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If you try sometimes, you just might find...
He'd never wanted to be a spy. An engineer had always been his dream. But - ah, such is life, no? As a very wise man - or perhaps simply a very stoned man; the two are often oddly interchangeable - once said, "you can't always get what you want." A spy was what he was expected to be; a spy's skills were what he had developed; a spy was what he became.
Still, the desire lingered in him. Foolish, he knew - for all his interest and yearning, he just didn't have the mind for it. Numbers and figures had always eluded him; he would never have finished the training. He tried to content himself with his sapper, but an electronic thing made to destroy with the push of a button was insufficient to fill an aching for machines, for mechanics, for the cool smoothness of metal beneath his hands and the warm satisfaction of creation.
The engineer on his team mistrusted him instinctively, a disliking only deepened by catching the spy lurking in his workroom, running gloved fingers over gears and assemblies that the engineer considered secret; a transgression as intimate as rape, and one met with a proportionate reaction. No solace there, no kindred spirit to feed the spy's hunger for understanding and science.
In battle he was drawn to the enemy's sentry guns, permissible as per his duty; but he hesitated before placing his sapper, and often, afterwards, he would wait and watch the other engineer make his repairs - lingering as long as he dared, eyes avidly following each movement, each tool choice, each swing of the wrench and tightening of the bolts, committing it all to memory until his cloak was so run down he barely had time to escape.
Eventually he stopped placing the sapper at all. It was better just to hide, to watch, to absorb; eyes full of the engineer's hands on the gun during maintenance work, ears full of the beeping and the whine of the motor and the subtle grinding of gears.
A day came when his team, needing very badly to get past a sentry and finding no help from their spy - too busy sponging up more knowledge of the machine itself - sent in their soldier, and splash damage from the rocket's blast sent the engineer limping for a medic.
In that moment, all thoughts of team and colour disappeared. The spy saw only a machine, one he had come to know, sputtering and sparking and needing repair. Numbers and figures he could never help but stumble over, but action he understood, and he sprang to it; picturing the engineer's motions in his mind, making his own hands do what he had seen the other's do so many times. Move this, tighten this, fasten this here; it fit together like parts to a puzzle, a puzzle that moved and came to life beneath his fingers as he worked.
He had never felt so warm.
It beeped its target-locking alert and spun to face him. He could only smile. It worked. He'd done it.
He was still smiling, peaceful and elated, when the engineer returned and found him on the floor.
You can't always get what you want, but in the end, he'd gotten what he'd needed.
Still, the desire lingered in him. Foolish, he knew - for all his interest and yearning, he just didn't have the mind for it. Numbers and figures had always eluded him; he would never have finished the training. He tried to content himself with his sapper, but an electronic thing made to destroy with the push of a button was insufficient to fill an aching for machines, for mechanics, for the cool smoothness of metal beneath his hands and the warm satisfaction of creation.
The engineer on his team mistrusted him instinctively, a disliking only deepened by catching the spy lurking in his workroom, running gloved fingers over gears and assemblies that the engineer considered secret; a transgression as intimate as rape, and one met with a proportionate reaction. No solace there, no kindred spirit to feed the spy's hunger for understanding and science.
In battle he was drawn to the enemy's sentry guns, permissible as per his duty; but he hesitated before placing his sapper, and often, afterwards, he would wait and watch the other engineer make his repairs - lingering as long as he dared, eyes avidly following each movement, each tool choice, each swing of the wrench and tightening of the bolts, committing it all to memory until his cloak was so run down he barely had time to escape.
Eventually he stopped placing the sapper at all. It was better just to hide, to watch, to absorb; eyes full of the engineer's hands on the gun during maintenance work, ears full of the beeping and the whine of the motor and the subtle grinding of gears.
A day came when his team, needing very badly to get past a sentry and finding no help from their spy - too busy sponging up more knowledge of the machine itself - sent in their soldier, and splash damage from the rocket's blast sent the engineer limping for a medic.
In that moment, all thoughts of team and colour disappeared. The spy saw only a machine, one he had come to know, sputtering and sparking and needing repair. Numbers and figures he could never help but stumble over, but action he understood, and he sprang to it; picturing the engineer's motions in his mind, making his own hands do what he had seen the other's do so many times. Move this, tighten this, fasten this here; it fit together like parts to a puzzle, a puzzle that moved and came to life beneath his fingers as he worked.
He had never felt so warm.
It beeped its target-locking alert and spun to face him. He could only smile. It worked. He'd done it.
He was still smiling, peaceful and elated, when the engineer returned and found him on the floor.
You can't always get what you want, but in the end, he'd gotten what he'd needed.
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