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Message no. 1
From: Mike Goldberg <m_goldberg@**.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject: Fighting the plague....(part 2)
Date: Sun, 6 Nov 1994 13:55:24 MST
>>>>>[ Without further talking, let's get this show back on the
road! Oh, I should warn you, to cut down on chatter during the
job I cut down on communication that I show. Only part of the
whole group communications show up during the raid.

+++++ Continue video (y/n)? y

You first sight is that of a pitch black screen. Softly, yet it
almost seems like a roar, you hear Scourge say, "ETA 1 minute.
Our one reenforcement is due to arrive in three to five minutes.
He is desperately trying to shave off as much time as possible.
Deckers and White Knight check in, over."

Circuit Breaker: Ah am already out and about. Over.
IBA: Same here. Over.
Scourge: Lady Justice is rolling too. Over.
White Knight: Claw just got himself settled, and is going astral
now. Over.
Scourge: DragonEyes, it's your show to get the final ball
rolling. Let us know through commlink when you are about to hit
the point of no stepping back. Over.
DE: Roger. (Long pause). Scourge, recheck all channel setups.
Over.
Scourge: Checking . . . communications are running as planned,
everyone has single line running to their partner, and another
line to the group. Watchdogs, make sure to contact me if you run
into trouble. I can get you more backup. Over.
White Knight: Roger. Will advise if we head in physically.
Over.
Scourge: Roger White Knight. Over.
Harley: Roger. Over.
Neon Dancer: Roger. Over.
Blitzkrieg: These codes are lame. (dripping with sarcasm)
Over.
Scourge: Deal Blitzkrieg, over.
DE: Any location yet on Crashkit? Over.
Scourge: Negative, over.
DE: Heading for main entrance then. Over.
CB: Roger, will have doors unlocked for you by your arrival.
Over.
IBA: Have two guards in main lobby, over.
DE: Roger. Over.
CB: Doors are a go. Over.
DE: Roger. Here goes nothing. Punisher, take the guard on
left. Whirlwind, take out the other one. It's happy hunting
time. Make sure we aren't haunted by them at a later date.
Over.
Punisher and Whirlwind: Roger. Over.

In stunning silence you watch Whirlwind and Punisher quietly
enter the main doors. The security guard closest to the door
turns as the door opens, but Punisher drops him with a roundkick.
He also manages to catch the body before it hits the ground.
Whirlwind manages to hit his guard completely unaware. Probably
the only thing the guard registered was having a huge object (a
troll) grab him and throw him on the floor. You immediately are
impressed by the speed of Whirlwind. He still has a lot to learn
when compared to the Punisher's tactics, but has a decent chance
of actually living long enough to get it. In eerie silence, the
rest of the group enters.

DE: Any changes in maps that we should know about, over.
Scourge: Negative. There is a lot of traffic in matrix. Be
advised that it may be a lot harder than we were expecting to
keep the alarm silent. Over.
IBA: One guard heading to lobby by right main hallway. ETA 1.5
minutes. Over.
DE: Go with Plan Alpha. Punisher and Blitzkrieg have honors.
Don't forget about your partners. Over.
Blitzkrieg: Roger, mother hen. Over.
Punisher: Cut the drek Blitzkrieg. Over.

You watch two pros work at scouting a hallway. They are followed
by Kor and four hell hounds. (A small message at the bottom of
your screen says: "I have given up trying to figure out which
pup was which. Sorry Kor.")

Blitzkrieg: Go for depths or medical? Over.
Scourge: (pause) Consensus is go mining for the gold. Over.
Blitzkrieg: (click-click)

As Blitzkrieg starts to round a corner, slams into a janitor
cart. Punisher quickly makes like a wall, as a janitor comes out
to investigate. Blitzkrieg panicking, decides to hide in the
cart. The janitor looks around for a bit and rolls the cart into
a room.

Punisher: Room description, over.
IBA: Office. Will advise. Depends on Blitzkrieg though, over.
CB: Fenris, two guards coming from behind.
Blitzkrieg: SILENT ALARM TRIPPED BY JANITOR!!
Lady Justice (LJ): Roger. Moving to intercept, over.
LJ: (pause) Foreign unknown decker to system prevented the alarm
from going through, over.
CB: I got a decker watching me. She's playing it cool right
now, over.
IBA: I'm watched too. Haven't seen UB's dogs yet. Their Ice .
. .
Scourge: Use other line IBA! Over.
Blitzkrieg: Janitor stalling for time. Over.
Fenris: I'm intercepting guards with Princess, over.
DE: Blitzkrieg, we need you out here, not trapped.

View switches to a ceiling camera. You watch as Fenris casts a
quick spell. It catches one of them and drops them. You have no
clue what the spell was due to the fact that the only effect was
to drop the mage. The other, presses a button, and draws a gun.

LJ: Foreign decker is trying to prevent alarm. Failure. Matrix
is on passive alert. Over.
DE: Kiddy gloves off. Over.

Princess catches one guard with a short (silenced) burst to the
back. The guard stumbles forward, but doesn't' drop. Something
is definitely wrong. Princess' eyes go wide. Fenris snarls a
curse and moves over to get a better shot. Suddenly the guard
has a slash down his back, and drops. A voice (Claw's) softly
says, "Your cover is blown. Go for it!"

Blitzkrieg comes out rolling the janitor cart. Punisher looks at
him puzzled for a moment, but continues down the hall.

Vorien: Anyone looking for a partner. I need the medical center
door opened. Over.
DE: Welcome to the party, Vorien. Glad you could make it, over.
IBA: Roger, will inform . . . opened. Over.
Scourge: Check out the infirmary, but don't get yourself
trapped. If primary isn't there, head for the mines. Over.
Vorien: Thanks DragonEyes, and roger. Over.
CB: Guards are stirring, expect an encounter soon.

Blitzkrieg rounds the corner and has to immediately dodge
incoming fire. Ducking behind the cart, he pops off a smoke
grenade. Punisher rolls low to avoid the incoming fire and ends
up on the other side of the intersection. And fires down the
hallway. The camera cannot make out anything through the smoke.
It switches briefly to Ultrasound and you see one guard has
succeeded in taking some cover, and the other didn't quite make
it. Blitzkrieg snarls and whips the cart down the hallway at the
hiding guy with his cyber arm.

Punisher: Live crossing. Over.
DE: <click> Kor, send one of your pups. Over.
Kor: <click-click>

He lets off a short signal. One of the dogs bursts off down the
hallway.

CB: Stairway to your left. Enemies heading down it. Over.
DE: Roger. Whirlwind and I will take it. Over.

You watch in awe as Whirlwind leads into the stairway, at the
same time the cart hits the wall, startling the guard. He jumps
just enough to let the dog figure out where he is. The guard not
expecting a hell hound, never had a prayer. It's a pretty
gruesome sight though. The guards coming down the stairway
didn't survive an ambush by Whirlwind. Unfortunately, machine
gun fire is quite distinctive.

Scourge: Getting out isn't going to be pleasant. We got a lot
of company outside just watching it looks like. Over.
DE: Hurry head for the mines. Vorien, status. Over.
Vorien: I got company. No sighting of primary objective in the
infirmary. I'll get to you as soon as possible. Over.

Punisher makes a break for the stairs. Blitzkrieg follows him
really closely. Whirlwind, DE, Cerise and Highlander follow
pretty closely behind. Fenris, Akaila, and Princess bring up the
next rank. Following them are Brandon, Neon Dancer, and two wolf
shamans. And lastly, Kor and his four hounds come down the
stairs.

Scourge: Matrix is on full alarm. UB deckers are responding.
Their deckers are located on second floor. I got an idea that
should help a little for that. IBA, head outside to help Justice
deal with outside panic alarms.

An alarm sounds off in various parts of the building, as
Blitzkrieg and Punisher hit the basement door.

CB: Hallway has six guards. One definite mage to boot.
Punisher: Just great.
DE: Door has a barrier on it. Punisher, care to help me?

Punisher draws his swords and starts literally carving into the
door. It looks really weird, then doors just fall apart.
Blitzkrieg pumps a smoke grenade into the opposing wall.
Whirlwind: Heavy opposition down here.
Neon Dancer: I got a little distraction for them.

She runs to the front, and throws two small objects to the
ground. Both, when they hit, you realize are flashpaks. She
falls back. Blitzkrieg and Whirlwind start laying down
suppressing fire. DragonEyes starts dancing around. The view
shifts alternately between watching DragonEyes dance and seeing
down the corridor in ultrasound.

Scourge: Lost my pipe in camera room. Over.
CB: Heavy processor load. Deckers are causing some problems.
Your plan was slick. Over.
Blitzkrieg: My side clear. Over.
Whirlwind: I got one annoying one left. Bullets aren't hitting
him. Over.
Kor: Let me send a pet to him. Over.

The camera turns quickly to make out a shape and there is a
rather large heat source over there.

Blitzkrieg: Mine in sight. Heading down.
CB: Locks already open there. Ah have no eyes anymore, so be
careful. Over.
Punisher: Let's do it. Over.

You watch with the camera's movements being really jerky, as the
party moves down the hallway. You note with a temperature gauge
that it is starting to get slightly warmer here, and the humidity
is picking up.

Blitzkrieg and Punisher reach the door. Akaila and Princess have
moved to provide rear guard. At a signal from DragonEyes, they
open the doors. The room is octagonal, and on each side there
are doors.

Blitzkrieg moves into the room and says, "The floor feels wrong.
This is bad. The environment is all screwed up here. It's like
-- I don't know what."
DE: Conditions used to grow something?
Scourge: Cut the chatter.

And then all hell breaks loose. Even after you have watched it
more than once, it still defies description. Large insects that
look like flies and ants descended on the group. It becomes
useless to follow radio communication, because the line pretty
much breaks down. You can quickly see the teams that have formed
up due to necessity. Blitzkrieg, Punisher, Highlander and Cerise
went off in one direction. Two hell hounds went off with them.
Kor, a hell hound, and his two shaman friends went off in another
direction. DragonEyes, Whirlwind, a hell hound, Brandon Lowe,
and Neon Dancer formed another group. Fenris, Akaila and
Princess went off in yet another direction.

Scourge: Radio been reset up. Single channels are available to
people who are close together. Hopefully I got it right.

---

The insects are stunning. You have never seen anything like it.
The caverns here are huge. Insects are pouring out of
everywhere. Dropping from the ceiling, ripping through walls.
Large explosions are happening everywhere.

White Knight: I'm heading in physically at the command of Claw. He is staying
astral. Over.

Flies attacking humans, ants, wasps (you think), and mantises.
Mantises are attacking everything but the humans. It is almost like
everyone/thing for themselves. You are amazed that though the
horrible images are flowing past you, it is in slow motion.
After the first wave of insects, Blitzkrieg's group is fighting
off the insects with melee weapons in itself. It got so bad that
Blitzkrieg dived at one insect and just let a grenade on him
detonate to try and stop it from tearing apart Cerise.

DragonEyes' group has even worse luck. Neon Dancer was really
impressive, and the hell hound went berserk but neither stood up
long to the first few waves. Suddenly the waves of insects stopped, and
started to blantantly avoid the group.

Brandon: They are luring us in.
DE: We lost choice a long time ago. We can't go back _yet_.

Suddenly you find out why (maybe) as they enter a room filled with
cocoons. Quickly they started slitting them. Brandon lets out a
scream. Whirlwind spins around, only to have his machine gun
literally shredded in two.

DE: WHAT THE FRAG IS THAT . . . ??? OH NO!! ABORT MISSION . . .
GET OUT!! WE FOUND CRASHKIT!!!

There is standing a huge human with spider eyes, and a human
torso. He has the body of a spider too. Yet, he (?) has
Crashkit's face. There is no doubt of it. Whirlwind seems to be
keeping it busy, but the spells that Brandon is letting loose on
it, seem to not even bother him.
---
You see the vitals on Blitzkrieg . . . he's hurt badly. He
stumbles away from Punisher, whose blades are barely making a
dent in the opponents. Blitzkrieg pulls the last grenade off his
belt.

Blitzkrieg: I'm releasing a deadly toxin. Look out.

Blitzkrieg drops the grenade at his feet as two wasps head toward
him. You can see their drool as the grenade goes off. One
insect crashes into Blitzkrieg. The other seems to be . . .
coughing. It shakes its head and continues to approach
Blitzkrieg. A bolt of something hits the wasp. It spins and
sees one of the shamans. The wasp just fades into nothingness.
But only for a really brief moment.

It is all you can do to watch, as you hear Kor cry out in anguish
as he watches his friend severed into two separate pieces, by the reappearing
wasp. Kor screams again, and casts a spell. You think you almost see a
ripple. Bugs left and right look like they were hit by a ram
spell. It seems to be dropping the weaker of them left and right. Kor falls
to the ground. Blitzkrieg throws the bug off him. And stumbles
to Kor. Just as he gets there, a fly descends on Blitzkrieg.
The only thing that saves Blitzkrieg is the armor. Blitzkrieg
draws his sword and the fly piledrives Blitzkrieg. The sword is the only
thing breaking the fly's momentum. The sword snaps in a colorful explosion,
Blitzkrieg's vitals drop even lower. You can hear the crack as his right arm
breaks under the pressure. Solely relying on his left arm, he
throws off the fly corpse, and picks up Kor. And starts half-
carrying, half-dragging Kor out. Punisher and Cerise provide
frontal cover, as Highlander provides rearguard. It takes all of
Blitzkrieg's effort to pull out Kor.

---
The only thing that is saving Whirlwind is his speed. Never
thought you would say that of a troll, eh? You see Brandon shrug
at DE. DE sighs, and draws his squirt gun. You notice that he
only has one clip left for it. He loads the clip. And slowly,
moves closer. And then just opens fire with the gun. The first
few squirts don't even phase the Crashkit/spider thing.
Whirlwind drops to the ground and rolls away. The thing turns
toward DE. You can tell from DE's vitals that he is extremely
scared. DE continues to fire away at the thing. You think he is
finally having some effect on it, but it happens too late, as
Crashkit swipes down and slams into DE's hand holding the gun.
DE stumbles off. Whirlwind jumps on the back (?) of the thing,
and starts choking it. DE is fumbling with something on his
belt. You can see that the leg of the thing ripped through the
armor like it was bread. He slaps a patch on it. And struggles
to get up. Brandon pulls him up. They stumble to the door.
Whirlwind, desperately trying to hold on, as the spider starts
climbing a wall. Somehow, Whirlwind manages to hold on, as he
slams into the floor. The fall must have stunned the thing, and
Whirlwind uses the opportunity to set a grenade off underneath
the belly of it. You hear a hideous scream as the thing throws
Whirlwind through a wall. It does a bizarre dance of death, and
finally drops. Whirlwind gets up slowly. He then starts
dragging the thing behind him.

Brandon supports DE as they walk to the entrance. You think it
is odd that they don't get jumped by more than one or two stray
workers, but then again, maybe fate has decided to start being kind to
them.

DE: Regroup at the entrance of the mines.

Slowly, and laboriously, they make their way back. Most of the
insects they run into, don't seem too interested in stopping to
fight. Every once in a while one that does stop to fight dies
rather spectacularly from what you assume is getting attacked in
Astral.

Soon, everyone who is going to meet at the entrance of the
"mines," is gathered. Slowly the make their way out.

Scourge: White Knight and Vorien should be close to your
position now. Don't really have much to judge that one on,
though.

+++++ Video interruption.

The signals that I was getting through Blitzkrieg's and
DragonEyes armor at this point are virtually destroyed.
Brandon's has taken enough damage that I couldn't get a reliable
view out of that either.

The breakdown of what happened from them leaving the mines until
getting out, was pretty much won on a combination of things.
Some powerful illusions, combined with strategic use of limited
firepower. From the sounds of it everyone used all their skills
getting out. We had a hard enough time keeping the other guys
troops disorganized. Which probably helped a lot to. ]<<<<<
-- Scourge <12:30:45/11-6-55>

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Fighting the plague....(part 2), you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.