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Usually the operators of Team Rainbow were free to exist as casually undead. Forever unhealing death wounds could be left uncovered, jokes about missing knees meaning less knee pain, and a cavalier attitude towards injury = comedy were all free to be on full show. The true nature of the organization’s members was secret to anyone off base, but that simply meant on base was a calm reprieve from hiding. Remembering to breathe or maintain body temperature didn’t have to occupy anyone’s mind if they didn’t want it to.
Occasionally, things threw this peace out of balance, but it was exceedingly rare. Harry did his damnedest to ensure no one had to get out makeup, scar wax, or latex face prosthetics to cover anything unless absolutely necessary.
On the rare occasions that were needed instead of just standard headgear and masks, ample warning was provided, and it was usually only a carefully chosen handful of operators that would be seen. Those who had more minor injuries and signs of their death. Those who could hide better. The living quarters of base, as much as they could be called that, were never seen, filled with casual references to the lack of life of its residents.
Today was not a day of ample warning.
Zero bustled into the common room and went straight for the intercom, crowding past a groggy Alibi, yet to have her morning coffee. He jammed a finger into the call button before broadcasting his voice.
“Attention all Rainbow personnel, a surprise inspection of the whole base is set to occur by a very alive politician in two hours, at o-nine hundred hours. Any indications of being anything other than alive needs to be hidden immediately. All operators, recruits, and staff are expected to be fully presentable and appear as near to uninjured as possible.”
He ended the broadcast, much to the squawking of the surrounding operators that had thus far been enjoying their slow morning.
Zero quickly drew gloves from his pocket over his battered hands and immediately grabbed the whiteboard covered in tallies nearby on the wall reading “Number of Ghosteyes members hit with darts (headshots)” and wiped it off. The board could be swung to have many different meanings, but the fewer possible the better. No one needed to know the other squads game of trying to sneak up on the stealthiest people of Rainbow to hit them in the face with rather spiky darts.
Commotion erupted fully as everyone, groggy and caffeinated, processed that this wasn’t a joke. Gridlock sprang up to go find latex immediately, as her extensive crackling and bubbled burns on her face were difficult to hide. Less visibly damaged operators, like Bandit with his Lichtenberg figure, began to run through the public areas, pulling down notices like one taped up by Doc about remembering to remove items from abdominal cavities before they try to have him stitch them up, among other allusions to everyone’s collective undeath.
The biggest casualty, perhaps, was soon to be the coffee pot Alibi was still clutching desperately. She knew what was coming.
The thing about coming back to life is your body didn’t process things quite right. You operated off of what you and your brain thought your body should do. But there were limits. Your brain knew it should process caffeine from the coffee you drank, but the distinct lack of blood pumping made it hard to diffuse it through your brain to wake you up. The magic that held everyone mostly intact was slow to replicate that particular action of their bodies. The benefit to the slowed intake was that the ingestion of poisons was a mere annoyance or a stomach bug at most and not a death sentence, but it was hard to appreciate the benefits through exhaustion.
The operators as a whole had taken to drinking things like death wish type over-caffeinated coffee to get to the same level of alertness regular people achieved with far weaker coffee.
This meant that when anyone still afflicted with life was visiting, the coffee had to be the regular kind, just in case. Some incident years ago with nearly giving an American senator heart palpitations made this a priority on the list.
Alibi put up a brave fight, but she was no match for a fully awake and highly capable Zero. She groaned as the life giving liquid went down the drain and the dusty bag of regular coffee was unveiled from the back of the cabinet to be ground instead.
Despite everything, Zero smirked just a bit, reveling in the humor for a moment, but he sobered up soon enough and barked at Alibi to get a move on. She shuffled onward toward her room for her uniform, muttering something about having a hologram stand in for her during inspection instead of bothering to hide any of the gunshots in her. He’d have to poke her later on if she was standing too still, Zero mused.
It was an understandable grievance, he also wasn’t looking forward to working his way around everyone else rushing to Doc’s med bay for glue and stitches to seal up the worst of the cuts they all had in places that couldn’t be hidden.
As he made his way there, he pulled down papers taped up about another cleaning supply taste test and tossed them into a bin just inside the recruit common area, where they all seemed to be just as frantically applying makeup over bruises and fill-in to any injury too large to seal.
Two of them seemed to be yelling about blending in latex properly, tightly gripping the face of a rather overwhelmed looking third recruit with a sizable gouge in their cheek that went to and past bone. Ah well, they’d get the hang of it.
They had time. Not much, but enough.
A line was already forming inside the med bay of various people checking in with Doc to get him or Thunderbird to stitch up the larger but still closable wounds.
Doc clearly didn’t have his head in the game yet and was unprepared for a visitor. His posture was still in the odd crooked way his broken spine tried to demand, and his breathing was just rushed enough through his quickly spoken orders that his crumbling ribs were grinding together audibly. He’d probably shape up before it came down to the wire regardless, so Zero didn’t worry.
A quick bottle of glue to be returned later was pressed into his hand, and a muttering of good luck was swapped both ways, and Zero continued on.
He hated it when politics forced the organization’s hand like this. Diminishing comfortable and casual interactions with everyone. Rainbow was nothing to toy with and parade around, especially on short notice to people who did not, and could not know who they were. They had jobs to do and giving every self righteous business suit a look around was not it.
Apparently some bigwig or other had gotten it in his head that Rainbow lacked close enough oversight, and that he was the only one fit enough and supposedly non-corrupt enough for the job. Six had mentioned there were likely pocketbooks being greased that made hiding the true nature of everyone’s relation with mortality extra important against prying eyes.
As Zero passed through the operator dorms, he saw a rare open door into Mozzie’s bunk. Gridlock, already far more closer to ”normal” looking, was gently holding Mozzie’s face as she applied makeup to the perennial bruises that covered him.
His near constant wearing of his bike helmet and aviators hid most of the damage, alongside his longer hair covering any shards of his skull poking out after his bike wreck, but there was still discoloration that had to be covered. His driving gloves were snugly fit over his burned fingers as he idly traced them over the edges of Gridlock’s matching remains of a bushfire on her arms, still uncovered.
Zero stopped only momentarily to tell them the remaining time before arrival, and made his way to his own room to patch and clean himself up.
He stepped carefully into his room, and moved with a resigned sense towards the covered mirror by his desk. It was a necessary evil to have it, and everyone hated uncovering them when guests were inbound.
Everyone had nightmares about their death. I was a fact of their existence. That couldn’t be helped. But being reminded of that death constantly whenever they looked in a mirror? That was practically torture.
Nearly every mirror in Rainbow had been broken at least once by someone having a bad day or stumbling awake at three am post night terror. It happened to all of them at some point or another, and so it got to a time where it was best to simply cover them up, and only unveil them when being used or when someone came over. It was less traumatic that way for everyone involved.
Zero stared hard into his beaten up face, the crooked broken nose that couldn’t repair, the bloodless but still raw slices that framed his face. The aftermath of years of missions where the physical toll was in many ways a permanent one.
Luckily, the cuts framing his face and dashing through his eyebrow were the sort that lined up perfectly to close. The blade that had cut there was blessedly sharp, and though he wasn’t glad in the moment they occurred that was true, in retrospect it was useful.
He pressed the nozzle to the edge of one long, bloodless slice and dragged it upwards, squeezing the wound shut as he went. Pain prickled at his ragged fingertips with the pressure, but it was distant, and far less than it would be had he been alive.
He pressed on with the slow and meticulous process. He was one of the people speaking the most to the politician, any flaws in his appearance would be more likely to be noticed.
Finally, the last rip along his cheek pulled shut.
Zero grabbed his coat, shrugged it over his shoulders, and checked the time. He had 15 minutes to make sure everything was clear before he had to be part of the welcome committee. Just enough time to make sure the pool didn’t still have furnishings in the deep end.
He took am unnecessary deep breath despite creaking ribs, ensured his body was radiating the correct temperature, and shut his bedroom door behind him.
It was show time.
Zero arrived to the main entrance alongside Six and Glaz, two of the more alive seeming people on base and various other staff as well, and he gave one last scan to outside.
He noticed Mute scrambling around towards the training grounds that the recruits had been dragged to work in to make any slip ups less suspicious. Mute was wearing his gas mask and full field gear to hide his partially wrecked jaw. The recruits were simply running laps that were unnecessary when your muscles didn’t exhaust, but looked very normal to anyone who thought they needed to train stamina. Hopefully their collective movement would also help obscure any poorly done patch ups as well.
The politician arrived with enough pomp and circumstance to toot his own horn many times over, and shook the hands of everyone there with a suspicious eye.
He seemed to take particular raised eyebrows to the gloves covering both Glaz and Zero’s hands, but that was simply something that couldn't be helped. Makeup and paint couldn’t hold up to the use and abuse that hands brought about, and the blues, grays, and blacks of Glaz’s frostbitten hands were too noticeable to leave uncovered, even more so Zero’s hands looking like and being the aftermath of torture. No one exactly made prosthetic fingernails for destroyed nail beds.
Greetings were exchanged, Zero was told a name he wouldn’t remember in 2 days from the politician, and the tour of facilities commenced.
As they slowly moved through the pompous tour and bullshit inspection, Zero noticed various Operators and staff not occupying the recruits still zipping around like ghosts to silently hide the last things that needed to be stowed. Rainbow was a large and well loved base and two hours isn’t long. A remaining poster on the cork board reminding people to not try and grow plants (namely weed) using their own abdominal cavity was hidden under one reminding people to drink water. He mused it must have been printed for the purpose of cover up. Pretty much no one here was exactly at risk of dehydration.
The politician looked oddly unsettled and suspicious even as the tour commenced as usual and it was taking Zero a moment to understand why.
Body heat? Check.
Breathing the correct amount? Check.
Random small movement- Ah. There it was.
There is a normal amount of swaying, balance adjustments, blinking, and fidgeting in response to stimuli that was fairly normal in the living.
People who didn’t do that caught the brain off guard. They rarely actively noticed the lack but the primal little lizard brain in all people always took note. Like dragging your finger across a smooth surface and feeling an imperceptible deflection. It was a near impossible habit to train into people to commit unconsciously.
And Zero, who’d been dead long enough his brain didn’t categorize that movement as normal, hadn’t been doing that.
Neither did Glaz, who was very used to staying incredibly still through anything for the sake of a shot. It was how he died after all.
Six still made the little movements, but Zero was unsure still if that was because Harry was somehow still alive, so freshly dead he still did it, or did them because he was just that good at doing it without thinking to because of his affections for psychology. Zero figured it had to be the last, Six was too calm with everyone’s undeath and shenanigans for him not to be similarly dead.
Zero shuffled a little as Six spoke and made a quick glance of eye contact with Glaz before slowly and carefully swaying in place. A look of understanding flickered across Glaz’s face before impassivity reigned again, and he did similarly, clearing his throat and adjusting the cuff of his glove unnecessarily.
Something in the politician's posture loosened. He didn’t react to it fully just yet but a mildly confused and scrutinizing look came across his face as the small wave of movement cascaded across the other members of Rainbow in the room also. The searching look on his face vanished blessedly quickly.
Over the rest of the recruit areas the bureaucrat slowly relaxed more to the rustles and shuffling of people around him. His eyes cast about in suspicion less and less.
As they moved through the hallways, an errant poster caught Zero’s eye, standing out from the blank wall on which it was plastered.
It was a one of the notices from the med bay staff on base. This one was written by Finka if he had to guess by the tone. It was another post reminding people (Glaz’s name was scrawled on in sharpie) to please visit the med bay after long term outdoors missions and as deep a clean as can be managed for a thorough check through all wounds to ensure no plant matter remained on or in them.
The med bay staff proclaimed they were tired of people skipping this, only to show up with flowers growing from an unknown plant in their diaphragm.
Again.
They took far longer to remove without ripping tissue out once they had taken root.
As Zero glanced at the flier, he was unlucky enough for the politician to notice it at the same time, and before he could drag the man’s attention away to the otherwise empty corridor, he began slowly reading it aloud to himself.
He quickly turned to the mentioned Glaz to demand the meaning of the poster. Glaz made a wonderful approximation of a deer in headlights for a bare moment before coming back to his senses.
“Ah. Those simply sprang up from a long series of jokes about my lack of movement once I am in position on the field. Some people seem to simply not understand that a sniper is not meant to be seen, and that movement is a giveaway.” he bullshitted.
The politician seemed to lose his bluster. On base jokes were common anywhere, it wasn't exactly unusual for Rainbow to have them either, even if the humor was considerable as odd to an outsider.
The tour resumed, with Glaz tearing down the poster and crumpling it into his pocket. If it weren't for the ruddy flush to his cheeks being permanent, one would assume Glaz was blushing from embarrassment. Small mercies of a hypothermic death perhaps.
The next stop, the med bay, was similarly nerve wracking. Doc, Thunderbird, and Finka all occupied the room, seeming to do busywork filing papers and stocking shelves with bandages that saw infrequent use, Finka seemed to be moving to the storage room to try and keep the uncanny valley effect of everyone down. She was one of the weaker operators at emulating all the little tricks to looking alive. The other assorted medical personnel flitting around her helped mask it though.
Thunderbird had hastily covered the remains of a bear clawing down her face with a mask, luckily fitting in with the fact she presided over the med bay.
And finally, Doc was standing up straight, and a running fan in the room hid the whisper faint crackle of his shattered ribs as he took a steadying breath and gave a report and tour of the area, the few people that could not have their injuries hidden truly and fully hidden were in here.
Luckily, the politician remained oblivious that the bandaged people feigning and actually asleep had wounds in places that seemed unsurvivable, hidden by thick and suspiciously clean gauze though they were.
It was the most nerve wracking part to the tour, showing facilities whose use was rarely for intended purposes with a high concentration of people with much to hide and more to lose.
Slowly, painfully, smoothly, the last part of the tour drew to a close, and Six diplomatically turned to the man in the suit besides him to offer a parting confirmation of the pass of the inspection.
Only for a flurry of a man to burst into the med bay holding a broken off rib, looking at a gaping gouge in his chest from where he rucked up his tank top and not the room before him.
Warden’s already twangy Tennessee accent seemed all the sharper as he continued to try to slot the rib into place while he spoke.
“Howdy Doc, so I finished that grocery run but while I was makin’ my way back I got out of my truck and managed to tumble hard enough out of it to break that one rib off again. D’ya think you can glue it back in-”
Warden finally looked up as a loud thump rang out in the otherwise now silent med bay. He looked somewhere between horrified and constipated.
The politician seemed to have fainted at the admittedly gruesome sight before him.
The sibilant hiss of the fan acting as the only backdrop of sound and feeling perfectly like horrified whispers in the moment.
“Ah. I was going to ask if we were fixin’ to have visitors soon because I saw the posters were down. I s’pose that answers it.”
With that… eloquent breaking of the silence, the various medical staff in the room snapped out of their stupor and leaped to attend to the unconscious man before them, a rare sight in the room, but not difficult to handle.
As everyone shuffled out of their way, Warden shifted his weight from foot to foot nervously.
“So, now the mission is to not cause an international incident.” Zero said dryly.
Six hummed. “Yes, yes it is.”
He side eyed Warden.
The younger man spoke up, “I’m going to be doing a lot of situational awareness training as punishment, aren’t I?” He chuckled nervously.
Zero didn’t laugh. “That’s only the tip of the iceberg for you.”
It was a soon to be shitshow for all parties involved.
They’d live, or as close as they got to it.
