Empty Wallets (IC)

[The Empire of Tau]

Mutants Gone Wild
The Undercity
April 2nd, 2090.
OOC

A Biogen research facility (Site-A5) within the Undercity has managed to gain itself some visitors. A gang of Mutant Jihadists had broked in and wrecked the whole facility with extreme prejudice. The mutant gang is a minor faction known as the Sons of Allah. Not only are they mutant freaks - they are radical mutant terrorists. A combination that results in fear-less gun-wielding freaks of nature. Site-A5 has been mostly cleaned of its personnel, except for two persons (among others) - Dr. Fausto Rindón and Elasma Leisagh-Khisling, a researcher and secretary. Rescue them, recover any lost data, clean the site, and you’ll get paid. Simple as that.

Blacklight Securities has assigned its most veteran mercenary, Geng “Fulcrum” Huang, to a nine-man-team. Victor "Voicebox" Stromm has been hired out by B.L.S to assist in the operation. Father Sebastian Argyll, owner of the Fifth Seal Correctional Enterprise was given a invitation to join the team. If he chooses to join to the fun - that’s up to the Holy Man.

Geng “Fulcrum” Huang shall be given overall command of the team with Father Sebastian Argyll second in-command (if he accepts the invitation). The other six members shall be B.L.S security guards.

As of now, in-front of you, is a long-corridor with dense-urban-slum housing surrounding you all. The walls and ceilings are the housing. The corridor is big-enough is to fit you all. Be warned that it can get a bit claustrophobic at times. The lighting is dim with a few unknown light sources still operating. Gun-fire of all forms could be heard every few minutes. The color gray is most apparent for all the “splendid” scenery. Everything is messy to simply say. There’s no one in sight and the only thing to do is walk forward with caution.

Good luck and don’t die.

---

Meanwhile in the Biogen facility…

Dr. Fausto Rindón and Elasma Leisagh-Khisling. You find yourselves in a spacious room with no windows with two doors. One door leads to the facility itself and the other door leads to small windowless testing room. The door (the one that leads to the facility) is luckily a heavily fortified thing, but that will not last for long with mutants trying to break down the door. You two are the only ones in the room.

Dr. Fausto Rindón, you have been assigned at Site-A5 to aid in the research of your own choice. A very prestigious assignment for you. Sadly, your time researching has reached an end with the mutant attack. Elasma Leisagh-Khisling, you been simply positioned at the site to oversee the administration & paperwork as Secretary. All that you know is that mutants have caused a mess in the facility.

The room is all white and spotless. There’s various industrial and research equipment within your confinement. There is a small row of tanks filled with a multitude of things. One pile is explosive gases, the other pile is a Liquid Nitrogen, and the last pile is mustard gas. There is also various other things like zip-ties, nuts, nails, a hammer, and what have you that could you aid. The room appeared to be a temporary holding place for equipment with all the crap that you could find.

Both of you have keys to both doors. Good luck and don’t die.

---

Two communists walks into a facility…

The attack on Site-A5 has no gone unnoticed. The United People’s Front has gain interested in storming the facility in hopes of finding any personnel alive, and or find records that could aid them in exploiting Biogen in any way possible.

Koshka and Anastasia Mane - you two have been assigned to command a small-raiding-party of forty men. They all are wiedling MA(s) (A gun based heavily upon the AK-line-of-guns) with the stamp on each gun, “MANE MADE”. Your goons wear all forms of protective gear that range from kevlar to padded caps. This was a hastily assembled gathering then anything else.

Your raiding-party arrive at a front vault door, only a fifty meters away. The vault-door from your position is massive and open, but the only issue is that a band of about fourteen mutants guard the entrance.

Such mutants are hideous. Their bodies are malformed, twisted, and entangled together. Some are more “normal” looking then than the other, but that’s a stretch. All of them are roughly the same height and size - about 8 feet tall. They appear to have scavenged equipment with their guns being all old 5.56mm AR(s).

The bunch do not look like they are shooting on sight. A pair of travelers went on by and the mutants obviously threaten the pair - yet not fire a shot. One could try to talk to them, but that may end badly. Who knows.

The mutants are not in any form of cover or have cover nearby. They are all standing out in the open for all to see.

Your position however is concealed with pipes, large trash-cans, housing, etc, hiding your movement - aided by the extreme dark. Make sure that you have lighting to find your way.

Good luck and don’t die.

[Ormata]

Fulcrum
Biogen Facility (Site-A5), The Undercity
April 2nd, 2090

The Mk 17 was a helluva thing to fit into the corridor; it’d also been a mild chore to move-over from his usual haunts. In the end, the man had resorted towards walking; say what you will, but there was no way he could move about the Undercity without being known, one way or another. That Powered Armor suit? Fulcrum, that bastard, he’s moving from one part of town to another. That man with the armor arms and armor face, the one who can’t smile anymore because it wasn’t useful, was too human? Fulcrum, that bastard, he’s moving to kill. That city car, the one too shiny and too reliable to be owned by anyone normal? Fulcrum, he’s getting soft now. Give anyone over half a century to be known and they’ll be just that. Known. Fulcrum was a name people understood, people feared, people respected. And so, without a damn care in the world, he’d walked down the street.

People watched. They’d always watched. Eyes watched from the windows and open doors, some from the kids who just held that childish fear of those things they couldn’t tell were human, those things they looked at and all they knew was what parents whispered behind their backs, what they were told if they were naughty and not following their parents. Maybe some thought he would eat them if they were bad. Maybe some thought he’d simply shoot them, stab them, rip them. Fulcrum honestly had stopped caring a few decades prior. He didn’t keep track of what the kids said. Older eyes watched, eyes that understood precisely what the figure walking past was. Here was a man who had rejected a future to pursue a vengeance. Here was a man who had rejected humanity, people, for blood and bullets, cash and credits to fuel that lust for more and more death. There was a monster, some thought. Fulcrum listened to them just a little more.

Just a little.

When he got to the facility, the Blacklight boys were already there, getting themselves set up. Black armor and no faces, that was their methods, black armor and professionalism all around. If they didn’t have it, well they were no good to Blacklight and no good to Fulcrum. There always did seem to be a point where they turned robot, though, every damn time he could look at them and swear it was a circuit-board and not a brain. A simple nod to their Sergeant was all that was needed, though, a simple nod and the Sergeant nodded back. They knew his reputation, his experience, and to a degree his skill; it was entirely likely he’d worked with them before, though none would ever say it. Professionalism all around, always, always and always.

Looking at the place, he sized it up. Urban operations, likely, a building with tight corners and an annoying tendency to pull garbage that wouldn’t be tolerated elsewhere. His Mk 2 wouldn’t do at all, not in that current configuration. Taking the barrel in both hands, he began to unscrew the accelerator extension, shortening the barrel by a few good feet. Fulcrum needed maneuverability, not the ability to punch through APC armor. Twenty millimeters of cannon could give not a single shit about personal armor, personal shields, wouldn’t kill anything more than a Powered Armor suit but...but if they found that, everything was screwed anyways. They didn’t have one, though; if they had, everyone in the building was already dead and the mission was screwed.

Clicking-on his flood light, making sure to orient himself towards the ground in order to not blind anyone nearby, the man switched between several modes. Flashing against the ground to turn it into a blinding white for a few moments before switching the light off, he nodded with some satisfaction; there was some temptation to test his riot control systems, but that would give away every sort of position to everyone everywhere that mattered, something Fulcrum most certainly didn’t need at all. Checking his cannon, a brief look up and a simple comment was all the rest needed.

“Mission briefing when the others get here.”

Looking back down, he looked down to a little pad on his arm, tapping through several times before he found what was exactly wanted. The damn annoying things about him, the facility, the mission ahead, it all needed just a little bit of silence. All he needed was just a little bit of a reminder from before, a little bit of the past, a little bit of memory. Finding it was rather easy, something his father used to sing whenever he wasn’t strung-out, something his sister could play on a half-guitar they had made. He could hear the kid’s voices, the little clips, imperfections, the hiccups of the guitar by a sister who had only a few hours and all her soul to practice it.

And so, in a little fortress of steel, unheard by the rest of the world, he sang to himself.

Sunshine beating on the good times
Moonlight raising from the grave
String band playing worn out honkey-tonks
Pretty young thing going dancing in the rain

[Beutarch]

~50 Meters from Site-A5
Anastasia Mane

---

The sizable force of UPF grunts and sympathetic street thugs had been summoned just under an hour prior, when a local sympathizer had raised an alarm. The area in which the Biogen facility had been constructed was not especially important to UPF operations, but it seemed appropriate for those on hand to engage the group of mutant marauders that rushed the Biogen building. Only one or two had been cut down as they dashed through the Undercity's nonsensical streets. The overwhelming bulk of the force ignored the locals and proceeded to penetrate Biogen's defenses. A couple of the facility's luckless security personnel had their bodies strung up on the facility's fencing, the corpses brutalized as a warning to anyone else who dared to confront the abominations.

Unfortunately for Mane and the rest of her party, that was exactly what they planned to do. Having been inspecting a secondary illicit munitions factory in a nearby neighborhood, she was the closest party officer in the area. As such, she had gathered the few armed guards she had and gathered a few volunteers along the way. Just to put a cherry on the situation, she was informed that there would be another mutant, a squid-like humanoid who is actually a UPF agent herself.

Intel would be non-existent, hostiles numerous, with more almost definitely on the way. And yet, here before her was a militia ready to take on whatever horrific creatures crawled inside that vault with only the clothes on their backs and the rifles in their hands. They all knew that both the glorified arms dealer and the post-human freak in front of them were far from combat hardened veterans, but they rallied all the same.

They all lined up their glowing sights on the mutants ahead of them, waiting for the signal to fire. Mane laid her own rifle on top of a trashcan, setting her sights on the chest of the center-most mutant. Servos clicked and artificial ligaments pulled her arms into a firing position. There would be no negotiating with beings that had been corrupted so ultimately, let alone radicalized ones. Turning to the soldiers, she let out a harsh whisper:

"Cut down any mutant not in a cage. We jack their database and secure any prisoners, then we get out as fast as we can."

She then sent five partisans to position themselves on a nearby roof, the rest crept behind the piping and garbage of the Undercity. Mane took a quick headcount. Forty souls. It'd be a good day to make it out with half that number. Content with her preparations, she faced the body of fluctuating color that was to be her partner for today's dirty work.

"Unless you wanted to make any further arrangements, let's rock and roll. We don't want to be here when the corporate clean-up team comes through.

[Chrominus]

~50 Meters from Site-A5
Anastasia Mane

---

The sizable force of UPF grunts and sympathetic street thugs had been summoned just under an hour prior, when a local sympathizer had raised an alarm. The area in which the Biogen facility had been constructed was not especially important to UPF operations, but it seemed appropriate for those on hand to engage the group of mutant marauders that rushed the Biogen building. Only one or two had been cut down as they dashed through the Undercity's nonsensical streets. The overwhelming bulk of the force ignored the locals and proceeded to penetrate Biogen's defenses. A couple of the facility's luckless security personnel had their bodies strung up on the facility's fencing, the corpses brutalized as a warning to anyone else who dared to confront the abominations.

Unfortunately for Mane and the rest of her party, that was exactly what they planned to do. Having been inspecting a secondary illicit munitions factory in a nearby neighborhood, she was the closest party officer in the area. As such, she had gathered the few armed guards she had and gathered a few volunteers along the way. Just to put a cherry on the situation, she was informed that there would be another mutant, a squid-like humanoid who is actually a UPF agent herself.

Intel would be non-existent, hostiles numerous, with more almost definitely on the way. And yet, here before her was a militia ready to take on whatever horrific creatures crawled inside that vault with only the clothes on their backs and the rifles in their hands. They all knew that both the glorified arms dealer and the post-human freak in front of them were far from combat hardened veterans, but they rallied all the same.

They all lined up their glowing sights on the mutants ahead of them, waiting for the signal to fire. Mane laid her own rifle on top of a trashcan, setting her sights on the chest of the center-most mutant. Servos clicked and artificial ligaments pulled her arms into a firing position. There would be no negotiating with beings that had been corrupted so ultimately, let alone radicalized ones. Turning to the soldiers, she let out a harsh whisper:

"Cut down any mutant not in a cage. We jack their database and secure any prisoners, then we get out as fast as we can."

She then sent five partisans to position themselves on a nearby roof, the rest crept behind the piping and garbage of the Undercity. Mane took a quick headcount. Forty souls. It'd be a good day to make it out with half that number. Content with her preparations, she faced the body of fluctuating color that was to be her partner for today's dirty work.

"Unless you wanted to make any further arrangements, let's rock and roll. We don't want to be here when the corporate clean-up team comes through.

"I'll stun any who we meet inside. We start in on this now." With that, Koshka dimmed her glow and began to sneak forward, keeping behind debris as she maneuvered towards the door. The trash was rough on her hands and feet, but didn't break skin. It was almost a shame the mutants were going to die, but there was no reason why they wouldn't just do the same to Mane and her crew. Koshka would likely survive, but no need to cause bloodshed for her own side. They were already hemorrhaging enough agents.

Koshka had been close enough to where the alarm was being raised to come, and she had personal stake in this operation going well. Any information here could be very useful in the fight to take down Biogen, and that could be the tipping point which brought the whole corporation down. She had been close to going alone, until she'd been informed one Mane would be leading the way instead. It wasn't her usual style, but Koshka was well open to following orders for a time if it meant she'd get a chance to get back at Biogen.

As Koshka got about halfway from their position to the mutants, she gestured to Mane to give the signal to fire, before taking careful aim at the head of one of the mutants and taking a shot. It was here that they must prove themselves, and Koshka be damned if she wouldn't.

[Flecatya]

Dr. Rindón
Industrial Corridor 02, Site-A5

---

They ought to have learned by now.

Rindón was rather livid about the prospect of a mutant assault. In his eyes, the Sons of Allah were nothing more than a group of unfortunate and sickly lab rats that had managed to bite through the cage; they must be put down, for their own good and for that of society. However, in spite of the genetic enhancements he received as part of his job, the doctor was in no position to fight off a mutant horde with only a paper-pusher as a companion.

Ah, yes, that administrator.

Rindón had genuine respect for Leisagh-Khisling, as she possessed a certain level of talent that impressed even him. At the very least, it placed her out of the future experiment section of his mind's catalog of people. However, as she seemed to be delegated to the position of what he referred to in private as a "slave to the coffee machine", he placed little trust in her combat abilities, aside from her ability to run.

Of course, this was no time to ponder over potential combat alongside a secretary. It was a time to make a decision; before him, there was some old industrial equipment and a few canisters of gases labeled Warning: Explosive, Keep Refrigerated, and Do Not Open. Having left his pistol and D-IX samples at his house, all he possessed was a modified Bolo knife, which wouldn't do too much against an eight-foot horror that wants him on a pike. The pressure was on, and he had to make a decision between going into a facility crawling with mutants, or to prepare his defenses where he was, hoping that he could save his own life, and that of the paper-pusher if possible.

"Well, I suppose this is better than waiting for them to kill me," he muttered, grabbing a canister with the timeworn lettering Warning: Explosive and a hammer, then walking over to the heavy-armored door to prepare a trap for the mutants.

[Ayvalon]

Voicebox
The Undercity, Site A-5 Approach
April 2nd, 2090

Victor had wasted no time in scoping the front of the site out from a mostly abandoned hab-block along the approach to their destination, thusfar nothing looked promising. Only one guard was watching the perimeter and to call his body language "Spooked" was to say fire is hot. Another bio-gen goon laid at the compounds entrance behind the survivor, gutted gullet to groin.The very fact the area was so quiet one could hear a pin drop down here was more than enough reason to have cause for concern. Aside from the sporadic gunfire in the distance signalling gangs tearing at each other's throats with whatever was on hand, there was no-one in sight. No one pedaling their snake oil or illicit goods which by itself would be a tell-tale sign something was about to turn sideways in the neighborhood.

Voicebox stashed the monocular back into his arm, making his way out of the abandoned nursery back down the stairs and to the streets. The absence of noise even for a mute (or perhaps because of his condition) was unsettling. This far down into the dark, someone was always at another's throat with a knife and to see people abandoning the normalcy of an already violent lifestyle was unsettling to the seasoned murderer. The assassin patted the sides of his cloak reassuringly feeling for his charges and pistol. With a cacophony of clicks and clatters his mask crawled from beneath his skin to assemble over his face, an overwhelming rush of information flooded his vision offering this cure-all and that better than life deal before the default filters channeled out the "Spam" to focus on radio chatter and relevant heads up display of his current clientele's team.

Crawling out of the building's entrance he was met by a surprisingly tall figure arriving in power armor. He had to imagine this was "Fulcrum", the supposed team lead. He'd heard plenty enough to question the man's morals. Victor wasn't much of a figure on morality however, plenty of cold cases could be tied back to him. All the same a paycheck was a paycheck, no sense in weeping over spilled blood, better to earn his paycheck and with such a rough and tumble bastard at his side, all the easier. A quick rifling through comms networks revealed little on numbers inside or demands from the freaks within but a handful of messages left suspicions which could warrant informing his colleagues. A rapid-fire type-writer sound emitted for a split second as his warning filled the heads up display of Fulcrum's and the Blacklight troop's helms:

Warning, potential secondary subversive threats rallying on target zone

[Ormata]

Fulcrum
Biogen Facility (Site-A5), The Undercity
April 2nd, 2090

Warning, potential secondary subversive threats rallying on target zone.

“Duly noted.”

Movement on a rooftop caught his eye. Yeah, sure, it could be a bunch of civilians, a bunch of kids maybe, but that wouldn’t align with anything of the sort. People in the area, people in general, run from gunfire unless they want to be involved with that sort of thing. If they want to be involved, then they most certainly aren’t Biogen-associated, most certainly not. They could be rebels, factions intending to use whatever information in the facility for their own benefit. They could be raiders, intent on taking the information and selling it to the highest bidder. Both were unacceptable. One hand clicked the music off, moving to grab ahold of his Heavy Repeater. A pair of eyes ran-over the HUD, looking through to see what the hell precisely was there. He didn’t have thermals, couldn’t have them with the interference the building was putting-out. A hot smokestack broke-up whatever could possibly be gained from that. No, they would simply have to engage without much care. Unfortunately enough, Fulcrum was entirely fine with that.

“Targets, 220 True...200 meters, on the roof.”

The Blacklight boys’ heads turned up to the area, nearly all at once, panning-out to gain some cover in case it was a sniper. Snipers, independent or factionally associated, were deadly bastards who enjoyed popping in and out of cover to take potshots at the corporates. Rifles clicked with charging handles, barrels pointed up to the position.

“Targets, 220 true, 200 meters...confirm. Request permission to engage.” The Sergeant wasted little time in his call.

“Granted.”

Thump, thump, thump went the rifles, internal compensators taking the brunt of the noise, muzzles lighting-up with the flash of coils discharging their power. Little bursts of dirt and metal shard denoted the hits, peppering the rooftop with holes and hail. True, the roof was indeed cover...but it didn’t do shit for rifle rounds, especially rifle rounds augmented by the power of the coil. The Sergeant kept the area lighted with his scope, watching and watching. One of the partisans poked their head up, attempting a shot on the Blacklight squad. A burst of crimson from the head, and then another, and another. He didn’t fire a single shot. The rest didn’t, either.

A silent pause. It felt longer than it was, Fulcrum weighing the options before him. He could wait. He could move forwards. He had all the men he needed, all the men he wanted; the Pastor was useful, sure, but he needed to move now. He doubted the man could do anything combative anyways. To wait was to condemn their mission to failure and that was unacceptable.

“We’re moving. Cover my back. Set comms, helmets to purge frequency 2.5 K. Voicebox, don’t go deaf.”

“Comms set. Purge 2.5 K set.”

With that, the squad began to move-in, the pointman lighting up the way with his flood light, flashing the damn thing at enough of a speed that could likely cause seizures in those few unfortunate enough to have the issue. Fulcrum started-up his sonics, a harsh, invading whine filling the space before him, deliberating any who might have the greater issue in life as hearing. With his Heavy Repeater set to massacre anything before them, the Blacklight guards behind him as cover, they began to move-in fast, taking ground at a striding pace.

[Ayvalon]

Voicebox
The Undercity, Site A-5 Approach
April 2nd, 2090

The loud whine then shriek of gunfire lit the dully lit street like a firework display. Red and grey pulp spilled over the streets ahead in response to the Black Light goons opening fire with their rifles. This lot wasn't taking any potential threats and that worked just grand as gravy for Victor. They had far bigger firepower at their beck and call. The contract killer had found it curious in fact that he'd been called on this operation but he wasn't one to turn down this kind of pay. At 75,000 Credits he could move out of that 'coffin' apartment 2 floors up from here and probably even taste real meat again for a change. The passing thought alone made him drool for a moment before recognizing the warning from Fulcrum regarding his hearing. A pair of "Earworm" ear protection devices implanted themselves in his ears and the high-pitched frequency purge went mostly ignored by him and more or less by his masks' interface which rippled at the high-frequency noise disruption.

After the Earworms retracted back into his mask's sides, movement at the corner of his view as he moved forward to catch up with the team was more than enough to cause the assassin to draw his Browning and rip off 9 rounds from the hip in 3-round bursts at the remaining insurgent on the rooftop sporting an anti-armor rocket launcher. Their rocket fired wild over the heads of the security team as they fell, off into the distance, a loud detonation marked some poor soul's day being absolutely ruined from no fault of their own. A loud typewriter's "PING" warning a message from Victor announcing another message from the assassin.

Code: Select all

Be advised, secondary subversives possess anti-vehicular weaponry

With that warning Victor stormed ahead, his legs burning as he leapt and bound over garbage and ruined vehicles to catch up with his fellow team-mates.

[Khasinkonia]

Elasma Leisagh-Khisling
Industrial Corridor 02, Site-A5

“Yes, b’y...Rimmed mutants...Oh, and I’ve got a report on de go...” I murmured to myself as it all unfolded.

Whenever my heart picked up so violently, I couldn’t help but slump back into the dense Newfinese I used back with my family. My hair was glowing a bright red, as were my four eyes, which were wide open and blinking rapidly, while my entire body quivered and twitched just the slightest bit. Stress throughout my body always kicked the bacteria into overdrive, and these days I just defaulted to a deep crimson whenever stressed, as the colour and glow seemed to radiate an aura that told. Mutants were attacking! Biotech was such a wonderful thing, and yet I never cease to regret my assignments with the industry. Every good thing has a dark side, and the dark side of this good thing swears by murdering the good. Why would the doctors leave them with enough intelligence to organise?

The scientist left with me was Dr. Fausto Rindón. His first name reminded me of Faust, and he never ceased to live up to the impression. The man bargained in lives on a daily basis, regardless of whether those lives were for a particular purpose. Dr. Frankenstein’s purpose now was to deal with those monsters of his own creation. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t harness the unstable fire burning inside me to give him the help he needed to conquer his nightmare reject beasts. My shoulder-length tentacles, as usual, sat in a ponytail, with a few free of the ponytail to form the side-swept bangs that covered most of my forehead, and hung at the sides of my face to frame it. Gripped within my ponytail was my Stasia Wand. Most of the monsters probably weighed in the range of 300 pounds, and I could surely use it to help in other ways too. It was almost fully charged, as I’d only used it once for a minor thing today.

“Doctor,” I quickly said, forcing myself to stand rigid and sturdy to keep my appearance professional and unfazed to his perception, “I’ve got a Stasia Wand, if it can help.”

[Beutarch]

~45 Meters from Site-A5
Anastasia Mane

---

The five men on the roof fell dead, filled with about as many holes as the building they stood on. The rest of the group looked to Mane for their next move, but before she could speak, an awful whining filled the air. The collection of rebels pulled whatever ear protection they had over their heads, realizing that the clean-up team had already arrived. With a pair of acoustic ear muffs around her head, she shunted a message to her soldiers digitally. Her ocular interface delivered the following message via encrypted UPF channels.

MULTI-SPEC SMOKES OUT. FIRE ON THE MUTTS. MOVE UP.

At once, her guards tossed a half dozen canisters into the alley. The chemicals inside stirred, bursting into a glorious screen of maroon smoke. Designed to obscure light even outside of the visible spectrum, the grenades would provide them with a small reprieve from the PMC's prying eyes. As the plumes of smoke continued to fill the alley, the rest of the rebels fired a burst into the mutant perimeter guards. The 30 riflemen easily chewed up the 15 surprised mutants.

ADVANCE!

The rebels jumped out from their cover, dashing towards the Biogen building behind only the smoke. They fired on the mutants that came out to engage them, keeping the abominations pinned inside. One of the Reds grabbed the ID tag off of a body, flashing it over one of the facility's machine gun systems. He ripped off a panel concealing the device's circuitry. Hastily wiring an illegal board to the machine and attaching his own joystick, he assumed manual control of the emplacement. The majority of the rebels hid behind the Biogen roadblock, preparing for the PMC's advance, or just firing blindly into the cloud of smoke. A handful faced towards the inside of the facility, carefully suppressing the mutants inside.

Mane shimmed along side a steel barrier, one again turning to face Koshka. Her left eye spun every which way, interacting with the ocular interface. Once finished, she looked the friendly mutant in the eye.

TAKE SOME REDS, MOVE INSIDE. WE'LL STALL THE OTHERS.

Not waiting to see the mutant's response, she began to pass out HEIAP ammo. It wasn't much, only a handful of rounds to each partisan. But a round to the right joint or when timed with other shooters could be just enough to take down whatever metal PMC beasts lied beyond the smoke.

[The Empire of Tau]

Mutants Gone Wild, Quick-Snap Operational Info Update
The Undercity
April 2nd, 2090.
OOC

Things have gotten hot fast.

Five poor souls upon a lonely roof are now swiss-cheese. Decapitated by a storm of lead - engaged by the professional workers of the Blacklight. The first rounds are fired by Blacklight Securities goons.

Fulcrum moves at breaking speeds. His flood-lights greatly assists within the dark of the Undercity. The six-other-B.L.S guards moves behind Fulcrum, ready to engage at a moment's notice. Fulcrum’s somewhat reckless approach is shown to be good at quick-decision making, but that may be cause issues soon than later. Well, Fulcrum is encased in a mech-suit. If anything goes bad, he can shoot it.

Voicebox finds himself daydreaming upon the bountiful reward before he quickly Dispatches rounds-down-range against the rooftop partisans. He identifies a RPG as he than moves with the team towards the site.

For all intent and purposes, the mutants that once guarded the vault-door into the site are now also swiss-cheese. Thirty rifles against fifteen mutants is a matchup that does not need much explaining. Bodies, blood, and guts spill against the wall and ground - the entryway into the site is now at the hands of the United People’s Front.

Canisters of chemicals are thrown into the tight alleys and spots - screens of smoke provides protection against the eyes of Blacklight. Specialized equipment may be prove better at seeing through the smoke, but the smoke may prove problematic due its design.

The UPF’s raid-party prepares for a head-on engagement with one of their engineers managing to gain control a gun-turret - 7.62mm, full-auto.

Four-to-five HEIAP rounds are handed out by Anastasia Mane to each partisan. While useful - their aim may not be as useful. These men are not soldiers, but various factory workers and poor-men. What they lack in skill - they make up for their numbers.

The fun shall start. Interference by God shall not be presence, unless there is something that has gone wrong. For now, all of you are free to shoot and murder each other with free creative liberty.

---

While in the Biogen facility…
I do not have much to say. Time is precious as the mutants knock upon your door.

Dr. Rindón’s plan to set a explosive surprise for their guests is a novel idea, but unless they have protection against such explosive then they will be wounded in the in-suit-ing detonation. Dr. Elasma Leisagh-Khisling is also in a bit of a panic.

So far, so good. For now...

---

Oliver Hawkins, agent of the North American Federation’s Bureau of National Security. Back in March 28th, you been relocated to Site-A5 to conduct investigations against potential Liberty Union infiltration.

it is April 2nd and things has turned south fast. Mutants has raided the facility and you are now within the hallways of the site. You were heading to a interrogation room to talk to a Liberty Union spy before the attack. Your priority has now changed. First is to survive and second is whatever you choose.

You know of a database room within the site. You been to it before and saw the sensitive info at hand. The other options are up for you. There may be potential personnel to save, and or other items to do. I’ll leave that up to you as you go along.

The hall that you’re in is Hallway-1A. You are facing forward of the hallway, which leads to the doors to Hallway-2B, where you know two-high-profile Biogen personnel are located at - from the last time you saw (which was a few minutes ago). Behind you is Hallway-3B, where the database is held. The lights in Hallway-1A (the one you’re in) has not yet gone out. All other hallway's lights are gone.

If you wish head to Hallway-2B then that will land you into a intersection at where four ways are available. The left hallway (1C) leads you closer to the exit. The right hallway (2C) leads to the cafeteria and recreational rooms. If you keep going forward then you’ll find-self at Industrial Corridor 02.

At Industrial Corridor 02, you’ll see six mutants trying to knock down a wall-door on the left. It is the room that you last saw the two-high-profile biogen personnel, Dr. Rindón and Dr. Elasma Leisagh-Khisling.

If you wish to head-onto the database then that’s a more simple process. Hallway-3B leads only forward but the corridor is a long-one that can take up some time. At the end of Hallway-3B is a blast-door that you can quickly gain access via your ID. The blast-door shall open and you’ll find self at the database. Be warned that mutants are within Hallway-3B too. They managed to get in Hallway-3B via the vents.

Good luck and don’t die. All your equipment is on you.

[Flecatya]

Dr. Rindón
Industrial Corridor 02, Site-A5

Relieved to hear that his sole reliable ally against the ever-present threat of being impaled by a group of mutants, Rindón spun around, setting aside his plan to attach the explosive gas canister to the main door.

"Yes, that Stasia Wand would do wonderfully, thank you. If we enter the testing room here," he replies, motioning to the lightly-armored door to the testing room, "then you may be able to propel the canister out at such a rate that it would kill these degenerates upon entry. Of course, given their numbers, I believe it wise to close the remaining door following that and attempt to keep it shut."

Shortly after he gave this suggestion, an epiphany came upon the doctor; Elasma had communicated with corporate via some sort of technology in her arm. With tricks like this up her sleeves, could she not attempt to send out a distress signal? All thing considered, there was little to lose with this ploy, as the mutants already knew where they were and giving their exact location to corporate could very well save their lives.

"Another thing, Miss Leisagh-Khisling; do you think you could make a little call upstairs with that device in your hand?"

[The Palmetto]

GAA Tower

As the lower classes suffered in the grounds below, the rich enjoyed a trivial, carefree life in the high towers of the Midwest. The rich were a minority, with there only being a small middle class, yet there was still money to be needed in meeting their wants and needs. With the demand for entertainment came suppliers of media entertainment, including the talk show known as Good Afternoon America. Run by the famous comedian politician Barry Ming, it featured him talking with high priority officials, distributing fake news, and debating enemies of the state by tearing apart their arguments. In this brightly lit room in the top of Chicago, Mr. Ming sat with Fett Kath, the Prime Minister of the North American Federation.

“Good afternoon, America! I’m Barry Ming here on GAA, here to bring you the best news and the most moral of arguments. Today I’m meeting with none other than our very own Prime Minister, the glorious protector of our liberty, ladies and gentlemen give it up for the esteemed Fett Kath!” Mr. Ming said, shaking the hand of a heavily obese figure as the crowd cheered. To see the two figures and their size difference would make one wonder if Fett Kath was even real, but unfortunately so, he was.

“I’m glad you could come up here to be with us, Mr. Kath. I know your work is very taxing, even if pays well. Anything you want to say before we start?” The host asked.

“Well for one, my job pays well, but I sure hope they’ll be no more mention of taxes here today!” Fett Kath said, laughing so hard at his own joke that his fat rolls could be seen vibrating.

“Haha, I think we can all agree on that. Now Mr. Kath, you’ve told this story many times, but I’m sure one more wouldn’t kill you. How did you become so successful?” Mr. Ming asked Kath. The large man’s cheerful expression become solemn.

“Well…..I was born into crippling poverty, a family of millionaires…,” He said, almost crying. An “aww” could be heard from the crowd, who could hardly imagine the horrors of not having billions of dollars to waste.

“I had to deal with my father’s own abusive negligence, I only had an allowance of a hundred thousand dollars a week, and no matter how hard I cried, he never got me that one small island I asked him to buy me. Apathy at its worst. One day….they just couldn’t handle the burden of having to raise a child, and perhaps for the best, they committed suicide by shooting themselves multiple times. My abuses were finally over, and I turned their only multi hundred million dollar company into one worth billions of dollars, and thats how I stand here today before you all,” Fett Kath said, before smiling a bit as the audience clapped.

“Thank you for sharing your inspirational story, Mr. Kath. You’ve done a lot and worked hard to get where you are, but there are many people who try to rebel against the social order you’ve created. What do you think about them?” The host asked him. Fett Kath laughed, and took a moment before answering.

“They’re just jealous, they can’t accept that you have to work hard for things instead of sitting around and just being born into it. Everyone in this room has worked hard to be rich and these so called ‘poor people’ are just leeches who can’t admit that their poverty is their own fault. If you don’t wanna be homeless, just buy a house! If you don’t wanna starve, just buy some food! Working for these things is beyond their mental and physical capability, and they just want to create anarchy in the name of utopianism. This system has come about by voluntary exchanges, and they want to make voluntary agreements being two parties illegal in the name of freedom. Isn’t that ironic?,” Fett replied with a smirk.

“Indeed it is. You’re a wise man Kath. Thank you for appearing here, Mr. Kath, I hope to see you here again soon. Anything you wanna leave off with?” The host asked him.

“Yes. Remember, if you are rich, you are naturally superior to all who aren’t. We, as a rich people, are equal, but the poors natural tendencies for destruction and poverty is what puts them in the slums and us up here in the towers.”

[Khasinkonia]

Elasma Leisagh-Khisling
Industrial Corridor 02, Site-A5

“Already done,” I responded, “Pressed me panic button and the tracker’s activated.”

As for his plan for my Stasia Wand, I was unsure as to whether I’d be able to do such a thing. It was worth a shot, at least. I grabbed it from my tentacles, and gripped it in my hand, backing up from the door towards the testing chamber door. We’d only have one shot, so I needed to be on my toes. My hair radiated like a star at this point as the tension mounted. If we got out of this, I was getting a hard drink...

“Tell me when,” I said, pointing the wand at the canister in question as I stood at the entrance to the testing chamber.

[Reverend Norv]

Nothing good ever went down in the undercity.

That was an article of faith in every Bureau of National Security office where Oliver Hawkins had ever worked. The undercity, every agent knew, was a den of subversives and horrors. You didn't go down there without a full tactical team and maybe, like Theseus in the labyrinth, a ball of string to unroll behind you so that you could find your way back out again.

But the truth, as every agent also knew, was that darker things than UPF heavies lurked in the shadows beneath America. Corporate labs dotted the undercity, hidden from the gaze of the disapproving middle-class public, closed even to the Bureau except by invitation or search warrant. And in twenty years, no agent had ever served a warrant on the likes of Biogen.

The Bureau knew what went on in those labs, where no prying eyes could reach. Agents knew, when they hunted down mutant horrors and rogue androids, why those creatures always emerged from deep in the undercity. And it didn't have anything to do with "subversives."

So Oliver Hawkins had been surprised, a week earlier, when Biogen had requested a BNS presence at one of its labs below the Midwestern megacity. Apparently, the megacorporation was worried that Liberty Union had infiltrated its research site. The Bureau sector office forwarded the investigation to Priority Cases, and SAC Medina sent Hawkins to check it out: a supervisory special agent without anyone to supervise, just to show that BNS was taking the whole situation very seriously, yessir thank you sir.

For Hawkins, it had seemed like pretty close to a best-case scenario. In the undercity, making contact with his handlers in the UPF was far safer and more convenient than it was on the surface, where prying eyes were everywhere. Down here, all I have to do is step out the site door and drop a message in the nearest waste-chute. Because Hawkins was understaffed, he didn't have to worry about other agents monitoring his movements. And best of all, after four days of interviewing the staff, it had become clear that Site A5's actual problem was with Barry Printer in accounting, who was skimming off the research accounts, and with Lilian Chu in biosciences, who had a lover in Cleveland and liked to monologue about her classified research while in bed. There's no Liberty Union presence here to bust. Good old-fashioned human greed and lust were the only reasons the lab leaked cash and secrets.

So: an easy case, a good chance to liaise with Hawkins' contacts, a vacation from having to look over his shoulder every time he left his apartment. Hawkins had been enjoying himself, just walking over to the interrogation room to put the squeeze on Barry Printer, until he had turned a corner and come face-to-face with two eight-foot mutants in the middle of the hallway.

Hawkins looked at the mutants. The mutants looked at Hawkins - one of them through a third eye beneath its lower lip. Then one of the creatures made a guttural noise, and started to raise its rifle.

Oliver Hawkins felt the synthetic adrenaline hit his system like a truck made of lightning, and suddenly his handgun was out and braced in a Weaver stance, and his retinal implant painted a red crosshairs over the first mutant's chest, and now the crosshairs was green because Hawkins' aim was on target, and he felt himself squeeze the trigger but it was also like the gun was firing itself, because the adrenaline was really pumping now and everything was fast-fast-fast -

The standard load for a BNS agent's sidearm was caseless .50-caliber frangible hollow-points: bullets that expanded on impact until they disintegrated into razor-sharp shrapnel that sliced the target into hamburger. Hawkins pumped two of those rounds into the first mutant, right where his retinal implant told him to, and the creature's whole chest more or less liquified and hit the corridor wall behind it in a fine red spray. The other mutant bellowed and started to fling itself flat, and Hawkins' implant painted a red crosshairs on the side of its head, and Hawkins tracked and aimed until the crosshairs turned green, and the heavy handgun roared again, and the mutant's head exploded, and it lay still.

For a moment, Hawkins stood stock-still in the hallway: panting lightly, letting the synthetic adrenaline drain out of his bloodstream as his bionetic implant went dormant again. He scraped his foot against the floor, wiping brains off his dress boot. "Fucking undercity."

There was always something.

"Okay," Hawkins muttered. "Okay. Focus."

It was, indisputably, time to get out of Site A5. There was just one problem with that: in the course of Hawkins' investigation, he had discovered that this site's database contained information on dozens of Biogen's secret laboratories and projects. That information would be invaluable to the UPF, but in the normal course of events, Hawkins would never have been able to get close to the database room. Too many eyes watching everything I do, and the intel wouldn't have been relevant to my official investigation.

This was not the normal course of events. Hawkins cocked his head. In the distance, he could hear the roar of massed rifle fire, more fire than the site's security team could possibly be responsible for. Whatever's going on here, it's big. Big enough that one man won't be noticed slipping into the database room.

Hawkins carefully shifted his grip on his handgun. There were, he knew, probably scientists in trouble all over the laboratory as well. They knew what they signed up for when they went to work down here on God knows what. Hawkins didn't like that justification, didn't like that he had reached for it. But the fact that it was callous didn't make it wrong.

"I'll get to them if I can after the database," the agent muttered. And with that, he turned and raised his gun and walked swiftly and quietly toward Hallway 3B.

The corridor was long and dark; the fighting seemed to have knocked out the electric lights in most of the facility. Hawkins blinked several times, and his retinal implants seamlessly shifted to night-vision. In sickly green clarity, Hawkins could see the blast door at the very end of the hallway, guarding the database room. And he could see the mutants blocking his way to that door, milling about in the dark, unable to see the man who hunted them.

Hawkins was silent as death. He raised his handgun and aimed at one mutant after the other, marking them for his retinal implant, letting the targeting algorithm paint a neat red crosshairs on each target's chest or head. He steadied his pistol, and aimed, and watched the first crosshairs turn green.

Cold and fast. Take them all down in five seconds, before they figure out where the fire is coming from. I won't get a second chance if enough of them are left alive to rush me.

Oliver Hawkins let out a shallow breath, and squeezed, and squeezed again. And the pitch-black hallway was suddenly filled with fire and death.