Cruel Country: Ambush
Apr. 10th, 2007 08:21 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsAfrica is a cruel country; it takes your heart and grinds it into powdered stone - and no one minds.” -Elspeth Huxley
X-Force - and a special guest - take on the facility in Uganda to retrieve the files Vazhin asked for. It does not go according to plan.
Uganda was hot, even this early in April. Hot and alien; a sea of black faces in which their own skin made them stand out uncomfortably so. Remy had been blase about Africa, having worked in various areas of it, but for most of the others, the cultural shock of the unique fusion of Western elements and distinctly African structures was both daunting and unsettling. LeBeau's briefing had been short, laden with warnings, and wholly unable to convey the reality of the situation of actually being there. X-Force in specific, but intelligence in general, relied on the ability to disappear at will; to blend into the environment and escape anonymously in case anything happened. Here, that protection was gone, and in many ways, it felt like the only way they could have been more exposed was to have worn X-Men leathers.
They had gone over the plan several times in the hotel room that they had rented. The facility was tied to the British, which meant the security would be a mix of foriegn specialists with a liberal sprinkling of local Ugandian forces for the exterior. Fortunately, the facility had been set inside the city proper, likely to ensure access to the power grid, and not willing to trust a bypass off of it. That meant their lines of approach would be more obscured, and suited for multiple points of insertion.
They had finalized on a simple plan, to avoid the devils complexity brought. They had identified what they believed was an electrical substation in the building, located high up near the generators on the roof. Sofia would lead Doug there, using her powers to carry them up. From that point, Doug would access the building's systems remotely, neutralizing security measures long enough for Remy's team to penetrate the lab. As a fallback plan, if spotted, Mark and Marie-Ange would help Doug and Sofia cut the power to the building, escaping in the chaos. Remy, Wanda, Sarah, Amanda, and a scowling Illyana in tow would enter the lab, grab a copy of the information, and disappear as quickly, counting on Wanda's powers, and the sudden lethality of Remy and Sarah to allow them to escape in case of discovery.
That was the plan, in any case.
Remy settled the headset closer to his ear and waited for the signal. By now, Sofia would be sheparding her team into place, leaving them nothing to do but wait. They had chosen a section of wire close to the rear corner of the building, where they were shielded by a built up alleyway. The design of the building had not counted for the organic growth of the city around it, and new construction had severely limited the security field of view where they planned to break in through.
Beside him, Amanda crouched, biting absently on her thumbnail. This whole thing was giving her a nervous, sizzling feeling in her stomach - perhaps it was the lack of information, perhaps it was because they'd been pushed into this. She glanced over at Illyana, wondering what was going through the other girl's head; this certainly wasn't the usual sort of field trip, but then again, neither was being arrested in Russia.
The other blonde girl - still the worse for wear from the previous day's disasters - had her arms crossed over her stomach defensively; her eyes swept the unfamiliar territory, but she couldn't make herself try to identify anything dangerous (this apparently not being a particular talent of hers), and she had been exceedingly careful to avoid as much eye-contact as possible. It was fine to tell herself that the sick feeling in her stomach was a side-effect of the head injury, but staring the actual cause in the face when she didn't have to was not her favourite option, at the moment. She exhaled silently, praying for this to be over soon, and glanced briefly at the others before looking away again.
Wanda's hands settled loosely on her knees as she balanced in a crouch, tensing her legs up and then relaxing them. She focused on the building in front of them, every once in a while casually flicking through the threads in her minds eye, watching to make sure nothing had changed that wasn't supposed to change. It kept her occupied without being a distraction, to herself or to the others. Concentrating on that and her breathing meant that she was as relaxed and as ready to go as she could be, all things considered.
Sarah flexed her fingers, watching the bone form along her knuckles. She hated the waiting part of these missions. Patience was not her strong point, and by the way she kept fidgeting, that much was obvious. At least she had the self-control to keep quiet.
“Three blind mice,” finally came the crackling voice in Remy’s ear. Several floors above them, Sofia turned slightly, listening on the wind on one side, while keeping her own piece shielded on the other, as Doug still sat, crouched, and putting away the last of his pocket tools. “Or whatever the suitably ridiculous phrase was that meant ‘go’.”
"It was 'go'. Didn't mean to confuse you." Remy said bitingly as he nodded to his team. "We'll be in touch once we're inside. Tell Mark not to fall off de roof in de meantime."
Mark didn't like wearing headphones around his neck without music pouring out. It left him feeling defenseless, and after Syria, that was not a particularly enjoyable sensation. But he didn't want to risk making noise, so he just gripped his iPod tightly, the small weight mildly reassuring. "You know, Remy, you almost sounded like you care," he bantered. "Talk about confusing."
LeBeau smiled a little and motioned his team forward, touching the lines in the fence to create a small gap through which they slipped. At one time, the fence would have been fully monitored for this kind of penetration, both remotely and by patrols. But Africa has a way of breaking down Western ideas of security, and the fence had long since been nothing more than a convenient wire barrier. They moved soundlessly to the wall, behind the side access point that their surveillance had identified. "Doug, you got de internals down yet?"
She would -not- pace. Pacing made noise, no matter how quietly you did it. And it always sounded like pacing, not like birds or rainfall or tree branches. So Marie-Ange stood, shuffling a deck of cards one-handed and glancing down at them every few seconds. Wheel of Fortune, The Devil, the Fool, never the same card twice. Too many people to keep track of, and the one who had -caused- all this wasn't readable anyway.
"I'd have them down sooner if everyone would stop jogging my elbow," Doug snapped irritably. Between Remy's question and Sofia's watchful stare, Doug felt more than a little pressured. Sweat that had little to do with the African heat rolled down his face. The security countermeasures were a bit more complex than he'd been expecting, but nothing he couldn't handle. Now if he could just quiet the roiling nervousness in his stomach. "Done," he murmured curtly.
"Bein. 'Yana, it's now your show." Remy waved towards the door. With the internal security down, Illyana should be able to teleport in and simply open the back door for them. Hardly the most complex of plans, but LeBeau preferred it this way. This mission had been put together entirely too fast for his tastes.
Illyana might have muttered something like, "Super," but she nodded, trying not to show how dubious she felt about teleporting anywhere, but particularly in enemy territory. A brief flash of light from the floor accompanied her departure, and she found herself in a half-controlled stumble on the other side of the door. Steadying herself, she unlocked the door and pushed it open.
Hugging the wall, Amanda gave a brief nod of satisfaction as the door opened and, after a cautious glance around, Illyana peered out. "Showtime," she murmured. As the walking defence shield - provided there was enough energy in this city, of which she was doubtful, the vibes were all weird - she was firmly in the middle of the group. "After you, boss lady."
"Thanks ever so," Wanda teased softly, pausing for just a second to glance around before ducking in through the door. Even if this was the tricky part--nab and grab with out being grabbed themselves--it was far better than sitting around outside. The hall was dimly lit but empty and silent, all good signs. Still, she kept close to the wall as she moved a little further in to allow the rest of the group to come in.
"Softly," Remy muttered, taking up the front with Wanda. It wasn't a big complex, and their window of opprotunity was going to be frighteningly small. He paused at the end of the hall, motioning Sarah to him and the others into the door to the lab. Remy and Sarah were going to mind the junction, as the others found the samples. "Doug, we at de door."
***
Since it was of no use to try to read Illyana, and likely no better to try to read for Wanda, Marie-Ange kept to what she knew and what was at hand. Nominally on 'roof lookout', she glanced down at the ground below, repeated the all-clear signal, and then picked up her deck of cards again. A quick shuffle and cut, and a glance at her teammates and then her cards.
Mark and his iPod, standing only a few feet away, and the cards gave her The Fool. No matter the deadly serious look on Mark's face at the moment, or his general 'take nothing seriously' attitude, it wasn't his personality that directed the card.
The Queen of Swords for Sofia, and again, Marie-Ange was not surprised. Watching them was Sofia's job, and she stood, barely moving, head tilted ever so slightly, watching and listening.
And then Marie-Ange cut the card for Doug, and as she did, another fluttered to her feet. Ignoring the card in her hand, she bent, and then quickly stood, alert and wary. Doug's card had always been the Knight of Cups, from the day she met him until the day before. But in her hand was the Page of Sword, and the card she had cut was the same suit's Knight.
Failed diplomacy, violence, and a threat to the people around them.
She had her mouth open to issue a warning when Doug's attention snapped back to his laptop; a pair of men were walking down the hall towards the intrusion team. "Shit shit shit!" Doug hissed into his mic. "Remy, you've got two men incoming, heading right for you!" he spoke urgently.
***
Amanda looked at Remy, then Wanda, and at his nod, grabbed Illyana's arm and jerked her down the corridor to where the schematics had said the main lab was, Wanda following. "Don't make too much mess!" she called softly over her shoulder as they went.
Illyana made a face at the unexpected contact, but otherwise had enough sense to keep quiet; she glanced back at Wanda, but they were already too far down to see the others. They came to the lab door, and she extracted herself from Amanda's grip. "Is it safe to open?" she asked quietly, glancing at the other two. Even in a whisper, her voice somehow seemed too loud.
Quickly, Wanda studied the door. Nothing sang out to her power about danger and Doug would have warned them if there was any alarms they could possibly trip. "Safe enough," she whispered back, "but just in case, I lead. Amanda, behind me, Illyana you bring up the rear." In case there was something waiting on the other end for them, she wanted to be prepared. A deep breath and then she was opening the door cautiously, eyes flicking back and forth over the room before she let herself relax. "All clear. Let's find those samples."
"A box of CDs and a couple of packs of slides. Brilliant, we're stealing someone's fucking Powerpoint presentation," Amanda muttered to herself as she began yanking at drawers. Some opened easily, others were locked and she looked around for something to jimmy them with - her lockpicking skills weren't fast enough for this.
Wanda saw what Amanda was looking for and shook her head. "Not enough time," she said, striding over to the locked drawers. A few hex bolts and the locks were rusted to the point of being able to bust through with a good enough yank. "I would normally say to look for something like this in a safe or something a little more secure...but considering the fence, I doubt we will run into something like that." She started to flip through things on the tops of desks and boxes that were laying around. She paused in the middle of rummaging through a pile of papers--buried under someone's printings was a small box of CDs. "That's one, let us find the others and get out."
Illyana pushed her hair out of her face and made her way to a shelf further into the lab, lifting a roll of what looked like floor plans to no avail. She flipped quickly through the contents of the shelves, before yanking open a drawer in the desk next to them. Her bruises protested the move, and she spent a second or two wishing she had managed to get out of this without the concussion. Two small, rectangular boxes were hidden underneath a folder of papers; Illyana pulled the top off one of the boxes. "I'm pretty sure these are the slides," she said to Wanda, lifting one of them to show her.
"Brilliant, good job," Wanda replied with a small grin as she took the slides from her. "All right, we have what we need. Time to leave."
"I just hope we don't have someone's holiday snaps, is all," Amanda quipped, reaching for the door handle. "As far as thefts go, this one's been a doddle..." The smile froze on her face as she opened the door, to find herself staring into the muzzle of a gun. The click as the hammer was pulled back was audible throughout the lab.
"No." The gun clicked with the hammer coming down but nothing happened. As the guard cursed and reached for another weapon, Amanda stumbled back, a flickering glow filling the room as the shielding spell went up. "Catch!" Wanda snapped, throwing the bag containing the CDs and slides at Illyana. "And get the fuck out of here!"
Illyana nearly dropped the bag, but managed to get a firm hold on it after a very long second of struggle. Adrenaline already pumping through her bloodstream, she obeyed Wanda's order without thinking or stopping to ask if maybe she shouldn't help; she dropped through a portal almost immediately after catching the bag, just as it occurred to her that if they died, it would be her fault.
***
"Two and two. That's easy enough." The fact that armed guards were very likely to come down the corridor at any moment meant the game was on, and Sarah didn't have to stand around itching for a fight while her insides twisted themselves into knots. The tension amongst the team had been contagious. She hated that. For her own reassurance, she added more quietly now "We just take them down before they can call for help."
"Go light. We don't know exactly what we up against here." Remy said, pulling their response back from lethality. No sense leaving corpses. That would only invite a much more thorough investigation. He slipped his staff back into his coat. Only hands and feet for this part.
And then they waited. When no one came, Sarah glanced over Remy and breathed "Are we sure they're coming?"
"Maybe not." Remy said, suddenly apprehensive. This stunk. He tapped Sarah on the shoulder and motioned. "How fast do you think you can close de distance if I give you a distraction."
"Pretty fast." Sarah scanned the hallway in front of them again, and rubbed her hands against the tops of the legs of her pants. "So we're just going to rush them?"
"'less you got a better plan. Wait for de cards to go." Remy pulled out a pair of cards, lightly charging them. He placed them on the floor, leaned down and pushed them out. He faded back until the cards exploded in a flash, blinding them for only a second, but giving that second to Sarah.
When the cards exploded, Sarah rushed down the hallway, bone club in hand. Just around the corner, two heavily armed guards were still shielding their eyes from the flash. She took the one guard's knees out with a strong swing with her club, and snapped her elbow up to catch the other one just under his chin. "I've got two down here," she called back down to Remy.
***
"There are two thick cables on your side of the roof, Mark. Cut them." Marie-Ange was already jamming an imaged and giant-sized spear into a battered breaker box. "Doug said that there was the redundancy. We need to cut all of the power to the building." She glanced over at Doug and hesitated for a moment, and then turned her head away. He was good at his job, and any shouted concerns would just distract him. She had to remember that.
Being the overwatch while the mission looked to be rapidly headed for disaster caused a clenching in Doug's intestines. He fought the urge to snap at Marie-Ange and Mark to hurry and cut the power. They were going as fast as they could, and the only thing he could add would be more panic, which would be counterproductive. He watched unblinkingly the blips that represented people in the facility. "Dammit, something doesn't add up," he murmured, more to himself than to anyone else, as he watched the first pair of blips that he'd noticed heading for Remy and Sarah. "They have to know what's going on at this point, what are they waiting for?" Because the blips hadn't moved, like they were waiting for Remy and Sarah to come to them rather than the other way around.
"This would be much easier if I'd actually gone to college," Mark muttered, hastily cutting some wires and reconnecting others. "That BS in EE is looking more and more attractive every second." But even between his knowledge and Doug's guidance, the power set-up here was too well designed to just easily snap off. Without a cheat sheet, at least. Mark sighed and pressed play. The right track was already waiting. "Smack my bitch up," he crooned, his fingertips sparkling with electricity as he forcibly destroyed the power. Not quite as elegant and the emergency power would turn on immediately, but faster.
"No. Catch! Now get the fuck out of here!" Doug pressed his earpiece farther into his ear canal at the disjointed words coming from Wanda's mic. If that wasn't the sound of things going sour...he cleared his throat to ask Wanda to clarify when his display blurred and changed. Blip. Blip. Blipblipblipblipblip. Where there had been a pair of men waiting for Remy and Sarah, now there were a scattering of blips, with more entering the compound. "Fuckfuckfuck," he chanted under his breath. Admiral Ackbar had said it best. "It's a trap!"
***
"On the count of three?" Sweat was rolling down Amanda's face as she kept the shielding spell up between them and the door, holding the security team out. Somewhere behind all the men with guns was another, taller white man, incongruous in a black suit and white shirt, his features as anonymous as suburbia. There wasn't a lot of power here, and she couldn't hold the shield much longer, but she could try and use it as a battering ram to push their way out.
"Three it is," Wanda responded shortly, eyes never straying from the men in front of Amanda. Normally if she was standing behind anyone to use them as a shield it would be Marko. It was still a little disturbing. "One, two..."
"THREE!" With an audible grunt, Amanda shoved the spell back at the man trying to get in, blessing the practice she'd put in since Wanda had mentioned using Mark's idea. The security guards stumbled backwards the front two falling over their fellows, the spell flickering and spluttering out and the two women took their chance, Wanda grabbing Amanda's hand and hauling her bodily out of the room. "And now the running part," Amanda gasped, doing her best to keep up with Wanda's much longer legs. At least Remy and Sarah would hear the ungodly racket.
***
Once the breaker box was throughly destroyed, Marie-Ange began gathering up everything that Doug didn't have his hands on, and shoving them into the bookbag he'd brought them in. Tools, cables, assorted parts that he'd brought just in case. And she hoped none were expensive or irreplaceable because she wasn't being careful.
Doug was reminded of the sequence in The Matrix Reloaded, where copies of Agent Smith flooded a playground in an attempt to overwhelm Neo while the Operator could only watch the Matrix and see what was happening. The blips of hostile personnel swarmed like a growing group of green ants on the display. He listened intently to what was happening to other members of the team, his fists clenched in mute frustration. Then he raised a hand to his forehead and rocked back on his heels. He'd felt...something, he wasn't sure what. It had felt telepathic, but he didn't feel any different... A handful of black-suited figures looked up unerringly at the rooftop and the mutants there. "Oh, merde," Doug panicked. "Angie, we have to go, NOW." He slammed his laptop shut and grabbed it along with his bag. The entire op had gone tits-up, and it was every man for himself. Doug's only concern now was getting himself and Marie-Ange out alive.
"Guess that means I get you," Sofia said, glancing over at Mark. "Good. We're going to try and draw some fire away from the group." She straightened to a menacing height, and if there were any doubts about their therapist having a possibly more curious background before, there wasn't now. "Split up! You know what to do."
Mark frantically switched from Prodigy to Puccini, electrokinesis giving way to hard energy manipulation. "I'm all yours," he said to Sofia. He sounded braver than he felt, but something about her posture was reassuring. He nodded to her and followed her lead.
***
Remy had driven past her, slamming his fist into the one man's temple. He pivoted towards the second, this one in a suit rather than a guards uniform. As he moved to strike, both of them snapped back suddenly at a mental assault. A psionic. And they had given him enough time to raise the alarm. Remy's foot lashed out, knocking him cold, but the damage was done.
"Sarah, I think dey know we here now." Remy grabbed the suited man, looking for ID. He was pale and sandy haired, obviously a British national.
"Shit." Sarah shivered from the Psi attack, like her body was trying to shake the memory of it out of her system. "That makes things more complicated."
"Oui." Remy shook his head twice. There was something ringing in his ears, just slightly. It reminded him of... what? Italy. 1997. The telepath on the agency staff that used-- merde.
"It's worse den I thought. We just been tagged, Marrow. To de psychics if dis place, we gon light up like Mardi Gras." He pulled out his phone. "Dis one is a burned mission now."
"Motherfucking HELL." She didn't look forward to every Psi in the building knowing exactly where she was. Not at all.
***
Marie-Ange hadn't felt anything. But she recognized Doug's reactions and gestures. Telepathy, of some kind. She could get the explanation from him later, if he had one. "Where do we go?" Although, she knew already. They were on a roof. Which meant the only way out was down.
Tucking his bag under his shoulder, Doug attempted a controlled fall off the roof by way of a corrugated metal awning. Kyle wasn't the only one who'd watched District B13 and thought le parkour was the awesomest thing ever. But Doug wasn't a trained expert, so he was fairly lucky to reach the ground in one piece with only the wind knocked out of him.
Marie-Ange wasn't so lucky, and while she made it to the awning in one piece, she hit the ground and crumpled for a moment, grabbing at her knee. They had no time to spare in getting away, and certainly no time to nurse a sprain that she could put her weight on. It hurt, but she felt no broken bones and she could bend her knee.
Doug had seen Marie-Ange's spill, and he winced as he saw her grab her knee. He ducked back to haul her roughly to her feet and threw her arm over his shoulder. He could find something to wrap her knee up with later. If they managed to survive the next five minutes.
***
Remy pulled out his communicator; a cheap looking celphone that was both anonymous and impossible to casually blunder on to the signel. He thumbed the emergency button, linking into everyone's headsets.
"Dis is Gambit. We've just been made. I think dat they might be using psionicists to tag and track us. Dat means escape B through D are no longer options. Hear me? No longer options. Pair up and get out any way dat you can." He forced back any change in his voice. The last time Wisdom and he had looked at this worst case scenario, the odds of survival had been one chance in three. "Marrow and I are drawing dem north. Drop your communicators immediately. We are now compromised."
He thumbed off the phone, smashed it under his heel, and he and Sarah started to move. If they were lucky, they might buy them a chance with their lives.
X-Force - and a special guest - take on the facility in Uganda to retrieve the files Vazhin asked for. It does not go according to plan.
Uganda was hot, even this early in April. Hot and alien; a sea of black faces in which their own skin made them stand out uncomfortably so. Remy had been blase about Africa, having worked in various areas of it, but for most of the others, the cultural shock of the unique fusion of Western elements and distinctly African structures was both daunting and unsettling. LeBeau's briefing had been short, laden with warnings, and wholly unable to convey the reality of the situation of actually being there. X-Force in specific, but intelligence in general, relied on the ability to disappear at will; to blend into the environment and escape anonymously in case anything happened. Here, that protection was gone, and in many ways, it felt like the only way they could have been more exposed was to have worn X-Men leathers.
They had gone over the plan several times in the hotel room that they had rented. The facility was tied to the British, which meant the security would be a mix of foriegn specialists with a liberal sprinkling of local Ugandian forces for the exterior. Fortunately, the facility had been set inside the city proper, likely to ensure access to the power grid, and not willing to trust a bypass off of it. That meant their lines of approach would be more obscured, and suited for multiple points of insertion.
They had finalized on a simple plan, to avoid the devils complexity brought. They had identified what they believed was an electrical substation in the building, located high up near the generators on the roof. Sofia would lead Doug there, using her powers to carry them up. From that point, Doug would access the building's systems remotely, neutralizing security measures long enough for Remy's team to penetrate the lab. As a fallback plan, if spotted, Mark and Marie-Ange would help Doug and Sofia cut the power to the building, escaping in the chaos. Remy, Wanda, Sarah, Amanda, and a scowling Illyana in tow would enter the lab, grab a copy of the information, and disappear as quickly, counting on Wanda's powers, and the sudden lethality of Remy and Sarah to allow them to escape in case of discovery.
That was the plan, in any case.
Remy settled the headset closer to his ear and waited for the signal. By now, Sofia would be sheparding her team into place, leaving them nothing to do but wait. They had chosen a section of wire close to the rear corner of the building, where they were shielded by a built up alleyway. The design of the building had not counted for the organic growth of the city around it, and new construction had severely limited the security field of view where they planned to break in through.
Beside him, Amanda crouched, biting absently on her thumbnail. This whole thing was giving her a nervous, sizzling feeling in her stomach - perhaps it was the lack of information, perhaps it was because they'd been pushed into this. She glanced over at Illyana, wondering what was going through the other girl's head; this certainly wasn't the usual sort of field trip, but then again, neither was being arrested in Russia.
The other blonde girl - still the worse for wear from the previous day's disasters - had her arms crossed over her stomach defensively; her eyes swept the unfamiliar territory, but she couldn't make herself try to identify anything dangerous (this apparently not being a particular talent of hers), and she had been exceedingly careful to avoid as much eye-contact as possible. It was fine to tell herself that the sick feeling in her stomach was a side-effect of the head injury, but staring the actual cause in the face when she didn't have to was not her favourite option, at the moment. She exhaled silently, praying for this to be over soon, and glanced briefly at the others before looking away again.
Wanda's hands settled loosely on her knees as she balanced in a crouch, tensing her legs up and then relaxing them. She focused on the building in front of them, every once in a while casually flicking through the threads in her minds eye, watching to make sure nothing had changed that wasn't supposed to change. It kept her occupied without being a distraction, to herself or to the others. Concentrating on that and her breathing meant that she was as relaxed and as ready to go as she could be, all things considered.
Sarah flexed her fingers, watching the bone form along her knuckles. She hated the waiting part of these missions. Patience was not her strong point, and by the way she kept fidgeting, that much was obvious. At least she had the self-control to keep quiet.
“Three blind mice,” finally came the crackling voice in Remy’s ear. Several floors above them, Sofia turned slightly, listening on the wind on one side, while keeping her own piece shielded on the other, as Doug still sat, crouched, and putting away the last of his pocket tools. “Or whatever the suitably ridiculous phrase was that meant ‘go’.”
"It was 'go'. Didn't mean to confuse you." Remy said bitingly as he nodded to his team. "We'll be in touch once we're inside. Tell Mark not to fall off de roof in de meantime."
Mark didn't like wearing headphones around his neck without music pouring out. It left him feeling defenseless, and after Syria, that was not a particularly enjoyable sensation. But he didn't want to risk making noise, so he just gripped his iPod tightly, the small weight mildly reassuring. "You know, Remy, you almost sounded like you care," he bantered. "Talk about confusing."
LeBeau smiled a little and motioned his team forward, touching the lines in the fence to create a small gap through which they slipped. At one time, the fence would have been fully monitored for this kind of penetration, both remotely and by patrols. But Africa has a way of breaking down Western ideas of security, and the fence had long since been nothing more than a convenient wire barrier. They moved soundlessly to the wall, behind the side access point that their surveillance had identified. "Doug, you got de internals down yet?"
She would -not- pace. Pacing made noise, no matter how quietly you did it. And it always sounded like pacing, not like birds or rainfall or tree branches. So Marie-Ange stood, shuffling a deck of cards one-handed and glancing down at them every few seconds. Wheel of Fortune, The Devil, the Fool, never the same card twice. Too many people to keep track of, and the one who had -caused- all this wasn't readable anyway.
"I'd have them down sooner if everyone would stop jogging my elbow," Doug snapped irritably. Between Remy's question and Sofia's watchful stare, Doug felt more than a little pressured. Sweat that had little to do with the African heat rolled down his face. The security countermeasures were a bit more complex than he'd been expecting, but nothing he couldn't handle. Now if he could just quiet the roiling nervousness in his stomach. "Done," he murmured curtly.
"Bein. 'Yana, it's now your show." Remy waved towards the door. With the internal security down, Illyana should be able to teleport in and simply open the back door for them. Hardly the most complex of plans, but LeBeau preferred it this way. This mission had been put together entirely too fast for his tastes.
Illyana might have muttered something like, "Super," but she nodded, trying not to show how dubious she felt about teleporting anywhere, but particularly in enemy territory. A brief flash of light from the floor accompanied her departure, and she found herself in a half-controlled stumble on the other side of the door. Steadying herself, she unlocked the door and pushed it open.
Hugging the wall, Amanda gave a brief nod of satisfaction as the door opened and, after a cautious glance around, Illyana peered out. "Showtime," she murmured. As the walking defence shield - provided there was enough energy in this city, of which she was doubtful, the vibes were all weird - she was firmly in the middle of the group. "After you, boss lady."
"Thanks ever so," Wanda teased softly, pausing for just a second to glance around before ducking in through the door. Even if this was the tricky part--nab and grab with out being grabbed themselves--it was far better than sitting around outside. The hall was dimly lit but empty and silent, all good signs. Still, she kept close to the wall as she moved a little further in to allow the rest of the group to come in.
"Softly," Remy muttered, taking up the front with Wanda. It wasn't a big complex, and their window of opprotunity was going to be frighteningly small. He paused at the end of the hall, motioning Sarah to him and the others into the door to the lab. Remy and Sarah were going to mind the junction, as the others found the samples. "Doug, we at de door."
***
Since it was of no use to try to read Illyana, and likely no better to try to read for Wanda, Marie-Ange kept to what she knew and what was at hand. Nominally on 'roof lookout', she glanced down at the ground below, repeated the all-clear signal, and then picked up her deck of cards again. A quick shuffle and cut, and a glance at her teammates and then her cards.
Mark and his iPod, standing only a few feet away, and the cards gave her The Fool. No matter the deadly serious look on Mark's face at the moment, or his general 'take nothing seriously' attitude, it wasn't his personality that directed the card.
The Queen of Swords for Sofia, and again, Marie-Ange was not surprised. Watching them was Sofia's job, and she stood, barely moving, head tilted ever so slightly, watching and listening.
And then Marie-Ange cut the card for Doug, and as she did, another fluttered to her feet. Ignoring the card in her hand, she bent, and then quickly stood, alert and wary. Doug's card had always been the Knight of Cups, from the day she met him until the day before. But in her hand was the Page of Sword, and the card she had cut was the same suit's Knight.
Failed diplomacy, violence, and a threat to the people around them.
She had her mouth open to issue a warning when Doug's attention snapped back to his laptop; a pair of men were walking down the hall towards the intrusion team. "Shit shit shit!" Doug hissed into his mic. "Remy, you've got two men incoming, heading right for you!" he spoke urgently.
***
Amanda looked at Remy, then Wanda, and at his nod, grabbed Illyana's arm and jerked her down the corridor to where the schematics had said the main lab was, Wanda following. "Don't make too much mess!" she called softly over her shoulder as they went.
Illyana made a face at the unexpected contact, but otherwise had enough sense to keep quiet; she glanced back at Wanda, but they were already too far down to see the others. They came to the lab door, and she extracted herself from Amanda's grip. "Is it safe to open?" she asked quietly, glancing at the other two. Even in a whisper, her voice somehow seemed too loud.
Quickly, Wanda studied the door. Nothing sang out to her power about danger and Doug would have warned them if there was any alarms they could possibly trip. "Safe enough," she whispered back, "but just in case, I lead. Amanda, behind me, Illyana you bring up the rear." In case there was something waiting on the other end for them, she wanted to be prepared. A deep breath and then she was opening the door cautiously, eyes flicking back and forth over the room before she let herself relax. "All clear. Let's find those samples."
"A box of CDs and a couple of packs of slides. Brilliant, we're stealing someone's fucking Powerpoint presentation," Amanda muttered to herself as she began yanking at drawers. Some opened easily, others were locked and she looked around for something to jimmy them with - her lockpicking skills weren't fast enough for this.
Wanda saw what Amanda was looking for and shook her head. "Not enough time," she said, striding over to the locked drawers. A few hex bolts and the locks were rusted to the point of being able to bust through with a good enough yank. "I would normally say to look for something like this in a safe or something a little more secure...but considering the fence, I doubt we will run into something like that." She started to flip through things on the tops of desks and boxes that were laying around. She paused in the middle of rummaging through a pile of papers--buried under someone's printings was a small box of CDs. "That's one, let us find the others and get out."
Illyana pushed her hair out of her face and made her way to a shelf further into the lab, lifting a roll of what looked like floor plans to no avail. She flipped quickly through the contents of the shelves, before yanking open a drawer in the desk next to them. Her bruises protested the move, and she spent a second or two wishing she had managed to get out of this without the concussion. Two small, rectangular boxes were hidden underneath a folder of papers; Illyana pulled the top off one of the boxes. "I'm pretty sure these are the slides," she said to Wanda, lifting one of them to show her.
"Brilliant, good job," Wanda replied with a small grin as she took the slides from her. "All right, we have what we need. Time to leave."
"I just hope we don't have someone's holiday snaps, is all," Amanda quipped, reaching for the door handle. "As far as thefts go, this one's been a doddle..." The smile froze on her face as she opened the door, to find herself staring into the muzzle of a gun. The click as the hammer was pulled back was audible throughout the lab.
"No." The gun clicked with the hammer coming down but nothing happened. As the guard cursed and reached for another weapon, Amanda stumbled back, a flickering glow filling the room as the shielding spell went up. "Catch!" Wanda snapped, throwing the bag containing the CDs and slides at Illyana. "And get the fuck out of here!"
Illyana nearly dropped the bag, but managed to get a firm hold on it after a very long second of struggle. Adrenaline already pumping through her bloodstream, she obeyed Wanda's order without thinking or stopping to ask if maybe she shouldn't help; she dropped through a portal almost immediately after catching the bag, just as it occurred to her that if they died, it would be her fault.
***
"Two and two. That's easy enough." The fact that armed guards were very likely to come down the corridor at any moment meant the game was on, and Sarah didn't have to stand around itching for a fight while her insides twisted themselves into knots. The tension amongst the team had been contagious. She hated that. For her own reassurance, she added more quietly now "We just take them down before they can call for help."
"Go light. We don't know exactly what we up against here." Remy said, pulling their response back from lethality. No sense leaving corpses. That would only invite a much more thorough investigation. He slipped his staff back into his coat. Only hands and feet for this part.
And then they waited. When no one came, Sarah glanced over Remy and breathed "Are we sure they're coming?"
"Maybe not." Remy said, suddenly apprehensive. This stunk. He tapped Sarah on the shoulder and motioned. "How fast do you think you can close de distance if I give you a distraction."
"Pretty fast." Sarah scanned the hallway in front of them again, and rubbed her hands against the tops of the legs of her pants. "So we're just going to rush them?"
"'less you got a better plan. Wait for de cards to go." Remy pulled out a pair of cards, lightly charging them. He placed them on the floor, leaned down and pushed them out. He faded back until the cards exploded in a flash, blinding them for only a second, but giving that second to Sarah.
When the cards exploded, Sarah rushed down the hallway, bone club in hand. Just around the corner, two heavily armed guards were still shielding their eyes from the flash. She took the one guard's knees out with a strong swing with her club, and snapped her elbow up to catch the other one just under his chin. "I've got two down here," she called back down to Remy.
***
"There are two thick cables on your side of the roof, Mark. Cut them." Marie-Ange was already jamming an imaged and giant-sized spear into a battered breaker box. "Doug said that there was the redundancy. We need to cut all of the power to the building." She glanced over at Doug and hesitated for a moment, and then turned her head away. He was good at his job, and any shouted concerns would just distract him. She had to remember that.
Being the overwatch while the mission looked to be rapidly headed for disaster caused a clenching in Doug's intestines. He fought the urge to snap at Marie-Ange and Mark to hurry and cut the power. They were going as fast as they could, and the only thing he could add would be more panic, which would be counterproductive. He watched unblinkingly the blips that represented people in the facility. "Dammit, something doesn't add up," he murmured, more to himself than to anyone else, as he watched the first pair of blips that he'd noticed heading for Remy and Sarah. "They have to know what's going on at this point, what are they waiting for?" Because the blips hadn't moved, like they were waiting for Remy and Sarah to come to them rather than the other way around.
"This would be much easier if I'd actually gone to college," Mark muttered, hastily cutting some wires and reconnecting others. "That BS in EE is looking more and more attractive every second." But even between his knowledge and Doug's guidance, the power set-up here was too well designed to just easily snap off. Without a cheat sheet, at least. Mark sighed and pressed play. The right track was already waiting. "Smack my bitch up," he crooned, his fingertips sparkling with electricity as he forcibly destroyed the power. Not quite as elegant and the emergency power would turn on immediately, but faster.
"No. Catch! Now get the fuck out of here!" Doug pressed his earpiece farther into his ear canal at the disjointed words coming from Wanda's mic. If that wasn't the sound of things going sour...he cleared his throat to ask Wanda to clarify when his display blurred and changed. Blip. Blip. Blipblipblipblipblip. Where there had been a pair of men waiting for Remy and Sarah, now there were a scattering of blips, with more entering the compound. "Fuckfuckfuck," he chanted under his breath. Admiral Ackbar had said it best. "It's a trap!"
***
"On the count of three?" Sweat was rolling down Amanda's face as she kept the shielding spell up between them and the door, holding the security team out. Somewhere behind all the men with guns was another, taller white man, incongruous in a black suit and white shirt, his features as anonymous as suburbia. There wasn't a lot of power here, and she couldn't hold the shield much longer, but she could try and use it as a battering ram to push their way out.
"Three it is," Wanda responded shortly, eyes never straying from the men in front of Amanda. Normally if she was standing behind anyone to use them as a shield it would be Marko. It was still a little disturbing. "One, two..."
"THREE!" With an audible grunt, Amanda shoved the spell back at the man trying to get in, blessing the practice she'd put in since Wanda had mentioned using Mark's idea. The security guards stumbled backwards the front two falling over their fellows, the spell flickering and spluttering out and the two women took their chance, Wanda grabbing Amanda's hand and hauling her bodily out of the room. "And now the running part," Amanda gasped, doing her best to keep up with Wanda's much longer legs. At least Remy and Sarah would hear the ungodly racket.
***
Once the breaker box was throughly destroyed, Marie-Ange began gathering up everything that Doug didn't have his hands on, and shoving them into the bookbag he'd brought them in. Tools, cables, assorted parts that he'd brought just in case. And she hoped none were expensive or irreplaceable because she wasn't being careful.
Doug was reminded of the sequence in The Matrix Reloaded, where copies of Agent Smith flooded a playground in an attempt to overwhelm Neo while the Operator could only watch the Matrix and see what was happening. The blips of hostile personnel swarmed like a growing group of green ants on the display. He listened intently to what was happening to other members of the team, his fists clenched in mute frustration. Then he raised a hand to his forehead and rocked back on his heels. He'd felt...something, he wasn't sure what. It had felt telepathic, but he didn't feel any different... A handful of black-suited figures looked up unerringly at the rooftop and the mutants there. "Oh, merde," Doug panicked. "Angie, we have to go, NOW." He slammed his laptop shut and grabbed it along with his bag. The entire op had gone tits-up, and it was every man for himself. Doug's only concern now was getting himself and Marie-Ange out alive.
"Guess that means I get you," Sofia said, glancing over at Mark. "Good. We're going to try and draw some fire away from the group." She straightened to a menacing height, and if there were any doubts about their therapist having a possibly more curious background before, there wasn't now. "Split up! You know what to do."
Mark frantically switched from Prodigy to Puccini, electrokinesis giving way to hard energy manipulation. "I'm all yours," he said to Sofia. He sounded braver than he felt, but something about her posture was reassuring. He nodded to her and followed her lead.
***
Remy had driven past her, slamming his fist into the one man's temple. He pivoted towards the second, this one in a suit rather than a guards uniform. As he moved to strike, both of them snapped back suddenly at a mental assault. A psionic. And they had given him enough time to raise the alarm. Remy's foot lashed out, knocking him cold, but the damage was done.
"Sarah, I think dey know we here now." Remy grabbed the suited man, looking for ID. He was pale and sandy haired, obviously a British national.
"Shit." Sarah shivered from the Psi attack, like her body was trying to shake the memory of it out of her system. "That makes things more complicated."
"Oui." Remy shook his head twice. There was something ringing in his ears, just slightly. It reminded him of... what? Italy. 1997. The telepath on the agency staff that used-- merde.
"It's worse den I thought. We just been tagged, Marrow. To de psychics if dis place, we gon light up like Mardi Gras." He pulled out his phone. "Dis one is a burned mission now."
"Motherfucking HELL." She didn't look forward to every Psi in the building knowing exactly where she was. Not at all.
***
Marie-Ange hadn't felt anything. But she recognized Doug's reactions and gestures. Telepathy, of some kind. She could get the explanation from him later, if he had one. "Where do we go?" Although, she knew already. They were on a roof. Which meant the only way out was down.
Tucking his bag under his shoulder, Doug attempted a controlled fall off the roof by way of a corrugated metal awning. Kyle wasn't the only one who'd watched District B13 and thought le parkour was the awesomest thing ever. But Doug wasn't a trained expert, so he was fairly lucky to reach the ground in one piece with only the wind knocked out of him.
Marie-Ange wasn't so lucky, and while she made it to the awning in one piece, she hit the ground and crumpled for a moment, grabbing at her knee. They had no time to spare in getting away, and certainly no time to nurse a sprain that she could put her weight on. It hurt, but she felt no broken bones and she could bend her knee.
Doug had seen Marie-Ange's spill, and he winced as he saw her grab her knee. He ducked back to haul her roughly to her feet and threw her arm over his shoulder. He could find something to wrap her knee up with later. If they managed to survive the next five minutes.
***
Remy pulled out his communicator; a cheap looking celphone that was both anonymous and impossible to casually blunder on to the signel. He thumbed the emergency button, linking into everyone's headsets.
"Dis is Gambit. We've just been made. I think dat they might be using psionicists to tag and track us. Dat means escape B through D are no longer options. Hear me? No longer options. Pair up and get out any way dat you can." He forced back any change in his voice. The last time Wisdom and he had looked at this worst case scenario, the odds of survival had been one chance in three. "Marrow and I are drawing dem north. Drop your communicators immediately. We are now compromised."
He thumbed off the phone, smashed it under his heel, and he and Sarah started to move. If they were lucky, they might buy them a chance with their lives.
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Date: 2007-04-11 05:17 pm (UTC)Africa is a country?
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Date: 2007-04-11 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-11 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-11 05:24 pm (UTC)(Seriously, naming this mission was almost as hard as writing it, so while Elspeth Huxley does not seem too bright there, it was down to Operation: Cruel Country and Operation: Out of Africa.)
(Yes, Out of Africa. This is pretty much the apex of my titling abilities. We are not surprised, I hope. ;)
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Date: 2007-04-11 06:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-11 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-11 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-11 08:28 pm (UTC)...You are just no fun.
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Date: 2007-04-11 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-15 08:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-11 07:41 pm (UTC)