Alone

Agent Burks was having issues. Very serious issues. Major issues.

‘Hehe...' he chuckled to himself, momentarily distracted by his own
pun. ‘Major issues... hehe... Major Hernbeck issues...' He kept
snickering as he went down the hall, even though snickering was the
last thing he really wanted to do.

‘Never thought I'd come to this.' He was used to being muscle to
take care of enemies. Used to going on missions where his brawn
was much more important than his brains. It never bothered him -
he was proud of his strength and happily left the boring planning
stuff to others. When Major Hernbeck had started asking him to
‘influence' other Agents who were causing problems in the small
Preventers' unit he'd been flattered. It had gotten so that he
didn't even question the orders, just leaned on who he was told
to lean on. Sometimes he'd been uncomfortable with how *hard* he
was told to lean, but he'd done as he was ordered, anyway.

But it had never gone this far.

He'd never been told to kill an Agent. Oh, pardon him, ‘take care'
of an Agent. Like he was too stupid to know what that meant.
Osborne had already left, early that morning. It had barely been
dawn out. Burks was supposed to go with him, but told him he'd
catch up later. He'd wanted a little time alone, to think.
Osborne had shrugged and left. He'd had no issues with their
orders.

Then again, he had a personal grudge against Chang. That was a
lovely bump the kid had left on his thick skull. Thinking about
it made Burks snicker yet again. Who'd have thought little Chang
had it in him? The Major had always led them to believe the tiny
Agent was a pansy pushover.

Osborne sure must have been surprised.

Burks snickered again, and grinned. This wasn't supposed to be
funny - he was about to ruin his career and the careers of a few
other Agents, and he couldn't stop laughing.

He couldn't kill anyone, either. Not someone he was certain had
done nothing to deserve it. He'd heard Osborne telling the Major
about how Chang had pistol-whipped him, and read between the
self-serving lines of his story to get close to the truth. He
was a big strong guy, sure, but he wasn't an idiot.

He reached Chang's office and took a deep breath. Commander Une
had insisted on setting up her temporary headquarters here instead
of the spacious room Hernbeck had prepared for her. That alone
should have told the Major something was up. Moron. Burks
helplessly sniggered again and knocked on the door.


*


Thirty minutes later he sat twisting his hands against the arms
of the chair while Une spoke rapidly to one of the pilots on her
phone. Pilots! Hernbeck had sent him and his boys up against
the freaking *Gundam* pilots and acted like they were just kids!
Damn the man, he could have gotten them all killed!

Burks was feeling much better about his ‘betrayal.'

And from the way Une had spoken, she was so pleased about it -
and the fact that it would help save Chang Wufei's life - that
he had a feeling his punishment wouldn't be as severe as he'd
thought.

Doing the right thing had rewards, after all.