OOC: I'm not super happy with the quality of the writing here, but I needed to get it out. I was initially planning to do this as a simple update, but it felt kind of mean to not let y'all make decisions since there are some potentially nasty consequences. I'll be trying to do this pretty rapidly, so voting will close at 10 pm tomorrow.
Incident Pit I
Theo Janovec, commander of observation team one, watched the monitor impassively as the storm of activity inside the bivouac passed around him like water around a stone. Cloaked in darkness and tinged a cold blue-green by the camera, the bedroom's spartan furniture took on an ominous air undercut by the pile of junk food wrappers shoved haphazardly into the corner and the listless figure sprawled across the bed --the gently breathing form illuminated by what little light made it through the window blinds. Embedded in the room's plaster ceiling, the pinky-nail sized camera providing the view was practically invisible and was perfectly positioned to violate any form of privacy its target thought he had. Having led the mission for over a year now, Subject Zeta's habits were as familiar to Theo as his own; each foible and quirk indelibly chiselled into his brain by time and repetition to the point Theo could predict Subject Zeta's actions.
At 5 am he would wake and dress, then practice Tai Chi (thirty minutes) followed by a shower (ten minutes), coffee (arabica from Portland, Turkish style), breakfast (oatmeal with banana and mixed berries, or two fried eggs with soy sauce), and all the things associated with ordinary human life. By 7 am he'd be out the door of his apartment and by 8 am be at his job (via train, never paying electronically). Located in a shopping centre at the heart of Karpathia's CBD, Zeta's workplace, an electronics store, was the source of the GPS devices used by the hostile agents during the
Currahee meetup. At 12 pm, Zeta would finish work and have lunch (a heavy salad plus a meat dish) at a cafe overlooking the Karpathian gallery before people watching for up to an hour (drinking at least two more Turkish style coffees). From there, Zeta would either enter the gallery or visit public areas through the city (requiring the extensive deployment of autonomous assets), before returning home to his apartment by 5 pm and being in bed by 9 pm.
Every day Zeta repeated this pattern like clockwork --not even the recent interception of the Durban shipment disturbing his carefully calculated motions. He never visited anyone, he never went on dates, he never called anyone, and he never invited anyone home. He was friendly with people but had nothing anyone would call a friend. His gaming and television habits skewed action-adventure and his internet history reflected that, though his choice of book was more philosophical and he prefered orchestral recordings over modern music. He was, in short, boring.
Glancing over to his second in command, Theo gave the woman a fractional nod and turned just in time to catch the monitor flick over to a new scene. The point of view was different, closer to the ground and less fish-eyed, and was swaying back and forth as the agent the camera was attached to breathed. The spartan furniture was still there, half-cloaked in shadow and tinged blue-green by the camera, the pile of rubbish was still in the corner (though perhaps a little larger), and the window blinds were still drawn tight. Everything looked identical to the scene from before… except there was no figure lying on the bed.
"Matthias, how long has it been since we've had eyes on him?" Theo asked as he unfolded his arms from behind his back and gestured for the feed to be cut.
"Anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour," the curly-haired analyst replied, not looking up from his own monitor as he flicked between different camera views.
"Agent Haines," he nodded towards Shoshana, "has already put teams out to scour nearby exit points, but he seems long gone."
Theo arched an eyebrow. It wasn't like his team to be off the ball. "And we didn't notice that we lost him?"
"We did," replied Shoshana, "though we didn't realise what it was at the time."
"We think someone cut the internet and power to his complex and then patched in a false video feed," Matthias interjected.
At Theo's nod, the raven-haired woman continued. "I thought it was suspicious, so I ordered tactical teams to standby in case it turned out to be a breakout attempt. I was about to close the noose when we got eyes-on again. We pinged the cameras and got the right responses back, plus a backlog of footage that matched the length of time the cameras were down for. By the time we figured out what had really happened, Zeta was already gone."
"So what did happen?"
Matthias gave a fitful jerk of his shoulders and rose from his chair tablet in hand. With a lazy twitch, the weedy analyst brought up the view from outside Zeta's apartment complex; the grainy image showing a rain-slicked street empty of everything save a food truck. On the side, proudly emblazoned in blue and white, were the words Spiro's Gyros.
"No idea how Zeta contacted them, but that thing is parked right over the access hatch to the fibre line running into the building. Between the heat inside screwing with the IR cameras and us expecting things to happen in Zeta's apartment, we missed them splicing their own toys into the line. They used Zeta's habits and our own footage against us."
Scheisse, Theo cursed in the old mother tongue. For a brief moment, he felt the urge to glare at the mousy haired analyst before biting down on the feeling.
"So who are they?" He asked instead. Getting angry would help no one, getting answers would. Ergo, the best option is to get answers.
"Hired guns, probably," the analyst replied equanimously. "Unless we're blind, deaf and dumb, we're tracking everyone in Zeta's network so it can't be them. Either way, we don't know where they are since the van was stolen two days ago and they didn't leave anything incriminating at the scene."
Shaking his head, Theo sighed. "Zeta played us. Years of observation to get us into a groove and then he hit us with this."
"The man has the personality of a calculator," Shoshana sighed. "I could see him playing the long game to screw us over, sure, but who wants to bet there's more going on?"
"I agree," Theo replied before Matthias could respond to the challenge, "but even if he just wanted out, we have to treat this like a Loose Arrow situation. For all we know, he could be on his way to bomb parliament."
Cracking his neck, Theo checked his watch. Ten minutes since the call came in and possibly a little over an hour since the Zeta slipped the noose. Not great, but not terrible.
"Agent Haines," he said a moment later. "Good call on the search teams. If you need forensics, don't bother ordering them from HQ just suborn the locals. If they whine about it, send them to me."
As the woman nodded and turned away, Theo shifted his attention to the reedy man in front of him. "Matthias, I want your analysis of who did it and how as soon as you can get it done. Maybe that'll give us some idea where he went."
"Meanwhile, I'll get on the horn to command and pass on the preliminaries. Hopefully, this is just an isolated incident."
===================================================
Unfortunately for Commander Janovec and the rest of the Helghan intelligence apparatus, Subject Zeta's escape is not an isolated incident. Mere weeks after the interception of the Durban shipment, after a long period of lassitude, the hostile spy network has undergone a very sudden and unexpected change. Seemingly without warning, all 14 members of the spy ring have attempted to break surveillance simultaneously --some with outside assistance and some on their own. How the signal was given and how they set things up is still a source of debate, but it is of secondary importance considering the circumstances.
Of the 14 agents known to operate on Helghan, 6 remain under constant surveillance thanks to a combination of luck, their origins, and the skill of Republic intelligence operatives. Currently under the watchful eye of numerous surveillance automata, these hostiles are making their way towards the cities of Pyrrhus and Konstantine via train and are close to arriving. Unfortunately, a further 5 hostile agents are already present in those cities and are dropping in and out of surveillance despite the best efforts of those involved. While Republic operatives and drones are trying to keep track of them, the sheer density of the cities and the skill of the hostile agents is making things difficult. Worse still, the remaining 3 agents --Subject's Zeta and Gamma included-- are completely off the grid, though given the location of the others it's likely that they're headed for Konstantine and Pyrrus. Additionally, a precautionary checkup on those civilians tagged during the
Currahee incident has revealed that one is missing.
While the situation is extremely fluid and uncertain, the need to get eyes back on the various hostiles is clear. What isn't clear, however, is how Republic intelligence should do that.
Arguing that all necessary steps should be taken to avoid a panic, some within the state security apparatus think that it would be best to keep things quiet and rely on already deployed assets to make and maintain contact with the hostile spies. Though the subtlest option and the least likely to raise questions from the public, it runs the very real risk of being the slowest. Meanwhile, other parts of Republic intelligence believe that local assets should be brought on board to assist in finding the hostile agents. Though they acknowledge that there's some risk that the information will leak, the small scale of the action and the limited number of organizations involved should prevent too swift a dissemination to the public sphere while also being relatively adept at finding the spies. The third and final faction, meanwhile, argues for a much more involved integration with local forces --arguing that Republic intelligence should induce every local organization they can to assist them and order the readying of Gendarmes in preparation for when the spies are found. The least subtle of the three options, it may result in the rapid discovery of the lost agents but may also start some kind of panic as word spreads of hostile agents operating on Helghan.
[] Rely on deployed assets to regain surveillance capability.
[] Secure the cooperation of local police forces and get eyes back on the hostiles.
[] Induce the cooperation of every local organization that may be of assistance in getting eyes on the hostiles and ready the Gendarmes for action.
[] Write-in.
