Sharpshooter (ch 2)

Characters and universe created by Masamune Shirow

this fic is set in Manga-verse, pre-war (They're still working for LAPD)

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BRIAREOS

The news-drones were as thick in the air as Jim said they'd be. Briareos tried to look nondescript as he separated from the SWAT team and headed towards the bus-sized communications vehicles where the Colonel was undoubtedly waiting. The small propeller-flown remote cameras spotted him just the same, whirring in the air as they turned and focused on him. There was one guess as to why. He sighed to himself, tucking his chin to his chest and using the shadows of the trucks around him to make their operators work hard to get a clear shot of him. He knew he stuck out in a crowd. It wasn't like he could help it. There weren't any other combat cyborgs listed in the LAPD, and he hadn't exactly been 'introduced' to the media yet. They probably thought he was some kind of breaking news.

Briareos winced at the probable 'buzz' his presence was generating. He wasn't a specialist. He wasn't even SWAT anymore. Despite Jim's insistence that his presence was requested, he didn't exactly see what use he was supposed to be. He nodded to the officer acting as door-guard to the main C&C truck. Tentatively sticking his head and shoulders into the compartment, he was obliged to wonder again whether he'd fit in the usually cramped confines. As expected, the narrow aisle down the center of the van was already half-packed with people. Most of them were bent seriously over their equipment, talking into radios and headsets as they managed the multi-division force. The officer closest to the door glanced up, noticed him, and damned near fell out of his chair in surprise. He winced at the not-unexpected reaction strangers had at the sight of him.

The ripple of momentary panic alerted the com-man's fellows that there was a new development. Seat-by-seat down the aisle people paused in their work to look over at him, noting his arrival. Those that knew him already nodded and got back to work. The newer officers stared at his uniform a moment in shock, only to return to their work with frequent distracted glances in his direction as they sought to figure out his reason for existing. Briareos tried to not let it bother him, and really, Deunan would have been proud of how little the slack-jawed gaping killed his mood.

Towards the other end of the vehicle he saw the negotiator deep in conversation with his staff, and waved slightly to get the man's attention. He'd _thought_ it was Agent Hollister based on hearing the man's voice on the radio, but he hadn't been certain. It was nice to be proved right. The grey haired consultant was, as always, the best dressed guy in the crowd. He looked very much as he had two years ago when they'd last met up on a job. Unlike most government agents, Briareos had liked the guy from the beginning. Unflappable and with a rare dry sense of humor, the man made an excellent counter-balance for their commander's occasionally short-tempered tactics during situations like this. He was wearing his tie loose, and his shirt collar open thanks to the stuffy heat inside the van.

Hollister caught wind of his arrival just as he was taking a sip from his bottle of water, which was unfortunate for his aide sitting across from him. The resulting spit-take would have been hilarious if he hadn't been the root cause. Briareos shrugged as the agent stared at him in amazement, blindly mopping at his wet mustache with a napkin. His shock didn't last long. Hollister pushed his way through the crowd with an amazed smile. "Christ, Briareos? Is that really you?"

He resisted the urge to squirm under the freelancer's searching gaze, knowing that the man was trying to find _something_ familiar in his new face to be able to recognize him properly. Sadly there was nothing to find. Short of playing twenty-questions with each other or undergoing some fairly invasive DNA extraction, Hollister would just have to trust his badge number from now on. Briareos snorted. At least his distinctive look made it easy to recognize him on the _second_ encounter. People never seemed to need to ask for his name twice anymore.

Taking pity on the man he leaned closer to be heard over the chatter of officers around them. "I promise, it's a new look but same old me. Been a while since I last saw you, too. Still pulling that ridiculous salary just for sweet-talking assholes?"

"A lot less risky than my old job of shooting at them." The negotiator grinned, slapping his shoulder companionably. "I was never very good at the shooting in the first place. If I'd kept at it, I'd have probably ended up looking like you!"

"I do make a great object-lesson for the rookies, these days." Briareos joked. "Learn to duck or you'll end up steel-plated. Only less good looking."

"Jesus, Carl _said_ you'd been 'extensively cybernetized'." Hollister shook his head at the understatement. "You'd think I'd learn by now to scale my expectations in accordance to what he considers 'extensive.' What the hell happened to you?"

"Cluster rocket. Or at least that's what they tell me." He shrugged at his hazy memories leading up to his injury. "I don't remember a damned thing, honestly. But the doctors told me I as near as bought-the-farm as anyone they'd ever worked on."

His old acquaintance made a sympathetic face, knowing when to let a line of inquiry go and when to push. Seeing no reason not to get to the point of his visit, Briareos was happy to field the new conversational topic. "I was supposed to report to the Commander on arrival, but I don't see him. Don't suppose you can fill me in on what I'm supposed to be doing here? I got shanghai'ed from HQ without so much as a 'do you mind'…"

"Oh! Well. I was told that you and Deunan are still-" Hollister raised an eyebrow tactfully implying the rest of his question.

Briareos couldn't blame him. It was one thing to be told a guy was 'cybertinized' and still dating the commander's daughter. It was something else to deal with the reality of him as he was now, and Deunan. Half the time he couldn't believe it himself. Still, if she didn't mind living with him even as he was, who the hell was he to complain? He nodded in answer, "Yeah, we have a place on the north side of town."

Hollister smiled at that, looking genuinely pleased. "Well Deunan's a rare kind of girl, so I can't say I'm surprised. Good to see you again, regardless of the whole…" He gestured vaguely at his new body. "To answer your first question. Carl's in the 'booth' having a shouting match with some idiots out in Brussels who are trying to yank us and send in their own 'team'… No doubt he'll be out to talk to you soon. As far as the building goes? The perpetrators been letting Deunan call over with an update to their demands about once every half-hour, and we can usually chat with her for about ten minutes before they get frustrated and take her radio away. They still have ten hostages, including her. Carl wants to get that number down to four or less before we go in."

"The idea is to have you take over on the radio for us while we get the rest in place." The agent smoothed his mustache thoughtfully. "Carl- well you know as much as I do how he and his daughter have a difficult rapport with one another, especially under stress."

"So I'm to keep the old man from having an aneurysm from having to deal with Deunan one-on-one?" Briareos shook his head in amusement. He'd never heard someone try and describe his girl's often-turbulent relationship with her parent so smoothly. They'd both probably borne-witness to the pair's wince-inducing arguments before. Equally hot-tempered, and equally bull-headed, father and daughter had only grown more adversarial over the years. Where as a child Deunan might have bent neck and caved with sufficient pressure, as an adult she was willing to fight it out until threatened with a disciplinary proceeding when truly riled.

He couldn't help but think that his arrival 'home' a year ago and their subsequent agreement to get an apartment together was actually just a convenient excuse for Deunan to escape the main campus. Living in each other's pockets was doing neither parent nor child any good in terms of long-term sanity. She seemed to need the private space to decompress after work as much as he'd needed the cyborg-friendly amenities.

"Exactly." Hollister patted his shoulder again, recognizing that they were of one mind on the potential trouble. "That and the Colonel and I have a hunch that we're missing some of her cues for, well, lack of a certain understanding of her vocabulary. As she wasn't a deliberate plant, we didn't have any keywords prepped. She's doing a remarkably good job of adlibbing… But I suspect that someone with a broader range of shared experience would have an easier time puzzling out what she's trying to say."

He had to laugh again at the older man's understatement. "I read you. I guess I'm the resident expert at Deunan's particular brand of 'crazy'." He shrugged accepting his fate. "Sure. Count me in."

Had the situation been different, he'd have balked at the idea of playing-pretend with the girl for the sake of intel-gathering when he ought to have been out there trying to rescue her. But Briareos didn't kid himself that out-of-practice as he was, he'd be anything but underfoot for the teams awaiting orders outside. It made sense that he help out in the van. If anyone could play 'translator' for her, it was probably him.

Briareos let the negotiator take on the chore of clearing enough space to fit one oversized cyborg in the cramped vehicle. Doing what he could to help, he pulled free one of his mass-interconnects from his neck, offering it to a baffled looking engineer as the man tried to figure out how he was going to wear a standard headset. "Got a two meter extension cable?"

The communications officer sighed in relief and found him the adapter he needed.

Jacked into the high-security network, Briareos took a minute to figure out the additional audio as well as video channels. It was headache-inspiring, but he could actually 'see' through the bank's hundreds of security cameras. He wondered if the kaleidoscope of views was something like what a bug's perspective was like.

Concentrating harder he discovered he could narrow his focus to one specific camera at a time and immediately the data stream became more manageable. Some of the cameras were disabled, or flat out destroyed, but a surprising number were available, and stranger yet, controllable thanks to his eager-to-help software system. He leaned mentally on one of the devices, finding that with a few false starts he could make it pan left and right. His experiment caused minor panic from the officer sitting across from him who was _also_ looking at the image data. Briareos apologized sheepishly and put the camera back to the way he'd found it.

Hopping from view to view he eventually found one of use. A cluster of nervous looking young men with machine guns, and Deunan wearing the pink blazer she'd left the house in that morning, perched carefree and cute on the edge of a desk right in the middle of them. She gestured animatedly as she chatted up one of her captors, but there was no audio into the room. He supposed no one had gotten close enough to plant a mic yet. The sheer amount of firepower exhibited by the crew told him more than anything else that there was something serious going on. They looked prepared to take down a small country, not just a bank building. Why they were asking for _more_ was anyone's guess.

"Little idiot." He sighed in dismay.

"You should have been here half an hour ago." The commander caught him by surprise. Briareos tried not to flinch. His attention focused more on the remote view he was studying than on the room around him, he didn't even hear the senior officer approach. Carl looked more than usually pissed about something. "Where the hell were you?"

"Working?" He resisted the urge to back talk to the older officer, recognizing the surly attitude as being blow over from another source, probably Brussels. Judging by the man's look he didn't need to be antagonized further. "I'm here now. Hollister tells me I'm to play doting-schmuck on the phone to match Deunan's air-headed-blond? I think the pair of you are nuts, but sign me up."

"Thank you for your assistance." The old man replied with minimal sarcasm. "You've been briefed? If not, the files are in the 'Active' folder on the main drive. Can you read and talk at the same time?"

"I'll try." He found the files without any trouble, the background information on the thugs was eye opening to say the least. Carl gave him a run down on the teams in the field simultaneously bitching at Hollister about the supposedly 'special operations' team flying in from the north to assist them in capturing the international criminals. Briareos made the appropriate noises of agreement, paying only half his attention to the conversation.

All sorts of random traffic on the network was buzzing just beyond his reach, but the snippets he gleaned were fascinating. He hadn't thought to try to 'plug-in' to a com-truck before and the quantity of information at his fingertips was a little heady. Poking a likely looking program, he found that there was even incoming telemetry on the helicopters carrying Carl's unwanted 'assistants' in from Seattle.

Hollister elbowed him discretely when he missed his cue for the latest question directed his way. "Sorry, what?" Briareos rubbed his head sheepishly. "I was- Anyway, do we even know why they're after this bank in the first place? There's no notes on file."

"Rumor is that the vault held some industrial-data discs they were after. But the bank mangers refuse to give confirmation." Carl blinked, distracted from his annoyance by the question. "It doesn't explain why the international-set is so hot to apprehend these morons here in LA rather than just tag them now and bag them later. But… That is the assumption we're currently working under."

"And they've already got what they want?" He clarified, watching the camera again to see that the group was tense, but not exactly hot-footing around. Two of the bigger bruisers looked like they were arguing with eachother, while Deunan was talking with a thin guy in a wrinkled suit. Clearly they felt they were in a 'waiting game'. So whatever it was they were doing, they were either doing it now, or had already finished and were just waiting for their exit.

As usual, Commander Knute and his old gang had done their job in securing the area and covering all reasonable courses of action. He checked out of curiosity to see if there were any snipers on the rooftops and was pleased to recognize two out of three of them. Even the third badge number he had a hunch he knew. Some new-guy just coming up to speed when he'd shipped out for his stint in Algiers. Briareos resisted the urge to sigh that he wasn't up there with them. He did his share of door-raids, sure, but the rooftops were always the quietest place to be on jobs like this. He'd felt in his element watching the operations unfold from behind his scope.

Even if he did get back into SWAT he doubted he'd be volunteering for the long-range assignments anymore. Deunan would be bored to tears staked up on a roof somewhere with all the heavy action happening hundreds of feet away. He resigned himself to wading in at the front more often than before. Given the choice of watching from the distance as his girl cheerfully let herself got shot at, or sticking close and trying to keep her from getting killed, he knew which way he'd go.

"Daddy, you there?" Deunan's too-sweet question came across the channel they'd isolated as 'hers', distracting all of them from their speculation.

Briareos looked to his commander and was waved towards the screen with an exasperated expression. Clearly he was on-deck. Hollister was busily scribbling on a note pad, so there was no help to be had there. With no other idea, he linked over the communication channel to respond to her hail.

"Not quite, baby. It's me." He didn't have to try too hard for 'concerned,' which was good, since he didn't consider himself much of an actor.

"Baby? Is that you? I'm so glad to hear your voice!" Her surprised coo of happiness made him tuck his chin to his chest with the urge to laugh. It was just too ridiculous. Compared to the usual way she answered his calls, she was an entirely different person. "They got you my message?"

"What message?" He had to ask. "I got a call saying come down right away, so here I am. You ok? They haven't hurt you?"

"Everyone keeps asking that…" Deunan chided playfully. "I keep telling you guys, they're not that bad. They even agreed to let another two hostages go, like they agreed with Mr. Hollister. Is the pizza here yet? I'm totally hungry, honey-bear, I should have eaten a bigger breakfast… But I was planning to stop at Napoli's just as soon as I deposited a check… thank goodness I'd just finished when the bank closed."

Glancing sideways, Briareos realized that Hollister was holding up a note for him. The man's handwriting was unbelievably neat. He shook his head at yet another example of why the agent was born for his line of work. "I'm told that it'll be there in ten minutes, kitten."

Seeing Carl also holding up a note, in far-less-legible handwriting, he grimaced at the words underlined for emphasis. Some paraphrasing would be in order on that particular message. "And listen to me, I want you to be a good girl and don't cause any trouble for those men, alright? We're going to get you out of this, so just sit tight."

He held his breath as he watched the cameras, able to guess how well she'd take such a stricture. Carl had a point though. The last thing they needed was for her to take her 'rescue' into her own hands in a fit of impatience. He was suddenly glad he was there. _Probably_ she'd listen to him when he told her to sit-tight. "I will, baby. I promise." She agreed in her over-the-top cute voice. "They want me to ask about the truck they wanted too. I told them it might take a while, but…"

"We're working on it." Briareos read the next quick note from the negotiator, wishing he could roll his eyes at the various bullets he was supposed to some how work into a supposedly harmless conversation. His commander had a headset pressed to his ear, muttering instructions to the men in the field. Looking up the old man caught his attention and mouthed 'stall for time' at him. Scrounging for a way to start up a topic he could work with he suppressed a sigh. "What was your message for me? Was I supposed to bring something for you? Other than food, how is everyone doing?"

"Mrs. Stiller has a sprained wrist. They let me look at it but it didn't seem bad. They found some ice in the lounge for her. The others are all kinda tired of being tied up, but I think they're probably ok. Did they tell you that I might have to go down to the harbor later? I said I didn't mind, but that it be really crowded if we all tried to fit in the same truck with their gear… They travel with more bags than even _I_ do…"

"Tell them no dice." He disagreed for the sake of stalling, and because he saw an opening. One of the teams was moving into position, and a little insider information would be very well timed. "We made plans tonight, remember? With the downstairs neighbors? They wanted to come over and I was going to throw something on the grill?"

It was a long shot, but worth the chance. He hoped Deunan didn't think he'd gone crazy with his sudden tangent.

"Oh." Deunan paused, clearly wondering what he was up to. She covered for herself with a self-depreciating noise. "Wait that was tonight? I thought that was tomorrow… I'm such a ditz. Was I supposed to pick up anything at the store?"

Eavesdropping on the SWAT channel, he heard them infiltrate the basement and then debate tersely amongst themselves whether to take the left hand fire escape up to her level or the one on the right side of the building. The security cameras were telling him next to nothing, and apparently the team was having the same problem. Encountering a pitched gun-fight in the stairwell would probably require a retreat, and even if they did manage to kill a few perps, the others would be doubly on guard. Briareos carefully thought about his next question before seeing what his girl could tell him. "I was hoping you'd get home before me and check to see if Jim downstairs was planning to bring up Ribs, or Pork-loin. I know he hadn't decided yet and I don't want to do the same. Figured… whatever he was going for, I'd just do the opposite…"

"Well, I know for _a fact_ that he was talking about an old family recipe for the 'loin. So I think it'd be safer if you just stuck with ribs. Besides, I like ribs better." Deunan replied happily, giggling for good measure.

Carl gave him a look that promised murder, but told the team to go right just the same. Briareos breathed a sigh of relief as Jim and company silently raced the steps level by level without mishap. "See? You're not a ditz." He scolded gently. "You know all kinds of things. Now, listen sweetheart, I need you to get the head honcho on the line for a little bit, because Mr. Hollister has some important business to discuss with him."

"I'll try baby, but they don't seem to like talking with him." She sighed. "Hold on 'kay? Oh wait, I just thought of something for you. You know that squeaking noise you thought you heard in the bathroom the other day? And thought the fan was going bad in the vent? The landlord called me this morning and said he looked up there… And you'll never guess, but he found _five_ rats crawling around up there! Like big ones! Gross right? We so totally need to move… I get the shakes just thinking about- oops, wait Mr. Menolo wants the phone after all. Hold on."

"Mr. Hollister, I hear you wanted to talk with me?" Briareos made a soft noise of disgust at being interrupted. The negotiator slid his headset over his ears, immediately taking over the conversation while he sat back and thought.

Carl leaned on his shoulder, the gesture both appreciative and practical as the older man tried to make room for some junior officers to slip by. "Since when is 'pork loin' shorthand for 'left side?'" The senior officer raised an amused eyebrow. "I warned you years ago, Briareos, that spending too much time with that girl would do nothing but make you as crazy as she is. Are you willing to admit yet that I was right?"

"She's _your_ daughter." Briareos pointed out absently. "Besides, I like her crazy. It keeps life interesting."

"'May you live in interesting times' is _not_ a blessing according to Buddhists, you know." His commander snorted. "What the hell was she babbling bout with the rats? Was that actually relevant, or was she just bullshitting?"

"Rats in the ceiling…" Briareos had to admit he was a little baffled by that one. He called up a set of building blueprints and displayed them on the screen near his elbow, sorting through first the floor where Deunan was being held. When he found nothing, he expanded his search to the stairwell where the first SWAT team was still climbing for the roof.

If she wasn't warning him about herself, she had to be telling him something about the stairs. He opened a different schematic for the interior, showing him the location of the vents and found what he was looking for. There was an area where the venting intersected the staircase half way up the building on the main 'utility' floor where the bank's HVAC was located. The man-sized shafts were accessible both from a service hatch there, and from various other points in the ceilings of the level below. "Do the guys have spy-fiber on them?" He tapped the screen for his boss's benefit. "Or better yet, a 'prowler'?"

"Rats squeaking… Son of a bitch. Cute girl, really cute." The older officer turned and barked an order to the radio-man behind him. Turning back he sighed. "They have fiber, but we'll dispatch a prowler or two as well, might as well do a sweep of all the vents to see if they've rigged the place with explosives. Brussels insists it hasn't been their style in previous standoffs, but best to leave nothing to chance."

Engrossed with watching the methodical progress of his old team up through the building, Briareos nodded in agreement. His fingers itched to be doing something. He rubbed them along his arms rather than annoying the people around him by fidgeting. It felt strange to be watching the action when what he really wanted was to be in there with them.

The realization made him pause, and make a quick self-evaluation. He actually _wanted_ to fight. Not just in the nebulous 'this is what I ought to be doing' way he'd been thinking for the past month or two, but he truly wanted it, just for its own sake. He missed the excitement.

"Penny for your thoughts." The Colonel gave him a look. "I hear you've been hitting the obstacle course on your down time lately. Something I need to know about?"

"Deunan wanted to get some practice in so I agreed to spot her." Briareos gave the man his current-favorite excuse, not wanting to make it too easy for the old bastard. "Nothing secret about it."

"If you're doing well enough to get yourself through, _and_ watch out for my klutz of a daughter as well, it sounds like you're making considerable progress." Carl wasn't above baiting him. He gave the man a sideways glance, lowering his extendibles back against his head in a way Deunan had pointed out made him look like a disgruntled canine.

At first he'd been a little unnerved by the idea that his extendibles moved when he absentmindedly tried to wiggle his eyebrows. Dr. Zand had never mentioned it, and so it took his crazy hellcat pointing the phenomena out for him to realize it was happening. It wasn't exactly helpful, as far as human expressions went. Ironically, it worked far _too_ well as a way of impersonating the various moods of man's-best-friend. Deunan had kindly reserved her laughter for times when she could at least pretend he couldn't hear her. Still, given his limited options in regards to non-verbal expression, he'd take what he could get.

"I imagine it's about time I start finding the budget to get your armor fitted." The old man relented at last, giving him a speculative look. "I don't think you'll have a problem finding a team willing to take you on, provided you're willing to work your way up from the bottom again."

Carl smoothed his hair down and settled his cap on his forehead as he studied the screens. "The review of basic tactics will undoubtedly be good for you, and it's not like you don't already know the theory. Given your rather… unique situation, I think we could organize an appropriate 'test' for you at any point you're willing to make an attempt."

"I may take you up on that." Briareos agreed softly, tearing his attention away from the monitors in order to turn and look properly at his commander. "I have to admit, the paperwork is a bit boring."

"It's paperwork. It's supposed to be boring." Carl agreed dryly. "That's why we put people on it when we take them off field duty. Usually a little boredom is good for an officer attempting to get their head on straight after a trauma."

"Is that what I've been doing?" Briareos snorted in grim amusement. It was apt enough.

A burst of static and Jim's voice across channel-2 interrupted anything that the old man might have wanted to say in response. Listening keenly to the report his commander gave him a small smile. "We found the drones. Two for two. My compliments on your interpretation skills."

"I'm just glad they were able to override the 'bots programming without giving away the game." Briareos nodded, relieved that the potential snag in their plans had been resolved thanks to Deunan's quick thinking.

Hollister slouched next to them after wrapping up his ongoing bartering with the crooks holding the building. "Well, they're not pleased by the idea of Interpol sticking their big feet into this operation, but that could be a point in our favor." The negotiator rubbed his face. "They've taken in the food in, and we're retrieved two more of the hostages, so… so far so good. But in my professional opinion? They're getting twitchy, Carl. I trust your men are ready, if it comes to it?"

"They will be." The senior officer nodded, eyes narrowed at the thought of outside interference in his city. "We need a little more time." Twisting in his chair he tapped the shoulder of the officer behind him. "What's the ETA of those morons on the inbound flight?"

"Half an hour."

The colonel frowned and considered the data reflected on the screens around him. "It seems we are meant to wait." Lacing his fingers across his chest, he leaned back in his chair with an arch look to his negotiator. "Eight hostages left, and Deunan?" The other man nodded thoughtfully. "Any VIPs?"

"Other than your daughter?" Hollister raised his eyebrow at the casual question. "Not really."

"Very well."

Briareos gave the man a long look, but his commander seemed content to keep his plans to himself. He flipped through the security cameras again, needing to do _something_ to keep from tapping his fingers in impatience, but there was nothing new to see. Hostages, armed criminals, Deunan idly swaying in a swivel chair, looking bored out of her mind. Someone had tied her hands, he noted idly. Nothing too uncomfortable from the look of it, but still if they bothered to take the precaution now when they hadn't before? It didn't bode well.

Glancing back at his commander he stared at the man, getting the feeling he wasn't going to like what was coming. "You're not planning to go in there with Deunan still under their guns, are you? Are you that determined to have the collar before the Ops team arrives?"

"Do you have a better idea?" Carl raised an eyebrow at him, as if reassessing his mental-wellbeing for asking the question in the first place. Turning back to the screen the old man didn't look all that concerned at the idea of deliberately putting his last remaining child in harm's way. "I'd trust my men for this job more than any bunch of ill-briefed fools from the north who try to swan in."

"But-"

"When I want the opinion of a an officer benched due to failure to pass a psychological assessment, I'll ask for it."

Briareos bit back the rest of what he was going to say, stung by the harsh reminder of his current team status. With their banter he'd forgotten. The only reason why he was even in the C&C truck in the first place was to run interference between Deunan and her father. It was _she_ who was the key asset in the operation. He was just her accessory. Briareos rubbed his head in frustration. He was four-hundred kilos of combat grade cybernetics, not to mention what was left of the highly trained man he'd once been. There had to be _something_ he was good for other than 'playing house' in the suburbs with his girl. He had the ability, and the capacity… he'd had it all along. Briareos was chagrined to admit that Deunan's gentle scolding over the past months had been completely true. The only thing he'd been missing all this time was the motivation to actually _try_.