In a small corner of a Bishop Industries' Neural Graft Research and Development compound:
January 4th, 2060, 11pm

Through unlit white halls a single corner office remains lit, dampened even a slight bit from the heaviest smells of the antiseptic-drenched building. A pair of voices fight through the door, down the hall, into the reception areas and all through the open doors with the practiced efficiency of a dance.

“And yet you still claim some sort of trending here? A third of these results claim you're wrong, A full third!”
“We see the same sort of harmonic results in type-D5 weave, TN2s and 3s, and M1 leaf between revisions e and g3-”
“False reasoning, you're picking only supporting tests. If there's some sort of harmonic to this, TN4, D5 leafing and composite-”

'Professor' Laruss and Director Smitt were at it like normal. Rusty was keeping busy by keeping other people busy, his high, flutey voice barely a counterpoint to the argument across the room. It did pierce when he wanted it to, that being anytime he wanted to act like a superior in case someone was watching, but now was not particularly one of those times. For their parts, Koda was stroking his pepper beard, paying attention to the rising tones across the room and putting away data chips, Joe looking like a deer in the headlights of Rusty's train of 'correction' and Krista, her eyes were flicking back and forth, ignoring everyone else and doing, presumably work.

See, that's where you came in... Sent out to retrieve parts from TS-B/7/29/59, though why they wanted a half-year-old prototype was any guess but it didn't seem like you were going to get any answers now.

The calloused hand felt like sandpaper cleanly wrapped the way around your neck, you're pretty sure you're developing some bruises on your neck and back from the troll lifting you up and putting you halfway into the drywall, but the gun barrel drilling into your temple is helping you forget them a little.

For that one final moment of normality, a picture of your life was framed by that door.. or at least what was becoming of it.

Two Orks run in and spray bullets into the ceiling, it never quiets down, but everyone shuts up as you're taken in.

“Kane Laruss'mIrite?” The troll roughs out from behind you “Yer comin' with us, rest a ya's too, s'longas ya dun make t'much ofa fuss. Anybuddy makes-”

Rusty's horrified expression turns vile and one of the orks turns a vicious looking SMG on him, all decorated with feathers and bits of hair. Blood blossoms from his chest and neck and your ears are ringing.

“Or dat” The troll finishes.

Bishop NGRD, halfway between the wall and the door
January 4th, 2060. 11pm.

As she struggled for breath with nostrils newly choked with a mixture of blood and gypsum dust, Mary Ward reflected on the following two things:

First, it simply would not do to puke on the troll.

Second, it also would not do to be too calm. Not that a certain degree of overt fear would be just *acting*. The process of corporate sponsorship negotiation had not been explained very clearly to her and this is not really how she expected it to go. Laruss had only given her the barest of hints after all, so being thrown about in this fashion just after the New Year caused her no end of surprise. Yes, she wouldn't have to go very far to make it look like a terrifying abduction because it really was one.

To this effect, she trembled and tried to keep her teeth firmly gritted together. She also reflexively tried to work her eyelids open. The bits of sheetrock were really making her tear up, so when Rusty was shot, the colors didn't quite look right to her. Her abs of course jerked slightly at the gunfire, making her clench eyelids and lips together again to fight down another wave eating its way from her stomach up her spine.

Rusty clearly hadn't even caught hints. She didn't like him, their work styles had always clashed and he clearly wasn't contributing actual talent to the project. Professor Laruss had always ignored him to the detriment of the team. She knew he wouldn't think twice about Rusty. But still, she considered herself human enough to feel sorry about it. This led to her third reflection, that it would not do to scream and protest about a poor sod who was already regrettably dead.

As she tried to work her left eye open again, Mary came to her fourth reflection. In the last ten seconds not only had the wave functions become impossibly tangled in her mind, she couldn't even tell if her numb fingers were still clutching any of the TS-B/7/29/59 inventory. The primary limb might have even suffered some damage. As outdated as it was, she had put so much care into its construction that it would be a great shame for the handiwork to suffer as much as her neck was right now.

Bishop Industries NGRD office
11:03 PM

A few minutes of morbid interest locked the eyes of everyone in the room as Rusty struggled, collapsed... and finally expired... more than enough time for the two orks to circle around calmly one behind the professors the other behind Koda, Joe and Krista.
The troll yanks the pistol away from your head and starts letting down you down as he starts barking orders.
“Line up, less getcha outta here.” His hand shifts down to a solid grip on your shoulder.”Yous get to the truck” His hand tenses ever so slightly for a brief moment, a clear signal he's talking to you “Yer comin' with me” and he pulls you back from the door. “Yer comin' ta that storage room again.”

Bishop NGRD, turning away from the office

About face. Forward march. Actual order of feet isn't important, just make sure they alternate. No, you can't take two right steps between lefts. Keep head down but don't let it sway too much; the butterflies might get out.

Everything still seems a bit too white.

With a farmer blow and a quick swipe of the sleeve breathing becomes a little easier again. The troll gives a chuckle but with a jut of his muzzle reminds Mary not to slacken her pace.

In fifty paces and a couple lurching turns they arrive at the storage room and she keys it open. It occurs to her that she's taking it a bit too much on faith that they've come to retrieve something and not to have a quiet place for a messy execution. This hope seems to be borne out by the way the troll starts scanning the storage bays. While it's possible that he's looking for a specific inventory number or date, she guesses that he might be looking for something of a specific size or shape.

She nods towards a collection of small boxes nearby. "That's the latest iteration of our artificial reflex-overriding transmission system. It's going to nearly completely cut out the convulsive side-effects of your standard fly-by-wire..."

Her heart flounders like a fish full of shot pellets when she notices his eyes not on the little boxes but the big one. The really big one that could accommodate a grown adult. There's no way she can carry it. "Oh, that's nothing really, just a full-body cybershell. That would pretty much have to walk out of here on its own." She goes out on a limb and pushes a quivering smile out on her lips.

Bishop Industries storage room
11:06

“Stay dere, I'm watchin'” The troll lets go of your shoulder.

Though he hasn't been looking at you, his handcannon's not left you out of its sights while he's working his way around the room clockwise. He pockets a few small boxes and vials almost randomly, thumbing some, turning a few over before dropping them or tossing them in a 'messenger' style bag. Somehow through the haze of gypsum, ache and fear, one of his choices sticks out to you: A tiny box labelled M-T/11/4/55, he doesn't look at it, turn it over or give any semblance of interest in it before shoving in his pack.

Then he eyes the big box once more... tosses a beeping shoebox sized satchel to the ground, grabs an armload of the smaller boxes indicated and turns to Mary. The grin might have seemed cheerful if it didn't seem so mechanical.

“Loading dock. Tha clock's tickin'.”

Bishop Storage, Shipping and Receiving
11:07

A sudden wave of regret washes over her. "You know, if you really want it, there's always the remote-control pallet..."

No, shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Loading dock, shipping, that's about forty seconds away. Which puts the timer anywhere from sixty to ninety seconds. And putting the shell in a van almost certainly means passengers get left behind.

Mary gets marching as ordered. She wishes deep in her heart that the shell would get up, rip out of the box and walk away. Alas, she knows it is not to be.

In the remaining thirty seconds she starts turning the little box over in her head. A little over four years ago, long before she came on full-time, what were they working on? She knew Laruss had forced Bishop out of zombie research after Aztech beat them to it. To this day he'd rant about what a dead end it was, a walking tomb steeped in primitivism. Some sort of soul anchor maybe, or something more practical. A CPU, a concealed weapon... While these ideas were still hitting each other around the head and shoulders the back of the van and the raised shutter came into sight.

Bishop Industries Loading Dock
11:08 pm

Shutters wide, the Loading dock shows the small, off-white, panel van, already loaded with one of the orks and a human you hadn't seen before in the passenger and driver's seats, the back filled with the staff minus Rusty, all huddled with their hands on their head while the other ork stands over them with his festooned SMG. The van is clearly too full to fit even you, let alone the Troll and you both.

The troll rolls off his bundle of small boxes into the van and makes a circle in the air with his fist "Wrap it up an' go, I'm callin' my own ride, no room for us all." His rough, short laugh almost sounds like a cough.

The ork standing over the back shoulders his SMG, levelling it at Joe, who cringes and huddles even tighter into a ball, he's chanting something that can't quite be heard over the rumbling exhaust echoing in the dock, but the ork's words ring clear, "Like hell, Harl, That'll be minutes"

An explosion rocks the building, and klaxons start blowing.

"-drop a couple of the extras and you can get in."

Bishop Industries Loading Dock
11:08 pm

The glare of the lights against the van and walls creates a marked contrast against the dull brown night sky. Mary has to appreciate the irony of one sudden change.

Her color receptors have come back online.

Something about the ork's words hits her square in the gut in a way even his SMG hadn't. Extras. Laruss and Smitt were probably essential and Koda had enough tenure for them to think twice about rolling him out. That makes it a three-way between Joe, Krista, and her. And she was the last to arrive.

Her eyes fall to the cyberarm in her hands, which have somehow gotten calm and still. Yes, it's still there. Six months was enough to reduce it to betaware. Junk. She tosses it aside and it lands with a dull thunk. It was nothing compared with the fifty million nuyen of treasure they'd just blown up. Her work. No amount of antidepressants was going to hold that back.

The cold, wet wind rustles her auburn hair as she looks over at the troll. "Hey Harl. You got room for a hostage on your ride? I think I might've seen something in that bag that could buy you some time."

Bishop Industries Loading Dock
11:09 pm

The ork stares at Mary, his smg coming away from his shoulder ever so slightly revealing just a little gap... just like the gap between his lips. He's not the only one, nearly everyone in sight has their eyes fixed on Mary, shock, surprise, amusement, and not a small amount of utter disbelief evident. The canvas breaks as a secondary explosion rattles the dock shutters after what felt like nearly a minute... it hadn't really been that long, had it? Something's hissing like a leaky gas pipe... but higher pitched, a couple of them, and coming from outside.

"I told you ta wrap't up and get gone!" Harl's evidently had enough waiting, "Kendall reactor labs- Scram!"

The ork breaks from his revel and slams one of the van's doors shut, shaking his head slowly. "One a these days you're gonna tell me how you pulled that off." The van starts pulling off as he slams the other door shut. The hissing almost sounds like whistling.. faintly, but growing louder.. it's so high pitched you wonder if anyone else is hearing it.

Harl hops down from the loading dock and starts at a jog away from the swiftly accelerating van, toward the inside of the block. "Change of plans, you can stay if you want, but I wouldn't want to be here when security reinforcements show up if i were you. Keep up if you want to get to your new employer."

The hissing whistle is almost paralyzing now.. Harl doesn't seem to be noticing it but it's almost impossible not to wince while hearing it.

Bishop Industries NGRD Compound
11:09 pm

Mary clamps her hands over her ears and sets off after Harl. She tries to throw a few words against the pointlessness, sure he won't hear her, before she's too out of breath and he's too far away. "You should've just said yes. Now I have to get there just to see what was in the box!"

It doesn't take a lot of calculating to see that the relative difference in their leg lengths has her at a disadvantage. She has to redouble her pace to hope to keep him in sight. This is making it hard to keep her hands up, not that it hasn't been a struggle even with them there. They reflexively come down so she can start pumping them...

Bishop Industries Compound Grounds
11:09 pm

Gravel crunching beneath your feet sounds louder in your ears than it does than normal, or has that unbearable sound retreated some? You turn the corner following Harl and almost run face first into him standing with his shoulder to the side of one of the side doors of the building, it hides him from the street fairly well for someone of your size.. he's waiting.

"Good, you're coming. Decent time for whatever that running form was. Try to stay out of sight, we're waiting here for now."

The screeching whistle actually does seem to have subsided for the most part, or it seems so much further off than it was, it nestles softly inside your growing headache and throbbing temples. a fit like a missing piece from the puzzle of your pain.

For the moment, things seem quiet. Sirens blare and occasionally pass by the front of the building, none of them stopping.

"We've got maybe 1... one and a half minutes. Probably less, it's gonna be close. Security's inside the building already." You hear some automatic fire from inside the building followed by a muffled blast. Some of the facing of the building cracks off to sprinkle your head and shoulders.

Bishop Industries Compound Grounds
11:10 pm

Mary flattens herself up against the building, hoping it's as instructed. "What are they shooting at in there? We're all out already."

"Hey, you got any more bombs? Anything, even a little cranium bomb. Anything at all so if we get cornered, I can say 'he's strapped a bomb to my chest' and their sniffers will believe me." At what she assumes is his look of complete incredulity, she hastens to add, "If any of them know me, they might hesitate. The hostage angle is all I've been able to think up so far."

Bishop Industries Compound Grounds
11:10 pm

"You're in shock, it happens often enough on extractions. It should pass once we get you back with your group, strapping explosives to yourself isn't a good idea anyway, we're in 'shoot first, fill in the blanks later' territory" you hear some gravel sliding under tires coming from the corner behind you and Harl strides out confidently. "Ride's here." You turn to look where he's going.. and there's a small flatbed truck sitting there with clear modifications to fit a troll in the driver's seat. Harl opens the door and reaches behind the seat to pull out two bundles of cloth. Overalls. He throws you one set.

"Put these on, we're getting out of here"

Bishop Industries Compound Grounds
11:10 pm

Despite how much the idea had appealed to her sense of the dramatic, Mary manages to keep her frown small and mostly disguised by the effort of forcing the coveralls over the clothing she's got on. She takes her coat off to zip up the torso and goes to get in the cab. She looks in wondering if it drove by autopilot or if there's a rigger along. Either way, if there's enough room she straps herself in, takes inventory of what she's got, and shuts off her commlink.

Bishop Industries Compound Grounds
11:11 pm

You've barely had a chance to get in the front seat when the little truck starts backing up to turn around with Mary and Harl alone in the front seats. Harl reaches in his front pocket and pulls out a pair of foamy plugs and shoves them up his nose, he motions at Mary's overalls to a front pocket.

"You'll wand dat." He pulls out a bag full of clear fluid from his pocket.

He starts to tear open the baggie... even the barest whiff starts smelling like raw sewage before you can get the plugs in hand.

Bishop Industries Compound Grounds
11:11 pm

Despite the stress it's taken this evening, a large enough fraction of Mary's oversensitive olfactory nerves pick up the scent to remind her of how she felt about ten minutes ago. She quickly pinches the bridge of her nose, pulls out her own plugs, and works them into the nostrils. Then she clasps her hand over her mouth and tries to breathe through the gaps between her fingers as she clamps onto the armrest with the other to hold on for dear life.

Bishop Industries Compound
11:12 pm

The truck accelerates again suddenly, kicking up a rain of gravel and dust and throwing both you and Harl against the thin padded canvas again.. a brief taste of the air forces hard, full coughing out.
The dock flies by, gunfire and explosions still audible from the building and you exit the compound.

---
An escape at surprisingly slow speeds, including being stopped.. and not questioned at a whiff. A scene I'll have to return to if I ever want it written.. pressing on in the interest of advancing the story....
---

A few miles away, at a hole in the wall squat
11:27 pm

Harl stands out of the vehicle, takes a deep breath in.. and ejects the noseplugs to the ground.

"That was close. We've got about 15 minutes, there's a hose in here to clean off." He waves his hand dismissively as Mary gets out of the truck and it peels out straight away. "You're almost done. Midnight's the handoff."

Harl steps inside the nearest door, grabs a hose, tweaks a pipe and water jets onto him as he peels off the overalls. Sopping wet, he hands Mary the water about a minute later.

In a Squat, Peeking up at a Spigot
11:29 pm

Mary gingerly works the plugs out of her nose, wincing a bit as a scab tears in the right nostril. Her head reels again as she gets a brief whiff of herself, so even though this isn't going to be very dignified, she steps in, holds the hose over her head and does her best to follow Harl's example. "I really... hope... this works..." she gasps out though the cold water splashing down her face and mouth. She presently tosses it down next to her overalls and trudges out shivering and trying to squeeze some of the water out of her clothes. What a way to face winter in Seattle.

Squat
11:30 pm

Harl stretches out while squeezing excess water from most portions of his clothing, they remain damp for the most part, and a brief shiver is all you get recognizing the wet cold all around. It's been unseasonably warm for a winter, but it's a winter nonetheless. Though frost doesn't form much down in the city for all the pollution; you're all too aware of your clear, crisp puffs of breath. .Harl tosses you a ragged towel from under a pile of pvc pipe sections.. it's stained and streaked blue and stiff for it, but still a towel.

Harl sits on a half broken plastic crate and stares out the door with a brief sigh. "Almost there... almost there." He queues up an AR clock counting down to 11:45 clearly visible to you, pulls out his pistol and starts checking over it in a not particularly methodical way, but a way that's been done many, many times before. Measured hesitations, long stares... you wonder idly if he's looking at it at all.

Squat
11:31 pm

Mary sets to work trying crack the towel enough to make it workable again, then tries to soak the water out of her clothes. It's not long before she has to stop once in a while to squeeze the excess out of it. She soon concludes it's all she can do and is glad it's not anywhere near freezing.

She's all too aware of the handcannon and checks her jacket over again. She's got her commlink, glasses, earbuds, some tools and a flashlight... unfortunately no pistol. Her dispassionate side has to chide her for hoping it would materialize where it hadn't been before. She'd never even thought about taking it inside a secure facility past the checkpoint. She always checked it at the door and it was probably completely inoperable now. She squats by the pipes and rubs her hands, making sure to keep Harl's weapon in sight. Not much now to do but keep alert and wait.

Squat
11:32 pm

*takk, shhhk, tak, SHHHHHHNK* The metal clicks, slides, and clanks arythmically, locking in place, suddenly releasing to slide back into place. *tikatak, shhhhk*

Squat
11:35

Mary doesn't squat very long before the clicks, clacks, and sliders from the gun get to her. She's driven to her feet and she paces a slow, quiet circle on her spot. It was now clear why she hadn't broken down yet. She got the sense Harl was still pretty nervous and it was keeping her ramped up, too. The problem was she didn't have a clear object to fear except him and that handcannon. Then what was he afraid of? Maybe being tracked from Bishop, the law, the handoff... or something she hasn't thought of yet.

She tries to work through a simple repetitive pattern in her head. About the best she can come up with is the connection and test sequence for the fingers of a hand.

Squat
11:36

And even that can't last too long, it's just not filling her head enough.

"Hey, um.... Say Harl, something bothering you? Do we need to keep an eye out for something? I don't think we were tracked, but..."

It's hard to say much. It's quiet here. It echoes ever so slightly.

Squat
11:36 pm

There is a rush of motion as the gun's clip is smoothly set and Harl stands slowly with you in the handcannon's sights. His eyes are thin and harsh and the barest hints of teeth show through a gap in his lips. He stops at his full height before his eyes fully open again. He returns his gun hand to rest by his side and takes a slow breath as he eyes Mary up and down.

"Paranoia." He thrusts his gun in it's holster forcefully. "That's what's wrong, this whole run has been smooth. So something has to go wrong, It's not like I believe in some malevolent god who sits with his face hidden, grinning as he toys with our lives like some sort of game. More rationally I'd say security at your compound was too light. But even then I'm just grabbing at straws to justify paranoia. Thank whatever greater power you believe in that you're going back to your sheltered life after tonight."

Harl mutters something under his breath.

Squat
11:37

"Well," Mary begins, clammy hands clenching and unclenching as she tries to stare down the gun, "glad to see our basic relationship hasn't changed. I was getting too comfortable here in light of all that's happened. At least I've already lived nearly half an hour longer than I expected to."

She's quickly starting to fall back into the 'scared girl trying to keep a brave face' routine and keeps babbling on without regard to whether the gun comes down. "So, if we assume the worst, that this is all a trap, how should we approach the handoff? My improvised plans don't seem to be so well thought-through, after all."

Squat
11:37 pm

"What can be done? Plan for a trap and potentially waste resources.. or worse, turn a clean handoff into a killzone? No.. too much potential to blow the deal." Harl sits back down on the crate.. and it creaks and strains under him. "No, I'm not walking in blind. If it's a trap, well. How'd that saying go? We'll cross that bridge when we get there? More like burn it if it's a trap. Just try to stay out of fire and don't cut off your escape routes. Unless, that is, you have a better idea." He turns back to face the door.

Squat
11:38 pm

"Alright, fair enough. I'll defer to your experience, thanks." She resumes waiting quietly for 11:45 to arrive.

Squat
11:45 pm

Harl stands at the mark of 11:45, walks out without a word just as a ford americar pulls up and gets in the modified front seat. The passenger seat pops open automatically on the sidewalk side for Mary.

On the street outside the squat
11:45 pm

Go on, sit down, strap in. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. And don't apologize for the upholstery. It'll be OK. Really.

Not dead, above freezing, comfortable seat - what more could you ask for, right? Just a little bit longer and maybe they'll give you a decent room and toilet. Then you can lock yourself up and be sick for three days while your neurotransmitters try to even themselves out. It's all going to be fine. They'll all make it alive, even Joe, and he'll even have an easier time meeting his child support.

And when the breakthrough comes and you can do full-body replacement without a voodoo priest or a humming blood magician, your name will be on the paper in tiny print. Your life will be worth something at last.

Or so Mary keeps trying to tell herself.

A shelled warehouse on the waterfront
11:55 pm

"We're here."
After nearly ten minutes of speeding down the expressway and other roads, Harl's words rattle the silence loose like a wrench in a gearworks as he gets out of the car and walks through a gap in the fence toward a shell of a warehouse, fully open to the overcast night sky.

"Puck and them should be here anytime." Looking around, Harl groans lightly and starts talking to himself, "If we're being ambushed here... " He starts tracing a pointing finger around the warehouse.

"We'll set up there." He points to a particularly abused office, the plasteel sheets have been peeled away in ribbons both to the inside and outside of the warehouse. Harl starts walking toward it.

A shelled warehouse on the waterfront
11:55 pm

Well, it's got the high ground and, apparently, the closest thing to cover to be found here. The remnants of plasteel have to be better than trying to hide behind bare framing. Mary keeps looking around to see if she can see any movement, other vehicles or human-like forms. Lights of various kinds glint off the water, all tinting a sort of green-purple swirl from the perpetual oily film. She's just glad there doesn't seem to be much of anything for anyone to walk on above them on the former roof.

And again, she's glad she's following Harl and not the other way around. She doesn't have to put as much energy into cowering and the like.

Shelled warehouse
11:57 pm

You've barely walked into the office area when you hear the sound of an approaching vehicle mixed with another, much less pleasant sound on the rise.. riding on the edge of your perception that same hissing whistle.. it's growing louder but it's still fairly quiet.

"It's Puck, they're pulling in."

You see the light from headlights on the far side of the warehouse from where you entered.

Shelled Warehouse
11:57 pm

Mary goes to crouch behind one of the bits of plasteel. "Is Puck the driver or the other..." She only watches the headlights for a moment before the tug in her ears starts driving her to distraction.

"Do you hear that? That really high-pitched whistle? I heard it back at the compound, too." She cocks her head and starts scanning around, looking between the bits of sheeting and up into the sky for... what exactly? A hoverbird or helicopter? No way it could be a missile; too slow and presumably been in the air too long.

Shelled warehouse
11:58 pm

Harl looks around, listening intently while the light grows at the entrance. "I don't hear anything but a couple ground vehicles, direction?"

You start listening to try to place a direction for it, It seems to be coming from everywhere.. But now you can clearly hear another... few cars? coming from the side you came in.

The panel van pulls in to the complex, stopping for all the debris lying around.. there's no way a car will be able to navigate it, the plasteel and wreckage would shred any normal tire.. not to mention simply driving over it would highcenter the rest.

As they pull in, 3 black sedans pull in at the opposite end and similarly pull to a stop.

Shelled warehouse
11:58 pm

"It's all around..." It's starting to resolve more now. It's got a steady component and a pulsing one, a cross between a jet engine and a swarm of cicadas. Mary fishes out her earbuds and pushes them in. Probably not much of a sound barrier but better than nothing. The spatial recognizer feature might help too. She also gets her glasses on and switches on the low-light gain, hoping to get a better idea of what's going on over at the sedans. Enough space to make twelve people comfortable, fifteen at capacity - seven, plus the drivers, two more...? Damn that noise, the math's starting to break down.

Shelled warehouse
11:58 pm

5 men in nondescript suits get out of the front sedan and another 1 each out of the other two, at the same time 7 people get out of the panel van.

Everyone seems to be alright to your great relief. They're walking between the two orks with SMGs and everyone seems relatively relaxed.. or resigned, it's hard to tell. The two parties start walking toward each other.. and after a moment of hesitation, Harl stands and starts to walk. And just then, the sound changes suddenly, it sounds like a distant ghostly scream has been added to it, it grows swiftly and in the space of 2 seconds vanishes with the rest of the noise to leave one whisper as you see the flutter of black cloth and the flash of a blade moving at a sprint toward the interior... it says one word, filled with excitement and anticipation... It says...

"DEATH!"

Shelled Warehouse
11:58 pm

Mary stays right where she is, inside the office. "Everybody, run! Just get out!"

She points wildly at the running black-clothed figure. "Harl, there's an assassin! Shoot him!"

Shelled warehouse
11:58 pm

As you point madly to the literally flying mass of whipping cloth and scythe, the semi-transparent form of Death itself, Harl whips his gun out pointing in the direction you are; swiftly scanning back and forth across a small arc several times, his voice elevates-
"Where are they? What are you pointing at-.... What the HELL are you pointing at!?" Harl draws a breath in. "HIT! EVERYONE DOWN!" And with that, he opens fire roughly where you're pointing. Harl barely manages two bullets before the two groups open fire, The black suits toward the van and you, the Van toward the suits... and Harl, continuing to fire towards the phantom.

Automatic gunfire tears open any semblance of quiet that once was to shreds, You hear bullets rattle the sheets of plasteel around you.. you hear screams, no more than 6 seconds later, as you watch Harl wince as blood spurts from a new hole in his gut, and hear and see the whipping of helicopter rotors above... just as they unlease a fusillade of rockets and minigun fire into the open warehouse. All 4 vehicles peel open like tin cans before the withering fire, to say nothing of the rocket that was headed straight for the Professors' huddled group behind the van.. your vision of it was obscured by another explosion directly at the feet of the ork with the fetished SMG.

Harl slips on a loose sheet of plasteel and falls into the remains of a file cabinet, it crumples beneath him and stops him like a makeshift seat.. You still see the chopper above, prowling like an enormous jaguar around it's prey, waiting to see that it's dead for sure perhaps, but for now it appears the hail of death has stopped, and all there remains is the steady whup-whup of the helicopters blades.

Shelled Warehouse/Death's Playground
11:59 pm

There's no time for grief. There's no time for blaming yourself. There's no time to reflect on how your belief in the ultimate rationality of man has been shattered.

Your worthless life is going to meet an equally senseless end. For real this time. Just accept it.

Then act like it's not true.

She sits and listens to the rise and fall of the pitch of the rotors. She watches the angles of the lights turning around their pivots in the gaps in the walls. She smells Harl's blood and tries to figure out how fast he's losing it and if he's still breathing.

"Man, Harl, what a mess I got us all in. But you trusted me *twice*. If there really is a greater power out there besides Death himself, I'll surely be damned if I let you die here. Even if I do hate you." She takes about the lower half of her shirt and starts ripping fabric off, waiting for her chance to get to the troll and stuff the rags in his gut. "I hope your car's still waiting for us."

Shelled warehouse
11:59 pm

Harl's eyes don't leave the chopper above as Mary moves to staunch the bleeding, the wound is a clean punch in and the blood flows fairly freely. The rags you're bringing to bear are staining quickly, but you keep at it, knowing that pulling off the pressure will just make things worse.

The chopper finishes another round above your head, and you hear the sharp crack of rifle fire a few times from it

"The car's still there, but with those vultures.." Harl trails off. "We need to get to ground somewhere safe.. Bloody drek-on-a-stick somebody had to bring a damned gunboat to my meet." Harl spits. "We can wait here and hope they don't spot us.. try to sneak our way out.. Unless you've got an RPG or some ace up your sleeve that bird's got us pinned for now."

This close to him and without a shiny handcannon and his towering form to distract you it almost looks like he's a different person. His dirty blonde hair is sprinkled with gray, his eyes show the wrinkles from years of peering... questioning... staying alive by whatever means necessary.

"Guess you're going to be sticking with me for a little longer then."

Shelled Warehouse
January 5, 2060. 12:00 am

"Yeah, looks like. And nope, completely unarmed. I checked my pistol in when I got to work, and I'm sure it got blown up. So yeah, I think we're stuck waiting for them to go away. But you know, apparently Death can fly. Maybe He'll go up there and start eating those guys too. Not that He likes us very much.... Ignore that. I'm just going insane, nothing unusual.

"The round went through, so mostly you need antiseptic and a lot of expert stitching. You just might make it. As long as these rags don't give you some awful disease."

Mary keeps watching, waiting, listening, hoping for a sign the helicopter will back off.

Shelled warehouse
12:10

After a tense 5 minutes with the chopper above, and another waiting to make sure it's gone, Harl finally dislodges himself from the file cabinet.

"Let's go. I'm sending the car around to a few different places just in case. We'll get some distance between us and the kill zone."

Shelled warehouse
12:10

As they come down the stairs, Mary scans the interior of the warehouse, watching for movement, listening for the cries of the wounded. She also takes a good look at the van. Maybe if it was peeled open by gunfire and not by rocket, some of the contents might still be salvageable.

Shelled warehouse
12:11

Walking down the stairs you get a good look at the ruptured panel van, it's clear that it would take more than a quick search and grab to salvage anything from it, there's a small blue fire burning just out of sight toward the back of the van, illuminating the rest of it's charred remains coolly, passive and waiting for anyone willing to risk 3rd degree burns.

Harl's up and moving, but he's treating his left side a little tenderly. As he passes you, he says, quietly but urgently, "come on, we'll have time to sort out the dead later." The background hiss of fires makes it easy to misjudge how loud things might actually be, but the crunch and grind of plasteel and plascrete beneath your feet testify to just how quiet it actually is. There is no more hissing whistle, no whipping cloth and scythe, no screams. There is only fire.

Harl leads the way, slowly working through squats, warehouse lots and rubble strewn streets, both ignoring and being ignored by the bulk of the homeless...

Waterfront region
12:15 am

Mary tries to keep up as best she can, not too hard she has to reflect, given that she's now the relatively uninjured one, on the outside. She doesn't know how much Puck and the Totemgun (or Puck might have been the Totemgun, she still doesn't know) meant to Harl, but her professional life, the men she looked up to, her coworkers, the lynchpin of the Kendall deal, are all gone. And her meds will wear off sometime in the next 24.

Nevertheless, she does her utmost to keep the increasingly sopping rags pressed tight against Harl's wound until they can find a doc.

Waterfront District
12:23 am

You haven't heard the helicopter.. still it's tense. Harl has been quiet for his part, and after a few minutes of awkward movement with you holding bloody rags to him at every opportunity, he finally waved you off of it. the wound appears mostly sealed, but it's as good as can be expected with the facilities at hand.

It's been slow moving, but you and Harl stand in front of a corrugated, rusty iron door with no handle set into a plascrete wall like an afterthought more than design.

"I hope they're still here.. " and he knocks. The iron rattles and echoes out through the filthy alley you're standing in and Harl resumes scanning the alley

Waterfront district
12:23 am

Mary finally has to see reason and quits trying to save the life of a man who's clearly not dying. She also gives the space behind, around, and above her a good look. She also listens intently for any of the telltale signs of Death or the helicopter He seemed to have turned into or summoned. She looks back to Harl and waits for his OK to go inside.

Waterfront District, Back alley
12:25 am

Harl grunts in disapproval and knocks strongly again at the door, almost pounding... it rattles and shakes and fills the alley with noise.. but he pulls his hand away finally and turns to walk away, clearly starting to get upset.

As he takes his first step, the rattling of the door suddenly stops with the wrenched crack of rusted hinges breaking, you both turn to look at the door and watch it fall away to the street, revealing the rough cut doorway behind. An old stairway vehicle up against the hole providing entrance down through the rotted and crumbled rooms into a basement. No light is coming from down below, and no sound yet that you can hear over the sound of the fallen door.

A moment passes staring at it, and Harl grabs the door and motions you inside.

"This will have to do." Following behind you, Harls weight causes the mobile stairway to lurch down a foot as he steps fully on it causing an unsteady moment before Harl manages to prop the door back up and follow you deeper into the basement, unlit except for a trickle of street lamps coming in through the ruined building.

Walking carefully across concrete so shattered that in places it's better called gravel, you enter a small room with a few industrial spools and broken stools.

In all of this you finally notice a waiting message on your commlink:
Rusty Jakis
1/4/2060 23:45

Waterfront district, back alley
12:26 am

Okay, when did the commlink come back on? Maybe you bumped the power button back in the truck. Or the discharge of energy from vehicles and rockets blowing up sort of jarred it. Or you, like the dumb, shell-shocked girl you are, left it on.

And speaking of things blowing up, there were secondary explosions back at the office, right? Gas main, other bombs, don't want to leave records behind, don't want anybody competing with Kane's new company, no no no. So wouldn't Rusty, and his stuff, have burnt up with the rest of it?

"Harl," she whispers. "I know I'm in shock. And nuts. Cause I'm just seeing things, right?" She holds the commlink up. "Rusty. The ork shot Rusty first, and the explosions should've got his link. So who's messaging me on his access ID?" She's shaking again now. "Bishop Security, no other explanation. How deep is this hole? Any wire here, anything I can make a Faraday cage out of..." She takes a long, desperate look at the spools.

Abandoned Waterfront Haunt
12:26 am

Harl narrows his eyes. "When'd you get that?" The telling timestamp continues to glow unfailingly while the connection indicator pulses slowly in red. "We should be safe down here. No signals reach without Lane's dialout box, Still, knowing it has been on this whole time..." Harl pulls out his handcannon and sets it on one of the tables as he starts fishing around in the center of the spindle. "Should be safe to at least give it a listen here if you're curious. My nuyen's on a trace program"

Pulling his hand out of the spindle, Harl dumps a Colt Manhunter and 2 spare clips on the spindle you're standing nearest. The sudden sound brings your attention, strangely, to a small shard of your commlink's case sticking out, loose from the rest... it falls out, and the connection indicator flickers out fully, leaving a new, bold, 'No network device detected' in the bottom right of your hud.

Harl pulls his shirt up under his thick, plated jacket, peels up a thick, neoprene like undershirt showing a parade of scars and a fresh new, oozing hole.

"I guess that's as good as that's gonna get until I can get to Akenmann's..."