Chapter 8 Accidentally breaking a superheroine?
The drug Stark had injected did its job and the girl began to awaken. August checked her pulse and made sure she was okay. Anita's first request was simple water, the man poured boiled water into his glass and gave it to the girl. After the water after a while she opened her eyes and there was the first contact between the mercenary and the rescued multi-billionaire.
August tried to show himself in front of the girl as an independent, stale mercenary in order to limit himself from premature contact with the superhero world of Marvel. Right now he needed to accumulate as much power as he could to protect himself from the insanity of what was going on in the world. Afghanistan was the perfect platform for his growth, it was dangerous to go anywhere else.
Not denying himself a little prank, Augustus taunted the future superheroine while she was feeding. It was a hilarious sight for a man to watch a girl accustomed to a life of luxury choking on fried meat.
"I can't take it anymore," the red-haired beauty turned her greasy face away. - Stop putting meat in my mouth.
"You've eaten five pieces of meat, each piece about three hundred grams. That'll be ten thousand dollars.
"That's robbery! Stop it already, you'll get your money," Anita said calmly. She did not like it very much that some man dared to mock her in her moments of weakness.
August didn't say anything back to the woman and stepped aside to eat as well. He planned to sit in that cave for a couple more hours, then load Stark into the car and turn her over to the base. Let the US Army deal with her from here on out, the man had done everything he needed to do, all he cared about was the money he would get from Anita for the rescue.
The assignment from the system was fulfilled as soon as the girl opened her eyes for the first time. The system counted stopping the internal bleeding as completing the task. A new skill was added to his skill scale, and the system decided to give the suit via coordinates. The note on the coordinates said that he needed to dig in the right place and receive his reward. At times like this, August regretted a bit that he didn't have the bottomless inventory typical of all games. If he had, he wouldn't have had to lug around a huge number of bins and drive a big pickup truck.
"Why can't I feel my legs! - Anita said excitedly, distracting August from eating. The girl's words made the man break out in a cold sweat.
Throwing the unfinished meat on the ground, he quickly approached Stark, who was worried about her legs. Pulling the blanket off the girl, Augustus carefully positioned himself over her. Anita looked away from her feet and stared at the man in surprise.
"Wha...
"Don't distract me, I need to check your condition, - August interrupted Anita and ran his gloved hands under the girl's T-shirt, gently touching her back. - Can you feel my touch?
"Why did you start this in the first place, if you want to seduce me, you won't succeed.
"Stark, don't mess with me, tell me, can you feel my touch? - Gently groping the girl's back, the man moved down from her upper back to her lower back.
"Can you feel anything here?
"No.
August's face hardened beneath the mask, and he spent some more time groping the girl's back. Trying to look calm, the man returned to the fire and sat down on a rock. Stark looked suspiciously at the man who had moved away from her and began to guess something.
"Where-are they, for I remember taking them as an amulet a while ago. Aha, I found them!"
Frantically rummaging through the front pouches of his unloading, August pulled out a crumpled packet of cigarettes. He had stopped smoking and drinking after getting immunity, his body no longer felt the former effects of those two things. The unsmoked packet of cigarettes remained something like a talisman to him, which, however, he now decided to use.
"Stark hurt her spine in the fall, I didn't think Iron Man would be so unlucky in this Marvel universe. Have I really fallen into a dystopian version of the Marvel universe?"
Turning away from the sedated woman, the man smoked a cigarette while in some sort of prostration. If her spine had been damaged in the fall, the mercenary had damaged Anita's spine even more with his less than careful actions. Stark's partially appearing disability was on his hands. The injector stuck into the girl afterwards only slightly healed all her wounds, taking her out of the critical situation. She needs medical attention as soon as possible, otherwise this could take a bad turn, her spine's a mess.
"Hey, you're a mercenary, right? - Anita turned to the man who was left alone. - Get me to the US Army base and I'll pay you five million, and I'll pay you extra if I have to.
"Twenty million," August came to life and threw his cigarette into the fire, "and we'll sign a six-month contract with you. That way I'll be sure I'll get my money, and you'll be sure I won't just screw you over.
"I agree, do you have anything to draw up a contract on?
The man got up from his seat and rummaged through his rucksack. He took out two folders with sheets of paper, which turned out to be contracts for hire, written in English. Augustus wrote the price of hire himself and signed at the end of the document. Stark took a long look at the documents, leafing through them and reading the clauses.
"If I sign this, will you get me out of here?
"I'll at least give it my best shot.
Stark put signatures at the end of the documents. August left one copy with her, and tucked the other back into his travelling bag. As much as the man wanted to stay in Afghanistan, it seemed the world itself was pushing him to go to the United States. To the epicentre of all the chaos and violence. He felt a small twinge of guilt for not properly administering first aid to the would-be superheroine. Perhaps it was because of his careless actions that Anita had lost the ability to walk.
For himself, he made a decision to help Stark get out of the terrorist-controlled region of Afghanistan and take her to the base of American soldiers. Then after returning the girl back home, he contracted with her immediately receive twenty million and can spin an expensive roulette with comic book characters. Having gained renewed vigour from the roulette, Augustus will deal with Obadiah and spend the remaining months quietly as the rich lady's bodyguard. Once his contract is up, he'll be back here in no time and continue to build up his strength.
He'll spend six months, but he'll get twenty million dollars for it. Stark's help could be considered a high-paying assignment. In the six months he spent in Afghanistan, August only managed to earn two million dollars.
"I guess it wasn't my conscience that kicked in after all, but my lust for profit. It would be a simple matter for me to deal with Obadiah, if anything. But for some reason, I have a strong feeling that the plot will unfold in a different way than it did in the canon."
"Get some sleep, Stark. We leave in a couple of hours. I'll keep you safe," Augustus said to the woman. It was clear from her clouded gaze and the large bruises under her eyes that she hadn't been sleeping much lately and had been working most of the time. She was trying to get that damn suit together as soon as possible so she could get out of the terrorist base. So much for not getting a good night's sleep.
"I'm cold," Anita complained. August thought of nothing better than to pull the sleeping bag with the girl closer to the fire.
The man and the girl were next to each other near the fire, and somehow, after the degree of tension had subsided, a conversation started between them. Stark was not going to sleep, she was curious about her saviour. She asked Augustus questions and received answers. The man told her everything she wanted to know, there was no point in withholding information. Of course, he didn't say a word about his system, but Stark didn't ask about it.
Two hours came to an end and August dragged his things back into the car and together with Stark went towards the mercenary base. All American mercenary bases cooperated with the U.S. Army, through them it was easy to get to the military. They even sometimes came to the mercenary bases to hire a few locals for their own purposes.
"The roads are blocked, they want to take us in pincers," August came upon the third terrorist patrol. All the roads that led to American-controlled territory were blocked by huge groups of terrorists. If August had been alone, he might have tried to break through, but he was with the incapacitated Stark, and he couldn't risk it. - So we'd have to take a detour, a journey that would take about a month.
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