[X] (1.5x) Kill Nephandi. Retrieve Union Property. Win at life.
[ ] (-0.2x) Virtual Adepts sound cool. You're basically doing a shadowrun, you might want to get some shadowrunners for this. And sure, they wear trenchcoats and sunglasses at night, but you've seen Ivan's video surveillance of those guys shooting two guns with perfect accuracy while running along a wall against ghouled SWAT guys. If you can convince them this is of mutual benefit, you can always find some guys sympathetic to a temporary alliance. Besides, Jamelia hasn't seen many physically active Adepts. It's rare for her to actually experience something new and interesting.
[X] (1.1x) Purify a church. It's not quite your ideal place of worship, but defiling it is awful.
[X] (+0.2x) Get the Choristers to purify that church. It's probably the least they can do to pay you back, after firing all those RPGs and autocannon rounds at you.
One good thing about Russia, Jamelia muses, is that she can find prepaid cell phones almost anywhere. Cracking open the plastic casing on the new phone, she dials a number from old memory. It takes only a moment for the call to be redirected, probably being scanned by Virtual Adept technosuperstition as it does, before it reaches its destination.
"Go for Patriarkhat," the voice rasps in accented Russian. The speaker's voice is heavy with age and weariness, but the steel underneath it is self-evident.
"Hello, Patriarch," Jamelia responds in fluent Georgian, dancing out of the way of a chunk of snow falling from a balcony overhead. "I've heard a great many things about you."
"N-"
"Unsecured line," Jamelia cuts him off. "Also, I use a different name now."
There's silence on the line for a moment before Patriarch speaks up again. "To what do I owe the displeasure of your company?"
"I've had a busy night, Alekseyev," the NWO agent says abruptly. "I had planned on a little operation to remove some detritus from the world - a little public service, if you will." 'Nephandi' would doubtlessly attract the attention of anyone listening in on Russian telecom traffic, so Jamelia relies on code words. "With your men handling the ones at the opera house, surely I'd be in the clear to do my part for the common good, no?"
"Get to the point," Patriarch growls.
"Oh, Alekseyev," Jamelia sighs. "We might have shoot-on-sight orders for each other, but we can all agree on who we really dislike, no? Yet tonight my men were nearly killed by yours at one target, and ran into a hit team of blood-drinkers and addicted former allies at another. How does the saying go, again? 'Once probably isn't coincidence-'"
"-and twice definitely isn't," the old priest responds. "What do you want, child?"
"Find your heart, and see that it is a nest of vipers," Jamelia says in Georgian. The obscure dialect that she used, which she'd picked up when she'd been ordered to study the old priest named Patriarch and his origins, should only throw off potential listeners for a moment. She uses allegory as her code: the heart of the Choristers - the church. It's a 'nest' for vipers - a summoning site. A defiled church means Nephandi, since the old vampires have at least enough respect for the old ways - and respect for Chorister firepower - not to defile a Russian Orthodox church lightly.
She realizes she's clenching the tiny plastic phone with white-knuckled fingers. C'mon, you old bastard. Put it together.
"How soon?" Patriarch asks.
"As much time as I gave you before," Jamelia responds. I gave you no time. Attack immediately; do not wait.
There's another long silence, as Jamelia steps through the near-blizzard. "Proof?" Patriarch asks finally.
"You still using the same desk?" the NWO agent asks.
"Yes. Which side?"
"Trick question. Two rounds hit the front, and one on the left. Nine-millimeter, not ten." Jamelia had set up the assassination perfectly, but Patriarch had seen through it at the last moment. She hoped he was still as astute now as he was then.
There's another silence, and Jamelia worries that he might have hung up. Yet after a subjective eternity, Patriarch responds simply: "Good luck."
"Likewise," Jamelia says. Taking out the phone's battery and tossing it in a nearby dumpster, she methodically rips the Sleeper tech to bits. With luck, any listener would waste time trying to look up the meaning of her code phrases in the Bible, rather than understanding the implicit meanings the words had in their original Georgian. She doesn't plan on it slowing down her pursuers for too long, but every little bit of subterfuge had to help.
Tightening her coat, the NWO agent turned a corner and began the long walk back to the rendezvous point. It was a long war, and a strange one. She'd seen more than a few allies become enemies, and fought alongside more than a few hated foes. Yet in the grand scheme of things, she had no real hate for Patriarch, and with luck he'd find it in himself to trust her on this lead. She wasn't the type to pray, but Jamelia asked anyone listening up above for a little help.
Her only response was more wind and snow.
If this is the work of our old teacher, let's use our few advantages we have against him. The old bosses might have age and experience on their side, but we have up-to-date knowledge and recent field experience on ours. Let's use what we know from the past ten years to throw them off, rather than trying to straight-up outsmart them.
