Control Room

  There is a flash of jagged, blinding light in the sky, then a crash of thunder.

  It's a rainy, stormy evening in the Hype, Tales is wearing black leather punk rock clothing, sporting a purple Mohawk. Bucket is sporting light blue denim pants with matching denim jacket. She looks at him, grins and shakes her head.

  Bucket speaks with local neural audio in the Hype:

  "What?" He says.

  "What do you mean 'what'? You really weren't too quiet you know, anyone could have been sitting outside the office listening."

  “Why were you even there still?” Bucket says, irritated.

  “I wanted to talk to you about some of the gear. I didn't think your debriefing would take two hours.” She says with a shit eating grin.

  “Well, clearly we didn't expect the emergency call. Look, you need to keep it on the down-low, Jodi doesn't know you know.”

  “'Jodi? Oh, you mean Colonel Forester? Right, so you're on a first name basis now, for some reason?” She says with a huge grin.

  “Lets get back to it, keep it quiet, we can't afford to lose her as a Colonel.” Bucket is mostly irritated because he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. Well, at least this has forced his decision on whether or not to see Nadine again. Clearly that isn't a thing now.

  “That I agree on.”

  They press on. In the real world there is no driving rain; it's dark with a full moon. Glitch is hacking their personal Hype script on the fly to block out the system slowing them due to the driving rain. The Hype does it's damnedest to make things realistic, Net-Stitcher's do their best to backup the Specters with their echo-suits.

  DM Team AC – Bucket – OK, what do we have Glitch?

  DM Team AC – Glitch – We have Team Alpha Beta in need of immediate assistance at 23rd and Park Ave. 12 military units have them pinned in an alley, the Net Lords killed the HVE and Helmet

  Bucket thinks this isn't right, another Specter dead? They're loosing way too many lately. Helmet was a vet. He needs to dig on this, find out why the Specters are dropping like flys, something stinks.

  They run past Net-Lords in the Hype that only see them as average citizens, their AR's disguised as guitar cases to them. They feel the rain; but it's only the kinetic jelly under lair under their echo-suit that's giving them the impression they're soaking wet.

  The situation is more dire then they were told; they start running at the fastest believable speed as they can for the onlookers in the Hype.

  They arrive at the location; a M35 military truck with full camo paint is parked outside the alley, a dozen soldiers armed with M16 riffles. But that's in the Hype; scanning their real gear its M21 AR's with explosive rounds. One hit to the chest or head and good-night.

  Tales pulls out a machete; pitted, chipped, ancient and nasty looking. Bucket's seen it before.

  DM Bucket --> Tales – Been a while since I've seen that machete

  DM Tales --> Bucket – You knew my father?

  DM Bucket --> Tales – Ran with him once

  She freezes. Everyone knows her story, even if they don't know her personally. He switches back to the Hype, Tales has a far off pensive look. She shakes her head, her eyes narrow. She's back.

  DM Team AC – Tales – If I can get in close I can take them out

  DM Team AC – Bucket – You sure? They're military units with explosive rounds

  DM Team AC – Tales – I got this, especially with an echo-suit

  If it was anyone else there is no way Bucket would let her go in. But he knew her old man, he had DNA enhancements; so did her mother. If she's half as fast as either of them she'll be fine.

  DM Team AC – Bucket – OK, get in position and I'll distract them. You got anything for us Glitch?

  DM Team AC – Glitch – If Tales can get close enough I can scan for their IP's and disrupt their targeting

  DM Team AC – Bucket – OK, do it. Give him a few second's to scan once you get in close Tales

  DM Team AC – Tales - 10-4

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  Tales creeps around wide flanking the enemy units. They're all focused on the alley. Just when Bucket thinks she's done moving closer she keeps going, like a panther stalking her prey. He almost tells her to stop moving in, but she's so smooth at sneaking in it's almost mesmerizing.

  DM Team AC – Glitch – Damn Tales, you're almost under their noses. Fuck me, you do shit as crazy as Bucket. I have the targeting jam, they won't miss you if you're in front of the barrel but their aim will be off some

  DM Team AC – Bucket – Go in when I start firing

  Bucket opens fire from across the street, shooting the Net-Lords furthest from Tales. She moves so fast he stops firing for fear of hitting her, ducking behind the car she slices through them. They get a few shots off but they're silenced fast.

  DM Team AC – Glitch – Tales, what the hell is happening to your arm?

  Bucket approaches; all around Tales are military Net-Lords, their heads all severed. But Tales shoulder makes no sense. He leaves the Hype and inspects it; the shoulder plate of her echo-suit is blown off, a huge chunk is out of her flesh. Her flesh is writhing, muscles growing back at a far faster rate then any Net-Stitch could fix. Within seconds her shoulder looks like new.

  Team Alpha Beta walks out from the alley.

  DM Team AC – Glitch – OK, as much as I want be amazed at whatever the fuck happened there you have kamikaze drones in 15 seconds

  DM Zone Chat – Bucket – Team AB, we have kamikaze drones in 15 seconds, you take north, we have east and west

  DM Zone Chat – Rider – 10-4 Bucket, glad to see you

  The troops all drop to one knee, do a combat reload dropping in a mag with red tape on it. The buzzing is getting louder and louder, the small drones swarming in from above. Bucket can see them on the radar of his ghostshades HUD, a couple dozen fast incoming drones.

  The moment they get a visual on the drones they fire; their explosive rounds hit their target, huge fireballs go off around the drones taking out multiple drones. Bits of plastic and metal rain down from above.

  DM Zone Chat – Glitch – Team Alpha Beta and Team Alpha Charlie; 12 more military Net-Lords rolling in from the north, advise taking the high ground

  The team heads down the alley. Bucket and Tales cover the rear as the other team leaps up one story to the fire escape landing and climb to the roof. They follow the other team, leaping up then head south, jumping across the 4 story building roof tops, sometime jumping up or down 2 stories.

  DM Zone Chat – Glitch – Fucking hell Wizbang, I'll do it. Let me know when you're secure and I'll run the cloaking script

  DM Zone Chat – Wizbang – Hey, it's your show

  DM Zone Chat – Colonel Forester – Both of you knock off the bull shit, we have Specters that still need assistance, not the time for Net-Stitches to have a pissing match

  It's not the first time Wizbang has had an attitude lately, Bucket thinka. It's not unusual for Net-Stitches to have a bit god complex, but Wizbang has just been difficult.

  Travelling further by roof top they kick in a door and scan the top apartments. They luck out and find an empty one. They enter and clear all the rooms.

  DM Zone Chat – Bucket – Teams AB and AC clear for masking scripts

  They sit there waiting. No reply.

  “What's with your boy Wizbang lately Rider? He's gone full asshole mode.” Bucket says.

  “He's shit lately. We got pinned in that alley because he lead us there saying there was a manhole cover that's not on the maps. It's constant bull shit from him lately. And now he fucking got Helmet killed. I'm going to file a complaint with the Colonel when we get back, I'm refusing to do anymore Ops with Wizbang.”

  Bucket knows Rider is blowing off steam. He doesn't blame him, he just lost a man. He won't actually refuse an order to run with Wizbang.

  DM Zone Chat – Rider – So are one of you running the masking script?

  DM Zone Chat – Colonel Forester – Running masking script, stand by team AB and AC

  The two teams look at each other.

  DM Zone Chat – Rider – Who's running the masking script?

  DM Zone Chat – Colonel Forester – I am, Glitch and Wizbang are detained by MP's atm

  “You think they threw down in the control room?” Bucket asks.

  “Probably, a vicious round of slapsies.” Rider says. Bucket wonders what the hell is going on in the control room. Glitch is simply the best Net-Stitch he's ever run with; calm under pressure, any side chatter has been encouraging towards moral for the Specter's. How did it get to the point in the control room where the MP's had to detain him?

  DM Tales --> Bucket – So, you knew my father?

  DM Bucket --> Tales – Ran with him once. He was a good man, great agent

  DM Tales --> Bucket – Did you meet my mother?

  DM Bucket --> Tales – No. She had not been seen for a few years at that point, rumor is she was looking after you, but that's just rumor

  DM Tales --> Bucket – That sounds about right. I was 10 when they were killed. What I do remember from my childhood was there were no kids around, I spent a lot of time with mother. Anyways, the past is the past

  Looking over he sees a hardened look on her face; the past has definitely not passed for her. Buckets father was a piece of work, but he couldn't imagine living through both father and mother being gunned down in front of him when he was 10 years old

  It looks like the Colonel is having trouble with the masking script, usually it only takes a couple of minutes. She's good with the scripts but running scripts on the fly is a very specialized skill; the Net-Stitches all have very customized script presets. That and if the started testing their on shift stim levels not one of them would pass.

  The past, maybe he isn't going back far enough to look up what Georgie was doing. Being too focused on his death he hasn't looked for footage of when a man who never drank had a drink.

  Maybe he should check with the Colonel about the tech. Maybe. Maybe he trusts her—maybe he doesn't.