Undercover Cool: Agents of T.A.L.O.N.

Art and Fiction by Falstaffe

 

Lt. Dominique Merlin hit the release button on the para-glider’s harness and fell, boots-first, towards the pavement. The glider went through a slow aerial acrobatic ballet of re-folding itself into a neat package to be recovered later as Dominique hit the ground, rolled upright, snapped her riot gun into place, and pressed the stock firmly against her shoulder. One corner of her lips quirked in a smile—she’d managed to hit the narrowest of landing spots, her specialty. Had Merlin drifted left or right, she could have gotten tangled in the gardens of the Jardin de L’Infante. If she’d landed short, either the dark, rushing water of the Seine would have swallowed her up, or the paraglider’s lines would have gotten snarled by the metal framework of the pedestrian bridge, the Pont des Arts. And, if she’d overshot the landing, she would have smashed against the fortress-like walls of the Louvre. At the speed Dominique had been going, even her combat armor wouldn't have saved her from a messy demise.

 

“Next time I’ll take the Metro,” Dominique thought to herself, and scanned the museum’s grounds. She was the first pair of boots on the site, so it was her job was to clear the way for the other Talon agents who were still raining down like a murder of crows. But, the courtyard was empty. No targets lit up the light-intensifying “Owl’s-Eyes” goggles. There was nothing, anywhere, just starlight and silence.

 

“Damn!” She swore softly. That meant the "emergency" was either an elaborate hoax or that they were too late. Only one way to find out…she sprang up from her defensive crouch and bolted for the doors of the Louvre. She was about to reach for the heavy, brass handles when it swung open, and out stumbled one of the museum’s guards. His face was paler than the moon overhead, and covered in a cold sweat. Although his eyes were pointed at Dominique, it was clear that he didn’t really see her, and he kept trying to press a paper stub into her hand, “Here's your ticket," he cackled hysterically, "Welcome to the tombs! They're just public mausoleums; the living dead fill every room!”

 

Lt. Merlin pressed her way past the babbling man, ran through the vestibule and into the dark heart of the building. He wasn’t kidding. Around her, the galleries of the Louvre were filled with para-ghouls: shambling half-rotted corpses dressed in tattered rags. Some still had strands of gauzy, spider-web-like material around their shoulders, the remnants of their shrouds. Bony fingers scrabbled at the gilt-framed masterpieces on the walls. All the rowboats in the paintings looked as if they were trying to row away, the captains' worried faces contorted and staring at the waves.

 

Merlin bared her teeth and raised her riot gun, flicked the safety off, began to squeeze the trigger, then stopped suddenly. If she put one more ounce of pressure on the trigger…the bullets would shred the undead thieves…and pass right through the masterpieces! “Clever,” she thought, “The Nazi who’d thought up this little scheme deserved a medal—or a noose.” She eased her index finger off the trigger, re-engaged the safety.

 

A signal chirped in her ear—Lt. Spektor signalled that he was in position behind her. Reggie! He had enough firepower with him to level the building, and a notoriously itchy trigger finger. She sighed and thought, “That’s what T.A.L.O.N. gets for taking on Americans!” She didn’t dare let him advance, and backed out of the museum, stepping into the vestibule before returning his signal on her handheld radio.

 

“Hold position, Flight Gamma! I say again, hold position! I’m going to try something really stupid. With any luck, I’ll be the first thing you see leaving the building. Try not to shoot me.”

 

“Anything for you, dollface.”

 

Merlin ignored Spektor’s reply, checked her riot gun, hoisted it over her shoulder, slung it back into its holster. Cracking the interior door, she scanned the gallery. She watched the shuffling undead, waited for her opening. NOW! She darted for the first pair of double-columns that led deeper into the infestation. She pressed her back into the narrow gap between the columns, trying to make herself hard to spot, trying not to breathe the rank smell of the ghouls.

 

Time to arm her weapon: the Talon gauntlet held a launcher that shot an eight-inch long bolt of barbed steel. The device also had a reserve of high-tensile strength steel cable. She attached it to a bolt, and selected one of the weaker para-ghouls, a gaunt, whispy-haired creature, bent over from the weight of the painting it was trying to cart off. Perfect. She aimed, braced her arm against the pillars, fired. The bolt struck the ghoul on the right side of the head at the temple, its barbed end emerged wetly out of the left eye socket. It shrieked, and dropped Edvard Munch’s painting to the carpet.

 

“Looks like I got a live one…” Merlin thought to herself, and then played the squealing ghoul like a master angler, jerking it to and fro. Its wails seemed to break the other zombie’s concentration. They turned away from Renoir and Cezanne and Matisse, and turned their attention towards Merlin.

 

“Lucky me,” she thought. Drawing her combat baton, Dominique shouted into the growing mass of dead flesh, “OK you maggots...time for lights out…and lock up! COME AND GET ME!”

 

The dark horde surged forward as one, and Dominique ran for the door…

 

(With apologies to Regina Spektor)