The Center

[satindesire]

~*{The Centre}*~


"Sandoval. I'm in."

A slender figure on a wire, connected to a belt wound around a narrow waist.

An earpeice in the shell curve of a brown ear.

"Fifth floor."

The line zipped as the woman sped towards the ground at a dizzying pace. A large number '5' was splashed in brilliant flourescent paint on the wall some meters down. She slowed, then stopped.

"The door, Sandoval."

The elevator doors pinged open. Removing a fiber optic cable from one of the many compartments on the belt, the wire snaked around the corner, one direction...and the other.

"All clear. First door on the right."

Muscle and sinew flexed beneath tawny skin as the woman grabbed hold of the elevator cables and disconnected the wire on the belt. Swinging herself nimbly onto the floor, she crouched, nearly belly-crawling as wide brown eyes took in the situation with catlike awareness.

Slinking quietly to the door, she pressed on the earpeice.

"Copy that, Sandoval. I need the hacking codes for the door."

Footsteps? Or was that her own heartbeat racing in her ears?

"Working on it..."

It was footsteps. A shadow stretched out on the polished marble floor to her left.

"I need those codes!" She hissed into the reciever. Frantic typing was heard on the other end.

Just before the security guard turned the corner, the door pinged green lights and she slid inside, shutting the door as quietly as she could.

Red beams of light crisscrossed the room, an office with a large mahogany desk neatly organized with papers and supplies. A slender laptop hummed on it's surface.

"Infared." She muttered. The reply on the other end was slightly breathless, irritated.

"You can make it through that on your own."

Stripping down the backpack on her back, sharp alond eyes took close inspection of the scene. Five beams, three sides of the room. Stretching out each muscle carefully, for once she was glad the Powers that Be made such uniforms.

Hell...she'd done worse than this.

Executing rapid gymnastic manuvers that would make a gold medalist green with envy, she tucked, rolled and cartwheeled over and around the beams until she landed quietly on all fours beneath the computer chair.

Plugging a wire into the port on the side of the laptop, she spoke into the reciever.

"Sending the package now."

Ki unhooked the adaptor line from the computer port.

"Package sent, Four. Five should be setting the thermal charges in fifteen. Extraction ETA in twenty. Bug out before the system resets."

Rapidly the woman wound through the infared lasers and pressed an ear to the door. Her hearing wasn't the best...the implants the Powers that Be had given to to enhance it hadn't taken yet.

"No thermals on camera. You've got less than a minute! Get out of there!"

That only left five minutes to get out of the building before the charges went. Agent Five was the best at covert demolitions...they'd make it.

The door lights cycled to red as she shut the door, as the security system codes for the entire building reset.

A tawny finger pressed on the earpiece. "Location of Five, Sandoval?"

Typing on the other end. "Her signal was lost due to atmospheric interference. Link up at rear loading dock 7. I suggest masking your heat signature before reaching the outer doors."

After infiltrating the same elevator shaft, she sped down the cable line until reaching the basement floor.

"On your twelve, one thermal reading." came the masculine voice from the earpeice.

Rapidly she melted into the shadows, and the cells of her skin shifted liquidly to echo the lightless corner. The elevator doors pinged open, and a statly gentleman with greying temples entered in a well-tailored business suit, old-Earth style.

Outdated by modern standards...he must be human.

Through the grate on the ceiling at her feet, she saw his sun-weathered hand press the button for the twentieth floor. In a few minutes, the gentleman and everyone else in this building would be cryo-frozen blocks of dead ice.

Or blown to bits...depending on what device Five chose.

Rapidly, she unhooked the line to her belt and dug her fingers and toes into the cracks on the walls, feeling the cold passing wind breeze past her, ruffling the hair that had loosened from her tightly rolled bun.

The elevator rapidly climbed, shrinking into a tiny dot far above her head.

Releasing the wall, she silently fell to the floor, light as a cat, camcells shifting back to it's deep brown color as she resumed her natural appearance.

Pressing on the earpeice, she muttered "Reaching the inner doors now. Activating thermal mask."

Static on the other end as she depressed a trigger on the utility belt at her waist. While masked, communications to the Centre were cut off.

She coded the door open with a light hacking program and slipped through to the docking bay. Robots whirred and clicked, stacking and unpacking boxes and loading flat-topped boats.

The cement under her feet was grimy and spattered with oil.

Five was nowhere to be seen.


***********************************

OOC: This is a complex story. The Centre is a evil organization that forces talent all around the known system to break into computer and security systems of their competion. You will play spies, people and aliens trapped into working for the Centre as they attempt to wrest power away from the many corporations who struggle for money and status in the Conglomerate of Planets.

The rules are simple...Make it clear in your posts who and what your character is. Please keep it logical and realistic.

Keep in mind that this is a MATURE thread, not meant for anyone under the age of eighteen! If you are NOT eighteen then do not read and do not post to this thread! There is violence and sexual situations, as well as graphic language and other stuff that you young'uns have no business seeing!

Thank you for joining...I will be updating the rules shortly, to expand the storyline. I would really like to get someone to play Sandoval and Agent Five...but the choices are yours to make. Thank you again for your patience, and welcome to The Center

 

[shadowoftheheart]

"Sandoval? Sandoval, this is Five, come in please?"

God-damn Atmospherics.

Terri's gills quivered in frustration. No time to worry about it now, though. Four was elsewhere in the complex, doing her job, and Terri knew she would pull it off flawlessly. There were very few beings in the Conglomerate as good as Fou rat infiltration.

A quick glance at her left hand's transdermal computer screen told her it was time to set the charges.

It had been a flawless insertion. Sandoval's expert hacking talent had given her access through an underwater hatch designed for use by service robots. Terri's gills and modified respiratory system allowed her to enter this passage without a bulky, artificial source of air, which would have been necessary for a normal air-breather.

Then, a quick shimmy up a robotic access tunnel, and out to the environmental control center of the complex. This is where she was going to plant the Thermo-Cryonic charges. When they went off, everything within the building would instantly be reduced in temperature to near absolute zero, killing anyone instantly, and destroying almost everything un-l9iving as well. There had been other options, but Terri believed that for this partiular job, a freeze-bomb would send a far clearer message.

Her short blonde hair was still wet, when her computer indicated it was time. Four strategically placed Thermo-Cryonic charges, set to go off simultaneously at D-hour, five minutes from now. It would leave little time, but Terri knew Four would make it. With all four charges set, she re-entered the robotic access tubes, and shimmied down to ground level and the backup rendezvcus point at rear loading dock 7.

She went out the access port -- and directly into the waiting arms of a service robot.

She blinked her violet eyes, smiling thinly and hoping that what she had read about service robots was correct: They would not harm a human.

The metallic being was 7 feet tall, and solidly constructed, with no effort to make it appear human. It had four arms with thousands of micro-joints allowing them the flexibility of tentacles, but with shocklingly human-looking hands.

The robot's wedge-shaped head scanned Terri, and set her down gently on her feet. She smiled thinly, wondering whether the cryo-charge would crack the robot's shell or destroy its comptuer core first. Regardless, she gave the robot a friendly, mocking wave, and walked off as though she belonged here.

Service robots were, frankly, stupid, and the massive machine turned away from her instantly forgetting her existence.

She glanced at her computer. She was off by two minutes. Glancing around to make sure there was no one around to see, she set off at a run, forced again to stop and press herself agains the wall. She held her breath as a security guard walked past.

"Investigating. No sir. One at the most. No idea. Probably another one of those squids."

Terri held back rising anger: Squid was a rather unflattering term for humans, like her, that had been given gills and a modified skeletal matrix to operate under water at depths deeper than some submarines could act. It also gave them the ability to squeeze into many spaces that humans, or even many aliens, couldn't get into. Many of her kind found themselves discarded after they were determined to no longer be useful, and were forced to infiltrate buildings like this to steal food, money, or goods that they could resell.

The Center had recuited her for her genetic mods, and her talent at demolitions. Her talents were being wasted doing undersea demolitions for a corporation that was settng up an undersea colony on a world that was almost exclusively water. Her body had, in fact, been extensively modified and by most standards, human was no longer a term that applied to her.

She absently scratched the access panel in her belly as she watched the guard slink off. With his back turned, she left her hiding-place, and finally got to the loading dock, with a minute to spare.

She blinked, rearranging the cells of her eyes to collect ultraviolet light. There! Agent Four, crouching and waiting for her. She ran over to her, keeping to the shadows to avoid detection by the, again thankfully stupid, service robots loading and unloading cargo.

She crouched down beside her.

"Four. Ready to get the hell outta here?"

-------------------------------

OOC: Looks fun as hell! I trust a genetically modified human fits in your vision?

 

[satindesire]

A seperation of glass doors was between the outer bay doors and inner bay doors. Machines rolled and floated past, mechanical fingers wrapping and packing boxes with a speed so fast even her highly trained and sensitive eye couldn't follow their motion. Movent was all over the place, her motion tracker was useless in the warehouse...

Thermal, behind her.

Spinning on a silent heel, her camcells liquidly rolled into black as she forced herself against the wall as the whish-whirr-clack of the inner door cycled open. Phasing wasn't easy, and she had done it so much her chlorophorm was nearly exausted. She'd have to spend a good seven or eight Mars hours basking in the UVA pods to recharge.

Ki flattened her slender body into an exact replica of the wall, but her energy was spread thin and the thermal masking only worked for a short time. Damned security was everywhere in this building...but what did you expect from GerWal Int. when the Centre was out messing with everyone's lives?

The glass doors slid open on silent tracks, the faint whoosh of air conditioned air hit her camcells. A tall figure holding what looked like Martian weaponry, pale in the way Chameleons never were, stood tensely at the entrance to the bay.

Where the hell was Five? He certainly wasn't her. The thermal masking cycled off as her battery packs were exausted and the ripple of the energy field as it dissapated was clear to any that had eyes enough.

Her cover was blown and she couldn't hold the Phase anymore. Returning to her natural form, she stood weaponless in front of the security guard for one dizzy moment.

Her outline was slim to the point of hiplessness, a boyish figure of deep tawny goldenbrown skin and a head of tight spiral curls of bright copper, the color of old-Earth pennies tied into a bun, now mussed from exertion. Large catlike brown eyes were the most striking feature of an otherwise nondesript face.

It was clear she wasn't human. No matter how far Centre tech got, no -person- could do that.

"Who the Hell are You?" She asked, sultry voice dark and spiteful. He might have the gun, but she clearly was Centre. A crimson 4 was emblazed on her bare shoulder.

He seemed put off by the demand, and hesitated a moment. But that was all the time she needed. Leaping forward, she grabbed the security guard by the elbow and flung him with every bit of strength she had against the plastique door, which cracked by the sheer weight of the impact. He crumpled soundlessly to the floor.

Motion sensors went flat in the bay as suddenly the red flourescent lights that ran parallel the walls began flashing red. Thermal readings went haywire as her Iris radar flashed warning signals. At least the interferene cleared up.

Tapping the COM to Agent Five, she subvoally linked in a hasty, "Security's onto us. You've got to drop those charges or the PTB'll have both our hides."

If they f*cked this up, they'd be in a hell of a pickle with the Powers that Be when they got back to HQ. They'd be lucky if they stripped rank and wiped their memory. Some Trainees didn't even fare that well.


*************
OOC-You bet! Mod'ed humans are cricket with me!

 

[red_whisper]

Lone Sniper

Bumping into a person, the woman dropped her things; he looked down and paused for a moment before coming to a knee to help…

“I’m sorry” his words deep and exotic, looking back to her, he never lowered his black tinted visor to gaze upon her, only pulling up her folders back into her hands, quite the gentleman, he offered if there was anything else he could do for her, she shook her head with a smile…

He kept to himself after the incident as he made his way though a crowd of people, a tall man being in his early thirties wade though the crowds, his black shades tight to his eyes, to cover the tinge of red that decorated his iris as his HUD, he walked down the road to turn on a street, many people lined the corridor, Faulx-Juger conglomeration was meeting down the street and the city blocks were all being blocked for the unveiling of their new product to the press.

A famous man, his name Jean De Atwain was waving at the crowd and smiling and greeting with members of the press, this man a middle man that was going to leak information on the slightly darker dealings of his company with other agencies…

The tall man walked to a building, stepping in and smiling the the security officer that stood their…

“Press…” he asked and the tall man nodded, he put his suitcase of the counter and allowed security to open it, inspecting it, they turned on his laptop…

“Reason for this…” the officer asked…

“I am doing a lot of writing and communications with my colleagues…” the man smiled as his HUD outlined the man and his weaponry classifying him a low risk threat to his operation, the officer closed the laptop and slipped it back to him…

“Enjoy” the officer spoke…

The man nodded and walked into the busy building, walking through the next check point, this time having his small bag searched…

He moved to the elevator and made his way to the twenty fifth floor and stepped out into the office being renovated…

He set his case down and looked out the window down to the podium, smirking he open the case and pulled the gloves from his fingers, in his sack he took a small case from it, opening it their were preserved finger tip skins, slowly he pressed his index thumb middle ring then pinky, then disassembling the laptop to assemble the components in the laptop, a Martian made 22X-S Compact Sniper Rifle.

Sliding the final piece into place he moved to meters behind the window, looking down to the chubby man that walked upon the podium, an accomplished marksman he needed no pod to help him stabilize his weapon, he took account wind direction, distance form his target and pulled the rifle up, he scoped his target and closed his left eye and took aim, his index finger hovering over the trigger as the man walked up to the stand…

His left hand slid black and chambered the round and then slipped back to hold the weapon, he was unfathomably still, no human could take a standing shot like this…

Pulling the trigger, the bullet exited the chamber and the only thing heard was a sickening spak as the back of the targets head exploded and the shell clicked out from the weapon, he smiled as the mist of blood sprayed everyone behind him and he paused for a moment to intake the carnage and a simplistic grin across his face, to easy.

He tossed the weapon onto the unfurnished floor and walked out…

A job done to perfection…

 

[Black Thunder]

"Well done, ladies.I never thought you would bypass my security but some how you manged ".

A row of lights began to flash on as numerous guards armed with AK-47's appeared.A shrouded figure came slowly down the main steps.Drwaing a Desert Eagle from under his coat,he continued to speak.

"Disarm your selves, and no one gets hurt".
Two of the armed guards stripped Agents 4 and 5 of their supplies and left nothing on them but their skintiht body suits.He walked over to Agent 5,yanked her hair towards him,jammed his weapon into her back,and inhaled the lavender scent of her shampoo.

"Ah,the scent of a woman.Nothing like it".

He procceded to lick from her neck to her earlobe.After which,he squeezed roughly on the lucious,firm tits.

"Take this one" pointing at Agent 5 "into my office.Do what you will with the other".

 

[shadowoftheheart]

"Charges ready Four, let's get the fuck outta here."

The lights flicked on, and a platoon of security forces appeared around the loading bay. They were at least holding cheap, old-fashioned assault rifles, obsolete by many years. Terri smirked. They were still automatics, but at least they weren't the modern motor-driven caseless assault rifles that held five hundred rounds and could empty their clips in three seconds on full speed.

Terri was still in some measure of cover ... but the timers were advancing on her charges, and she didn't want to become a meatsicle just yet.

She pulled open her top at belly level. It was held together by thermostatic clasps, so came apart easily to her touch. She then pressed a hidden contact on her body, and the hidden panel in her belly came loose. She reached into the compartment built into her body (she had unwillingly sacrificed her uterus for this feature, but those that had made her had decided her ability to carry equipment within her body was more important than her ability to reproduce) pulled something out, and ducked briefly out of cover.

"Grey!" she subvocalized, hoping Four would hear the message and remember the code-word ....

She threw a baseball-sized object of dull grey coloration toward the security guards. It exploded in front of them into a blanket of thick black smoke that was super-heated, and glittered slightly from a suspension of microscopic prisms that floated in the air. Sight, infrared, and laser were all instantly and simultaneously blocked out by the spreading blanket of smoke.

Terri instantly rose, leaving her suit partly undone but closing her transdermal compartment on the run. She didn't look back. Four knew what she was doing, and if she bought it, there'd be that much less dross to hold The Center back.

Terri was slender but looked human to all outward appearances ... well, as long as she had her transdermal compartment closed that is. Her bone and muscle modifications however made her extremely flexible, able to withstand the intense pressures of the sea not by resisting them, but accepting them, compressing with them, the way octopus and squid (hence the slur her kind often had to deal with) dealt with ocean pressures. Yes, it was uncomfortable, but Terri had been subjected to intense pain in her training program for the corporation she formerly worked for. Regardless, her flexibility had allowed her to enter through the robot tunnels (designed to be too small for normal humans or even most aliens to negotiate) and now her flexibility made her aim for an outer door that was almost completely closed. She would be able to compress and shimmy under the gap -- though it would probably mean minor repairs to her internal compartment.

She pushed open a glass door, breezing past it as though it wasn't there, and ignoring the whirring service robots that were bustling around past her. She still hadn't turned to see what Four's fate was.

Less than a minute. Terri was devoted to The Center: Many considered it evil, but it had taken her in, nourished her psyche and improved her training, and given her a chance to get revenge on the other Corporations, that used, abused, and then coldly discarded her kind once they were too old to operate successfully in the ocean depths. However, she wasn't prepared to die for The Center. Not yet, in any case ....

 

[satindesire]

Her eyecam flourished into a thousand and one flashing lights as soon as Five dropped the grey.

Cursing, the Morphie curled, rolling into a tight ball and propelled her body towards a service bot. The plastique and metal screeched in protest with the explosion, and she felt a sudden hot wind and shower of sparks.

Ki uncoiled and leaped after Five, spitting out the taste of blood.

Trailing green droplets, the Agent vanished in the air duct behind her, chaos and bodies in their wake.

She negoitated the climb with a burst of stimshot speed, thumbing the clicker back into her utility belt for future use. Phasing was hard, despite her decade or so of training, and her chlorophorm was nearing exaustion. It wasn't pretty, but the cocktail of illegal stimullants were the only thing that stood between her and dead. And dead would get Five just as.

Subvocally, she cued the warning bells on her HUD silent and snapped open the COM to Agent Five.

"Eta of the Hover is thirty four seconds. The IGP'll be all over us once you drop the charges, so we'll shut off our thermals and go black." Cloaking, also illegal, would mask their energy signatures to the Interglobal Police, and allow them a clean escape.

She kicked the duct vent out of it's screws and jumped down silently on the abandoned docking ring bay. Glistening cement and mirror-smooth water, thin pink clouds over the lavender sky. Mars was anything but dull.

The Hover appeared like a god from the cloudcover, and she ducked behind a crate to escape from the heat that the antigrav pods generated.

Five would be here any second. Ki hoped she fared as easy as herself.

 

[shadowoftheheart]

Terri cried out at the sensation ... She had compressed her body and was squirming under the all-too thin gap between the floor and the cargo door. At least one security guard had avoided being blinded by the grey grenade, and had activated the cargo door just as she was underneath it.

There was a sickening crunching sound, which made that agent laugh in triumph, but despite the intense pain to her body, Terri was able to pull herself out of the intense, vicelike grip of the slow, inexorably closing cargo door.

She vomited blood, and gasped in horror as she saw smoke begin to trail out of the edges of her inbuilt compartment. Opening it, she quickly tossed out its contents, loosing several more grenades including one that was smoking -- and exploded a few scant seconds later. If that had gone off inside her body ....

"Eta of the Hover is thirty four seconds. The IGP'll be all over us once you drop the charges, so we'll shut off our thermals and go black."

Terri stood, and began running, or more accurately limping, toward the hovercraft as it began to settle. She was gasping in pain, her left arm broken, at best, and blood welling up into and oozing out of the hollowed-out storage compartment in her belly. If she lived (and she realized with a sickening feeling that this was not certain) she would require extensive repairs both to her body and to her cyberpouch.

She glanced around for Four, hoping she had made it out alive. Because just as she reached the hover, Five heard the sharp cracking sound of her Cryocharges going off. The cracking, she tried to tell herself, was the sudden contracting of every non-organic part of the building, not the catastrophic and fatal flash-freezing of every living thing within it.

 

[satindesire]

"Holy Fuck..." Ki muttered, and put fire in her steps as she ran full tilt towards Agent Five. She grabbed the limping woman, squeezing her shoulders gently as she supported her weight against her hip and arm. "What happened? Do you need medial attention?" The pod hatch screamed open and struck the cement with a bang as the crackling of cryoice gave voice to the deaths of a several thousand. The warning lights went off in the walls as the din of screams began behind them. Ki guided Terri into the VTOL and slammed the button to close it just as security caught up to them, running through the plastique doors with guns drawn. "Sheilds up!" She cried. The pilot rapidly touched the VR screen with her specially net-gloved hands, and a sizzle of plasma surrounded the pod in an errie blue glow. The snaps of energy bolts fizzled into impotency against the pod's shielding as the antigrav kicked in, lurching the pod sickeningly sideways, and then just as forcefully upwards.

Agent Four leaned Terri against the hard metal wall of the pod, slapping the medhatch open and grabbing a diagnostic scanner. "Do you want some granozine?" She asked quietly. The best painkiller on the market. It would make her a little groggy, but she wouldn't feel the effects of hyperdrive or her injuries.

Suddenly, behind them, the blare of sirens jerked her out of the daze as if shocked by electricity.

A voice-only linkup hacked into their speakers. "This is AVP number 5659967. Lower your shields and shut off the power to your VTOL now. This is not a warning. Lower your shields and..."

"BOOOOM!"

A sudden burst of shockwave energy from GerWal's code White caught up with their rapidly ascending pod, throwing it off kilter and sending a sudden malestrom of claxons and warning bells, tossing her against the side of the pod wall into Terri's injured body.

"I've had enough sirens and bells for one godamn day!!" White teeth grit in a dark face smeared by wet black curls dripping green flameretard, blasted back by the whoosh of air that rushed into the pod's central chamber as the door hissed open. The two AVPs were hot on their heels, fuel-rod cannons adjusting to fire on their tail. Two shots from the second float grazed their shields, the third shot them full on the underbelly. THe shields flickered, hissed, and then went out. Cursing blackly in Chameleon, Ki hefted the heavy barrel of a RPG launcher and subvocally cued the link to her iris cam.

She could take the wing off an old Earth fly at 100 feet by herself. But the Powers that Be had implanted her with the Iris cam...making her almost 97% accurate.

"Go to Hell."

WIth the force of a high-gravity football team sacking a low-gravity quarterback, the Rocket Propelled Grenade whizzed from it's barrel and slammed into the first AVP, sending a shower of sparks and blue-white plasma jetting from the engine. The speakers of their non-cancelled hack line suddenly erupted in screams as plasma vented into the cop's cabin, frying the police officers alive. The float spun wildly in the air, rapidly losing altitiude as it headed straight for the second AVP, whose pilot didn't have the time or speed to adjust course.

With a sickening crunch of shattering metal and plastique, the AVPs combined weight sent them spiralling towards the frozen GerWal building, obscured by the thin beginnings of clouds as the VTOL gathered momentum to break gravity.

With an expolsion to rival Olympus Mons the AVPs fireworked with screeches of stressed metal breaking into millions of peices as plasma and fire mushroomed with the force of a nuke. GerWal's frozen structure began to crumble as the explosion rapidly metled the cryo-ice.

Ten thousand people dead in five seconds. Twenty thousand frozen eyes witnessed the destruction, blank faces locked in terror as the cryo-ice saved them from a more grizzly death.

Nuclear radiation would poision this place for months, until a HAZMAT team cleaned it up.

The ramp slammed shut and the cabin of the VTOL went dead silent. Carefully restrapping the RPG's spent and steaming barrel Agent Four turned weary eyes towards Terri, and nodded, giving a shaky thumb's up.

From the pilot's chair, the young woman turned, eyeing the two soaked and battered bodies, brows knit in concern.

"Are you guys okay?" Heavy french accent. Her mascara was smudged, the green flameretard had sprinkled her pressure suit and face, but otherwise an attractive young lady. The PTB wasn't one for sending out unassuming not-so-pretties.

"Sandoval....?"

 

[shadowoftheheart]

"What happened? Do you need medial attention?"

"Got trapped under .. damn door. Glad I'm .. squishy or I'd .. be dead."

"Do you want some granozine?"

"Yeah, Four. Not too .. proud to admit I hurt like hell."

The VTOL lurched, and Terri groaned. She blinked, adrenaline returning to her blood-stream as she prepared once more to run or fight as needed. She blinked and looked directly at Four.

Four was clearly frustrated at running. An RPG launcher was her solution, and Terri grinned widely as she blasted one AVP, sending it spinning into the second, and both spiralled down to their utter destruction.

Terri heard but did not see the explosion as the AVPs impacted the GerWal building. She grinned at Four's thumbs-up signal.

"Are you guys okay?"

"Been manhandled, shot at, crushed, bones broken ... hell yea, never better."

In fact, with the pain reliever, her nano-suffused body was already beginning to heal itself. The swarm of nanobots in her bloodstream had stopped her bleeding, and was performing minor cellular repair .. enough to keep her alive. She would still need repairs to her cyberpouch, and medical attention before her next major assignment.

 

[satindesire]

The Next Day.....

THE CENTRE

Board Room #1


"I hope you realize that the attention you brought to your mission was not welcome."

Black room. A single spotlight shone down on the tense brown features. Slender body held in rigid attention, silent copper eyes staring at the invisible faces that bored harsh stares at her still frame. The weight of the Board Room was like an invisible hand that gripped her throat, crushed her chest. Making it hard to breathe.

"I understant that perfectly, Sir, but Agent Five's life was in jeapordy. If I had left her behind..."

"Agent Five is expendable, just as yourself."

"Yes, Sir, but as I was saying, if I had left..."

"What you were SAYING....Agent Four...is not relevant to the course of actions you took in your recon mission. If the Globals have retrieved any information concerning you or your mission then you have jeapordized not only your own life, but the lives of the entire population of people that works for this corporation. Do you understand...fully...what that means?"

A muscle in her jaw tensed. Her vitals spiked hard, battle ready, the strong sinew in her arms and legs jumped as if in combat.

Point a gun to her head and she'd disarm the assailant in three seconds. Inject her with depressors and cart her off to a deserted island and she'd build a raft and make it back to shore. Stick her in a building and arm it with explosives and she'd evacuate and disarm the bomb in a minute.

But the Board Room was a battle that was never meant for her to fight.

"Yes....I understand." With a hint of sarcasm..."Sir."

"Agent Four, you have an excellent record." The rustle of papers. "Mission: Falcon, Sucess. Code: Marco Polo, Sucess. Mission: Havoc, Sucess...All the most difficult missions we have put on your shoulders you have managed to come through. From countless odds you have survived and thrived and have effortlessly acheived exactly what we have needed you to acheive."

Thin nostrils flares as the PTB rattled off her record. It wasn't something to be proud of. Innocent people were dead because of her.

"But this mission, this....Relativly simple mission...You bring the Federated Global Police Unit down on your heads. And, through chain of command....Our heads. These kinds of mistakes will not be tolerated further!"

A pause "Agent Five, injured. Four Global Police officers, KIA. If you cannot follow orders I will have you stripped of rank and memory wiped. I will not have any more of my agents going the way of the dinosaurs!" The voice echoed sharply in the large empty room. The Powers That Be really knew how to bring drama to their briefings. "Even though tecnically Mission: Secret was a Sucess, I will not tolerate this sort of blatent insubordiantion from the top Agent we have active at this time! Do I Make Myself Perfectly Clear?"

Lips tight, jaw tight....Body tense. Ki almost growled it.

"As Crystal.....Sir."

"You're dismissed."

Marching stiffly through the sliding plastique doors that shut behind her with a satisfying slam, she collapsed against the wall, squeezing her eyes shut.

Sandoval. Terri. GerWal, Int.

The leak. The Global Police.

It was too much. She had too little rest, too much work.

Sandoval, she had to see Sandoval. Damn the Powers. She had to be close to him.

Thumbing the lift doors open, she hit the button for Level 0, Subbasment, overhearing over the Com "Agent Five to Board Room 1." and shook her head. She felt the pull of gravity lessen as the lift sped downwards, halting suddenly as the light for Level 0 pinged yellow.

The doors slid open and she paused, looking down at her suited body. This wouldn't do.

Closing her eyes, she Phased.

Suddenly, instead of a buttoned-down businesswoman, Ki stood a woman. Plain and simple.

Coppery-black ringlets flowed loose nearly touching the small of her back, skimming cheekbones she had reddened to produce the effect of rouge. A flowing V-neck wrap-dress of subtle maroon skimmed her slender hips, ending barefoot, toenails painted bright red.

Sandoval's quarters, at the end of the short hall. Her bare feet were silent on the cold hardwood, and she knocked.

Three times. Twice, three times, once. "Tony?"

 

[shadowoftheheart]

To see her, one would never know that Terri had been on the verge of death just hours before. Her own internal nanoswarm had been assisted by the Center's powerful medical facility and her body was healed. She had a temporary insert in her body, where the fragments of her inbuilt container had been removed. The replacement was ready for surgical installation, but the temproary filler had been put in place to allow her the ability to be chewed out by the PTB.

She stood at attention, taking in deep breaths as she waited.

"Agent Five. Do you understand why you are here today?"

"Yes, sir. I jeopardized the integrity of the Center by allowing myself to be detected by a service 'bot."

There was silence on the other end.

"Sir, If I had known ...."

"Your duty was to plunger the cryocharges as soon as you and Agent Four were in imminent danger of capture. You were not required to survive the mission, and neither was Agent Four."

"I was under the impression ...."

"Impressions are irrelevent, Five. You should have accepted capture, and whatever that entailed, and plungered the charges. As it stands now, a simple operation went from a flawless, chilling warning, to an entirely botched operation that succeeded only by the barest of margins, causing more damage than we deisred to the facilities in question. Had we wanted the region irradiated, we would have equipped you with microfusion charges rather than crytocharges."

"Yes sir."

"To compound matters, you damage Center property."

"My cyberpouch."

"Your self. Five, you are the property of the Center. So is Four. You are far easier and cheaper to replace, than to repair."

"Yes sir."

"Good. Your record speaks of exelence. You have been given half a dozen operations, all executed flawlessly. You have earned a reputation as one of our top agents, second to none in loyalty."

"Yes sir."

"Five, you require a surgical procedure to return to optimal status. The cost of this procedure will be taken out of your standard fee. Report immediately to surgical, and the procedure will begin."

"Yes sir."

-----------------------------------

Terri was taking deep, cleansing breaths. The sensation of the soft breeze of the preparation room against the skin-covered gap in her abdomen was disconcerting.

She sat naked, glancing down at the hollowed-out gap in her body. The interior surface was covered by skin, and there was no pain, but she did feel the same sensations that the rest of her skin felt. She had only felt this once before, when she first entered operational serivice as an underwater demolitons service. Extensive surgery had removed her reproductive organs, leaving the external genetalia (as she was made sterile by the operation, it was figured that she would be able to serve on entertainment detail for the male members of the colony when off-duty) and her intestines, nerves, and blood vessels had been rerouted. When that operation had been completed, they force-grew skin around the interior surface of the gap, to give her internal spaces time to heal before they installed the cyberpouch.

The Center's surgeon entered, and smiled at her behind the force-mask.

"Well, agent Five. we have a new model of cyberpouch to try on you. It offers the same internal surface area as the previous model, but a stronger support structure allows for thinner walls. So we have some additional ... components added on. Don't worry, it's nothing you need to think about. The Center will see to their activation when the time is appropriate."

The anesthetic filled the room, and quickly pervaded her entire body. Skin-contact anesthetic was far safer and faster than injected or inhaled, and with the full-body suits and forcemasks the surgical team was entirely sealed off from its effects. Terri quickly blacked out, knowing nothing during the installation procedure, unaware that not all the components placed within her were authorized by the Center ....

 

[satindesire]

After processing the debrief material, Sandoval had studied Government satellite data and metadata of the GerWal incident, run it through his mirror of their DA facilities to determine what could be inferred from it, sworn eloquently in Spanish, tinkered with some image-processing software to eliminate all traces of Centre activity, built and digitally animated an anonymous structure-hit team from motion-capture stock, superimposed the ninjas over the newly blank ground in three-space, loaded the modified data onto the main Government hub and its supposedly secret backup server, planted and backdated a cryptic message on a public bulletin board in Moscow II concerning an imminent act of revenge, and used Box Three to sneak onto the network housing the scanners in the medicentre for a status report on Ki.

Then, finally, he'd slept.

Now he was running the wheelchair's bios through its customary checkup, manoeuvring expertly around the Box Room on a pair of heavily modified crutches. He'd jacked the thoughtport into a piece of smart cable tipped with an articulated claw, which was snaking around straightening things up, folding a couple of shirts, relocating empty plastic bowls to the recyc. Dusting. He was tall- startlingly so, for those who were used to seeing him four foot high- with the raw-boned physique characteristic of a regular stim-shot user. Metabolism never took a break. Years of supporting his weight and propelling himself around the Centre corridors had left his arms wired with lean muscle.

The light above the door flashed busily. A few random, disconnected thoughts shot through his head as the familiar sequence of knocks rang out over the hum of cooling fans. Good thing he'd handed that report in, hope the Director didn't come asking about it. She ought to leave that eyecam overnight for recalibration. Had he brushed his hair this morning?

He opened the door and none of it mattered.

"Ki..."
*************

Agent Four was dead.

Ki lay naked in the arms of her lover, dozing quietly in the glowing aftermath of lovemaking that had lasted hours, an intense coupling of mind, body, and soul.

When she was here with him, Agent Four didn't exsist. There was only Ki. Chameleon turned woman. She nuzzled his bare chest, pleasantly exausted. "I love you."

The com flicked open.

"Agent Four to the briefing room, on the double."

Sitting up sharply, and neatly cracking her skull on the overhanging ledge of shelves that hung above Sandoval's narrow bed, she cursed blackly and rubbed the rapidly tarnishing bump that swelled on her forehead.

"What the hell's going on?" She turned, looking down at Sandoval's face, still gleaming with sweat in the wake of their union.

He made an open-handed shrug, frowned."Can't say. They wouldn't be deploying you again, it's too early, they know you need time to recharge..." Sandoval trailed off, recalling belatedly that the safety of its operatives was nowhere near the top of the Centre's list of priorities."Guess you'll have to... wait and see."


"I'm.....I'm so sorry."

What the hell had she done, he wondered, sitting up and drawing her to him, that she felt the need to apologise for? Sorry for being one of the best goddamn agent this company had? Sorry for doing her job? Sorry that her life was fucked up, and his life was fucked up, and they were both one stupid mistake away from getting their heads blown off or their brains fried by military ice or their minds wiped blank as a slate so they wouldn't recognise each other if they passed in the corridor...

"Don't be," he said roughly, and kissed her."You better go before they give you a fucking pay cut or something."

She slid from his bed. And for a moment, they simply stared at each other.

Any mission could be her last.

 

[satindesire]

She slid reluctantly from the warmth of her lover's bed and Phased, nakedness liquidly melding into a fitted black jumpsuit and boots. Looking down into his handsome raw face, flushed and warm and masculine, stubbled with a day's beard, glossy black hair mussed across his brow, and growled. "I fucking hate this place. I fucking hate their rules." Bending, she kissed him roughly, passionately, the scent of his body like a drug.

"We'll get out of here one day. And then we can have a normal life. I swear to you." This she whispered, pressing her lips against his ear, her breath cool and scented of flowers. They would never have a normal life. With the memories they had gathered the last years of working in the Centre, they knew, both of them...they were expendable.

A normal life. Sandoval wasn't even sure he knew what that meant any more.

If the brief moments he spent with Ki constituted the high points of his otherwise monotonous existence, the minutes after she'd gone were down there with the worst. Partly because, given the very real possibility that every time he saw her would be the last, he was always torn between trying to etch every detail of her into his brain- she stood like this, she smiled like that- and convincing himself to stop because he hoped he wouldn't need to. Partly because once she'd left he was always forced to confront his situation, something no-one in his position should ever have to do while sober, and there was always a brief gap between the closing of that door and wheeling resignedly back over to the Boxes when an inevitable parade of treacherous thoughts marched behind his eyes.

Thoughts like, well; she killed for a living and he cut ice every day, and if by some miracle they did cut and run from the Centre, fought their way out from under, got a two-storey mortgage in an uptown 'clave and two point five biologically impossible children and a Martian goldfish, spent their Saturday nights watching movies about people like they used to be, would they really be happy?

The message chute rang and she opened it's hatch, lifting out a box of her integrated equipment. In printed letters it read "BioHazard. For Centre Use Only. Agent Four."

"Game time."

Sitting down on the single 'normal' chair in Box Room she cracked it's vaccuum seal and looked down into the many plugs and switches and horrid devices that turned her from a woman into a killer.

"It's got to be a Project. They wouldn't send me this much bullshit if they just wanted to keep us apart."

"Agent Four to the briefing room, on the double."

"Yeah, I heard you the first Fucking time, asshole!" She said as she lifted the eyecam's wickedly pointed reciever end from it's form-foam cradle. As Sandoval fitted her with the bioscan monitor, and plugged it into her 'lungs' through the port she Phased, a hiss sounded as a puff of oxygen escaped the entrance wound, then sealed. Pressing the gleaming needle of the eyecam into her right iris, there was a sucking pop, and she blinked rapidly, green liquid tearing from both eyes.

"Shyt. That still hurts, after all these years."

He fitted the monitors almost automatically, becoming very focused on the palmscreen's diagnostic readout when she snapped on the eyecam- he wasn't exactly squeamish, but he still couldn't watch that. Biocompat was optimal from go, but her energy levels were so low it was ridiculous. He wouldn't send her out for groceries on seventeen percent.

Integrated HUD, heart monitor, Phase monitor, security hacking equipment implanted into both forearms, along with lockpicking equipment and the standard-issue Centre field knife. Stim shot switch in the palm, and wiring for Radar and thermo scanning.

The Energy display on her HUD was still dangerously low. She had only basked for three hours in the UVA pods, and she looked up at Sandoval, shaking her head.

"If I can't Phase, I'll get myself killed. I might have to Stim my way through it. Hit me up."

"Ki, no." Sandoval raised a hand, as though to ward off the retort he knew was coming. "Whatever they're doing, they're going to have to postpone it until you're at least above fifty if they want it done right. If I have to, I'll tell them myself." But it was a hollow threat, such as it was, and both of them knew it. No special treatment, no undue shows of concern. As far as possible, their relationship had to appear strictly professional.

She knew he wouldn't do it, and her nostrils flared as if a frightened animal, though she was truly anything but. Liquid copper eyes, bright against the thick sable curl of black lashes that fluttered as another drop of green liquid gathered in the corner of her eye. "Don't argue with me. I know the Stims aren't for long term use but....what other choice do I have....?"

"Agent Four to..."

"Okay!" Angry shout, opening the Comm to the briefing room. "Okay, I'll be there."

Which meant he'd have to send her out into the field with nothing but an unstable cocktail of street-grade stimulants holding her upright. She was right. They didn't have a choice.

So he hit her up.

Besides, given the amount of buzz he was doing these days just to keep his head straight while he ran Zero, he'd have felt more than a little hypocritical if he hadn't.

She stood from the chair, shaking off the sudden dizziness that had her vision swimming.

Agent Four was not dead. But Ki wasn't either...only....buried.

"I love you. I..."

She was going to say 'I'll be back'...but any mission could be her last. She would never make a promise she couldn't keep.

"...I love you."

She fled through Box Room's single door, eternally afraid that it was the last time she might ever see Sandoval's beautiful face again.

 

[shadowoftheheart]

Terri was sore, and moving slowly. It was too soon for a new mission.

That never stopped the PTB, however.

She moved through the halls of Center HQ, in a cutoff top that revealed the still-scarred and not yet melded seam of the transdermal compartment in her belly.

No, she thought again. Too soon. The plastiflesh hadn't yet merged with her own flesh. Too soon!

She sighed softly. No, Center wouldn't care about details like that. Her compartment, and its surprises were installed in her body, and she was functional. That's all that mattered.

She felt a warm tingle in her left hand and glanced angrily at the transdermal screen implanted there. The PTB were especially impatient today. She waved her fingers above the surface of the screen in a specific pattern.

"Coming," the unit sent to the PTB. And she was, just as fast as her rubbery legs would carry her....

 

[satindesire]

Briefing Room 2 was empty but for a single backlit chair, the masculine definition of broad shoulders in a black tuxedo jacket. The bald head gleamed predatorially. If Ki had ever been afraid, this was the room it happened in.

On the single long desk, a tan case log was slapped onto the polished old-Earth mahogany.

The file read "Project: MusicBox"

"United Syria's Grand Enclave General Sumra's daughter, Nixa, was kidnapped two hours ago. Her integrated becon has been shut down by some unknown source. She was last reported in the Mondolo system moons, propably being held on the third smallest, also habitable to humanoid lifeforms. Mandolo 4 has a large underground network of old magma chambers connected by natrual and man-made tunnels, which we've theorized is her location. The kidnappers are demanding ten million unsignatured credits by tomorrow morning or they're threatening to kill her."


It was the work of a moment for Sandoval to determine that the colourful negotiations in Board Room One had nothing to do with Ki. Box Two was still playing its recorded sequence of diagnostics, responding as though he was sitting at the keyboard, so he moved Box Three on to the section of the building that housed the briefing rooms. The tailbroom program dragged after him, erasing his digital tracks.

'...daughter, Nixa, was kidnapped two hours ago. Her integrated beacon has been shut down by some unknown source...'

Box One pinged. He had mail. The contents of the message were identical to the words he was hearing from the Agent in Room Two. Despite the ludicrously tight timeline, this mission read like any of the countless others he'd done extop duty for over the years. Stop being so paranoid, man.


"The Centre has an....interest...in the Grand Enclave...and her rescue could prove quite profitable to Centre business. You have five minutes to pack your gear and report to docking ring one."

Ki's large copper eyes were wide with shock.

"With all due respect Sir, I'm an -assasin-...not a dog team!"

"You have...-five-...minutes, Agent Four."

A sinew pulsed in her jaw.

"Yes, Sir."

***************************
Docking Ring One

"Testing voice print activated signal. Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub, taking a bath one day. The butcher, the baker, the candle-stick-maker...Now which one of them was gay?"

The Stims suddenly hit her like a tidal wave and in a sudden wave of most human-like nausea she doubled over, green liquid tearing from her eyeducts. The eyecam moniters crackled with sudden life as her energy was suddenly forced from seventeen percent to eighty nine percent.

"Fuck." the HUD's energy spike sent a shrill claxon in her earpeice and she winced, flicking the moniters offline.

"Pilot Ri Natama reporting for duty, Ma'am!" A tall half-asain, half-black humanoid stood at attention, saluting smartly.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, stop that. I'm not your superior, at ease, or whatever it is you're supposed to say..." He automatically relaxed, crossing his hands behind his back. He was well over six feet tall, built like a Mac truck with muscle on muscle. What the hell was he doing as a pilot?

"The preflight checks have been made, Ma'am. We're ready and waiting."

"Are any other Agents being deployed?"

"I was not told Ma'am. But the rumor is that Agent Five is rendezvousing on our LZ, Ma'am."

"Stop!...calling me Ma'am."

"Yes Ma'a......Er..."

"Oh, God. Nevermind. Come on." Pressing a finger agaisnt the earpeice to check the voicecom to Box Room, she made sure the linkline was connected to Sandoval. Her little limmerick in the docking bay would have established that before.

"You reading this okay, Sandoval?"

Presumably there was a line between paranoia and prudent caution, but he didn't know where it was any more.

The earpiece crackled, static cut with syllables that resolved themselves into Ki's voice. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker... He'd always wondered about that linkup signal. Anyway, the smart money was probably on the candlestick maker.

"Loud and clear, Agent Four," sliding the blue goggles over his eyes. She'd overridden the monitors and her stats bubbled near optimum as the drugs filled her with borrowed energy. The sight alone was enough to trigger hungry receptors in his brain. "Feeling refreshed, I see. All right for some."

His full attention wasn't required unless someone started shooting at the hover. Sandoval's right hand settled on the Box Three keyboard and started keying in repeaters, getting a lock on the outer layers of the encrypted package. Matter of fact, he could probably set an autobot to break the ice and ping him when it was done

All business. There was no hint of the passion, the love, the desire for closeness and normalcy. Agent Four knew Sandoval as Box Room. Not as her lover, the only man she could trust. It was as if there were two people inside her body. Ki and...the mankiller.

Agent Four strapped herself in tightly in the foam-molded seats. Judging by the size of her pilot, this wasn't going to be the smoothest ride she ever took.

"ETA from takeoff is seven hours, twenty five minutes." He broadcasted, linking up with her earpeice.

With a private comlink she murmured "I don't like this, Sandoval. Not one bit. I've never done a rescue mission before and they're not likely to send someone like me here. I didn't know the General had kids!"

Almost like an afterthought, she stated "You know what...? Find all the information you can about the General and Nixa. This smells like fish and it's not the roach coach that's stinking."

To the Pilot "I don't think Terri's coming...she would have been here by now."

 

[shadowoftheheart]

Terri stood at attention, uncertain and frankly feeling vulnerable. She had gone on a number of missions with agent Four, and two with agent Six. Anytime in the past, that agent had been briefed along with her. This time she stood in briefing room four alone, but for a tall, lanky woman with tightly braided orange hair. She had gills as well, but Terri took no comfort in that fact.

"Agent Five. We have a severe situation. The daughter of General Sumra, of the Grand Enclave, has been kidnapped. The details are available in the case log ...."

She handed it to Terri. It read "Project: MusicBox."

"She is isolated as her integrated beacon's signal stopped about two hours ago. She was last known to be in the moons of the Mondolo system. It is estimated that she is held on the third smallest moon, as it has a terran-approximate atmosphere. She is likely being held underground in a labyrinth of natural and constructed tonnels. Her abductors have demanded ten million credits, unsigned, or she will be killed tomorrow morning.
"This is short notice, and I understrand that you are not at optimal condition. However, this is an unacceptable condition, and the Grand Enclave cannot afford to see either the death of the general's daughter, nor the surrender of ten million credits. As such, we have been subcontracted to conduct a rescue operation. You are to report immediately to docking bay three."

"I am to conduct this mission alone ... Ma'am?"

"No, of course not. However, for reasons of security, we cannot inform you of the name of any other agents on the mission. Now, you are to leave immediately."

==================================

Terri sat in silence in the spacecraft, looking blankly at the empty interior. Her pilot was a tacitrun Laturnian, and he did no more than nod to Terri and assure that she was sufficiently buckled into her seat, before taking off.

Every fiber of her being told Terri something was wrong. Something wasn't going the way it was supposed to. She was a demolitions expert, and one of the least qualified of Center personnel to conduct an operation of this kind. She could blow things up, but search and rescue was beyond her experience.

The moon in question was nearly waterless, so her gills and genemodded advantages were wasted. Why was she being sent? Were there no other Center personnel available?

The spacecraft stopped. There were inertial dampners, but in a vessel of this size, you could still tell when you stopped. She glanced around, wondering what was happening, when the pilot re-entered the passenger compartment ... aiming a blaster at Terri.

"I apologize, agent Five. I cannot allow you to continue on this mission."

"You're a traitor?"

"Treachery is such an ugly word, Five. No, I prefer to see myself as a patriot."

The pilot closed the contact, and Terri felt an energy bolt slam into her with the force of an asteroid strike. The world went a bluish color, and Terri had the brief consolation that the beam was a stunbolt rather than a lethal blast ....

============================

Somewhere, someone was displeased. The rescue operation had been foiled too easily. An injured, unqualified agent, a pilot that Center knew perfectly well to be an enemy plant ... no, there were other agents en route to Mandolo 4. Five was a decoy, sent ahead to be snagged and allow another agent time to inflitrate their operations ....

 

[satindesire]

'ETA from takeoff is seven hours, twenty-five minutes.'

Which meant Ki would be sitting still in a chair for seven and a half hours while wired off the scale on stim shots. This was no easy task. Sandoval hoped for her sake they had in-flight video games, or that she'd be able to step herself down enough to get some sleep.

Idly, he punched up the file on Natama. Ex-military, apparently, like Cardin, although it seemed the big man was very recently ex-military. His file with the Centre wasn't more than a week old. Well, that explained the way he'd addressed Ki, at least...

'I don't like this, Sandoval. Not one bit. I've never done a rescue mission before and they're not likely to send someone like me here. I didn't know the General had kids!'

He wasn't about to admit it, but Ki had given voice to the same vague feelings of suspicion that had been circling his head since she left, an edge of disquiet he'd tried unsuccessfully to put down to lack of sleep. Nevertheless, he couldn't stop a smile when she requested 'all the information he could find'. Not that he blamed her, but Ki never seemed to get a handle on just how much information that was.

"I'll see what I can do."

Yes, General Sumra had a wife, a striking woman whose large dark eyes reminded him of Ki, and a six-year-old girl who stared sullenly into the lens of the camera for the file photo. Didn't look nearly as happy or well-dressed as her glamorous mother. She wore a blue-and-white checked dress with an outmoded square collar, looked like some kind of uniform.

Sandoval frowned. Something tapped at the back of his head, just out of his mental focus. He'd seen this picture before, but he was damned if he could remember where. Maybe if he went under, punched Core-

That was it.

Core. That was where he'd seen it- not the same image, but a disturbingly similar one. In her file photo, six-year-old Hana Kawaguchi had been wearing an identical dress. And there'd been that same faint blur to either side of her...

He locked on to the formless shadow at the edges of Nixa's picture, ran it through some military de-map to resolve it. Shoulders. The edges of chequered sleeves to either side of her. This girl had been standing in a row of other girls in similar clothing. This was not a Government-issue file photo. He'd patched together too many false identities not to know what that meant.

Sandoval opened his mouth, then closed it, his eyes on the bank of lights representing the Centre's comm board. The private channels were still Centre-operated, so there was always a chance that someone was listening- he could secure his end of the transmission, but there was no way he could get Ki to secure hers without raising suspicion.

Sandoval's unusually long pause threatened to have her up out of the seat. She was trembling with nervous stim-shot energy...seven hours in that tin can wouldn't do her nerves well at all. Hopefully she'd be clear enough to focus on Phasing. Even a seasoned infiltrater like her could Phase sloppily hopped up on stims.

"Sandoval, do you copy? I said I want all the information you can find." Static.

Natama spoke up as her belly dropped in the hoverpod's sudden liftoff. The antigrav chambers whirred a low roar beneath the crackling of many other monitors and other bells and whistles. "We're experiencing some kind of bleed-off interference from the Centre Com DataSat. It should resolve momentarily."

All the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Why? Suddenly, she didn't know.

Unconciously, she slid deep into the cushions of the foam-form chair...and wether Sandoval answered or not, it didn't matter.

The pod broke gravity and began preperations for faster-than-light travel.

A hoverpod fitted with Slipstream?

Natama's Sat board read they were going towards Alpha Prime System...the complete opposite direction they were told.

The hover entered slipstream space mere moments after the pair of Centre doomsdayers fell under. Natama stood as he placed the ship on autopilot, unhooked Ki's unconcious body from the foamform seat, and carried her to the pre-prepared seperate brig cabin.

She'd wake up soon enough.

He snapped an electric collar around Ki's throat...That should keep her in line until they reached Prime and could be wiped.

The Centre would make him an Agent for sure.