Chapter Six
Nine and Natalie were playing Monopoly in their hotel suite. Nine was reading a card from the game.
"Go to jail, go directly to jail. Do not pass go, do not collect..." Nine dropped his card and moved his Monopoly shoe piece. "Ugh, this is stupid. We should just go to the beach and enjoy the party. This planet is so awesome."
"You're just mad because you're losing." Natalie smiled and rolled the dice.
"You just want to stay inside to avoid bumping into any of your exes." Nine protested. "C'mon, lets go to the beach!"
"We can't! Six is in trouble and all you think about is yourself." Natalie moved her Monopoly car piece two spaces forward and stopped at Tennessee.
"Six can take care of himself, you know that! If he was sober he would've walked away from that kidnapping so fast." Nine sighed.
Just then a call from Strawberry came through on Nine's watch.
"Hey, what's going on?" Nine asked her.
"Alright, I found where the cartel is hiding out. They are located on planet Zedd and, according to a near by satellite, they are torturing Six for information. Luckily the kid won't talk. You both will have to rescue Six." Strawberry informed them.
"Rescue mission. Got it." Natalie replied and started to put away the Monopoly game.
"We are on our way." Nine ended their transmission and grabbed a briefcase, waiting for Natalie to put the Monopoly back on a nightstand.
"It's a hotel, not a fast food restaurant, they can put their stuff back themselves." Nine told her.
She grabbed her briefcase and the two quickly walked out of the room. Walking down a long corridor to the elevators, Natalie looked at her watch.
"Are you upset that Mandy couldn't make it." she asked Nine.
"She is a busy woman Nat. She doesn't have time for games." Nine replied.
"Oh Tatum, all women do is play games. Life is so boring, games are all we have!" Natalie replied and the two took an elevator down to the basement where Nine's ship was parked.
The two climbed into the ship and Nine prepared for take off. They flew through the garage door that opened automatically for them to exit, and Nine pulled on the controls departing planet Taylor Swift.
Once they were up in space Natalie began drawing out a rescue plan.
"Alright. So we will stealth our way on planet Zedd, hovering over the drug cartel's main tent and you'll lower yourself down on a rope to get him." She spoke to Nine who was flying the ship to planet Zedd.
"Why do I have to be lowered." Nine asked.
"I can go," Natalie rolled her eyes.
"No, that's alright I'll do it!" Nine protested.
"God! Okay." Natalie continued. "Now, the cartel is camping out in the deepest forest of planet Zedd. We will have to use your ship's camouflage feature when descending. They have six tents set up. The main tent is the biggest. We will go at nightfall, less chances of getting caught."
"Do you have a silencer?" Nine asked.
"Yea, here." Natalie got the silencer from her pocket and handed it to Nine who put it inside his tux pocket. "Are you ready?" she asked.
"Sounds like a good plan." Nine replied.
They drew closer and closer to planet Zedd. Nine turned on his ship's camouflage and they entered the gravitational field of the planet. It was night on that side of the planet. The forest was so big it looked like a very dark area. The two agents had a hard time spotting the cartel's camp site. They noticed a cloud of smoke in the distance as they approached and Nine shifted his gears to a stealth option. They were now hovering just above the trees.
The camp fire came into view and Nine stopped the ship, hovering silently above the camp site on neutral. They looked down and spotted the tents that were set up in a large circle. There were a few bald, heavy set, bearded men in Hawaiian shirts sitting on logs that were a few meters away from the camp fire. Nine opened the ship's window and listened.
"Quit hogging the marshmallows, give me." One of the men complained.
"Here." Another man handed over a bag of marshmallows to the first guy.
Nine closed the window and Natalie, carefully and slowly, slid the belly of the ship open. She then signaled to Nine who tied a leather strap to his body and jumped down to the bushes by the camp site. Natalie then realized she forgot to tie the other end of the strap and tried to grab hold of it. However, she wasn't quick enough, and the rest of the strap fell with Nine into the bushes making a thud.
"Did you hear that?" one of the men spoke up.
"Must be a raccoon. Well he's not getting my marshmallows." another man replied.
Nine recovered from his fall and looked up at Natalie who shrugged. He then quietly crawled up to the main tent and lifted up its flap to have a look inside. He spotted Six, beaten up and chained to a large boulder in the corner of the tent. He appeared to be alone. He had two black eyes, his hair was ruffled, and his suit was ripped up. Nine snuck inside to help rescue Six.
"Jesus? Is that you?" Six whispered.
"Quiet, I'm here to rescue you." Nine whispered back. He then got a bobby pin from his pocket and started to pick the lock on the chain.
"That is awesome." Six replied, he seemed delusional. "Hey Jesus, do you think the world needs more Persian rugs? There's never enough Persian rugs."
"I told you to stay quiet!" Nine whispered louder. He opened the lock and freed Six. The two started crawling to the open flap of the tent, and as soon as they got to the flap, a man entered. He looked down at the two and withdrew his revolver. Nine reached into his tux and pulled out his gun with a silencer and shot the man in the head. The man fell on the two agents trapping them, and the two struggled to get him off.
"Hey!" there appeared to be another man who entered the tent. "Get them!" he shouted. Six more men walked into the tent and chained both Six and Nine to the boulder.
"What have we got here. Trying to save the world are you?" The first man grinned evilly. The two agents looked around looking for an escape. Just then an even bigger man, bigger then all of the other men, walked into the tent. He appeared to be Quadruple D, the world's notorious wrestler in tights. He had a gold, big, wrestling belt in his left hand. He threw it over the shoulder and walked up to the two agents.
"So you're the guys who are trying to shut down my business." He spat at both of them. "We shall cut you both inside out!" he screamed.
Just then, Natalie walked into the tent, heavily armed, and started shooting on a rampage. Quadruple D jumped behind the two agents while most of his guys got shot by Natalie. She seized fire, the smoke cleared and the wrestler peeked out from the two agents. The rest of the bad guys appeared to be dead.
"Had a girl save your asses did you?" Quadruple D asked Nine.
"Yes." Nine admitted.
"Alright, you agents have got to stop snooping around everyone's business!" The wrestler stood up and started to unchain both Six and Nine.
"We only wanted to negotiate with you." Nine told the wrestler.
"We had a plan set up, with incentives." Natalie added.
"Why didn't you say so?" the wrestler shrugged.
"I've been saying that through out this whole time." Six got up on his feet.
"What do you want?" the wrester asked.
"We want you to sign off some of your business to us. We will get the president to sign off on it. We will get other criminals to do the same and we'll assassinate the man." Nine explained the plan again. It's as if all these criminal minds were dumber than a bucket of hair.
"I already signed it off to Kyle's chick." the wrestler told them. "Didn't she tell you? She's almost got everyone's business by now."
"You mean Mandy?" Nine asked, somewhat shocked.
"Yea, the girl with a tiny puppy. Her!" the wrestler nodded.
"Damn it Nine!" Natalie dropped her weapons. "We should have never trusted her!" Natalie stepped out of the tent and walked to the middle of the camp site. Sh
e entered some codes on her watch and the ship turned off its camouflage and landed on the ground. Six, Nine and Quadruple D stepped out of the tent.
"We have to find Mandy now and get those contacts back." Natalie told them.
"What about my incentive?" the wrestler asked.
"We will think about it." Six replied.
"No you won't, you're just saying that to leave." the wrestler crossed his arms.
"We'll think of something!" Natalie shouted. "Everyone into the ship, except for you Mr. Quadruple."
The team climbed into the ship and took off, leaving the wrestler and his dead buddies, at this time boddies behind.
"Nine! I am disappointed. How could you trust her?" Natalie was livid.
"I know, I know." Nine agreed. "She set us up, that bitch!"
"We have to inform Strawberry." Natalie signaled to Nine to make the call from his watch.
"This was a terrible rescue by the way." Six complained. "You killed everyone."
"I don't criticize your sloppy work, so don't criticize mine aright?" Natalie replied.
Nine dialed Strawberry on his watch and she picked up his call.
"What's the verdict? Did you rescue Six?" Strawberry asked.
"Yes, he is fine!" Nine replied as Six spat out a few loose teeth. "We have a new problem on our hands."
"It's Mandy isn't it?" Strawberry asked. "She set you up, I knew it!"
"Then why didn't you tell us?" Six shouted. "Why did you keep it a secret?" he then undid his tie and threw it at the back of the ship.
"I have a bad feeling about this." Strawberry replied. "Be prepared. Mandy will work with Earth's president and pin this whole thing on our organization. She will have every criminal after you Tatum. Your head will be on the line and our world will be ruled by crime." Strawberry then added. "Even more bad news. Our organization is going broke."
"We must find Mandy and kill her." Six proposed.
"I'll do it." Nine looked out the window into space and appeared to be serious about his decision.
"You don't have to do it." Natalie sighed.
"I do, I know where she lives. I can get it done." Nine continued.
"No, I'm serious. All you have to do is seduce her, get the contracts away from her and give them back to the criminals." Natalie explained.
"Or just give them to the president as we planned to initially. Mandy just did the hard part for us." Strawberry reminded the team.
"Then we assassinate the president and destroy the contracts for good, making both the president and Mandy our scapegoats." Nine added.
"I don't know, seems a little incomplete." Six added.
The team flew back to Earth and hovered over Boston MA. It was night and they were a little unsure of how to handle this situation.
"I think the destruction of such business documents will create a war in our universe." Natalie told her team. "They all answer to Mandy currently. Without Mandy there will be chaos."
"You're right. We can't kill her." Nine said. "I will just talk to her, that's all. Drop me off at that building there."
So the team left Nine alone in Boston and headed back to their headquarters. Nine walked around the city, looking for flowers, doggy treats, and chocolates, and ended up at Mandy's building at around midnight that night. He rang her buzzer and she buzzed him up.
As Nine stepped into the elevator, he thought about this being a trap. What if Mandy will assassinate him as soon as she answered the door. Then again, she needs him to stick around for the mess that's about to go down. Nine wasn't sure what to expect.
When he approached her door he took a deep breath and knocked. Mandy swung the door open and smiled at him. She wore red silk lingerie. Mittens started to bark at Nine as she jumped up and down next to Mandy.
"I was expecting you. Happy Valentine's Day." She said and pulled Nine inside her loft. She closed the door behind him and jumped on him. Kissing him all over his face. Mittens continued to jump up his leg, barking at him as well.
"Girls, girls," Nine tried to pull away. "Calm down." He smiled at Mandy. He got doggy treats out from his pocket and gave them to Mittens. He then handed Mandy the flowers and chocolates. She took them and threw them a side, ripping Nine's shirt open like an animal.
"Wow Mandy." Nine kissed her back and the two fell on the floor. Luckily she had a carpeted loft and the two enjoyed rolling around on it.
Nine felt extremely torn between his mission and Mandy's mission. He really liked her, even though he knew she was only using him. What struck him even more so, is that he didn't even realize it was Valentine's Day. He decided to make love to Mandy for the rest of the night and take care of business tomorrow morning at breakfast. Maybe she had an explanation to all this. Happy Valentine's Day Agent Nine thought as he continued to pleasure a beautiful woman who had her hands all over him.