| From: | shadowtk@********.demon.co.uk (Paul J. Adam) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Interstate Five - Five Eyes Motel |
| Date: | Mon, 29 Apr 1996 23:44:56 GMT |
>>>>>[Well, Paul,unofficially this is a legitimate attack on foreign
military
forces illegally present within the UCAS, so on this at least you can't pull
jurisdiction on us and try to arrest us for it. But since I was there and you
don't officially know who the dead guys are, you can investigate it, can't you?
+++++begin video
The view is from a camera, behind the reception desk of the Five Eye Motel: the
clerk is sprawled in his chair, an assault rifle and a pizza box on the floor
beside him, watching the highlights of a Urban Brawl game and glancing at the
monitors of the security cameras every so often.
The layout is V-shaped, with reception at the apex and two corridors lined with
bedrooms off either side. The clerk looks up, reaching down to place a hand on
the rifle, as the doors open.
The couple entering look like your typical working girl with customer: the man
is large and impassive, the woman laughing, drunk or dusted. As they come
through the door, the audio feed kicks in.
"Sorry, no vacancies. Didn't you see the sign?"
"Aww, c'mon, you can find us one itty bitty room for half an hour, right?" asks
the girl, lurching and grabbing the doorframe for support. "I'll make it worth
your while, honey-"
As the clerk shakes his head, the customer brings up a silenced Predator II and
fires twice, the clerk thrown backwards. Blade moves up, sees the man still
trying to reach for the alarm button, and shoots him twice in the head.
"Clear." Their weapons reappear suddenly, the masking spell dropped, as Quinn
glances down one corridor and Blade down the other.
"No reaction."
"Check. Coming." Lynch and Lilith come in through the doors, both carrying
suitcases. Blade takes one and disappears down one corridor, Lynch the other.
Quinn sits on the reception desk, leans down and opens the pizza box, and picks
out a slice.
"Hungry, Lilith?"
"Not only do you murder him, you steal his pizza too. Have you no shame?"
retorts Lilith from where she is watching the corridor. "And aren't you meant
to be covering Blade?"
"I am. Clairvoyance. Everyone's asleep, apart from the mage and the OC in 23,
and they're still distracted. Guess she's fu- I mean, bucking - for promotion."
Quinn takes a huge bite.
"I don't really want to know, Quinn." Lynch returns, opening a wall panel and
turning a valve, then testing several wires with a small meter before cutting
three. Blade moves back to the end of the corridor at this point, and begins
placing small white-painted objects - each rectangular, about the size of
paperback novels - along the skirting board, where they blend in well.
"Okay. Fire exits prepped, corridors set, smokes set All done?" Lynch and Blade
nod.
"Jason, alarms and sprinkler down?"
"Sprinklers are gone, dead, finished. Alarm is on whenever we want it."
"Blade, Claymores rigged?"
"As planned."
Lilith flexes her shoulders, adjusts the ride of her slung AK-47, raises her
hand and draws her katana.
"We go for quiet first and shift to noisy as necessary. Blade, you cover us
while we play with sharp toys." Blade nods tersely, thumbing the selector on
his rifle. Lynch moves to the side of one corridor, Quinn with him, as
Lilith takes a classic kenjutsu stance by the other.
"Okay. On three. One."
Quinn raises her ornate rapier in a salute.
"Two."
Lynch draws a combat knife and a hatchet with a ludicrously short haft - until
a sideways flick of his wrist expands it to full length.
As Lilith is drawing breath, Quinn suddenly says "Whoa!" The other three look
at her.
"Is this 'one, two, three, go!' or is it 'one, two, THREE!'?"
"Jesus, Quinn." Blade shakes his head, trying not to smile. Lilith glares.
"On the three. One, two, THREE. And if you don't behave we'll shoot you. One.
Two. Three!"
There are a sudden series of muffled coughs, and all of the group tense for a
few seconds. Yellow light flickers and flares out of the corridors, and
tendrils of smoke waft by the ceiling.
"Nobody's woken up. Yet." says Quinn softly.
"Okay. Give it a little longer to really take hold." replies Lynch. They wait
in silence for several seconds. There is a sudden shout of alarm from somewhere.
"Now."
Another series of thumps, these sharper, and dense black smoke begins to
spill out of the corridors. The alarm suddenly begins to warble shrilly, and
there are more shouts, then running feet as a man - wearing only a flak jacket
and unlaced boots, and carrying a Cobra SMG - emerges from the
smoke: he never sees Lilith, as she cleanly strikes his head from his
shoulders. Three appear from the other side: Lynch's tomahawk catches one in
the throat, Quinn lunges perfectly to drive the swordpoint through the second's
head, and as she twists the blade free the third - turning and raising his
rifle - suddenly has a huge, brightly-coloured mallet materialise above his
head and smash down. His eyes pop out of their sockets and blood squirts from
his ears, and he falls bonelessly with a flock of tiny songbirds orbiting his
shattered head.
"Showoff." whispers Lynch, as the thickening smoke makes the camera view
indistinct: you can only hear screams and yells, and see flashes of violent
movement, before gunfire rings loudly and is instantly answered. Muzzle flashes
flare in the smoke - one veritable fireball has to be Lynch's MC-51, the
powerful cartridge generating a huge muzzle blast from the short, ported barrel
- and grenade explosions make the view shudder. The last thing you see is Quinn
reaching for the monitor console to eject the disk.
The view flicks to Lynch's view, the aiming mark of his smartlink roving and
locking onto the fuzzy man-shapes in the smoke and the muzzle flash brightly
flaring: Lilith's AK thudding close beside him.
"Ready to fall back?"
"All set!" comes the answer from behind, where Blade and Quinn are fighting in
the opposite corridor.
"Go!"
Lilith is suddenly gone as Lynch fires another short burst, a scream in the
smoke its answer.
"Jason, ready! Move!" Lynch retreats, still firing: his smartlink display
records HE grenades, programmed for airburst, being launched down the corridor
as he moves through the doors under Lilith's covering fire.
Outside, a Steel Lynx drone is firing at the side of the motel with its medium
machinegun, walking the burst along the wall: it ignores Lynch, who sprints for
the corner of the diner and drops the MC-51's bipod, shoving a fresh clip of
grenades into the underbarrel launcher.
"Lilith, move!" Lilith runs, going wide to the side at first to leave Lynch's
field of fire clear, as Blade and Quinn likewise clear the area. Spent brass
flies as Lynch begins firing careful three- and four-round bursts into the
front of the motel, which by now is quite thoroughly ablaze in places. Return
fire begins to snap and whip past him as Lilith rounds the corner of the diner,
safely in cover, and Lynch fires a pair of gas grenades through the broken
glass.
The crackle of Blade's M22 echoes as well, the firefight building in intensity,
as two figures try to break clear of the motel: Lynch tracks and fires, killing
one, and the other is tossed sideways by a burst from Quinn's SPAS-22.
"Blade? Reckon we got enough trade there?"
"Yep. Go for it. Quinn?"
A piercing howl rends the air as suddenly the reception area erupts in a
seething froth of water, the spume leaping and flying: at least two semi-
conscious forms are thrown out into the parking lot by the force of the spell.
In the top left corner of Lynch's vision, text suddenly zips by, quickly.
TRANSMIT ENABLE - CODED PULSE
CHANNEL 3, PULSE TANGO
TRANSMITTING
The front of Reception blows out in a flashbulb pulse of light: for one
beautiful frozen moment, the air is full of rainbows and diamonds, from the
water vapour and shattered glass. Then the noise and shockwave slam into Lynch,
as dust and smoke and steam obscure the motel for a few seconds.
There is a long pause, the only sound an engine starting up, Quinn thumbing
shells into her shotgun, and the crackle of the flames.
Both Steel Lynx drones move by, guns smoking, to run up the ramp into the back
of Lilith's station wagon: she throws a blanket over them to hide them as her
teammates pile into the vehicle, stowing weapons out of sight as the car
accelerates onto the freeway.
"How many, do you think?" asks Quinn, mopping at a nosebleed.
"Twenty, twenty-five at least." replies Blade, disassembling his rifle into a
flight bag. "You okay?"
"That last spell hurt a little, is all. I'll be fine." Quinn's words tail off,
as she passes out quietly.
Lynch is dialling rapidly on his 'phone again.
"Commander Drake, please... yes, Lynch again, and I still can't hold... Hi
there, Paul, the Five Eyes Motel in Tacoma as if you couldn't guess. See ya."
He snaps the 'phone shut as Lilith swings the station wagon onto an offramp.
+++++end video]<<<<<
-- Lynch <23:54:42/04-29-57>
