Riley

by: Pete Milan

Rating: PG

~*~

Riley Finn sat in the waiting room, trying not to think about the thing with the tails. It had been last week, just before he’d been pulled out of Belize at last… He tried not to think about the way the thing had just risen out of the ground like Satan himself, the way Brubaker and Dunne had been cut down almost immediately…

He stood and got another cup of water from the cooler. The waiting room looked like any other in the military. Puke green walls, men marching outside….why was he here? All his CO had said was that a special unit of the military had requested a man of Riley’s unique experience. Riley wondered if Graham had been asked first and turned them down.

He looked out the window. The base was in the middle of nowhere. What a pain that had to be when you got a pass, spend half the weekend on a bus…

“Agent Finn?”

Riley turned and saluted the bespectacled sergeantwho’d greeted him. “Sir!”

“The general will see you now. Follow me.”

***

“Well, Agent Finn, this is a very interesting record.” The General, whose name tag read HAWKINS, looked up from the folder on his desk into Riley’s eyes. “Very interesting indeed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This problem you had with your superior officer…”

Riley was too jet-lagged to gloss over it.

“My superior officer was torturing a United States citizen, General. Under the circumstances, I did what I had to do, and I stand by those actions.”

The General nodded.

“Why’d you take the tour in Belize?”

<Because my girlfriend didn’t love me, and her tame vampire had started sniffing around her, and I discovered the magic of having my blood sucked. How’s that grab you, General?>

Riley took a moment to form a more satisfactory answer.

“I know who the bad guys are down there.”

The General nodded again. “You like things black and white, then?”

“I like things right and wrong, General.”

The General stood and pressed a button on his desk.

“Clearance: Hawk, Foxtrot Alpha Niner.”

Riley’s eyes widened as a panel in the back of the room rose up into the ceiling, revealing a dull green light beyond.

“Here’s the deal, Agent Finn. I’m looking for somebody with your experience in the supernatural. But moreover, I’m looking for someone who can see the line between right and wrong very clearly.” He fixed Riley with an intense stare. “You come with me, you get to serve your country, kick some genuine bad guy ass.”

Riley looked back for a long moment.

“Sound good?”

“What about Belize?”

“You’ve wiped out damn near everything without the proper number of legs in Belize,” The General said. “They were thinking of reassigning your unit to Moscow before I put in a request for your services.” He smiled. “What do you say, son?”

Riley stood up.

“Show me.”

***

The panel shut behind them and Riley felt a sudden quiet lurch of movement. They were going down.

“What is this?”

“We call it The Pit,” the General said. “About ten stories underground.”

“Sounds like we’re getting into X-Files territory,” Riley said. “And this assignment involves the supernatural?”

“Oh, absolutely. Ninjas. Shapechangers. Crazies manufactured out of the DNA of ancient Roman emperors. The whole package.”

The elevator came to a halt. The door opened. Riley saw several brightly-costumed figures sparring. He saw jets. He saw tanks. In point of fact, he saw everything the Initiative had tried — and failed — to be.

“We work in secret,” the General said. “A shadow war against a shadow enemy. That’s the fight we want you to join, son…a daring, highly-trained special mission force defending human freedom from a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world.

“This is G.I. Joe.”

Riley turned to look at the General.

“Where do I sign?”

End

Disclaimer: All Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, David Greenwalt, Greenwolf Productions, Sand Dollar, and the Kuzuis. G.I. Joe belongs to either Hasbro or Marvel, but certainly not us. This fan-written fiction intends no infringement on any copyrights.