weapons and gear stored here would be from the contractors who needed a place to put there weapons and gear. other then that there was only ammo and some cheap magazines for rifles in case someone didn't have there's or needed more. the vehicle area had parking spaces for people's cars, but it also had six fully armed MRAPS (armored trucks, like humvee's but ya know.. better). it was kinda odd seeing trucks like this, i seually swat and police used these in civilian setting, other wise I had only seen them in combat zones. i won't lie I kinda missed seeing those bug fuckers.

I got out of my car after parking, I was wearing some multi-cam combat pants an a red flannel shirt, and of course a pair of combat boots. i pulled a gun case an a path duffle bag out of the trunk of my car and started walking twarads the armory. surprisingly Max showed up only a few seconds after I got out of my car. he was probably sober at this point seeing as he could walk straight with all of his gear. "Jesus you look like dog shit." i said with a chuckle as I waited for him to catch up with me. "hey you try going to sleep with two wemon making out while literally on top of you." he said with a grin. "you a lying bastared and you know it." he had caught up with me and we both started walking twarads the armory together. "call me a liar all you want, I'm the one who brought home two ladies. oh and how many did you bring home? one? I'm pretty sure it was only one." he was being irritating already with his condescending voice and cocky attitude. "I wasn't there to get laid I was there to hang out and have fun. remember I was the on who said we should just go to the bar?" considering the events thag too m place the night before I was actually feeling pretty good aside from the annoying asshole beside me. "yeah yeah I remember, but at least you got laid. probably helped." he said as we both entered the armory. "actually I don't think we did anything. i woke up and my jeans were still on, drunk me never gets dressed afterwards." he laughed as soon as I finished talking and kept laughing as if it was the funniest thing he had ever heard... he had a terrible fake laugh. "you couldn't even get laid? your so fucking lonely my god!" I rolled my eyes and started to pack my gear into my locker. "oh can it dipshit, at least I won't have to worry about any surprise babies." he shook his head as he started to calm down a bit "you're no fun" he said before two men walked past us to another set of lockers. i hadn't met most of the people who were signed onto this contract, so there were mostly fresh faces. a few people I head met before but they were mostly unknowns, which was one downside to this compaired to the millitary, here you don't know the strengths and weaknesses of your other teammates, so working in the field can prove difficult at times. as we packed our gear into our lockers we heard the sound of the intercom clicking on before hearing a female voice fill the room. "strike team alpha report to the control room, strike team alpha to control." i looked at Max and shrugged. "that was fast." he nodded. "let's go, we don't wanna keep them waiting."