| From: | Evan Hughes <ehughes@****.carleton.ca> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Drek. Big heaping gobs of steaming drek. |
| Date: | Tue, 14 May 96 23:39:45 EDT |
>>>>>[One of our linked pairs in Seattle has recently been attacked,
abducted, and subjected to some form of interragation before being released.
I recommend the immediate withdrawl of all Linked Pairs from SS lands, as
well as the necessary personnel to locate the kidnapper. All information
regarding this incident is enclosed.
+++++INCLUDE FILE: Incident.report
+++++View File? <y/n>n
+++++INCLUDE FILE: Memories
+++++View File? <y/n>y
" Her senses trilled with flow of knowledge; her datajack and neural
feed acquired, processed, and then displayed information faster than she
could ever of hoped to do herself. Dull green lines overlaid her vision,
displaying air ducts, electrical conduits, network cables, as well as a
plethoria of other features -- data derived from stored building plans,
sensory information relayed from her weapon via the smartgun link, and
pulsed signals sent from her all-to-distant partner in crime.
The corridor continued in front of her -- gyprock walls slung from
aluminum non-conductive studs. Glorying in the power of her knowledge she
pushed herself into a submeditative state, and her gaze slipped into the
astral. The glowing computer-enhanced image slipped from her vision being
replaced by a swirling and ripling scene of light. The same corridor she
had scene before was rerendered in the higher plane. Around her small
eddies of microbes moved. They were the only life. Everything on the
otherside of the walls was hidden by a thin sheet of biologically active
paper adhered to the back of the sheet of each panel. She noted the the
yet another security feature in what had appeared to be an insecure
building and continued on.
She waved panned barrel of her restricted issue handgun, it's
muzzle mounted sensors reporting no sign of any possible resistance. She
jogged down the hall towards the elevator. On queue, the elevator request
light spontainiously illuminated, and the two chromed doors gently and
silently slid apart.
The elevator's light flooded out into the narrow hall, displaying
the sprawled and unconscious figure of a building security guard. Fear
suddenly tightened in Jenna's throat. She froze, leveling her gunbarrel at
the elevator. Sonar, radar, microwave and thermal sensors all declared in
unison that the security guard was the only life within the surrounding 50
feet. Making her fault, she half turned to check behind her.
From empty air, a dark black bag suddenly leaped down over her
head.
Training responded flawlessly, her gun reached back, seemingly
with a will of it's own and opened fire. Without waiting for a confirmed
hit, she tucked down, trying to pull her head out of the dark bag.
Something heavy and hard connected with the base of her spine and her legs
suddenly disappeard into numbness.
She opened herself and drew in mana -- she felt the electric
ripple of magic course down her axons, grounding gently on her
cybernetics. Again another kick, this time sprawling her onto the floor,
the bag torn from her attacker's hands. Jenna rolled onto her back, her
legs limply following her body's request for motion.
The gun she had leveled between her knees was aimed squarly at a
ceiling panel. The ball of dancing flame that had appeared in her left
hand began to slowly flicker out of existance. She paused. The flame
winked out. She reviewed the situation: Bruised spine -- probably no legs
for the next twenty minutes; invisible attacker; sec. guard in still empty
elevator. Things were not going quite as well as planned. But Gabriel was
on his way. She almost felt sorry for her unseen attacker.
Her vision rippled as she moved her sight again into the astral
plane. The hallway was almost completely dead. No life excepty for her own
much muffled glow. She looked at her own aura: no perminant damage done to
her spine. She glanced about further. The security guard in the elevator
was gone. That explained her assailent's entry. She looked for an escape.
None. The only exits from that hallway were through the four bulletholes
she'd put into the gyprock. The black bag had been left on the floor. It's
aura was of suffering. She didn't have to look closely to tell it was a
magemask.
She surveyed the hallway about her. Empty. Apparently. She sent
out a tentative ripple of magic, watching the glowing purple spherical
shell expand out from her. There was an echo. Her meat body almost smiled.
The shell had encountered resistance. Magical resistance. She let loose
another ripple, this time directed towards the elevator -- from where the
echo came. Again it returned. Faint, but still an echo. She pushed her
conscienceness away from her body and towards the anomoly.
Worry overcame her. She froze, uncertain of it's source. Certainly
not Gabriel. Not from this far away. Killer? No. He would still be on the
roof. She stopped. She was the source. She spun about back towards her
body and threw herself wholehartedly back into reality.
It took a second for her body to welcome it's spirit back. A
slight moment of giddiness as some nameless biological entity waited for
the rest of the spirit to return before giving up. Strength and control of
her body returned. She was still lying on her back with her gun sighted on
where her attacker's head should have been. She had to get into the
elevator: it only had one route of attack, whereas the hall had two. She
had to keep herself safe until Gabriel arrived. She concidered taunting
her unseen assailant but thought better of it. The attacker wasn't a
security guard -- no need wasting expensive ammunition on what were little
more than innocent bystanders.
Again she pulled magic into herself. She felt a slight tingle down
the length of her smartgun link but dismissed it. Her body bouyed gently
and moved towards the elevator. She hovered about an inch off the floor,
just far enough to protect herself from unneccessary carpet burn.
And then the magic stopped.
Her body thudded to the ground. Instinct suddenly took over. Her
attacker was drawing mana out of her as fast as she was drawing it in. She
pulled in more, her draw was stronger and faster, and she was still easily
within her limit. She could sense the power being drawn down into the
floor, she rolled over onto her front, the muzzle of her gun buried in the
knap of the carpet. She squeezed, feeling her injured spine tingly
with the electricity.
The recoil of the silenced burst jerked her body back from the
instantanious hole in the floor. She smiled as she felt the mana rush back
into her.
And again the bag came down over her head. She coiled the power
and formed a tendril of pure energy. Something about her body changed --
her counterattack melting into nothing. Blackness overwhelmed. "
The account speaks for itself.]<<<<<
-- Carlo Vausten
Security Director (SS Division)
Sheppard Intrepid
