Of Crimson Marks and Green Bills
14th of November 2006 A.D.
Truth be told you were not sure what to think of a place that used to be called Post-Attack Command and Control System Facility, Hadley, nor of one now named Hel's Warehouse by those who called it home, brutal industrial efficiency given over into disrepair on the one hand and and a Mad Max style pile of guns bombs, rockets and shells on the other maybe. On the other side of the veil you find neither. The rooms carved out of the heart of Bare Mountain are adorned with Monoc recruitment posters from what looks like the last century, from dramatic poses of a one eyed man with grey hair pointing at the onlooker to caricatures of ravens devouring the maggots that crawled out of the bloody of a newly killed Hitler to images that mock conflicts the world over the length of the Cold War. At least that is what you guess from the ones that are in English.
It is surprising at least at first, everyone who fights for the company does so because they cook the hand of a valkyrie, but as you think about it a bit more it starts to make more sense. The Father of Hosts does not just want people who would rather be fighting for him than stay dead, he wants their loyalty, their trust, their willingness to march through tedium and pain to face weapons that might slay even their new deathless new bodies.
"Does Monoc come with dental?" you ask your no longer winged guides.
"Best in the business," Alina shoots back with a smile.
That is when you notice the red line going under posters, dipping in and out between the pipes the coffee machine in the corner that marble statue someone had dragged here from some distant temple. At first you think it is just a straight red line, but your eyes are sharper than most, there are runes in it, red on red almost invisible, chained together all along the perimeter of each and every room.
Why paint it that way, why hide it? the question springs at once to mind. Because it is not meant to be seen with eyes of flesh, warding runes, veiling runes, maybe even some to empower this place.
But even so wouldn't they be easier to cast if they were more distinct in the mind of those who live here? They seemed very few when set against the vastness of space designed to keep a continent's worth of military assets working in the face of nuclear war, but in absolute numbers there must be scores. Curious you reach a hand against the line.
Blood, not paint at all, the runes themselves are blood. Drawing back your fingers as if you had been stung you look up the line of crimson, then down it for what must be miles end on end.
Marzhan does not laugh, she does not smile this time, merely offering a short somber nod.
***
The workshop thankfully is filled with lathes and presses, steel bars and brass cartridges, spools of many colored cables, bright green circuit boards and more. No one bats an eye when you ask if they can lower the temperature below freezing point. Dumping some anti-freeze on your head does raise a few more eyebrows, but by then you are clearing every mortal mechanic out of the place so the fey can help so what does it matter?
Thankfully between your cybernetic assistants and Monoc's unusually good access to US government network you can find everything you need in regards to hardened communication systems and Nightvision, IR and radar systems, acoustic shot, laser,radar and missile warning detectors. IED jammers, laser dazzlers, roof-mounted smoke grenade launchers and hardkill anti-RPG lasers...
"Would you believe we have good hackers?" Marzhan asks about as convincingly as you at four AM trying to convince your mom you were late because of traffic.
"Is that like a computer wizard?" you ask wide eyed. This level of access is either a massive security breach of the sort they would not be letting outside contractors in on or it is their normal level of access.
The valkyrie concedes the absurdity of that notion with a tip of her elegantly pointed chin.
"Are you planning to sell these designs back to the government?" Belatedly it occurs to you that this stuff could be very valuable even without the alchemical tweaks especially because you were using already existant armored vehicle designs which could be upgraded. Of course there is the fact that you do not have the connections to sell military schematics to Uncle Sam, but you might some day.
"When the designs prove themselves probably," Marzhan admits.
What do you do?
[] Let Monoc have the designs, you already have your fingers in enough pies
[] Try to negotiate extra compensation for the designs
-[] Write in suggestions
[] Make the vehicles with the understanding that the designs are proprietary
[] Write in
OOC: Given how high tech you guys went and how high those rolls are likely to be I thought it would be best to put the question now rather than have you spot your IFV design on the news in a few months. Molly is more than capable of putting two and two together. 
