Episode 110. Part 3
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We take a ride on the mag-lev to the Blue Sun Headquarters and as we approach the HQ platform we can see what we’re dealing with.
Beyond the very nice station platform is a large open plaza leading up to a stylish but functionally solid 15-foot high perimeter wall, with a 2-foot force field extending above it. Beyond the wall are acres and acres of green rolling lawn, dotted with trees and flowerbeds, framing a huge ornamental lake. Sitting on the lake, like a castle in moated splendor, is the Headquarters building. A gate is centered on the perimeter wall and looking carefully one can see the distortion shimmer of a force field bridge crossing the lake all the way from the gate to the Headquarters front door.
Must be nice being King…or at least, as much a King as Blue Sun can get away with.
Between the mag-lev station and the gate mill the protestors, a crowd of about 200-250 people. Fists and signs are held aloft, and voices raised. Sawhorse barricades keep the protestors contained in the plaza behind the station. Several of the BS Security guards are already there, decked out in riot gear. Off to the side of the plaza from the station is another outbuilding, several stories high, and off the corner of the station itself sit a couple of tactical vans, bridging the distance from the station to the wall. On the elevated track, we can see the roofs of both buildings.
Mike: (undertone) Snipers.
He nods toward the buildings visible through the mag-lev window and we see there’s a sniper on each roof, and they’ve each pretty much achieved a 360-degree field of fire. Damn. The mag-lev slows on approach, then stops at the platform and we get off.
We get a closer look at the security forces deployed at the rally. The guards are armed with shields and stun sticks as well as side arms. Each of the two vans have four people assigned to it and they are standing at the barricades and maintaining the perimeter. There is no getting near either of the vans without being observed, thanks to the snipers on high, so sneaking into the back of one to steal the Chempliance will require a distraction. On the far side of the station platform, further down the tracks from us, sits a news van. Looks like we’ve found the newsies… They man their cameras with an attitude of supreme boredom. Those cameras a possible hazard if we’re unfortunate enough to have our faces caught on them. We disguise ourselves as best we can using what we’ve got on us—a filched cap from an unattended station kiosk pulled low, or long hair pulled back, or jacket collars turned up. Done, we take the station stairs down to the plaza and the noise from the crowd carries clearly up the stairwell.
Mike: Actually, I’m kinda liking the sniper.
Rina: You’re liking the sniper? Did I miss something?
Nika: (getting it) They’re certainly the ones armed with what we need.
Arden: Why? They’re snipers.
Rina: Yes, but they’ve got the perfect overview for it. And they’re not where you can immediately get to them, knock them out and stop them from delivering it.
Nika: And we’re talking about a chemical that needs a wide dispersal.
We’ve reached the plaza by now and as we step off the bottom tread of the stairs, Rina tries to surreptitiously eyeball the snipers’ positions, hoping to get a glimpse of their weapons, to better gauge the firepower and range. They look like they’ve got more than the standard sniper rifles, but without getting right up there with them, there’s no real way of knowing what they’ve got.
We pause at the bottom of the stairs.
Mike: Let me run this past you. Someone takes out a sniper and takes his place. From that position…
Nika starts to chuckle appreciatively.
Mike: We might be able to change the dynamic of the protest.
Rina: Or change the dynamic of the people they call in to put it down.
Mike: Ideally, we want this over quickly.
Arden: We really don’t want a full-scale riot.
Mike: But a small scale panic won’t be such a bad idea.
Sounds good, but Arden makes one last attempt for a non-violent solution.
Arden: I suppose we couldn’t jut approach one of the guards and offer to buy it off him?
Nika: Do you have enough money on you for that?
Rina: Do they even know what they’re carrying?
Arden: I’m sure they know how to deliver it.
Mike: Yeah. They might not know what the drug is, but yeah.
Nika: Mike’s got a point—we get up there and subdue one of them without drawing the attention of the other one.
Rina: They’ll be in constant touch with each other, all the same.
Nika: Not necessarily.
Rina: They’ll be checking in at regular intervals, though, don’t you think?
Nika: Yes. But that ain’t constant.
We scan the crowd and the surrounding area, and Mike fills us in on the rest of the plan forming in his head. We have the crowd in front of us to work with. The security guards are armed, yes, but their rifles and gear aren’t currently engaged. If we could egg the crowd to a more rambunctious protest and have them overturn the barriers at the edge of the cordoned area, we could slip under cover of the crowd to the vans and sneak inside to grab what we need. It’ll be a tight schedule, time-wise, but we should be outside easy range of the sniper on the building off to the side of the station, and the van at the station corner would provide additional cover. In fact, looking it over, the side-building sniper is the one Mike is going to go for. Of the two, it’s got the better vantage point. Anything we do would be seen by the snipers and if they got wind of our plan and tried to call it in…Mike would be in place to take out the other sniper before the call can be made, and then lay down covering fire against the opposition.
Mike reckons he could fire off a shot into the air to panic the crowd and Nika backs him up on it. Now all we need to do is find a way to get one of our people in the van while the guards are busy with riot control. The vans won’t be unattended however, even with a small riot going on, and we come up with several different ploys to lure the guard on the van away. Feminine wiles, a brick through the windshield and resultant chase of the brick-hurler, or even bumping into the van to set off the alarms. We decide on the windshield ploy and tap Nika to be the brick thrower—she’s got the longest legs and can run the fastest. Arden and Rina will act as backup for Nika, if need be, and get into the van.
Mike pulls a fade to take out the sniper on the roof, and the rest of us insert ourselves in the crowd, to make our way toward the sawhorse barricade and the vans, and wait for Mike to fire over the crowd to start the riot going.
Oh, the newsies are going to eat this up.
The protestors start singing their protest songs, some holding hands, some raising them. “Kum Bay Ya” is a favorite. The assembly sings it badly and off-key and Rina pastes a sincere expression on her face and prays Mike shoots her first. When the shot does come, it takes everyone by surprise: a protestor’s boombox, held aloft, shatters into plastic shrapnel, sending those nearby ducking and screaming.
Assorted Protestors: They’re shooting at us! What are you doing? You can’t stop us!
And chaos ensues.
The crowd splits into two camps. Those that came because they wanted to be there surge toward the barricades. Those who were basically dragged along to attend run in the opposite direction. The newsies run forward with their cameras and their mikes, smelling a real story at last. We move along with the others, slipping through them to get to our target under cover of the crowd, avoiding the front where we would be hit first and avoiding the back where we’d be ineffective.
Arden: The cops are shooting at us!
Protestor: They can’t take us all!
Rina: Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!
The guards rush to the barricades, their shields and their stun sticks at the ready…looking rather taken aback that the situation deteriorated so quickly. The newsies apparently weren’t the only ones just marking time in their boredom.
One thing you can say about the Core worlds. Their public spaces are incredibly clean. Finding a rock or a brick to use on the windshield takes some time, but Nika manages to get her hands on something suitable. It’s big enough to deal some damage, yet small enough to hide most of it in her hand. Good enough, certainly, for what she has to do.
Another thing about the Core: people generally play by the rules. Though the crowd is angry, they still respect the barriers. They’re carrying on cranky, but we need to crank them up just a little bit more. Arden grabs a piece of discarded protest sign and hands it to Nika.
Arden: Start throwing.
She throws the piece at the van we’ve targeted. The sound of the stun sticks activating carries clearly across the plaza, despite the noise we’re making. Mike hails Arden on his comm.
Mike: That’s one shot-down radio.
Arden: Start shooting the signs. Front rank.
Mike: All right. Going more aggressive.
One of the armored guards at the barricades goes down, shot through the lower leg.
Wounded Guard: Man down!
The crowd cheers, shouting, and push the barricades down. We join in. Oh, yeah! Get’em! Down with the man! Blue Sun sucks! Yeah! Blue Sun Pretzels are stale! Where’s my two-ooooo dollar-rrrrrrrrrrrs?!
The remaining two armored guards have shotguns, likely loaded with Chempliance, and the unarmored guards have stun sticks. All of them look ready to use what they’ve got. The crowd surges further forward and the guards start aiming. The armored guards fall back a step, covering their unarmored colleagues and waiting for the order to fire. The crowd and the guards connect…and clash, and the signs, fists, and stun sticks and shields start swinging.
The tea party is finally underway.
A shotgun roars, a smoking object arcs high over our heads and lands in the plaza behind the main body of the crowd. Shit. Chempliance has been sanctioned…and it starts spreading through the air.
Nika: (At the top of her lungs) They’re trying to turn us into Reavers!
The screaming pitches up the scale towards fear and people start panicking, fighting to get clear of the chemical and lashing out at anything impeding their need to get the hell away it. Arden, Rina and Nika push forward, dodging fists and stun sticks, getting past the perimeter. Nika is first across the line. Rina’s right beside her and throws herself at the guard nearest to Nika, to give her friend time to evade capture. The stun stick comes down on her and connects for a whopping big zap! Rina’s thrown back against the station from the charge, sliding down to the pavement.
Rina: Bliad! That hurt, you sonuvabitch!
That stun stick has a kick like a mule, and it isn’t hard to fake being in pain…because, tough though Rina is, she’s swamped in it. She’s close enough to the van that she rolls under it easily. Anyone coming for her would have a hard time getting to her now, and she’s just cleared herself out of Mike’s field of fire. She curls up and breathes through the pain, and as it fades, she plays possum to watch and wait for a better moment to strike.
Arden slips behind the occupied guard and gains the back of the tac van. We get a lucky break—it’s unlocked. Once inside, he finds racks of guns and their ammo. The firearms are locked down and he’ll have to find a way to get them free before he can grab the Chempliance rounds.
Nika turns as Rina hits the wall, and assesses the guard who’s stunned her friend. He’s wearing a riot helmet on top of his full riot gear and his back is to her. She still has her brick. It won’t be enough to take the guard down, and she knows hand-to-hand with the guard is just asking for major damage…so she sticks to her plan: she throws the brick as hard as she can at the windshield of the tac van. Call it a fluke but despite the best defensive engineering money can by, that brick goes right through the glass and bounces off the back wall of the vehicle. Nika turns right around and runs like hell. She passes the guard again and he decides to give chase rather than shoot her. She lengthens her stride and pours on the speed.
In the back of the van, Arden ducks as the brick comes crashing through. Arden looks, sees, and picks it up, using it to bash the lock off the nearest gun rack. Once the guns are exposed, he pulls a clip free from one of them and checks its contents. Ten rounds of Chempliant are inside. Arden stuffs the clip down his shirt and hits the pavement outside. Job done.
Nika looks behind her to see if the guard is following. He’s not. His attention is caught by someone exiting the back of the van: Arden. The guard brings his weapon up, Nika turns on a heel to intervene and before she takes another step, the guard’s helmet splinters apart and falls away. The guard is dead before he hits the ground, shot neatly through the head.
Blood pools on the pavement.
Mike’s still on the job.
Nika heads for the body to check it and Rina crawls out from under the van. Others in the plaza are too busy with their own concerns to pay much heed to the goings on near the van, but some notice and start screaming anew. Sirens wail in the distance. Rina draws even with Nika. Arden joins us.
Rina: Cops are here.
Nika: How many?
Rina: All of them….I think.
Over the noise of the crowd and the sirens, we hear the mag-lev approaching in the distance. Our get-away car, and it’s coming right up. We haul ass and hit the station stairs, gain the platform, and perversely have to wait for the train’s arrival. We fidget. Mike hasn’t joined us and we fidget some more. The train slows to a stop. The police start pulling into the plaza below. It’s time to go. The train doors open and we’re forced to leave without Mike. The mag-lev pulls away without any last-minute boarders, and there’s no going back. The train is moving, and we just have to trust Mike can evade the authorities and catch up with us elsewhere. So we sit and say nothing til we get off at the stop near our hotel.
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