Black Ops

Characters

VOICEZAHN

Setting

A nondescript room in an undisclosed location.

Black OpsCopyright © 2006 by William Donnelly

wdonnelly@townisp.com

Black Ops 2

(A small black box emits scratchy transmissions of code—a female voice recitesseemingly random numbers interspersed with words like "yankee . . . bravo . . .sierra . . . tango . . ." etc. ZAHN enters dressed in a robe. He crosses to bowl ofwater on a small table. He brushes his teeth. In time, the code fades out and avoice is heard coming from the black box.)

VOICEMalta today . . . weather as expected . . . mostly clear . . . high 62, low 53 . . . winds fromthe west, five to ten kilometers per hour . . . visibility outstanding . . . we're looking atValletta . . . just outside town . . . you know the building . . . stone façade . . . red door . . .no alarm . . . after that . . . Slovakia . . . Ghana . . . Syria . . . Kurdistan . . .

ZAHNNo . . .

VOICEIt's not that bad.

ZAHNNot to you.

VOICEActually, it looks like two in Kurdistan.

ZAHNAre you kidding me?

VOICEIn and out.

ZAHNIt's never in and out.

VOICEOf course it is.

ZAHNNot in Kurdistan.

VOICEIn and out.

After that . . . where are we after that . . . Bangladesh . . . scattered thunderstorms . . .highs in the low nineties . . . lows in the low seventies . . . ooh, and there's a bug . . .

Black Ops 3

ZAHNWhat kind of bug?

VOICESome airborne something . . . flu-like symptoms . . . fever, aches . . . gastro-intestinaldistress . . . ooh . . .

ZAHNWhat?

VOICEOh, my . . .

ZAHNWHAT?

VOICEJust something awful. Unrelated to the bug . . . a man and a hatchet . . . some dispute.Nothing for you to worry about.

ZAHNUnless I meet a man with a hatchet.

VOICEI'm sure they've arrested him.

ZAHNLovely.

VOICE. . . nope, they haven't . . .

ZAHNAre we finished?

VOICEPlease don't "snip".

ZAHNI'm just tired. (He starts to floss.)

VOICEDid you sleep?

Black Ops 4

ZAHNNot well.

VOICEAnxiety dreams?

ZAHNLargely.

VOICEThe dog is chasing you . . . the alarm goes off . . . the father wakes up . . . the window ispainted shut . . . the neighbor sees you . . .

What do you remember?

ZAHNA girl in a white dress.A child.Dark hair.Long.She's dressed for school.Some Catholic school.In Mexico it seems.Has that feel about it.She's eating breakfast across from me.On a patio.There's that weight in the air.That tropical weight.She's eating little squares one by one.Chex or something.No milk, just out of the box.Dry.Crunching them.Smiling.And I remember this profound feeling like she was mine.The way we were sitting there.Looking at each other.It seemed she was my own.She reaches out and offers me some cereal.Pinching a square in her little brown fingers.I take it.I bite into it.And all my teeth fall out.Even the back ones.Right onto the table.No blood or anything.

Black Ops 5

No pain.Just teeth coming loose and falling out.And she just keeps on eating.Keeps smiling.

VOICEThis is a bullshit dream.

(ZAHN looks at the black box.)All dreams are bullshit. Leftover electricity, random pulses. The brain takes thesemeaningless strands, turns them into stories. What else can it do? Making order fromchaos—lining up numbers, matching socks—this is what the brain does. And, yeah, it'sentertaining to say, " Mother appeared in a tree and she was shaking acorns and thatmeans I will rapidly attain my wishes in business and or love." But it's more likely that,somewhere in your day, you were thinking of your mother, thinking of acorns, and it'sthose pulses that bubbled up when you fell asleep. For whatever reason.

ZAHNYou really believe that?

VOICEI tend to actively dissuade myself from speaking in terms of belief.We did Bangladesh, yes?

(ZAHN starts to gargle with Listerine.)Let me see what else I have here. Lhasa. Shenyang. There's a possibility of something inNampo, but I won't bring that up until it's confirmed—

ZAHN(Mouth full.) Wait wait wait. (He spits.) Go back a second.

VOICE"Lhasa"?

ZAHNAfter that.

VOICE"until it's confirmed"?

ZAHNNampo.

VOICERight.

ZAHNNampo?

Black Ops 6

VOICEMaybe.

ZAHNNorth Korea?

VOICELet me check that.

ZAHNYou're not sending me to North Korea.

VOICENo.

Probably.

ZAHNProbably?

VOICEOkay . . . "yes" . . . but that's an unofficial, unconfirmed, you didn't hear it from me kindof yes.

ZAHNI can't believe this.

VOICEIn and out.

ZAHNStop saying that! It isn't! It never is! It's always a clusterfuck! Every time! A miserablegoddam quagmire. Are you familiar with that word? It's one of those words that soundsas ugly as it actually is. And it's my workplace. A boggy, mucky, bewildering fuckingquagmire.

VOICEIt's not that bad.

ZAHNIt's worse. And it's getting worse every day.

(Again, ZAHN starts to floss.)

Black Ops 7

VOICEThis is from not sleeping. That's all this is. Should we continue?

ZAHNDo you believe we're doing the right thing here?

VOICEI tend to actively dissuade myself—

ZAHNDo you think we're doing the right thing?

VOICETo be completely honest with you, I'd be about eighty-five percent more comfortable ifwe just kept it to business. Is that acceptable?

ZAHNDon't you ever have doubts?

VOICEOf course.

ZAHNAnd what do you do about it?

VOICEWell . . . generally, I take in the situation, examine it from multiple angles, and, in time,reach a conclusion that's often some variation of: "Well, now you're just being silly."

ZAHNAnd this works?

VOICEI'm still in the box.

ZAHNJust seems worse lately.

More intense.Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.Might just be a protective mechanism.But when it clouds everything…

I don’t know.

At the start, it was all about the task at hand.

Black Ops 8

The work draws focus:"How do I get this done?""How do I best achieve my stated goal?"You don't really get too far into the worth of the goal.

About its rightness.Righteousness“What’s the worth in this endeavor?”“What’s its lasting impact?”

At some point it's like: "Yeah, okay, we can go in anywhere we want, anytime we want,get what we need, leave behind whatever we choose, and it's onto the next one."

Does that make it right?

We've been going about things this way for a pretty good time now—How often are we asking if there's maybe another way?Or a better way?And maybe there isn't, that could be the answer, too,But my concern is whether or not that process of questioning is even happening.I don't have answers.I wouldn’t even begin to pretend I have answers.I'm just saying:Busting in, taking what we want, throwing money in our wake . . .This is maybe not the best way to make friends.

VOICEIs making friends the goal?

ZAHNYou tell me.

(Pause.)

VOICEYou're tired.

ZAHNOkay, and what else?

VOICEWhat else do you want? I know it's not ideal, but, at some point, you just have to beardown and keep on. Push through. This is isn't the time to question, it's the time to work.

Are we together on this?

Black Ops 9

Hey.

ZAHNI hear you.

VOICESo let's make it happen.

(ZAHN exits while the box continues to speak.)

It's three o'clock in Valletta. They'll be bedding down around eleven. Most likely the oldman will be up smoking on that back terrace, but if you go in on the side near that olivetree there shouldn't be an issue. There's a gun in the house, but it's nothing . . . little .22.On that hall window there's enough of a gap where you should be able to pop it with justa little persuasion. Watch out for the table on the landing. It's got knick-knacks andpictures all over it. Lamp. The window's right above it. Go easy on the entry—you don'twant to knock all that shit over. The room you want is at the top of the stairs on the left.There's usually a nightlight, so that should help. The kid's kind of a light sleeper so becareful.

(ZAHN re-enters wearing a tiara, delicate wings, and perhaps a tutu. He carries awand.)

Apparently it's a front incisor so I'd say give him a Euro. Maybe two.

ZAHNI know the fucking drill.