Date: Wednesday 1/9/2060, Location: 52.29208, 104.32483, Time: 23:50

She cast her spell, infiltrating the creature's mind and trying to determine what it knew and what its plans where – and ran into a confusing myriad of thoughts, smells, flavours and desires that were alien to her. She blink and tried again.

soaring on the night air, scanning for prey, rustle of leaves, the scratching of a mouse, a feeling of elated joy at the kill, the sensation of plucking eyeballs out of their skull, fluids splashing on her beak

She gagged slightly as she experienced eating live prey and certain sensations that she had no desire to repeat, and cast her mind around, trying to find the higher functions, the parts of the brain that dealt with the more metahuman part of the creature's life, rather than its primal urges. It was hard going, and she fidgeted and grumbled as she got too close a view of what it was like to be an animal that occasionally looked like a human, and a point of view that was very alien to her. After a few minutes of effort, she let the spell drop, and sat back on her haunches, gathering her thoughts and trying to marshal them into some kind of order.

"That's tough, much tougher than I thought it would be. But I've got some useful information, I think. This creature is part of a guerrilla or insurgent cell, though I get the sense they see themselves more as freedom fighters." Frederick and Frunze scoffed, and Tads elected not to argue with them. "There's at least five other cells active in the city, but this one doesn't know who they are – just that they exist. They all arrived separately, and have never knowingly crossed paths." The news of the other cells had silenced the two Russians, and Frunze had a notepad out and was quietly scratching away with a stylus, entering information for transmission back to the HQ unit.

"As far as it knows, each of the cells is made up of an owl and a dog shapeshifter, who have command, while they also have half a dozen other locals working with them – agitators, saboteurs, guerrillas or insurgents. Their preferred tactic will come as no surprise to you, being the setting of fires, though they're also happy to engage in setting explosives, damaging the water or power systems or destroying resources. No focus on electronic or computer-based sabotage though – I guess it's not their strong point. On the topic of water systems though – this one here, has some of its cell members planning to release a poison into the water supply some time tomorrow. The device is in place already, and just waiting for the release. And don't worry – I have a mental image of the agent and the location."

The shapeshifter thrashed about in the fabric wrapping, struggling to get free when it heard Tads describe the upcoming plan, but Shimazu held it firmly and try as it might, it had no chance of breaking free.

"When I got the information about this attack on the water supply, I got an impression of its 'hunting range' – which I guess is the area this cell is carrying out operations in. It seems to cover the city centre area as a whole, but they don't have a target list or anything they're working through. It seems the objective is mainly to cause fear and terror, sowing doubt in the civilians' minds and causing as much damage as possible to keep the army off balance. And they need to keep doing that for another two days, when something really big is going to go off and happen." The Owl thrashed violently again, and Shimazu had to lean on the body as it writhed in its makeshift prison.

"Oh, stop it!" Kai barked, letting an edge of power creep into his voice and for a moment the bird was still, though Shimazu could feel the breast flutter as the owl gasped for breath after its frantic efforts. "What else did you learn?" he asked the shaman in a more normal tone of voice.

Somewhere to the north, there's a small camp, in a clearing. It's on the edge of a pond and surrounded by a stand of trees, and there's half a dozen summoners there that are responsible for the watcher spirit flocks and the wind spirits. They're sent to pre-arranged meeting locations and told to follow the instructions of the shifters. But, oddly enough, there are memories of very strong and clear instructions…the attacks MUST remain within the city area, in the built-up parts. All efforts are to be directed only to the city itself." Tads sounded puzzled as she relived the experience, trying to make sure she understood the intent of the memory as well as the specific images she had seen.

"Well, a poisoned water supply sounds like a problem for the city engineers or the army, rather than us." Aswon raised an eyebrow at the Colonel, who was still frantically transcribing notes into his digital pad.

"You don't think it's worth going back to brief the General on what we've discovered ourselves," asked Hunter. "Might help convince him he's making a good decision in trusting us." Aswon considered for a moment, then shook his head, and pointed at Funze who was busy sending communications from his comms system.

"Something I can tell you – I'm not sure how much use it would be to capture another person from the cell, or someone from another cell. They seem to be very well organised and really limit what each person knows." Tads added. "I guess you have to if you want to stay at war with someone successfully for this long."

"I do think though – that this is something we might want to look at ourselves. We've got the information, right now – and it's going to take time for the military to get the people in to deal with it. More than that, they're likely to be a lot less subtle perhaps than we could be, and less likely to use tasers and stun bolts. Despite what you think Tads, if we capture some of them, we can learn some more information, I'm sure."

"What are we going to do with this one?" Aswon pointed at the Owl still wrapped up in the tablecloth and struggling feebly against Shimazu's vice-like grip. "We can't let it go free, and I'm not sure we can hand it over to the Russians." Frunze looked like he was about to say something, but Aswon continued quickly. "Not because we can't trust them – but because they're not going to have a warded prison or containment unit, and they can't risk having something that can turn into a bird and fly out between bars, or controlling their prison guards' minds. They're just not equipped to deal with that kind of prisoner." Frunze closed his mouth and glanced at Frederick, who nodded unhappily as Aswon described their capabilities.

"Unfortunately, he's right. It would take us most of a day to prepare a cell with a strong magical barrier on it to keep the warders safe, and it might only last a week or two before it would need to be remade. And if we do that, it's going to tie up a couple of my mages for a day, and mean several command tents or facilities don't get covered in the same time. Though I don't know what else you can do?"

"Well, as it happens, we know some advanced techniques that allow us to use some magical components to make the wards permanent with only a minimal amount of effort. And working as a team, we can also put up a ward powerful enough to stop something like this in only a few hours, not a whole day." Frederick blinked at him in surprise, then his eyes narrowed as he looked around the group, re-evaluating the level of power being discussed. "And, being blunt – although this creature is YOUR enemy, that doesn't make it OUR enemy. And I'm not sure how I'd feel about handing over a creature to you where your main method of extracting information is going to be cruel, abject, ongoing torture." Aswon stared at Frederick and Frunze, daring them to disagree with his assessment. Neither of them did.

"Oh, hey. I've got an idea. Hunter, show me a map, will you?" Hunter swung up his tablet and keyed up the display, showing Kai who zoomed out of the city a little and panned west, then smiled. "Aha! Just as I thought! There's a facility a little way west of here, that almost certainly does have holding facilities specifically designed to keep things like our little friend here safe and secure. Let me give them a call."

He pulled out his phone, and flipped through the memory, then stabbing at a contact name. Moments later they heard the ring tone, and a bleary voice answering.

"Uh, yes? What time is it? Who is this?"

"Sorry for the lateness, it's Kai…"

"I'm not buying!"

"That's ok, I'm not selling. Mihail - I have a situation, that might be an opportunity."

"What kind of opportunity?" The voice was suspicious, the last vestiges of sleep banished by Kai's offer.

"Well, I'm down in Irkutsk at the moment, just doing a little consulting. And it so happens that we've managed to capture a Yakut spy. The bad news is that it's both a shapeshifter, and a mage – so short of putting a bullet in the head, possibly several bullets in the head actually – the folks here aren't really equipped to restrain or contain it. So I thought to myself, who do I know with a nice, secure, safe, reliable place to keep something, that might be really curious to study and observe such a creature? And guess what – you're on the list!"

"Spare me, Kai, it's too late at night for that level of smarm. But yes, I'm interested. And you're in Irkutsk, you say?" Kai agreed, and gave the team a thumbs up, while he continued to listen. "Ok. I can probably have a transport over to you in about twenty to thirty minutes if you do have a mage-shifter. Sure, we can look after it for you."

"Great work, Mihail. Let me message you landing coordinates and clearances and stuff, in the next few minutes. Now, is there anything you're after?"

"Some alcohol would be good – anything BUT Vodka mind. No shortage of that stuff."

"Ahh, I'll see what we can do, but that's probably what we have. Well, I'll work on it, and we'll get your flight information over to you." Kai hung up and beamed at the others. "Right, problem one sorted – we can get it put on ice, and kept securely out of the way, and they won't let it go or get back to Yakut. Can we arrange landing clearances and stuff? Oh, and for the moment, just in case it's being hunted for – Tads, can you give me a quick scout?"

Tads nodded, and then projected out of her body, manifested and rose up slowly, pirouetting on the spot and looking for incoming spells, astral traces, watcher spirits or other astral entities. After thirty seconds of careful scrutiny, she returned and gave the all clear.

"That's not to say they're not going to try, though, Kai. It might be good to get under cover of a ward for the moment, at least until your friend arrives? Colonel Frunze, or actually Captain Frederick – is there one of your warded spaces nearby that we can go to while we wait for the transport? Anything is better than nothing, and will disrupt any attempts to locate them somewhat."

"I believe the closest facility will be the hundred and fifth logistic ops tent, Colonel. That was only re-worked the day before yesterday, so it's definitely intact." The Colonel nodded in agreement, and pulled up a map, showing it to be only a few hundred metres away. With that, the team gathered their gear and jogged along, following the prompts from the tablet and making good time towards the logistics brigade encampment. By the time they arrived, some rather disgruntled-looking officers and troops had just finished securing all manner of maps and other material, and had vacated their tent, leaving it free for the team and the two Russian officers to use. A quick check of the tent showed that it was currently warded, with a low-to-moderate power barrier, the kind of thing commonly used for commercial or low-end corporate facilities. It wasn't great, but for the next thirty minutes it would probably do.

"Tads – can you be ready to try your mind probe again please, I'd just like to make sure we've got as much intel out of this as possible, before it leaves here."

"I can Kai, but it's hard going. It's not human, and it doesn't think like us – and it's a mage so it's more than capable of resisting."

"You just get ready. Ok, Shimazu, pin it down please, and make sure it can't move at all." The creature thrashed ineffectually as two large hands cradled the form and held it in place, before Shimazu gave a yelp of surprise at the faint tingle and massive auditory 'zap' as Kai discharged the last remaining shot in his taser's capacitor into the owl's head, missing Shimazu by less than the space of two fingers. "Ok Tads, quickly now, please – we know how quickly these buggers recover from damage."

Tads concentrated, rummaging around in the creature's mind and looking for more information and thoughts, trying to focus on the longer-term plans rather than short-term desires. It was easier now it wasn't actively resisting, and she struck paydirt after a few moments, coming across some information the Owl had previously managed to hide from her. She had another look around for anything further, then let the spell dissipate as she felt the mental defences start to recover from the shock of being tased.

"Ok, I have something new – there's a definite timeline for this big thing in two days, an attack on the city. It's due to begin about two in the morning, while it's still fully dark. The darkness is a key part of the plan, and essential for their plans somehow. They're expecting additional units to come south from Yakut – type and number unknown. But they're coming by water, whatever they are. And once they hit the city, the strike teams are going on an all-out offensive to cause chaos and strike, to distract everyone in the city while Yakut launches a major push south, through the city, and down to the railroad beyond. That's their ultimate goal."

A screech of rage and alarm emitted from the Owl as Tads described the enemies' plans, and Kai bellowed at it to be quiet again, while Shimazu made sure the talons and beak were still securely wrapped and safe.

"All the information is passed over by dead-drops, coded transmissions left under windowsills, or behind bins and such like. It's slow, but safe. Which means there's a network of couriers running throughout the city as well, carrying information out to the enemy forces, and their instructions back in."

"I wish there was some way for you to share that information!" Colonel Frunze said, frustration clear in his voice."

"Oh, well, I can share the mental pictures with you, of course" Tads said offhandedly, "but there's something even better actually. Aim your tablet down at that empty table please, and set it to record." She waited for Frunze to give her a nod and then created an illusion – but instead of one powerful enough to wrap a false image around their vehicle, she constrained it to a picture the size of a large trideo player, focussing instead more on the quality of the image and the verisimilitude of the information.

"Ok, these are the members of the cell that this Owl and Dog were members of. This one here is the water plant employee, that is planting the poison attack. Here are the dead-drops that this cell know about. This first one is on a residential street, fairly quiet…" she projected the information she had gleaned from the Owl's mind into a convincing three dimensional and animated show, allowing Frunze to record the images to be transmitted where needed, including the picture of the pond and small spinney that the summoners were based in, behind enemy lines, the code phrases and recognition signals used by the cell, the time of their next meeting… it all played out in full before the Russian's eyes. Moments later, the Colonel was making a call.

"Get this data packet I'm sending you now, and distribute it to all MP commands for all brigades. Any signs of these civilians are to be reported at once. Treat them all as armed and dangerous, and shoot to kill if the surveillance is compromised. And get the guys in strategic intentions to begin a topographical analysis of the scene around this pond, with a likely location approximately thirty to forty kilometres north of the city. Every location that has an eighty percent match rate or higher is to be plotted, and that information passed to the 385th Guards Artillery Brigade, who are to plot saturation bombardment patterns of the area at once, and await further instructions." Behind him, Hunter smiled and made a 'blowing up' gesture with his hands. The impact of Russian indirect fire was still vivid in his memory and he clearly felt in agreement that the best way to deal with this magical threat was with massive firepower.

Aswon had found a projector and waved Hunter over, asking him to cast the image from his tablet onto the display and stood studying the map of the city, and the surrounding environment. One arm was folded over his chest, supporting the elbow of his other arm, while that hand in turn rested under his chin. He remained still for several minutes, while his eyes darted back and forth across the map.

"What are you thinking, Aswon?" Kai asked, moving to stand next to him and glancing briefly at the map before studying his face. Kai figured he'd probably learn a lot more from his body language than the satellite imagery of the city – especially when he knew that the image displayed didn't reflect the massive swathes of destruction wrought by fires over the last week.

"You're fighting an asymmetric war here, Colonel. Of course, you know that, sorry – you've been fighting it for years. But humour me, as the rest of my team probably haven't dealt with this kind of thing before." He rubbed at his chin with his hand, his stubble making a rasping sound as his fingers worked in a circle around the shape of his jawbone. "Your enemy cannot fight you toe to toe, so instead they strike from the shadows, at whatever targets they can. Even in a major strike such as the one indicated will happen in less than 26 hours, it won't be a conventional battle."

"No Aswon, it's two days time," Tads corrected.

"Yes, but you also said it will begin about two in the morning. So looking at the time now, and how most people think of 'days', we've actually got just over one actual day to get things sorted and ready, before whatever is going to happen kicks off. I'm sure it will last longer than that – but that's when the first strike is going to happen."

"So, the enemy will rely on their magic, as that's where they are strong. Concealed troops moving forwards, protected by Spirits. A plague of accidents and breakdowns as your vehicles cross bridges or move through choke points. Watcher spirits to monitor movements and warn of reinforcements. Sabotage of key structures. Trying to use improvised devices and local overwhelming force to strike at weakspots, before melting away into the darkness. That's what the enemy will do to you, just like they did to us in Kosovo, back in the forties."

"You, on the other hand, have a technologically powerful, mobile and hard-hitting army, with immense shock power, and the ability to drive far into the enemy's rear area given a chance. So we need to work out a way to make that happen. Which I think we can do, with a bit of help."

"Colonel – can you get a large airborne transport craft – preferably something with very good visibility and endurance? And Captain, you need to work on getting some of your mages together to board that transport, carrying your best available optical scanning gear. Our team can ward that craft, with powerful defences to keep everyone aboard it safe and secure, and it can hover over the city, providing an elevated position from which you can keep an astral watch for the enemy."

Aswon gestured at the map, indicating an area over the centre of the city where the craft would patrol, and then gesturing out all along the northern approaches from the front lines.

"With the advantage of height, and a good set of binoculars, not only will you be able to provide direct magical support to a wide variety of your troops, but you can also spot for weaknesses of your own, and direct intense bombardments in response to their movement. You're dealing with insurgents and guerrillas here – used to engaging on their terms. They don't have a strong hierarchy or control structure, and their communications are limited and slow sometimes. You need to strike at that when they move into the open, hitting them with unrelenting waves of firepower designed to shatter their spirits and disrupt their ability to move cohesively. Once a rout starts, it will erode away their army from within. You need to push them off balance and make them dance to your tune, and fight to your strengths."

"In the meantime, if the main attack is going to start in just over a day, this poison attack is likely to be sometime in the next few hours, and probably aimed to be debilitating your troops just as they would need to start responding to a raised alert. So, I agree Kai – we should move on this at once and try to deal with it quickly, unless you can get your engineers sorted in the next twenty minutes with an escort of breaching troops and magical support?" He saw the two Russians exchange glances unhappily. "I thought not. It's worth alerting them though, in case we get delayed or need assistance. But until then, we plan and get a ground vehicle to get to the location, and wait for Kai's friend to arrive to take the Owl off our hands."

The team's radio lit up, and they heard Marius calling out to them from the tilt-wing, still parked a few hundred metres away next to the stadium.

"I've been looking through the cell traffic for the area, and have come across a number of transmissions all at about the time of the incident, that I would consider suspicious. Many of them sounded like short code phrases or keywords. I'm sending the information over to you now, to pass on to the Colonel. He may want to get his sig-int troops involved, and do some direction finding or something, all I can tell you is which cell tower they were using."

"Good work Marius, we'll get that passed over now." Kai nodded to Hunter, who grabbed the datastream from Marius and let it project up onto the wall of the tent, replacing the map that Aswon had been studying, then sent a forward request on to Frunze's tablet.

"Thank you, Mr. Hunter. I have a transport vehicle coming now, to take you to the water facility – and I believe your transport aircraft is approaching the city. We may want to step outside?" Frunze raised an eyebrow at Kai, then followed him as he led the team outside, Shimazu carrying the Owl tucked under his arm.

The howl of engines pierced the night sky, growing louder and louder as a craft descended out of the darkness, anti-collision lights blinking. It was a tilt-wing, but very different to the team's craft. This was painted a warm white, and had subtle colour highlights from various lights recessed or built into the wings that illuminated the subtle Renraku logos. It was larger than their own craft, with viewing ports studded down the fuselage indicating a number of seats inside, apart from the rear third of the craft which were blank. As it came in to land, dust whipped up from the ground and they had to turn away for a moment until the pilot throttled back and the maelstrom subsided. By the time it had, the passenger hatch was sliding open and several guards in heavy armour were climbing down, stun batons hanging from their belts.

When they had reassured themselves that the area held no surprises, one of them waved to a fifth person, waiting just inside the hull of the aircraft. They emerged wearing a suit, well-tailored and with their hair neat, tidy and perfectly in place. If they'd been woken late at night, their appearance gave no sign of it.

"Mr. Kai? Mihail sends his compliments."

"I'm Kai. We have a package for you, if you have secure holding facilities?"

"Right this way." The suited man led the way to the rear of the aircraft, and without any visible sign or transmission, part of the hull cracked open, revealing a large cargo door that extruded outwards. As the skin of the aircraft split open, a second hatch swung open inside, revealing a small padded cell with no light or features inside. With the door closed it would be pitch black inside, and with no surfaces to gain a purchase on. Tads and Aswon checked the cell out magically, and blinked at the very high force ward that covered the opening – they would have to thrust the Owl through, overcoming the barrier and driving them through the ward and into the cell – but it meant that their magic would be almost completely nullified whilst in there.

The package was pushed through the ward, thrashing and screaming as the shapeshifters dual nature came into conflict with the astral barrier until it gave way and swallowed them whole, springing back into place a moment later. The outer door was quickly sealed shut, and then the fuselage of the aircraft closed, not even revealing a crack in the outer surface. As quickly as they'd arrived, the Renraku personnel re-boarded the transport aircraft and the pilot started to power the engines back up, preparing for take-off.

Kai checked the time – 00:45. Mihail must have really cracked some heads to get the transport organised that quickly, that or he really wanted a pet shapeshifter to study. Whichever way it was, it wasn't his problem, and he tried to clear his mind, before jumping on the comms to Marius.

"Marius, we're heading back to the craft now. We've got a vehicle coming, and need to head over to a water treatment plan that we suspect has been wired up with some kind of poison demolition charge or something. We'll probably need some tools, an electronics kit, that kind of stuff. Can you start throwing some stuff together and we'll be there in a minute?" He listened for an acknowledgement, and then gathered the team up along with Frunze and Frederick, and lead the way back towards the stadium.

Marius had prepared the tools and kit, and was standing outside the tilt-wing, a nervous-looking Vadim standing next to him, while the ring of troops continued to stand guard around them. By the time the rest of the team arrived, a driver appeared with a beat up and muddy UAZ, longer than the models they'd seen or used before. Piling aboard, Vadim seemed to be horrified at finding himself near the Colonel again, and quickly climbed up into the opening at the top and manned the machine gun on the ring mount, whether it was required or not, keeping him safely out of line of sight of the senior ranks.

Marius connected up to the rigger systems, frowned a little at the somewhat spotty maintenance history but put the vehicle smoothly into gear. He tried to talk to the team, but was annoyed to find no microphones or speakers included with the basic systems, and instead had to relay through his secure comms channel with Hunter.

"One point six five kilometres, but the roads are not direct – estimate less than five minutes though." They accelerated smoothly down the city streets, deserted at this time of the morning and worked their way west, towards the river. True to his word, they pulled up into the waste ground surrounding the pumping station four minutes and thirty five seconds later, stopping about a hundred metres away from the squat and brooding building. A few spotlights on the roof illuminated the immediate area, but giving the building a quick look over, they couldn't spot any cameras or other surveillance systems. The lit area extended out perhaps twenty metres, with another twenty of marginal light, but this far back they were in darkness, and should be invisible to anyone in the building.

They examined the structure from their vantage point, zooming in or using binoculars or the magnification on their cameras to get the best idea of what the building was like before they approached. It was about as high as the typical two storey house, but much wider and made of heavy and ugly concrete, with broad ribs and supports running up the sides of the buildings that made it look lower than it actually was. Large windows studded the sides, rising up in parallel with hundreds of small panes of glass in a basic and uninspiring rectangle, which had been treated at some point in the past with adhesive mirror panels to stop anyone peering in. A single standard door could be seen for workers at one end of the building, along with a set of heavy double doors at the far end. Tads projected from her body for a moment, circumnavigating the building quickly and examining the other sides, before reporting back that these were the only two ways in.

"I've seen a few places like this – regardless of culture or country, they tend to be similar due to the nature of how they work." Hunter pointed to the single door at the north end of the building. "Standard entrance. Maybe a small reception area, a store room, changing room, toilets and a break area. Maybe a couple of offices or a meeting room if it's a big facility. But the main bulk of the internal structure is going to be one large room, filling most of the volume. Generators, pumps, pipework, heavy machinery – all laid out from one side to the other in a series of parallel lines, each feeding a different mains system or pipe, or routing to different sectors of the city. Probably noisy as all hell in there, and potentially with chemical and gas hazards to be wary of."

They digested his words, imagining the environment he described as he fleshed out the details of the kinds of things they might see. Nobody asked him where he came by this knowledge of utility services, but he seemed to know what he was talking about.

"Depending on the local codes and policies, there'll be a main water inlet or two, some filters, then probably intermediate pumps that are attached to chlorine or fluorine supplies to treat the water, maybe some physical filters, if they're good then a UV sanitiser, then it'll go through impellor pumps and out to distribution grids. So, not everything we see in there is going to be suspect, but there are likely to be things that don't react well to large detonations." He pulled out the clip from his rifle and worked the action, adding the chambered explosive round back into the top of the clip, before sliding home a clip of regular rounds. Aswon followed suit, swapping out his rounds for low penetration hollow points that were unlikely to punch through high pressure machinery.

"I am co-ordinating with the engineer brigade and the city water officials. They're trying to quietly get hold of an engineer to come and assist without tipping off the on duty crew. I also have some specialists coming, but they will be some time." Frunze shrugged, and made a few notes on his pad. "Hopefully they will be here soon."

Tads concentrated for a moment and summoned a watcher spirit, sending the simple minded entity into the building to count how many life signs were in there. With the watcher heading in, she concentrated again and summoned a spirit of the winds, something with a little more intelligence that would make for a better backup. The watcher appeared back in the vehicle, sticking its head through the windscreen and beaming at them.

"There's a lot of them in there. Like…um. More than twenty!"

"More than twenty people?" Kai asked, and they all looked surprised.

"Oh no. Only three people."

"Well, what are the rest?"

"Well, there's a lovely family of rats living in a little channel at one end. I saw two big spiders sitting in their webs high up near those doors. Then there was…" Tads cut if off, and confirmed what she meant, sending it back to be sure to count only the metahumans in the building - not just anything alive. It was gone for a minute, then came back and confirmed that only three people were in the building, and all in the main area.

"And is one of those three people one of the cell members?"

"Um.. Dunno. What's a cell?" Tads sighed – it had been a little while since she'd bothered using watchers for any kind of serious search, and she'd blanked out from her mind how mind-numbingly literal and uninspired they could be. She thought hard about the mental pictures plucked from the Owl shifter's mind, and sent the watcher back in to double-check. Sure enough when it came back, it confirmed that the cell member was one of the three workers on site.

"Yeah, three people, all hitting the grey things in there with big weapons!" the spirit blurted out. A sense of unease filled the vehicle, and any hope that they had plenty of time left them swiftly at the news of the apparent ongoing sabotage.

"May I suggest to you then, that you neutralise that target, with extreme prejudice?" Colonel Frunze nodded to Kai, then lifted the microphone to his mouth, speaking into his communicator. "Captain, I know it's early in the morning, but I feel like General Alikhanov won't regard that as an adequate excuse for why you were not able to respond with your finest men in a timely fashion. I would certainly feel obliged to inform him of the time of my original call to you, and this follow up call now, indicating just how long it had taken you to respond to an urgent situation." He stopped and listened for a moment. "Very well, I shall expect you shortly." He turned back to Kai and the rest of the team. "Engineers are on the way, along with some more security troops to keep the area secure. But they will be some time, regardless of his assurances. Something I will have to raise with the General – not that this helps us now."

"How about a pincer movement – hit them from both directions?" Aswon offered, pointing at the pedestrian and goods entrances.

"Nice idea, but I don't think so – I've had a good look at the goods in doors, and there's no external keypad or access reader. That suggests to me that we're looking at bars or bolts on the inside, and they're not easy to open up except from within." Aswon examined the doors again, grunting in agreement when he confirmed Hunter's analysis.

"Ok, let's get ready to go. Aswon and Hunter in through the door first, nice and quiet. Tads and myself following in support. Shimazu, move down to near the double doors and stand guard – if anyone tries to bolt, have them. Vadim, you stay on the gun, and Marius, be ready to either come get us, or back us up – or catch anyone that manages to get past Shimazu." Shimazu snorted, vaguely amused by the idea of somebody giving him the slip, but didn't argue. "Ok people, let's move out. Approach the lit area, pause, take a breath, then we move in fast and stack up on the door. Go!"

The team piled out of the UAZ, and split into pairs, then moved forwards through the darkness towards the pedestrian entrance, while Shimazu headed off on his own towards the other end of the building. When they hit the lit area, a quick glance was exchanged, then they ran across the area covered by the floodlights as quickly as possible, trying to minimise the window of exposure.

They stacked up on the door, and Hunter was about to give it a kick, when he decided to just check, in case the workers were slack. Far too often he'd found so called 'secure' doors left ajar to enable an employee out for a crafty cigarette or to slide out of some work – not that it normally bothered him. Lo and behold, the door opened under his gentle prodding, revealing a lit corridor beyond. He led the way, with Aswon quietly padding along behind him.

Like a well-oiled machine, he and the tall mercenary cleared the corridor quickly and efficiently. He kept his rifle pointed down the scuffed and dirty through-way, while Aswon checked each room on their right as they passed each one.

"Stores, clear", "Toilets, clear", "Break room, clear", "Managers office, clear." The negative reports were murmured to him as each one was checked, and he moved forwards to the next vantage point, closer and closer to the end of the corridor. As they moved down, the sounds of machinery grew louder and the light level rose, spilling out from the next room or rooms around the corner. Reaching the end of the corridor, Hunter knelt and slowly eased his head around the brickwork to examine the room beyond.

It was broadly similar to what he'd described – a large machinery space, actually sunk at least two metres below ground level, with a metal catwalk running around the chamber. He could see a platform at the other end, leading to the double doors, and a block and tackle pulley system running on a large H-shaped girder, presumably for handling the heavier supplies. Down in the pit he could see three humans, all working away with toolkits. He stifled a giggle, and instead pulled back, gesturing Aswon forward to have a glance around the corner. It only took him a moment or two before he slid back as well, shaking his head. Lowering his voice, he spoke quietly to Tads.

"Maybe send a more powerful watcher spirit next time. They're not attacking the machinery. They're using metre long wrenches to do maintenance on some of the big pipes and pumps. Some of the bolts on there are about a hundred mil or more. Tads closed her eyes for a moment, then nodded.

"Never mind, we're here now. Three targets, all below us. Half flight of steps in our corner and far corner. Lots of lights overhead, but only about half working – so lots of shadows and dark spots. Thermo is a bit of a mess, as is ultrasound due to the noise. So, we need to be careful with our targeting, and get ready to take them down quickly. The one confirmed as the cell member is at the far end of the room, working on a large machine that is giving him pretty good cover."

Kai brandished his taser and inched towards the corner, pointing at Hunter and Aswon and assigning them to the other two targets, indicating he was going to try and stun the cell member. When they nodded agreement, he counted down from five with his fingers, getting ready to rush inwards and clear the entrance way. Adrenaline flooded his system and his stomach flipped with the anticipation, and then he was rushing forwards, bellowing at the top of his lungs and putting every fibre of command into the shout that he could.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" All three workers twitched upright, and he raised the taser at the dimly lit and partially visible target about twenty metres away. It wasn't a great target, but probably the best he was going to get. As he finger tightened on the trigger, he was dimly aware of the other two starting to raise their hands when confronted with Aswon and Hunter bringing their weapons to bear on them.

The two sharpened darts were propelled across the distance, striking the man in the forehead and delivering a massive jolt of power, stunning him insensible and Kai started to smile in satisfaction at the perfectly placed shot. His smile was short lived though as the man crumpled and hit the ground with a thud, and then a moment later was consumed in a fiery explosion that blew chunks of dismembered corpse all over the room.

"That wasn't me!" he called out, somewhat plaintively. Dammit – it had been going so well!

"Grenade probably, look at the blast radius. Maybe in his pocket, maybe on a deadman switch. Dunno, don't care. Stand still! Hands up!" Hunter waited for the thunder of the explosion to die down, and then bellowed at the two prisoners, gesturing with the barrel of gun at both of them. The team swarmed down the ladder into the machine pit, and carefully moved forwards to secure their prisoners and examine the machine the terrorist had been working on. Hunter took a deep sniff, letting the miniature gas spectrometer go to work, and started to analyse the chemicals in use.

"Ok, got traces of chlorine and fluorine. Engine oil, grease, lubricating fluids, cleaners, adhesives. Um… water softeners, anti-microbial solutions… a couple of other things. Most of them can be poisonous, but not in the kind of way we're looking at.

Kai gave a start as his phone buzzed in his pocket. Looking around, he saw Aswon and Hunter had the prisoners covered, so he holstered the taser and checked to see what was up, wondering if Marius had news.

Katana. Have alternate resources arranged. Job offer filled. Another time perhaps. J He checked the number, confirming it was coming from the right country code, before pocketing the phone again.

"Not that it matters right now, but that was Johanna. The Maersk job has been taken by another crew." At the news all three of the team turned towards him in surprise, before flicking their attention back towards the two remaining utility workers. One of them was inching towards a hammer resting on the edge of his toolbox, and Hunter gave him a stern look, before addressing him in cultured Russian.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. We've here at the express request of General Alikhanov, hunting down Yakut agents like that man that used to be over there. So unless you want to end up redecorating the room like he did, stay fucking still, and don't get any silly ideas. Or I will have no hesitation in ending your miserable little life." The two workers froze, and listened while Hunter coldly explained their options. There was no give in his voice, no mock rage or anger – just a calmly expressed prediction of their impending death. They edged away from the toolbox, raising their hands a little higher, and Hunter nodded at them and smiled. "See, good choice. Now, we're going to have a look over there, and make sure that your friend hasn't left anything he's not supposed to lying around. In fact, why don't you move over there, too, and have a look with us."

They shuffled down the room, the team keeping them under close observation while both workers started to sweat profusely. Hunter asked them what the terrorist had been doing, and they described how he'd been working on a faulty pump control system for the last six or seven hours… Bits of dismembered body were sprayed over the entire section, blood and entrails splattered against the pipework and pumps, but the blast had done very little damage against the heavy duty pipework and housings – anything strong enough to force water down several kilometres of pipe and up a ten story tower block was more than sufficiently strong to deflect an anti-personnel blast. Indeed, the only damage done was some broken glass on a few gauges that had been closest to the explosion.

"Hey look, what's that? On the second stage regulator? That's not right…" one of the workers said, and his hand raised to touch the dull brown cylinder screwed onto an inlet valve, buried halfway behind some pipes. Kai, Hunter and Aswon all bellowed at him to stop, and he froze mid-motion – hand only a few centimetres away from the container.

"Move back away from that, slowly. You say that it's not correct?" Hunter asked the man, gently ushering him away from the area.

"No – it should be a yellow cylinder, with a green stripe – look, there it is. Why is it under the manifold reducer?" Hunter glanced down at where the worker gestured, and spotted the tank underneath the pump housing, spotting the chemical tags that identified it as a fluorine tank. While he was crouched down examining the cylinder though, he saw a display on the underside of the brown tank, with the numbers slowly counting down.

"Oh crap. Timer running everyone. Looks like a thirty minute countdown, still got twenty eight minutes or so to go. But I can spot a whole crap load of wires and electronics as well. Marius – come in, Marius. I think we're going to need you and your toolkit in here, right now. Got a device with an active counter." He waited for Marius to acknowledge, then turned back to the workers. "Can we isolate this section here? Disconnect it from the water system?"

"No, this is the main feed. You'd have to go to the main pump station for the city to shut down the feed in to this system. There's a bypass valve around the cylinder, but it looks like it's been sealed off." Hunter checked carefully, and indeed there was a threaded bar going through the lock mechanism for the valve, and some electronics were attached to either end – probably some sensors or anti-tamper mechanisms.

Rigging his laptop to receive a data stream, he crouched down and carefully moved around the pipework, zooming in to look at the device from all angles and routing the data from his internal camera to the external device. It meant they could all see what he could see, and benefit from the vision enhancements built in to his cyber-ware, without crowding the area. The two workers looked terrified of the device, but also somewhat aggrieved that their former compatriot had planned to poison the city water, and had planted a bomb under their very noses. They described the system to the team in laymen's terms, identifying the various parts of the system to Kai and asking Hunter to zoom in on a couple of key areas.

Marius arrived with his toolkit, climbing down the ladder and swiftly crossing the floor towards them, then replaying the data from the laptop to see what he'd missed. He studied the images carefully, spending over a minute in silence looking at how it was connected and situated, before he called out to Hunter to clear him some space. Selecting a few tools from the kit, he looked around for something to lie on, then slowly inched towards the device on his back, using some plastic sheeting to keep out of the blood and gore that was spread everywhere.

Slowly and methodically, he started to undo screws and fasteners, getting them to a point of being almost free before he moved onto the next, trying to ignore the countdown timer that was positioned just above his head. As he reached the last screw, the pipe gave a strange little rattle and vibrations spread from the pump as it fired up, topping up the water pressure. The motion surprised him, just as he was pulling on the case, and he almost dropped the outer shell of the device – catching it only at the last minute. A metallic 'snick' could be heard over the low frequency rumble of the pump, and he started to sweat profusely.

"Pass me the big screwdriver, quickly now! Ja, that one! Excellent." He laid the blade along the top of the casing, and gently pulled on the dull brown box, sliding it clear of the device with one hand, while pressing down with the shaft of the screwdriver with the other. Three separate anti-tamper devices had been positioned on the inside of the case, designed to fire up when pressure was removed. Slowly he placed the case on the floor, and then working with one hand removed the sensor feed from each device, isolating the circuits before he released pressure on the screwdriver and let the devices fire up, releasing the pressure on the springs.

"Nasty. This is a competently put together device, and looks to have been made very carefully. If the case had been lifted off from above, there's no way we would have seen those circuits. We'll have to be careful." Marius took another minute to examine the mass of cables and circuit boards that had been revealed by the removal of the case. "It looks like there are several firing circuits, with signals going back and forth through these logic units. I'd be very surprised if some of these aren't fakes, and some aren't booby trapped, too. The question is – which ones are which?"

He continued to move slowly and methodically, ignoring the timer which counted down with grim inevitability, and traced circuits and fly leads, measured voltages across capacitors and components, slowly working out where the live circuits were.

"Aswon, I think I will need your assistance after I do this. It looks to me that as well as multiple electronic circuits, there's a backup mechanical circuit located underneath the circuit board. I can't get to it until I've bypassed the circuits, and…" his voice faded away as he looked closely under the edge of the small circuit board. "Hrm. As I feared – the mechanical circuit is attached to some plastic explosives of some kind used as a base. Separate to the stuff that was molded into the lid of the device that I've already made safe. A most complex device. When I disable the electronics, be ready to move in and deal with the mechanical circuits."

Aswon signalled he was ready, grabbing a plastic sheet of his own to let him slide under quickly as soon as Marius was clear. The German went to work and rapidly started to cut cables, attach bypass leads and circumvent circuits. As he cut what he thought was one of the dummy circuits out, the count-down went mad, the numbers flashing by quickly and the time remaining dropping like a stone. Frantically he jabbed his cutters into the last bunch of ribbon cables, sawing and wrenching through the last few connections and finally the counter stopped, frozen on fifty-four seconds remaining. A single red light in the middle of the board illuminated, and then a distinctly mechanical timer could be heard within the chassis of the device itself. Marius pushed off with his arms, sliding out from underneath the pipe to be replaced by Aswon a moment later.

Working with his hand tools, Aswon moved as quickly as he could, stripping away the mechanical systems and trying to access the guts of the device, working to clear a route to the backup circuit without tripping a physical anti-tamper measure. He abandoned neatness, lettings bolts and fasteners falls from the circuit board and bounce off across the floor while he concentrated on working quickly.

Too quickly.

As he made a grasp for the mechanically fired plug inserted into the explosives, he just saw the sliver of metal to the side of the access hole, a moment too late. It moved only a millimetre or two, but he heard a pin slip out of some kind of restraint or fastener and something inside the box moved.

"RUN!" He slid backwards, and lashed out with a foot, stamping as hard as he could on the bottom of the casing. He might not have the mass of Shimazu or Hunter, but he did have about five milligrams of of adrenaline dumped into his bloodstream as a result of his expectation of what was to come. His foot hit hard enough to warp the chassis, bending it and displacing the explosive and the detonator just slightly.

The others had started to move back, and he was still sliding across the floor on a wave of red mush, surfing on pulverised body parts when the backup anti-tamper circuit fired. The explosive had been formed into a shaped charge, designed to shear straight through the valve and cut-off handle, destroying the ability to cut off the bottle of chemical from the mains and allowing it to be spread into the drinking water without a chance of stopping it. Instead, the focussed explosive charge formed a disc that cleanly cut through the valve just above the intended location, slicing through the neck of the bottle and sending it shooting up into the air, spewing forth a colourless, odourless gas.

Time seemed to slow, as the team saw the bottle rise up through the air. Hunter activated his filters and shut down his breathing, switching to his internal air tank. Tads mentally commanded her wind spirit to blow, hoping to direct the gas away from them and to the other end of the room. Marius had dropped his toolkit and was heading for the stairs as fast as he could move, while Kai was only half a step behind him.

Aswon twitched, feeling his lungs burning and his vision blurred. Fiery pain stitched across his flesh and he resisted the urge to stop and rub his flesh, concentrating purely on getting out. The team scrambled up the ladder and out of the pit, dragging the two technicians with them, bolting for the corridor and the door out into the night. Aswon wasn't quite sure where he was, but he could hear the sound of running feet and panting, and followed along in the same direction, his eyes burning and watering uncontrollably.

They burst out from the building, moving away quickly and saw the Colonel running towards them, pistol drawn in one hand, radio held in the other. At first they wondered if he intended to shoot them as potential carriers of a disease or toxin, but it appeared not – he was just being prepared. He shouted into the radio, but strangely enough, none of them could understand him clearly. They were all crying now, tears streaming out of their eyes and down their faces, leaving fiery trails of pain behind.

Aswon started to claw at his clothing, ripping it off his body.

"S-s-s-s-strip. Gnah, kinda kinda like, tropine. Skin con-act. Gorra get 't off. Water…" He babbled, trying to remember what he could about atropine poisoning and how to deal with it – but words came slowly out of thick and unresponsive lips, and his thoughts proved to be equally hard to marshal. The pain from his skin mounted, driving coherent thoughts away and he couldn't focus on the other members of the team at all now – anything closer than about twenty metres just turned into a blur of colourful movement, a kaleidoscope of pain.

Shimazu ran towards the team, dropping into astral to make sure they weren't being targeted with a magical attack, but they seemed to be clear – though a rapidly darkening area of mana was visible around them as the level of pain ramped up. His head snapped up as he heard sirens just outside the area and saw vehicles burst out from the underpass, heading their way, and a moment later the undulating shriek of air-raid sirens rang out across the city. The team were ripping and clawing at their clothes, stripping naked in the cool night air. Hunter seemed least affected, though he showed no sign of slowing down – but he spared a glance at Shimazu and waved for him to get 'upwind' of them. Shimazu realised how desperate the situation must be when Tads ripped off her clothing too, revealing the mass of scar tissue and burns underneath. Normally she would never let anyone see her like this – but now she showed not the slightest regard.

"Hey everyone – over there!" He pointed to the south. "The river – it's not clean, but if you've got something on you, it should start to dilute it and wash it away!" The team shambled off, throwing themselves head first into the cold and polluted river – risking water borne disease and industrial pollutants over the ongoing effect of whatever had been in the cylinder.

The first trucks screeched to a halt and disgorged a platoon of troops wearing full NBC kit. They rapidly deployed, hauling the team out of the river and dragging them back onto land before spraying them down with hoses attached to backpacks. Some kind of soapy solution covered them from head to toe, brown bubbles forming as they attacked the team with brushes. Tads found herself next to Marius, already breaking out in a series of painful looking skin blisters. She tried to channel mana to a healing spell, but between soap in her eyes, ears and mouth, her own pain and the extensive cyber modification implanted in his body, the spell failed to take hold.

More troops arrived, setting up a chemical spray unit and the team were dragged through a fog of chemicals one by one, then hosed down and scrubbed again. Their clothing was gathered in a pile and bagged up, while weapons and equipment were hosed down several times. Slowly order started to emerge as the officer of the Second NBC protection regiment ran through the procedure for a major chemical attack, and his troops scrubbed and cleaned at the team without mercy or pause, trying to remove the poison from their bodies. Behind them medics waited with stretchers and medical carts, waiting for the all clear to move in.

And behind them, now standing next to the vehicle, Colonel Frunze got on the radio, calling in to his boss.

"General? We have a situation. Major chemical spill at the water pumping station, unknown effect on the water supply. I've had the air-raid warning sounded to get everyone into shelter – that should stop anyone actively drawing water for the moment. But we need to get the word out and some tests done – and we need to stand ready. This may be the initial event for the enemy attack."