Bad Moon Rising
Date: September 11th, 2031. Time: 3.43 PM. Location: Wall and Broad. Characters: Benjamin Locke, Avery Jones Description: Execute Status/Rating: Private, in progress, R.
Locke checked the rounds in his weapon’s magazine for the last time, and slid it back into place with a gentle click. Around him, similar movements rattled around the APC’s interior, creating a military melody of preparation. Warsong.
He glanced at the rest of the DMS agents in the transport as it rattled through the cracked and broken streets of downtown Manhattan, its all-terrain wheels sliding over craters and around obstacles with relative ease. He remembered when these streets had been pristine – or at least, what passed for pristine in New York, a certain level of grime being expected – and had marked the gateway between the real world and the world of money. A world where buildings stretched into the sky like greedy fingers, ready to pluck the moon if it would have turned a profit. Buildings had been inlaid with gold, armies of men and women had kept the lights on and the engines running.
The irony of the date hadn’t been lost on him either. Thirty years ago, when two aircraft had ploughed into the World Trade Center, everyone had thought the world changed.
How wrong they were. The biggest upheaval, of course, was yet to come. He glanced around again and reflected that few of the people here would probably recognise that.
They all wore the long, black coats of their office today, body armour bulking out their profiles underneath the fabric. Badges glinted dully in the subdued light from computer panels, most of them purposefully smudged with dirt, so as not to attract the beady eye of a shooter or a spellslinger when an errant ray of sun bounced off them.
He didn’t want to conduct this raid during the day, but command had finally told him, in no uncertain words, that late afternoon was the time. What was the point in a show of force if nobody saw it, they had asked.
He’d bitten back his immediate response, one where he would have asked the point of exposing agents to unnecessary danger, and simply accepted the order. Time was at a premium.
They’d positively IDd several of the hangers on, and the Witch herself – Locke, even now, could scarcely believe she’d slipped into the city without them noticing – but if they knew then chances were she would know soon. He was under no illusions that there were leaks in the Department, sympathies that lay elsewhere, and moles in their midst. The trick was to strike before they had a chance to report back.
“You good?” he murmured to Avery, sitting to his right. She’d been through a hell of a few weeks, first with her sudden introduction to field work, and then with the incident at her apartment, not to mention everything else that had been going on this past month. All things considered, she’d taken it pretty well. Most other people would have been straight to the psych by now.