Army of Two

Elliott Salem and Tyson Rios. Do they sound like immigrant workers? Wrong! Although not as wrong as you might think. My partner Rios and I are battle-experienced mercenaries who, as it were, let our weapons do the speaking when we cross borders into different battle-zones. Our tools are assault rifles, grenades and sniper rifles. I like my job, as anyone who has seen me in action will confirm. Tyson feels the same way. When the bullets are flying, he is in his element. The guys at SSC, our employer, also know that. We are now on our way to Somalia, where we have to meet some shifty guy called Philip Clyde. The helicopter pilot gets ready to land, we load our weapons and check the tight fit of our equipment. Off we go on a lucrative day’s work!

My body armour feels as though it weighs a ton, and the humid heat is hard to bear under my mask. The whistling in my ears diminishes slowly, and my head only hears a steady pulse. Where are we headed for?! I notice how my partner Rios fires with everything he has on the enemy positions and our opponents entrenched there. I then take a short breather. You can still depend on the old war-horse. While Rios uses his intense offensive fire to generate an atmosphere of aggression, and draws every bit of attention on himself, I slip carefully out of my protective covering and take care of the heavily fortified machine gun positions from the rear. In the distance we can hear the peculiar noise of an approaching helicopter. I dig out my freshly bought rocket launcher, a pimped out piece which shines a golden and silver colour in the sun. The rocket once launched finds its target and strikes the rear rotor of the approaching Chinook helicopter. The flying colossus flutters to earth. Oh yes, baby! And another 10,000 dollars in the account! That provides me with a cool new move, a set of precision butts for my shooters. We cannot help but strike up and air-guitar our way through a song together, crowned with a hearty handshake. “How cool was that?! It was like a knife strike, beautiful!”

If only it always went so smoothly... I don’t know any more how often we have dragged one another back to some shelter after one or the other has been shot. I only know that it happens damned often. Our opponents behave in such a sophisticated manner that you would think you were on a giant paintball farm. Adrenalin is our constant companion whenever Tyson or I are dragged across the ground, and meanwhile keep our persistent foes at a distance with massive amounts of lead from our half-lying, half-sitting position. We are a finely-tuned killing team, that’s for sure. Rios tosses over an abandoned riot shield, and I get behind it. One hand on his shoulder, the other on the grip of my assault rifle, we advance forward strategically. Hundreds of enemy bullets hit the shield, and I am battered incessantly in all possible directions. Rios swipes an opponent who emerges unexpectedly in front of us out of the way with a powerful slap of the shield. Soon after that, our mobile protection falls apart. We slip into the next-best protection. There are only two enemies with sniper rifles behind a pile of sandbags. We simultaneously grab both with a precision swing and get ready for a simultaneous shot. I start the countdown. Three seconds later, our shots have found their marks almost at the same time. The field of battle is ours.