Prologue 5: Men like gods
The minutes tick by as you scan the halls, idly bouncing your rifle off your leg. You're growing a bit antsy. Nearly ten minutes have passed.
"Time's nearly up," you warn him. "One more minute and we're extracting."
"Hold on," Shamus replied, strain evident in his voice. "I am nearly done searching these files now. If you give me just two minutes, I will have the information you need."
You frown, looking over to your mechanical servitors. A small window pops up, superimposed over their image.
Battery levels at 78%, it flashes at you.
Assault Platform v. 32 units at combat readiness. Please advise- and you terminate the connection, turning away and blinking your eyes to lose the afterimage.
The seconds tick down slowly.
Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five.
"AP32 units," you say out loud. "Prepare for extraction. Maintain sensors, and extend sensor range to maximum."
"Acknowledged," they reply as one. You shudder a little. Mechanical voice modulation just sounds
wrong. "Sensor range: nine hundred twenty-two meters. No irregularities."
Sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three.
You touch your earpiece anxiously. It's been ten minutes since you first gave Shamus access to the building, and twenty since you broke into the building. A ten minute extraction window makes it thirty minutes between entry and extraction.
Typical Justice Brigade response times are twenty-seven minutes.
"Shamus." You try your best to keep your voice calm and collected. "Are you done yet?"
"I am very close," he snaps. Worry and frustration are warring for supremacy in his voice. "Just a few more moments and you will be free to leave. The files are being uploaded to my server as we speak."
One hundred and eight, one hundred and nine, one hundred and ten.
One of your robots speaks up in its crackly synthetic voice. "Sensors indicate falling lifesigns on ground floor."
"What's takin' you so long?" You're almost startled as Flamestrike speaks gruffly over your earpiece. "Immolator's done, moving in to clean up now. Plasmius won't be a problem much longer. Got anything to report, or are you just fuckarsin' around?"
"Security on the mainframe was tighter than expected," you reply, standing and straightening.
One hundred and seventy-seven, one hundred and seventy-eight. "Beginning extraction now."
"Meet you in the foyer then. Don't take too long, kid." He ended the connection abruptly.
One hundred and eighty-eight, one hundred and eighty-nine, one hundred and ninety.
"We're extracting now, Sh-"
There's a soft click in your ear, and a notification in your HUD reads,
Commlink switched to secure channel.
"Proceed with caution, Vector," Shamus warns you. "Syndicate frequencies are indicating signs of increased chatter. Something is happening."
"Got it," you reply, brow crinkling. "Why are we speaking on a secure channel, Shamus?"
He hesitates just long enough that you catch it. "... Please don't worry about it."
Two hundred and sixteen, two hundred and seventeen, two hundred and eighteen.
You abandon all notions of stealth as you sprint down the hallways. The sound of metal scraping against metal betrays that even the advanced AP32 units are having trouble keeping up with you.
"Not good enough," you tell him coolly, vaulting over a table as you do so. "Don't think I didn't notice you going off comms earlier. Explain yourself."
His hesitance is much more noticeable this time.
Two hundred and thirty-one, two hundred and thirty-two, two hundred and thirty-three.
"I am probably just being paranoid," he says slowly. "I have to wonder, however, what kind of covert operation is assigned a pyrokinetic without restricting him from using explosives. It rather defeats the purpose of acting covertly, doesn't it?"
You rush down the stairs to the second floor, bounding down them six at a time. One of your robots missteps, his legs buckling beneath him. He recovers in seconds, but by then, you're three corridors down.
Two hundred and forty-five, two hundred and forty-six, two hundred and forty-seven.
"And if this operation were concerned with opportunistic power grabs," he continues, "why would they send only a single agent? Robotic units like those aren't cheap, after all. They could hire some mercs to do the same thing and not pay out for replacing RIUs. So why only send you?"
Two hundred and sixty, two hundred and sixty-one, two hundred and sixty-two.
"So what?" you reply somewhat breathlessly. "So they didn't tell us what their real goals are. Who cares?"
"I do. I do
not like being used, Vector. So I went digging a little while I was in the mainframe."
"You
what?"
"I stole some of, well, a
lot of their files while I was there," he continues over you. "Honestly, every file that was small enough to steal in the miniscule timeframe you afforded me. Including their employee files."
That catches your attention.
Two hundred and seventy-three, two hundred and seventy-four, two hundred and seventy-five.
"So what?" you ask, ducking around another corner and finding yourself at the first floor stairwell. You slow down some. You still have time.
"So," Shamus explains condescendingly, "I scanned through them, looking for anything that might be relevant. And I did."
You're near the foyer now. Fifteen seconds away at your current pace.
"Did you know that Plasmius is classified as having been outfitted with G5X augmentations?"
That makes you stop. You remember the classifications from your military days. Generation 1, the first guys. Human-plus. The guys who fought in WW2. Generation 2, taking biology to the limits. Acid spit and spider-senses. Generation 3. The first cybernetic integration, the rise of 'mil-spec' biomods. Generation 4, 'modern' augmentation, the
cool non-linear, non-straightforward stuff like broad-scale psionics and element control. Generation 5 is rare. Cutting edge. Powers that let you walk into a megacorp like Cydonia and get an interview immediately. G5X means the cutting edge of the cutting edge. The kind of technology used in NATO's attempts to build artificial gods.
"What?"
"Yes," he says grimly. "That caught my attention, too."
Two hundred and ninety, two hundred and ninety-one, two hundred and ninety-two.
"It might be paranoia speaking," he enunciates slowly, "but I rather doubt it. I don't think this was a covert raid, Vector. I think this was a recruitment mission, and we're here as the cover."
Two hundred and ninety-eight. Two hundred and ninety-nine.
"The fall guys," you correct him.
Three hundred.
Your earpiece crackles again.
"I can see you out there, Vector." Flamestrike sounds annoyed. "Immolator's being an annoying fuckwad and won't show his face. Come on in and give us a hand."
You close that channel, reopening Shamus' secure one.
"Well," you say hollowly, "I guess we're out of time."
"Hacking into the security feeds now," he says in response. "I'll do what I can to support you from here."
"Thanks."
You step forwards into the room.
It's been
destroyed. Debris lies everywhere, the wreckage of walls and pillars, of desks and chairs and benches. Smoke wafts all over the room from small fires, some still burning despite the lack of combustible materials amidst the wrecked room. And, worst of all, you can hear the faint
shoom-sha sound of energy shields, humming from in front of the building. No escape by teleporting out, then.
In front of you, a boy stares up at you from his position hidden behind a fallen pillar, a horrified look on his face. Blood drips down his nose, and his jacket has been burned off, revealing hideous burns over his right arm.
And there, in the middle of the room, stand Flamestrike and Plasmius. You're relatively sure you could handle Flamestrike alone, even clad in power armor as he is. But a GODLIKE?
Your earpiece crackles. "I have broken the Syndicate's commlink encryption." Shamus' tone is businesslike now. "They are reporting the Justice Brigade en route. ETA five minutes and counting. I doubt Cydonia wants their recruitment of Plasmius publicized, so I believe they will extract prior to their arrival."
So you don't have to kill a GODLIKE, then. Just survive against him and a Gen-4 for four minutes. Great.
Planning Time
Your earpiece crackles.
"Okay," Shamus mutters into your ear. "Remember our ex-buddy Flamestrike? Real name redacted. Powers… psychokinesis, ranked minimally, pyrokinesis, ranked at a solid 4 on the Kane-Siegel scale-a bit higher than your teleportation. Damn. Physical augmentation, civilian-level. Equipped with a Mark 7 Behemoth-class exoskeleton. Not as fast as yours, but stronger."
"And from the files we have Plasmius, real name- I don't think I've ever seen anything that redacted before. Powers- control over some form of matter, provisionally labeled "ectoplasm" in employee notes. Matter exhibits properties of both physical and gaseous matters. Enhanced physical capabilities, rank 3, higher than mental augmentations, which are only rank 2. Capable of- the physical reanimation of corpses.
What? Summons ectoplasmic "wraiths", capable of walking through walls- and this is just the stuff that isn't redacted."
"GODLIKEs are
bullshit," you both say simultaneously.
"Alright," he finishes in a rush. "Remember, they might be more powerful, but they're constrained too. Anything too flashy might draw more attention than they can handle, or leave traces behind."
"Yeah." Your thoughts race.
You don't have many assets open to you right now. Your four AP32 units have followed you down, but they will be of somewhat… limited use. They're intended for use against low-level superhumans, not GODLIKEs. They certainly won't be very threatening with their current loadout. At best, they might provide a distraction. At worst, they might prove a hindrance. Of course, you don't necessarily have to have them provide direct combat support.
Shamus is still muttering away in your ear as he assumes control over what remains of the building's security systems. Most of them are down, but he might be able to scramble up
something. Anything will be of help. At minimum, he's gained access to the camera feeds, and has a direct commlink to you.
Immolator… isn't even an asset. He's a Syndicate asset. Still, the enemy of your enemy. If you can provide him with a persuasive argument, he might stick around and give you a hand in the fight. He's obviously held his own for over twenty minutes, even if Flamestrike must have spent much of that time giving Plasmius his recruitment pitch. And, frankly, anything is better than nothing.
[] Write-in. What is your plan? What are you going to do? How are you going to approach this combat?
A system post will follow this one shortly, to tell you how the operations system works and how rolls are resolved. It's not really complicated.
