An Average Man

"I really think you've made a mistake!"
    "That's no way for a hero to talk, Oliver!" The man across from Oliver said, pumping a fist in the air. Above their heads, the helicopter's blades chopped. "Your country needs you! I need you!"
    "No, I really think you don't!" Oliver Bascombe, systems administrator for the CIA's Del Pune division, a city in the country of Pangke, said. "This isn't my expertise!"
    "Nonsense!" Bradley Tonman responded. "You're exactly the kind of man we need for this job!"
    "But . . . you don't understand! This sort of thing isn't for me!" Oliver whimpered. "My middle name is actually Average! It's pronounced Ah-ver-age, though."
    "An unassuming exterior!" Bradley pointed out. Certainly this was true. People looking at Oliver could only assume a few things about him, like the number of pies he'd eaten was surely greater than the number of miles he's ran. "Which contains a talented and useful interior!"
    "I just know computers!"
    "And what do you think we're going to be dealing with on this mission?" Bradley asked, making himself more comfortable in the stiff-backed seat. He was a man who could recline anywhere. "These men we're going to deal with, their systems are all controlled by computers. Even to our agents in the field, you're the best with computers out of anyone at Del Pune. We're running out of men good with computers, you know!"
    "Perhaps I could have held a clinic?"
    "No time!" Bradley responded. "This is a matter of international security!"
    "Which nations?" Oliver asked.
    "What?"
    "Which nations are in danger?"
    "Oh I don't know . . . all of them," Bradley said with a wave of his hand. "It looks like we're going to be landing soon. Are you ready?"
    Oliver looked singularly out of place in his camo suit and ammo vest. Here was a man who needed a white, button-down, short-sleeved shirt and tie to feel comfortable. Instead, he had paint on his face and a knife attached to his hip where his cell phone normally was. Every few minutes he thought he felt it vibrate. "I suppose I am."
    Bradley was already standing on the ground fifteen feet away from the helicopter. "Can't hear you!" He shouted. "Come on now! And keep your head down, or it'll get sliced to pieces!"
    Oliver regarded the whiring helicopter blades with a pale face. He climbed out of the chopper and it disappeared behind him, flying away before he had a chance to reconsider and strap himself back into the seat. He was left standing in a nearly barren plain. He waddled to where Bradley stood.
    "There it is, chum," Bradley said, looking through a pair of binoculars. "Do you see it?"
    "No. I have no binoculars."
    "Shame. It's a fine sight." Bradley packed the binoculars away somewhere. "Let's get a move on. The safety of the free world is at stake!"
    "You still haven't told me why the world-" Bradley was already ten feet away and accelerating. Bradley hiked up his pants and trudged after him.
    The ground was made of alternating dirt clods and rocky ridges, every one of which aimed to drop Oliver to the ground in as painful a manner as possible. By the time he caught up to Bradley, who was peering between a few bushes, Oliver was bruised, scratched, and he'd lost his knife.
    "There, you see it?" Bradley whispered. Oliver moved a section of a bush to look past. There was a compound beyond, with wire fences, guard dogs, towers with gun snouts poking out of them, and more.
    "How are we supposed to get in there?" Oliver asked. He wiped sweat from his chins.
    "We ask nicely, chum," Bradley said. "How's your Pangkian?"
    "Can't speak it."
    "Then you're a mute for this next part, Oliver." Bradley stood and put his hands on his hips. "Let's go around this way," he said, pointing. He left before Oliver could respond.
    Oliver caught up to him as he turned the compound's corner and was heading for the heavily-armed front entrance. "I really don't think this is a good idea, Sir," Oliver said.
    "That's odd," Bradley said. "I thought you were mute, Oliver." Oliver clamped his mouth shut.
    As brave as a pigeon in central park, and as stupid, Bradley walked right up to the guard shack that sat aside the dirt road into the compound. The man in the shack, dressed in fatigues and carrying a rifle, recoiled in shock when Bradley suddenly appeared with Oliver a few feet behind him.
    "Juhga nendo tim a da?" The man asked, sticking the end of his gun against Bradley's nose. Oliver ducked, to avoid getting pieces of brain on his clothes, but Bradley calmly responded.
    "Een en inhat reffu weoragat," Bradley said, motioning to himself. "Pono yeg wandararu." He pointed behind him at Oliver, who waved.
    "Bornen, I? Zommo panawaradin?" The guard laughed, and then Bradley laughed, and then Oliver tried laughing, but as soon as he started laughing the guard and Bradley both glared at him. The guard hit a button and a door in the gate swung open. He jerked his thumb inside. Bradley walked through the gate and Oliver followed him in.
    Inside, soldiers bustled past them in all directions. In one corner of the large yard, soldiers were doing jumping jacks, pushups, and situps. Soldiers that tarried would get a slap with a stick in the back. Near the exercisers was a long, bullet-ridden board. A dozen soldiers lined up and aimed a painted silhouettes that looked suspiciously like a short, fat man wearing a short-sleeved shirt and tie.
    Both of these things made Oliver want to be away from the yard. He hustled after Bradley, whose long legs carried him away from Oliver.
    Bradley made for a fat, flat, gray, unassuming building one one side of the compound. It looked relatively unguarded. They entered the building through a metal door. Bradley took a quick look around, and then turned to Oliver.
    "All right Oliver, it's your time to shine. This building has a part of the compounds computer systems in it. It'll be your job to do a few things."
    "How did you know this is the right building?" Oliver asked.
    "Isn't it obvious? Short, squat, and boring-enough looking on the outside. I knew it had either a computer system or a sewage treatment, and I can tell from the smell it doesn't have a sewage treatment. Here's what I want you to do: We need some information from the computer system here, but I also want you to upload a virus to their system without them knowing that you've done it. Did you bring a virus?"
    "What?" Oliver asked. "No!"
    "Well, that's all right," Bradley said, taking out a floppy disk. "I brought my own; it should work fine. Here we go." He walked down a hallway away from Oliver, who was getting tired of having to catch up to Bradley.
    Bradley went around a hallway's corner, and found himself up against a guarded door. He saluted to the two men, who saluted back to him. He waltzed right up and began to chat in Pangkian, leaving Oliver standing behind him trying to act like he understood.
    After a few minutes of talking and laughing, one of the guards unlocked the door and waved the two of them inside. On the other side of the door was a large room filled with servers and computers. It was empty, hot and dark. Just the sort of room Oliver loved.
    "This is more my speed," he said. Most of the time his speed was a heavy walk, but sitting at a computer he could be a blaze of lightning. He found a terminal and sat down. After raising the chair to the correct height, he cracked his knuckles and looked at the screen.
    He typed the word "password" into the password box and was in. "What sort of information do you need me to get?"
    "This group has sent squadrons to attack major areas of commerce in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. I need you to find out all the information you can about their movements, personnel, anything."
    "Well, all right," Oliver said. He pulled on the collar of his outfit. "How did you get us in here, anyway?" He asked as he started searching through the system. "It looked like this place was locked down pretty tight."
    "I just told them how much I respected their profession. Guards, you know. And I do! My sister was in the Color Guard. I was a guard for a year and a half before I got my break. Yes, guarding. It makes you feel good, protecting. It's what we're doing here, really. Protecting the nations." Bradley swelled with pride.
    "Which nations?"
    "A bunch. How's it going in there?"
    "It's a bit difficult. Their system is all over the place. Plus a lot of the files are encrypted. It'll take some time to break that. You said your sister was in the color guard? Which branch was she in?"
    "She was never in any trees. I know she guarded yellow, though. Nice color."
    Oliver paused, trying to figure out what it was like living life from Bradley's perspective. He imagined a lot of unicorns.
    They heard conversation on the other side of the door. "How much longer will it take?" Bradley whispered.
    "I'm not even close to being done yet," Oliver responded. "Can you do anything to keep them from coming in here?"
    Just like his credit card limit, Bradley was up to the challenge. He smoothed his hair back and opened the door a crack, finding two more men with the guards on the other side.
    "Sorry, what's all the commotion?" He asked in Pangkian. "We're doing a bit of work in here."
    "I've never seen you here before," one of the new men said. "Who are you? What are you doing in there?"
    "Contractor," Bradley said. "Cleaning the system up. Your files are a mess. They're all scattered around the servers. Cords are tangled, too. My partner measured a twelve percent decrease in productivity because of those. Got to watch out for tangled cords."
    "I wasn't told of this," the man said. He looked like a sort of superior to the other men.
    "Sir, don't worry, we're doing everything we can to get things in tip-top shape." He leaned in close. "My partner, sort of a wizard with these things, you know. I'd advise you not to disturb him. He knows so much about computers and things that he's forgotten everything else. Barely knows how to feed himself. But get him in front of a screen and he can manipulate your bits in ways you won't see outside of a South Korean gentleman’s club. Ram? I don't know much about rams, sir, but he'll give you more rams than a Tibetan pasture. He puts servers together faster than a psychiatric patient blames his mother. Trust me sir, you'll never know we were here, but your emails will make it to their inboxes just as quick as can be."
    The man stayed silent for a moment. All that could be heard was tapping from behind Bradley. Finally, he nodded and walked away, followed by the other extra man. Bradley waved goodbye, and then closed the door again.
    He went back to Oliver, who was staring slack-mouthed at the screen, fingers assaulting the keyboard with unerring precision.
    "Say Oliver," Bradley said. "What is RAM, exactly?"
    "Random Access Memory," Oliver said. "It's how the computer finds information."
    Bradley nodded long, smooth strokes up and down. "So, what you're saying, is that it is, in fact, not a kind of animal."
    Oliver stopped typing so suddenly that the lack of sound actually hurt Bradley. "No, it isn't an animal." Oliver went back to typing.
    "How goes it here?" Bradley asked. "Getting all the information?"
    "I've found some things, but it's all in Pangkian," Oliver said. "I can't translate it. I've found a bunch of maps and schematics and things like that, though."
    "Good going. Get as much as you can. Ah, oh, and here," Bradley handed Oliver a thumb drive. "Put it all on here, and we can take it back with us." Oliver took the thumb drive and started searching for a USB port. He found one and jammed it in.
    "You know, it seems to me like this place isn't too hard to get in to," Oliver said. "Couldn't you just attack this place and keep them from carrying out the attacks?"
    "Not a bad idea, but there's a flaw," Bradley said. He picked up a metal box with lights and a few buttons, and turned it over. "There are other compounds like this one all over the world, and capturing this one wouldn't stop the attacks. It'd probably just make them attack sooner." He put the box down. Somehow, all the lights had turned off. "So we needed to be sneaky about it."
    "I see. What are we going to do with the information?"
    "Oh you know, the normal things. Set up extra guards around the area they've noted, roadblocks, deploy suave super-spies to take down the kingpins, that sort of thing."
    "Right."
    Oliver continued clicking through the files on the server system. He kept glancing at the door, expecting a multitude of heavily-armed soldiers to break through it and perforate them with special bullets created to inflict maximum pain. Bradley seemed none too worried.
    Oliver clicked on a file, and it opened a document. Inside were a few city names he recognized, like Limburg, Emmental, and Madison. "Take a look at this. It's a bigger list of cities. Is it targets?" Bradley swooped down, and scanned the words.
    "It looks like it. Copy this one, and anything that seems similar."
    Oliver nodded, and copied it to the flash drive he'd inserted. "What are they going to do in these cities?" He asked.
    "They're going to attack an international commodity, with the intention of seizing a high amount of the production and monopolizing the sale. They also intend to disrupt production, so that no more can be made. It's a very important trade that has been around for thousands of years. Getting their hand around it would cripple several economies, and likely through the world into chaos."
    Oliver stared, mouth slack. What on Earth could it be? He wondered. Wheat? Rice? Oil? Cotton? Lumber? He rubbed his hands together. "What is it?"
    "Cheese!"
    There was a time of silence in the server room; little more than computers whirring could be heard.
    "Cheese."
    "Yes, that's right."
    "We're risking ourselves for the world cheese market."
    "Do you want to eat pizza without any cheese on it?" Bradley asked. "Do you want to have a hamburger instead of a cheeseburger? Have you ever had a grilled nothing sandwich? Right bland."
    "It seems like you're overplaying the importance of this."
    "Not in the slightest!" Bradley knelt down next to Oliver. "One third of Switzerland's GDP comes from the production, sale, and existence of cheese. Italy's fine chefs would go out of business, not to mention a number of French establishments." He jabbed a finger at Oliver, who recoiled. "Do you have any idea how many Wisconsinites would starve?"
    "All of them?"
    "At least! Cheese is a beloved food product all over the world. If you never ate anything with cheese, how many items could you still eat in a normal day?"
    Oliver sat thinking for a few minutes. The number he came up with was woefully low. Bradley saw the look on his face and smiled. "That look is why we're doing this. If I can save one person from realizing that he has to eat a cheese-free lasagna, then I will call this mission a success." He pointed at Oliver's screen. "Now, get to work!"
    "Yes sir!" Oliver said loudly, emboldened. Bradley clapped a hand over his mouth, and they both looked fearfully at the door. Nothing happened.
    "We're still on an undercover mission, Oliver," Bradley whispered, keeping his hand over Oliver's mouth. "I like that gung-ho spirit, but don't be too keen. Do you know how Pangkians execute people?" Oliver shook his head. "It isn't pretty. It involves a lot of ropes. Get me?" Oliver nodded. Bradley removed his hand and wiped it on his shirt.

A few hours passed. Bradley was forced to convince the guards that nothing was the matter, it always took this long, why don't you boys get a bite to eat? We have things handled here for a moment.
    Oliver had copied dozens of important-looking files into the thumb drive Bradley had given him. They looked important, but due to his inability to speak Pangkian, they could have been dress code guidelines or information about the upcoming karaoke night. He couldn't tell. He figured some of them at least would be helpful, so he erred on the side of caution and copied almost everything that obviously wasn't something worthless.
    But, eventually, he was done. He'd combed through hundreds of files, gazing dully at the Pangkian script. Finally, he ejected the thumb drive and handed it back to Bradley, who then handed him the floppy disk he'd been carrying.
    "Right, the virus. I hope that they have a floppy drive, otherwise there's no way for use to upload it," Oliver said.
    "I have no idea what you just said," Bradley responded, "so I'll assume you're right. What are we looking for?"
    "A hole that is the same size as a floppy disk," Oliver said, holding it up to Bradley's eyes so it looked like a thin piece of paper. "It should have a square button next to it, and a few lights that will be off until I insert the disk."
    "Right," Bradley said. "What about this doohickey?" He asked, pointing at a server rack.
    "No, I don't see one there. It isn't going to be very big."
    "What about that thing over there?" Bradley asked, pointing at the far wall. "That doesn't look very big."
    Oliver looked. "That's a microwave."
    "So it is."
    They searched for ten minutes, finding nothing. Bradley pointed out to Oliver a mouse pad, an air conditioner control, the microwave again, and a laser-disk player.
    "They have a laser-disk player but not a floppy drive," Oliver said with his arms crossed. "I know they aren't in heavy use any more, but a lot of places still have them."
    "Is there any other way to get the virus to the computer?" Bradley asked. "Can't you just open the disk and type the virus into a document on the computer?"
    "Well . . . no. There are a lot of reasons that wouldn't work," Oliver said. "Many, many reasons."
    "All right," Bradley said. "What if we rounded the edges of the floppy disk like a CD, and put it in there?"
    "Let's just keep looking," Oliver suggested. Bradley nodded, and went back to inspecting a server rack he stood next to. He looked down at the table next to that, and found the box he had been looking at earlier.
    "Say Oliver," He said. "This looks sort of like the thing you were talking about. Is this it?"
    Oliver came over and took the box from him. "Yes, I think it is!" It didn't seem to have any cords attached. "We need to find a cord. After that we're done, right?"
    "Right. We take this information back to base, and we enjoy a nice commendation."
    "You do. I don't. I'm just a sys admin," Oliver said. He looked downcast. "I go back to making sure the system works and hiding in my office."
    Bradley sighed. "Is that what you want?"
    Oliver looked up at him. Bradley was tall, and strong, and handsome, and, in his own peculiar way, smart. Right now he looked down at Oliver with empathy. "I don't know. This has been . . . fun, I suppose. But it's not exactly something I want to do all the time. I guess I'd rather just have a quiet life and a quiet job." He looked around quickly. "I mean, there are people out there who would shoot us if they knew what we were doing!"
    "You're right. It's dangerous," Bradley said. "But it's important. Besides, you're certainly going to get a bonus, and your yearly review will certainly reflect your commitment to going above and beyond your job description!"
    "I suppose that's true," Oliver said. "That'll be nice."
    "Good. Why don't we find a cord for this kachigger so we can get this over with and go home."
    It was a long search which resulted in disappointment. There were a staggering number of cords present in the room, but most of them were attached to boxes that were on, and would probably object to being unplugged in some way. The few that weren't attached to anything were the wrong size, or shape. They found one that looked like it might have worked, but Bradley announced it was the wrong color. Oliver suggested they try it anyway, but it didn't work.
    "I wonder if those guards are back," Bradley said. "I'll go see if they can scrounge up the right cord for this thing."
    "I don't think-" Oliver started, but Bradley already had his hand on the door handle. He swung it open, and started talking to the guards outside, while Oliver tried to keep all of the exasperated noises from getting out. After a few minutes of conversation, Bradley closed the door and went back to Oliver.
    "They're going to check around." He looked at Oliver, who was griping handfuls of hair. "You seem upset."
    "Don't we want as few people as possible to know that we're here?" Oliver asked, slowly letting his hands relax.
    "Oh, don't worry about that. Nobody will worry about somebody going around and asking about a cord for two ITs!" He paused. "What is a group of IT people called?"
    "A crowd."
    "Right. Should we keep looking?"
    "I suppose we can. I don't think we'll find much, though. This room is a look into chaos theory. The mess looks structured. I doubt we'll find much of anything useful."
    "Well. Do you want to talk about anything?"
    There was a slight pause. "Like what?" Oliver asked.
    Bradley shrugged. "Anything. Movies, music. Do you paint?"
    "What?"
    "I dabble in a bit of painting myself. I study some of the masters to get inspirations. Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello. The greats. I like landscapes. Big wide places with ups and downs. Mountains, caverns, great big skies."
    "Sounds interesting."
    "It is. I don't get to do it very much, of course. Very busy with work you understand, but it's very relaxing. Sometimes I hang over the painting and go top-down!"
    "Oh, like Jackson Pollock?"
    "What?" Bradley said. "Who's that?"
    Before Oliver could answer, they heard a knock at the door. Bradley held a finger to his lips, and went to answer it. Oliver heard snatches of some conversation. Soon Bradley walked toward him with a few cords.
    "Here we are. He got us a bunch to test. Let's try this one!" He held up a long black cord, and tried to jam it into the back of the machine they'd found. It didn't fit, no matter what angle he tried it from. Oliver very gently took it from him, and replaced it with a different cord.
    The fifth cord they tried seemed to fit, and they were able to connect the floppy drive to the computer Oliver had been working at. After checking to make sure it would work, Oliver instructed Bradley to put the disk inside. A bit of guiding later the disk was in, and information was being transferred to the server.
    "It looks like it'll take a few minutes," Oliver said. "Is there anything else we need to do?"
    Bradley shook his head. His blond hair flapped from side to side. "It's just that simple. The only thing now is to get back to the extraction point. That's where the helicopter will pick us up."
    "I know that. Will we be able to get out the same way we got in?"
    "I think we should. I mean, I don't see why not." Soon the computer bliped, and Oliver ejected the floppy disk and handed it back to Bradley. He unplugged the floppy drive as Bradley stashed the disk. "Now, if I remember correctly, we should have about fifteen minutes before all of this-" Bradley motion to the room at large "-starts to be affected. We'll want to be out of there before then. I suspect they'll be able to make the connection between IT guys they've never seen, and a crippling virus. Shall we?"
    Oliver was already at the door. "Come on!" He said. He opened the door, expecting to find two guards, and instead found the guards and two extra people, the superior from before and another man. Oliver stared, stricken nearly dumb. Bradley appeared behind him and started talking.
    They talked for some time. Oliver's internal timer, set to fifteen minutes, was ticking down slowly but surely. Finally, the two extra men turned around to leave the building. Bradley indicated that they should follow. They exited into the humid, hectic outdoors.
    The air was still full of shouting, shooting, and running, though it didn't look like there was any reason for it, it was just what would happen on any normal day.
    "What's happening?" Oliver whispered to Bradley, aware that he was supposed to be mute. "Where are we going?"
    "Don't worry, everything's under control," Bradley whispered back. "This fine fellow is just going to take us out for a ride."
    "That does not sound like 'under control' to me!" Oliver whispered back. One of the men glanced back at him, and he had to pretend he hadn't been talking. He almost started to whistle. The man looked away. "They're going to take us out into the woods and shoot us!"
    "Don't be silly, Oliver. As far as they know, we're a couple of helpful technicians doing a bit of maintenance. Ah."
    Oliver saw that the two men were getting into a gray jeep. The superior of the two pointed at the seats behind them, and Bradley go into one. Oliver gulped, wiped sweat from his face, and sat next to him. The jeep took off out of the base. Bradley amicably waved at the gate guard, who waved back.
    "Why would they take us out on a ride unless they're going to dispose of us?" Oliver said just under the rattle of the jeep. Bradley could barely hear him. "What possible reason?"
    Bradley patted him on the shoulder, and then leaned forward.
    "Say, what are we going out to do, here?" He asked the man in the passenger seat, the supposed superior of the two, in Pangkian. "We're quite busy, you know. Have a few more places to hit before we finish for the day."
    "The Captain has expressed an interest in getting to know some of the people that work with him," the man driving the jeep responded. "He knows you've been very busy, but he wants to let you see the sights for a bit before you get back to work."
    "Well, that's quite kind of him -- a paragon of managerial style -- but we have quite a lot to do, you know. He should just let us get off here, and we can get a ride out to the next site. How's that?"
    "The Captain is very adamant," the driver explained.
    Bradley leaned back. "Apparently, he's just giving us a tour of the countryside. Out of the goodness of his heart, the driver says."
    Oliver didn't respond, but the way his expression melted to rest at the bottom of his face told Bradley how he'd handled the news. "We'll be fine, trust me. Nothing bad will happen." He looked around. "In fact, we're quite close to the . . ." He lowered his voice even more. "Extraction point. We'll just slip away and get picked up. Easy as Grandma Alstadt's thyme cakes."
    Oliver recoiled at the thought of thyme cakes.
    The jeep slowed, and stopped. The Captain and the driver got out, and Bradley and Oliver followed them. They were on a ridge looking over a big, green forest. The Captain said something in Pangkian, spreading his arms wide, as if to point them toward a grandeur that was hidden from them. Oliver and Bradley both looked out, nodded appreciatively, and turned to go back to the jeep.
    "Wait!" The driver said, clutching Oliver's arm -- he'd heard the word "Prig!"
    "You haven't seen the best part yet!" The driver said to Bradley. He took a pistol out of a side pocket.
    Oliver panicked, and tumbled to the ground with his hands over his head, quivering. The driver looked at Bradley with a confused expression. "What's wrong with him?" He asked.
    "My friend is no big fan of guns," Bradley said. "Er . . . what exactly do you plan on doing with your piece, if you don't mind telling me?"
    "It's just to scare the birds," the driver said. Bradley nodded, as if this was normal, and to be expected.
    Bradley made Oliver look up as the driver pointed his pistol out over the forest, into the air. He fired a single, cracking shot -- Oliver shuddered and latched onto Bradley -- and waited.
    An instant later, a wave of dark birds erupted from the trees below them, turning into a curtain of black against the sky. The four of them watched in wonder as the cloud turned into shifting shapes, a liquid form of squawking atoms.
    Eventually the birds drifted back down to their trees, and the sky was clear again.
    "That certainly was something," Bradley said to the Captain. "Thank you for bringing us out here, but we really should be going now."
    The Captain opened his mouth to say something, but before he did a jeep roared up next to theirs. Four soldiers jumped out, and ran up to the Captain. They began to shout and exclaim in Pangkian, gesturing wildly around them.
    "Uh oh," Bradley said.
    "What is it?"
    "It's been fifteen minutes."
    At first, Oliver didn't fully grasp what he meant. Then, belatedly, the internal alarm clock started clanging and banging, telling Oliver that the virus they'd uploaded had started taking effect. He went pale, his heart started to thunder, and his palms started to drip sweat.
    "Okay, be quiet now," Bradley told him, under the shouting. "We take their jeep and make for the extraction point."
    The Captain turned and looked at them. "You two! You were working on the computers! did you notice anything strange?"
    "No sir, not us!" Bradley said. "Everything looked in tip-top shape when we were checking things, sir! These things happen sometimes, some websites can spread viruses if the protection isn't right-"
    "No one ever said viruses," one of the soldiers said.
    Nobody moved. Slowly, like a cloud over the sun, the Captain's face turned hideous. "What did you two say your names were?"
    "Run!" Bradley shouted, and Oliver didn't need telling twice.
    Bradley jumped into the driver seat of the jeep, which luckily still had keys in the ignition. Oliver dove into the back seat, bashing his shins horribly on the side of the vehicle. Bradley turned the ignition and gunned the engine, throwing it into reverse.
    The Pangkians shouted vile curses at them, and Oliver was glad he didn't understand them. Bullets whizzed over his head, and he shrieked. He looked out the windshield, and saw all six of the Pangkians aiming various weapons at the retreating jeep.
    "Keep your head down!" Bradley shouted. Oliver eagerly obeyed. Bradley risked a glance out the front of the jeep, and saw the soldiers getting into the remaining vehicle, shaking their weapons and shouting at him. "Hold on to your hat, Oliver, it's going to be a rough ride!"
    Oliver squeaked.
    Bradley swung the steering wheel in a tight circle, twisting the jeep around so that it pointed away from the other vehicle. He shifted to drive and punched forward. Dirt and rocks spun under the tires, and they lurched ahead.
    "Do you remember where the extraction point is?" He asked Oliver, who was huddled in a ball at the bottom of the back seat. "Can you guide me there?"
    Peeking his head over the edge of the jeep, Oliver took a quick look around. He tried to remember which direction they'd come from, and which direction they'd gone. "Turn to the left!"
    Bradley wrenched the jeep again, and Oliver tumbled to the right side of the back seat. They headed through a wooded area, crashing over bumps in the ground. The Pangkian's jeep followed them, filled with all six cursing soldiers. The Captain drove, eyes narrowed ominously and hands wrapped around his jeep's steering wheel.
    "You might want to speed up a bit!" Oliver said. Bradley looked behind him, spotted the soldiers, and pushed the jeep faster.
    Bullets began to fly by, some of them penetrating the back of the jeep and making small holes. Oliver stretched away from them as best he could. While he did, he noticed something under the seat.
    "There's a gun here!" He shouted. "There's a gun in the jeep!"
    "Shoot at them, then!" Bradley shouted back.
    "I don't know how to fire a gun! I don't even know how to play paintball!"
    "It's easy! It's just like riding a bike! But it shoots bullets and has no pedals!"
    The jeep slalomed around a few trees, skidding in the dirt. Bradley got them pointed the right way again and sped them forward, but the gap had closed.
    "Can't you do it?" Oliver asked. He pulled the gun out from under the seat. It was a rifle. He didn't understand how it had fit.
    "I'm driving!" Bradley said.
    "How about switching?"
    "There's no time! Just do your best!" A bullet took off his driver's side mirror. "Hey!"
    "We're going to die!" Oliver wailed!
    "No! None of that! We aren't going to die! We aren't going to get captured, which will surely lead to horrible torture and then death!" Bradley said. Oliver gulped. "We're going to escape, get back to base, and we're going to celebrate! You hear me? But we can only do that if you help us get away!" He guided the jeep past a big tree. "Oliver!"
    "Yes! Fine!" Oliver looked down at the rifle as the jeep bounced. It was big, and black, and had more buttons than Oliver thought there should be. He pointed the barrel at the other jeep and squeezed the trigger.
    Nothing happened. "It's broken!" He yelled over the bullets.
    "The safety's probably on!" Bradley shouted back. "Look for a switch near the trigger!"
    Oliver found such a switch, and flicked it. It revealed a red area, and Oliver took that to mean it was now unsafe. He aimed again, and fired.
    Roaring bullets shot out of the gun, hitting nothing in particular. However, all six of the soldiers ducked their heads, including the Captain. While he wasn't looking, the jeep hit an angled root and tipped over, spilling khaki-clad soldiers all over the floor of the forest. Bradley turned a corner and they were gone.

The jeep drove toward the waiting helicopter. Oliver was sitting, drained, in the backseat. The pilot waved them aboard as soon as he saw them. They got on the helicopter, and it took off toward the CIA base.
    "Well done, Oliver. You'll be a field agent yet."
    "I don't think I want to be. In fact, I'm certain I don't want to be. If that's all right."
    "You did fine."
    "I almost got us killed."
    "Nonsense," Bradley said. "You did what any average man would do, and missed. You saved our lives. We have all the information right here-" He patted his pocket "-and the terrorists have a nice new virus. You did fine."
    "They now we were there, though," Oliver said.
    "It'll be all right. They don't know what kind of information we have, and the virus will keep them from finding out." Bradley reclined in the hard, upright chair. "Now, I believe you said you would buy me a beer if we got out safely. I'm holding you to that."
    "What? When did I say that?"
    "Earlier, when we were working with the computers."
    Oliver was going to protest, but he thought for a second. "I also said I'd only buy you one if you bought me one," he said.
    The helicopter rotors chopped for a moment. "That's fair," Bradley replied.