| From: | Mike Goldberg <michael.goldberg@*******.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Midnight's masquerade (part two) |
| Date: | Sun, 14 Sep 1997 15:23:54 MST |
>>>>>[ +++++ begin overall briefing feed.
Midnight starts the official briefing by saying, "Here's the scan.
Death and perhaps backed by at least some of the more extreme members
of the Legion are in town. They are hitting an office building.
Pestilence and War decided that we should be there because there is a
decent risk that we might find something interesting. War made no
promises as to whether we would be on the same side or not when the
fun begins. The impression he gave me, however, is that as long as
we don't interfere too much, they won't bother us.
Midnight raises his hand to stall interruptions and continues,
"Death's goal is simple - revenge. If they have a chance and they
find him, they would probably grab Nightmare as well. Based on
Pestilence's mental stability, I don't think that would be a good
idea. With that said, I do not want our side starting hostilities
with them. If they want to be hostile, we will retaliate, but I
don't want to be the side that starts an all out war with them. They
will most likely outnumber us.
"Team breakup is: First entry team is: Geiger, myself, Easy, Griffyn,
Jason --"
Shadowfox interrupts with "Quick, name him!"
Trax's drone immediately pipes in with, "Seeker"
Jason retorts, "I know who signs your paychecks"
The drone simply responds, "Just kidding"
Quinn chuckles. "Janus." When Doomsday among others looks confused,
she explains "An old God, Roman maybe, who had two faces. One saw the
past, the other watched the future."
"Comrade?" Easy suggests tentatively, then "Gramps!" she offers with
a grin.
Blitzkrieg dryly suggests, "Bait."
Shadowfox responds with "Gambler."
Puppet shrugs say, "Don't like playing with a gambler. How about
Cowboy?"
Blitzkrieg offers back, "From hell?" After a second he says, "It's a
song, 'Cowboys from hell.' Oh, nevermind."
Croaker humorlessly says, "Fresh meat."
Whirlwind responds with, "I thought that was you. How about Forest?"
Gunner softly says, "Playboy."
Whirlwind retorts, "We should at least be a little bit subtle."
Gunner nods and says, "Romeo then."
FireWraith giggles and says, "I know... Kindling."
Puppet says, "No. Don't like the implications of that either."
FireWraith comments, "Spoilsport."
Puppet responds with, "Him or me?"
Midnight speaks up finally, "Or me? Geiger -- Doomsday, any good
suggestions?"
Geiger and Doomsday stare at Jason for a while. Geiger then says,
"Sacrifice." Doomsday rubs his chin thoughtfully and leans back
against the wall and closes his eyes. After a few seconds they pop
open and he says, "Phoenix." Geiger stares at Jason for a little bit
and then grins. "I like Doomsday's better. Mine fits, but not as
nicely as his does."
Jason says, "Doomsday, my friend, remind me later not to ask you why
you choose that name. Trax, I need to be on line in two." One of
Trax's drone hovers near Jason for a short bit and Jason reaches
inside and pulls out a data jack cable and jacks himself in. He
stays that way for about a minute then stops.
Midnight continues immediately after Jason disconnects, "Done.
Hopefully, nobody will forget on the inside. First entry team is
Geiger, myself, Easy, Griffyn, Phoenix, and Shadowfox. Drones
support will be provided by: Puppet and Trax. Matrix overwatch to
give us warning if we are about to pulped by local authorities is:
Croaker. First team transport is Wrecker with Gunner providing
rigger protection. Gunner has the option of providing us with backup
if the situation warrants it. Shadowfox is lead point. I'm team
lead. Second in command is Geiger. Then Shadowfox, Phoenix, and
Easy, in case things break down.
"Backup team is: Whirlwind, Doomsday, Lady Quinn, and FireWraith.
Transportation is provided by Keys, who has Doc providing cover for
her. Quinn is lead, followed by Whirlwind, and Doomsday. A last
minute shift has been determined for Blitzkrieg." He licks his lips
and says, "You will be overwatching Puppet to make sure she stays
okay. In absolutely no circumstances, are you to enter the zone. I
don't give a frag who asks for it. You are wanted way to bad to risk
you over Death's revenge. If we knew for sure your half-brother was
there, then maybe, but since we don't ..."
"Doc will distribute the communications codes after Lady Quinn briefs
us on what we should expect in the building. Before I pass the
briefing on to the Lady are their any questions?"
Since the answer seems to be negative, Quinn rises and pins a set of
floorplans to the wall. "This is the building. Fairly typical
business unit, in a quiet industrial estate. Worked well for them,
it's not a high-traffic area, but now it works well for us: it
reduces the collateral damage if anything goes horribly wrong. I
don't have much beyond these plans, and these are as constructed five
years ago: internal layout might well have changed since then. Bear
that in mind."
Shadowfox after staring at the plans for a few moments says, "Quinn,
may I mark up your beautiful floorplans?"
"Go ahead, they're only prints." Quinn holds up a datachip. "Scrawl
away, I'll just run off more. Speaking of which, I could copy enough
of these so everyone's got full plans chipped up, loaded in headware,
whatever. Only a meg or so, but could come in handy. Just make sure
they don't get found at the scene."
Midnight says "I could use a hardcopy for the ride over."
Puppet says, "Loaded in headware would rock."
Blitzkrieg says, "I agree with Puppet."
Whirlwind says, "Hardcopy would be useful for the ride."
Shadowfox says, "Headware would be useful for me."
Doc says, "A hardcopy and a headware dump would be useful for me."
Croaker says, "I doubt it would be useful, but might as well chip me
up as well."
Blitzkrieg says, "Yuck. I would hate to clean up that mess. Croaker
through a chipper would not be a pretty sight."
Keys responds with, "Croaker isn't a pretty sight normally. Just be
glad you haven't seen him in the matrix." Croaker attempts to smile
innocently, but instead ends up looking guilty.
Griff smiles indulgently, "I could use a hardcopy as well."
Shadowfox finishes up marking up the plans while this is going on,
and then continues. "What I have done is to label all the stairwells
in an area by letters. The letters ascend clockwise around the
building. If their isn't a stairwell due north, then I pick the one
that is closest to due north always to the right of north." He
points and says, "So we have stairwells A-F on this level." He
quickly scans the plans and says, "A, C,D, and E run from basement to
third floor. Only stairwell D goes to fourth floor. On floor first
floor there is also stairwell F leading to floor two. On radio, if I
say I'm at 3C, that means I'm in stairwell C around the third floor.
If it was the basement it would be BC. The freight elevator follows
same nomenclature rules and will be B. The handicapped elevator
going between floors one and two is G. Geiger, the elevator B might
be worth checking out, if you get the time. If you are between
floors say reference the last floor you passed and what direction you
are heading. If there are areas below the basement, they aren't
shown here. They could go another floor or part of a floor down
before they run into the sewers according to these plans. That
means, we may have a gray area in these plans, if they made illegal
modifications. If you discover new stairwells, elevators use not
used letters. Hallways should be identified by the two stairwells
they are roughly in-between if you know.
"Entrances are labeled as 1 through 6, following the same basic
conventions as with the stairways. Be wary of the fact that almost
the whole outer wall of the first floor is glass. Won't stop
bullets, and could risk hurting innocents which is a no-no."
He sighs then continues, "If I was going to keep prisoners, I would
want to keep them in the most defensible and/or easy to evacuate
area. Which means to me that either first floor, fourth floor or
basement, as prime locations. An astral scouting trip would narrow
that down, but we don't have much time to wait for that. Those
doorways are likely re-enforced steel doors. Based on how old the
floorplans say this building is, I would also say the walls
surrounding the stairwells is probably poly-carbo-concrete mix. The
doors will be the weakest way through, in event of emergency. And
Doomsday, charging a door is bad, no matter what you body is made out
of -- sure your bones can take the abuse, but your flesh probably
cannot." He grins.
"If backup team is needed, then entering the same way we came in
would cause confusion. It would be better to enter a different way,
because it would draw heat off of us. The only case to come in the
same direction is if they try to seal us in.
"Oh. Surveillance. In public areas, it will be discrete. In
nonpublic areas, there will probably be a lot of it. This man is a
criminal and probably paranoid about his privacy. Expect guards and
lots of security in the nonpublic areas.
"Doc?"
Doc looks around the room and says, "I have headsets for everyone.
They are four band radio. They are to be given back to me afterwards
so I can destroy them. Don't want to leave to many traces of our
communications lines. Channel 1 is everyone. Channel 2 is
Midnight's team. Channel 3 is Whirlwind's team. Channel 4 is for
Leader to leader. Initially this is Midnight to Whirlwind -- I will
modify this one on the fly if it changes. Channel 5 which isn't in
your headsets is for support personnel only. Wrecker, Keys, myself,
Blitzkrieg, Croaker, Gunner, and Trax. Puppet and Trax, you two
better not spend your time killing each others drones. Keep in good
communications. I would strongly encourage you to not use channel
1. It should only be used if both teams are in the building and you
have gotten separated from your main group. Headsets will be in your
respective team transportation vehicles."
Midnight looks at his watch and swears. "Drek, we are going to be
late. I'll brief my team on the way. Trax get your drones to
location now. Wrecker, although I wouldn't like to draw police
attention on the way there, getting there sooner than later would be
nice. Oh, this goes for Blitzkrieg, Croaker, Puppet, and Trax. No
recording this action. If anyone wants to contribute to the Croaker
storybook, tell him your version of the action afterwards. Consider
it an unofficial form of debriefing."
Wrecker nods. Shadowfox says as he is walking to the door, "I leave
it to whoever gets back here first after the mission to remove the
evidence that we were here. If I don't return the excess weaponry
should be left in the apartment. Everything else that was used, no
matter how slightly, should be removed, cleaned, etceteras. There
will be official debriefing as to what happened. It looks like Doc
will conduct it since he has overview of the whole operation from
this point on."
Midnight nods and says, "I second that. Let's move people. Remember
our primary goal is to rescue any prisoners. A secondary goal is to
keep tabs on Death and his team. If you have to choose between your
objectives, you better have a darn good reason for not choosing your
primary."
Quinn rises again. "One thing I'd like to add, and this comes from a
good friend in Military Intelligence. This building and the people in
it are breaking a lot of laws, and we're doing MI5 a minor favour by
dealing with it for them rather than getting Special Branch and the
rest of the peelers involved.
"If we do this neatly and cleanly, then there will be no questions
asked and it'll be written off as corporate or criminal warfare. No
pursuit of us, no hassle, no problems. If we cock it up and hurt
innocent bystanders, blow up private property outside this place,
whatever, then we're in an unspecified amount of trouble. And since
I'm a high-profile legit cit here, that's a serious threat."
Shadowfox nods and says, "Hence my choice in weaponry."
"Exactly. This - " she gestures at the room where Shadowfox laid
their arsenal out - "is exactly what we can get away with."
She looks around the room. "Does everyone understand that clearly?
Sorry to be so blunt, but this isn't the UCAS."
Geiger nods and says softly, "Thank God for at least that."
Everyone else nods in agreement to what Quinn has said and files out
of the apartmen. Outside, Midnight and Quinn hold a quiet
discussion. So does Blitzkrieg and Phoenix. Puppet is pretty damn
impatient at Blitzkrieg's delay, and eventually tugs him out of
conversation. ]<<<<<
-- Croaker <23:58:16/14-SEP-58>
