Nottingham, England
Thursday 4th May, 2051
9.15 PM

Deep in the bowels of the British Biolabs facility, the Lazarus team have identified three points at which well-placed explosives could literally “bring the house down.” The three are equidistant around the level – one by the labs, one by the monitoring station and another right next to the level’s security station, where it supports the elevator shafts as well as the roof. However, the team’s hacking support is being counter-hacked by an external force and the team have reason to believe that force may be Mac’s enigmatic A.I. father. The route to any of the three massive support pillars is liable to be fraught with danger, still, the team are in the ducts like well-armed rats in the walls.
Able crawls down the duct towards the labs, the target chosen as likely the ‘softest’ of the bunch. “You guys ready for this?”

“Always. It’s ’bout time I show these scrubs what a real soldier looks like.” Pitbull growls as he racks his rifle.

Tillie just nods, her flechette pistol in one hand and a large, wicked looking monoknife in the other.

Pacoy maintains his grip on the precarious handholds and nods, “Yep.”

Mac drags along his rifle as he moves. “I’m not ready for this, but I’m not seeing us with a dearth of options.”

Pitbull pats Mac on the back. “Don’t worry, bruh. When all else fails, aim for body shots and don’t stop firing until you lose consciousness or there are no more bad dudes left.”

Mac grimaces. “Why did you have the say the C-word? Every time someone brings that up, I end up out cold in some facet or other.”

It’s dark in the ducting, and there are sudden sounds of creaking metal as the team crawl along, overlain by the distant hum of electrical equipment.

Able continues on his way, keeping quiet in the ducts as he heads for the nearest vent to peak out.

Pitbull prepares to follow Able before turning to Mac. “Aw dude, don’ worry! Sure they’re tough, but they ain’ Texans. We faced Texans and won. We’re good.”

In the darkness, Able only manages to hear one of the background sounds differentiate itself as he crawls closer because he himself is so quiet. It’s as if someone was pouring a thin stream of sand endlessly across a steel plate.

At the mention of fighting Texans, Pacoy is reminded that their sweet mobile combat base was most likely blown the hell up with the rest of their stuff.

Mac scrunches his face up as he follows Pitbull, sending a note out to his entire team. “Does anyone else find it particularly disheartening that our Texan is talking about Texans being beatable?”

Able holds up a hand to the others, shifting so his bulk doesn’t completely block their view of his hand.

Mac stops before he runs into Pitbull from behind.
As he switches to I-R overlay in his shades, Able sees a criss-cross grid of bright light blocking the duct, with gaps of barely an inch between the beams. The sound is the very air and dust motes vaporizing and ionizing against the laser grid.

Able squirts a low-powered message to the others. “We have laser traps in the vents. Be careful.”

Mac tries to look past Pitbull, but settles for staring at his feet. “Are they alarm lasers, or putting holes-in-things lasers? How strong are the beams?”

“Put your finger in and check it out, Mac.” Pacoy teases, “I’ll get you a new one if you lose it.”

“The puttin’ holes variety. They watched Die Hard and hate rats.” Pitbull grates as he decides to light a smoke.

Mac shakes his head. “I can’t get around Pitbull’s ass. He’s blocking my sight, and I may need new eyes afterwards. Anyone got anything we can disable it with? Something to block the emitters?”

Able grabs Pitbull’s cigarette before it lights up. “Don’t. The smoke will alert our targets.”

Pitbull’s scarred face contorts into his best rendition of pouting. “I guess you’re right.”

Able turns back to the laser system, pulling out some tools specifically designed for this type of job; after a few moments, he’s reflected the laser beams back onto their emitters using a set of IR mirrors on sticks, and the duct is clear. Able begins shuffling forwards again. “Let’s move.”

In a minute or two, Able comes to a three-way junction in the ducting. He can hear faint voices coming from the far right.

Mac lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding before pushing on Pitbull’s boots to get the lug started forward again. Once on the way, he wipes his hands on his coat before proceeding.

“Awwwww yeah.” Pitbull mock yells as he creeps forward. “Abe, I hope you don’t mind that you have like six different pieces of gum on the bottom of yer boots. The army would whip the shit outta you if they saw that.”

Mac rolls his eyes in the darkness. “Doesn’t count, Pitbull, you put those there. I saw you do it!”

Able waves Pitbull to silence and listens carefully. Voices float back from the far right: “Think we’ll be here a while?” “Dunno, the boss-lady’s sure she’s got something good going so maybe. Still, be alert – there’s some kind of shit going down upstairs from the lack of comms. We don’t want a repeat of the mansion, do we?”

“Mac, my breath smells like ass, kerosene, and alcohol on a regular basis. What makes you think I actually chew gu-” Pitbull stops his whispering on Able’s command.

Able points towards ‘Recombinant Two’, the direction of the voices, at Pitbull – now between him and the exit. He shoos the big man forwards.

Mac rolls his eyes, sending a half-formed text before he sees Able’s movement. “Pitbull, your ass smells like kero—-”

Pitbull perplexedly sends a team wide text. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you wanting to split the party?”

Able shakes his head at Pitbull, then ushers him forwards again.

Pitbull moves in the direction dictated by Able, before the voices finally come in his direction. “Oh. That makes sense. Neutralize?” Pitbull texts.

A short way beyond Able, the right hand vent dips down before leveling out again. At the end is a metal grill – and another laser grid. Beyond that, Pitbull can see a room, at one end of which is a massive window, and the black boots of two people standing by an exit door. Through the window, he can see a massive chamber in the center of which is some kind of apparatus containing a shadowy humanoid form. Two figures in bright yellow hazmat gear are working at the central chamber.

Pacoy pats a pocket, contemplating if he should send a Pinbot or IMP along with Pit.
Pitbull motions Able before texting him. “Another laser grid. I can only operate a comp. Halp?”

Able shrinks his body to a scrawny little thing so he can safely move beyond Pits’ bulk from within the confines of the air ducts. Once he’s at the laser grid, he begins messing with his tools….

Tillie texts: “There’s a third in the room, a woman, I can hear her breathe.”

Pitbull frowns. “Potential hostile?” He texts back.

Tillie’s text is short: “presume so.”

Mac’s nose wrinkles. “That’s incredibly creepy that you can identify a woman just by how she breathes. You don’t happen to have a very gothy brother, do you?”

Pitbull’s eyes narrow as an idea hits him. “I nominate Mac to go first. Mac is faster than all of us. He can seize the initiative, I follow him in, fuck them up, and you guys can follow in for a mop up. Sound like a good plan for insurrection?” Pitbull texts to everyone. “And Abe too, come to think of it. You dudes got the speed, I got the firepower.”

Mac grumbles. “You just want me to get hurt. But I’ll do it, because I like you guys. Maybe I can distract them for just long enough for you guys to carry my body out of here.”

Able begins to quietly work upon removing the vent panel. He indicates to the others to get ready.

Mac gets his rifle ready for when he gets out of the vent, feeling butterflies in his stomach. “Anyone bring a ration bar? I’m getting hungry.”

A female voice says “Bertrand, any news from upstairs?” “Non, Madame,” replies another. Tillie texts “It’s the female PST agent from the mansion!”

“Pacoy, prepare some drones, maybe? They’ll make a damn fine distraction, if not actually fucking some of them up.” Pitbull texts the team.

Pacoy nods to Pitbull and shows him one of the IMP drones, ready for action.

“Make sure it flies at head level. That makes lesser men shit themselves. Ever see a grown ass man freak out over a wasp? It’ll be that times a hundred.” Pitbull adds.

Able rolls out into the room, making an acrobatic somersault into a standing position. In a flash, he marks the team’s targets – a woman against the wall he’s come through, and two men by the door. All are dressed in the rig of an Umbra Personal Security Team – fancy suits with armored cloth, high-necked armored trenchcoats, and tac-shades. Each carries a sub-machine gun in a combat sling and a pistol in a shoulder holster. The three PST members, including the woman who Able recognizes as one who got stunned in the mansion run, stand open-mouthed in shock for an instant.

With the screws loosened, Able readies himself – engages his reflex booster – and pushes out on the panel with his back, propelled forwards by a kick behind him. With an acrobatic somersault, Able rights himself within arm’s reach of the two guards. His arms lash out at once, punching the two guards square in their unarmored faces with his shock-gloved hands.

Mac braces himself as Pitbull shoves his feet hard enough to cause him to slide out of the vent, flipping his rifle up at the woman as he rises, frowning as he feels himself channeling Pitbull and depressing the trigger on his rifle as far as it will go.
Pacoy slides out of the vent, rifle in hand.

He watches as three bullets tear into the woman, feeling part of himself shut down like a small child hiding behind a blanket – hidden, but forgotten. Almost mechanically, he swings his rifle towards one of the other guards, feeling a chill run down his spine. Is this what Pitbull feels like all the time? He lets off another chatter of rifle fire, his bones rattling as three more bullets stitch through the man in his sights, forcing him to grit his teeth, feeling bile rising in his throat, forcing him to acknowledge what he has done.
Tillie raises her flechette gun as she slides out of the vent and puts a needle right into the final guard’s face, leaving an ugly pock-mark and leaving him reeling, disoriented.

On his feet, Pacoy readies his rifle.

Pitbull rolls out of the vent behind Pacoy and, in the blink of an eye, plants three rounds in the last standing Umbra goon’s chest, killing him before he could even fall over. “Hah! Like shooting game in a hallway!”

Able takes a glance towards the glass window, curious how the scientists were responding to the destruction of their bodyguards, then looks around the room to get an idea of where they are.

The last shots leave the room ringing, and are only punctuated by the low moans of the PST team leader as she coughs blood, obviously dying. Beyond the plate glass, the two scientists stand in shock, helplessly watching. Through her faceplate, the team can see one is Professor Phillipa Barton.

Mac’s eyes eventually come back into focus as he stares at the poor bodies of those whom came before. “Guys… do you ever… have trouble with what we do?” He stares at his rifle before fiddling with it. “Pitbull, how do you take the autofire off of this thing?”

The room the team stands in holds an exit door, and an airlock door into the chamber beyond the plate glass, as well as a bank of controls.

Able heads for the exit door, pulling out his pistol as he moves. He throws the door open and takes in the scene beyond it.

“Break some stuff, Pit,” Pacoy suggests, “Then let’s move on to Door Number 2.”

Tillie crouches by the final PST member, the hand with the knife moves, and the moaning stops. As she stands, she calls out “Pacoy, have a look at that panel – see if you can find a kill switch for that…thing…in there.”

“I did, but the Rough Riders ground that out of me in Mexico. You get used to this line of work after so many people try to make you die. And just flick the selector stud on the side, Mac.” Pitbull growls as he lights another cigarette. “Ah the post-slaughter cigarette. Almost as satisfying as the post-coital cigarette.”

Pacoy hurries to the panel, looking for a way to keep the monstrosity offline.

Outside, Able sees a security camera up in one corner angle, and about forty feet of corridor leading to two other doors. A siren begins a two-tone song, and the lights begin to flash like a strobe.

Mac winces as he jams the selector stud off of the autofire mode. Never again… “You’re really disturbing, you know that, buddy?”

Pitbull puts one of his booted feet into the nearest console, a shower of sparks and glass spraying back in reply. “Coping mechanism, Mac-bro. You either kill yourself, or you learn to enjoy it from my experience.”

Able sets up a firing position to watch the halls and cover those still inside while they deal with the tanked creature.

“Now that you took a turn trying to be Pit,” Pacoy teases as he fiddles with the panel, “You can get your hands inside a teammates chest cavity, or walk around with a half-formed copy of your best friend strapped to your back.”

“If we puncture the tank, do you think it’ll send the creature into shock?” Pitbull opines as he puts another boot into another console.

Pacoy find a big red button, covered in a guard of plastic that can be flipped back. It has a marking on it – the symbol for a biocontaminant.

Mac shakes his head. “Maybe I’ve read too much pulp Sci-Fi, but shocking the monster almost always wakes it up..” He looks to the hall Able is covering. “Besides, I carried that copy too. Like to see you carry a clone of yourself around without complaining, Pacoy.”

“My clone would at least be good looking,” Pacoy answers as he opens the plastic guard, hesitating for a moment before pressing the large red button.

“Hey Able, I think you can ditch the disguise now.” He holds out Able’s coat towards his friend.

Mac rolls his eyes. “Ouch, that’s a low blow, brother.”

Able puts his trenchcoat on, then activates the chameleon sheath as he continues to cover the hallway. “Thanks, Mac.”

Inside the glassed-in chamber, a red strobing light begins. Both the scientists run to the airlock door and frantically begin to pound on the inside glass, trying to get out. Then there’s a cloud of vapor, and a bright violet light from several sources high on the roof. The two scientists are enveloped.
“Abe, I gotta question. Whenever you’re on down time, do you occasionally shift to look like David Bowie, just to lay around looking like David Bowie?” Pitbull asks, as he watches the scientists disappear in the chemical fog.

Mac’s face screws up. “David… Bowie? Why on earth would anyone do a thing like that? Are we all set here, Pacoy?”

Able flicks a glance back at Pitbull. “Who?” He begins making his way to the next door down the hallway – the location of their explody target.

Tillie moves past Mac, “Yeah, we’re all done in there. It’s clean.”

“Let’s move on to door number two,” Pacoy nods to Mac, rifle at the ready.

Mac stalks along behind Able, throwing the occasional glance at his fire selector, ensuring it’s in the right position. “Monty Hall it is. I hope it’s not a goat again…”

“Oh y’know him! Ever watch Labyrinth on the Classic Movie Channel? The guy dressed like a drag queen with a bulge in his pants that could put out an eye?” Pitbull adds, as he follows Able to the next room.

The next door is marked “Recombinant One”. It has a security lock, currently disengaged.

Able tosses open the door, ready to take on another security team or recombinant monster. “No, can’t say I have.”

Pacoy is at a loss for words, realizing that this isn’t the weirdest thing he’s heard from Pitbull’s mouth.

Mac gags, the memory of bile still on his mind. “I’m not sure I like that line of questioning, Pitbull. You’ve been hanging around Wormwood too much.”

The room inside is slightly different from the first – no glass wall, just a chamber with various consoles on a gantry and a hideous figure in a big glass tube in the center. The room is otherwise unoccupied.

Pacoy heads straight for the bank of electronics.

Able quickly clears the room, then heads for the sweet spot for the explosives.

Mac levels his rifle at the figure, a sinking feeling growing in his stomach. “I’m not sure I like that lock being open…”

Able nods to Tillie. “Make sure the door stays open.”

“On it” Tillie tells Able.

“It is worth the watch. A real classic from the 80’s. Seems like fore- oh. Well, ain’t this dude fugly?” Pitbull grates as the glass container’s inhabitant catches his eye.

As Pacoy reached the first monitor, it blanks – as does every other screen in the place. Then, a laughing electronic, pixilated face flashes onto every screen at once.

Mac giggles to himself, finding an odd compulsion… “Pitbull, that’s a mirror.”

“Oh, that’s not good…” Pacoy mutters.

Glimpsing the face, the bile rises in Mac’s throat again. Of all places… of all people… why here? Why him?

“Naw that dude is way uglier than me. A face like mine won’t scare off a drunken date. A face like that requires someone to down a keg.” Pitbull, late to the situation as usual catches the sight of the laughing pixilated face. “Oh fuck, It’s Phil Collins again. So that means fugly is gonna bust out of the container, right?”

Nottingham, England
Thursday 4th May, 2051
9.07 PM

The Lazarus Team and their ally Tillie Jones are in an elevator on the 2nd floor of the British Biotech Inc. lab complex, looking at the slumbering forms of three cleaning staff that have just been knocked out by a gas grenade. Outside, the rattle of small-arms fire is becoming a rising din as the security forces at the complex respond to a diversion staged by a unit of White Mice, the British Resistance Army. Just once, there’s the whoosh of a rocket launcher, followed by an almighty explosion – perhaps the Mice have taken out a light armored patrol car or maybe the security guards are better armed than expected.

Having suborned a droid earlier in their infiltration, the team are now in possession of floorplans for the complex. Tillie consults her pocket-comp and throws up a holo-display. “This elevator only goes to the floors above ground. Looks like we need to get down one level, then head for this security station and the door beyond it – that’ll take us down into the basement levels.”
Mac looks at the sleeping staff, then nods. “What’s the best path?” He begins scanning the floorprints, looking for an efficient way that might let them bypass the security bunkers.

Pitbull takes a long drag off of his freshly lit cigarette, and services his Gauss Rifle as he listens intently.

Mac starts shaking his head, he begins tracing a line through the display. “Best path… best path… Path of least resistance… air follows the path of least resistance. The air ducts. There’s one for each floor. We find them, we get to the right one, cut it open and we’re in. Unless they run incinerators in the duct, we’ll be fine.” He points to the location of the ducts on the map. He looks over at Able. “You think there’s any benefit in running a disguise with one of the janitor’s jumpsuits? As long as it doesn’t get in your way, might buy us a few extra moments of peace here and there. If we want to be standard about it, we can take the lifts, but there’s a security bunker at each one, and we’re twelve shades of stood up if their team get control of the doors back.”

“I can try to cut into the ducts, maybe – or we can blow our way in with one of the explosive packages – but that might bring the house down a bit.” Tillie says.

Mac nods. “In more ways than one. They don’t know our destination yet, with any luck. We should keep it that way for as long as possible.”

“And we’ve still got to bring the house down entirely later. I don’t think using the explosives yet is a good plan.” Able takes a moment to look over the janitor’s clothing, then fiddles with his neural interface for a moment.

Mac looks over at Able. “You know, back in my day, we actually had to wear the mark’s clothing.” He pats the staff down, looking for identification, keys or keycards. He finds nothing, then shoots Tillie a look.

“Yeah, yeah, and you had to walk to school uphill, both ways,” Pac grins as he starts setting up some equipment, “I think I have something that’ll work here.”

Tillie produces the male janitors ID and security card – he seems to be the janitorial supervisor.

Able’s morphwear clothing expands and simplifies as whiskers begin to spread from his jawline and his hair begins to recede. A few moments later, where once stood an athletic man of indeterminate age with a forgettable face and a full head of hair, clad in black-and-gray tactical gear, now stands a mid-fifties balding man who has had maybe ten hoagies too many… every day for the past thirty years, dressed in a typical blue janitor’s jumpsuit. Able nods to Tillie as he picks up the man’s ID and security card. “Danke.”

Able clips the badge on to his shirt, underneath his tactical trenchcoat. “I’ll have to leave one of you my coat if I approach the guards, but this could work.”

“Every time I see that, I have to do a double-take, Able.” Tillie grins. “Come on, this way I believe.” She sets off at a lope.

A message appears on the team’s HUD: + Mice say one Cat got out of the hole – pursuing but clock is now ticking for Cat Infestation. +

Mac blinks a few times. “Sister, you have no idea.” He trots off after Tillie. “And I thought my analogies were tortured. Set the clock, gentlemen. The races are on.”

Pitbull racks his rifle before following Tillie, quickly catching up to her with his thunderous booted stride.

Able tosses his coat to Pitbull as he waddles out in front of the group, visibly panting with the effort of moving his bulk.

“Best thing for a cat infestation?” Pacoy comms, “A Pitbull, right?”

“Damn, Abe. You really let yourself go in the last… ten minutes.” Pitbull chuckles, as he catches his coat.

Hefting his holdall, Mac hustles along, trying to figure out exactly which duct they need. “I’m not sure we’re going to be able to get out the way we came in. We might have to get out the hard way. This place doesn’t have any stairs down here? What do they do in the event of a fire, let everyone die? I’d not be surprised, but good researchers and employees are hard to find.”

“Not if you’re cloning them. Mac,” Pacoy answers, “Then you just call it a bad trial and reboot the program.”

Tillie smiles without mirth. “Actually, Mac, that’s exactly what you do — if the labs they work in are dealing with recombinant DNA, retroviral splicing and chunks of mutated animal genes. Better a deadly fire than an escape of wild mutagens. Remember Gen-Nu?”

The team turn down a corridor, heading towards the ventilation plant – and a door ahead bursts sparks, then opens to reveal three men in black body armor and dark-visored helmets emblazoned with the Umbra logo.

Mac frowns. “But… those gnox are really tasty.” His eyes harden as he reaches for his gun.

Pitbull shudders as he remembers the second mission of the team. “Yeah. Let’s not have another Gun-Nu…” He trails off as the Umbra Soldiers come into plain view.
Mac’s eyes dilate as the world slows to a crawl. He hear’s Pitbull’s drawl continuing past the end of his sentence as he shrugs his carryall off his shoulder. His other hand slips into his pocket and wrestles his revolver out of his pocket, bringing his other arm across his body. Barely letting the muzzle of the barrel get loose, he fans the hammer three times, letting the rounds free to find their homes embedded in the soldier’s armor, having done not much of anything. His bag hits the floor with a disappointing thud.

Seeing the familiar Umbra logo and knowing what it means in a situation like this, Pacoy boots up his Insta-Soldier and goes for his rifle.

Tillie pulls out a short, fat and snub-nosed automatic pistol and in one fluid movement squeezes the trigger. Three thin hyper-dense needles flash downrange, and two of them end up in the guts of the lead Umbra guard, boring through his armor and into his liver. He drops, screaming.

Pitbull’s militant instincts flare into life once more as he releases a three round burst on the next Umbra crony. As all three rounds hit, coroners would find that the man died upon the impact of the second round. The crony crumples then ragdolls onto the ground as Pitbull grins then grates, “Don’t mess with Texas, bitch.”

The guard fires his PDW at Tillie as he begins to fall – hitting her three times. Her ghost suit stops the first bullet, her toughened, bio-enhanced skin the second – but the third penetrates into her chest, leaving a shallow wound which knocks the wind from her even so.

The still-standing guard unleashes a burst at Pitbull, but the single bullet that hits is stopped by the big Texan’s body armor.

“The fuck did I just say, boy?! Don’t mess with Texas, bitch!” Pitbull roars at the confused and now startled guard.

Able shuffles his bulk up to the guard at as much of a dead-run as he’s able. “Oh god! Oh god! Please tell me there are more of you!” As he passes the guard, he spins around and activates his reflex booster. His hands reach out to grasp the man from behind by his helmet, and with the full force of his cybernetically-augmented muscles he pulls.

With a crack, the vertebrae break under Able’s pressure, and he falls to the floor, quite deceased.

Pitbull languidly walks over to the last living guard, now lying on the ground bleating in agony. He plants his boot on the guy’s neck and twists, snapping his neck with a sound likened to the breaking of a chicken bone.

He lights another cigarette as though nothing happened before growling, “Shall we?”
Mac grimaces. “Was that… necessary?” He sighs as he looks at his revolver, fitting three more rounds into place before replacing it in his pocket. He digs through his bag, bringing out his looted rifle before slinging the bag across his back.

Tillie staggers and sits down hard – then slowly climbs to her feet again. She reaches to a pouch at her belt, retrieving forceps and a can of spray bandage. “Anyone care to do the honors? One of them scratched my left tit. Pacoy?”

Pitbull arches an eyebrow as he looks at her, cigarette still pressed between his lips.

Mac turns away, rapidly averting his eyes, searching for anything else to look at. He pats the ex-soldiers down, checking for any items of utility by way of distracting himself from Tillie.

“Can honestly say I’ve had more awkward work,” Pacoy says as he stows his rifle and brings out his medkit, heading over to Tillie.

Able looks through the door the guards came out of as the resident medic takes care of the injured boob.

Pitbull stands and watches, arms folded and grinning as though watching a show, cigarette still held between his lips with each drag illuminating his face enough to see exactly what his eyes are on.

Beyond the door is a small rest area with a dingy card table and three chairs. A box of tools lies on the floor by the door and the lock mechanism has been destroyed from the other side. Across the room is a door marked with big yellow warning signs. “Restricted – Biohazard Containment Area – High Tension Machinery.” It’s the ventilation plant.
With hardly a grope, Pacoy manages to expertly patch up the flesh wound.

Mac nabs a small computer and a biometric scanner from one of the Umbra guards, stashing the scanner before beginning a casual review of the contents of the PC. “At least we’ve come to the right place, gentlemen. Pacoy, do you massage machines to make them less tense? Is that how it works?”

Mac, inspecting the fallen guards, sees his own face and those of his team mirrored in the HUD of one. On closer inspection, the faces are tagged with a “Dangerous – extreme sanction authorized” logo and appear to be from an image-recognition software package in the belt computer.

Tillie closes her ghost suit and works her shoulder a little. “Thanks, Pacoy – if we’d left that bullet in there a couple of hours my skin would have grown over it… and that just wouldn’t have felt as nice, would it?”

“If that’s a proposition, Mac, you’ll have to try better than that!” Pacoy grins, “What would Angie think?”
“Huh. So this is what it’s like to be famous.” Pitbull growls, as he catches his and the team’s pictures in the helmets.

Mac scoffs. “Well, it looks like they’re onto us being here. That was quick…” He laughs at Pacoy, “Oh I don’t even want to think about that. Looks like we should pick up the pace, lads and gal.”

As Pitbull inspects the helmet image, he sees it flicker, as if for a split instant some other image replaced it.

Able steps back in the hall. “I think we’ve found the ventilation room. Hurry up.”

Mac straightens up, stepping through the portal, checking around for reinforcements, hefting the rifle uncomfortably. “I think that’s Pacoy’s department.”

Pitbull’s sun damaged face contracts into a squint as he notices the image change. He scrutinizes it further…

Whatever was there is gone now – the screen displays exactly what it did a few moments ago.

Able quirks an eyebrow at Pitbull’s hesitancy. “Found something for the resident techies to handle?”

Inside the ventilation room, three large pipes rise floor to ceiling. Each is about five feet across and encrusted with gauges, monitors, and power junctions feeding fans that must be at the top of each pipe – and possible further down.

Pitbull lobs the helmet at Able. “It has our wanted posters playing in there, but the display changed to something I didn’t quite catch.”

Able catches the helmet. “Did your implant record it?”

“Wait… fuckin’ computers…” Pitbull growls as he rolls his eyes back and rewinds the footage of the recent event.

He looks down at the helmet, peering into the spectacles through his nightshades.
Pacoy quickly attaches a few parts to a small tank, “Plasma cutter, online.”

In Pitbull’s computer memory, for a single instant the screen is shown changing to a face…

Pitbull pauses the footage, wills his implant computer to take a screenshot, and sends it to his compatriots. “Anyone know this fucker? Looks kinda like Phil Collins, but I doubt he has anything to do here.”

Able shrugs as he feeds the image into his facial recognition program. “Not off hand.”

Mac glances at Pacoy as the cutting. “Say, is that from something? It sounds like it’s from something.” He returns his attentions to from whence they came. “I don’t think he’s ringing any Bells. Tillie, what’s Merlin look li—-” Suddenly, Mac’s knees go weak and he almost falls over. Shakily standing up, Mac’s voice quavers. “Guys.. this… this doesn’t feel good. I have a really really bad feeling about this.”

Tillie shakes her head. “That’s not Merlin.”

Able shrugs. “Looks vaguely familiar, but my facial rec search isn’t getting any high-confidence matches. Closest one is an old, dead banker.”

Mac’s face falls. “Old? Why did you have to say old, Able? How old?”

Able shrugs. “He died back in 2038.”

Mac shakes his head. “No, no he didn’t. I don’t think he died at all. Not in the sense that Tillie might understand, at any rate.” He swallows. “You remember how Omaha ended, lads?”

Pitbull stomps over to Mac. “You telling me that the fucker we just saw was Siri’s uncle?”

Able stands guard at Pacoy’s back as he begins to work upon the wall. “Soldiers raining from the skies.”

Mac shakes his head, looking Pitbull square in the eye, his own eyes frozen in fear. “Father.”

A message appears in all your HUD’s. +++CounterHack! Strong. Move it! M3RL1N +

“So… BritArms, Armatech, Umbra AND evil robot demi-god, sounds about right!” Pacoy grunts as he cuts through the piping, “Just about through, guys.”

Pitbull’s eyes widen in realization. “Yeah. Time to move. Assholes and elbows, let’s go!” Pitbull growls, masking his own concern with his gung-ho and clichéd saying.

It takes about six minutes for Pacoy to complete his work. During that time, the lights, which have been emergency-power dim, suddenly flicker then brighten to full power. Then a voice comes through your comms – someone who sounds about 16 and is very scared. “We’re fucked. Ted’s deck burned. I’ll try to keep them out of their comms relay as long as I can, but that’s about it! Merlin out!”

Tillie curses. “Merlin’s like a prodigy – a Mozart – and he’s getting his ass kicked?”
Able swears as Pacoy finishes his cutting, then grabs the wall panel and tosses it to the floor before dropping the ladder on the floor and diving head-first into the ventilation shaft, trusting in the others to follow after him.

Mac shakes his head, trying to mask the terror in his voice. “He never stood a chance. He was just being played with. Our best bet is to get out of here as quickly as we can.” Setting the ladder, he hurls himself down the shaft after Able, climbing down as fast as possible.

“If we’re dealing with a demi-god personality that has been uploaded into a computer, than that’d make sense. Even if he’s a prodigy, he’s still fighting something that’s arms and legs is the computer, while he’s only got chop sticks.” Pitbull growls sourly.

Tillie follows Able without a moment’s hesitation.

Pitbull rushes behind as well, topping off the clip on his rifle as he runs to the shaft entry.

Pacoy quickly closes a valve on the torch, removes a clamp and turns two knobs to their maximum setting before giving the ting a heavy shove down the hall and following the crew into the shaft.

Below, there’s a thirty foot drop to a square concrete chamber about ten feet across. A massive impeller fan is imbedded in the floor, unmoving while ducts run off from all sides of the chamber. Tillie consults her holo-map. “That way to the labs,” she points. “That way to something called ‘Birth Monitoring’. That way to the security station and the elevators.”

Mac looks down the ducts. “We’ve got to deal with the labs and the monitoring station, don’t we? To make sure we hurt them as much as possible?”

Able nods. “And the birthing chamber. That’s where the new soldiers will be; I expect heavy resistance there.”

Mac frowns. “The labs first then – less resistance, and greater long-term damage. Then we get rid of what they have created.”

As the team watch, three locations glow red on the holo-display. The folk helping them have analyzed the plans and come up with three structurally significant pilings running through the entire complex. Blow them apart, and the upper floors will fold down into the lower ones.

The three are equidistant around the level – one by the labs, one by the monitoring station and another right next to the level’s security station – where it supports the elevator shafts as well as the roof.
“Or we just blow those red spots up and watch this place collapse on itself like a cheap Chinese tire.” Pitbull adds.

Mac analyzes the map. “Looks like we’re going to be heading to each one of these places. Hopefully we have enough munitions to bring this entire place to so much rubble my brothers would never be able to shift any of it.”

Able looks down the shaft leading to the birthing chamber – likely a mirror of the one he himself stepped out of so long ago. “Either way, we’re up against some stiff resistance. Watch yourselves out there.”

“I ain’ afraid of no killer lab rats. They may think they’re soldiers, but they ain’ Texans. Easy pickins.” Pitbull growls with equal menace and humour.

Mac looks at Pitbull, then hefts his rifle in a manner which his friend does often. “Nothing we can’t handle. Father’s backing the wrong horse, and I say we bring this damn house down around his ears.”

Pacoy looks at the schematics and curses his lack of foresight in adding demolitions expert to the InstaSoldiers catalog. Oh, well, that sounds like the start of new project!

Nottingham, England
Thursday 4th May, 2051
9.00 PM

Finally, after a trip around a country under the jackboot of oppression, the Lazarus Team and Tillie Jones rendezvous with their team-mate Pitbull and a small group of around a dozen hardened British Resistance fighters in a badly-lit parking garage in an office district only a few miles from their target. Tonight, if all goes well, they will bring down a well-funded plan to create a world of computer-controlled slaves for the megacorps.

The “White Mice” may be in old and worn civilian clothes, and comprise a mix of young street-toughs leavened by a couple of older and calmer types from the old British Marines and Paratroop Regiment, but they’re well armed with stolen weaponry including a SAM launcher and a pair of E-warfare kits in two nondescript vans. They will provide a diversion, and back-up firepower, while the team and Tillie infiltrate the massive British Bio facility.

At the same time, a crew of hackers from Mutate & Survive will try to subvert internal security via the Net, opening locked doors, turning off cameras and hopefully rendering automatic defenses useless.

If things don’t go well, the team and their allies can expect to be surrounded and overwhelmed by responding State forces.

This is where it all comes to a head.

Mac finishes tucking his suitcase in his carryall, ensuring nothing will break if he has to ditch the entire bit in a hurry. He checks and re-checks his pistol loadout, hoping he won’t have to use it on anyone. He runs over the plan in his head, tracing it’s edges like a worn out paperback until it becomes familiar, reassuring. “Our best bet, if this information holds out, is to punch in at exactly two hours before midnight. There’s a shift change then, so that should give us a few minutes of disorganization – more if their replacements spend time monkeying around. Best case, we get an extra eighteen minutes, which could make all the difference in everyone making it out alive.”

Able claps Mac on the shoulder. “Sounds good. I’ll climb the wall then.” He continues rolling up the cord ladder he’s been working on into a tight pouch, ready to be dropped to the groundlings when it’s time.

Tillie, already stripped down to her form-fitting Stealth suit, slings her sniper rifle across her back and claps Mac on the back, then winks at Pacoy. “Then we better get rolling in about fifteen minutes. Last checks, everyone!” She yells to the waiting Mice. “Here. we’re in this van here.” She adds to the team, gesturing at a white hover-van marked with the emblem of an office cleaning firm.

Pitbull lights another cigarette with the still-lit butt of his last one before running another check of his recently acquired Gauss rifle. “Alright. What job could use me? Infiltration aid or fire support?”

Mac flips his notepad open and sketches an eerily accurate depiction of the floor plan. He marks two locations – the foyer in the office tower, and a second inside the loading bay area. “At my best guess, the security offices are located here. The one in the bay’ll have a fair few armored bangtails, so we’ll need to keep that in mind.” He looks over at Pitbull. “Personally? Once this goes horribly wrong, I’d rather you were with us to help us punch out.”

Able nods. “We’ll need plenty of fire support once we get inside. I expect to see at least one of their new soldiers in there, and I don’t relish engaging them without you.”

“Getting out is going to be a lot trickier than getting in,” Pacoy agrees.

Tillie laughs, “Yep, you’re coming up that flimsy ladder with us, Tex! Hey, know anything about demo?” She tosses a package, about the size of two beer cans strapped together, at Pitbull. “Here, catch!” She hands another off to Pacoy while velcroing the third to her own suit. “Plastique, re-sequenced to not touch off any sniffers and with an enzyme-based fuse. Put it where it’ll do most good.”

Pacoy gives the package a quick look-over, “Yes, I can do something with this,” He mutters absently as he stores the plastique.

“Just what I was hopin’ you’d say, Mac. Sure, fire support is fun, but I’ve spent too much time away from you dudes. And Abe, damn straight! Let’s see one of ’em bitch-ass clones take on a real killer.” Pitbull grates, as he tests the sight of his rifle. “Gah! The Reaper was so good, but it’s made me spoil’d. Actually sighting offa this’ll be- whut?” He grates before catching the demo-charge like a baseball. “Thanks, Tillie. This’ll clean these Quislin’s out faster than a beef’n’bean burrito with extra guacamole.”

Mac cringes. “Can we not throw around high explosives? I’m feeling on edge as it is.”

Tillie grins. “It’s safe until you thumb the fuse. You could burn it in a fire, like a lump of coal, until then.”

“Yeah, these go off by electric means, not fire. Why, we used to burn some of these on a fire to keep us warm out in Mexico when the nights got too fuckin’ cold for us to just stick our hands ‘tween our legs to keep them from goin’ numb.” Pitbull grates as he latches it on his belt.

Mac hunkers down in his trenchcoat, moodily flipping his collar up and stealing a cigarette from Pitbull. He comms silently to his closest friends, “That broad is two planks shy of a rocking horse.” He laughs around the cigarette. “Pitbull, I have no desire to hear any more stories about you sticking your hand between your legs.”

“Was that before or after you drank water from the puddle in a hoof-print?” Pacoy grins and winks, remembering an old movie line about Texans.

The grizzled veteran in charge of the Mice raises his fist, calls “Mount up” and gets into one of four vans the resistance fighters are using. They begin to move in a small convoy, heading for their start positions a couple of blocks from the facility. Tillie gets into your own van. “Time to go, gentlemen. We need to be in position and ready to go at ten exactly.”

“I didn’ get dysen- disen- dysson- err amoeba caused diarrhea from it if that’s what you mean, Pac.” Pitbull growls as he lights Mac cigarette with a lighter he produced from his trenchcoat. “Y’know Mac, I never knew ya smoked.”

Mac looks at Pitbull and grins, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth as a blows a slightly lopsided smoke ring. “Have you ever been to Tears in Rain? It’s practically required. Besides, it’s not like I’m worried for my lungs or anything, right Pacoy?”

“A’ight! Saddle up! Bring jerky and ammo!” Pitbull yells in a hammed up Old Western accent.

“Well, there is still the whole maintenance issues with smoke and tar, but that can be taken care of at any repair-check, I suppose!” Pacoy teases.

Able sits at the back of the van, ready to hop out the moment they get near to the site.
“I ran outta my Fuego Burro’s anyway. You’re smoking seaweed with nic’ in it. Does the job, but it ain’t the same, in my opinion. Damn Brit cigs.” Pitbull growls though a hard drag off of his.

The team head off into the Nottingham night – the overcast sky light a purplish-orange from underneath by the millions of city lights. Traffic is light, since most civilian traffic is under curfew, and soon the team arrives in the street behind the warehouse building. Parking the van across the street, next to a six floor office block for rent, Tillie checks her pocket computer. “Fifteen minutes to zero hour. Anything we’ve missed or need to do before then, gents? If not, I suggest we wait for the M&S boys to start doing their stuff, then hit that wall fast as we can.”

“A’ight. Imma take a leak, guys. I’ll be back in no time at all.” Pitbull growls as he jumps out through the back door.

Able pulls on his face mask. “Don’t leave the grenades until later; they’ll be best used with the element of surprise, before they get their gas masks on.”

Mac rolls his eyes. “Damn Texan plumbing must be faulty. We’re on a mission, and he didn’t think to empty out beforehand?” He shoves one of his pistols in each pocket, then slings his carryall over his shoulder. “Hope this ladder holds up.”

Able shrugs. “I’m just surprised he didn’t wait until we were all the way up the wall.”
Tillie puts on her own mask, checks the seal, then triggers her Stealth Suit’s active camouflage – although it doesn’t look much good trying to blend into the interior of the van. She silently watches the timer wind down until “Five…four…three…two…one…”
Pacoy suits up, checks all of his seals and pockets and throws a thumbs up to group.
Able likewise activates his own active camo and begins activating the gecko pads on his gloved hands.

Pitbull zips his fly back up, and racks, loads and swings his rifle into a ready position before taking a drag off of his cigarette in one fluid motion.

Mac spits out the cigarette and stamps it out. “I’m going to go up after Able, in the event Pitbull isn’t quite done yet.”

Every light in four city blocks goes out at once, including those in the BBI complex – although the emergency generators there kick on seconds later, the lights are now much dimmer and reddish. Tillie leaps out of the van, leaving her door slightly open, and races to take up a position in the shade of the complex’s high wall, her sniper rifle moving in metronome curves. Somewhere inside, a siren bleeps four times, then falls silent. In the office tower beyond, something gives forth a shower of sparks lighting a room high on the tower’s upper floors.

Mac hustles over to the wall, then nods to Able. “Up you go, pal.”

Pitbull follows close behind Able, training his sights on any direction that may have unexpected hostiles.

Able runs towards the wall at a flat-out sprint, then jumps; his gecko padded palms stick straight to the wall’s smooth face, and the soles of his boots stick on as they touch down. Able begins climbing up the wall at a rapid pace, covering twenty yards in only a matter of seconds. As he hits the top, he takes a quick look around, his nightshades bringing the dark world into a comforting green light.

Atop the sixty foot smooth wall, Able can clearly see down about twenty feet into a large and sunken garden set into the roof. Rare tropical plants scent the air and moths flit among the blooms – helpfully exposing two cameras with infra-red lights in each corner of the garden. He takes note of the camera positions as he tosses the rope ladder down to his compatriots. As he secures the ladder to the wall, he begins surveying the interior of the garden for ways in and out, looking especially for areas that the cameras do not cover.

Mac grabs the ladder and scrambles skywards the moment it is secured, moving out of the way once at the top of the ladder, making room for the next person up.

There seems to only be one way out of the garden – a double glass door leading onto a glassed-in viewing area in the far wall. There are doors at each end of the “patio”, and some breakfast-style tables and chairs dotted around the tiled area.

Pitbull scrambles up the rope ladder with relative ease and pulls himself to the top with the grace afforded by his soldier training.

Tillie ascends quietly and slips onto the wall next to Able, then signals and drops down behind a massive rhododendron bush in the corner edge of the garden, away from the cameras.

Mac looks around. “How do we break in from here? Do we mask the cameras, or just sneak underneath them like in the old spy thrillers?” He looks at Tillie, then shrugs. “Ladies first, I suppose.” He drops down after her.

Pacoy scrambles up the ladder, the brief mental image of Mac and himself both getting tangled up and looking foolish fills his mind when he stumbles for a step, but in seconds he is over the wall.

“Hey, Abe? Where’s a good insertion point? My camo is not so advanced, y’know?” Pitbull grates into his comms.

A message appears in everyone’s HUD. + Target comms isolated for now. M3RL1N +

With the team up the ladder, Able takes a moment to toss it down the wall into the garden, right by Tillie’s hiding spot. Then, he begins heading for one of the two cameras – and as he does so, he feels himself slipping into a new persona for what he hopes to be the last time.

Pitbull tosses his cigarette over his shoulder and drops down behind Mac.

Able creeps over to the camera, examines it for a moment, then gingery pushes a wire slightly out of its socket – enough to throw off the feed, but register in the system as a typical error for this type of camera. With that over with, he drops down into the garden proper.

Pacoy sneaks his way over to his designated camera, just barely catching a fumbled tool as he climbed up and rewired a loop into the video feed.

Mac looks over at Pitbull, gesturing emphatically as he sends him a HUD message – “Did you at least put that out before you threw it? You could start a fire, and then our van will burn!”

Pitbull furrows his brows at Mac as he HUD’s him back. “No. But the paper on those things snuff themselves out after a while anyway. They only stay lit if you constantly smoke them.”

Tillie ghosts forward, a blur of night and dark green against the foliage, to the glass doors. She tries them, finds them locked, and waves Pacoy over.
Able steps up behind Mac and Pitbull. “The garden’s secure. Time to head inwards.” He turns to Tillie. “Have the hackers managed to get a floor plan yet?”

Tillie whispers, “No, but they’re still trying. This place has good security protocols, it’s tough going. In the mean time, keep vocalizations down – there may be snooper mikes to pick up conversations from disaffected employees…”

Mac shakes his head, looking at the glass doors blocking their progress forward.
Pitbull weighs the option of beating it in with the butt of his rifle, clearly torn between expediency and subtlety.

A new HUD message appears: + all secure entries now reset to code 637516 +

Mac considers for a moment, then digs around in his bag, pulling something out and sticking it in an internal pockets. He wipes his gloves, then steps up to the door and punches in the door code, texting to Tillie as he does, “You lot be interested in any tech transmissions from this place once we’re out? I might be able to help with that.”

Tillie nods and beams at Mac.

Able slips his electronic lockpick back in his jacket. “Well, I guess that simplifies things.” He begins examining the door for alarms; no use spoofing the cameras if security sees a door open into an empty garden.

Mac pulls a small number of miniature devices from his pocket, showing them to Tillie. “You point at a PC, we’ll fit it with a keylogger and an emissions nanobug – capture anything they’re up to. They may overlook it for some time, particularly if we make some dramatic noise elsewhere.” He stifles his gag reflex as he realizes the code he punched in. “Oh, that hacker’s got a bigger ego than the White Lion. That’s just so old school I can’t help but like it.”

Able deftly disables the alarm. He flashes a thumbs-up sign to the others, then draws his pistol before nodding to the door.

Mac nods, stowing the bugs and pulling his own revolver, thinking to himself, In case of emergency, break glass… He nods to Able, ready to follow his lead.

Pitbull rolls his neck and trains his rifle into the dark as he creeps in behind the team.
Once through the door, the team can see that the exit on the right is labeled “Staff Canteen” while the one on the left is simply labeled “+4”.

Tillie, in the lead, signals to the door on the left. She halts before it and waits, pointing to the lock.

Mac follows behind Tillie, doing his best to keep his mind from drifting towards the Morrigan. “Must be security level required, I’d wager.”
Able disables the contact alarm on this door; it’s a cinch since it’s the same design as on the exterior door.

Tillie punches in the code, and the door swooshes open, to reveal a broad landing. In the center of the area sits a massive hulking metal crab shape!

Mac lurches forward like a car making a perfect transition off the line – he weaves right to distract the bot, unfurls his datajack cable with his other hand, spins and slams the cable into the back of the bot’s dome. He slams his eyes shut and shivers as he forces his will over the robot, stopping after a second to open his eyes and nodding to the group, slowly probing the robot for any schematics he can find before powering it down.
Mac grins as he unplugs from the robot, distributing a mental schematic of the floorplans to the group, and an animated, gift wrapped file to Pacoy, unfolding into the internal schematics of the robot when opened. “Think we’ve won the treasure hunt, boys.”

Able steps to the side of the robot as he sweeps the rest of the area for threats.

“Why, I do believe they call you Father Christmas on this side of the pond, Mac” Pacoy grins.

Pitbull smiles and pats Mac on the back. “You’ve done good, Hasselhoffe. You’ve done good.” He HUD texts Mac.

Tillie, having quickly looked at the schematics for the landing they are on, turns and draws a snub-nosed flechette pistol, then fires up into a camera above the door the team just came through, blowing it apart with one hyper-velocity dart. “Bugger, we’re busted. At least all the security stuff is on this plan, and they’ll have to take time to open doors we can just slide through. Let’s find the target areas, get in and get out!”

Mac grins to himself, before looking at the camera with displeasure. “Damn, I thought that would have gone better. Lets get going, guys!”

Able hooks the floorplan into his HUD’s mapping software. “Time for speed, then. Mac, find us the targets.”

Pitbull lights another cigarette as he awaits the direction for running to be made clear. “Well, at least I can talk now…”

The floorplans show four floors above ground and three below. The ones below ground are marked Alpha, Beta and Epsilon. Epsilon is a huge cavernous room. Alpha and Beta appear to hold various lab areas. One area on Beta is marked “Restricted Access, Class A” and is described as “Bio-engineering”

Mac scans through the floorplan, looking for the best locations for the target. “Well, looks like we need to get to Beta. That’s where I’d stick my illegal Bio-engineering research if I had any.”

Pitbull nods sagely as though he knew the first thing about what people would do with bio-engineering.

Tillie, after reviewing the plans, talks frantically into her comms. A moment later a message comes on the HUD: + Cameras neutralized. M3RL1N +

At the same time, you hear dimly and distantly the sound of small arms fire. Tillie grabs Able’s elbow “Sounds like the Mice finally have some action. We’ve kicked the ants nest.”

Mac looks to Able. “You want to take the elevator shaft? Probably less staunchly defended. There is a security station on each floor, by the landing. It’s a reinforced internal bunker with a small unit of security forces at each. We’ve got more of these crab-bots on each floor, as well as blast-proof doors securing the restricted area and laser fences in some corridors. Cameras – yeah, everywhere. Not that that information’s much use anymore, aside from masking our movements if they get them back.” He sends an annoyed message back at the source of M3RLIN’s messages, “Couldn’t have done the cameras that little bit sooner?”

Able moves up to the elevator shaft, then begins trying to figure a way to open it without calling the elevator.

After a moment, Able springs a release that opens up the shaft. He unfurls the ladder down into the abyss, where it plunks onto the elevator car three floors down.

Mac nods, before sending, “Let’s get going before they send someone to investigate. You want me to go down first?”

“Mac, maybe you should set your new ‘pet’ to go haywire in a few minutes, maybe help with a distraction,” Pacoy points out.

Able nods. “Settle down once you’re on the car. I’ll head down last.” He looks down at the shaft, trying to see if there’s enough room for a person to squeeze between the car and the wall of the shaft.

Mac jacks into the robot and issues a quick set of commands to send it at the security station on this floor in full Pitbull mode, ensuring to give it only his friends friendly tags before descending to the elevator with only some minor trepidation.

The Bot rumbles off in the direction of the canteen, and from there into the offices and other rooms on this floor.

As Able watches Mac punch into the robot, he gets an idea. “Hey, have the robot push the call button in a few minutes, hopefully after we’re all out of the shaft.”
Unfortunately, the robot goes away before his idea gets fully expressed. “…or not.”

Tillie scrambles down the ladder and puts the side of her head to the hatch on the elevator car’s roof – her ‘elven’ ear picking up even muffled sounds and amplifying them. She points, then holds up three fingers and mimics talking with her hand.

Mac looks up from the top of the elevator car, sending up a frown with a message, “Sorry, still getting used to that ability – it’s a bit maddening trying to interface with those things.”

Pitbull slings his rifle over his shoulder as he slides down the makeshift ladder.

“That’s how we felt about you at first,” Pacoy jokes as he sets down from the climb, “But you get used to it after a while.”

Tillie gestures again, miming her opening the hatch and someone throwing a grenade down. She points at Able, then hard left below her showing the direction of the toss.

Able grabs the ladder before climbing down the shaft, gecko gloves sticking to the side.
As he lands upon the car, he pulls out his gas grenade, then steadies himself. He nods to Tillie, who is still by the hatch.

Tillie yanks open the hatch, and the voices below suddenly rise in surprise to be audible to all – one male and two female.

Able tosses his grenade down through the hatch, its timer cooked off to a bare second left.

Tillie slams the hatch closed again, counts to thirty, then re-opens it. Below are revealed the blue-overalled forms of three cleaners, slumped around their cleaning cart. Two petite women of possibly Indian extraction and a tall, fat man with a balding head.

Mac grimaces. “I don’t feel right about that. It was necessary, but..”

Tillie shrugs “We couldn’t spare the time to tie them up.”

Able shrugs. “They’ll probably live until the explosives go up.”

“I was considering cutting their Achilles tendons, but considering they’re not security detail, I won’t make their lives suck much more than getting knocked out in an elevator.” Pitbull grates as he looks in frowning.

“A quick tie-down with their own belts wouldn’t hurt, though’” Pacoy advises, “Can the Texan hog-tie this lot?”
Mac frowns. “Lets at least get them into the elevator. It’ll keep them mostly safe from what goes down, and it should slow down any reinforcements that come this way.”

“Do bulls fuck Gnoxes?” Pitbull grates looking back at Pacoy with a grin.

Tillie drops down into the car and swoops up the card on a lanyard around the tall guy’s neck. She holds it up in triumph. “This deactivated the elevator’s gas system.”

Mac sighs as he drops down as well. “That’s good. So they’ll be extra safe in here, then.” He begins dragging the bodies as gently as he can manage. “Make sure they can run if they need to get out. I know us, I know how messy this could end up, and I don’t want the deaths of three civilians on my conscious.”

Let’s get moving then – there’s the stairs" Tillie points. “Going down?”

Able nods. “Set it for floor Epsilon. We’ll exit through the roof into Floor Beta.”

5 miles Northwest of Derby
Tuesday 2nd May, 2051
9.00 PM

The last two days have been as relaxing a journey through England as can probably be accomplished under the jackboot of its current ruling junta. The small convoy of brightly painted RVs and other vehicles belonging to the nomadic Rainbow Traveller community has wound its way by back-roads down from near the Scottish border, always bypassing major cities and likely checkpoints, to arrive at a small copse of old-growth trees, a remnant of the fabled Sherwood Forest, covering a long, low hill. There they have made camp and while Pitbull went off with one of the Travellers to link up with a small contingent of White Mice who will be providing a diversion for the Lazarus Team’s infiltration of the BBI lab complex, the rest of the team have settled down around a small campfire to make themselves ready for the coming task.

Tillie Jones, who apparently is well enough known to this group of nomads to consider herself “at home” in their company, and a pair of the travellers themselves, join the team by the fire. One of the nomads, a young man with long hair and beard known as “Jumper John”, extends his hand towards Able – a dozen small blue pills sit in his palm. “For later, man. A couple of hits of Nero each – I scored them off a corp security face up in Newcastle last month.” The young nomad grins with crooked teeth. “No worries, I got more.”

Mac looks over at Able and John, grinning to himself. He idly flips his notebook opened and closed before scribbling something, then tearing out the latest page and tossing it into the flames. After watching the paper fold in on itself as it struggled to escape the flame, he turns to Tillie. “So, when are we picking up sticks and heading to the site? Do we know anything about the location, other than where it is? The food and the hospitality has been tops, I feel I should say. Shame we can’t avail of them for longer.”

Able takes the pills from John. “Thank you. We’ll put these to good use.” He slips the pills into his jacket, careful to keep them in an otherwise-empty pocket.

Tillie pulls out a data-slate. “We don’t know a lot about the internal structure – we may get more on the day when the M&S folk try to hack the lab’s mainframe. But here’s what it looks like outside.”

Looking at the data-slate, Able comments, “Fancy. What are the buildings surrounding it? They part of the complex as well, or just separate offices and apartments?”

Mac looks over the data slate, whistling. “See, we need to get a bigger budget, guys. This place is as slick as ice. Pacoy, with this kind of money you could set up a whole new factory… we could have nice offices on the top floor…” He quickly sketches an approximate diagram of each building into his notepad. “And where are we hitting, the big facility, or the corporate attachment?”

“It looks like you could drive a jumbo-jet through the bay doors on the side of that facility,” Pacoy muses, “Always nice to have options..”

Tillie points at the main tower, then the low shed-like building. “These are the corporate offices and what amounts to a ground floor warehouse and loading dock. The main labs are buried away beneath it, an unknown quantity as yet. The surrounding buildings are not part of the complex, they contain other businesses in the main. We’ll go in through the warehouse level, while the Mice create a diversion at the office tower.”

She points again “There are a mix of Umbra and Rossum security on duty, all in BBI uniforms for the duration. We suspect there may be some regular British Army as well, but we’ve been unable to confirm that. There are the usual anti-aircraft measures in place on the tower roof, where there’s an AV pad, and some robotic sentry turrets cover the main foyer and the loading docks – there may be more inside. The weaponry on those turrets is supposed to be non-lethal, but well….”
Mac nods. “That’s a clean classic, Kansas City shuffle, then?” He nods at Pacoy. “Be careful about sending Pitbull that idea. He might make good on it while we’re in the labs.”

Able looks over at Pacoy. “Taxiing a jumbo jet into the building all the way from the airport sounds like a dicey proposition.”

Tillie points again. “We have an alternate possibility available – we could try to go over that wall into that small garden-like section to the rear of the warehouse building. However, it looks like the wall is about 40 feet high and smooth as glass. What do you think, Able? A possibility?”

“Any chance our Mice-pals have access to codes or security protocols?” Pacoy asks.

Mac looks between the picture, Tillie and Able. “I’ve done the over-the-wall into the mark’s garden before, but Able’s our expert on the old slip and shine. I can’t see a better way of getting in there.”

Tillie shakes her head “We’re hoping the M&S net crew will be able to get us some of that kind of stuff at the time, but trying for it early might tip our hand.”

Able nods. “I have the gear to climb in easy enough – my gloves and boots are gecko-soled. But I don’t have enough for everyone; if we could get the rest of us some…”
He shrugs. “On the other hand, give me some rope and I’ll climb up, then haul the rest of us up after me.”

Mac lets out a short snort of laughter. “I could get behind a Rapunzel play. Even if we did it old fashioned-like, just bring up two hooks and a rope ladder, that way you’re hands free if things go sour.”

John grins “I can get you rope, plenty of it – and two iron hooks are easy to make.”
Able claps John on the shoulder. “Go for it. Up and over we go. Should give us a nice vantage point before we head on down, too.”

“What’s our plan on the inside?” Pacoy Asks, “How sneaky-vs-assaulty are we going to be? Because a Hijacked semi could fit a team of miscreants and a ton of gear if we wanted to try and pass ourselves off as employees. Hell, for that matter, a hijacked semi with a smart rig could be filled with enough nastiness to provide the biggest distraction London ever saw!”

Frowning at the picture, Mac looks over at Pacoy. “If I’m honest, I’m almost more worried about how we’re getting out. If we were able to sneak all the way in and out, that’s one thing, but I know us, and I know our track record. We had trouble sneaking through an abandoned facility in Omaha. How are we planning on getting out, the AV Pad on the office building?”
Tillie shakes her head, “Nottingham isn’t a major garrison, but it’s still a major city – we want to be sneaky for as long as possible, otherwise the cops and maybe army will arrive in force and we don’t want to have to fight out even harder than we’ll have to fight to get in. The Mice will be using silenced weapons, jammers, and a small masquerade – three will be pretending to be drunk and homeless, making a small noise in the car park right outside the tower.” She continues, “I doubt the AV pad is viable – it’s all the way up through security and has automated defenses. We’d be better heading back out the loading dock, then get lost in some nondescript waiting vans as quickly as possible.”

“By the way, the Mice know they’re role – it’s to get us in and out again successfully – their own survival will be a secondary consideration.” Tillie looks flatly at the team. “Just so you know what’s on the line on our behalfs.”

“I assumed we’d run screaming from chaos and doom as per usual for our escape plan, Mac,” Pacoy grins before turning to Tillie, “So, can we hijack a truck, and have the ‘driver’ distract the receiving personal while we infiltrate our way deeper?”

Able rapidly agrees. “The AV pad is a suicide route. Might be a good diversion, though – send off an empty AV, then go out a completely different way.”

Tillie asks “Why hijack a truck and run the risk of having it be noticed by some cops before we get there?”

She continues, “I mean, we can probably provide a clan truck if that’s the way you want to go in – but I’m hoping there’ll be less active security going over the garden wall.”

Mac nods solemnly. “Unfortunate side-effect of fighting the good fight against the big guys. We all bear equal responsibility for what happens there. I like the idea of slipping in through the back, then slipping out through the front – once they figure our entrance point, they’ll likely reinforce that area to prevent us from heading back out, particularly if we make it seem like we’re headed out that way.”

“Hey, I’m the Patch-It Guy,” Pacoy says, “just spitballin’ ideas here, I’ll defer to Able’s expertise on this area.”

Tillie smiles warmly at Pacoy, “You’re so much more than just a patch-it guy, and you know it Pacoy. Don’t do yourself down.”

“Well,” Pacoy blushes slightly, “I’m an extra-versatile Patch-It Guy. If it has moving parts, circuits or blood vessels, I can fix it.”

Mac slaps Pacoy on the shoulder. “Damn fine fixer you are, but don’t sell yourself short. In all the time we’ve been together, you’ve proven yourself to be excellent in every field – shooting, engineering, these aren’t skills any fixer would have. Able’ll be able to get us in, and we’re there for when things go sideways. So, you know, you can fix things then.”
“You’re also a pretty handy fighter,” she replies, “Remember, I’ve seen you – you got the biggest chunk of those Army snipers on the border.”

Able nods, “We’ll all need to work together to fix the damage that my old employers are attempting to do to this society. And don’t forget – one of the first tasks in fixing anything is ripping it apart.”

Tillie chuckles, a warm throaty sound, “Exactly, Able.”

Mac pales. “No, no, don’t tell him that. I don’t want those words rattling around his bone box if he ever needs to fix me again.”

“Yeah,” Pac agrees with a smile, “Taking things apart is just as easy.”

Tillie looks up at Able’s words. “Oh, that reminds me. John, could you go see if the packages are ready yet?” John nods, stands, and heads towards one of the RVs.
“We’ve been hard at work,” Tillie explains. “That van contains a small but rather good biolab, and the girls have been synthing some explosives on the bio-printer. We’ll have three charges of a designer plastique, each about five pounds and each with a one minute enzyme fuse – all undetectable by the usual scanners. Will that be enough to ‘fix’ things properly, Pacoy?”

“Sure,” Pacoy grins, “Putty makes a great patch!”

Tillie stares into the fire for a while, idly stirring the embers with a stick. “If all goes well tomorrow, all well and good – if it doesn’t, well, each life is short and hard but it is never more than an instant on the great wheel of rebirth. I’m not afraid to die, I’ll see you all again in some other time, I’m sure of it.”

She looks up, “Able and Mac, I’m sure somehow that you have both lived and died before. You have the aura, so to speak. How about you, Pacoy?”

“Nah, I’m of the ‘Die just once’ camp, planning on saving it up till the end.” Pacoy nods.

Mac does his best to keep his smile subdued as he looks at Tillie before giving Pacoy and Able a knowing wink. “Not something you’ll need worry about, miss. We’re all pretty hard to get rid of. You stick by us, behind me, and you’ll make it through alright. Wouldn’t wish knowledge of death on anyone.”

Able nods. “Not inaccurate. I’m still trying to recover the life I once had, or at least prevent my current life from draining out of me over time. I doubt we will ever know whether I truly succeeded.”

Tillie looks deadpan at Mac, “But I already know death. She rides with me everywhere, the Morrigan. I will invoke Her when we go in to this place, and reap Her bloody harvest for Her.” The team can actually hear the capitalization when she speaks.
Mac stares at the fire, something primitive that their ancestors all shared, a heritage he artificially inherited, and begins to feel cold, pulling his trenchcoat tighter. “You’re doing alright Able. At least there are remnants of your past life still around, and you’ve got a promising new one ahead of you. I can’t look back, and can hardly remember what was back there either.” He pauses, and looks at Tillie. “Moll, that’s not…” He stops, then starts again, unable to find the correct words, then settles for a sigh as he stares into the fire again.

John, returning to the camp-fire, makes a complex gesture with his hands as he sits and intones “The earth must be fed.” Tillie smiles sadly at him and nods.

Mac looks at the two of them. “I can’t pretend to know what you believe. That is well beyond anything I can dream of, if you could call it that. But you have to understand that it doesn’t have to always be that way. You don’t want to have to watch your entire family interred, to walk through their hollow crypt, seeing what was, what could have been, and knowing you were too weak to do anything but hide while they were all dismembered and destroyed.” He idly checks to ensure his revolver is loaded properly, snapping the cylinder back into place for emphasis. “Death, sometimes she is unavoidable, but she is never to be cherished.”

Tillie shakes her head again. “Death is no more un-natural than Winter. They are the time for rest, to be followed by resurrection in the Spring. So it has always been, the glorious Circle of being.” She looks hard at Mac, “Perhaps I was wrong – perhaps you have not truly died yet, and so have not experienced rebirth as a thing as certain as the newly returning Sun of Spring.”

Sighing, Mac tears off another piece of his notebook, letting the flame catch fire, holding onto the note until it almost burns his fingers. “As long as you remember that the real important part of the Circle is the part where your heart still beats.” Or something like a heart, at any rate. “There’s no rebirth for me, doll. I’ve got one shot at this, and I’ve got to make it right the first time around. That’s why I’m putting it all on riding with Able and Pacoy here. You take comfort in your cycle, but if you ever meet your Morrigan, ask of me, and she’ll never know my name.”

John pulls out an old, worn, pocket watch computer much like Mac’s and flips it open. “Tillie, it is time.” He pulls what looks like a small perfume bottle out and squirts it once into his face, then inhales deeply. Then he passes it to Tillie who does likewise. A sweet smell of cinnamon and cedar wafts from the light mist she sprays into her own mouth. Then she holds out the bottle. “We missed Beltane, May Eve, to convey you all this far. Now we have stopped we will worship the Goddess with our bodies and our songs, as it is written we should. Would any of you care to join us?”

I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe there’s one all-powerful force controlling everything. There’s no mystical energy field that controls my destiny. Pacoy smiles to himself as the old quote runs through his mind, but he bites his tongue to avoid offending their mealticket.

Mac looks at Tillie, then around the circle. “Sorry lass, my dance card’s punched full.”
“I’ll have to pass as well,” Pacoy says, realizing the offer includes both mind altering drugs and sex with people of questionable hygiene, “I’m going to need a clear head on this on.”

Able looks to the bottle with a frown, then back to Tillie. “I’m afraid I would just be in the way of your worship. You may continue without us.”

Tillie is already brighter-eyed, breathing more deeply and a little flushed in the face. She nods sadly, looks at Pacoy a moment, then rises and slides away with a sensuous wiggle in her walk, followed by Jumper John.

Mac waits until the pair disappear from view before looking back across the fire with a silly grin plastered on his face. “This place is wound up tighter than a tinker’s clock. I am having trouble believing everything we’ve seen and done here. What do you guys think of our odds tomorrow?”

“About the same as always,” Pacoy grins, “Even odds of scraping out by the skin of our teeth, I’m just glad Pit is with the other group, and we wouldn’t have to hear him joining a new religion…”

Able seats himself, his gaze focused upon a still of the image Tillie showed them earlier in his HUD. “80-20 that the primary mission succeeds. We’re quite good at bringing things down when we need to. I agree with Pacoy’s even odds that we survive the incursion.”

Mac looks at his notepad sketch. “We just need to stop them from going through with this. If we can do that… well, let’s just say getting out should be… easier. I have a few ideas, even if the van extraction fails.”

5 miles East of Lockerbie, Scotland
Sunday 30th April, 2051
7.00 AM

It’s only taken the Lazarus Team two hours to get to their rendezvous point, crammed into the narrow false bottoms of two low-loaders carrying what appear to be the rusting hulks of old cars and vans. The big rigs, provided by a notorious Glasgow smuggler, and their cargoes were stopped and searched several times, but the compartments hidden under their load-beds never discovered.

Now, the team crawl out into a morning light mist, finding themselves in the stone cobbled yard of a ruined farm. Their ally, Malky, and three of his resistance fighters help them out of the cramped compartments, then pull out their gear and weapons. The loaders are pulled into an old barn and their loads dumped – then the whole bunch take up positions to wait for the people who will take Lazarus on the next stage of their journey.

It doesn’t take long – after about twenty minutes a group of a dozen or so electric motorcycles pull into the farmyard. Each rider is roughly but warmly dressed, and all are armed with “liberated” weapons. Most are hairy and unwashed, but one hulking figure in a greatcoat shows the balding head and smashed beak of a friend the team had thought never to see again.

Able looks the ugly bastard in the eye for a few moments before turning to the others. “Huh.”

Mac blinks and rubs his eyes. “Guys, guess who just showed up and ruined our big damn heroes prison break…”

“Is it just me, or is that guy ugly enough to be Pit?” Pacoy says with a warm grin.
The hulking figure breaks into a giant smile. “You thought those border cop-shits could do me in? I’m alive and I got a doctor’s note to prove it.” Pitbull reaches into his coat, and yanks out a crumpled piece of legal note paper and palms it to Mac.

The note reads, “I owed you guys one. -G” in a very familiar scrawl with an Umbra watermark.

Mac smirks and passes the note along. “That’s a pleasant message. Good to see you again, brother. Just in time for things to get messy, to boot.”

“G? Umbra? As in Garrion?” Pacoy is shocked, “Two Ghosts in One Story?”
“Yeah. Speaking of which, these awesome fellers have helped me something fierce, but I still don’t quite know what we’re about to do. Can someone bring me up to speed?” Pitbull growls as he reaches into the other side of his coat for his smokes. “And Pac, I’m assumin’ it is him. Don’t know no one else that fits that description.”

Tillie, who has been doing some yoga stretches off to one side, straightens, arches her back and walks over. “Hi Gazza,” she nods at the biker group’s leader. “Who’s the Yank? Picking up strays again?”

“Ain’t no yank, woman. I’m a Texan. Confusin’ a Texan for a Yank is fightin’ words to us folk.” Pitbull growls darkly before smiling through a drag of a freshly lit smoke.

Able sidles up to Pitbull and clasps him on the shoulder. “Good to have you with us. We’re assaulting an Umbra/Rossum soldier augmentation and experimentation facility, hopefully before they get any of their new forces online.”

Mac pulls out his notepad, half ruined from the incessant water and rain and sketches out a brief outline of the plan, showing it to Pitbull. “Short of it is we’re about to cause some big trouble in little London. Don’t have too much of a concrete plan beyond that.”

“Heyup, pet. Na, we were told to bring him oop with us. He got dropped in Carlisle by the Mice, knaw. Seems he’s one a tha boys yer ta see to Notts, innit.” The beefy biker replies with a smile. “Now we’m got not a lot o’ time afore this glower lifts, if I’m any judge. We’m better get moving.” He points to five bikers, who relinquish their bikes reluctantly. “Naw, boys, din’t fash, we’m be back for youse tamorra.”

“Cliff’s Notes Version, We have a decent idea where Shit Creek is, but we don’t have a map and were a not bringing any paddles with us, should turn out fine though…” Pacoy smiles.

“Shiiiiit, Abe! You’re lookin’ better! We got ya fixed up and ready to kill?” Pitbull rasps, through the exhale of his cigarette. “And that figures. Any idea of what’s in the lab?”
“Shit, though! Hate to get mushy or anythin’ but I was sure that I wouldn’t see you guys again!” Pitbull laughs, before hitting off of his cigarette again.

Mac looks at the one identified at Gazza before turning to his crew. “Guys, I realize now what it must be like talking to me, and I do apologize.” He looks at the bikes. “I think what he wants is for us to saddle up and spur on, get going. We can refine our plan on the way, such as it is, but I have a feeling we’re going to have to go pulp serial on Umbra today.”

“We didn’t think we were going to see you again, either, Big Guy: we were just about to start divvying up your stuff before we realized the HQ was blown up, then it was all moot!” Pacoy slaps Pitt on the back, “We can talk on the way, let’s get out of here!”

Able seats himself on one of the bikes, checking it out to make sure everything’s in the right place. “Let’s get moving.”

Pitbull visibly becomes upset. “Dude! My Reaper was in there! My sweet, sweet Reaper! Dammit!”

Tillie mounts one of the cross-country cycles and starts its nearly silent engine. “Come then, we’ve a fair way to go. It’s about fifty miles cross-country to our next rendezvous – and from there we’re fair for Nottingham. I know the land here a little, but the Bluebonnets know it like the backs of their hands.” She smiles at Gazza, who may be blushing under the grime.

Mac rolls his eyes. “His first thought goes to the damn Reaper, not my sister or Gladys. Never change, you lug.” He slips onto a bike. “I’ll get you a new one, Pits.”

“Fuck Gladys, but Serana was starting to grow on me. I do hope she survived. But damn! And the metal jaw of the Sarge…” Pitbull trails off as he saddles up to the bike.

Mac grins. “I’ve got every reason to believe Siri was away from the office when it blew. Lets get this fairytale on the road, gentlemen. You set for armament, Pitbull? I’ve got an assault rifle if you need steel in your hands.”

Soon the group is coursing swiftly down tracks and paths through hills covered in dense forest. In large areas, the trees look pale and partly leafless, despite Spring being well advances, but provide enough overhead cover even so in the morning mist. Every few miles, the main group halts for five minutes as an outriding scout returns to report the way ahead is clear – until, about two hours into the journey and just across the border into England, one returns in a flat dash and pulls up making frantic signals to stop.

Able pulls his motored bicycle up to the scout, but focuses his senses upon what he can see and hear in the distance, as this doesn’t look like a good sign.

Pitbull coasts his bike and creases his battle-scarred face into a frown of concern.
“Gazza, mon, there’s a slew o’ Redcoats down’t the vale. About a company, by the look, and regulars too. Light armor an all. We need to go around or hunker down til night!” the Bluebonnet gasps.

Gazza grimaces and turns to the group. “Well, there’s a fix. Normal like, we’d hide – dig holes and pull them in after us until dark, then go slow around them. They must be on maneuvers, since there’s been no activity in these parts for months – so they’re probably not on alert, but e’en so…”

Tillie turns to the team, “Well, what do we do? I respect Gazza’s knowledge of the border but we’re in a hurry. We might be able to avoid any patrols without a firefight, or put them down quickly and silently if we can’t. Still, it would be a gamble.”

Mac looks at his compatriots, the Bluebonnets, then his pocketwatch. “You lot think we can afford the delay? I can’t wrap my head around the timetable we’re working to here. I don’t have the tools to really work silently out here.”

Pitbull turns his options over as he pulls out yet another cigarette.

“As a Gambling Man,” Pacoy says with a grin, “Smart money is best bet on the inside knowledge. I have no problem following the advice of someone that knows both the area and the enemy.”

Able looks to the scout. “How many redcoats were there? I assume their communications systems would be able to reach their base from out here; I’d rather not warn our target any more than necessary.”

Mac pulls out his notebook and taps his pen on it. “I might be able to keen to their patterns, get us through that way. It’ll take me a bit of observation, but if we want to rush it, it might let us skirt some of them.”

The scout turns to Able, “A wheen load – maybe a hunerd men, all regular army, with a pair o’ scout cars and a pair o’ light tanks. They’re in laager down in the next valley over, by a wee stream. We smelt the whiff o’ their cookin’ afore we seen them, but Hughie’s down there naw, keeping his eye on them a’. He’ll be fine – he’s goat an infra-red poncho an’ a giud hide. Ma worry is they might send oot pickets oan foot.”

Mac nods. “That’s the worst part of any job – the wandering security officer. Scuppered a good number of jobs, that guy has…” Mac shrugs. “Give me a handful of minutes with Hughie and we might be able to avoid a picket or two. I’d rather not go up against an army – we don’t have any beef with them, and they’ll prevent us from reaching our true target, and if we engage them, they’ll get tipped off.”

Pitbull takes a hard drag off of his cigarette before finally growling, “Guys, we need to think tactically around these dudes. A hun’erd men. Armored well enough, and armed with shots that could kill us with a lucky tag. Hittin’ ‘em head on ain’ gonna solve anythin’ but our lives.”

Gazza sucks in air over his teeth for a moment, then says “Aye, we canna take that chance. Here’s the deal – we split up into smaller groups. Shuggie, you go back ta Hughie and ye both watch ‘em for us – from a safe distance. I’ll go wide East and around wi our travellers here – the rest o’ ye go back ta Lockerbie and wait for me there.” The Bluebonnets all nod and turn their cycles, then disappear into the woods.

Gazza turns to Tillie and the team, grim-faced. “Let’s go – follow me and don’t make any noise you don’t have to. Oh, and turn off any radio and telecoms devices.” He pulls his bike around and heads off up a deer track heading roughly East, by the faint glimmer of the sun.

Mac sets about powering down his kit before mounting up and following Gazza.

Able, whose implant comms have been deactivated since they were back on the mainland, follows Gazza silently.

Pacoy powers gear down and tries to follow as quietly as possible.

Pitbull shuts off his internal WiFi as he lurches the bike into motion.

The team and their guide move fairly rapidly eastwards, and an hour later are almost seven miles away from their starting point. They’ve managed to be as quiet as is possible running electric bikes through springtime woodland, except for the time Mac brushed a rowan bush and startled several small birds into flight. Finally, Gazza turns South and the team come to the edge of the trees. Ahead is a deep valley, dotted with ruined buildings and tumbled down stone field walls. The mist has burned off and so they can see that the far hillside is again covered in forest, this with the look of well tended plantation – rows of tall evergreens interspersed with wide broadleaves just coming into full leaf. “The last big obstacle, pet.” Gazza tells Tillie. We need to get over fast and smooth."

Mac scans the valley, thinking to himself. “This looks like it could be a good place for an ambush. What do you think Pitbull?”

Able looks the area over. “It looks like the setup to a killing field.”

“Damn right, Mac. This spot has all the good shit for some snipers looking for some practice.” Pitbull growls, assessing the situation with the mind of a soldier who’d seen his share of dirty tactics.

Tillie unslings her big, black holdall from her bike’s pillion and retrieves the scope from her rifle – which she passes to Pits. “Here, have a look.”

Pitbull looks across the valley, scanning among stones and trees for telltale signs – and sees the glint off another scope just in time!

“Shit!” Pitbull announces as he launches into a dive for cover.

Mac takes a cue from his tactically minded friend and dives for cover, stringing a silent chain of Russian expletives as he does. “So, Pitbull, there’s a reason we’re doing this right? You’re not just having us on?”

Pacoy dives for cover instinctually at hearing the shout.

Able follows Pit into cover. “How big’s the problem?”

Tillie too dives into cover, as does Gazza – Tillie already frantically grabbing at the other parts of her long sniper rifle.

As the sniper’s shot whizzes over his head, Pitbull racks his rifle. “Snipers. Cowardly shits scratching their balls and shelling peanuts in trees!”

“I’m guessing that he’s got two more buddies, a spotter, and comms to the rest of their force. ‘Cuz that’s how they roll.” Pitbull grates as he prepares himself to lob some shots.

Mac wrinkles his nose. “I don’t understand the military at all, and the more you talk, the worse my impression of it gets. What the hell are we going to do about it? I can’t do anything to them from here. Maybe if I got closer, but…” He sighs. “We’re pretty snowed if we get buttoned up in here, aren’t we?”

Able quirks an eye at Mac. “Did you forget our stealth suits?”

Mac’s eyebrows shoot up. “Yeah, I did. Trenchcoat kind of put that in the back of my mind, ya know?”

“Well, the suits will be a little less than optimal, seeing as how they know where we are and we don’t know where they are…” Pacoy mutters.

Tillie snags her scope back off Pitbull and begins slotting it together with her rifle, then slips out of her outer clothing to present a skin-tight bodysuit that flickers, then fades into the background as it mimics her surroundings. This takes all of a minute and a half, all told, but the enemy sniper seems patient and to be awaiting a clear target. She pulls up the hood and almost disappears from view, then begins a low panther-crawl to the left. “Gazza, with me!” she whispers, urgent and low.

Able pulls up his own hood. “Let’s go stalk some stalkers.” He begins to shimmer and fade from view as his chameleon rig lights up, then heads out in the direction of the gunshots.

With a quick bit of concentration, Pacoy engages the his Insta-Soldier Beta and tries to formulate the best course of action.

Mac sighs. “Showoff.” He begins slipping out of his armor, activating his suit after transferring his pistol and his rifle. He then slinks out after Langy.

Pitbull throws off his trenchcoat and activates the camouflage function in his undercoat and his tactical pants. He pokes head out of cover and takes aim in the direction of where he spotted the sniper.

Augmented reality dancing infront of his eyes, Pacoy hangs his long-coat on a branch and activates the stealth suit as a Pinbot flutters out to act as a forward observer. “I’m running under the assumption that these guys already called us in,” He whispers to the team, “Let’s take them down.”

“I’m in position over here in a ditch by the old wall.” Tillie sends over the team net. “Gazza’s behind the wall guarding my flank. Get me a target, someone.” She sounds fiercely calm and concentrated.

Able moves down into the valley to hide amongst the destroyed buildings, careful to check for traps as he moves.

Mac spits. “I can do that, but it’ll be painful, at a guess.” He tries to get near to a destroyed building before calling back to Tillie. “You ready, lass?”

Able switches tracks as a flicker catches his eye; he begins moving towards it at an oblique angle, careful to keep out of sight as much as he can on the way.
Pitbull spots one of them in a flicker of light from his suit, which is more than enough reason for him to fire off a three round burst at him.

Following the augmented reality advice of his Insta-Soldier, Pacoy relays his findings “They’ll most likely have split right, towards the easiest way up their hill.” Meanwhile, the pinbot flounders in the wilderness, relaying back random footage of trees while it searches un guided, “As soon as we get a bead on these guys, I’ll give the pinbot better orders.”

Pitbull’s burst of fire catches the flickering sniper in the left arm twice, mangling it but not severing the arm. The sniper audibly cries out in agony as he rolls over in pain.

Tillie unleashes three rounds at the same target – hitting with all but the fat, blunt rounds from her big rifle fail to penetrate the soldier’s state-of-the-art body armor.

As the bullets start flying, Pacoy takes cover and sets the Pinbot in Forward Observer mode as he aims his own rifle. A single, well placed round slams into the snipers abdomen, knocking the redcoat from the tree.

There’s a gurgling scream from the army sniper – Pacoy’s armor-piercing round has hit something vital.

Mac draws a line on the lower of the two spotters, sending a burst at him from his rifle. “Bottom of the treeline, they’re together.” Unused to the recoil and heft of the rifle, the bullets kick up dirt and rocks all around the position of the observers, giving his allies a clearer picture of where he was shooting at.

Able takes a moment to steady himself, braces his weapon, and fires off a single shot at Mac’s target.

The exploding dart flies through the air before impacting right upon the nearly-invisible chest armor of Mac’s target. The dart itself does little damage; the bursting charge dispersing the gas is barely audible, and the soldier is able to look down at his chest for a moment with a confused look upon his face before the green gas cloud envelopes his face. The gas, which would have been stopped right there had he remembered to wear his gas mask like his superiors instructed, flows freely into his respiratory tract, which brings it into direct contact with his brain – and with that, light’s out. He slumps to the ground, unconscious.

Tillie sends, “We’re on the move, bringing our bikes! I have no shot!”

Pacoy sends a burst of rifle fire into the last-standing soldier, two of the rounds penetrating the armor in his right leg.

Pitbull fires another burst at Pacoy’s target, which crumples him into an unconscious heap as he is hit in the abdomen and right arm.

Seconds later, Tillie and Gazza burst from cover astride their cycles and race across the valley. “Grab your bikes, quickly!” Tillie sends. “We need to get out of here before there’s a follow-up.”

Able waits for a moment, checking to see if any potshots are taken upon the now-in-the-open bikers.

Pacoy races to grab his jacket and recall the pinbot as he runs for his bike.

Mac sprints back to his bike, bundling his gear onboard, pausing only to throw his trenchcoat on before gunning for Tillie’s position. “This has been one hell of a detour!”

The field is clear, except for the anguished cries of the last soldier, who sounds like he is mortally wounded. The first has already fallen silent.

With no shots incoming, Able hurries back to his vehicle and climbs on, whipping off his hood and powering down his camo as he goes.

Once on, he guns the little engine and gets moving to catch up with the group.

Pitbull ducks out of his vantage point and makes a tactical bee-line for his bike. He hops back onto it and guns the engine to catch up with Able.

Soon the little band are powering down another tree-shadowed trail, this time in deeper woods offering more cover. Only once do they hear anything like pursuit – the thin whine of a stealthy AV – but it doesn’t come close enough to find them and two hours later they emerge from the wood into a small village of old stone buildings – on the edge of which is a campground occupied by a rattle-bag assortment of RVs, off-road vehicles and a converted bus all brightly painted in flowers, peace signs and pentagrams. Tillie beams and sends “There you go, fellas – my home, and the next step on our journey!”

Able looks down upon the little hippy commune. “Let’s hope the redcoats don’t trace our trail down here. Those happy little trees won’t be so happy if they follow us.”

Seeing the camp, Pacoy wonders how close the team will get before the smell of patchouli raises to great them…

Pitbull screeches his bike to a halt and dismounts, a smile creeping onto his sun-damaged and battle scarred face. “Ah… It’s good to do some damage again.”

Mac draws up short, a smile quirking at his lips. “This country is a strange mix of places. Going from a sniper ambush to a peaceful commune…” He casts a sidelong glance at Pitbull. “You’re always doing damage, Pitbull. That’s what we love about you.”

Glasgow, Scotland
Saturday 29th April, 2051
7.00 PM

Four days ago, the Lazarus team agreed to enter and destroy the Rossum/Umbra laboratory complex being used to produce super-soldiers for the British Government, in a pilot program which if successful could see AI-controlled human-derived drones in service by despotic governments and corporations the world over.

Three days ago, “Radio Clash” released edited footage of the team’s assault on a manor house in Central England, designed to give the impression Rossum used their operation as an excuse to kidnap the top Umbra scientist working on that program. Shares in both corps fell abruptly at first, but then the Solar System’s largest corporation, HUB Bank, stepped in to guarantee both’s stability in return for a 51% slice of each and shares are slowly recovering.

Two days ago, the team and their ally from the radical resistance group Mutate & Survive, a bio-enhanced woman called Tillie Jones, boarded a trawler and hunkered down for a sea journey, surrounded by ‘borrowed’ gear and the smell of fish.

Today, they landed in Salcoats, Scotland, and boarded the evening train to Glasgow, there to meet a contact known only by the name “Malky” and a passphrase – “Here’s to the gentleman in the velvet coat”, to be answered with “Even though he’s below the heather now.”

Now, they are exiting Glasgow Central Station, beneath the massive Victorian porch known locally as “The Umbrella”. The street is busy with pedestrians, many of whom are queuing outside a shop called “Umberto’s Fish & Chip Emporium” from which the smell of freshly fried fish wafts.

Tillie hefts her “kit bag” and smiles, pointing, “There’s a sight, that place must be good! Anyone hungry?”
Mac grins, feeling the weight of his instruments of persuasion as he hefts his kit bag and his attaché case. "Always. It better be good, though. " He reconsiders his weaponry and sends a wry message to his teammates, “I feel a bit like Pitbull with all this kit…”

“Mac, with the way you eat I’m surprised you can afford ‘good’.” Able flexes his hands, still getting used to the feeling of control slipping back into his grasp.

As Tillie joins the end of the queue, the team notices two ragamuffin boys, no more than 12 years old, dart across the “Umbrella”. One climbs up a stanchion and the other tosses him a silvery tube – then the first sprays black paint all over a small device lodged in the junction of stanchion and bridge. A couple of people in the queue laugh, and applaud, as the second boy executes a swift bow, both give cheeky grins, and then they run off into the evening crowd.

“We need to sit down and compare Macs meal budget and Pits ammo expenses when this is all over,” Pacoy teases.

Able watches the crowd’s reaction with interest. “These people don’t care much for the nannycams, do they? I wonder if this place’s attraction is the food – or the privacy.”

Mac grins. “You’d be surprised. There’s always an extra bill in the old fold for mealtime.” He looks around at the clientele. “Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a bit of both.”

As the team edge closer to the wonderful smell of food, a shifty looking man in a blue rain-poncho approaches them. He has a clown’s smile painted on his face and a tray of packaged items hangs from shoulder straps. He speaks around a lit toke-stik. “White sports socks, guvner? Three pairs for a buck!”

Mac frowns. “Clash with my shoes, sorry. You got a name? Awfully enterprising business you have here. Socks in a chip shop?”

“Me? Naw, I dinnae hae the shop, pal.” The man responds, with a definite slur in his voice – his breath reeks of booze. “Auld Armando’s a guid guy though, ne’er gies me the boot when I’m workin’, ken?”

Instinctively, Mac’s nose wrinkles. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The man pulls out a bottle – a half pint of brown liquid – and upends it into his mouth without taking the toke-stik from between his lips. Then he offers the bottle to Mac. “Hae a drink, pal?”

Pacoy raises an eyebrow at the offer, but then realizes Mac probably has very little chance of catching anything from it.

Mac looks at the bottle, shrugs and then takes a swig from the bottle, gritting his teeth before passing it back. “Stuff’s not half bad.”
As Mac upends the bottle, the hawker grins and says “There’s a traditional toast hereabouts, from the old Jacobite Rebellion: ’Here’s tae the man in the velvet coat’! It could refer to a mole or tae Bonny Prince Charlie, y’see.”

“Even though he’s below the heather now.” Pacoy nods, tipping an imaginary hat.

“That’s be right enough, puir soul that he was. The damnt English did for him.” The man says. “Weil, a better get goin’ – the fuzz wil be along soon, nae doobt. If ye a’ want tae, I’ll stand ye a drink. Meet me o’er there on the corner in a couple o’
minutes and we’ll hae a wee belter for the old Jacobites.”

The man wanders off, in no hurry, around the corner and steps into a waiting car – a beaten up old thing with mirrored windows.

A smile finds its way to Mac’s face as he sees the car. “Lets grab something to-go and go eh, stand a drink with our friend, yes?”

Tillie has already stepped back out of the shop, with a plastic bag full of packages wrapped in plain white paper. “Here’s the food – what?”

Mac frowns at the bag. “A bit light on the food, don’t you think?” He nods at the car. “Our friend’s in there. Figure we should eat on the tarmac.”

“Eat and run, Mac, Eat and run,” Pac mutters as he casually heads to the corner.
Able quirks an eyebrow at Pacoy. “He said he’d meet us over there. You interested in speeding things along a bit?”

Mac smiles. “Lots of running keeps you fit, boyo.”

As the team approach, Malky pops the trunk on the old sedan – something called a Ford Prius Plus – and calls out to ‘put yer bags in the boot’.

Able shrugs. “Or maybe he was referring to the car as the corner. Eh.” He puts his gear in the trunk of the car.

Mac slings his case and his holdall into the trunk, deftly snatching a package from Tillie with a wink.

Pacoy hesitates, sighs and then tosses his gear in the trunk. That’s a major gamble right there, he thinks to himself, but I guess I’m nothing if not a gambling man…

As soon as the team is inside – a tight fit, it’s a small car – Malky pulls away and heads for the freeway entrance just down the street. As he turns he neatly snags a handful of fries from Mac’s package of fries and battered fried fish. “Brilliant, I’m famished” he says, in a far more cultured voice than the one he’d used earlier. “Sit tight, it’s not far to a safe place. The police and even the Army would never come into Easterhouse without so much force that we’d have plenty of warning. I’m Colonel Malcolm Bruce, late of the Royal Marines and now of the Scottish Liberation Army. I’ve been told I’ve to offer you any assistance and get you to Nottingham PDQ. That right?”

Able nods. “Quite so. Do you foresee any problems?”

Mac frowns at the blatant theft and disregard for propriety, ensuring that there is hardly anything left to steal before securing his own seatbelt.

Malky nods. “One pretty big one, I’m afraid – the border. I’m informed that none of you will be able to pass muster at any official crossing, either by train or road. The current plan is for me and my boys to get you down there tomorrow early, then hand you off to a bunch of Bluebonnets for a yomp across the hills to somewhere I don’t need to know about for further transport South, but I’m informed also that you can change the plan as and when you see fit. You boys are in charge, we’re just the hired help!”

Mac laughs to himself. “Not too often I’m put in those shoes. This place has tighter security than most mob rings, you know that? See, this one time, I just flirted with an underbosses secretary, walked into his office, made a copy of his books, then poof. Here? It’s border crossings this, nannycams that, traced IDs everywhere…”

Malcolm nods ruefully, “I know. To think I served with the bastards who did that to Britain once…I tell you if I could get my hands on them and half an hour of left-alone time…”

Able leans back. “It’s much easier than back in Canada. At least Britain hasn’t pushed out chaperone implants to every single person convicted or born for the past eight years. It’s almost impossible to find a place that’s not monitored there, and some of the children act more like robots than I do.”

Malcolm snorts, “That’ll be next, at least down south, Here, they’d have a difficult time imposing it.” He pulls off at an exit marked “Easterhouse” with the word “Free” daubed in white paint above the name. Next to it, a poster is stuck.

Mac looks back to Able at the ‘robot’ comment and fails to stifle his laughter. He sobers on seeing the sign. “I never thought I’d miss Night City until I left..”

Malcolm points, “They try, but they can’t break Easterhouse. Here we are, home sweet home.”

The area of the city Malcolm has pulled into is a slum, of sorts. More like a slum crossed with a war zone. Graffiti telling the “Redcoats” to “keep out or die” is everywhere, as are what appear to be blown up buildings, rubble spilling into the streets. The street lighting doesn’t work, but there are dim lights behind many windows in towering apartment blocks.

Pacoy looks to Mac, “Between London, Canada and Omaha, who knew we lived in such a utopia, huh, Mac?”

Mac sniggers. “Hey, you think it’s this bad up in space? I bet that’s where it’s at. Lots of freedom, being encased in the stars.” He smiles. “At least this place seems a bit like my hometown, such as it is.”

The car rolls past two burned out APCs, then turns into a parking garage beneath one of the blocks.

Able looks around. “I thought there were more craters in your home town, Mac.”

Mac scrounges through the leftovers in Tillie’s bag. “Well, yeah. I had meant Tears. This place isn’t nearly beat up enough to compare to Omaha. Ugh, does that mean I’m a country boy? I can’t stand that idea.”

Malcolm pulls the car between two pillars and flashes the car lights three times. Immediately, a false section of wall pulls to the side and he drives into a sectioned-off area made up of a variety of scavenged huts, buildings, repurposed vehicles and so forth. There are about twenty or so people milling around, all armed to the teeth. They all wave to Malky, and one or two sort of salute instead of waving. “Here we are, let’s get you put up for the night and then tomorrow we’ll get you headed south.”

Mac looks about. “You’ve got a mess hall in this hideout? Going to get hungry in a bit, I feel.”

Malky laughs and gestures to a thin woman with green hair. “Mess hall, stat, Maggie! Our guests have come a long way.” She leads you all to an old bus conversion that holds a field kitchen, with a generator and gas tanks behind it and a set of chairs and tables out front. Soon, Mac is tucking into beef stew and bread – the real deal. Maggie explains the beef was “liberated” from a rich Junta sympathizer last week.

Malcolm brings out a sleek datapad and calls up a map. “Here’s the border area we’ve been looking at. The hills are heavily forested, still, even if half the trees are dead or dying, so there’s cover from the air and patrols have a tough time with it. The Bluebonnets are biker nomads, they’ll get you across and probably hand you off to some other cell for further transport.”

Mac compliments the chef before turning to his crew, “At least it’ll be bikes. I’m getting a bit tired of all these cars and boats.”

“Don’t jinx us, Mac, we were one step away from resorting to goats in Omaha,” Pac teases.

Malcolm nods, “Watch those Bluebonnets though – they’re no friends of the Junta but some are a bit rough. Now, anything you need or would like to know?”
Able looks over the map. “What problems are we likely to come across on this border crossing? Are the approaches patrolled often, or is this just a known sieve point?”
Pacoy makes a mental note that apparently ‘bluebonnets’ aren’t bonnet-wearing blue-hairs.

Malcolm muses for a second then answers crisply, "There’s just too much territory for patrols to cover, although they try. The Bluebonnets use electric off-road bikes, so they’re agile and quiet, and they run the border pretty much at will. They live by theft, smuggling, assault, and ambushing small Trasher units. Until now, they have survived by melting into the decaying forests on the border when larger military units go looking for them. There’s always a chance you’ll get unlucky and hit a patrol – just a platoon or two with light armored vehicles, although regular Army more than likely – but the likelihood is that the ‘bonnets will get you through or past anything that’s so big and noisy.

Mac frowns. “Not the most fantastic recommendation of a taxi route, but our options are limited.”

“Hey, Mac, it isn’t a car or boat, right?” Pacoy grins.

Able nods at Malcolm. “Sounds good.” He turns to Mac. “What do you think? This a sound plan?”

Mac grins. “Fair enough.” He gestures to Able with his last scrap of bread. “Based on what I’ve heard, it’s good enough. If we had a map and access to their normal routes, we could make it air tight. But it’s good enough in a pinch.”

Malcolm winces, “We might be able to get you that data, but it’d take a week or so. I understood you people were on a tight timeline.”

Mac sighs. “That’s the problem. We are. I think we have to play it fast and loose.”

Malcolm turns, “Maggie, please find places for our guests to bunk for the night. We’ll be off early.” He turns to Mac, “Shock and awe, laddie – and if that don’t work run like Hell!”
Able puts a hand on Mac’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s better that we stick with what we do best. I don’t know what would happen if we ever took the time to make a plan air-tight, do you?”

“Standard Operating Procedure: Seat of our Pants,” Pacoy nods.

Mac looks at Able, an unknown glint in his eye. “Able, if we had enough time to plan something properly… the world would never be the same.”

Damn, here I am, trying to make a shopping list for a job where I am not 100% of the plan. Hell, I’m not even 70% sure we have a plan on this one, other than ‘vengeance must be had’. I need to start with the basics. Opening an internal Notepad on the head computer, I start jotting figures. Electronic Lockpicks: $1,500, 0.2 lbs.; Biometric Cracker Tools: $4,000, 10 lbs; Razortape: $40, 0.5 lb. per 100-foot spool; A Pocket Pack for each of us: $25, 0.75 lbs each (How many of on the ground this time? 3 Lazarus and Tilly?) a CrashKit: $200, 10 lbs; Any kind of Guns, Ammo, and explosives we can get; Possibly a special smuggling in of some Aquino Automation bots: preferably a few Kestrel and a Marmalade if possible. Can the smugglers pull that off on short notice? What kind of skills does Tilly have? She doesn’t have any cyber, so there is no way she is coming close to covering Pit’s role as the Heavy. I supposed to be coming up with answers, but all I keep getting is more questions, it’s frustrating!

Dealing with frustration the best way I know how, I headed to the ships workshop to see what kind of facilities I could play with. I was impressed – the Blue Shimmer has quite a the collection of spare parts, all organized in case of an emergency swap-out situation. The Machinist Mates station was small and crammped, but is was a quality fabrication workshop set up with professional efficiency.

The crew was happy to give me a tour, even happier when they found I could take a tour in Tagalog. I absentmindedly grabbed a few stray parts from various stations as we passed, pocketing some, inattentively fidgeting with others. While the Machinist Mates station was what I was most interested in, it seems the engine room was the preferred place for the crew to congregate in a situation like this. It was hot, crammped, damp, and smelled like a combination of hot oil and shrimp paste, but I could strangely see the appeal – it had a sense of being impenetrable, no-one that wasn’t supposed to be here would find their way down here.

It must have been close to an hour of listening to the sailors telling me stories between swapping out to fulfill their duties while I fidgeted that it happened, one of the sailors stopped mid-sentence and asked “Hey, would that actually fly?” I must have looked surprised and confused until he quickly used his lips to point out the pile of parts laid out in front of me, using a pipe as a desk, complete with notes jotted down in grease pencil. I briefly glanced at the pencil in my hand before checking the array of parts and the scrawl of notes – the rough basics for a crude microbot out of the parts I was tinkering with, it was basically a junk bot, and I admitted it. “What could you come up with if you actually tried?” was a question that turned into a challenge. The crew scrambled to gather various junk and lay it out in categories as they set me up in the Chief Engineers office – I was a little worried that he might find the mess an intrusion, until it was pointed out that the “CHENG” was making it into a game among his boys: they were in 3 teams, bringing parts and tools and shouted ideas, it was chaos, but it seemed to bring everyone together as well as free the weight off of my mind.

With a piping-hot mug of black mud-like coffee, I looked at the three groups of piles organized on the desk before me: the first was labeled ‘Skeeto’, it was a cheap, ugly bot that could have been the Pinbot’s scrapyard cousin, it’s batteries were 90% of the weight, – balanced like landing gear under the “brains”, but it had a 3 gauge hypodermic needle mounted on it like a lance – it we could get some sort of drug or poison onto it, the thing just might be useful – maybe we should enlist Wahlen on that. Up next was another Scrapbot, this one labeled ‘Imp’, it was a shoddy little flier rigged up with a tiny charge that turn it into a small burst of shrapnel as is temporarily disrupted any electronics in a very small area – obviously this one was untested, but the math was all sound. The third bot was the one that was the most durable, a small, hinged cage of flexible framing ringed with cheap sensors and pistons – the darn thing opened up to so a grenade could be nested inside, turning a grenade into a temporary sentry device able to ‘re-throw’ itself a short distance. The first two bots could handle the Pinbot program with very little change, the last could make use of areani AI with a few tweaks.

Between the Machinist Mate and myself, we cranked out 3 bots of each bot by breakfast. The whole thing was productive: I came out with nine bots, I my mind was clear, and wile making the bots, I got ideas on how each could be used – the beginnings of a plan. Able’s footage of Rossum snatching up Professor Barton might be interesting to Umbra even without editing; all three new bots had their use in an assault or infiltration job, though they wouldn’t replace Pit or Worm for those roles; and the Matapang’s assured me that they could get some gear to us, even on short notice. The Matapang family was not blessed in the genetics department, but they were sure useful!

The North Sea
Tuesday 25th April, 2051
8.00 AM

It’s been two days, time to relax, recuperate, plan and worry – but finally the call comes to report to the sixth floor lab where Dr. Wahlen has been laboring for a day and a half without sleep. Despite the early hour, the oil rig base is humming with activity, and as the Lazarus team arrives at the sixth floor they are met by a grinning Tillie Jones.

“A big day, eh Able? I got here late last night, so I hadn’t had a chance to check in with you, but the Finn says Wahlen has your antidote ready. This way…” Tillie points to a door daubed with a large biohazard symbol. “Let’s get you strapped down and then I’ve got some other news for you that you’ll want to hear.”

Able’s hands shake as he grabs the door handle. “Thank you, Tillie. You and the Finn’s people have been much too generous to me.” He pulls the door open and steps into the room. Tillie follows into the lab, where Wahlen is already strapped to an old dentist’s chair – and another awaits Able. Wahlen looks up as the team enters. “I’ve suggested these restraints because this process may be very painful. I’d rather not hurt myself while it takes effect – Able, the other chair is so that you don’t hurt other people.” Two ‘nurses’ in gothique clothes hold two pressure hypodermics loaded with an amber fluid. Wahlen nods at the syringes from his recumbent position. “Two doses of tailored enzymes, each specific to our own particular ummm…ailments.”

Mac follows along behind Able, mind reeling faster than an eight millimeter coming off the end of a long film. His eyes burn into Wahlen with uncharacteristic venom, wishing there were another way to care for his friend.

Able steps up to the second chair. “Thank you, Wahlen. Even if this doesn’t work, so long as you’ve been honest with us – thank you.” He seats himself, ready to be strapped in.

Pacoy watches the scene with interest and worry, the full weight of their situation on his mind.

A nurse hands Able a boxer’s biteguard, then begins to fasten strong webbing restraints around him, holding him immobile. She says “Even the Doctor doesn’t know how fast the flush will work, but he does think it’ll be very fast. We’ve a crash kit on hand, just in case, and we’re both trained paramedics. Nod when you’re ready.” The other nurse stands poised beside Wahlen.

Mac leans over to Pacoy, his voice only a cat’s hair over a whisper. “If this does anything untoward to Able, I’m going to work Wahlen over to within an inch of his life. I’m gettin’ sore tired of people pulling one over on us. Startin’ to feel like a filly whose been shod a few too many times.”
Pacoy nods in return, “Thinking the same thing.”

Able looks up at the remaining two Lazarus Men, the ones who’ve been with him for so long, through thick and thin. With his eyes locked onto Mac’s own, he sends out a final broadcast onto the team net. “Thank you, and if Wahlen has been lying to us you have my blessing to turn him inside-out.” Able shifts his gaze to Pacoy, then gives the slight nod the nurse has been waiting for.

Mac chuckles to himself before sending a very Pitbullian image of a thumbs up and a smile to Able as he tries to steady his nerves against the wall.

The twin injectors hiss, discharging their contents into veins, then for a few long minutes there is expectant silence. Slowly, Able begins to feel a building burning sensation throughout his body, like every nerve ending is being heated. Flashes of color begin to strobe across his vision and there’s a ringing noise in his ears. The burning sensation builds swiftly to pain, then higher, and is joined by more audio-visual hallucinations and a feeling of extreme, gut-churning nausea. Vaguely, he hears Wahlen scream through his own biteguard, a scream cut off as the Doctor faints.

The nurse by Wahlen’s side checks his pulse, sighs in relief, then takes out the Doctors biteguard to clear his airway. Just in time, as Wahlen convulses, then every sphincter in his body opens and he fouls himself from three orifices.

Mac wrinkles his nose and turns away. “You people are singularly disgusting, you know that Pacoy?”

“Holy sh—-uh, yeah!” the nurse exclaims, jumping back from projectile vomit but giving Able’s nurse enough of a warning to yank his biteguard out and position a bedpan under his chin.

Pacoy arches an eyebrow. “You People?”

Able’s body shakes and seizes through the pain, but his mind holds on to the moment – but only for so long before the burning in his skin brings a flash of thought, long buried deep. It feels almost like a dream; he’s falling, falling so far, and his clothing feels so constricting. He knows he can’t breathe, but it doesn’t seem important – the tears on his face tell a story of deep loss, but not one he can recall. He falls, down into the blue beneath him, but that blue soon turns to an agonizing red – and then blackness, with nothing to remember but the pain of his skin melting solid to the inside of his vacuum suit…

Mac shrugs and waves his hand at the scene unfolding in front of him. “You know, people. In general.” He sighs. “I’ve had bad days, but nothing that approaches this. I don’t even think I’ve ever really caught a cold. That’s odd, with all these memories, I feel like I should have. I feel wrong, seeing Able go through all this pain and realizing I can’t really empathize. I know it must be bodybreaking and mindnumbingly painful, but…”

The team watch for another fifteen minutes as both patient’s shiver, spasm and twitch under the effects of the poison in their system being flushes out, then the spasms slowly subside and both begin to look normal again – pale, exhausted and in Wahlen’s case filthy, but no longer afflicted by their gene-tailored personal poisons.

The nurses check both patients and one gives a firm nod to Tillie, who says “OK, get the Doctor cleaned up then straight into Processing. Hook him up and he’ll either tell us everything or can tell us from a digital afterlife.” Wahlen is summarily whisked away, still strapped to his chair.

The second nurse unbinds Able and Tillie herself offers him a glass of water. “Welcome back from Death Row, Able!” she smiles. Mac grins and heads over to his comrade. “Thank the stars you’re alright. Prettier than you were before too. Think Wahlen must have put some anti-aging serum in that brew. Haven’t seen you looking this good in ever.” Pacoy sighs in relief, at least one of the problems seems to be solved.

Able slowly opens his eyes to look out into the room around him, coming back to this time and space. Sweat is pouring down his body – odorless, synthetic sweat streaming out of the pours from his synthetic skin. His clammy hands grab onto the arm rests of the chair he had been strapped into and, slowly – so slowly – he pulls himself to his feet.
Able looks up at Mac. “You’re not much of a liar, Mac.” He puts a hand onto Mac’s shoulder – a solid hand with a firm grip, no hint of the tremors that had so plagued him the past weeks.

Mac grins. “Good to feel you’re back in the land of the living. You think you’re good for a snifter of hard liquor? I’ve heard tell there might be a stash somewhere on board.”

Tillie laughs, “I can do better than that – come on, you’re invited to breakfast with the Finn himself.” She turns towards the door. “Oh, I said I had news – there’s no sign of Mac’s sister in the rubble of your headquarters, according to our friends in E23. They believe she must have been warned, somehow. They’ve instigated a search for her; if she’s findable then they’ll find her before Umbra does.”

Mac stops abruptly, putting his hand over where he imagines his heart to be. “Thanks, Tillie. First drink’s on me for that. She’s clever, but I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Wait,” Pacoy says confused, “So, there is indications that Siri was warned about the attack and survived, and you are sure your people can find her before Umbra, why is that Bad News?”

Tillie pats Pacoy on the back. “I said Ii had news, not bad news. You’ve been in the field too long, Pac.”
Able follows the rambunctious trio to wherever Tillie was taking them, his steps slow at first then beginning to gain traction as, more and more, the effects of the serum begin to make themselves apparent by their absence.

“Wow, must have heard wrong! I guess it’s all this stuff going on at once!” Pac answered.

Tillie leads the team to an elevator, which deposits them on an observation deck in the upper levels of the old rig. A long table set with silverware and a white tablecloth fills the center of the room, and the Finn sits at one end of the table. He raises an eyebrow at Tillie, who nods and then gestures you all to be seated. Breakfast is smoked fish in a spicy, creamy sauce which you are told is called “kedgeree”.

Pacoy digs in, famished. “Now that we have Able on the mend, we need to start gathering resources and intel for a plan.”

Mac sets about efficiently cleaning his plate before looking to the Finn. “Let it never be said that you’ve not got talented chefs in your employ. Shame the quantities are a bit meagre, but that can’t be helped.” He pushes his plate away as he looks to Pacoy. “That’s the truth. This is going to be a big job, and I fear we’re going to collect more than our share of scars, even if this goes as well as a hot car in a chop shop.”

After Able seats himself, he wipes some of the sweat off his brow and hands with a napkin. He almost-mechanically begins to eat the fish – his utterly neutral movements are in stark contrast to the true robot at the table’s eager partaking of the meal.

After eating several mouthfuls in silence, Finn dabs his lips with a napkin and puts down his fork. “Care to tell me what your intentions are? It occurs to me that we are natural allies, in many ways, and our cousins in E23 across the pond think highly of you all. It may well make sense to make common cause.”

Mac looks to Able, then Pacoy, then finally to the head of the table. “Personally? I want to bring Rossum and Umbra to their knees for what they’ve done to me and mine.” He sighs. “They almost took my sister from me, have managed to get one brother locked up and almost killed another. I had no love for either corporation before, but now…” The silence at the end of Mac’s sentence is punctuated by the quiet hairline fractures that appear in his fork.

Pacoy nods, “Yeah, we have a score to settle, and we could use any help we can get.”
Able sets his fork down as Mac finishes speaking. “A war has begun, and we’ve been set in the crosshairs of giants. We need to either find a way out of the giants’ sights, perhaps by distracting them towards their fellow giants, or we need to bring those giants to their knees. And with their resources, I’m afraid we don’t have much time before they make life very, very difficult for us.”

Finn smiles thinly. “I understand all too well. We at Mutate and Survive have been in the same place you now find yourselves for some time now – pitted against foes too large to defeat head on. But we are not without resources. We have some of the best young hackers and scientists as well as a cadre of capable fighters like Tillie here. We keep contact with E23 in North America, and with other resistance groups here in Britain. You are in a position of needing a safe haven, and perhaps new identities too. We can provide both, or recommend you to others who can provide them. Our friends in E23 were quite adamant that we aid Mac here” – he nods down the table – “in any way we can. They seem to think of him as some kind of messianic figure.”

Able gives a soft smile at that last line. “Him and his sister, yes. For good reasons, though reasons of their own.”

Finn grins, “I’ve been known to play the living avatar of a God trick myself, on a few occasions. Despite everything, many Brits are still very conservative, and so very superstitious. A little pagan imagery goes a long way in instilling fear and dread when we need it.”

Mac chuckles sadly to himself. “I can’t help but remember that history is rarely kind to figures who hold that mantle, but I’ll be glad to leverage any good will they have towards me to our advantage.”

“Mac, my friend,” Pacoy grins, “If someone asks you if you are a god, you say yes!”
Mac cocks an eyebrow before fiddling with his pocket watch and sending an odd voice clip to the ears of Able and Pacoy, grinning as watches both of them receive an old movie quote; ‘I beg your pardon, but that wouldn’t be proper. It’s against my programming to impersonate a deity.’

Finn laughs, “That’s right! Use every advantage, especially in asymmetric warfare.” He pauses, staring into space. “Dr Wahlen’s interrogation has begun. We’ll know more soon, he’s talking freely while there’s a neuron analyzer aimed at his head ready to ghost him. Let’s take this up again this evening, when we’ll know more of what we’re talking about. That facility in Nottingham is important to your enemies and mine, so we’ll need to see if we can put a spanner in its works somehow, eh?”

The Finn rises and leaves the room, leaving Mac to grab seconds of kedgeree.
Tillie pours herself some tea and kicks her long legs up onto the table. “You guys are certainly interesting to be around. A messiah, a super-spy and a technical whizz – wanted by every major government and corporation. I feel like I’ve been paddling in the shallow end while you’ve been out hunting sharks in the deep.”

“And hunted in return.” Able puts the last bite of fish in his mouth, chews for a moment, and swallows. “Not everything is glamour on this side of the table.”

Mac speaks around a mouth of fish with an air of practice. “Sharks bite, doll. Pray you don’t get in too deep. Since I started running with this crew I went from a simple gumshoe to almost having my chest crushed in three times in as many months.”

“Sounds like interesting times,” Tillie quips, “I may have to tag along and see for myself.”

“I think you got your ribs busted by a bat on day one,” Pacoy recalls with a smile, “It took a bit longer to smash your principles!”

-Fade Scene-

That evening, the team meets Finn again, over a dinner of cod in hollandaise sauce. The old Royal marine looks grim throughout dinner, talking little. As the dishes are cleared by M&S people, he flicks a switch and a big flatscreen lights up at one end of the room. It bears the words “Project Emet”. Finn clears his throat.

“Wahlen’s been very helpful, he’s explained exactly what he was involved in at that Nottingham plant. It’s called, as you can see, Project Emet.”

The screen changes, showing Wahlen still strapped to his dentist’s chair, a complex helmet-like scanner on his head. “Emet is the Hebrew for Truth,” he says. "It was the word inscribed on a slip of paper and put in the mouth of a Golem to make it come alive. In legend, if you erased the E in Emet you got Met, the Hebrew for ‘dead’. Its very apt. Barton and I developed software to run in Umbra biocomps that would allow any subject to be remotely controlled by an A.I. And if you then removed the “e” – the electronic linkage – the software would shut the host down permanently, killing them. We also began work on several subjects that could properly be described as Golems. Bio-enhanced and gene-tailored super-soldiers, the next generation of janissaries. The British government was going to be the first to conduct field trials."

The screen changes again, to show an overhead of a large facility, almost as big as an arcology. Finn says “This is a satellite feed we stole. That’s the Emet plant. We can’t let this project continue, obviously. Questions?”

Mac sighs. “Why in all that is good under the sun and stars do people come up with these ideas? Subjugating the free will of humanity.. it turns my stomach, so it does…”

Able frowns at the screen. “This isn’t the first I’ve heard of the project – though, in my accessible memory, not in this much detail. Rossum had been using me as a testbed and potential replacement to Wahlen; I have a version of their software and the requisite hardware stored in my cyberwear. I don’t use it, as it’s brainlocked to a shadow of Wahlen they stuck in there and I don’t exactly relish letting him free to ride me.”

“We’ll need some resources, most of my gear is gone over the last few days… but we are more than capable of stopping production, particularly if it means a black eye for our enemies.” Pacoy says, looking at the feed.

Tillie puts her hand up. “I’m in. I’ve no internal cyberware or computer implants, so they can’t touch me with their hoodoo.”

Finn nods at Pacoy. “I think we can provide replacements for whatever you lost, or the workshops to make them good and some able hands to help. We can also probably provide a bit of a distraction and some muscle on-site too.”

He continues, “Here’s my idea. The Lazarus and Tillie are point, we can back them with some electronic recon, in real time, and a massive set of hacks to stave off reinforcements, as well as some White Mice to make a diversionary attack on or near the plant. A quick in-and-out, blow the main labs to hell – we’ll make sure we get exactly where they are from Wahlen – then back out via the Blue Shimmer’s sub. Let’s say we go in one week to ten days, depending on the speed of preparations.” he turns to Able, “And afterwards, new faces and IDs for all of you if you need them, plus a haven here or we’ll smuggle you wherever you want to go.”
He looks at Able in question. “How does that sound to an ex-janissary?”

Able leans forwards, the dinner forgotten. His movements are sure and smooth, without the hesitancy or sheer exhaustion of this morning, and when he speaks his voice is loud and clear. “It sounds dangerous. You say they’re building a new generation of super-soldiers there – we’ll probably run into one or two once we start invading, though if we’re fast enough they may not be fully operational yet. Still, couple that with the normal security of a place like this and we’re going to have problems. We may want to disturb the quiet little alliance between Umbra and Rossum before we move in – leaking information about Umbra’s little stolen researcher could help. But yes, with the right support – it’s doable.”

One of Finn’s aides, a young man with old-time transistors woven into his dreadlocks, grins, ’Aye, mon – we can handle a leak like that just fine. Just tell me what you want out there and twenty news corps will get an anonymous tip off at opening time tomorrow!"

Able tosses the man a datachip. “I uploaded the full sensie of our little adventure into the house of Rossum and Umbra onto that chip. I’m not sure exactly what we want out there – Wormwood is the sensie editor of our group – but I’m sure you can use some of it.”

“I’m going to head back to the bunks,” Pacoy says as he stands and starts walking, “I’ll make a shopping list and see what I can do with the workshop here. There is a lot of promising stuff, but time is not on our side.”

Mac sits back in his chair, staring at the display as he mulls over the future. Despite wishing for more time, he thinks to Pitbull, and a wicked grin crosses his face as he lifts a tumbler of hijacked whiskey idly in his hands. “Gentlemen, as the locals might put it, it’ll be a pleasure causing bloody mayhem with you lads. These monsters deserve everything we can throw at them.”

The North Sea
Sunday 23rd April, 2051
03.30 AM

It’s a dark and stormy night, but as a certain yellow submarine emerges from the depths robotic arms unerringly pluck it from the water and transfer it to the forward deck of the MV Blue Shimmer. In the dark, crew members direct other mechanical appendages to secure the sub and attack it to various umbilicals, before the top hatch pops. The sub’s pilot, Angelo, directs his passengers to the glowing light of an open doorway, then times his shout between wave crashes. “Over there, be careful but run!”

Mac steadies himself, then clamps a secure hand around the doctor’s arm as he drags him at speed towards the open door, feeling uncomfortable in his new clothing, his old bundled under his arm. Pacoy swiftly but carefully runs the directed course. Able takes up the rear, his legs a little shakey – but more from the virus than from the waves.

As Mac and Doctor Wahlen run towards the door, Wahlen slips despite Mac’s guiding arm. He lands with a woof atop a stanchion, knocking the wind out of him, and Mac feels the transmitted cracks of several broken ribs travel up through his arm. Mac winces out of momentary sympathy. “Feel like gettin’ trampled by a horse, did that? We’ll get you rosy enough when we get inside.” He tugs on the doctor’s arm. “Come on, move. You got work to do.” As Mac drags the Doctor around, he sees that the man is white as a sheet, still unable to breathe, and that there’s a trickle of bright red blood at the corner of his mouth. Amazingly, considering he probably has a punctured lung, Wahlen stays conscious. He grabs Mac’s arms like it is a lifeline and staggers into the ship’s superstructure away from the raging elements.

Mac groans inwardly as he stops yanking as hardly on the doctor. “Oh, this is better than getting drunk in a barrel… Guys, herr doctor is in a bad way here!” “I’ll be alright” Walhen manages to wheeze. The blood trickle is already slowing. “I need somewhere to lie down, is all.” Able grimaces at the blood upon the doctor’s lips, his thoughts more upon their chances of success if he’s seriously injured than any true concern over his well-being. “While that may be true, we’ll get you checked out just in case.” Pacoy ponders the image of Mac getting drunk in a barrel before yelling to the doctor. “In good time Doc, lets get moving, then we’ll patch you up!”

Angelo is right on Able’s heels. “There are cabins through here, second on the left. I’ll fetch the Captain, he knows some first aid.” He turns and climbs a ladder swiftly, heading up to the wheelhouse. The indicated turn takes the team into a short corridor with four sets of cabins opening off it, each holding two bunks. The other two small rooms seem to be a store and a small galley. Mac carefully guides his charge towards the nearest possible bunk. “We’ve not come all this far to be stopped by a raindrop.”

Wahlen’s breathing is already easier as Mac lays him down on the narrow bed. He looks up at Able, “I’ll not escape so easily, I’m afraid. I’ve Umbra nanites working in my system, constantly repairing damage. Rossum insisted when my drinking became too much for my liver. As long as I get sufficient calorific intake, my body will repair itself over a few days.” Mac snorts to himself. “This group wouldn’t know proper caloric intake if it got slapped with a wet fish.”

Just then, Angelo returns with an older man. The new arrival does a double-take at Pacoy as he hears the Doctor’s words, then throws a small medical kit at him. “Cousin, if the man is right then tape him up and feed him soup. I have ship to steer and it’s not exactly a Summer breeze out there!” He turns back to leave. “Oh, I’m Captain Navarro, by the way. Settle in, we’ll have you to your destination sometime tomorrow, God wiling.” Then he departs. Angelo hovers, watching.

Able seats himself on the bed opposite Wahlen. “We’ll check you out still in any case – we need to check for any locator beacons or other traps, anyways. May as well do a full medical checkup in the process – especially if you’re going to be suffering from a condition similar to my own.” Wahlen nods. “Logical. And if you have any painkillers in the interim…”

The Blue Shimmer is not a tiny boat – it’s designed to haul a 30 foot minisub around – but even so the heavy North Sea swells are making it roll and shimmy. Wahlen seems unaffected, but…

Mac suddenly keens to the harsh rocking of the boat, a rarely felt queasiness creeping up his neck, causing him to snatch a container of some sort from off the secured shelf and retch into it, for once glad that his stomach wasn’t more full. Pacoy looks a little green, and clutches his belly as adjusts to the motion. When everyone was getting a quick bit to eat and a change of clothes, Angelo gave Pacoy some advice about seasickness, which he followed – :shotgunning” a carbonated beverage then burping up all of the gas makes it impossible to vomit. Unfortunately, it does nothing for the nausea, and the rapid release of gas felt like a jab to the gut.

Able watches as a strange look comes upon Mac’s face; it looks almost like a mixture of gas and confusion, mixed with maybe a little bit of pain. He glances back to Pacoy, who is showing more typical symptoms of nausea, then back to Mac. “Huh. Your creators really thought your simulation through, didn’t they?” Mac groans. “It’s handy when you have to fake a hangover, but what I don’t understand is why it’s still so unpleasant.” He spits, then steps into the galley briefly and comes back with a mug of imitation coffee, nursing it as he clutches to the wall for support.

Angelo laughs at Mac and Pacoy’s antics, then grabs the medical bag from Able and rumages in it, coming up with common dramamine tablets. “These will help,” he grins. “These, or I could fry you up some eggs and a couple of slices of pork belly!” He positively cackles at the last bit. Able glances down at the tablets. “The pork might be best for Mac.” Despite the nausea the thought of trying a few Filipino dishes to test out just how thorough Mac’s systems are brings a smile to Pacoy’s face. Science!

Mac nods. “Not big on meds – they don’t do too much for me. Could I get four helpings of the eggs and pork? That’ll put me right as rain in a thunderstorm.” He smiles at the mere promise of food, straightening up and feeling more chipper, though still sore at his Mother for her odd trait choices. “So, now that we’re in a bit of a safer spot, what does the doctor think we’ll need to set his mind poison right?”

Wahlen grabs the medical bag, opens some painkillers and dry-swallows three. Then he takes out a roll of bandage. “Would someone mind wrapping my ribs up for now? I can’t easily do it myself.” Pacoy nods and begins helping the doctor wrap his ribs.

Mac watches on, and casually remarks to Pacoy, “Yaknow, it feels like it must be nice, having family of sorts all over that you run into. Is it?”

Wahlen continues as he is wrapped. “I have the formulae I require on my internal computer, of course. I wouldn’t travel without them. I’ll need a supply of peptides and some basic non-organic elements – phosphorus, arsenic and zinc, in oxide powders. I’ll also need a gene sequencer, a nano-level 3D biochemical printer and a biochemical replicator. After that, about 17 hours from start to finish, I’d estimate.”

Pacoy smiles and answers Mac without looking up from his task, “Well, not traditional family family, but I image it isa hell of a lot less creepy than when you run into a brother.”

Wahlen looks curiously at Pacoy and Mac. “Why is that, young man?”

Able steps out of the cabin for a moment to get some privacy while he accesses the ‘net, putting Wahlen’s requirements together to see if there are any locations that rent access to that sort of equipment out within a reasonable distance.

Pacoy takes mental notes on Wahlen’s list – it’s back to school time. “Mac has an odd family, kinda New Age Mormon, but not quite. It’s okay for us to rib him, but you’re not there, we aren’t friends, helping hands aside.” “Understood,” Wahlen nods and shuts up, as Able’s Net search reveals that the nearest place he could hire such equipment without jumping through innumerable bureaucratic hoops and security checks would be in Oslo, Norway.

With a destination in mind, Able steps into the room, looking to Mac. “Mac, do you think you could look into something for me? I don’t have much experience with the financial side of these things – but I’ve located a place that rents the equipment we need. See if you can find out what their price is – and, if it’s in the tens of thousands, whether they’d be willing to consider alternative payment methods.” Mac nods. “Yeah, slice of apple pie that’s been just pulled out of the downtown diner by a smokin’ hot pair of legs. Used to listening to people procuring services, should be simple enough. Not the first time I’ve had to deal with paying to get one of you fixed up.” Mac steps towards Able, looking at him intently. “What do you need?”

“Hold on a sec, guys,” Pacoy gets an idea as he finishes wrapping Wahlen’s ribs, “I’ll talk with the crew – keep it subtle, but I’m sure these guys will have a line on where we can find quality ‘off the books’ medical supplies.” Angelo, who’s been listening intently, speaks up. “Could you write all those down for me, please?” Able is about to send Angelo the list he cooked up, complete with links to places to procure them, when he realizes what he said – ‘write them down’ indeed. Like he had a pen. Mac digs through his rolled up jacket and comes out with a mildly soggy notebook and his pen, which he then meticulously unscrews, dries, and scratches out a perfectly legible list, handing it to Able, before nodding towards Angelo.

Able looks to Pacoy. “We don’t need just medical supplies, Pacoy. We need an entire state-of-the-art laboratory. Those machines aren’t cheap.” He sighs as he slumps against the wall. “Not too long ago, I’d have just walked into a laboratory like I owned the place. Maybe taken the owner or manager, stole his mind and face, and stashed him somewhere while I did the work needed. But I’m tired, Pacoy. I don’t want to steal anyone’s memories any more. I don’t want to wear another man’s face. I want my own life, my own identity – and the more of my mind that’s dedicated to replicating others, the less it’s able to hold on to my own self. So, yes, I want to do this as simply as possible – and if that means paying a few million for access to the laboratory equipment required, then I’m willing to part with the slave master within my own mind to accrue the funds.”

Mac looks at Able, eyes full of some construct of sadness. “You’re still in there, and as long as that’s the case, we’ve got hope. The only thing against us right now is time. You get me the information to contact the lab, I’ll get us in there. You have my word.”

Angelo speaks up. “I’m pretty sure they’ll have all this where we’re going. I need to send an encrypted short-burst though, so we won’t know for maybe an hour.” Mac looks over. “And where are we going, Captain?”

“I get that Able, we are all willing to do what it takes for you, I was just suggesting that guys who run port to port know how to get there hands on stuff. I’m not unwilling to pay – I just want all of our options in the open before we commit.” Pacoy answers, mildly upset at the insinuations he perceived, whether they were there or not. Able takes a deep breath, his voice as shaky as his hands as his eyes bore a hole into the bulkhead. “Thank you.” He sends a beam of the places he found to Mac, then slowly sinks down the wall to the floor.

Just then there is an almighty crack, like the world’s largest whip, followed by a grinding that transmits through the very fabric of the hull. As he turns away in panic, Angelo shrugs, “I’m not the Captain, just the pilot – and you’re going to meet The Finn.”

Seconds later, a small speaker in the corner of the cabin comes to life. “All hands, all hands, Baby Yellow has slipped a tie-down and is shifting in the storm. All hands on deck!”

Mac takes one look at Able, then at Wahlen as he rushes out towards the deck, stuffing his gear in a locker on the way out. As he runs down the corridor towards the external door, Mac is intercepted by a wizened old sailor in waterproofs. “Can you use a remote waldo, or can any of your friends? That cable must’ve hit Enrique, we can’t find him! If not, follow me – we need to rig new cables and try to tie her down before she capsizes us!” He opens the door to the storm and pushes out. Mac turns and shouts back, “Hey Pacoy? They need someone to operate a something or other, you know, the guy in the red and white who always is getting lost? Able, if you’re not feeling up to it, don’t worry about the cables, I got those!” Mac rushes after the sailor. “I can!” Pacoy shouts as he follows, “Point in the right direction!”

For a few minutes, Able just sits there, staring down at the floor. His mind stays mostly blank, and as the action and noise around him continues unabated, he could almost swear that he could feel just the barest hint of a soul peeking out from deep down in the depths of his brainwashed mind. For just a moment, it feels familiar, comforting – natural; and then it washes away with the next wave, and Able blinks – coming to see the world around him once more. Able stands up, holding out a hand to Doctor Wahlen. “Stay here. We don’t want you to get any more hurt.” He steps out into the hallway, then begins heading down to the submarine bay – back to the only other part of the ship he knows.

As Pacoy heads for the door, Angelo slides down the ladder from the wheelhouse. “You can operate remotes? Great! Follow me, the waldo station is midships by the sub mooring.” “Waldos aren’t my specialty, but I can handle one, no problem,” Pacoy answers as he scurries behind Angleo.

Outside, the storm has calmed a little, but only a little – and while there’s not as much wind or rain the sea is lifting in long, rolling swells which make footing difficult on the soaked deck. Ahead, the team can see that the submarine is sitting at an angle across the deck, unmoored at the stern – and as a new wave hits, the sub lurches further and the whole carrying ship tilts alarmingly to starboard. Angelo loses his footing and slides across the deck, slamming into the gunwhale hard enough to bruise but at least not going over the side. “Geez!” Pacoy shouts as he rushes over to offer a hand. Mac curses his new shoes, but fights to keep his balance as he struggles to get into a useful position.

Ahead, the old sailor stands as if rooted to the deck. He grabs the loose end of a cable from a massive winch, then slams over a release and begins to pay out new cable. Over the wind he points to a small cabin, like the cabin for a mechanical digger mounted amidships. “That’s the waldo command. You others, help me pay out this cable! If your pal can grab the sub and drag it back straight, we’ll tie it down and tighten this winch!” Able moves forwards, helping Mac towards the cable. Mac grabs onto the winch like an old yardboy, blinking the water from his eyes. “You be careful out here pal, I don’t want to have to go swimming after you if this gets bad.”

Pacoy nods to the old sailor and rushes into the cabin, giving the waldo controls a quick test-feel before reaching for the sub. The neural controls of the waldo are clunky and clumsy, nothing as elegant as Pacoy is used to, but other than some uncomfortable metallic grinding noises, the task goes basically as planned.

With Mac and Able’s help, the old man pays out the cable and makes it fast to a sturdy cleat on the sub’s skin, then he kicks over the handle on the winch again and it engages, pulling the cable tight until the sub is safely secured. Only then does he wave to Pacoy to disengage his robotic grab-arms.

The old man gathers you all up and shepherds you to safety, along with Angelo, who is nursing a sprained wrist. He offers his hand to each of you. “Danny Matapang. Thanks. I’ll be happy to sail with any of you again – especially you, cousin.” He grins at Pacoy. “Glad to be of use!” Pacoy gins back, honestly proud to be of service to the crew.

Able shakes the man’s hand. “I’m not sure how much help me and Mac truly were – you seemed to have those cables well under control. Pacoy, though…” He turns to his compatriot. “Good work.” Mac nods. “That’s what he gets, fiddling with his geegaws and gizmos all day long. Gets to be good with his hands, not as much so with the ladies.” “There’s a learning curve for sure, Mac, but trust me – the skill translates,” Pacoy smiles as he makes tight circles rolling his right wrist, “Master Level.”

: Mac groans as he retrieves his gear from his locker, fishing out his pocketwatch as he reviews the data Able sent to him. “Say, Danno, we got any good way of placing an outgoing call on this tub?” “C’mon, the Captain will want a report,” Danny says, and leads the way up the ladder to the wheelhouse. “That’s where the comms are anyway”. There, Captain Navarro is sitting in his chair, cables leading from the base of his skull to the ship’s computerized control interfaces. He smiles, rather sadly, as you all appear. “Good work, Danny, and you people too. You are my welcome guests, and I owe you one. It’s a pity about Enrique, but he couldn’t have felt a thing when that cable hit him, and he’s buried in the sea as he would have wished.” Danny explains in short sentences the status of the ship and sub – safe, but both in need of minor cosmetic repairs – then relays Mac’s question about outgoing calls.

The Captain makes an apologetic wide wave of his hands. “We’re under tight comms discipline here. We wouldn’t want the Brit authorities to find us, eh? They still have quite a zealous Navy. We’re under orders to communicate with our destination only, and then only by encrypted burst transmissions.”

Mac looks oddly at the captain. “And where is our destination? We are, you see, under a bit of a tight deadline.” “I’ve been instructed to deliver you to the Piper Theta. We’ll be there by this evening, by God’s grace. Our radar says the edge of the storm isn’t far off now.” The Captain looks puzzled. “I thought you’d know who was our Charter. I was told you had a human package that The Finn needed to interrogate. Was I wrong?” Able sighs. “No, you’re not wrong – though we hadn’t been given many details on what was to come after our rendezvous off the coast.”

Navarro sighs in sudden understanding. “Ah, right – a rush job, was it? Well, I can tell you this much – we aboard the Shimmer are primarily smugglers for hire. We can use the sub to get goods where they ought not to go. Right now we’re under contract to collect you and deliver you to an old oil rig North East of here. It’s the base of the group known as Mutate and Survive. I believe your captive has information that the Finn very much wants to know, about what exactly he’s been doing at a very secretive and well fortified lab complex.” He smiles. “Don’t worry – I’ve been dealing with The Finn for many years. He’s tough as an old boot but a good man, an honorable man, rare though those be nowadays. He’ll make it right for you, whatever you need from him, in return for your cargo.”

Able frowns. “So long as he understands that the man is our charge – and that we need his cooperation, not just his knowledge. He can have his interrogation – but the man is ours.” Mac nods. “Until Able is fixed. Then, you can take him to the horses for all I care.” “I think if he can share his toys, we can all play nice, it should work out better for us in the long run.” Pacoy agrees.

Navarro smiles again, “That’ll be between you and Finn, but as I said, he’s an honorable man. Now, get below and get cleaned up, have some food and rest. We’ll be there by tonight and you can find out for yourselves.”

Newstead
North Of Nottingham
Saturday 22th April, 2051
8.30 AM

The big C-700 luxury sedan, with it’s single cycle outrider mounted on a Machinami Tourer, purrs up to the gates of the old Abbey on almost-silent electric motors. Inside the blacked-out windows conceal Able and Pacoy, suitably disguised as Rossum’s head of Special Projects, David Geitner, and one of his personal security team. Mac, like wise disguised as a PST member, is astride the bike. The gates stay stubbornly locked shut, however, as a door in the old stone gatehouse opens and a guard dressed in Umbra’s security uniform emerges.

Mac balances on the bike, looking at the doorguard from behind his dark tinted glasses. He refrains from nervously tapping on the side of the car, and instead wishes the cycle had a bit more presence than a whisper-quiet motor. Able rolls down the window, sticking his arm out casually as he peers down at the guard, a dark look on his face. Pacoy sits quietly, looking calm and unphased, trying to maintain the illusion of a collected security specialist and not give away his thought of things going south.

The Umbra man catches the Rossum pins and his attitude shows a subtle shift from authoritarian to defensively servile. He pushes his SMG back and reaches for an ID scanner. “Good morning, Sir. May I enquire as to your name and business? This is a closed residential facility.” Mac watches the man’s hands like a hawk sitting behind tinted glass, hands ready to fly from the throttle at the slightest provocation.

Able holds out his hand for the man’s biometric ID scanner. “Davis Geitner. Head of Special Projects. There’s a security situation for our friends inside; I’ll be briefing you boys once we’re in a secured environment.” The guard runs his scanner over “Geitner’s” hand, recording and comparing fingerprints and unique capillary patterns in the back of the well-manicured mitt. He studies the readout for a second then steps back and salutes. “Welcome to Newstead, Director Geitner. The main house will be expecting you.” The steel gates swing slowly open, revealing a long wooded driveway of white gravel.

It’s about half a mile to the main house, a large seventeenth century mansion set in manicured gardens and bordered by an ornamental lake. As the small motorcade approaches the front of the house, there’s a scurry of activity and five more Umbra guards line up with their SMGs at present. From the main door comes a reed-thin and tall man in black suit and trenchcoat, a fedora on his head and dark sunglasses over his eyes. He looks at the line-up once and nods, then approaches the team’s limosine. He halts by the side door and waits.

“….and it’s an industrial-sized fan…” Pacoy whispers to himself.

Mac mirror’s Pacoys feelings unknowingly, mentally sketching out lines of retreat with dark charcoal to contrast with the beautiful surroundings. His weaponry weighs heavy in his jacket and mind as he rests his heels on the ground, hoping for the best.

Able steps out of the vehicle the moment it halts its motion. He looks down at the behatted man, then over at the guards. “Good. You’ve heard the warning. I hope you’ve put the principles in the safe room, too – bring me to them immediately.” The man bows, revealing body armor under the coat. “Messieur Geitner, it is a pleasure. I am Anton Mirault, PST lead for Madame Professor Barton and head of Security here. I have been informed that a Rossum Jannissary has gone rogue and may be seeking his maker, Doctor Wahlen, ne c’est pas? Is this operative truly as good as to warrant this panic, Sir? We have two full PSTs and almost a dozen guards here on site. I am sure we can deal with one rogue, non?”

Mac draws on all of the pain and negative memories he’s ever felt as he supresses a smile that tries to creep up from within, thinking, No, I don’t think you can handle him. You may be dealing with him though..

Able gives a sad laugh. “I’m not so sure. He broke into Rossum HQ at least a few weeks ago – we only discovered the results of his incursion now. I can’t say any more until we’re in a more secure environment.”

The thin man nods curtly. “Mais oui, d’accord, alright. Let us get you inside and then you can brief us on this more secure environment.” He leads the way up the steps and into the mansion proper, as two of the parade of guards return to duty and the other three look like they are heading back to a barracks area in one of the outbuildings. The inside is, of course, sumptuous – as befits the one-time residence of Lord Byron himself. Dark wood, paintings by Masters, painted ornate ceilings and gold giltwork everywhere. The team’s feet sink deep into luxurious last-century carpeting or middle-Eastern rugs older than they would like to guess.

Mac sighs internally, hands jammed deep into his pockets, wishing they had time to stop and enjoy the view. “If the rogue broke in here, I can only imagine the damage to all of these artifacts…” Pacoy subtly gestures to Mac, rubbing his thumb to his fingers in the universal sign of money, then clicks his tongue against his teeth and winks.

Mirault leads the way up a curving staircase. “We cannot, by Briteesh law, change any of the fabric of the Abbey itself. It is too old, too valuable. ‘National Heritage’ they say. We have a panic room set up in the wine cellar, but eet is sparse, so for now the principals are in the banqueting room on the first floor with the rest of my PSTs.”

Able frowns at the man’s words. “Sparse is better than dead, Mirault. The rogue may already be within these walls – and you wouldn’t know about it until he’s been long gone. Infiltrating places like this, without ever being discovered – it’s what we designed him to do.”

Mirault leads the way into yet another amazingly decorated room – this one with a huge oak table running down the center, covered in silver cutlery and a snow-white damask tablecloth. At the opposite end sit the Professor and the Doctor. At intervals around the room, warily watching doors and windoes, are five more cut from the same professional cloth as Mirault – the main difference being three wear Rossum lapel pins. “Director Geitner, you already know Doctor Wahlen. It is my great pleasure to introduce my own principal, Professor Phillipa Barton.”

Wahlen drains a crystal glass of some amber liquid and stands, a little unsteadily. “Director, is it true? Able’s slipped his conditioning and is coming after me?” His eyes dart to the heavy diamond-paned windows as if expecting them to burst at any moment Mac glances sidelong at the guards in the room, knowing trouble when he smells it. He begins the long drawn out process of seeing how many different ways he could get himself tossed to the curb and finds the number not to his liking, hoping fervently that their ruse holds up.

Able nods and holds up his hand. It begins to tremble. “Not just you, Luther. He hit a board meeting.” Wahlen gasps and sits down again hard. “How many did he…who?”

Pacoy looks at the aged, wrinkled skin of Professor Barton, and wonders why the shining star of the biotech skin weave industry has the skin of a pink tortoise, and tries to bring his mind back to more pressing matters.

Geitner lowers his hand. “Nobody – yet. But over two dozen were exposed. I think he discovered your little loyalty bomb – and decided to share it with the rest of us.” He turns to the security team, and Barton. “We’re keeping a lid on it, but symptoms are beginning to show up. I looked over the file on the test subjects – that sort of degeneration won’t look good on the directors of one of the larger purveyors of health products on the market.”

Prof Barton sips from a glass of iced water and then clears her throat. Her voice is light, musical and educated – as well as obviously artificial. “Calm down, Walter old chap. There’s no certainty he knows where you are. This facility is as secret as Rossum has obviously been keeping this attempt on its Board.” She turns to “Geitner”. Mr Geitner, what do you propose as a course of action? It’s the weekend so of course we don’t need to be at the lab today, but I have several delicate experiments I must monitor for progress on Monday. Can we not remain here and use you and your people as additional safeguards?"

Mac tips his glasses down his nose and stares at the old bag of skin. “I’ve had to cover some reports of what this rogue operative is capable of. If you think adding a handful of people is going to keep him from getting what he wants? The security on this place is like so much tissue paper to him.” Geitner shrugs. “We honestly don’t know where he is right now, but we have reports of known associates being seen in Britain. And when he planted the bio-device that hit the board, he infiltrated the computer network. Destroyed the specifications on the drug he used on us, fritzed with our local pharmacological sorting mechanism, and more. We have reason to believe this facility’s location was also compromised.”

Geitner wipes his forehead, flicking the sweat to the floor. “It’s been a hectic twenty-four hours. We only just recovered enough from the hacked network to piece together that it was Able who did this, and we still don’t have a firm timeline. The labs have been going crazy trying to put together a treatment plan of some sort – but now that we know the perpetrator, we hope we know the disease, though the local network’s data on it has been lost. We were hoping you’d have the data on hand, or at least could point us in the right direction.”

“You’ve had a hand in his design, Dr. Wahlen,” Pacoy asks without looking up from his ‘files’, “Do you think this place is secure enough?”

Wahlen glumly shakes his head. Then, Barton glances at the head of her own PST, who nods just slightly. “Very well, I shall place myself in your hopefully-capable hands, Director Geitner. Although it worries me that Rossum could not prevent their own creature exposing their own Board to one of the good Doctor’s inventive fabrications. Be that as it may, it would do no good to stay here if this person came looking for Doctor Wahlen and found only myself. I assume you have made good perparation of suitable transport and of course my own team will follow us in their own car. How soon can we be off, then?”

At that very moment, a message from Tillie arrives in the corner of the team’s visual fields. “Now?” Mac looks at his watch, then towards Geitner. “We can be off now. Should make good time, too.” An instant after Mac speaks, the window at the furthest right in the bank of old frames illuminating the banquet room shatters three times, and Mirault jerks as if violently pushed. Three bursts of blood and meat explode from Mirault’s chest as Tillie’s heavy sniper bullets penetrate his body armor, his ribcage and his internal organs. With a wail, he falls to the ground!

Mac moves towards Geitner, aiming to get between him and the window. “Get down, sir! We need to get you and the Doctors out of here as soon as possible! The Agent must be here!” Able ducks, reaching for the doctors. “We need to get you two out of here! If someone out there’s shooting, then he’s probably in here already. A sniper’s perch isn’t his style, but feeding on confusion is.”

In bursts of cyber-enhanced speed, two PST team members bowl the two scientists out of their chairs and onto the ground. One other grabs the still-screaming Mirault and tries to apply pressure to his wounds while two flank the windows looking outward, their SMG’s now out and ready, as they scream into voice comms about the attack and demand a medic. With a quick bit of concentration, Pacoy engages the his Insta-Soldier Beta and also kicks into an action-ready stance.

The head of Wahlen’s PST looks up from where he’s grabbed his own principal. “You heard the Director – move, move!” There follows a scurry of movement as three Rossum and one Umbra security hussle their principals out of the chamber and towards the big stairs. The last Umbra man stays with his badly wounded boss. Able follows the PST men. “You boys take point – you’ve practiced for this occasion already. I’ll keep a lookout for our chameleon.”

As everyone runs down the stairs, there’s a rattle of automatic fire outside, almost covering the drone of rotors. One of the uniformed guards is by the front door. “They’ve a drone pinning down the guardhouse, Sir” he rattles off at the lead Rossum man.

“Take the kitchen door” the Rossum man yells, and changes direction towards the side of the Mansion. “Yvette, you go on ahead and get the Amur running”. The last of the Umbra PST sprints forward, disappearing through a door.

Immediately, the Rossum man turns to Geitner and whispers in his ear. “If this is a hostile extraction, Sir, we now have the Prof isolated from her team. Your instructions?”

Able claps the man on the shoulder. “Excellent work. Take us to the skies.” “Yes Sir.” The man responds. He takes a moment to send a message to his team, then the two step up to the Umbra guard at the front door and one hits him in the base of the neck with an electro-zap. The guard crumples. “Roderick, Martin, change of plan – keep the Professor under control, we’re going for the AV. Doctor, come with me.” He opens the door and charges out.

Professor Barton turns on Able/Geitner. “You snake! I’ll see you dead for this!” Able places his hand on Barton’s back. “You’ll thank me. Rossum has some extremely attractive incentive programs – and this attack isn’t a feint, so I’ll be saving your life while I’m at it.” Barton begins to move forward, a look of sheer hate on her face, but one of the Rossum men at her arm grabs her and moves in front of her. That’s when she spits in his face – and his face begins to melt! Screaming, he falls to the floor as the other zaps the Professor just like he did the Umbra guard, then slings her over his shoulder as if she weighs nothing.

Mac’s jaw drops. “Did she… what…” It’s never just an ordinary day at the races, is it. Take your bets, there’s always something new… Able pats the fallen guard on the chest as he passes. “We’ll take care of you. Just keep yourself alive for the next few minutes, and we’ll all be through this.”

Outside, its only a short distance to two luxury AVs sitting on a grassy landing area. Each, one an Audi Sphinx and the other a Caddy Technogene, can carry four people. Another message arrives from Tillie: My guy says 2 outbound AV4s from Notts, ETA 6 mins. I’m outa here.

“Dr. Wahlen, come with us! You three, grab the professor and follow,” Pacoy Orders, “Be on the lookout for decoy ‘backup’, that’s the Rogues M.O.”

As they reach the AV’s, Able turns to the PST. “I’m officially assigning you to be Barton’s new personal security team. My men will provide security for Luther. Bring her to the secondary rendevous point; we’ll meet you there, but we’ll be splitting up in the sky to keep the dogs from finding us. Good luck.” “You heard the Director, Let’s Move!” Pacoy shouts, heading for the AV.

The Rossum men throw salutes. “Yes Sir. You take our caddy – it’s faster and you’ll have the codes. We have the codes for Umbra’s Sphinx anyway.” They turn towards the European flyer. Mac ushers his group towards the caddy, hoping Able does have the codes, and that they can lift off in time to escape the incoming reinforcements. Able moves to the Caddy, using the vehicle’s bulk and his jacket to hide the fact that he’s manipulating an electronic lockpick to pry her open.

A last message from Tillie: Forget the camp, meet my pals 35 miles E of Great Yarmouth, keep low. See you soon.

As the sleek luxury flyer lifts off into an overcast sky that promises rain later, the team see the other AV streak off Southward at speed. Then , a blue Amur van comes around the corner of the main house – and a Kestrel UAV flies straight into it head on, detonating both in a bright fireball. With that, Able turns the Caddy in the required direction – low and South East over England, towards the sea.

Pacoy recognizes the drone before it’s engulfed in flames and gives a short sigh before turning his attention on to looking for enemy aircraft.

Able calmly pilots the AV off into the night, keeping her low and fast. “Good work out there, men.” He turns to the rear of the vehicle. “You too, Dr. Wahlen. I think we can make use of you yet.” He turns back to the front, a genuine smile on his face for perhaps the first time in his available memory.