Background music suggestion: Led Zeppelin: Bathroom Sound / Sweet: Fox on the Run /
Sorry for the typos etc. :/
Chapter 3 - Ready, set...
Hammer of the gods
will drive our ships to new land.
To fight the hordes
And sing, and cry
Valhalla, I am coming.
-Led Zeppelin: Immigrant Song
...
"What the...? The pizza is like...thirty bucks!" Erik was staring at the bill.
"And wait...You don't want to know how much the beer was."
"At least we don't have to leave a tip apparently," Ian said.
"Still...How dare they rob a fellow Viking?" Erik grunted.
It was their first night in Oslo. They had taken the chopper they had recovered from Mad Dog's HQ and left it well outside the city at a secure private airfield. They found the IAC too difficult to use as it was so unusual and might draw attention. And they most certainly didn't want to risk losing it. It was still a week and two days till MoGaCon. It had been extremely easy to get signed up to the event. It was free and they clearly wanted as many developers as possible to attend.
Back at home they had spent the past weeks working on their cover and trying to find out more about SCEPTRE's plans. Mitsuko intercepted some messages about the arrangements but they concerned mostly the catering, which company to use and not to use. All they basically found out was that they were going to have sandwiches and blueberry pie during the main break. Also, Mitsuko and Brazilian agent, Orfeus, tried to analyze Match11 further. The patterns were indeed similar to fnords. Their theory now was that SCEPTRE would try to brainwash the mobile game scene to spread the fnords further. They obviously had some big megalomaniac plan again.
Their cover company would be an indie start-up Green Elk Entertainment, GEE. They had a long discussion about the animal. Erik had of course suggested a goat. Jo was Mo the artist, Ian was Andrew the coder, as he was already into coding, and Erik was Neil the main game designer. Mitsuko wouldn't be joining them inside the venue but would be outside in a van. GEE was making their debut game about a robot Elk.
...
"Too bad Crucifier and Ravenna won't do," Ian said going through shirts in the clothes rack. In three weeks he had grown a beard and a moustache that had been now trimmed. It was six days to go and they were now in a chain store in Oslo searching clothes for Mo and Andrew. Soon Ian emerged from the dressing room wearing very skinny jeans and a buttoned long-sleeved denim shirt. Jo soon followed wearing similar jeans and a t-shirt with a unicorn print.
"These are surprisingly comfortable," Ian said looking at the jeans.
"I checked, they have 1% spandex," Jo commented.
"Spandex? So...this could escalate to hair metal?" Ian asked now with a smile on his face.
"It could," Jo returned his smile.
...
They had rented a flat in downtown Oslo. It was relatively expensive but luckily they still had benefactors. Later back at the flat they were doing more alterations to their looks.
"I was a child the last time I didn't have a beard," Erik said.
He had agreed to shaving his beard after figuring out a way to leave his hair intact. He would wear a Costeau beanie hat and a keffiyeh style scarf around his neck. Without the beard he now looked confusingly younger. Ian and Jo actually thought that for the first time ever they could see his facial expressions. That evening Jo also dyed her hair purple and Ian his hair and beard to a reddish-brown color.
They all would wear glasses with slightly different kind of thick frames which had cameras that would be transmitting to Mitsuko. The conference was held in a former industrial building turned into a trendy premise. There weren't metal detectors at the venue but just to be sure they smuggled some guns to beforehand, disguised as cleaning personnel, and hid them in selected air conduits. But the plan was to avoid using them at all as the place would be crowded with civilians.
...
"Are you sure you don't want to come? I mean, it's Tyranex," Ian still tried to convince Erik.
"No thanks, I'm just gonna take a walk and go to sleep early."
Jo and Ian left Erik. Mitsuko was already sleeping.
Perhaps it was strange to do such in such a situation, two days from their mission, to attend a gig. But if Ian and Jo had learned one thing from the experience, it was that each day should be lived. Fully.
"Now that was proper thrash," Jo said.
They were in the back of the club listening to the band following Tyranex. They were both quite flushed, feeling exhilarated having been in the mosh pit.
"What if I told you Tyranex is now sitting in a table not far from us," Ian leaned to say to Jo, nodding to a direction behind her.
"No way," Jo's eyes clearly lit up even more. She quickly turned to look where the band was sitting.
"I have to go talk her. I mean...I just have to."
Jo had sounded excited but then she suddenly frowned for a second, obviously now hesitating.
"Just go," Ian said and gently pushed her the right way. He didn't wish to interfere in the moment. It was so clearly Jo's. So he just remained in the table and could see that Jo caught the attention of the band's frontwoman Linnea. The two began talking. And they talked for quite a while. At one point Jo pointed at Ian who then nodded at them. Ian had time to fully enjoy Shark Attack, the following band, which was actually American thrash. He really liked one of their songs, apparently it was called "I'm choking".
Finally Jo returned.
"It looked like you really bonded. What did you talk about?" Ian asked curious.
"The usual," Jo said looking so happy.
"How to avoid your hand cramping while playing...What's the optimal angle for holding a pick."
"Sounds good."
"Anyway, thanks for making me do that."
"Anytime."
...
Erik was now walking back towards the flat. The walk hadn't helped much. Back at home it hadn't bothered him at all but now that they had shared a flat he couldn't help envying what Ian and Jo had. He felt lonely and what made things worse was that he couldn't channel it into thrash drumming. Also, excessive absinthe consumption would have been unwise at this point. The preparation for the mission had brought up even more memories of their previous one. And of Gwen. And there was also the experience. Yes, of course he had talked about it with Ian and Jo. Erik's last memory had been watching Kim's band and then being suddenly consumed by something very nasty. The following memory was then waking up at the same club, or what remained of it, surrounded by corpses. He could see that for Ian and Jo the whole thing had led to some deeper understanding of life and each other but for him it seemed to have triggered a mid-life crisis. Fuck, he thought, as he walked the stairs back up to the apartment. This wasn't very over-man.
...
"Mitsuko...If I didn't know I might think you're nervous," Jo said.
"Maybe I am. It's interesting to actually meet him. We've only talked via secure connection that doesn't use video."
Jo and Mitsuko were picking the last arriving agent from the airport. It would be Orfeus, from Brazil.
"Hi," said the tall, somewhat lanky guy approaching them.
"Shuriken and Phantasm, right? I'm Orfeus,"
"Yeah, good to meet you finally," Jo said shaking his hand. She awaited Mitsuko to do the same but she basically just stared at the guy. Finally, she seemed to snap out of something and shook his hand just nodding.
In addition to Orfeus, two other Agents had volunteered joining them in the mission. The other was a Swedish Agent Gudrun who actually looked a bit like Kim. The other was physically her opposite, a dark and very Hessian looking Agent Vanya from Belarus. All the new Agents were hackers more accustomed to weapons used in cyber warfare. They had gotten to know the three quite well through secure chats, and in real life they all turned out to be quiet, thoughtful types. They were also quite young, in their early twenties. It was decided Orfeus would join Mitsuko in the van and Vanya and Gudrun would come inside to the conference with the others.
...
It was the morning of MoGaCon.
"Ian, it's time," Jo was sitting on the edge of the bed. She gestured Ian to sit down on the floor in front of her. They had talked about this but still it actually made him break into a cold sweat. In about ten minutes it was over and a surreal sight met his eyes in the mirror. His long hair had been tied into a man bun. It matched his beard perfectly.
They were on the street walking to the car when Erik suddenly stopped. Almost immediately Ian and Jo stopped as well.
"Everything okay?" Mitsuko asked, looking back at them. Gudrun, Vanya and Orfeus had already walked to the van. The three senior agents had stopped in front of a shop window and were just staring at their reflections. Erik looked kind of solemn, Jo had raised her eyebrows slightly and Ian obviously just stared at his hair.
"It's for freedom, metal and might, right?" Ian finally said.
"Right," Erik and Jo answered almost simultaneously.
They walked to their car, a white rented Kia Picanto, in silence.
...