| From: | jaimie.nicholson@********.otago.ac.nz (Jaimie Nicholson) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Report on Gibraltar, part four (if all goes well) |
| Date: | Thu, 3 Oct 1996 13:24:27 +1200 (NZST) |
anyway."
"Then through we go," says Easy, and is true to her word.
The room beyind the door is devoid of other exits, and is occupied by a
larg computer monitoring system. Several screens show views of varying
parts of the complex. Ice looks closer at one of them, what seems to be a
chapel of some sort, empty of people. There is a large symbol on the wall
above an altar, a cruciform occupied by what looks not unlike a lunar
landing molecule.
"Bacteriophage?" says Blademaster, "Some sort of viral capsular form,
anyway. Wonder what that signifies."
The group leaves the room, heading down the lower end of the c-form
corridor. Easy takes the lead, her borrowed SMG extended, and Ice follows.
The others fall in behind, and they advance down the corridor, checking
each of the three doors they pass. They are labs, viral or bacterial by the
equipment, all empty of people. The group does not check very carefully
though, there could have been peopl lurking under tables. The fourth door
they check opens onto some stairs, going down.
"Down?" suggests Easy.
Ice nods, and the elven woman enters the stairwell slowly, looking around.
"Optical trigger," she says, "I can see the receptor, but not the
projector."
"I've got a spell to mess with that," says Blademaster, "There any more
tricks in there?"
"Not that I can see," says Easy.
"All right then," says Bademaster, and moves forward to touch Easy on the
shoulder.
She disappears from view, and Blademaster speaks again.
"Tell me when you're at the next level."
A grunt comes from below, and Blademaster casts his spell on Ice, who moves
down the stairs. They stop after only one level, and when Ice enters a
corridor and calls up to Blademaster, the spell is released. The procedure
is repeated with the last two.
The corridor is directly below the one above it, and follows the same
c-form pattern judging by what is visible. The team follows it, coming
across only one door on the way. It leads out from the centre of the
hypothetical c-shape, and is made from some sort of heavy composite
material. Ice steps up to it, batting at the round doorknob with one paw.
"Very cute," snaps Easy, "Now get the frag out of the way."
Ice moves back, and Easy listens at the door for a moment, then kicks it
open. There is a loud snap of a breaking lock, and the door is thrown open.
Easy moves inside, followed by T'Shon and Ice, Blademaster bringing up the
rear. Inside the door is a short corridor, carpeted in dark blue,
wall-papered in the same. The door at the other end is wood, real by all
appearances. Easy moves forward, and listens at the door.
"What?" whispers Blademaster, after ten seconds of this.
Easy makes shushing motions, and the rest of the group waits. Then Easy
moves back, directing them with her.
"Sounds like a religious leader in there," she says, "We will be protected
by the lord, so we can survive to spread the seed, that sort of thing.
Another guy's handing out weapons, and a lot of people are saying that they
should talk to us instead, that we'd surely see the light. Weapon guy says
that it might work, but he'd rather they were armed just in case."
"Let's get in there and jam an area effect spell down them, then," suggests
Ice, "Me and Blademaster can each pop one off, then you too hose down
anything that's still moving."
"It might not work," says Easy, "If they've got magic cover, we're hosed,
there are a pack of them. If you two could go for an astral jaunt first..."
Ice replies by dropping to the floor, and Blademaster follows suit. The
camera remains still for a minute or so, then moves again.
"Blademaster, you alright?" asks Ice.
"Mmm... yeah," replies the other mage, "that was overwhelming, wasn't
it?"
"Frag yes," says Ice, then, to the others, "It's the chapel thing from the
sec-cam upstairs, they must have been out here when we looked before. All
that buggering around on the stairs gave them time to get in there first.
No mages. Twelve or thirteen people in there, they're creative types and
thinkers, big auras, maybe a touch of cyber or bio toys, but it's all
headware."
"Okay, then," says T'Shon, "Let's just go in talking, and see what the
light is, exactly."
T'Shon steps up to the door, and knocks. After a second, it swings slowly
open, and T'Shon steps inside. Ice follows, provoking a number of comments
from those inside.
The chapel is about twenty metres wide, and twice that long. At the far end
is the altar, a pulpit in front of it, and the cruciform symbol behind it.
the ceiling is high and arched, and soft electric lights hang from it on
chains. There are numerous rows of seats, behind which are the twelve or
thirteen people Ice mentioned on returning from his astral travel. One, an
elderly man with a short beard, white hair, and blue robes, stands, and
steps forward.
"Welcome," he says, "Though it is something of a cliche, we have been
awaiting your arrival."
Ice glances at the others, and a flashing lights up on one of them,
followed by the word "Gagnon", presumably an editorial modification.
Meanwhile, T'Shon steps forward to meet the elderly man.
"I am Alan Thomas," he says, "What is the light of which you spoke, that we
would surely see."
"Hans will explain," he replies, "but later. First you must have food and
drink, and rest a while."
"No can do," says Ice, "Let's hear it now."
The blue-robed man glances down at the camera.
"Is this a manifestation of the true way?" he asks, "A Raised Beast?"
and
one can hear the capitalisation in his voice.
"No," answers Easy, "But the tiger speaks the truth, Hans must talk to us
now."
Gagnon steps forward.
"I told you they would be like the other outsiders," he says,
"disrespectful and foolish. But I will speak to them of the Way."
He beckons, and the group follow him towards the altar. Ice watches the
remaining people carefully, but sees no hint of trouble. They sit down, and
begin talking quietly among themselves. The only things that look out of
place are the heavy pistols carried by about half of them. Ice turns back
to Gagnon, who is pointing up at the cruciform symbol.
"We have found a virus that is to be the weapon of the Way," he says, "It
will cleanse the world of all bacteria, animals, plants, and especially
humans, in no more than a month, but can last in dormant form for at least
a thousand years.
"I am aware that you are thinking something not unlike 'what a psycho', but
you are wrong. We do not want to destroy all life, just most of it. We have
come up with a technique to grow people who will be invulnerable to the
virus, because their genetic material will have different bases. Are you
familiar with the structure of the nucleic acid? In any case, I will tell
you what a lay-person could understand, so that you may be fully persuaded
to our cause.
"Viruses require certain enzymes and materials from the cells of their host
to replicate, and without replication, they can do no damage. These new
bodies will have different genetic materials, they will use what I have
called M, N, O, P, and Q in place of the standard A, C, G, T and U. We are
in the process of designing a genetic material which encodes the different
enzymes that will be required for life using these bases. The virus that
will be our messenger is ready, held in containment areas around this
facility. When a population of MNOPQ people is ready, we will release the
virus to ourselves and walk the world, spreading it. No doubt you will
think of many flaws in this plan, but we welcome that, for the release will
be delayed until they are fixed. We are not stupid, nor are we insane."
"You're talking about the murder of the human race," states Easy in a calm
voice, "and it's replacement with what you think of as perfect people."
"Yes," replies Gagnon, "But the world will be perfect too! No more tsetse
flies, no more malaria, no more rats, no more snakes. We..."
"No more shapeshifters," says Blademaster.
"No more mages," says Ice, "Or have you found the mythical magus
gene?"
"No more Elves?" asks T'Shon, "Or maybe no more humans. Which of the
metaraces qualify for existence in you new world?"
"What am I, a Humanis thug?" asks Gagnon rhetorically, "Race is less than
nothing. I am killing myself in this way too, you fools. Would I do that if
I didn't think this was right?"
"It is not acceptable," says Easy. "To some I'm subhuman. To others, Elves
are the master race... yet even to those Elf-Nazis, the People of
Remembrance are scum to be forgotten." Her razors glitter at her
fingertips. "I'm tired of these judgements. You die."
A number of shots ring out from behind the camera, and Ice spins, roaring.
Easy closes on Gagnon as Ice's spin take her out of the view of the camera,
and the geneticist gives an abruptly curtailed shout of pain. Several of
those at the far end of the chapel are firing at the group, who take cover,
and several have fled out the door. The blue robed man is one of the
latter. Those that remained are not marksmen, but one of them seems to have
managed a lucky shot that hit T'Shon in the left leg. He is down and
swearing, sheltering behind the altar, one hand clamped over the wound.
Blademaster is crouching behind the closest of the seats, getting ready
move around the side of the chapel. Ice, keeping his head down, joins him
as T'Shon opens up in covering fire with the SMG he took from the last
group of guards. Easy starts firing too, and there are screams as several
of the opposition go down. Ice moves along the left side of the chapel,
matching Blademaster's advance, and soon he can see a number of the
religious fanatics.
"Give it up!" calls T'Shon, "You know we can kill you all!"
"Our leader can escape!" shouts one of them, "We will gladly give our
lives..."
A spell, presumably from Blademaster, immolates the fanatic, just before
Ice casts a spell of his own. Numerous fanatics fall to the ground, stunned
by a blast of some sort of magic force. Ice shakes his head, then bounds
forward, looking for more targets. Blademaster approaches from the other
side of the chapel, and Easy and T'Shon come down the middle to meet them.
"I'll chase the rest," says Ice, "I can feel the leader with my detection
spell. You check them, then follow."
Ice bounds from the room, and through the two sets of doors into the
corridor. It is devoid of people, and Ice turns left and proceeds along it,
head down as if sniffing for tracks. He comes to a door, straight ahead of
him, the corridor turning to the right, and he jumps towards it, his weight
slamming it open. Beyond it is a group of fanatics, all of whom are
drinking from culture bottles. They look up with triumph in their eyes. Ice
backs off as they approach him, then casts a spell, knocking them all to
the ground. The tiger continues to back off though, and turns to run.
Arriving back at the door to the chapel, he keeps going.
"They've released their virus!" he calls, then keeps moving, "Get
out!"
He is followed in his rout by the other three, but he does not look back.
+++++End footage
So, we all got out okay. Maybe the virus couldn't handle the change from
tiger to human. Maybe I never got it in the first place. Maybe it's got a
long latency period. Lot's of maybes. I haven't felt anything yet, but I've
been quarantining myself as much as is possible.
I know the leader escaped, he wasn't with the others, and (with magic
senses) I felt him leave the area at high speed. Some sort of ejecting
escape toy? I have no doubt that he took his information with him, and
maybe he can find others willing to continue Gagnon's work.
Speaking of Gagnon, I don't know if what he was talking about was possible,
but I suggest you think about it. The corp you work for trained him, that
makes him partially your responsibility. I hope you plan to do something
about tracking down the leader. I for one would be interested in the job.
********************
Day 8 (Wednesday)...
Got back up to our rooms fast, woke the others, and left the hotel somewhat
early, for obvious reasons. Didn't have any trouble getting out.
Blackthorne went in to the security system, messed up their records, he's
pretty sure he cleaned out any trace of our actvities here. He also dragged
out pretty much every file he could find in the hope of getting something
valuable. I'll include it all in the file ntnlddwn at the end of the
report. There's some footage of corp dealing, but mostly I can't see the
use of it. Of course, some of it may be useful to you...
********************
Here are all those files I promised during the report...
+++++Include file aztgrds.txt
+++++Include file miscdata.txt
+++++Include file ntnlddwn.txt
Alrighty, that's the lot... look forward to working for you again. Next
time you need a run done (preferably the PacRim, but anywhere's cool),
please don't hesitate to contact me. I think the rest of the team were
pretty happy with the way you operate as well.]<<<<<
-- Ice <18:22:16/10-02-57>
