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OMICRON REPORT
Seattle, WA. 0700 010517
Through the course of the morning the whole team busied themselves with preparing to enter Zeus Storage unannounced and unnoticed. Dodger sat in his sofa chair in the corner of the building hacking away. By 1200 he was in position on the net and had access to their cameras and security. Kham and Petyr went over every possible contingency while preparing to go into Zeus. Bringing what tools and weapons they might need for their nocturnal prowl would take considerable space but there was no way to know what you'd need. So they brought everything. Kham had a suppressed SMG and a battle carbine with grenades in spades. Petyr was bringing a shotgun and his cherished Morning Star Pistol. Beggay was busy making the boxes they would hide in. They had to be easy to open and exit/enter but they also had to pass the most critical visual examination. Ian went about rigging up the eight digital fiber optic cameras each box would have, as well as the communications and the dumb-terminal monitors for the radios and cameras. Otter prepared the car that Dr. Payne would use to follow the truck after it left Zeus, then he had to ready his sniper rifle.
By 1600 the boxes were done and Ian and Beggay moved onto preparing the assorted vehicle they had scrounged with Beggay's driving boxes that allowed him to 'Rig'.
Kham and Petyr got into the boxes in the back of the Ryder Van; Dr. Payne rode shotgun and Masque drove. They would be renting warehouse space for the week and then depart to leave the dastardly duo to growl and prowl inside the warehouse until the shipment arrived. Zeus storage was laid out in a vaguely triangular pattern like a 1, 2, square-root 3 triangle. The longer leg lay flat roughly east west. The main gate was on the short leg, which faced east. This was the largest of the Zeus storages in Seattle, coming in at roughly 20,000 square feet. It was surrounded by a chain link fence, guarded by six renta-cops (two in the office and four on foot around the grounds), and the parking lot by the east gate told them there were three custodians who tended the warehouse after hours. They generally left after 9pm according to the computer time cards Dodger had found.
As Masque drove up to the security guard at the gate, he rolled down his window in the rain, smiled and asked, "Where's the main office?"
"Right there next to the row of loading docks. It's inside the red door. Ask for Lou."
"Thanks," Masque said while his hand caressed the gas needler on his hip.
As he and the Doctor climbed out and walked to the office door hurriedly in the light drizzle, each appraised the lay of the land, although they driven by many times. Across the street there were some dilapidated warehouses and an abundance of fishing nets piled up rotting on the concrete. The yard here at Zeus was relatively open but around the other side of the building there was an abundance of stock shelves and outdoor storage. All in all, very neutral terrain.
Once they parked the van, both got out and made their way to the door while once more going over their new identities. They were the owners of a small packaging shop and needed some storage for a product for a client. With that story in mind they went inside. The office was a small paper strewn room with four desks. Only two were being used, one by a secretary in her late thirties and the other by a portly man in a bad suit. There was a counter separating the desks from the customer waiting area. They walked in and stood by the counter, next to the dying tree in a pot, as the portly man stood up and walked over to them. "Hello gentlemen," he said with forced eloquence, "my name's Lou, can I help you?"
"Yes in fact you can," said Masque. "I'm Steven Tyler of Container Creations, Ltd. My partner and I run a small shop and we're plum outa warehouse space. Our van has a crate of our product that needs to sit around for a while before our customer wants delivery."
"Well you've indeed come ta the right place." Lou then proceeded to offer prices, floor space, and security for their product by the day, hour, or month. Container Creations bought some space for a month, and they both proceeded to fill out a few forms before they could collect their receipt. "Great! That's it. Now you can back your truck up to the dock and we'll put your stuff into the warehouse."
"Ok, Jack you back'er up and I'll guide ya." Jack was of course the nefarious Dr. Payne. He sulked under the order, but couldn't cause a scene. Masque walked out into the warehouse with Lou and looked around as they passed through the dilapidated old wood door of the office. The warehouse was a simple slightly reinforced pole barn. It had transparent plastic instead of glass for windows and these translucent sheets wrapped around the entire warehouse to provide soft defuse light. Inside the warehouse sat piles of crates, boxes, pallets, and totes of all sizes; stacked high on steel shelves up to the roof which was nearly thirty feet high. Immediately when walking out of the office they came to the four loading docks, three of which were closed. Rainwater and moisture clung in the corners of the doors and in the low spots on the floor, which wasn't unusual for Seattle this time of year. Dirt was almost everywhere; a collection of packaging material (plastic, paper, and wood) along with the worn rubber of the skid-steer forklifts; that wasn't unusual for a warehouse. What was unusual were the two inch diameter black rails that were mounted in the floor and wrapped up and over the loading dock doors. They were spaced four inches away from the door track and it would be impossible to get cargo into the warehouse without passing under or through them. Masque almost panicked, but on closer inspection the devise that may be able to detect Kham and Petyr, was indeed electronic. These sensor rails bristled with electromagnetic radiation when viewed by Masque through his cybernetic bug-detector eyes. They had cables running out of their base in into heavy conduit in the wall, where they presumably linked to a security computer.
Masque now subvocalized over his radio, "Dodger, come in over."
"Good sir, I am here, how may I put my vast skills to your good use?"
"Save me the banter. Disable the security by the door. We need to unload now. Why didn't you inform us of this?"
"For truth, I would. But my searches reveal no sensors by the loading dock doors. Proceed past them."
"Doctor get back here as soon as you are stopped."
"Roger." The Doctor and Masque then proceeded to back the truck in with a display of ineptitude that made the dockworkers grumble. They could have done it in a tenth the time and with precision to the tenth of an inch, but that would have drawn attention; sometimes you had to play down to the field you were on. Just as Masque had said, the Doctor climbed out and joined him at the loading dock as quick as he could. The Doctor was fast for a seventy-five year old; he was there just as Masque was rolling up the door to the truck. Masque locked gazes with him and directed him to look at the black bars. Doctor immediately knew what they were, and it set his massive brain into overdrive. Masque was talking with Lou about something meaningless to buy the Doctor time, he obviously didn't know what to do. The Doctor did -- He was a super-genius.
"Excuse me Lou, but would you mind if I unloaded it? It is delicate packaging." The Doctor fixed him with a look that can nether be refused or argued with. It wasn't mean or aggressive, it was mearly unresistable.
Lou thought about how inept this pair was at backing in a truck, but after further thought he decided there was no way to argue with this man. So he said, "Not at all, be my guest."
The Doctor walked over to the fork truck and gestured to the man driving it, "Ok, Jose. Get down, I'll be unloading this cargo." The worker, though offended, got down without a word. Climbing in, he ground the gears and gave it light gas. The LP powered fork truck began rolling to the door of the warehouse and the back of their truck, where Kham and Petyr waited inside. As he came up to the edge of the door and the sensor bar nearby he cut the wheel sharp and gunned the accelerator. Being back wheel steering this produced a whip-lash effect and sent the heavy reinforced cast iron back end of the fork truck that had extra weight (so as not to be off balanced when lifting heavy loads) smashing into the sensor bar with tremendous energy. Sparks flew, metal tore and creaked. The Doctor let out a surprised cry to keep up the charade, though he knew exactly what he was doing. Then he hopped off.
"Whew, those Hyster trucks are allot different than the Mitsubishi ones we have at our plant. On second thought, you'd better unload it Jose." He then motioned to the worker, who promptly unloaded Petyr and Kham, stacked them on a shelf on the south of the building and went back to work. Lou on the other hand was not in good spirits. He has that peculiar look that is shared by people when they loose their best friend or after their favorite dog gets hit by a car. "You gents have insurance right?" inquired the Doctor.
Looking at his feet with a long expression on his face, Lou said, "Yup. The warehouse will be ok."
"Great, then we'll be on our way. We shouldn't be back for our product until the end of the month. Thank you again," Masque said as he and the Doctor walked out the door and into their van.
1800. Inside Zeus Storage.
Petyr and Kham crouched inside the box for what seemed like hours watching the digital monitors of the activity inside the warehouse. Having been dropped off just before close, they didn't have to wait long before the office cleared out. Lou walked out with a bottle of Jack in his hands, drinking from it as he walked to his car. Then the janitors left; there wasn't much to clean in a warehouse. Now Kham and Petyr climbed out of the box and checked their gear and surroundings.
They were on the second shelf of the massive steel framework inside the warehouse. Toward the east of the warehouse was the office and material handling equipment (pallets, parked fork trucks) and to the west was more warehouse space and a solid wall dividing the warehouse. The two ops exchanged some hand signals and split up. Kham would check the office and Petyr would investigate the wall. Kham rapidly cruised through the office and then took up a position on the room of the office to await whoever was coming here tonight. Petyr moved down the aisle as Dodger talked him past cameras and electronic eyes. The security at the warehouse didn't extend beyond the wall. By doing some quick surveying and comparing the wall to outside dimensions of the warehouse, Dodger determined that the room beyond was about seventy feet deep and ran the length of the west side of the warehouse. There was a keypad and thumbprint scanner at a door further up the wall in the warehouse, but Petyr wasn't going to try and hack it. Their prey was coming and he had to get back in position. Ten minutes later, he was crouched behind the steel racks on the opposite side of the loading docks as Kham and the office. Whoever came in, was in for a surprise.
After the short adventure at Zeus and with Kham and Petyr inside, by 2000 all the vehicles were done: the kidnapper Dodge van, the three Mercedes Benz', the Ryder Truck, the full size Ford Pickup, the Taurus SHO, and the Yugo. Immediately upon completion of the vehicles Masque sent everyone on their way, "Ok everybody. Lets keep this simple. You all know what to do, now lets do it." With that they departed and took up their positions.
Zues Storage 2130
At Zeus Storage, Otter was across the street with a sniper rifle inside a busted window of an old warehouse. Ian was parked down the street in the Ford truck with a carbine and a shotgun, he covered the south and east quarter of the fence at Zeus. He also watched for the truck that would be bringing the 'merchandise.' Beggay watched all sides of the Warehouses at Zeus because he was in the back of the Yugo and jacked into the other cars. While apparently sitting idle, each had sensors and cameras on board that allowed him to act like a dozen pairs of eyes and ears. Dodger was down the street in the back of the van, jacked into the Matrix and watching the warehouse's security.
At approximately 2130 Ian gave the call that he had a Semi Truck in sight, proceeding towards Zeus storage. Everyone was immediately on full alert and at 100%. The combat ops had taken the requisite doses of The Juice. Everyone waited. Two men got out and began unloading the truck with forklifts. Inside Kham and Petyr watched them drive pallet loads of pods back through the door on the wall. Thirty pods per pallet made for ten pallets, all of which were efficiently moved into the back room. Then it departed as quickly as it came, with Dr. Payne and Otters dog brain in the Mercedes following it close. Overhead their pilot Blue Duck cruised like a shadow in his Black Helo 'Scout' Mk. I supporting Dr. Payne as he followed the Semi Truck back to where ever it came from.
At 2215 Ian again reported he had targets inbound for the warehouse. This time a Lexus and a Van, both of which pulled up and unloaded several men. The van carried two men in business suits and six armed men in drab quasi-military apparel carrying CAR-15's with 40 round magazines. The Lexus had two more men in suits that were the Universal Military type and one genteel man in a suit with blond hair. It was a strong contrast from his dark suit. That and his actions set him apart as the person in charge. One of the suits from the Lexus moved and opened the door for Blondie as he went into the office.
Inside on the roof of the Office Kham watched him come in through a fiber optic lens she had installed into the roof. Petyr was back in the shadows monitoring the pods come and go out of the back room. Then just as the Van and Lexus had arrived two men in white lab coats over navy coveralls had walked out and headed for the office. Staying in the shadows, yet close enough to hear them speaking, Petyr followed them. Sparing them only because he could learn much from them.
"We're behind schedule and the Boss isn't going to like that," one said in a manner people use to complain to their boss.
"He doesn't care, we just have to get back on schedule."
"How can we? We don't have enough test material." He continued to complain although his last had been put down with a heavy hand.
"Do you want to tell him that? I suggest we make due with what we have."
The one doing the complaining might have been thirty-five and in his prime. Fresh out of a University with a Ph.D. no doubt, he struck Petyr as an insolent little academia-brat. The other, older and more hardened scientist, was in his early fifties with a full head of gray hair. Neither seemed particularly friendly, but then again most scientists weren't.
After the men in lab coats walked into the office to wait for whoever had arrived in the Van and Lexus, Petyr stayed back at his original position. Kham took over from here. As the men from outside came in, she noted the professional nature that the lead suit checked the room with before he and his Master entered. Then there was the way he always kept his hands at his side and ready for action. Once he, his partner and the blond were inside and the door closed, the conversation began.
"What do you have to report?" the blond demanded.
"Progress as usual sir. Things have been progressing as we were instructed." The older scientist did the speaking.
"So you're behind schedule. But that is what I expected. Contracting with you morons was a big mistake. I don't need to tell you that you won't find work elsewhere unless this assignment is finished." The blond man in the suit spoke with a confidence and arrogance that was bolstered by the twin towers of muscle and firearms behind him.
"But sir, the time line given doesn't seem right yet. The merchandise isn't dying according to schedule."
"That is no concern of mine. Double-check your procedures. Doubtless you are doing something wrong. They WILL all die."
Walking across the street Masque was making his way to the fence that surrounded Zeus. He had bypassed the electrified fence with Dodgers help and was approaching the lone guard outside the red door. There were three others around the compound, but this one was his only concern. Listening to the radio, Masque had heard enough. Over the radio he said two words. "Take them." As he finished speaking he stood and fired six shots into the guard by the door. Despite his armor, the guard slumped to the ground.
Before he had finished the last syllable Otters shot had left the barrel. It deposited the target's brains on the side of Zeus storage. His next two bullets brought down two more of the perimeter guards. Inside Petyr closed on the office with blinding speed. Neither of the Doctors noticed him, but one of the bodyguards did. Turning, the guard brought up his 9mm HK MP5K and loosed a long burst. Through the shattering glass, Petyr dived for the floor and rolled. Kham meanwhile dropped through the roof into the pair of already startled guards. The second was hustling his charge, the blond, out the red door. Walking backwards he fired on full auto, his stream of bullets passing a few yards behind his comrade. Kham opened fire on the one engaging Petyr with her sub-caliber submachine gun, tearing him apart at close range with the high penetration high velocity rounds. Several annoying thumps in her arm told her that she was being hit. She turned as Petyr stood with his Morning Star pistol in hand, but both were too late as the red door stood ajar.
Dashing out the red door the last bodyguard fired another full burst without looking for targets. The tactic was meant to get aggressor's heads down, but nearly chewed Masque in half. Narrowly avoiding the long burst, Masque fired six times with the gas needle gun, subduing the opponent. Now he stood face to face with Blondie. "Get down on the ground!" He ordered. Blonde's hand was creeping inside his jacket as he remained speechless.
"Get down on the Ground! NOW!!" Masque repeated again. His hand was just inches away from the inside of his jacket. As his hand went inside the coat Masque fired two rounds from the tranq gun. His hand came out holding a nickel-plated .357Magnum and the barrel was headed right for Masque's gut. Now is when I hate how time slows down under stress, Masque thought. He fired twice more; the barrel continued to rise; two more shots and the needler was almost empty. Finally Blondie collapsed to the ground.
Zues Storage 2245
The implant communicator buried in his neck rang with an incessant buzz; Masque answered it.
"Doctor here. I'm at a Bayer Pain Reliever Distribution warehouse and need backup."
"Roger that Doc, Ian is on his way. Out." He closed the line and opened another to Ian. "Ian, get to Doc's location. Get ready to make a bang, and leave some incendiaries here, we need to clean up."
"Aghhh! Always demandin' stuff! But all right." Ian clicked off. To any ordinary observer nothing would have been seen. Both were communicating via their implant communicators and subvocalization, which allowed communication to go on almost unnoticed.
Around Zeus storage Otter was in the frantic process of getting the bodies inside out of the rain, while Kham and Petyr rounded up the scientists and prepared to go into the back room. "Ready yet?" asked Masque.
"Hurry, hurry. Rush, rush. Do not worri mi kiptin," was Petyr's reply.
With their prisoners detained they proceeded to the back of the warehouse and began inspecting the large door.
"Does it look trapped?" asked Masque as Petyr and Dodger poked around.
"My ample cerebral cortex tells me that it is not, good sir." Dodger sure had a way with words.
"Good. Go in Kham. 1. 2. 3." On three Kham and Petyr slashed the door with their claws and entered the room. Greeting them were rows upon rows of pod shaped, plastic, capsules roughly the size of a human stacked in pallets or laid out on stainless steel carts. Hundreds of them.
The other half of the back room was divided by hanging plastic curtains. The four of them paired off and headed for it, each pair on an opposite side of the room. Kham and Petyr were the first their, and hoping surprise would be on their side they busted through with a slight swoosh. A laboratory with two more men in lab coats facing them in astonishment were all that was there. Soon the men were face down on the hard floor, after a short fall induced by a flurry of tranquilizer darts.
Masque surveyed the room and noticed several things. Petyr was also a certified surgeon and physician so he noticed them too. In one corner was a series of aparati used for DNA coding and testing, next to it was a CAT scanner, and finally there was equipment used in Chemotherapy beside that. Along the walls there was an assortment of medical guides, journals, and manuals. One wall also contained hundreds of jars of chemical solutions and products. For what purpose all this was here they had no idea. A count of the pods in the next room came up to three hundred; how they went with the supplies and equipment in the next room left the agents equally baffled.
Back with Doctor Payne more things were likewise unfolding. Sitting in a Black Mercedes 750 sedan, he was watching another load of these pods getting loaded into the truck from the Bayer Warehouse. They had taken nearly twenty minutes to load the truck, which was drastically slower than they off-loaded. Meanwhile Ian had showed up. "Sig heil good doktor," he said in his best German accent by way of greeting.
"Greetings. Stay here, get in there, and then snoop around while I follow this truck back to the warehouse. Got that you geek?" He then handed him a sheet of paper and get up to leave.
"Yavol!!"
Doctor Payne casually drove the car out of the lot some time after the big Semi Truck, so not to alert it. "You got him from up there Blue Duck?" -- "Roger that. chhhk." -- Goddamn annoying tech ops the Doctor thought to himself. Them he called Beggay. "Beggay, I need a pickup to run this truck off the road, can you manage that?" -- "Is my middle name Fitzgerlad?" -- "No." -- "Well, nevermind that. I'll have it to you by the 38th St. exit." huhhhhhh. Exasperated the Doctor waited.
True to his word, Beggay passed the Doctor's Mercedes 750 coming down the 38th St. exit and proceeded to careen in front of the van. Without thinking the driver of the van jerked the wheel to avoid the driverless van (Beggay was Rigging it) and locked up the tires as the Truck skidded up to a stop on the shoulder of the highway. The Doctor did a forward 180 as he was stopping the Mercedes, which left his door facing the driver door of the Semi. "Beggay, take control of the Mercedes and follow me." He threw the order as he jumped up on the running boards of the Semi and opened the door to the cabin. Two shotgun blasts later, his twelve-gauge whipit was back in his holster and he was behind the wheel of the truck headed for the warehouse.
Now that I'm inside Bayer I can start nosing around. How did he get inside you ask? Well, any good Tech Op carries a half dozen gadgets for just that reason, and Ian's vest was bulging with useful gadgets a thousand times more useful than the ordinary fishing lures and paraphernalia that it was designed for. So being inside he went about pilfering all the secrets he wanted. Ian spent a few minutes in the shipping office. After silencing the only guard he browsed their 'secure' server for product information and the Serial numbers on the sheet of paper Doctor gave him. That proved boring, and although there was nothing there he did find that no such numbers have EVER existed at Bayer. Likewise, jogging around the warehouse looking for things amiss got him nothing but a short workout and a light sweat. Dejected, Ian ran around the warehouse again and pondered where he would hide pods if he was into hiding pods. After a half-hour he hadn't thought of anything so he went to a bar and had a six pack before he went back to the warehouse. Before leaving he did print out the ream of data that pointed out the 'non-existent' part numbers were being sent in large shipments (who needs a ten gross cases of Bayer Aspirin?) to Mitsubishi,
Zues Storage 2315
By the time Ian got there everyone was together and taking stock of the situation. Blondie had died of a self-administered dose of a lethal drug after he awoke from the tranquilizer. They had four scientists with IDs who had been working on the pods, and two guards who had been guarding them. By the time their brief discussion on the topic of "What do we do now?" was over, the Doctor had decided to stay and try to determine the purpose of the pods.
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