Infinitum

[MiscChaos]

Kendrick raises an eyebrow at the lack of information on the mission they will be expected to take on, but he supposes that should somewhat be expected. If they're captured before the mission somehow, they can't tell about something they know nothing about. And really, he's not getting tortured for information for this group. He has no loyalty to them and is only using them to get his hands on military technology to study, so getting injured on their behalf seems absurd to him. So it's actually REALLY good for them he knows nothing. Putting that behind him, he checks his watch, an antique analog watch he wears just because, to get a feel for the time and how long til 11. He feels it shouldn't have been too long since they made contact at 8 as planned and then waited 5 minutes after that before arriving here. Plenty of time to get home and prepare for the trip.

"Unless there is something we haven't been told, no further questions at this time, Madame Silvandros." he says with a small bow. "Madame Cruxell? Andrew? Anything from you?

[napsii]

Sheepishly, Mish nodded, glad that Kristina -- and sooner-than-never squad captain, she reminded herself -- had looked past her little outburst.

As far as maturity went, the girl did not consider herself lacking. As the daughter of Ayr Sterling and one of the New Era Children, the media name for the children born in the first days following the end of the war, there were expectations that she had been expected to fulfill throughout her life. Her mother had died not long not long after she was born, and in that, she had been expected to live and be happy, as her mother would have wanted. When the media began to hone in on Sterling Industries and her father in particular in the Post-War years, she had been expected to be a model image for the new world forged by Syris: that of an intelligent, idealistic and orderly young woman who would pave the path into a bright and prosperous future as the memories of the war began to fade. The prestigious private schools she had been enrolled into throughout her life, too, had conditioned her to follow orders as she should. And then, at last joining the ranks of the SGDF, she had been expected to put her obedience to work. The girl sighed inaudibly, concentrating on the water droplets rushing by the window. There was no mistaking that it would rain tonight. To be blunt, she had never been entirely content with order and structure.

Her father wasn't what Mission would call a disciplinarian, but he was firm with his words and intentions by nature. There were things that he had banned from his daughter's presence unrelentingly, and as Mish matured, she began to run into the rules he had laid down with increasing frequency. No alcohol, even though it was in with the older students at her school. No going out after dark unless it was with a bodyguard, for there were too many who would be willing to attack her. No getting her own car until she was older. No firearms until she proved that she was mature enough not to shoot them off left and right for fun -- that had always been an ironic one to Mish, understandable as it might have been. No credit card until she could prove that she could manage her finances. Rules above and rules below. Perhaps it was just pride and bottled-up resentment that had made her turn to the Internet to vent her opinions, just as a kid might have. There was indeed a time, peaking at around age 13, she remembered, where she spent most of her home days raging on her blog about how Syris was trying to micromanage the entire planet and how growing up under such harsh rules was unfair. That time had passed, thankfully.

Perhaps she had just grown up, and moved past that immaturity, but there was still a part of her that resented the rules and authority that she was confronted with in the SGDF. She had become looser with her words since adolescence -- certainly more opinionated, and yet in the end, she would always follow orders when given them. She would keep in line, for that expected of her if she was to be successful. Cracking her knuckles idly, she looked at Kristina as they passed close to the Statue of Liberty. Below, she could actually pick out individual camera flashes of tourists snapping photos, even at this hour of the night. The captain seemed to be snagged on a thought and it worried Mish but slightly. Kris was a mature and strong woman, yet there was this element of an enigma in her personality that always made Mish wonder what she was thinking about. She would certainly invest her brain power on things big and important, right? To Mish, the captain was someone who was mature and responsible, and a person that people could rely on to get the job done. Like most in the SGDF, she respected and admired Kristina. Unlike most in the SGDF, she wasn't scared of her. Well, not that much. To Mish, she always felt like...

She shifted, feeling a little embarrassed.

Kristina always felt like a big sister to her. Mission had always wanted a sister...

The girl snapped to attention from her idle fawning, registering what Kris had said. A quizzical look immediately engulfed her face. She, too, had heard of the recent disappearances and unusual incidents that seemed to have been plaguing the SGDF over the past few months. Without explanation, citizens, suspected Vespa and even SGDF soldiers had simply walked off the map, unseen and unheard of despite thorough efforts to recover them. With no famous celebrities, politicians or high-ranking SGDF officers having gone missing, it hadn't attracted the media's eye, but there was something about the consistency and frequency that had unsettled Mish. In this day and age, it was hard to simply disappear. The level of digital surveillance undertaken by the authorities was immense, and with nearly every corner of a person's daily life registered by a computer database somewhere and the sophistication of forensic tools, Mission simply could not understand why people could be disappearing without evidence. Always, there had been specks of evidence to point the investigators in the right direction, but every attempt to recover the missing had turned up fruitless so far. Even worse were the loss of control incidents.

It was a pathetic understatement, but that was the official stance on the incidents of soldiers running out of line, executing terrible decisions and misbehaving only to fall out of consciousness and awake with no memory of what had transpired. None of it added up; it was well-known that those soldiers were mentally stable and unlikely to do the things they claimed to have no knowledge of. More importantly, the memory loss was a consistent element in each incident and the published results of the memory tests proved they indeed had no recollection of the events. It was worrisome, but Mish understood that the official investigation into these incidents -- termed LOC's -- had only just begun.

"Yeah, everyone's talking about it..." she said absentmindedly, looking back out the window.

"Dad isn't sure either. Not even the best Vespa can escape us for long, but it's like the missing people just walked off the planet," she shrugged, "I'm starting to wonder if the Vespa really does have anything to do with it, though. They've kidnapped people before, but they've never been able to make people vanish like this." she pondered, seeming concerned.

"The LOC's are what worry me, personally. They make even less sense. It's like everyone in the SGDF is coming down with the crazy flu or something." she thought aloud.

[Icaelus]

They were going to take the train? How..simplistic. But yeah, that was the way of the Vespa. The Vespa weren't exactly rolling in funds and quicker methods of transportation might draw attention to them. Above all, staying hidden was the crux. Outgunned by the SGDF, they could only strike where the guard was lax, from the shadows.
And eventually..she would find him. It was her entire agenda for joining the Vespa. Nothing more, nothing less. Just revenge.
Ciel broke away from her thoughts as Auria began explaining how their mission it was going to go down. They were leaving by train, tonight. Estimated arrival was at noon tomorrow. Long ride..tickets had already been settled. Sounded good. Auria had settled any doubt and covered all bases. Efficient.

When she mentioned that she would need an excuse, Auria's reaction was one that she expected. School in June. When it was in the middle of the damned summer. How dreadfully boring.
"Teacher wanted me to come back as a student tutor. Let's not talk about that."
Ciel shrugged helplessly, sighing. Being a honor student was no mean feat. Even more so if you were juggling that position along with being a Vespa member. Still, in the world nowadays, talented people were always in short supply. Arresting such a person could be rather detrimental and thus, they did tend to have some leeway by having a reputable background..
Well, or least it was how it seemed to her.
Auria began speaking again, this time revealing the time they were going to set off on the train. Eleven post meridiem sharp. They had plenty of time to prepare. Kendrick piped up at this point, choosing words that would end this little meeting.
"Eleven's fine. Let's not waste time. Will we or will we not need weapons is the question here. Do you have any information on that?"
Ciel doubted that Auria knew, judging from how she had mentioned that there had been some sort of secrecy about this particular mission. It was honestly detrimental to the entire operation as a result. The Vespa were known for operating in absolute secrecy..but how they would know what to do if even the details of the missions was kept secret, too? Either way, Ciel hoped it wasn't going to be a combat mission they were getting into. Those were troublesome and never ended too well for the Vespa due to the difference between their equipment and the SGDF's.
And she had never liked being the Reaper..

[Grape Me]

During Reapers few peaks, right before he was about to reposition, he spotted the third target making their on the roof to meet the other sniper. Then all of a sudden, the two targets on the roof of the apartment complex were jumping their way to the original sniper. They're on the run! There was no time to reposition, not now. ""I spotted the third target and the second sniper is with him. They're on the move!" Leo communicated over the coms. He noticed their jumps were done in a way that made it apparent that they were augmented by something, since the jumps were too powerful to have been done by a non-augmented human being. Leo ducked back down, he knew he had to act. "I'm going to take the shot."

He switched off the smart-ordinace shooting, so when he was going to take the shot, he could aim for a less vital place. He noticed the original sniper had stopped firing, so he took this to his advantage. Crawling his way to another side of the roof he was on, he went into a position that would be slightly harder to hit him. He began controlling his breaths, making his heart rate lower. Remaining calm and cool, finally ready, he quickly went up peering down the sights at the two runners. He only had a few seconds if the original sniper was going to fire again, but he only needed 3. He immediately got sight of both of them jumping along the roofs. He held his breath and took two well aimed shots. Although he didn't expect to hit both of them, he knew it would probably hit one. He aimed towards a lower part of their body to hit a less vital spot, he only wanted to immobilize the targets, not kill. After firing he would do a slight check to see if it was a hit then quickly duck down.

[jayjaycaps]

"No objections from me. I prefer trains anyways. And no questions from me either." Andrew couldn't help getting a little excited. It had been a while since he last got to do anything for Vespa, and he planned on enjoying this trip.

Andrew actually loved trains. His job required him to travel quite a bit, and he always preferred taking trains. It was like flying in a plane, except Andrew didn't fly well. Heights weren't a problem, just planes. Checking his watch, he had plenty of time to go home and grab some gear. And his guns, too.

[Inferi]

Mission Sterling

“My father doesn’t think it’s the Vespa.” Kristina said, shaking her head. “They don’t have the technology, at least as far as we know, that can block a search by both Ophion and Cratus, and he told me that both of them have been searching ever since they were developed. They never find anything until the bodies show up. If they do. The only thing that I can think of that would be able to block such a thing would be another AI, but that’s not possible with all the surveillance we have.”

Although very few SGDF personnel had much continuous contact with either Ophion or Cratus, it was common knowledge that they were the two strongest Artificial Intelligence that Syris had produced. There were five “super AI” in total, the term describing a fully-aware Syris AI with tremendous processing power that held a function imperative to the world continuing to work properly.

Cratus was more prevalent among the SGDF, considering he was the one that was in charge of all the logistics. While there were human members of the SGDF that also kept track of such things, Cratus had records of everything stored that he could bring up in a few seconds. He also was the one who kept track of all progress in the field, and it was to him that troops calling for assistance would actually be speaking, as he was the intermediary for all of the communications between squads and the HQ. Being able to process many requests at once and formulate an appropriate response for each was a massive advantage that he had over human coordinators.

As for Ophion, it rarely made contact with anyone from the SGDF. In fact, it rarely even made contact with anyone at all, preferring to remain in the AI cores that housed it and carry out the duties it was assigned. The only AI that refused to choose a gender to appear as, Ophion’s duties were very simple and yet impossible for anyone but an AI to effectively carry out. It monitored the internet, searching for anything that needed to be shut down or tracked by the SGDF or Syris government. It was the ultimate cyberwarefare specialist, and it was because of Ophion that AI units weren’t running rampant. Anyone with enough programming skill could create an AI, but the instant they let it out to freely immerse itself in the network, Ophion would be able to detect it, isolate the code, and erase it from existence. While this didn’t stop people from creating AI units, it did prevent them from using such units for anything that would bring the units into the network.

The fact that neither of the two AI had turned up anything in multiple years was more troubling than many people would think. With the ability to think as fast as they could, and the plethora of networks that they had access to, finding something that could help in any way, even years after the fact, was something that they should have been able to do. People didn’t simply vanish: there was always something that could be used to track at least something about them. Yet that is exactly what had been happening, and no level of digital surveillance had been able to detect anything abnormal. The people had simply vanished, some right from their homes with no sign of intrusion, and there was nothing to do except wonder what had happened.

Nearly the same thing went for the LOC incidents, something that had been minor up until about five months ago. There had been the occasion incident, but nothing that warranted much of anything. It was just an individual problem, and nothing that a psychiatric evaluation and diagnosis couldn’t fix. Yet that hadn’t solved anything, and the incidents had continued, yet it had always been someone different from the last. There was no pattern, no connection, between those that had been affected. Even worse, there was no abnormality in their minds that could be found that would relate to such a thing. It was like it was an impulse that was driven by absolutely nothing at all, and it wasn’t even possible to isolate a single group of people that may be affected. There was no way to know until it happened, and by then it was far too late.

Kristina kept quiet for a moment when Mission voiced her opinion on the LOCs, before saying, “It happened to Julian a week ago, during that powerplant investigation. You remember Julian Meyer, my squad’s techie, right? Completely messed up everything we were doing, and I barely was able to get him out of the system in time. For whatever reason, he was trying to overload the system and make the entire thing fail. Would have put millions of people without power for god knows how long. The worst part was, he didn’t even remember doing it.”

It was apparent now what about that subject was really bothering her, since the people in her squad had been there for quite a bit and the group of them had become decent friends. Friends of a different type from what Kristina and Mission were, but friends nonetheless, and to see something like that happen to one of them disturbed her. She didn’t want to tell Mission, but it was because of that happening that there was a spot for the younger girl to join. It was possible that Kristina could have gotten her onto the squad anyways, but the event had made it easier to have happen. It wasn’t something either of them could do anything about, but Kristina suspected that Mission might feel a little bad if she found out about it, and so it was why she hadn’t mentioned it before now. Of course, now that it was out Mission could likely put the pieces together, but that would have happened eventually anyways.

A few minutes passed, and then, suddenly, the radio came to life, the synthetic voice of Cratus coming through. Like always, it sounded almost like a prerecorded announcement, and only the knowledge that it was actually an AI giving an instruction let the people on the receiving end know it was real. Most SGDF soldiers knew the voice of Cratus quite well, and a lot were constantly amused by the confused look on a new soldier’s face when they first heard the voice giving instructions.

“Patrol One, we’ve got a disturbance in a civilian sector. It coincides with an arrest that one of our squads was to carry out, so I believe that it would be prudent to put you overhead. I have marked the location on your cockpit display, so please proceed there now.”

There was a short pause, and then Cratus added, a touch of humor in his voice, “Since it’s you flying this patrol, Captain Pelagius, I’ll dispense with my reiteration in case the pilot was sleeping. Just get on it, if you would.”

At that point, the radio went silent. Kristina had laughed a bit when Cratus had given his little second speech, but she wasn’t relaxed anymore, and hadn’t been ever since the radio came on. Something was happening, and if she had to do something about it then she wasn’t going to do a half-assed job, no matter what it was.

“Looks like we aren’t going to be just sitting out here for a few hours.” she remarked to Mission, checking the location that they had to go in relation to where they were and then pulling a sharp turn to match her flight vector to where they had to go. Pushing forward on the controls, the helicopter sped up, flying over the top of buildings as Kristina piloted them towards where the marked location. She had increased the altitude when the area had been marked, electing to fly over the buildings rather than weave through them. While she would likely have enjoyed the latter, now wasn’t the time for enjoyment.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Ciel Cruxell, Andrew Jackson, Kendrick Mendoza

No matter how good his manners, or how much technical experience he had, Auria didn’t trust Kendrick. It wasn’t in a way that she wouldn’t think he would do a job badly on purpose or bail out on something for no reason, but she still didn’t trust him. Nothing she could find suggested that he was in solidly with the Vespa, and almost seemed to be using them to accomplish his own goals. She didn’t like that. Having worked for several years as one of the primary hackers in one of the most densely populated areas on the eastern seaboard, she knew how important it was to have people be unwilling to disclose the information they had when it was important not to. She’d had to relocate too many people just because someone thought it was a good idea to spill something that they didn’t think was important.

It was those damn AIs over everything else. The presence of something like Ophion made her job incredibly difficult, but she had found that even an AI could never be omnipresent. It had taken many times of her having a site taken down or dismantled to realize that she had to be a lot more subtle when she was going about her work. As long as she didn’t actually create trails, the AI wouldn’t bother her much, although there had been a few times when Auria had been forced to cut her connection and run, leaving multiple false trails so that the AI wouldn’t be able to find her. It was incredibly nervewracking, and sometimes downright scary, to know that you had to dodge a being that was many thousands of times more powerful than you to get done what you needed to.

Fortunately, most of her work consisted with altering and adjusting things that wouldn’t stick out to a monitoring AI, and she just had to make sure that what she did fit everything as well as it could. She had found that, if all of the information seemed to be in order, an AI wouldn’t pay a huge amount of attention to it. They looked for abnormalities, and small ones were always common, so as long as any background information didn’t have any glaring holes it was possible to get away with it.

Other hackers were another thing altogether. There were still people outside of Syris and the Vespa who enjoyed messing around with everyone, and some of them were quite good. They all had aliases, of course, and if they were good enough it was nearly impossible to figure out who they were. Nearly. If she spent enough time trying, Auria could usually find something in what they had done that would lead back to them, and once she knew who they were she had the power over them. The more irritating ones she just set up to be taken care of by Syris, but most she just let go with the knowledge of who they were.

One hacker in particular was a mystery to Auria, though. They bore the alias “Nemesis” and had been one of the only ones that she had actually found herself running from on several occasions. They were involved in quite a few things that would be considered illegal, even more than Auria herself, and they were the only one she had seen repeatedly that she steered clear of. Every time they had fought over the net, Nemesis had come very close to winning before Auria had run or Ophion had showed up, both of which seemed to end the fight without any consequence. The image that appeared on the screen was less than comforting, too. That particular hacker had taken as their avatar a pale young girl, no more than eleven, with glowing red eyes, long black hair, and a facial expression that said “I’m going to enjoy causing you pain.”

Nodding to Ciel, Auria respected her request not to talk about the student teaching. Whether Ciel realized it or not, that statement had made Auria’s respect for her go up just a bit. Few people were asked to do something like that, and when they were it indicated that they had at least an above-average amount of intelligence. Plus Ciel was correct: having something like that as a background made the average person less likely to suspect you of having any involvement with a group like the Vespa. It didn’t solve everything, but it did help.

When she asked about guns, though, Auria sighed. It always came up, and people should realize by now what she was going to say. It was always the same, especially when they were travelling in the way that they were, but people never seemed to realize and she was always stuck explaining it. The only difference was that it applied to herself as well as everyone else this time.

“I do not know whether we will need weapons or not, but we will be unable to bring any with us.” she told the trio. This would undoubtedly come as a disappointment to some of them, but there wasn’t anything else that could be done. “You should know that security systems will be in use for a train travelling any decent distance," she continued, "Which means we can’t bring any firearms on the train. Electronic gadgets are fine, but they can’t be anything too outlandish. Just bring the typical things you would need for an overnight trip, and if we need weapons we will be able to get some there. The safehouse is equipped, that much I do know, so don’t worry about weapons for the time being.”

Truthfully, she hoped weapons wouldn’t be necessary. While able to fight, she likely couldn’t outshoot anyone in this room and would have a hard time taking any of them in straight physical combat. That didn’t mean she was useless by any means, since she had about five different ways that she could disable someone using technology in this very room, and a lot more that she could implement if she needed to. In a situation like this, she was probably one of the stronger ones, since her weapons weren’t really weapons in the sense of being detected by firearms sensors. Everything about her in a fight was deception, misleading people, and taking cheap shots.

“If there’s nothing else, then feel free to go ahead and get ready.” she told them, turning back around in her chair to face the mirror. “I’ll meet all of you by the entrance to the departure platform. It shouldn’t be hard to find, since there’s only one train leaving for Kansas in the entire station. If you need to contact me, then here’s my number.”

As she spoke the last sentence, she pressed something, and a ten-digit number lit up on the mirror, still the standard code for phones. Given who Auria was, something might have been expected to be off from a normal number, but there was nothing out of the ordinary with it. Nothing that any of them could see, at least.

“Oh, and if any of you need to stay and talk about anything privately, go ahead.” she said, although something in her voice said she really didn’t want to have to talk to anyone unless it was actually important, and that was exactly what she was thinking. Getting stuck leading a group was the last thing she wanted to do, and having to deal with issues of anyone in said group just made it that much worse. That being said, she wasn’t stupid, and understood that some problems had to be worked out, but if she didn’t have to be the one working out the solution it would be preferable.

“You know the way out.” she finished, and there was an unlocking sound as the door unlocked and started to drift open. Everyone could now leave, or stay, or whatever. They did have time to kill, so if any of them didn’t think their travel time and preparations would take the full amount of time remaining it was up to them what they wanted to do with it.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Leo ‘Reaper’ Parker, Jonathan Edge

Just as everything started happening, a burst of static came through all of their radios, on a channel designated for SGDF emergency communication. It seemed like there were some words, but since nothing was able to be heard, and everything had already begun to progress, it was unlikely any of them would have the time to actually pay attention to it.

The second Jon burst out the door, Alicia right behind him, everything began to dissolve into chaos. The exit was not met by any bullets immediately, but as soon as he took aim at one of the jumping individuals his own barrage was met by a return-fire from the same person, who apparently had an automatic weapon of their own. Rounds ricocheted off the roof around him, but only a few actually came into contact with his body. The few that did were going to leave a mark, though. In total, he felt three impacts, two in the heavy body armor on his chest and the other hitting a weaker part on his forearm. The ones hitting his chest would do little besides leave bruises, but the one that hit his arm penetrated just enough to draw a bit of blood and pained him enough to throw his aim off the target for a moment.

For the first second, though, his aim had been true, and at least one bullet connected with the leg of the individual that was now shooting back at him. Probably to their surprise, the effect seemed to be about comparable to the hits that Jon had taken, indicating that these people had body armor that was as strong as the SGDF soldiers they were fighting. It did make him, for that was the male runner, stop firing for a moment, trying to readjust his landing for the slight change in momentum.

That plan was blasted out of the water when Reaper took his shots. It seemed the man was the unlucky one, as the shot towards the woman missed but his hit dead-on, slamming into the same leg that Jon had hit. While Leo wouldn’t be able to hear the impact, it was possible that Jon would, which would make it strange since the sound was almost like the bullet had struck something metal. It wasn’t as though it had simply struck a metal plate, and was more like it had either hit a combination of metal and flesh or punched through a thin sheet of metal. Either way, the sound was all that would be able to be observed, as the lighting was still not good enough to catch a face.

With a shout that sounded more like anger than pain, although it had a fair amount of the latter as well, the momentum shift pushed the man sideways, throwing off his jump by quite a bit. It was enough to make him hit the ledge of the roof and then slide off, falling towards the alley between buildings below. Unlike most people, though, he didn’t flail, and instead grabbed onto a pipe several feet down, which he used to slide the rest of the way to the ground, which he hit with a heavy thud and another curse.

Leo’s shot came at a cost, though. The sniper had stopped firing for a reason, and that reason was to wait until Leo came up for a shot of his own. They had known that Leo was going to take the shot, and had been counting on it. As Leo was pulling his trigger, so too was the sniper, and before Leo could go back down the single sniper round punched through the armor on his upper arm, blasting right through it and taking out a piece of the side of his arm as well. It would hurt like hell and stop him from really taking any more shots, but he was very fortunate in the fact that it didn’t hit anything vital. His arm would still work exactly like it should, albeit with a decent amount of pain with each movement.

The other jumper, the female, managed to make it to the other roof unharmed, and landed quite gracefully, skidding to a halt and then spinning around, dropping to one knee and bringing up the rifle that she held. Jon would still be a bit off due to the shots, and would likely just be bringing the weapon up when she was aiming down her sights at him. Alicia, on the other hand, was fully aware of it, and shouted, “Look out!” running and pushing Jon to the side as the woman fired the rifle. The bullet sped across the small distance between them, grazing Alicia’s shoulder but otherwise not injuring her, and the woman quickly took aim again for another shot. Unfortunately for her, she was met by a shotgun blast from Alicia, who had managed to stay focused enough to bring up her own weapon before the second shot could be made. It missed, but it sent the woman scurrying to cover behind a garden box behind her, and gave the SGDF soldiers time to take cover if they so wished.

Once more, the static in their radios came up, and it seemed this time like someone was shouting. They still couldn’t make out any words, but it sounded like someone was trying to tell them something that they considered urgent.

In the alley below, something else was happening. The man that had fallen was getting to his feet, pulling something out of a pocket. There was really no way for anyone to tell, as it was unlikely that anyone would be watching, but the device he now held was a small cylinder with a glowing red button under a latched cap. He flipped the latch off and put a finger on the button, making it start to blink furiously. As soon as he did, the man started to run, or limp quickly, rather, making his way towards the area behind the buildings. That area led to an area with parking lots for the apartment complexes and another road that ran behind them.

Finally, the static was broken through, and all three SGDF soldiers would be able to hear their Lieutenant, shouting frantically at them to, “Get out of the building, dammit! They’ve got the entire thing –“

His words were cut off by the sound of a violent explosion and some shaking, and Alicia and Jon would suddenly find that their footing was no longer secure. The roof they were on was starting to crack, and they would soon realize that what the Lieutenant had been about to say was something along the lines of “rigged to collapse”. They were standing on a collapsing building, and if they didn’t do something quickly they were going to be in a lot of trouble.

They were a bit fortunate in one respect, though. The sniper on the roof closest to them, the female who had made the jump, had taken the detonation of the roof as an opportunity to retreat, going into the roof entrance of the building she was located on. While this did leave the other sniper, they seemed more preoccupied with Leo, as he both knew where they were and was more of a threat with his ability to cover the entire rooftop. Plus, he was the only one right now that could really take a decent shot at the last sniper.

That did leave the roofs on both sides of the apartment building as reasonable places to jump to, though. The one that the sniper had landed on was closer in terms of distance to the side of the roof that it was located past, but it was also a farther jump when compared to the other side, which also had a bit of a drop that they would be able to use to make the distance.

“Come on, sir!” Alicia shouted, trying to keep her footing on the roof as she started running for the far roof. Apparently, she thought that it would be a safer bet than taking the shorter run but longer jump. Jon didn’t have to follow her lead, but he had to do something quick if he didn’t want to fall with the building.

[Zender_Solarheart]

The moment he exits onto the rooftop, Jon's radio picks up static on the SGDF emergency channel. Were things more under control here, he'd probably think to himself about how that's probably Lt. Harken, but the two tangos fleeing the scene have his attention first and foremost. Unfortunately, the static itself throws off his concentration just enough for the male jumper to peg him with some automatic fire. The burst was largely inaccurate for the range it was fired at, but 3 manage to hit him in just the right places to divert his aim. "ARGH! Dammit!" he curses, partially at his own bad run of luck, but mostly at the runner. At least his first shot managed to hit the bastard...

...who apparently has armor as strong as the SGDF's own...the hell?

Thankfully, Reaper gets the job done, as indicated by the sniper shot pounding into the tango's leg, eliciting a satisfying outcry from that target. The dude certainly has some quick reflexes, though, or at least sheer dumb luck...because grabbing a pipe as quickly as he did requires at least one of the two. Definitely well-trained, especially considering the lack of the usual flailing as he fell.

Another well-trained adversary of theirs is the female tango, who is now on the other roof, dropping to one knee...and aiming a rifle straight at Jon. Due to a mix of disorientation from the man's shots and the overall adrenaline, his ability to ready his own weapon appears inferior to his enemy's, and it seems like he's about to get a solid shot through his chest, until...

"Look out!!"

In a daring act of courage, Alicia pushes Jon aside just as the female tango fires her rifle. The shot grazes her shoulder, but proves otherwise harmless, and Alicia's shotgun blast quickly deters a second shot. Jon's just about to ready his own return-fire...when all hell breaks loose.

"Get out of the building, dammit! They’ve got the entire thing –"

..."rigged to collapse," apparently, considering how the whole of their footing is now breaking apart and buckling out from beneath them.

Alicia has the right idea, hopping to the far roof to escape the death-trap Jon's still standing on. Quickly re-adjusting his balance, Jon sprints as best as he can on the unsteady rooftop, and takes a flying leap for the far roof that Pvt. Orchard went for. The longer jump isn't something he's willing to risk with the rooftop he's on being so unstable, and while it likely means the female will escape, that male tango couldn't have gotten far with his injury, making him the better choice for a prisoner to interrogate. As soon as he can do so without risk of falling to his death, Jon radios to Harken:

"Lieutenant, this is Edge. We've got 1 tango on the run, but her partner's wounded. Permission to pursue the latter, over?"

[napsii]

Mission nodded.

It was frightening to agree with, but the Vespa could never articulate the resources to make people vanish as if they had been snatched out of existence. Although it was no mistake that the rebel group was a bottomless pit of tricks and unsettling surprises, their fear of the SGDF's sheer might was something that had been consistent over the last several years. She leaned back in her seat, fiddling with her helmet absentmindedly. The SGDF's resources were immense and indeed, they held a thousand ways to fight the Vespa in each hand, but everyone above and below this Earth was aware that the five mightiest swords of Syris were not human at all. Cratus and Ophion, the AI which organized the military and kept guard over the Internet respectively, were just two fingers of the SGDF's third hand: the five super AI's which served countless critical functions in both military and civilian infrastructure. The day when Ophion had first fanned its wings over the Internet had been a turning point in the war. From thereon, very little digital information had escaped the view of Syris. It was both intimidating and relieving to know that such an entity existed to combat the Vespa, but even more so to know that even its unfathomable might had been eclipsed by whatever group had been responsible for these disappearances. So far, it was conjecture even to think of it, but the idea that there could have been a third party involved -- a major entity other than the Vespa which opposed Syris -- was the SGDF's waking nightmare. Unsettled, Mish shifted.

Even when she was young, her father had been keen to point out the lack of peace in the new world. In the eighteen years since Syris had formally declared their victory, only two world-stage groups had ever opposed them: Aduros and the Vespa. Yet between them, there had been hundreds of smaller insurgencies, thousands even, coming to life around the globe only to be crushed by the SGDF's might within weeks, days or even hours of making their first moves. Indeed, the SGDF's war efforts had often been predicated on one particular point: the rebels' need for unity. The SGDF wielded so much power that its implications sometimes scared Mish, and the only thing that could oppose it was something just as resilient. Individually, rebel cells were weak, but when they united, they made waves. It had long been her father's belief that Aduros, the Vespa's famous predecessors, had survived so long because they had united their resources and their personnel. Yet as they had grown -- and indeed, as the Vespa grew -- the SGDF had turned their eyes toward them. As the flame of their threat burned brighter and hotter, the conflicts had become more violent and frequent until one side fell. But even after all this time snowballing their firepower and their tricks, the Vespa had still left trails behind -- they had still proved vulnerable to Syris' tactics. If history was to be believed, it was not them. It was something else -- an entity whose flame had burned invisibly behind the SGDF's backs, even after all these years -- and that scared Mission.

There was nothing. Not even Ophion could pick up their trail. They were just... gone.

Intimidated by their circumstances, Mission slunk into her seat, rubbing her forearm to squash her anxiety. They couldn't possess an AI. It just wasn't possible. Cratus and Ophion alone, the two brightest gems of the SGDF, had cost billions of credits and many years to build, not counting the decades of prior research into the sciences and technology that made them possible, and Syris' monopoly on the keys to making super AI possible -- the money, the knowledge, the personnel, the resources and the time -- remained unbroken. At last, the girl sighed, knowing she would go off the deep end trying to solve the mystery by herself. It was a horrible feeling to know that she couldn't do anything but wait, but she trusted Ophion and the rest of the SGDF to nail those responsible. It was funny to admit, but she trusted the AI's -- admired them, even -- perhaps because of the immense power they wielded. Her father had worked on them, too, and his knowledge had helped usher them into existence. It was sometimes said the AI construction process ingrained just a dusting of the creator's personality into the AI themselves, and as Ayr Sterling's daughter, perhaps there was a sliver of her character in there, too. Well, perhaps that was a bit out there. Cratus' intellect alone was intimidating, and she could swear the AI liked to make fun of her. She looked back at Kristina, already feeling like she was being crushed again under the weight of her own speculation. The disappearances were bad enough, but the LOC's... made no sense.

"Yeah, I... heard about that." she said, feeling shock creep up and down her back. She had heard it second-hand from some gossiping techs, but the LOC incident that had struck incredibly close to home was something that had unsettled her for the past week. She looked intently at Kris, trying to gauge how the captain felt about one of her subordinates just... losing himself like that. Mission rubbed her arm, feeling ever more uncomfortable. She had heard that Meyer was reassigned after that.

Could that be why she... she was about to finish the thought when Cratus' unmistakable voice quenched her brooding. She perked up, her heart skipping once. Even when the AI didn't appear to announce trouble, there was something about his very presence that always set Mish on edge. He was just a little... intimidating. An all-seeing eye, he was impossible to evade or lie to. And there a few times that had gotten Mish in trouble. Quickly hiding her bag of chips, she tuned in to the alert and felt her heart start pumping. For once on patrol, something was going down that merited their attention. Immediately, the girl started taking deep breaths to keep herself collected: a technique Kris had taught her the first time they had been called to a serious situation. Mish considered herself to have a good handle on her own fears, but the anxiety of not knowing what they would be walking into was hard to combat.

"Roger that." she responded tersely to Cratus, seating herself properly again. With hands on the console, she remained still as the chopper lurched forward speedily. This was no casual flight anymore.

"If it's about a planned arrest, then this can only mean they fought back." she commented to Kris. The Vespa resisting arrest with violence wasn't exactly uncommon, but if the squad had called in backup, then that usually meant the insurgents in question were either toting huge numbers or a lot of firepower.

[MiscChaos]

"Fine by me. I'm not much of a marksman anyway." Kendrick says about the lack of weaponry while taking down the hovering number. He gives one last bow to the Madame Silverandros and makes his way out since he has no further questions, giving another bow to Madame Cruxell before he leaves. He quickly makes his way to his car, though it is still a bit of a walk since he parked quite a ways away from the club, and hops in. Almost immediately he puts his head on the steering wheel, trying to get himself together. Despite the cool he displayed in front of others, he was more than a little nervous about making this final jump into things.

'OK, so it finally happened. I got picked up by Vespa. I absolutely can't let Melody know about this. She'll feel so betrayed...' he thinks, his thoughts turning to his adopted sister in the SDGF. No, if it comes to fighting her or defecting, he'll almost definitely defect. He has no loyalties to Vespa beyond what they can do for him in getting his hands on SDGF gear and all the loyalty in the world towards his family. He sincerely hopes that never changes. Barring any interruptions, he then starts up his car and rides out, going a little faster than usual. He really wants to get home and start packing for his trip, maybe even unwind a bit before looking up trains to Kansas since the Madame never specified WHICH train station they would be leaving out of. Still, she seemed confident that a train to that location was exceedingly rare, so it can't be too big of a problem to find. And he doesn't even have to erase any evidence of doing that search since looking up information on where you'll be going is so unendingly normal it's boring.

[Icaelus]

Ciel groaned internally when she realized her mistake upon Auria's sigh. Even if they had needed weapons, they could hardly bring their own. They were riding on the goddamned public train, for Christ's sake. She gave Auria an apologetic look as the other woman began an explanation on why they couldn't bring any weapons with them with a rather resigned tone.
Way to go, C. Idiocy at your best..
Ciel sighed inaudibly as Auria ended her explanation. They were only to bring things they would need for an overnight trip..and the safehouse they were travelling to was equipped, at the very least. Not that the weapons of old did much against the Syris standard-issue armor, but it beat chucking rocks at them. And of course, Ciel appreciated the skill and precision needed to seek out the chinks of the armor that protected so many of the Syris bastards..
Auria dismissed them as the briefing ended, swiveling her chair around to stare at herself in the mirror. They would meet at the entrance of the departure platform, then board the train bound for Kansas. There was going to be only one, so they couldn't miss it even if they wanted to.
11pm, sharp. Don't be late.
Her mental murmur drifted by in her mind as Ciel stared at the number lit up on Auria's screen, committing it to memory. Her phone automatically deleted all Vespa-related information after five minutes of receiving it and thus, Auria's number was too important to even think of storing on a device which could easily be lost as it was stolen. Her own memory was far safer..though reliability might be a concern as time passed.

Ciel left the room immediately as the door had unlocked, trailing behind Kendrick. She had caught the message in Auria's voice and she didn't exactly have anything else important to add, either. Unless she wanted to apologize for making her do that completely unnecessary explanation, of course. She kept her black hood on, nodding acknowledgement to the bouncer as she passed him on the way out to the street. She weaved her way through the crowd of people that seemed to only have increased in size since the past few minutes they had spent in Auria's room. Popular establishment, it certainly was.

A warm breeze met Ciel's face as she stepped out into the open, a welcome warmth from the air-conditioned interior of the gentleman's club. She had never liked the cold. It always left her sleepy and lethargic, as if her limbs were freezing up somehow.
She caught sight of Kendrick as the man hurried away from the club, headed for the parking lots. He had a car, then. Of course. What would he pick his lady friends up in, then? It was just a feeling, but Kendrick came across as a "ladies' man".
An expression she probably would never forget how she had learned the meaning of. She had searched the meaning of it back when she was younger on the web, accidentally getting linked to a gigolo site..
Ciel blinked, a faint blush coloring her cheeks as she waved away the very thought of the steamy pictures on the site. The girl turned a corner down into the alley where she had left her bicycle parked. A small smile crossed her face as she found it exactly where she had left it, leaning against the brick wall that made up one side of the alley. She loved the vehicle, it being one of the only things she felt that she really owned. The teachers did pay her a little something for coming in on her weekends and helping teach the weaker students. It was honest work, work that she probably wouldn't need to experience until she graduated from school. And instead of being chauffeured around like she could have been, she instead bought a bike as soon as she had earned enough.
She undid the chain binding the bike from the pipe she had secured it to, obviously smart enough not to leave a bike unsecured in a neighborhood like this. Even chained to a pipe, it was still risky. Even if Syris had disarmed the general populace and stopped most of the major crimes, it didn't mean that there was no more crime left. Bike theft was common enough, of course.
Ciel ran a finger along the crimson paintjob of her bicycle as she straddled the seat, pushing off into a furious pedaling pace right off. Better go grab a change of clothes and stuff for the trip..

[Grape Me]

Leo did get a lucky shot on one of the targets, but with a price. The other sniper managed to fire a round into Leo's left upper arm, around the area where the cybernetics and flesh met. This caused his nerves to react with unbearable pain. gritting his teeth he tried his best to overcome it. "Gah, Fuckin' A." The sniper was good, the amount of time it took him to get Reaper was unexpected, he was quick, he didn't think there was any chance. Luckily it wasn't vital but taking a steady shot now would be quite near impossible. This wasn't the first time Leo had an injury like this however, and he could always use another technique to better his aim even with an wound such as this.

Out of nowhere the lieutenant's voice could be heard back on the coms, "Get out of the building, dammit! They’ve got the entire thing –" Then the sound of an explosion could be heard from the complex. Reaper look just barly over the wall could see his comrades on the roof of the collapsing building. This wasn't good. Leo, however, had faith that his squad mates could make it off ok. Leo was currently the prime target, as he was the only one open to take the shot. The state of his arm however and the fact the other sniper probably still had his gun aimed directly on Leo's position prevented him from taking a reaction shot at the fleeing sniper.

Leo decided it was time to do a different move. He grabbed his rifle tightly and sprinted low on the roof so the other sniper couldn't hit him. He took the fire escape, heading down to another floor of the build to reposition himself. Entering the building he made his was down a hallway and kicked open a door to an empty room. It was dark with the only light coming from the far window, perfect. Leo took up the position by the window, sitting next to it so he wasn't in the open. He would then take a peak, seeing the fleeing sniper and hopefully the stationary one that aimed still on the roof. Leo was fast and effective so the chance of the other sniper even knowing which floor and window he was at was near impossible.

If Leo spots the stationary sniper (High priority)

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

"Gotcha' now," Leo would quickly position the sniper on the windowsill, aiming the sniper on the position of the other one. He would place the sniper on the sill as support to help steady his aim and use his trigger arm to help reduce the recoil. He would then control his breathing, lowing his heart rate, then -BOOM- the ear piercing sound of him taking the shot would be heard. Leo, before taking the shot had turned on the smartordinace to help guild the bullet, and if the target had something to prevent smartordinace from even assisting it didn't matter, the shot was well spot on. Reaper knew this other sniper was in a well covered position, but the lethal round Leo uses can pierce even the thicket cover. This shot was aimed to kill. After the shot Leo would again check for a hit through his scope and then crouch back down out of aim of the window. There should be no way for this other sniper to react fast enough to dodge or return fire, as he would have no idea where Leo is located.

If Leo does not spot the stationary sniper (Medium priority)

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Checking back in the location of where the other sniper was Leo would see the target was no longer there. Leo would check some of the other openings of the building to see if he could spot him again. (if he does then follow "If Leo spots the stationary sniper (High priority)") If still nothing then he would aim at the fleeing woman. He would place the sniper on the sill as support to help steady his aim and use his trigger arm to help reduce the recoil. He would then control his breathing, lowing his heart rate, then -BOOM- the ear piercing sound of him taking the shot would be heard.After the shot Leo would again check for a hit through his scope and then crouch back down out of aim of the window. There should be no way for this other sniper to react fast enough as he would have no idea where Leo is located (assuming he was even still looking for Leo).

[Inferi]

Mission Sterling

“I should have known you would be there, Private Sterling.” Cratus’ voice said, coming back over the radio with what seemed like a bit of amusement in it. It seemed that Mission might not be too far off in her feeling that the AI liked to make fun of her. “Wasn’t your shift supposed to be up fifteen minutes ago?”

A human-like comment such at that was actually a lot less abnormal than many people might think. Although he was an AI, Cratus, and indeed all of the super AI, had many human qualities that defined who they were. The common image of an AI, all logic and no humanity, wasn’t quite accurate when it came to the ones created by Syris. Ophion was the closest to such a stereotype, but it was difficult to tell when it made virtually no contact with anyone. All of the rest had distinct personalities, and although they would still act in a logical and fairly emotionless manner when it came to things that mattered, they weren’t just that overall.

“Oh, leave her alone, Cratus. I asked her to come so I could talk to her about an assignment to my squad.” Kristina said, rolling her eyes under her helmet. A slight grin couldn’t be kept from her lips, though. Cratus knew the two of them too well, something that Kristina knew she should probably be worried by but wasn’t. She did her job as best she could, and she knew Mission did too, so Cratus shouldn’t have any reason to hold a friendship as a negative thing.

“Of course. I forgot you’re incapable of just sending a message.” Cratus replied, and one could almost hear the virtual eyes rolling as he spoke. For something that operated solely through virtual flows, not using a message when it was much more convenient was likely a good comparison to stupidity.

“It’s better to ask such a thing in person. For you, a message is the same thing.” was Kristina’s reply as she urged the helicopter forwards, their destination getting closer by the second.

“Very well, that’s a valid point.” Cratus told her. “And as long as she agreed to come on this willingly, which I don’t know why any of you would, you are completely within your rights to choose who you bring along on a patrol. If you can handle what needs to be done, I don’t have a reason to recommend guidelines for your patrols.” With the apparent concession, he stopped talking, the radio going silent again. Still, it almost seemed like he was warning them, setting a standard for what was about to happen.

Kristina sighed, finally getting around to responding to what Mission had said. Even though she didn’t mind banter with the AI, arguing with one was a fruitless endeavor if they actually wanted to argue. They could just react and think too quickly, and she always ended up tongue-tied by the end.

“That’s the most likely situation, although normally we would be able to handle something like that without a problem. You know that they don’t send in unarmored teams, and unless the target is expecting it they shouldn’t even have a chance of harming the squad.”

She sighed, wondering if she was overthinking it. Sometimes a helicopter was just wanted to make sure the individuals didn’t escape, and it was simple and over really quickly. There were very few occasions in which someone fighting back actually caused any problems, and she just hoped that it was something like that and not a situation in which they were actually needed.

“I dunno, maybe I’m analyzing it too much.” she said with a shrug. “Resists are common, but calling us in isn’t. Cratus, who’s the commanding officer of the squad?” The question to the AI was just a thought, something that she could use to help figure out the situation. If it was someone inexperienced, then it was likely just them unused to a situation like what they were in.

“Lieutenant Tyler Harken.” Cratus replied immediately.

“Harken’s in charge? That's not good.”

Her reaction to the information wasn’t due to a dislike of the individual, but because she knew him and knew that he knew what he was doing. The two had joined the SGDF together, and although she had risen a bit more in rank than he had the two of them had both been fairly effective field commanders. That meant the situation had to be serious, since he wouldn’t call for assistance unless there was really a need for it.

“There is gunfire on the rooftops, and I have just detected multiple explosive signatures at structural points on the building.” Cratus told them, answering Kristina’s unasked question. They weren’t far at all from the location, and such an announcement just made Kristina increase the speed of the helicopter even more. She wanted to get there as quickly as possible now, although what exactly she could do in such a situation wasn’t yet clear to her.

The location came into view in under a minute, and Kristina turned on the floodlights that the helicopter was equipped with as they came overhead. It wasn’t necessary to see what had happened, though, and the sight made her gasp. An entire building had just finished crumbling, the debris from it spread out into the street in the front, the parking lot in the back, and into the two buildings adjacent to it on the sides. Little beyond the exterior parts of the building could be seen in the debris, but it didn’t take much imagination to think up what the wreckage underneath would look like if it were exposed. It was probably good that the helicopter didn’t have the best view, since it was more than likely that there were people trapped and some bodies just under the wreckage. It was impossible that everyone, or even most of the people, inside that building would have survived such a collapse.

Two SGDF soldiers were on the roof of one of the buildings next to the wreckage, and people were gathering, peering out their windows or running down the sidewalk to see what was going on. The readout on the cockpit showed three SGDF signatures in the vicinity, the other appearing to be in a building across the street. A sniper, Kristina presumed, as a team usually had one of those just in case.

“Alright, what the hell is going on here?” she asked, her voice showing her shock at what she was seeing. An entire building nearly leveled? This had to have been planned, especially with the nearly immaculate detonation and collapse that she could see from here. Doing it without causing a lot of collateral damage was something that had to be planned, and that was what worried her.

“Mission, get a rescue team here now.” she said tersely, stopping her own transmission through the radio before she did. Having received no alerts about such an occurrence, she could only assume that they hadn’t been called yet, so it was up to them to do so. This was bad, really bad, and someone needed to do something about the building and any survivors that may be in it right now.

Looking down at the situation as she circled, Kristina didn’t see the person four lots away running towards a car that was speeding down the road behind the parking lots. Mission would be able to see him clearly from where she was, though, and she would also be able to see that he seemed to be carrying some kind of rifle. The car came to a halt right in front of him and the man jumped in, the car starting to speed off down the road away from the apartment buildings. It could just be a coincidence, but the fact that he held what looked like a firearm and was running away from a scene like this just wasn’t normal.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Ciel Cruxell, Andrew Jackson, Kendrick Mendoza

When two of the people left but the third didn’t, Auria waited for a minute to see if the one remaining had anything to say. A slight feeling of annoyance crossed her mind when he didn’t, just seeming to stand there without any reason, but if he was going to be stupid, fine, she wouldn’t do anything about it. All she could hope was that he wouldn’t be like that when she actually had to rely on the man to do any work.

Completely ignoring him, she quickly shut down all of the electronic devices in the room, grabbing a strange wristband-looking device from a small alcove behind the clothing in the closet and sliding it into one of the pockets of her jacket. It was very bulky for a wristband, and also was long enough to take up most of her forearm, indicating that there was likely something more to it than just that. That feeling was also added to by the care that she treated it with, like it was very valuable to her. It was black in color, with a small zipper down the middle of the side that one would assume would sit on the top of her arm.

With a single check from the interface in her eye, Auria made sure that everything in the room was off and locked, and then left the room, effectively pushing Andrew out as well. She didn’t care if he was standing out in the hall, but nobody got to be in her room without her being there. Most people probably wouldn’t find anything important, and even fewer would be able to do anything at all with what they did find, but she couldn’t afford to take the chance that anyone might actually get into the system. Once outside, she swung the door shut and activated the lock, once again using the interface on her eye to do so. The lock for her room could be activated electronically or manually, the former only accessible through her own system and the latter only from the interior of the room or a concealed switch in the main office of the building.

Without any reason to remain in the establishment, Auria started walking in the opposite direction from where everyone else had gone. Unlike them, she would be using the back entrance, as it led to an alley that led right to a nearby parking garage. Everyone that worked here that drove their own vehicles parked them there. The walk was about a minute long, and it was just after the other Vespa members had started their trip home that Auria boarded her vehicle, an old, beat-up motorcycle, and began her own trip to her apartment. Like everyone else, she had things to prepare as well.

--2 hours and 15 minutes later: 10:30pm—

Grand Central hadn’t changed much in the last forty or so years, with the exception of it becoming larger. With New York City as the headquarters of the SGDF as well as having all of the normal businesses and jobs, there had been a large influx of residents over the last ten years. Everything had gotten larger to accommodate it: apartments, train lines, businesses, even the city itself. Commuter lines had been increased to deal with the amount of new people, and more lines to areas outside of the city had been built in to deal with those coming from far away or leaving to visit those areas. Airports had been extended, bus lines had been forced to add more drivers and vehicles to the list of what they had: it was good business for those involved, but less comfortable for people that had known the city before, if that was even possible.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, depending on how someone looked at it, the late-night departure of the train the Vespa members were boarding left them without too many people in the station. There were still a few crowds, some people leaving on business trips or returning from said trips, and then the people that had just gotten out of a late-night shift and were trying to get home. In comparison to a regular afternoon, though, the station was nearly empty.

About an hour after everyone had left the club, they would have received a message from the number that Auria had given them. The message was short, and what it said was, “Your tickets will be available under your names at the departure desk. Don’t meet as a group. Just go to the room on the train that the ticket gives you and we can meet there.”

Apparently meeting at the train station didn’t actually mean meeting personally at the station, although such a development would make sense. If they weren’t supposed to be travelling as a group by official records, it would make sense that they wouldn’t recognize each other in the station. Doing so likely wouldn’t be an issue if two of them ran into each other, but all four of them meeting up by mistake and then just happening to share a room even though they didn’t book together would most likely stand out as a bit suspicious.

Assuming the Vespa members came in through the main entrance, the desk that they were supposed to get tickets from was down the escalators inside and then almost directly across the plaza under a sign that indicated the desk was for travel that was going outside the city. If they went in through any of the other entrances, there would be various signs that would direct them to the ticket desks, although the trip to find them would undoubtedly be longer than if they went in the front.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Leo ‘Reaper’ Parker, Jonathan Edge

Fortunately for the SGDF soldiers on the top of the roof, their quick actions and intelligent choice of destination allowed something to actually go moderately right. Both of them cleared the edge of the roof and sailed through the air, landing on the top of the adjacent building as the one behind them started to crumble. Alicia landed on her feet, stumbled slightly, and hit a rooftop boiler tank, grunting as the impact knocked her backwards and to the roof. Fortunately, she appeared relatively unharmed. Most of the impact had been absorbed by the suit, leaving her only slightly dazed as she started to get back to her feet.

When Jon tried to call the Lieutenant, though, there was absolutely nothing. The connection was completely dead, without any static to indicate that something might be blocking it again. Given the cutoff at the explosion, and the severity with which the building had been rigged, it was very unlikely that the Lieutenant had made it out of the building alive. It was also unlikely that many of the civilians would make it out alive either, and that would be a much more severe ramification for the SGDF, especially if those responsible weren’t caught.

Leo’s reposition, while not exposing him to enemy fire, did take long enough that it allowed the final member of the enemy team to make their retreat. As soon as Leo had begun moving, something that they could see even if it hadn’t given a shot, the sniper had turned, running to the back of the building and grabbing onto a rope tied there. From there, they had turned around, jumping off the edge and sliding their way down the back of the building before running across the parking lot and towards the road. This, unfortunately, made it so that when Leo got to his second point, there would be nothing left to shoot at, every target having already retreated and behind the buildings. Even the female target would be behind the building she had retreated through.

All throughout this, the building had continued to collapse, and the terrified sounds of those inside could be heard as the structure continued to collapse. The structural integrity had been expertly compromised, the charges having been placed well enough so that there was nothing left holding the building up. A remarkable feat, really, given the advances in structural engineering in the last decade or so, but it was very unlikely anyone watching would be in the mood to congratulate those responsible for destroying the building. Pieces of the building smashed into the adjacent ones, particularly near the foundations, although it was fortunate that the structures of the adjacent buildings were strong enough to prevent the more devastating effects of the damage. A few people might have their walls torn down and debris piling up in their living rooms, but that was the extent of it, assuming they weren’t leaning against the wall when the debris hit. It also spilled out into the street, making several cars swerve and brake lights begin to shine as cars were forced to come to a halt.

Shortly after the building struck the surrounding ones, the sound of a helicopter could be heard I the distance, getting closer by the second. The floodlights of a patrol helicopter soon covered the wreckage of the building as well as the rooftop that the two soldiers were standing on, the helicopter coming to a relative halt in the air above the buildings.

“Alright, what the hell is going on here?”

The voice coming through the radio sounded about as happy as any of the squad were feeling, and the way it was said seemed to indicate that it was someone who was either a superior officer or who thought they were. Some of the team might recognize the voice of Captain Pelagius, as she was fairly well known in the SGDF of this area, but since none of them had worked with her personally before there was just as much of a chance they wouldn’t have.

Off in the street behind the buildings, a car pulled out of the parking lot two away from where Jon and Alicia were currently, starting to speed down the street before stopping and picking up the sniper that had jumped off the far building. There were two people in it, meaning that the entire enemy team was attempting to get away in the same car. It appeared that the helicopter didn’t seem to notice it, which would make sense considering they didn’t know what was going on.

[MiscChaos]

At 10:30, Kendrick is in front of the main entrance of the Grand Central station, ready to go having packed and scrubbed the scent of desperation and lust that comes with a strip club off his person. He'd taken a cab over here since he doesn't know how long he'll be gone and doesn't want to leave his car sitting in a train station parking lot, no matter how good security is or how safe the area is. At least back at his house, there are a more than a few automated security measures that'll... discourage people from coming near. They'll most likely survive their "discouragement" until they're REALLY stupid and the AI he has running it can recognize his family right down to the smallest pore, letting them in without punishment while "discouraging" impostors since no human is similar on THAT small a scale. Basic summary though, he knows his car is safe at home from anyone less technologically advanced than he is no matter how long he's gone. So as he sits there with a few weeks worth of clothes, all his portable electronics in a carry bag, and his civilian strength taser in it's holster under his jacket. Or at least it'd look civilian strength until he had to use it. If he does, that thing can kill people if he's not 100% careful so hopefully he doesn't have to use it. Thoughts now run their course, Kendrick enters the station and makes his way to the main desk, taking in the relative emptiness of the station while he's at it.

"One ticket under Kendrick Mendoza, if you please." he says to the receptionist. Even if it's a female running the desk, he says it in a normal fashion. He tries not to flirt with the help because he figures they must hear that kind of thing an unbearable number of times a day and would not appreciate him throwing his hat in that mess. Sometimes he can't help himself, the woman's that beautiful, but usually he lets them do their job with no bother from him. Assuming everything goes without a hitch, he'll take his ticket and head for wherever he's supposed to meet with everyone on the train. He expects there to be only Madame Silverandros there at the moment since he's early and he expects the head of this happy little group would arrive before everyone else. Or at least that's what he's come to expect from the people he usually hangs out with. He's unsure if Vespa would do things the same way though.

[napsii]

"Cratus..."

Mission found herself blushing under the AI's scrutiny. Even though it could think and act on the behalf of a collective, its selfness had manifested in unusual ways. Much like a condescending big brother, it seemed to make a game out of teasing her. The girl was glad that Kristina had the insight to interject on her behalf, though. Mish didn't possess the fortitude to outsmart a supercomputer with words -- her intelligence was elsewhere. The AI's gentle sarcasm made her harrumph petulantly, clearly eager to dive into the unknown of this call if it meant escaping the AI's critique. Her colleagues in the SGDF had made a sport out of getting a rise from her, and Cratus was no exception. They treasured her famous reaction when she was flustered: that is, when she glared with her cheeks colored pink and puffed up like a squirrel's. Her fifth grade teacher was the first to describe it as cute, and ever since then, she had been doomed to lose any war of words when she was frustrated enough. Eventually, she just sighed. She knew Cratus had no intent to bother her, but the AI's very presence could fluster her even on serious missions. She did not share in her colleagues' mild technophobia and trusted the AI's, but the sense of self that gave it humanity also generated thoughts and opinions. There were times when she was concerned that the AI did not like her, but she would never admit it.

Almost sidetracked by Kris and Cratus' (at that instant, Mish realized that almost rhymed) chatter, she waited patiently for the captain to answer her. Cratus' presence brought to mind many things, but it always spelled out something of importance. She nodded understandingly. The background to this op all but suggested that something had went terribly wrong, and that worried her. The Vespa were clever, true, and they were passionate as well, even more true, but reviews of published SGDF statistics had pointed out a stunningly low rate of resistance in the execution of arrest warrants, and even lower in casualties. Emergencies like this were the exception, and those exceptions were the situations that set Mish's teeth on edge. She had seen only a few gunfights in her time, and all of them were terrifying. Dry swallowing, she buckled down in her seat. The helicopter moved at a lofty pace, but the girl knew its arrival was often sudden to those on the ground: it was a monstrous aircraft, but had been fitted with noise and profile suppression equipment for reasons of both stealth and public convenience. Military aircraft were common to New Yorkers, but not one of them appreciated having their rest spoiled by a noisy chopper. Unable to bring herself to do nothing, though, the girl clicked the holographic instrument panels, cycling through the options for the emergency equipment.

Cratus' mention of Lieutenant Harken made her ever more nervous as she reviewed the helicopter's store of firearms and personal gear, employed only when airborne crew needed to take to the ground. Kristina had mentioned him as a reliable comrade many times, and the few times she had met him shaped Mission's image of a severe and rational leader. Likewise with Kristina, she had a feeling it was even worse if it was him calling for aid. Cratus' announcement made her heart jump. Bullets were terrible, but even the idea of the Vespa possessing the explosives to attack a building scared her. Immediately concerned about the damage and possible casualties, Mish found herself leaning over the instrument panels to pick out the tiny plume of smoke that characterized the waypoint marked on the holographic map. She dismissed the instrument menu as they approached, confident in the helicopter's store of gear. As the helicopter made an excruciatingly low descent toward the area, the girl found herself squeezing the lip of her seat, clearly desperate to have her questions answered... and hopeful that her worries would be absolved. With her first glimpse of the carnage, she knew the worst of those fears had come true. Shock welled in the pit of her stomach. An entire building on the block was gone, reduced to smoking rubble by a bomb. There had certainly been people inside...

The tactical readout fared no better. The searchlights from the helicopter illuminated the area and gave light to the bullet holes puncturing the scenery around the three SGDF infantry soldiers that were visible. Mish scanned intently for any corpses or injured. She saw none, but that didn't absolve her fears. Looking down at the instruments, she typed in the command to synch the helicopter's tactical systems to the three soldiers' personal electronics, even if her fingers jittered. A realization struck her, then: only three? Conventional SGDF teams operated in fours, but only three signatures were visible on the system. There was no sign of electronic interference, either. The girl tried not to gasp, feeling stiff. A single bombed out building should not have been terrifying, but the sheer implications of this chaos made her feel both cold with fear and hot with adrenaline and the desire to set things straight. She dry swallowed, looking down upon the scene. Like metal to magnets, bewildered citizens were gravitating from their houses in awe of the spectacle. But even through the curtains of people, it was no challenge to spot the man who was running full tilt directly opposite from the scene, his silhouette crossed with the shape of a weapon. A car sped on to pick him up and Mission realized with alarm that these were unmistakably the perpetrators. She couldn't believe it.

This was the Vespa? The ones who labeled themselves freedom fighters, having just razed a building with people and possibly even an SGDF officer inside? The words came out automatically.

"There! 50 yards away, in the parking lot! They're getting away!" she cried into her radio, clipping off the end of Kristina's words. Not wanting to let them get away, she immediately leaned in to the instrument panels and typed furiously to orient the helicopter's nose-mounted smart camera toward the speeding car. The high-resolution camera provided sophisticated night vision, intelligent viewfinding, thermal optics and even a cutting-edge biomagnetic optic. Few could escape its gaze, especially when its tracking system was wired to the helicopter's weapon subsystems, including its primary 20mm gun pod, explosive ordnance and auxiliary 7.62mm machine gun pod. The viewfinder flickered to life on Mission's helmet HUD as she used a joystick on the console to orient the camera in the direction of the speeding car, immediately zooming in and clicking a button to grab a visual lock and orient the gun pods in their direction, too. Once the distinct image of the car was transmitted into the helicopter's systems, Mish was confident their chances of escape would dwindle: the identity of that car would then be known to every drone, patrol craft, traffic camera, infantry unit and police officer in New York City. Kristina's words shook her somewhat from her focus, though, and she quickly clicked her radio back online, opening an emergency line to HQ with her heart pounding.

"Y-yeah..." she stammered as the line opened. She dry swallowed.

"HQ, this is patrol unit... u-uh, Meteor 1-1. Please mobilize and dispatch a rescue team to our location, o-over!" she said, trusting Cratus' unparalleled speed and logistical sense to handle the rest. It was clear by now that she was panting from the stress.

"Are you all OK?! Where's Lieutenant Harken? His signature isn't appearing on my tac system!" she then called to the 3 soldiers on the ground through her radio. Her high-pitched voice was hard to mistake for anyone else other than Mission Sterling: she was one of the few women likely to accompany Captain Pelagius. As she spoke, the camera transmitted the geographical location of the escaping car to the three's HUD's for the sake of clarity.

[jayjaycaps]

Waking up out of his day dream, Andrew shook his head. How could he let himself become so distracted? What was he even thinking about? Andrew couldn't even remember. He must have looked pretty stupid. He'd have to try extra hard to prove himself to Auria and the rest of the group. He could start by being on time for the train. Leaving the club, Andrew checked his silver watch. 8:15. He had plenty of time to get home, gather his things and walk to the train station, as Andrew did not own a car. He was a little disappointing to leave behind his guns and knife though, be he understood that they could not be taken.

"Andrew Jackson." Andrew told the woman at the departure desk. As he waited for his ticket, Andrew took a moment to check his surrounding. Grand Central Station was as busy as ever, much to the Vespa Agent's liking. Busy train stations meant lots of people, large crowds and plenty of ways to disappear. Andrew felt pretty at home in the busy station, with all the business men in suits. Checking watches, running around, meeting deadlines. This was the life Andrew might have fallen into if it had not been for Vespa. Despite the fast moving crowds, Andrew did catch a glimpse of Kendrick roaming around, but kept this to himself. Grabbing his ticket, Andrew picked up his suitcase and made for his station.

Arriving at his station, Andrew stood as close to the tracks as safety allowed. Holding his suitcase in one hand and occasionally checking his watch with the other, Andrew did his best "rushing businessman" impression, complete with a dead eye glare at the wall opposite of him. Tapping his left foot, Andrew let out an annoyed sigh. More waiting. Goddamn it.

[Zender_Solarheart]

Jon looks on at the collapsing building in horror, simultaneously realizing that Lt. Harken's line has gone 100% dead. "No..." he mutters in sheer shock and disbelief, before being met by Mission Sterling herself. For the time being, everything else isn't even being considered by his conscious train of thought, as he finds the concept of Harken perishing in this attack...stunning, really. The man was an excellent tactician, and definitely earned a rank beyond a mere Lieutenant, if Jon himself were to be asked about it.

"The Lieutenant...he..." Jon pauses in his informal report to Mission, the next few words being a bit painful just to say. "...he didn't make it..."

There. He said it. Jon just reported Lt. Harken as KIA...and the mere thought of it causes him to clench his fists in anger. Every SGDF officer should be prepared to die when he/she steps into the field...but why Harken? The man still had plenty of life left to live, and those...terrorists...they murdered him. Furthermore, they murdered all those innocents inside that apartment building! He is NOT letting them get away with that. They will pay for that innocent blood...they'll pay dearly. He will personally see that they hand over the names of their allies and affiliations, along with any other information that they can use...and then, only when their usefulness is at an utmost end, will they have permission to die.

[Icaelus]

Ciel hummed to herself the same old tune as she pedaled her way to the train station. The tune was a melancholic one..a sad lullaby that Ciel had hummed herself to sleep with many times over. She could never remember the name of the song..and Mom certainly didn't have time back when she was younger even just to tuck her daughter in bed and sing her to sleep. Oh, no. It had been all work, work and work with her parents.
You know it, don't you, Terris?
The girl sighed as she continued pedaling. A gray duffel bag was slung across her back, holding a couple changes of clothes and underwear, of course. Along with basic necessities and toiletries, she felt like she was packing for some camping trip..which in this case, couldn't be further from the truth. Eighteen year old schoolgirls didn't go on secret missions for rebel cells, did they? Well, this one did..
She pulled up alongside Grand Central, the train station that they were going to take the train from. Securing the bike to a very convenient wall pipe as usual, Ciel hefted her gray duffel bag over her shoulder and stepped into the station. She'd changed out from her black hoodie in favor of an old khaki parka, pulling up the hood of the garment over her hair as usual as she stepped on the escalator down into the depths of Grand Central.
She looked around as she stepped off the escalator, searching for any signs giving directions to the departure desk. She'd read Auria's short message about getting their tickets. Under Ciel Cruxell, there would be a ticket reserved just for her..

"Ciel Cruxell. Train ticket."
The redhead said shortly to the woman at the counter, nodding acknowledgement as she received the ticket and checked it. Finding everything satisfactory, she nodded towards the woman again and walked off. She glanced on the display on her phone momentarily as she slipped it out of her pocket as it beeped with her message tone. Yeah, she was on time. She opened the message.
Ciel! Don't just leave a message saying you're going on a trip with a friend! Call me immediately when you get this!
The girl sighed as she ignored the explicit order stated on the message, sliding her phone back into her parka's pocket. Mothers. It wasn't that she disliked her mother. Her relationship with her parents had grown cold over the years, them being the workaholics they were. There was never any time for them for family. And now that they were successful and had stable lives..they wanted to get closer with her again.
Yeah? Not so easy.
Ciel pretty much felt uncomfortable with the entire situation with her family as it went. From just greeting each other as she went out the door for school to suddenly badgering her about how little time they spent together..it was confusing, that was all she could say. Mathematics and whatever subject could be understood easily by the honors student..but people and family was still quite the mystery to her.

[Grape Me]

Leo let out a agitated sigh and took his vision away from the scope, they were gone. He turned his head away from the window and sat down next to it, gritting his teeth and holding the wound in his shoulder. It hurt like a motherfucker. Leo was one tough son of a bitch though, been through worse. Then, the sound of a helicopter came buzzing in the distance. Leo slowly lifted himself off the floor with his good arm, slinging the rife around his shoulder. After standing up for a few seconds he looked back out the window, seeing his squad mates safe on another roof... but... where was Harken? As the heli approached their position the coms started to go off again, Captain Pelagius by the sound of it. Leo only knew her by reputation, he personally never worked with the Captain.

“Alright, what the hell is going on here?” That was good question, but the real question is, what the hell did go on here? Where was the Lieutenant? Who were the aggressors? Why would they kill all these people? Was it even Vespa? Leo bowed his head and clinched his fist, it didn't make sense.

Leo listened to the exchange over the coms, remaining silent to hear the conversation. The Lieutenant was... dead? Damnit... Leo let out a sigh. He was a good man, SGDF could use more men like him. But... in a war like this, lives are lost... innocent or not it is bound to happen.

Mission Sterling's voice then sounded over the radio and Leo responded. "Don't worry about us! Go after that car, now!" If there was any chance of stopping those bastards that did this, this was it. Leo knew that the squad, as well as himself, were in no position to continue the pursuit. They just all went through a hellish experience back there, probably all of them sustained some sort of injury. Leo went back over the coms and radioed in to Jon. "Lieutenant let's regroup down on the ground, I'll meet you on your side of the street." Leo then turned and made his way out of the building, heading out the room towards the staircase at the end of the hall.

[Inferi]

Mission Sterling

“A response team is on the way.” Cratus told Mission shortly in response to her call for one. Just like a human, his entire persona had changed as soon as they had entered into a combat situation. He was now completely serious, devoid of any of the light tones of before.

The second Mission tried to get a fix of any kind on the vehicle, she would find that it was completely impossible. Something was blocking any kind of lock onto the vehicle, including direct locks from the helicopter’s own systems or one from a tactical satellite overhead. The image of the vehicle was quite clear, but the individuals in it were not. This was nothing new; Vespa agents were known to have devices on them that blocked out a camera’s ability to access their identity, and the ones that appeared to be in use were the most common. It negated the camera’s ability to see the area around them, projecting only a white sphere where they should be. When looked at with the naked eye, they would be visible, and this was also valid for most settings on helmet visors. No recording devices would be able to gain an image of their identity, however, and so reliance on the memory of an SGDF soldier that had seen them was the only way to identify them. As many would imagine, such a method was highly inaccurate considering most soldiers couldn’t accurately describe an enemy combatant after combat, and greatly aided the Vespa in getting away with what they did.

The lack of target locks was what caused Cratus to continue to speak, a sharp edge in his voice.

“Patrol 1, you do not have permission to open fire on the enemy. All target locks are offline, and even if they were not you are not to risk firing air-based ordinance in a populated area without an assurance of civilian safety.”

“Can you switch to satellite targeting?”

“That is offline as well, Captain.”

“How the hell are they managing that?”

Kristina now sounded legitimately worried. The planning that had gone into this was immaculate, or so it seemed. Identity concealing devices were one thing; she had expected that. Disabling the targeting locks was something else altogether. To create a perfect field of interference for a vehicle was something that couldn’t be done easily, and either required someone in the network constantly or having a jamming device in the vehicle itself. The former was nearly impossible to accomplish for more than a minute or two, as the AIs would typically be able to find the source of interference and block it out quickly, while the latter required a lot of technical knowledge as well as some parts and knowledge that shouldn’t be held by anyone but the SGDF. They had to know the operating frequencies of the targeting systems, for one, and that was a closely guarded secret because of instances such as this. Technically, Mission would be able to do both of the ways required, but she would be aware that both would be extremely difficult for her to actually do as well as these individuals had.

“I do not know. I am attempting to break through the interference, but it is proving difficult.” Cratus told them. “For now, your orders are to track the vehicle. You are in command of this operation, Captain Pelagius, and the soldiers in the arrest squad are now under your command. If you can find out where these terrorists are going, and can apprehend them, then it is your primary objective to do so.”

“Understood.” Kristina replied, but just at that moment Jon’s report came in, leaving her completely speechless. The Lieutenant was dead? She hadn’t expected anyone to be KIA here, especially not someone she considered a friend. At the very least, he had been a good man, and didn’t deserve to die under a building. That’s what she assumed Jon’s comment had meant, at least. It was strange. She hadn’t ever actually lost someone she knew well, whether in the line of duty or just in normal life, so the shock hit her quite hard. Her mind started drifting away slightly, and she wasn’t sure what exactly she should be doing. Should she be crying, getting angry, or what? It just didn’t really make that much sense.

Whether fortunate or not, she was snapped out of her thoughts when there was a ricochet sound and a crack appeared in the canopy of the helicopter on Mission’s side. The sudden spark below the canopy, on the metal nose, let her know that someone had just fired at them, and it seemed that the shot was powerful enough to crack the canopy after bouncing off the helicopter. That was a major threat, and possibly a lethal threat to the pair in the helicopter. Almost immediately, she took the controls, swerving to the side in case the person was taking another shot, but it seemed like the first one was the only one. The reason for this was quickly apparent, as the vehicle below had started speeding down the street, heading away from the highway and away from the city. There were plenty of roads that would give them room to go fast, although it was very unlikely that they could outrun the helicopter.

“Cratus, I want that vehicle tracked.” she said, her voice deathly serious as she brought the helicopter back into hovering over the building. There had only been a few times that Mission had seen her like this, and both had been times where she had been angry enough that she could barely speak. “Find out where that thing is going and send me the location as you find it.”

Opening her radio to the squad again, the Captain said, “You three. I want you in the vehicle you came in and following those terrorists. Cratus will provide the location of it for you.” She said this just after Leo had made his declaration to return to the street, and while she would have agreed with him in a normal situation, this wasn’t a normal situation.

“Mission, I want you to keep an eye out. Keep the weapons ready in case we can open fire, and tell me if you spot anything that looks like a threat.” she ordered her copilot, her voice not changing at all from when she had started giving orders. She trusted Mission to accurately assess threats, and since she had the helicopter’s equipment at her disposal, it would make it that much easier.

She didn’t start moving after the vehicle right away, though, and if Mission was curious as to why, she would get the explanation, “I don’t want to get in range of whatever weapon they have if I can help it. We’ll follow them with the information Cratus gives us.” While the canopy was reinforced, and the entire helicopter was as well, Kristina didn’t want to risk going against whatever weapon they had. The shot at them before was enough of an indication of its power.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Ciel Cruxell, Andrew Jackson, Kendrick Mendoza

The individual behind the desk was an extremely bored-looking woman about thirty-five years old, relaxing in a seat until Kendrick came up to the desk. With a sigh, she got up, activating the computer screen in front of her and typing in a few things before turning to the nearby ticket printer and waiting for it to spit out the ticket. It took a few moments, but that was to be expected for something like this. Even in a modern world, it still took a little bit of time for a reserved ticket to be printed out.

“Here you are.” the woman said, her voice sounding a lot more polite than her expression had looked on Kendrick’s arrival. Really, though, who could blame her? Working in a place like this was bad no matter what the time, since it was either so full of people that it was non-stop work or dead enough that there was hardly anyone and it was completely boring. Not to mention the work wasn’t all that great either, and the pay was probably less than some might like to make. Some things never changed, eh?

Andrew and Ciel arrived at nearly the same time a short while later, and the exact same process happened on their requests, although it took a few seconds longer for them since the woman printed both off at the same time. Once both had their tickets, she sat back down, the same bored expression returning to her face.

Each ticket would give a few things. For one, it seemed that the platform they were departing from, if the signs hadn’t made it clear already, was number twenty-seven on the lower level. Their train was a non-stop trip, so they wouldn’t have to worry about stopping anywhere and letting anyone on. Once they were moving, they would be moving until they reached their destination. A bit convenient for people wanting to get there in a rush, so they could probably see why Auria had chosen this one. They could also see that they would be staying in car 3. Andrew and Kendrick were in room 304 and Ciel was in room 305.

Upon arrival to the platform, Kendrick would see nobody that he knew. There were a few people on the platform, but it seemed that there was hardly anyone riding this train. Maybe twenty or so were gathered, and a few more came in as time moved on. The majority of them, about ten, were businessman or buisnesswomen, wearing various suits and with various briefcases. Some were even wearing hats, and most looked like they were fairly comfortable in the cooler night air of the summer. They were giving the typical look that such men did, just like Andrew would be when he arrived.

A group of eight, mostly college-looking students in their twenties, were gathered off to the side, looking like they were bored out of their minds like college students will. A few had a few flasks, and one could imagine what was in those. Each one held a large suitcase, and they were all dressed pretty casually, like they were either going on vacation or going back to school.

Apart from them, there was a pair of men standing off to the side. Or rather, one was standing and the other was reclining on the bench. They looked completely opposite: the one on the bench looked like he didn’t give a shit about anything while the one standing was continually looking around nervously, like he was expecting someone to show up. The one reclining was dressed in a suit while the other was wearing a khaki trenchcoat with casual wear underneath it. Both held a briefcase, although neither had a suitcase.

There was also a pair of young women, twins, waiting nearest to the platform. They were the kind of twins that were identical in appearance, both having slightly darker skin, brown hair, dark blue eyes, and a lithe and physically fit frame. The similarities didn’t end in appearance, though, and included the summer dresses they were wearing and the suitcases that they carried. The only thing that was different about them was the way their hair was done up: the one on the right had it in a ponytail while the other had it hanging freely. They were both fairly attractive as well.

Time ticked on, and eventually Ciel and Andrew arrived to the same situation. A few more people had arrived, including another college student and a lone blonde woman about thirty years old that looked like she was completely out of breath from rushing to make it here on time, but strangely there was no Auria yet. Maybe she was waylaid by something? In that case, though, it was likely she would have sent them some kind of message letting them know. Right?

A few more minutes passed, and the train pulled up into the station. All around, everyone that had been sitting got up, picking up whatever they were bringing and starting to board the train. Given the alignment of the train, the car that the Vespa members had their rooms in was the third from the end that had pulled into the station first.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Leo ‘Reaper’ Parker, Jonathan Edge

Alicia looked as shocked as everyone else when it became clear that Harken was dead, but she was also the only one that apparently had both heard and was able to do something about the vehicle that was starting to drive away. Drawing her sidearm out from the holster on her suit, Alicia took aim, starting to fire at the vehicle. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like any of them hit, due to the lack of sparks where the vehicle was or any reaction from them at all. At the same time she started firing, though, both she and Jon would be able to hear a gunshot that sounded a lot more powerful than the sidearm Alicia was firing, and the helicopter swerved to the side about a second after they could hear it. Apparently the terrorists in the vehicle had turned their attention to the helicopter, and the car sped away down the street almost as soon as the helicopter had swerved to the side. Alicia stopped firing, but kept holding the gun up, as though she was trying to get a target on the vehicle even though it was completely out of range now.

“Damn it!” she shouted, shoving the sidearm back into the holster and reaching down to pick up her shotgun. A few deep breaths could be heard as, like everyone else, she attempted to get herself back under control. It was at this time that Leo’s voice came through the radio, followed closely by Kristina’s continuation on it.

“You three. I want you in the vehicle you came in and following those terrorists. Cratus will provide the location for you.”

The vehicle that they had come in was parked down the street on the side that Leo was still on. It was a standard transport vehicle, with a mount on the top for a weapon, although the weapon itself was stored inside the vehicle. The sides and windows were armored, and the logo of the SGDF was emblazoned on the side, making it quite clear who the vehicle belonged to. Any of them could drive it, and so, as the ranking officer in the ground team, it would be up to Jon to decide who the one was who would drive.

“Let’s go, sir!” Alicia called to Jon from the top of the stairwell leading down into the building. There was a fire escape on the side of the building as well, if Jon wanted to get down faster, but there would be very little difference if the door to the outside was located near the bottom of the interior stairs. Whether or not he would go that way, Alicia would take the main stairs, attempting to get to the bottom as quickly as she could by taking almost entire flights at a time.

From the front of the building, the best way to get to where their vehicle was located was to take the bridge across the road and then just go straight down it a few hundred feet to where the vehicle was parked. For Leo it was even easier, since he just had to run down the street until he came to it. Traffic was still moving on the side opposite the collapsed building, although it was really slow due to the typical person rubbernecking. Everyone wanted to know what was going on. Fortunately, the armored SGDF vehicle would have a siren and lights similar to a police car for situations like this, letting people know that they needed to get out of the way.

[napsii]

"I- I don't understand!" shouted Mission, flustered.

She threw her hands against the console, which blared its inability to lock on. The terrorists' immaculate shielding from the sensors was on an order that should have been impossible, and that frustrated her. The Vespa were not disconnected from the principles of electronic warfare, having frequently been able to foil the SGDF's attempts to record their identities, but she had never imagined any non-military entity possessing a means to dupe the helicopter's systems. The Vespa had a talent for being unexpected, but this frustrating development should have been outside the realm of reality; they were the best-equipped insurgent group in the world, but they had not been shown to possess such countermeasures. Persistent, Mission worked the computer's instruments. Cyberwarfare was a race of both wit and technology, and there were always loopholes to be exploited, or so she thought. Lavishing her energy on the plausible weaknesses, she tried to suppress the interference, but found herself nose-to-nose with brick walls at every turn. As a contradiction of what should have been possible, the countermeasures' power shocked her. A sense of impending defeat loomed over her as the car screeched further away. Lieutenant Harken's apparent death was a tragedy, and not being able to claim justice just as so. This was impossible, and yet at this instant all of her labors were being walked over. It angered her; in this moment, she wished she could break something.

Their chances of justice were slipping away, and there was nothing she could do.

A whistling crack jumped her back into her seat and she looked around, panicked. There was a fissure in the canopy, and just below, the helicopter's fuselage was scored by an impact. The girl recognized the sound of a gunshot, and the terrorists' gall almost made her jaw drop. The armor of gunships like these was notoriously strong, but it had been rent by the attack. It was the least of the unfriendly surprises so far, but the sudden noise had Mission feeling like glass. Looking pale, she clawed the edge of her seat. The shock reverberated through her, but that rapidly gave birth to anger and comprehension. There was no sense in shooting at the vehicle, especially without the computer's aid, and they couldn't let the terrorists escape from their grasp. The girl was determined to see them brought to justice, not just for Harken's apparent death, but also their destructiveness and willingness to kill just to accomplish their goals. The smoking rubble below was a painful incentive to succeed. Even having only seen combat a few times, Mission knew they were playing with fire. These terrorists were on an unprecedented level, between their electronic countermeasures, the power of their weapons, and most horribly of all their murderous nature. Shaken but willing to act, she leaned over the console again and aligned her wits with the matter at hand. They could follow the vehicle from the air and nail them when they slipped up; even with electronic countermeasures, it was rare for the Vespa to escape in an unadulterated chase.

"Yeah..." she agreed breathily to Kristina. It felt awful to leave behind so much destruction, but she prayed the emergency services would arrive in time. Most of all, she held out hope that they would find Lieutenant Harken alive. She couldn't stand the idea of the terrorists escaping justice. Seeming very animated, she quickly reached over the back of the seat and thrust open a large cabinet against the back wall of the cockpit. A stack of light tactical gear was propped up on restraints. Intended for the benefit of the pilots, the gear was meant to be accessed when the crew took to the field, and although not nearly as resilient as the infantry's powered bodysuits, the tactical vests and other gear more than sufficed. In a hurry, she procured one of the body armor vests from the cabinet and unbuckled herself to put it on. Composed of the same strong nanomaterials as the bodysuits, the sleek and somewhat stiff vest fit ideally over her fatigues. The girl held her breath as the vest compressed tightly around her torso for a better fit. As well, she equipped a pair of slim armored gloves and knee guards. From under the seat she procured a metal box, inside of which was an M9A1 handgun with an attached flashlight in a thigh holster she quickly strapped to her right thigh, along with several spare magazines. Alongside a handful of other weapons, there was an M4 carbine with a red dot optic and ammunition inside the cabinet, but Mission ignored it for now. The girl hoped that she would not have to go out on the ground.

But she had to be prepared.

"I'm ready." she said to Kristina, buckling herself in and taking hold of the controls. The girl sounded as if she was trying to convince herself.

"Everyone else, please hurry." she said quickly of her other allies, Cratus included.