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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Paul J. Adam Shadowtk@********.demon.co.uk
Subject: The Night Before
Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2000 16:14:23 +0000
*****INTERNAL: Dogpatch Archive
>>>>>[+++++begin video
A hotel suite, perhaps. Several people sit or crouch, adjusting equipment.
Outside the windows, the sky is dark but lit with occasional fireworks as
Seattle prepares to welcome the year 2061.

There'll be more fireworks than that, though. Lynch is methodically
cleaning the receiver of a Steyr assault rifle, wiping a thin film of drylube
over the plastic as he reassembles it piece by piece. Lilith, next to him, is
loading a magazine with black-tipped 5.56mm sabots, sliding it into a
pocket inside her trenchcoat before starting on the next.

Quinn is loading up a combat harness, sliding ammunition and equipment
into pouches and pockets. Eley shotgun cartridges, magazines for her
Browning automatic, grenades, flash packs, all find their proper home.

Stephanie is linking up ammunition; clicking each sprung metal clip onto
the end of the belt, then pushing a brass-cased SLAP-EX cartridge into the
link until it clicks home, extending the belt by a cartridge a second as she
picks the 7.62mm rounds out of her helmet. "George", her FN MAG-5 (his
name neatly stencilled in white on the receiver) sits on his bipod at her
feet, a hundred rounds of linked brass already in the belt-bag with the
free end wrapped around the barrel, ready to load.

She's talking animatedly to Emma, who is removing olive-drab tubes with
protective endcaps from a brown crate: case and tubes are stencilled in
yellow Cyrillic, and there are a lot of them. The intelligence officer strips
the packaging from each RPG-41, as she attaches them to a rucksack
frame for easy carriage. Between the thousand or so rounds Stephanie's
prepared and the dozen rocket-propelled grenades, someone's in for
_real_ New Year's fireworks: Emma's H&K submachinegun is almost an
afterthought, propped against her chair.

Harley wanders in with a jug of coffee, the lightest-armed so far: no
more than her old Colt Combat Elite stuck in the waistband of her jeans.
"How we doing, guys?"

Lynch finishes reassembling the Steyr, and starts lacing the assault sling
into place (a complicated operation, though the versatile harness is worth
the effort) "On schedule, on time, assuming nothing's gone wrong in the
world. Any problems?"

"Traffic's kinda heavy." The rigger shrugs, fills Lynch's mug, then Lilith's.
"Makes my job easier. You guys might need an extra few minutes."

"I allowed for that." Emma secures the last RPG, accepts a refill
(Stephanie pulls a face and refuses) "There's at least a half-hour window,
provided the observers go down fast."

"Fast won't be the word." Daniel, furthest around the circle, shakes his
head. Like most of those present, he's dressed casually except for the
black webbing straps that carry his equipment and ammunition: though it's
set up so that a jacket or coat would hide them easily, especially on a
dark night. "The hardest part's going to be not getting cocky. Back in the
'Cats we -"

Quinn throws an empty cartridge box at him, laughing. "Back in the
Wildcats was ten years ago, old man."

"Age before beauty, and you got neither." Daniel throws the box back,
only to have it come apart into a half-dozen fluttering cardboard
butterflies before it reaches Quinn. They circle her once, before bursting
into flame: the fiery moths spin tighter, until they're consumed and only
skeletal, ashy ghosts remain... to collapse into dust as she drops the spell.

"Showoff." says Lilith, sotto voce, as she hands Lynch the last magazine (it
disappears under his Drizabone coat) "I'm ready. Anyone else?"

"Last few." Stephanie says. She and Emma are overtly military, both in
UCAS-surplus fatigues and full combat gear: the short shapeshifter finishes
her task of linking ammunition, picks up her Kevlar helmet and fastens
the chinstrap. "Done. Emma??"

"Set and ready." The intelligence officer slings the MP-9, shoulders the
RPG-laden rucksack frame.


Quinn nods approvingly, rises to her feet and wriggles into her tan
trenchcoat. "Okay, people." She snaps her fingers at the stereo in the
corner, which changes tracks to something old, twentieth-century
sounding: The George Baker Selection's 'Little Green Bag'. "Let's go to
work."

"Lookin' back on the track for a little green bag
Got to find just a kind or losin' my mind
Outside in the night, outside in the day
Lookin' back on the track, gonna do it my way..."

+++++end video

Happy New Year, Don Malone.]<<<<<
-- Lynch <22:32:42/12-31-60>
Message no. 2
From: Paul J. Adam Shadowtk@********.demon.co.uk
Subject: The Night Before
Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2000 16:14:23 +0000
*****INTERNAL: Dogpatch Archive
>>>>>[+++++begin video
A hotel suite, perhaps. Several people sit or crouch, adjusting equipment.
Outside the windows, the sky is dark but lit with occasional fireworks as
Seattle prepares to welcome the year 2061.

There'll be more fireworks than that, though. Lynch is methodically
cleaning the receiver of a Steyr assault rifle, wiping a thin film of drylube
over the plastic as he reassembles it piece by piece. Lilith, next to him, is
loading a magazine with black-tipped 5.56mm sabots, sliding it into a
pocket inside her trenchcoat before starting on the next.

Quinn is loading up a combat harness, sliding ammunition and equipment
into pouches and pockets. Eley shotgun cartridges, magazines for her
Browning automatic, grenades, flash packs, all find their proper home.

Stephanie is linking up ammunition; clicking each sprung metal clip onto
the end of the belt, then pushing a brass-cased SLAP-EX cartridge into the
link until it clicks home, extending the belt by a cartridge a second as she
picks the 7.62mm rounds out of her helmet. "George", her FN MAG-5 (his
name neatly stencilled in white on the receiver) sits on his bipod at her
feet, a hundred rounds of linked brass already in the belt-bag with the
free end wrapped around the barrel, ready to load.

She's talking animatedly to Emma, who is removing olive-drab tubes with
protective endcaps from a brown crate: case and tubes are stencilled in
yellow Cyrillic, and there are a lot of them. The intelligence officer strips
the packaging from each RPG-41, as she attaches them to a rucksack
frame for easy carriage. Between the thousand or so rounds Stephanie's
prepared and the dozen rocket-propelled grenades, someone's in for
_real_ New Year's fireworks: Emma's H&K submachinegun is almost an
afterthought, propped against her chair.

Harley wanders in with a jug of coffee, the lightest-armed so far: no
more than her old Colt Combat Elite stuck in the waistband of her jeans.
"How we doing, guys?"

Lynch finishes reassembling the Steyr, and starts lacing the assault sling
into place (a complicated operation, though the versatile harness is worth
the effort) "On schedule, on time, assuming nothing's gone wrong in the
world. Any problems?"

"Traffic's kinda heavy." The rigger shrugs, fills Lynch's mug, then Lilith's.
"Makes my job easier. You guys might need an extra few minutes."

"I allowed for that." Emma secures the last RPG, accepts a refill
(Stephanie pulls a face and refuses) "There's at least a half-hour window,
provided the observers go down fast."

"Fast won't be the word." Daniel, furthest around the circle, shakes his
head. Like most of those present, he's dressed casually except for the
black webbing straps that carry his equipment and ammunition: though it's
set up so that a jacket or coat would hide them easily, especially on a
dark night. "The hardest part's going to be not getting cocky. Back in the
'Cats we -"

Quinn throws an empty cartridge box at him, laughing. "Back in the
Wildcats was ten years ago, old man."

"Age before beauty, and you got neither." Daniel throws the box back,
only to have it come apart into a half-dozen fluttering cardboard
butterflies before it reaches Quinn. They circle her once, before bursting
into flame: the fiery moths spin tighter, until they're consumed and only
skeletal, ashy ghosts remain... to collapse into dust as she drops the spell.

"Showoff." says Lilith, sotto voce, as she hands Lynch the last magazine (it
disappears under his Drizabone coat) "I'm ready. Anyone else?"

"Last few." Stephanie says. She and Emma are overtly military, both in
UCAS-surplus fatigues and full combat gear: the short shapeshifter finishes
her task of linking ammunition, picks up her Kevlar helmet and fastens
the chinstrap. "Done. Emma??"

"Set and ready." The intelligence officer slings the MP-9, shoulders the
RPG-laden rucksack frame.


Quinn nods approvingly, rises to her feet and wriggles into her tan
trenchcoat. "Okay, people." She snaps her fingers at the stereo in the
corner, which changes tracks to something old, twentieth-century
sounding: The George Baker Selection's 'Little Green Bag'. "Let's go to
work."

"Lookin' back on the track for a little green bag
Got to find just a kind or losin' my mind
Outside in the night, outside in the day
Lookin' back on the track, gonna do it my way..."

+++++end video

Happy New Year, Don Malone.]<<<<<
-- Lynch <22:32:42/12-31-60>

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about The Night Before, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.