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"Zulu will bitch."

"He can do it in the woods, together with the shitting pope. See you all soon."

…

Gray peered out of small, makeshift window, just a rough cut in a plywood wall, and silently watched. He tried to discern something in the shifting sand-mist, but nothing spurned his interest. There were no lights and no movement. So far the intel held true. It didn't make it any better. Gray's gut felt constricted, like something didn't quite fit. Occasionally, he held up his rifle and peered through the scope; to his shame, the overgrown ghost town was dense, offering little in the way of free sightlines, and thus whatever activities went through within the town proper were hidden away from view.

Gray and his boys waited for a while now. The Captain was still negotiating assets, waging secretarial warfare against the Department of External Defence, or at least whatever automated service they set up to decline anything mercenaries asked for. Gray was, thus, stuck in a limbo, waiting for an all green. Occasionally he'd call up the Captain, get connected, hear the screams and cut the line.

It was funny the first time.

He was worried. He was wrong about the long range patrols - it would that the Brothers truly didn't have any, and this worried Gray even more. He was attentive. Concentrated.

And then he heard a sound.

He turned on a dime, half-laying, rifle primed and aiming at the direction. The sound repeated itself. Someone was climbing the wall.

Gray checked the TACMAP. It told he was alone. His primed the trigger. He was motionless. Silent. Ready.

"Hey! Gray! Gray, it's me! Krinkov! You there? Gray!"

The barrel lowered. Gray sweared under his nose and let a sigh of relief escape his mouth.

"Climb in, you fucking retard. I was ready to sell you the ticket. Fucking idiot. What's wrong with your IFF marker? Why is it off?!"

A figure slipped in through the windowframe on the opposite side of the room. Same softsuit as Gray, same windbreaker. As the shadows of the skeletal room consumed him, his autocamo dimmed and turned into a purplish, dark pattern, dissolving his figure against the uneven shade.