| From: | Jaimie Nicholson <jaimie.nicholson@********.OTAGO.AC.NZ> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Surveillance results |
| Date: | Mon, 29 Sep 1997 12:00:57 +1200 |
>>>>>[The inquiry proceeds apace, with an interesting development. The Rat
>>>>>is still around, and it seems to be pissed big-time. I caught up with
>>>>>Darco at Epsilon, here's my head-cam footage...
+++++Begin footage
The camera comes to life focused on the facade of a seedy club. A logo is
visible in flickering neon, a stylised E with the rest of the word
"epsilon" in smaller letters. There are no vehicles parked nearby, and the
only occupant of the street other than Ice is a lone human bouncer, leaning
against the wall by the door to the club. Faint music is audible, a heavy
bass-line and the drums being all that reach the street.
The door is pulled outwards, the music getting louder, and two men step
out, moving off to the camera's left. Ice moves to follow, crossing the
street at a glide, and moving to an altitude of about three or four metres.
His flight is silent and smooth, and he begins to close on the two men,
then passes them before dipping down to get a closer look at their faces.
One of them flashes momentarily, and the word "Darco" appears at the bottom
of the screen. Ice backs off again, taking up a position abut ten metres
behind Darco and his companion.
The two men turn left at the first corner, Ice following, and then get into
a Ford Americar. Ice goes higher as they drive away, following them from a
couple of stories up to avoid any other traffic. The car makes a couple of
random turns, then pulls into a parking building. Ice drops down to street
height to follow them inside, tailing them to the third floor, where the
car pulls into a space and stops.
Ice waits a moment, then his head slumps and he remains still for a moment
+++++Pause footage
I went astral, and took off to see what was going on the in the car. It
looked like a biz deal, but you know how it is from up there, well, some of
you do anyway. Seems Darco was meeting his BTL dealer to spend what he had
made out of Squatter's death.
+++++Resume footage
Ice's head rises and looks towards the car as it starts up, the motor
purring into life. The Americar backs out of it's parking space and begins
to leave the building, but it stops suddenly with a loud backfiring and
puffing of smoke. More smoke starts to pour from the radiator and Ice has
just enough time to start swearing before the radiator bursts outwards in a
cloud of super-heated steam and flames.
Two men exit the vehicle at speed, one taking to his heels, the other
ducking for cover between two parked cars. The runner is Darco, and Ice
follows him, ignoring the dealer. Pulling a light pistol from his belt,
Darco looks back as the Americar explodes. Ice is thrown about by the
shockwave, narrowly avoiding one of the building's concrete pillars.
Darco reaches the end of a row of cars, then backs up in apparent terror as
a fire elemental manifests in front of him. Instead of the usual salamander
appearance though, this elemental is shaped like a giant rodent.
Approaching Darco, it licks it's lips with a tongue like that of a snake,
and drops of fiery saliva fall to the ground with an evil sizzling noise.
"Alive!" shouts Ice as he flies towards the Rat, "We have to ask him
some..."
It is too late however, the Rat does not listen. Instead it lunges forward,
seizing Darco by the groin and biting down hard. Darco screams, firing into
the Rat's head, but the bullets pass through, apparently doing no damage.
The Rat starts to expand, and the ammunition in Darco's pistol cooks off
under the heat of the Rat's aura of flame. Darco screams again as most of
his hand is taken off by the explosion. Ice backs away from the rising heat
as the Rat swallows Darco fully, and still continues to grow in size,
losing definiton at the same time. Touching the roof already, the Rat turns
to Ice, words becoming audible through the roaring of the fire.
"Squatter is gone," the Rat shouts, "though I followed him, and took hold
of a part of him before he could leave! This man is partially responsible,
so his life is _mine_!"
The conflagration spreads even further, Ice backing to the edge of the
building, looking around at the railing across the gap between the pillars
that support the structure. The ground seems a long way away, though it is
only three stories.
"We need to talk!" shouts Ice, "Turn down the heat, damn it!"
The Rat seems to ignore that request, still expanding. Out of the corner of
Ice's eye, the BTL dealer is visible, a heavy pistol in hand, looking
towards the flames with a mixture of terror and confusion on his face. Ice
turns and plucks him up as two cars explode, then throws himself over the
rail at his back and out of the building, falling just low enough to avoid
a rush of fire that follows as the Rat spreads further and more cars
explode. As the two fall, fading words become audible to the camera.
"It is not enough!"
Then the fires go out, fading from view over a couple of seconds, and all
is silent.
+++++End footage
So, that was exciting. The dealer was quite shaken up, and fairly thankful
to be rescued like that. I dumped him on the street and flew the hell out
of there, with my invisibility spell up.
No sign of Wulf yet, but he was at Squatter's hit, so the Rat might be able
to find him again, and I can track the Rat now (though it doesn't seem too
happy to see me, I can handle it if I have to... it has grown somewhat in
power though... great form? Can a spirit give _itself_ great form?... what
it said about following Squatter and catching part of him... it makes me
wonder about a lot of things...). But, it may well be that the Rat wasn't
tracking Darco, it was tracking me as I tracked Darco. Otherwise it would
be something of a coincidence that I was there when it wasted the fragger.
Didn't take him in the street though, which is strange, unless it took the
Rat that long to get the radiator all steamed up (speaking of which,
shouldn't a gasket have blown, or something, before the radiator exploded?
How the hell did it do that?). Or maybe it just got sick of waiting for me
to take him. And what the hell did it mean, "it is not enough"? Watch out,
Sanders et al, there's a pissed off Rat on your tails...
Anyways, with Darco gone and no leads on Wulf, I'm going to see if I can
track down the astral support, Sanders or whatever... a trident can't be
all that common a weapon, plus I might get a watcher looking for him.]<<<<<
-- Ice <17:59:15/09-28-58>
