InsaneJournal

Who: Belle, Motoko, Canaan
What: Seekret spy stuff involving capturing a bad guy.
When: Today!
Where: Somewhere in Orange County
Ratings/Warnings: R for gun violence and burning things. Nothing overly graphic.
Status: Complete!


Belle was leaning on her SUV and smoking while she waited for Motoko and Canaan at the rendezvous point. She hoped this mission would go better than last week’s. Information was great, but getting an actual operative would be fantastic. She was beginning to realize she’d probably have to kill them all to preserve the privacy of the dreamers. She didn’t know how she felt about that. Rogue agents deserved death, for sure, but even more they deserved justice.

Motoko had armed herself with the kind of weapons she only wished she could use in her normal, day to day operations. The kind of things she was familiar with from the dreams. An assault rifle, and a pistol with the best accuracy she could find. She stepped out of the car and popped the trunk to retrieve her and Canaan’s weapons.

If killing them all was what they had to do, Canaan had no qualms with it. She'd barely been briefed on the operation at hand, but she knew enough. Asking questions was never that great an idea for someone in her line of work.

She stepped out of the car and nodded at Belle, then headed to the back to retrieve her weapons from Motoko. Several clips of ammo got snuck into the pack on her back, along with an extra pistol with a silencer on it. A rifle was slung over her shoulder, ammunition tucked along the strap. She tugged down on her cap a bit, and stuck a candy cigarette in her mouth, "Ready and waiting on your move."

Belle nodded and finished her cigarette. “Alright, so the plan is we go in separately. There’s three entrances that we know of, but probably more we don’t. Peons we leave be if we can, kill if we can’t. We’re not here to play nice. The head of the group looks like this picture.” She lit another cigarette and handed over a headshot of the suspect. “He needs to come in alive and able to talk. Injured is fine. He’s a tough bastard, don’t fuck around with him, and don’t let him get his hands on anything like a remote. He’s a demolitions expert. We go in quiet, we strike fast, then we get out. Rendezvous back at my SUV in half an hour after entry.”

Taking a look at the photograph, Motoko memorized his face. “If I get to him first, I can take him down non-lethally. I can’t guarantee he’ll walk again.” She said nothing about her plan to leave a few still twitching for Mayuri. The less said about that, the better. “Or use his hands again.”

"He only needs certain body parts intact to offer up information," Canaan replied, with a shrug of her shoulder. She took the headshot from Motoko and memorized the features of the big tough guy, then nodded her head and handed it back to Belle. This job seemed easy enough. Quick and clean if they did it right, maybe not so quiet.

"I can infiltrate from the top and work my way down. I see an entry I like." She motioned to it with her finger.

“I don’t care if he’s permanently damaged.” Belle said with a shrug. “If you’re going up top I suggest we take opposite ends.” She pointed to herself and Motoko to avoid using the other agent’s real name. “Anyone got anything else to add?”

"I'm good." Motoko replied. "Use 'Major' over the comms. I miss being called that." She flicked the safety off.

"You can use my real name. I don't have any other one," Canaan responded, nodding at Belle. Since it would take a bit of work to get up on the roof, she made a mock salute to the two of them, then took off at a run towards the building.

“I’m apparently going by Iris.” Which was stupid, but she didn’t exactly care what anyone called her. “Give her five minutes, then we’ll head out separate ways. Half an hour starts when you kick in the door. Anyone that’s late should be assumed captured. I’ve got a rescue team I can put together, they’ll probably value a live hostage as much as we do.”

Motoko nodded her head. She shouldered her weapon, ready to go as she started a timer in her head. She only worried a little about Canaan: she could handle herself.

"It shouldn't be a problem."

Five minutes was about all the time the other woman needed to scale the building in the path she'd already planned out. Canaan landed on the roof, and quickly made her way through the roof access and indoors. She tapped her comm on, "Canaan here. I'm in. Clearing the top floor."

She set her watch to 30 minutes and snuck out into the main hallway.

Belle headed for the entrance she’d claimed, slipping inside as quietly as possible. If Motoko wanted to shoot things that was fine, but Belle wanted to get to the target quick. Whoever Nathaniel Essex was really working for, he’d be a damn good asset to the investigation, and her first CIA agent in custody. She couldn’t wait to yell at him for failing to serve his country.

Motoko ran into resistance right off. She put a bullet in three men's heads, and as promised to Mayuri, they were brain dead but alive. She stepped over them, and shot out a window, leaping down into the facility below as if she didn't care about falling damage.

Up on the top floor, nothing much was happening. The rooms Canaan came across looked to still be in use, and for the most part scientists were working away inside of them, oblivious to her sneaking past the doors. The few offices that had doors without windows were entered quickly, their occupants knocked out silently.

These men and women weren't blue. She didn't need to use a gun for anything but knocking them out with.

She came across her first guard when she hit the stairwell heading down. The gun with the silencer quickly took care of him, and she dragged his body into an office, "Top floor is clear. Civilians, mostly."

Belle remained silent. The few guards she met were silenced quickly, but she was trying to stay out of their way. She found an elevator with a down button, which told her there were basements. Luckily, the emergency stairs were right next door. She slipped into them, breaking the neck of the guard inside before she started down. “Going down.” She whispered as soft as she could.

On her side, Motoko was plugging herself into a console. She broke through the security like it was nothing and calmly started downloading all the base’s data. She kept loading and unloading her pistol, scanning the area for other guards. “Oh, what’s this? I’ll take that file.”

Meanwhile, three floors above Motoko, Canaan was sneaking past another row of labs. Most of them had rows and rows of thick double glass that looked out into the hallway, and sneaking past them was interesting.

It had worked well enough to wait for when a scientist's back was turned, but as she turned a hallway and into another row of labs, she realised that one of the scientists in the lab across the hall looked familiar. His face was the one she'd memorized.

Her vision blinked out for a moment, into an array of colors that stole away any sound, and the man registered as blue. There. There was her enemy. She reloaded her gun and snuck over to the door to the lab, dabbing at her nose while she crept.

The man behind the door looked busy. He lifted test tubes and made notes in a notebook, completely oblivious to Canaan in the hallway. He was a tall man with very light skin and dark hair.

Belle sighed when she realized she’d found the storage rooms. Their target probably wasn’t down here, but maybe she could see what kind of weapons Cerberus was giving its scientists.

More data. Motoko was limited by the speed of the computer she was accessing, but she thought she’d be able to get everything she needed in time to escape. Someone interrupted her, and she shot him.

The man matched the photo exactly, at least as far as Canaan was concerned. And he was completely oblivious to her presence, which worked out spectacularly.

She let herself in through the door, slowly, then crept along one side of the lab, ducking behind a table with a bunch of equipment on it. Another move had her hiding in the shadow of the table the man was working at. She darted around it, then quickly crept up behind the man and slid her elbow around his neck in a sleeper hold.

Hopefully he wouldn't resist.

The scientist was caught by surprise. He dropped his test tube, yelling out as he was restrained. Nobody was close enough to hear, and after a couple seconds of struggling he stayed still.

When he was still for longer than a few seconds, Canaan slowly released her grip, catching him in her arms and checking for a pulse. He was still alive, and would hopefully stay unconscious for a while. She tapped her comm, "Target acquired. He's heavy, unclear about the exit strategy. Hope someone brought restraints or sedatives."

“This is the Major,” Motoko replied. “Good work, I’ve got their entire server copied. I’m going to insert a virus that will wipe it out and send a worm to every computer that’s connected to this network. That will give us more locations, and more data, and leave back doors for later.”

“Copy, Canaan.” Belle said in reply. “En route to assist. Major, I’ll need a route up cleared, and then we’ll need an escape route. Think you can handle it?”

“Upload complete, I’ll start clearing.” She unplugged herself and stepped over one twitching man, making her way out into the hallway. She crept down it, and took another guard in a sleeper hold. Then she threw a flashbang out into the next hallway.

"Everything's still quiet up here," Canaan responded. She glanced around the lab table she was still behind every so often to make sure no one was coming or had heard them. So far, so good.

Belle made her way up, following the trail of bodies to Canaan’s location. She eyed the man, then nodded. “Good work. Major, we’re coming your way, we’ll be leaving through your exit. Are things clear down there?”

She answered with a gunshot. “All clear now. Better hurry, they’re going to start noticing we’re here.”

As if on queue, alarms went off.

"That actually took longer than I thought it would," Canaan remarked, dryly. She nodded at Belle, then bent down and picked up one of the man's arms, "You grab his legs?"

Of course, if alarms were going off and this guy was important, guards were probably going to start swarming all over the lab they were currently in, "Or one of us drags and the other person covers until we meet up with Major."

“I was thinking the same thing.” Belle said with a slight laugh. “You drag, I’ll clear.” She peered out of the lab, pulling her gun out for the first time. The first two guards she shot, but when a troupe came running down the hall she stuck her hand out instead and concentrated. The heat from her powers was intense. The paint on the walls was blackened and the fire sprinklers came on, but the men in the hall were no longer an issue. “Major, meet us at the west stairs, we’re going to need help dragging the mark.”

With a nod, Canaan grabbed the guy's other arm and shifted his body around a bit, glad that her gun was already tucked back away in her pack. It would be pretty impossible to carry him and her weapon. Her life was pretty much in Belle's hands.

Whatever trick Belle pulled on the guards in the hallway came off like blue flame. Canaan didn't know what to make of that, but she was mainly glad that they weren't in danger anymore, "That's an interesting trick. I think it's best I never anger you."

“Hard to do.” Belle said with a laugh. “I’ll yell if I run into trouble.” She started off down the hall, making sure she didn’t outpace Canaan too much. She wouldn’t do any good as a guard if she lost sight of her charge.

Motoko was grabbed from behind as she came out from a stairwell. She elbowed back, then twisted around in the man’s grip and snapped his neck. She shot two more guards. “It got uncleared, so I cleared it again.”

"We're closing in on your location."

Canaan was strong enough to handle recoil and parkour, but this was another story. She kept up as best she could, all things considered, and made some mental notes to work on her strength training more when this was over.

Belle shot another pair of guards as they rounded the corner. She only had so much energy she could put into her powers, so she saved them for taking out groups of people. She tried not to look as anxious and impatient as she felt. She wouldn’t do a better job dragging someone so big. “Hopefully the next mark’s a midget.” She joked.

Motoko spotted them, then came over. “Trade you. I’ll take him, you can have my machine gun. There’s thirteen men coming from that south hallway.”

"I like this trade," Canaan lowered the guy's arms to the ground and then dashed over to Motoko, grabbing the gun out of her hands and turning to open fire on the south Hallway. It didn't take long to clear the group, and she nodded, "Let's move. She can carry him without any issues."

Motoko picked the man up like he was a pillow and flung him over her shoulder. “After you.”

Belle whistled. “Remind me not to piss you off.” She noted with a laugh. “Alright, I’ll take point, since I entered from that floor. Canaan cover our rear.” She started off down the stairs, clearing them with another blast of her powers. The backdraft blew her hair back, and the air became a lot hotter. That was almost the last time she could use that

The heat powers were playing around with Canaan's senses, but she couldn't say it was a bad thing this time. She could see the guards coming towards them more clearly through the heat, and easily picked them off with her machine gun, "Right behind you!"

Motoko kicked the door open, sending it flying off it’s hinges and into another Cerberus soldier. Sometimes a little brute strength could be fun.

Belle moved to the right, clearing out any of the men that came around with a quick blast of her powers. Motoko and Canaan both knew the location of her holding cell, so she could trust either of them to drop him off. “Major, run. We’ll cover you.” She grinned a little. This was all going really well.

"Four around the corner," Canaan replied. She didn't need to worry about Motoko running off by herself, either. She knew that, and she didn't have the headspace to worry about her friend.

She instinctively put her back to Belle's and took out whatever the other woman couldn't see. There couldn't possibly that many men left to shoot at.

Motoko broke into a run, and quite literally left them in the dust.