The team returned from dinner at a slow amble, stuffed to the gills with Singaporean cuisine. They'd found a nice enough restaurant that had space for them, and had then settled down to enjoy their meal. As was usual, Tads had asked if she could sample as much as possible so that she could try to recreate some of the dishes later – and this time they'd gone for the easy option, ordering one of pretty much everything on the menu and treating it like a huge buffet. They'd all eaten far too much, but for once it was nice to kick back and relax, and enjoy the fruits of their efforts.
Aswon had pulled out the shiny lump of quartz he'd found at the Dragon Ridge smuggler stop and passed it over to Tads as they basked in the afterglow of the meal, and she was much more appreciative now – not nursing the massive headache that she'd been trying to deal with when he'd mentioned it previously.
Now they were sat in the passenger compartment, the whole team together, reclining in the padded chairs and enjoying their food coma. Hunter found some rips of a popular comedy show buried deep somewhere on Shadowland and started to stream them down, and they just relaxed for an hour, taking a very untypical for them 'time-out' to do very little of anything.
"You know… I wonder if I should call Wu. He's not far away."
"Who's he again, Kai?"
"Arms dealer, Aswon. Based here in the city, on the southern side, if I remember right. Known him a while, and he's pretty creative at making stuff disappear from official records and ledgers. Might be able to get some interesting bits for us."
"Yeah – sounds like a good thing. Also it's good to keep in touch. Don't want him thinking you're dead – not like most of the folks Marius knows."
"Hey! I am just selective."
"Sure. Less of a problem now though, isn't it – it's not like Saeder Krupp don't know you're alive. But I'm actually being serious here Kai – you should call him, and meet up socially, if he's here in the city. Remind him why you're still friends."
"Yeah. Ok then." Kai pulled out the commlink and found the right entry, and despite it being a few minutes after eleven, Wu picked up almost at once. The rest of the team listened in while Kai chatted away to his friend, checking in on him and describing how he'd been 'busy' and 'around', giving some very censored and high-level highlights. Somewhat to their surprise though, Kai started to talk about going out – apparently his friend was asking him to head out for drinks and a face to face meet, which Kai agreed to. After hanging up the call at its conclusion, he looked over to Shimazu.
"Coming for a drink?"
"You're not going alone."
"I'll take that as a yes then." Kai grinned at him. He looked around to everyone else, but they mostly shook their heads – apart from Aswon.
"I'll come at least part-way with you – I'm going to get myself a hotel room for a night. Somewhere with a bed, a proper bed. A really long bed. Something to sleep off all those noodles in."
"Shouldn't be a problem. We're going to the golf course and casino complex, but I'm sure there's hotels around here – got to be people looking to stay while they're waiting for ships and stuff…"
Marius announced he was heading to bed, and Tads looked like she was already planning on curling up into her customary tiny ball, wrapped in blankets and sleeping bags, while Hunter said he was going to keep an eye out for a bit, then hit the sack himself. With that, the other three headed down the stairs and back towards the access road, hailing down the first cab they saw and giving directions.
The cab driver told them he knew of 'just the place' to meet Aswon's requirements, and took off at a good pace, slicing through puddles of oily rainwater, the rainbow hue of pollutants making the reflected neon lights of the city flash and sparkle brightly. Turning off the main roads, he drove into a mass of tower blocks that made up 'Gaodong Town', stopping in the middle of one of the narrow roads that sliced through the vertical canyons of concrete. Pointing down an alleyway, he told Aswon to head for the flashing sign about halfway down. Aswon gave the area a sceptical look – it was pretty quiet, and not too dark – but looked like the middle of a residential area rather than somewhere he'd find a hotel. The cabbie didn't seem to be winding him up, nor harbouring any hostility though, so after checking his extendable staff as in his inside pocket, along with his credstick, he climbed out of the cab, hunched his shoulders against the rain and crossed the road.
He heard the cab pull away as he headed down the narrow alleyway – then realised that the rain had almost stopped. Looking up and around he saw that the tower blocks were so close together here that he was effectively in the rain-shadow of one of them, and the ground was just a little damp. Holding his head higher and more alert, he quickly strode down the side of the roadway, closing in on the flashing neon sign proclaiming 'Travellers Rest'. The entrance was a wide set of double doors under a large porch – seemingly retrofitted from a goods entrance for the building.
Once inside though, the décor was far different – rather than the concrete he'd been expecting, the walls were painted and wallpapered to a reasonable standard, and there were potted plants, paintings and some gentle music playing from speakers mounted high on the walls – simple synthesiser beats that were fairly inoffensive and quiet. Walking along the entrance hallway he spotted chairs dotted around the place, some of them quite large and heavily reinforced, as well as benches, stools and things that looked more like trestle tables than seating. At the reception desk, though, was a slender Chinese woman, who gave him a vague attempt at a smile.
"Welcome to the Travellers Rest. Do you have a reservation?"
"Hello. I am Aswon. No, I do not. I was hoping to get a room for just one night – if you have any beds long enough."
"Sir, we pride ourselves on our arrangements. We have beds that you will find comfortable. And we do have space this evening. Do you have any other requirements?"
"Um – actually, yes I do. I've got particularly sensitive hearing, so a room that is heavily soundproofed or somewhere quiet would be really awesome."
"We can arrange that. It will take us a little time to prepare your room – may I suggest a drink in the bar?" She waved over to a double set of doors to one side, and Aswon smiled at her carefully, trying not to expose too much tooth, and then headed that way.
Pushing through the doors into the bar area, he saw a fairly typical setup – a long bar down one wall with a dance floor in the centre, and a series of tables and booths scattered around the rest of the room. It looks like a typical hotel to be found in any convention city around the world, somewhat on the cheaper side of things, but still adequate to do the job. But there was also an undercurrent here, a slight edge. The patrons seemed to be just a little bit…rougher around the edge. There was a higher than normal level of metahumans in here, with trolls and orks being far more highly represented than normal, and even the humans tended more towards Shimazu's build than the average.
What caught his attention though was the group of four sitting at one end of the bar, clustered around the corner. There were two humans who looked fairly average, at least at first glance, a dwarf that actually looked wider than he was tall – as if someone had grabbed Hunter and then squished him down to be only a metre and a quarter tall, without taking any of the mass away. But the piece de resistance was the fourth member – a full grown adult naga. Aswon quickly estimated the creature to be at least ten metres long, with the last three metres tapering off to a smaller tail, but with the rest of the body probably being the same diameter as himself. The head was snakelike, but with the addition of lizard like fins and ridges. As he crossed the room towards the bar, he dropped into astral quickly and gave them a look over – getting a read on them without actually trying to pry through any masking they might have.
The dwarf and the beefier of the two humans were both shot through with cyber-ware, particularly the incredibly wide dwarf. At a glance, he estimated they were both more heavily augmented than Marius or Hunter, meaning they'd had some serious upgrades. The other two seemed to be entirely pure – with not so much as a datajack present. They also registered as completely mundane, which just made Aswon even more suspicious.
He got to the bar and ordered a beer, sitting on his stool and just staring at the mirror behind the bar, looking around the room, at himself, at the other people and occasionally when it felt acceptable, at the group of four, studying them carefully. When he was about halfway through his beer, he caught a brief flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, and saw the un-augmented human giving him a steady look – and felt the strange sensation on the back of his neck as his hairs stood on end. Like he had, they were giving him a careful examination, but without prying too deeply. He kept his gaze focussed ahead and ignored them – they weren't being rude, and he'd done the same to them earlier, so it only seemed fair…
Kai and Shimazu, meanwhile, had arrived at the golf course. It was not some rural affair, having been carved out of the city itself – whether by demolishing buildings and repurposing the land, or being designed in at some point in the past was unclear. It was a huge affair, being four large city blocks in size, with the various holes and greens strung out around the perimeter, circling around a large lake. The cab driver worked his way all the way along one side travelling east to west, turning onto a major road that took them half way along the course northbound before they reached the main entrance – which seemed to be a large hotel, nightclub and casino combination. It wasn't quite as flashy as the place they'd met Grandfather Fan in, but it still seemed fairly upmarket.
Dropped off at the front doors, they headed to the wide doorway flanked by a smiling doorman in a smart suit and jacket
"Good evening sirs. Do you have reservations?"
"No, we don't. We're here to meet a local businessman – Harry Wu? Do you know if he's here yet?"
"I'm afraid I don't know, sirs. Perhaps you'd like to wait inside?" He pulled open the door, and ushered them into a resplendent foyer. Lots of metallic fixings reflected the myriad bright lights, while deep-coloured hardwood panelling on the walls and a luxurious red carpet made the large room still feel warm and cosy. They found a couple of chairs in the extensive lobby and sat down to wait – watching the slow stream of people entering and leaving the casino and bar areas, or heading into the hotel area. Most of them were smartly dressed, wearing tuxedos or evening gowns, down to a very smart-casual at the bottom end, and Kai was glad that they'd both dressed up a little.
It only took a few minutes for Harry to turn up, and Kai stood and crossed the space between them to give him a firm handshake and a reassuring clasp on the shoulder, before turning to introduce him to Shimazu. With the greetings out of the way they headed through into the bar, looking for a nice quiet booth to settle down into.
The bar area was equally upmarket, with lots of brass fittings and ornate mirrors making the area sparkle and appear brightly lit, without being actually too bright. The furniture gave the appearance of being old, but was all in good condition, no doubt modern reproductions of older designs, giving the place an antique feel. An actual quartet of musicians were playing to one side of the room, filling the space with gently flowing contemporary jazz, while uniformed wait-staff circulated quietly and efficiently delivering drinks to the various patrons.
Finding a booth, they found the volume level inside seemed somewhat muted, and Shimazu spotted the subtle speakers placed along the open side of the booth, playing back a reversed wave-form picked up by the microphones, performing a noise-cancelling function. It would no doubt also work well at preventing surveillance and eavesdropping from outside, and Kai wondered how many actual business deals went down here.
Shimazu sat and listened as Harry and Kai got reacquainted, his eyes roving around the room and cataloguing the other people here. There were somewhere between forty and fifty other customers by his estimate, and at least a dozen staff working, and he examined each of them carefully as they came into view, assessing the threat they might face and watching out for anything that set off his danger-sense. He listened to what Kai was saying, and was somewhat surprised to find that Kai wasn't going into too much detail about their exploits, and was instead being quite circumspect. He gave some information, described some general things – but nothing that would tie them down to a specific place or target, and Shimazu found himself wondering if Kai didn't fully trust the man – or was just being particularly cautious.
"So Harry… now that we're all caught up. I do have a couple of things on my shopping list, I was hoping you could help me out with?"
"Of course, Kai – I'm sure I can find you something."
"Well, I've been working on my archery for a while, and I've heard that you can get some fairly advanced and bespoke designed arrows, or rather arrowheads – I know that's a little specialist, but they are weapons?"
"Oh? Interesting… but not something I know much about, and certainly not what I'm currently working with. I tend to focus more on western arms companies, bringing in top-tier elite gear to be used by people all over the region. Lots of stuff from the UCAS, the UK, Saeder-Krupp, the Italian Confederation, that kind of stuff."
"Really? I wouldn't have thought they'd be much market, with the local businesses around here."
"Well, for a lot of people the locally produced copies or licenced production is good enough, and they are cheaper. But there's some more discerning people that want the original stuff, and will pay the extra to get it. Especially the more elite or smaller groups, where they're going to find themselves in a situation where a single stoppage or bad weapon could be crucial – they want to pay for that peace of mind, know that it's come out of a top end facility with nano-fabrication and decent quality assurance."
"Yes, I suppose so… I can certainly think of a few people I know who'd take that approach."
"Yup." Harry nodded. "But in terms of the arrows – I don't think I know anyone directly for stuff like that. I could put the word out, but it would take me a while to reach out to someone. You might be better off somewhere like Japan where they still do a bunch of traditional arms for ceremonial use or people keeping the old skills alive? I don't know anyone in that kind of field, but I'm sure there's people out there. Maybe you can find some weird monks living in the mountains that still hand-carve them, or weird bunches of elves living in the forest…"
"Well, we might be heading that way soon, so we can have a look. So what have you got, then? I had a chat with our pilot and gunner before we came out, so I've got an idea of what kind of thing they want…"
Harry started to describe his available stock, which mostly seemed to be pistols, submachine guns, shotguns and assault rifles from noted manufacturers such as Ares, H&K, Steyr, Enfield and Benelli, mostly new systems that seemed to have mysteriously fallen out of the back of a container while being shipped across the world.
"Oh – I do have something unusual in at the moment though. Actually came across a number of Arbalest-two MAWs. Quite a number actually. All in individual shipping crates."
"MAWs? Those are the shoulder-launched tube-things aren't they – super high explosive?"
"That's them. I've managed to get a whole shipment of them – don't ask me how, and I don't think they'll come back up anytime soon, but I've got them at the moment!"
"Hmm. I think both Hunter and Marius would be interested in those. What kind of price are we talking?"
"I can probably do them for you at around two thousand a pop, seeing as we're friends…"
Kai blinked at him, examining him carefully, but his body language and expression seemed to be sincere.
"Let me check how many we're after…" He quickly messaged Hunter and Marius.
[Arbalest-2 MAWs available. 2K each. Buy? How many?]
[Good price, nice weapons. As many as you want. Lolz] Kai grinned – that had to be Hunter – Marius would never debase himself with language like that.
"Great – well, my guys would certainly like some. Can we get… twenty?"
"Oh, well – yes. Of course. If we're doing a bulk order then I can do you twenty for…. Thirty five thousand. When and where do you want them?"
"We could pick them up tomorrow, I guess. Or get them delivered."
"Perhaps delivery at night time would be better. Fewer eyes to spot them." Shimazu suggested.
"Your man's quite right." Harry checked the time. "I can get my assistant to load them into the van and drive up here if you want, pick us up and we can drop them off now? Depending on where you are?"
"We're just down in the docks area, it's not that far away."
"That's not a problem then!" Harry pulled out his commlink and hit one of the contacts. "Get the van out will you, and load up twenty of the MAWs, that old friend I came to meet has some needs. Once you're loaded, can you come collect us from the golf club?" He paused for a few moments, listening intently. "Great. Ok, see you in a while." He grinned at Kai, then finished his drink off in a few big swallows. "Time for one more quick one then before he gets here?"
Back in the Travellers Rest, Aswon had just started on his second drink when he sensed movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned very slightly and saw one of the two humans getting down off their stool and heading over towards him, the one with no apparent cyber-ware.
"Hey friend. This seat taken?" The man pointed at the stool next to Aswon.
"No, please go ahead. I am Aswon."
"Most people call me Rat." Aswon turned to face him, swivelling around on his stool to look him up and down. There was no sign of dirt of dishevelment, no signs of wounds or decay – so he guessed that this wasn't a reference to his shamanic totem. If anything the man was quite kempt and smart. "So… are you in the biz?"
"I am certainly in a business, yes. We…move things. Quietly."
"Oh really? Nice. So do we, mostly." He dug into a pocket and then pulled out a card and passed it over to Aswon. It had a rough texture, and as Aswon examined it, he saw an image of an ant's head displayed on the main part of the card – but when he twisted it slightly, the lens material that covered the face distorted the light slightly and displayed a large symbol over the top of the image, negating it – and the words 'The Bug Killers' and a matrix comm-code appeared underneath.
"Heh… very clever. I like it. I have a card, too. We are the 'New Fish'. He rummaged around in his own pocket and pulled out a card to pass over. "So… are you air or ground-based? Or water-based I suppose, given where we are."
"Air shippers. We've got a nice Ares Dragon, kitted out with extended tanks for a greater operational radius. Nice big cargo space, can ship most things we need to, and of course there's room for all of us." He grinned and nodded towards the Naga.
"Very nice. We had a similar size helicopter a while back – a Russian version, based I think on an MI-6 chassis. They are very large indeed, and as you say, you can fit an awful lot of things in them."
"Had?"
"Yes. It got blown up. Our rigger was upset. Very sad."
"Man, that sucks… what did you get to replace it? I'm guessing you couldn't exactly put in an insurance claim!"
"No, indeed not. We ahem… found, a tilt-wing. Optimised for low-level flight and covert transport. It was very fuel efficient, but much smaller. Had to be very careful with the size of cargo we accepted."
"Had?" Aswon saw the eyebrow raise, and realised that Rat was pretty sharp at picking up on fairly subtle nuances.
"Yes. It got… hit. Went down hard. Our rigger was very upset. Very sad."
"That's the kind of bad news that can really wreck your day. Not a cheap piece of kit to have to replace – especially not if it was close to the other one." Aswon tried to keep his face non-committal, knowing that he was being politely and subtly interrogated. "Bummer. Did you get a new rigger after that one?"
"Oh no – we definitely won't do that. He's an excellent pilot. Both situations were… beyond our control. Very much not something that could have been prevented. And in both cases, our team walked away without injury and we didn't lose client cargo. So while it wasn't great, it wasn't the end of the world. And things have a way of working out – we got something new. Very nice – it's a little unique, and we can't really use commercial airports any more, but it's a lovely aircraft, and a little bigger than the old one. Very nice. Our rigger is not sad about that."
"Nice. Do you want to come join us for a drink? I'll introduce you to my crew."
"Yes, I would like that." Aswon slid off the stool and wandered over with Rat, pulling his stool along behind him so he could nestle it into the group without getting any of them to move.
"Everyone, this is Aswon. He's in shipping." Aswon could hear the pronounced air-quotes around the word, and gave them a tight smile. "He's in a team called New Fish. Aswon – this is Shinji…" he gestured to the other human, the one with extensive cyber-mods, getting a curt nod in return, "Dr. Funk," he gestured to the Naga, who fixed him with a very direct and slightly unnerving stare, the tip of the forked tongue flicking back and forth through the lips.
"And last but not least, this is Thorgrim." He gestured to the very wide dwarf, who gave him a nod.
"Hello. I am Aswon. As was said, I work with a team, and we arrange the movement of goods from place to place. Generally smaller things – our aircraft is optimised for stealth rather than speed or size."
They started to chat, Aswon listening carefully as they gave examples of jobs, noting how they were careful not to be too exact with the descriptions of their missions and targets, but providing enough detail to make them sound real and authentic – and he reciprocated in kind. Rat seemed to be the most talkative of the group, and came across as easy-going – seeming to certainly be the 'face' of the team, though Shinji and Dr Funk were certainly happy to come in on the conversation. The naga proved to be somewhat of a surprise when he spoke, having a very cultured voice with a distinct UCAS accent. Aswon wondered how much of the rich baritone was a result of his extensive size, and how much was whatever training he'd had in his speech. Thorgrim was quiet, often only grunting or giving monosyllabic answers, and Aswon wondered if he was always like this, or if he'd given some kind of offence.
That changed however, when Aswon asked them if they'd seen the assassination the other day, and what they thought about that. For a moment, Rat and Shinzi exchanged glances and their expressions seemed to change, almost looking like regret. Dr. Funk actively shook his head, then bent his body down and started to drink deeply at the wide glass of alcohol in front of him.
Aswon barely had time to ponder on this though, as Thorgrim turned on his chair, facing him directly for the first time.
"That shot? Great shot. One of the best I've ever seen. Of course, you have to ask, have to ask, don't you? Was it one shot? Well, no. Clearly not one shot. There were at least four shots. Four – definitely four. But from what? Those were big shots, not some weedy little pistol. Definitely a rifle. And of course you don't want to be too close taking a shot like that do you? No. Of course not. So we need an elevated position, with clear line of sight, some distance away. But then you make the shot more difficult. Elevation. Distance. Windage. Heat haze. Thermal characteristics. All manner of variables. So was it one shooter, with some kind of custom weapon, or was it two shooters, very closely linked. Those shots hit – bam, bam, bam, bam. One after another. Superb grouping, all of them inside the X ring. One after another. Serious shooting, especially with a large-calibre gun like that. Probably hand-loaded rounds, specially selected. Match grade ammunition. I think a pair of shooters, well-drilled. And does that mean a team of four, in fact? Of course, that's a thing to take into account, isn't it? If this was a military operation, you always have a spotter with your sniper. And if you have two snipers to take the shot, that means two spotters. Now you've got four people to get into your elevated position to try and hide, and to get away as well. Suddenly that changes the logistics of things. Of course, that's a military take on it – and they could be civilians, or non-military trained. But that raises more questions, doesn't it – who shoots that well, and using that kind of calibre weapon? But isn't in the military. Now we're talking all manner of conspiracy theories – is this a professional hit, some kind of secret assassin's guild. An organisation that spans the world, able to take on international jobs against high-value targets? That's an exciting prospect, isn't it? Isn't it? Man oh man. Now, as it happens, I consider myself a decent shot. Not the best, mind. But certainly above average. Shoot a fair size rifle myself, so I'm familiar with big rounds. And I can tell that what hit that target wasn't small. Certainly wasn't a 7.62 or smaller. I'd wager not a 12.5mm either. No, my money is on a 20mm round. Maybe a Russian 15mm, or some other esoteric round, but judging by the impact characteristics, I'm saying a twenty mike-mike. Now look here, let me show you this…" Thorgrim dug out a tablet from his pouch, and Aswon took the brief moment of respite to look up at the others. Rat was grinning at him and gave him a wink, while the other two were just sipping at their drinks with a somewhat resigned expression on their faces. Aswon suddenly got the impression that Thorgrim only came in two modes – quiet and unassuming, and irresistibly triggered – and Aswon had apparently hit the button.
He took a deep breath, then turned his attention back to the dwarf, watching as he powered up the tablet and keyed it to the right mode, bringing up some screen grabs that looked very similar to the ones that Hunter had produced when they had gone through the footage themselves. He walked Aswon through the screenshots, explaining his theories and observations in details, and despite feeling somewhat like he'd been run over by Thorgrim's relentless enthusiasm for the subject, found himself being somewhat impressed by the analysis – finding it matched both his own thoughts and that of the rest of his own team. The verbal onslaught continued for a few more minutes, until Thorgrim had finished what he had to say, then his whole demeanour changed, the animation leaving his face and seeming to withdraw back deep inside himself. He took a generous swig of his drink, then shifted round again in his seat, returning his attention back to the wall behind the bar.
"So yes, that's Thorgrim. But he's very modest, in some ways. He is, in fact, an excellent shot, and he handles his work with panache and alacrity. If we'd not had him along – well, I'm not sure we'd have made it out of that bug hive…" Rat grinned as Aswon's eyes narrowed. "Oh yes, the calling card is accurate. But it was a bit of a testing time for us all. Of course, we're better now than we were then, but I think it's safe to say it was a defining moment for all of us…" There were snorts or grunts of agreement from the rest, and Aswon listened carefully as Rat outlined how they'd had a job to do trying to retrieve a missing person, tracking them down to a remote area and finding the entrance to a subterranean hive, then having to launch an assault on it to recover not only their own target, but a dozen others who had been captured, apparently due to be sacrificed or converted into bodies for evil possessing spirits bound to the hive queen.
As Aswon listened to the tale, he could start to piece together some details – Shinji seemed to fulfil the same role as Shimazu, being an expert in close combat and destruction, while Thorgrim was a mix between himself and Hunter, being the ranged-weapon expert. Dr. Funk seemed to be a powerful sorcerer, but unlike Tads, he apparently focussed less on utility spells and magic to aid the team, but instead on direct brutal magical assaults. Not that this would make him any more or less dangerous, Aswon reminded himself, but it was more a matter of style. And that left Rat as filling the role of Kai, and it seemed also likely to have some magical power. He guessed that either Shinji or Thorgrim had at least some piloting skill, and maybe a small rigger control system implanted amongst their other 'ware, enough to be able to keep up with expert 'normal' pilots, though probably not as skilled as Marius was.
As the tale unfolded, Rat described how they'd made it deep into the hive, coming up against tougher and tougher foes, Ants the size of orks at first, then in the central breeding chamber six-legged monstrosities that were the size of trolls, their chitinous armour shrugging off small calibre attacks as if they were nothing. But Thorgrim's cannon mounted on a tracked carriage kept up a hail of cannon fire that even their armour wasn't able to repel, and he formed the tip of the spear that thrust into the birthing chamber, then cutting down the queen in a hail of sustained fire that filled the air with smoke and thunder. It seemed they'd managed to rescue most of the people they went in after – but not all, and a fighting withdrawal had not given them the time to look further. Since that day, they'd styled themselves as "The Bug Killers", and had taken on a few other similar missions.
"Well, that's a pretty hairy op – and very impressive. Tell me… have you ever done a similar mission against something that's more… tentacle-based?" Aswon asked. The other team looked at him, shaking their heads, and Aswon took a deep breath. "Ok, well, then I have a story for you…" He signalled the barman for another round of drinks, then launched into an abridged tale of their exploits at the Temple, and their first encounter with the Horror. Carefully staying away from the events that had transpired later on in the Sioux lands, he gave an account of their discovery of an ancient monument 'somewhere in the 'stans', and retold their rescue of the other team, encountering the nameless horror down in the subterranean pool and their desperate retreat to the surface, blowing the access corridor and bringing down thousands of tons of rock to try and trap it inside.
Aswon was not a shaman, and had not studied the spoken word in the way that the storytellers of his tribe had, neither was he the keeper of the ancient ways and rituals in the way Tads had been trained. He didn't have a great singing voice, and wasn't used to spinning tales the way that Kai would have done. But the visceral account of their terrifying battle in the ancient darkness below the mountain carried with it the air of truthfulness and reality. He might not have described the situation as fluidly as an author or created a scene with the skill and panache of a trideo producer – but his facial expressions and the reaction of his own body, the betraying shivers and goose bumps on his own flesh told their own story, and the other team listened closely, no doubt reliving some of their own fears from the attack on the ant hive.
It seemed though that The Bug Killers had never had an encounter with the type of creature that Aswon described – and were thankful of it, but it did establish some sense of bond between them – a fight against a powerful extra-terrestrial entity that was intent on consuming people and taking over the world was a thing that drew people together, it seemed. They chatted for a while longer, sharing a few more drinks and stories, and Aswon felt comfortable enough with them to provide contact details for themselves – passing on the matrix address of their 'Doctors without Borders' charity cover, and Kai's details.
Bidding his new friends farewell, Aswon headed back to the reception, finding that they'd prepared his room for him. Heading up to the third floor, he found a small room that was dominated by a bed – a bed of giant proportions – quite literally. It seemed to be designed for someone at least three and a half metres tall, and maybe two metres broad, yet was made to the same standards as a normal bed. The mattress was firm but comfortable, the sheets clean and fresh, the pillows soft. He stretched out on the bed, luxuriating in the comfort, and enjoying his hedonism for a few moments. As he took in the rest of the room, he could see the small washbasin in the other corner, with a fold-down desk and a small chair – and then he realised that all of the walls had been modified. Accoustic dampening panels had been affixed to the actual walls, hanging over the inside of the room and providing a layer of sound baffling and protection to the room. With a deep sigh of contentment he got undressed, slipped into the comfortable bed, and relaxed to the sound of…nothing at all.
Back at the harbour, Kai, Shimazu, Harry and his driver arrived in their van, pulling up short as they drove under the container.
"Our aircraft is just ahead – but it's currently concealed. And Marius will go mental if we drive into it…" Kai explained. Harry's driver seemed sceptical, but his expression changed when Tads just 'appeared' in front of him as she climbed out of the aircraft to see what was going on.
The others came out of the aircraft too, helping to unload the consignment of twenty missiles and stash them inside. It took a while as they tried to cram them into overhead storage areas in the passenger compartment and under seats, doing their best to keep the cargo area free and clear, in anticipation of needing the space for the sensor packages they were planning on stealing soon.
"Thanks Harry – I'm sure these will come in very handy. And look at that smile!" Kai gestured to Hunter's scowl of annoyance as the shipping box caught on some unseen protrusion under a seat and jammed for the third time. "Well, he's smiling on the inside."
"I'm sure he is, Kai – but he looks busy, so I'll not interrupt." Harry glanced over at Hunter, then quickly looked away from his asymmetric face and the look of intense annoyance that was currently plastered over it.
"So… here's the cash for the weapons, and I've stuck another chunk on there, to see if we can start setting up some kind of supply line down to the Huk, when we come back. But for now – if we're off and about the place, is there anything you have need of? Anything you want?"
"Well… there's some stuff that is always useful. French Champagne. Scottish Whiskey. Flash-frozen Bratwurst. That kind of stuff."
"That's not exactly all the same… oh, I get you. Stuff that epitomises a culture. Things that have extra value because they're culture icons? Is that what you mean?"
"Yes, pretty much. If I'm wooing a client and offer them a cigar, that's one thing. But offering them a Cuban cigar – that's a mark of style, and distinction. The same with some sparkling wine or Champagne."
"Right, I get you. So it's as much about the look of the thing and the cultural significance, the authenticity – rather than the actual quality."
"Yeah, I guess so."
"No worries, Harry – we'll see what we can find." Shimazu stood back in the shadows, watching the two men, his hand casually resting on the hilt of his sword, senses extending into the astral realm as Kai chatted to them. He reached out and read their auras, looking for signs of deception or ill-intent, or any notions of betrayal or malice – but found nothing. Both seemed to be entirely happy and Harry even seemed a little sad that he was having to say goodbye to his friend. Reassured that they were of no threat, Shimazu relaxed, watching as Kai embraced his friend with a hug and gave the driver a firm handshake, bidding them both farewell.
With that, Harry and his driver departed, leaving the team to bed down for the night in the Broadsword. Marius and Hunter made use of the beds in the back of the cockpit area, and Shimazu stole Aswon's hammock for the night, leaving Kai to find somewhere he could inflate his air-mattress that wouldn't get caught on one of the boxes jammed in every available space. Tads, though, had discovered that if she curled up in the right position, she could just about fit into one of the large padded seats, giving her a slightly unusual upright sleeping position, but also a sense of being enclosed and safe.
They woke just before nine in the morning as the hatch opened, a fresh and happy-looking Aswon climbing up the steps and holding a few steaming bags of produce, from one of the street vendors just outside the port area. They were used to him looking refreshed after only a few hours of sleep, and the lure of the steaming fresh food was too great to try and pretend that they were annoyed with him…
"Oh, Tads – I've found a couple of ETC buildings for you to have a look at by the way." Hunter pulled out his screen and showed them to her, overlaying different maps to try and build up some geographical guidelines and natural features to help guide her. "One is in Sejong, the other in Busan – that's the port one. Both a reasonable size, but in more built-up areas."
As soon as they'd finished with food, Tads made herself comfortable and sped out of her body, flashing across the sea and scouting her way across Korea to the two sites. It was still raining, and the low clouds gave her a good hiding spot – though they also made her examinations somewhat more difficult, and she spent ten minutes at each site examining the buildings for wards, looking for spirits, checking over the positions of camera masts, the heights of fences and various other details, before returning via some dog-legs to the team and relaying what she'd found. The team were wall practiced enough now that by the time she came back, Hunter and Marius had their catalogue of security systems out, and by asking questions about the size, shape, layout and accessories could identify the probable make and model of the systems, getting some idea on their capabilities.
Tads also relayed the magical information that she'd discovered – that the main buildings weren't warded, being huge cavernous factories that covered a number of hectares, but that some smaller buildings or areas were warded, and those were actually quite powerful and well protected. There also seemed to be spirits around the places, rather than elementals – and she theorised that they were likely to be ally or ancestor spirits rather than nature spirits, things that would be bound to the site, but would last longer than her own dawn-till-dusk style spirits of the land.
"I wonder… do you think that ETC might buy their sites based on things like ancient burial grounds of power sites, specifically so they can call upon ancient hearth spirits? I've heard that corporations like Wuxing pay attention to how they build their facilities, seeking to harmonise them with the local energies to maximise their luck. Do you think this could be the same kind of thing?"
"Perhaps, Aswon, perhaps. They certainly seemed to have a feel, a similarity to the aura of the place. I think they're definitely tied to them." A thought crossed her mind, and she swapped her attention to Hunter. "Can you do a search for me on some Korean matrix sites or something – find out if there's any specific holidays or customs coming up that we should know about. Not the same thing exactly – but like landing in England in the summer solstice. Better to know about such things in advance, I think!"
"That's a good idea. Give me a few minutes…" Hunter jacked in and went quiet for a short time, the rest of the team tidying things up and preparing for take-off. When he jacked back out, he told them all over the tactical link that there was a long weekend coming up, some kind of national celebration – but not until closer to the end of the month, so unlikely to affect them. Kai meanwhile had made arrangements with The Noodles, and they'd offloaded their fuel barrels and stashed them in a small storage area, clearing out space in their cargo hold to store the sensor equipment they were after – figuring that they might need the off-roader they'd purchased to actually carry the pallets of goods, far more than the reserve fuel.
Marius got the engines started and they lifted off a little before midday, heading back across the sliver of port that made up the smuggler stop, threading the needle between the two giant corporate entities on either side and then breaking out over the open water and swinging to the right, heading downstream and into the open sea. The crossing to Korea was relatively short, just under five hundred kilometres, though the water beneath them was busy with tankers, freighters and carriers of all kind, heading into or away from Shanghai and the other ports in the area.
As they approached Korea, Marius paid close attention to his threat receivers, starting to map out the various radar stations and systems that protected the Korean coastline. Approaching from the south-west as they were, there were hundreds of islands that littered the approach, ranging from domes of earth he could barely have landed the broadsword onto, up to islands that justified having their own coastal road around the perimeter. Fishing and pleasure boats cluttered the display, along with thousands of sources of signals from drones and automated systems.
He didn't know if he'd spotted a pattern or some order amidst the chaos, or if he'd just happened to be exceptionally lucky – but Marius noticed a quiet patch in the signals, a small deadspot between two powerful coastal radars. He warned the team to buckle up, and then flew the aircraft down a canyon-like opening between two large cliff spurs, the shattered remains of some volcanic crater perhaps that had formed a mass of islands millions of years ago. Now, though, the rock on either side shielded him from view, both optically and electronically, and he sliced through the air, the Broadsword flying at a thirty-degree angle to fit between the rough stone faces.
Flashing out into open water again, he had to swing back the other way to aim for the next opening, banking twenty degrees to the other side to fit through the next gap, shooting under limestone bridges that spanned overhead, leaving a trail of disturbed water behind him. Further and further they worked following what seemed to be a fault-line or fracture point, following a trail of electronic quiet that let them slice in towards the shore without detection, until twenty minutes later they flashed over a beach and into the interior.
"Hunter – please record that flight path in the database. I believe it will be almost impossible for someone to detect us using it – unless they park a submarine or small vessel in one of the inter-island gaps."
"Logged it. Nice route… we could probably make a bunch of money selling that data."
"Indeed. A decision to think about – do we keep it to ourselves and be able to make good use of it for the future, or do we sell it for cash or favours, and risk other people abusing it or over-running, and it being found and fixed. A difficult one."
"One for the future – but I say keep it quiet. At least for now."
"Affirmative. We will overfly some villages soon – I cannot avoid them unless we go high over the mountains and ridges, and that will expose us to long range scans. Please get some sensor footage as we do, so we can establish their layout and the level of threat."
Hunter grabbed direct control of the sensors and recorded some footage as they over-flew the settlements, grabbing overhead shots of the small villages, and side-shots of some of the larger towns, feeding the data back through into the passenger compartment for the rest of the team to see. The landscape seemed to be a strange mix of the old and new worlds – out in the countryside, there were old-fashioned buildings, often single story and made of wood or stone. People laboured in the fields nearby, and there was little apparent wealth on display. Aswon found the similarities with his own village startling, pointing out to the rest of the team the wide variety of equipment that had been mended with whatever came to hand, and various bits of equipment that had been repurposed – chemical containers turned into seats, cable reels into tables, packing materials into roof repairs.
But as soon as you got near a larger settlement, there was an abrupt change, a clear demarcation line between the old and the new. High-rise buildings rose up, towering over the other buildings, massive apartment blocks that rose a minimum of thirty stories high – and not just one or two, but forests of skyscrapers that formed dense blocks, cramming in thousands of people into the small amount of land available that wasn't given over to agriculture or industrial use. They saw football pitches and golf driving ranges somehow contrived to fit onto the top of residential towers, access roads leading down into sub-floor garages that appeared to span entire estates, and all the trappings of a high-tech ultra-modern society, with all of the overt security and conveniences they would associate with them. And then, just as suddenly on the other side of the town, they would see another dividing line, and things dropped back to ground level, and apparently slid back a thousand years in time to a more primitive and simple era.
They headed north-east, following valleys that twisted and turned, climbing up and through passes and crossing wide highways and high-speed rail lines, flying over vast fields tended by sweating labourers in one valley, or modern machines in another, closing in on the Jangseong area and their target. Marius found the clearing that Tads had identified, swooping down quickly and then flaring at the last moment, carefully cutting thrust as he got close to the ground to avoid throwing up debris into the engines. The clearing looked like it was the result of a fire, possibly from a lightning strike – the trees had been decimated and the undergrowth destroyed in an irregular pattern, but either rain or local efforts had extinguished the blaze, and the new growth was barely established.
As soon as they were down the team sprang into action, pulling out the cammo netting and getting it strung up over the top of the aircraft, concealing the shape and size of the Broadsword under the irregular mound of fake vegetation.
"You know, if that was my facility, and I was doing security – I'd want a larger perimeter than just outside the actual buildings. I have to wonder if they have sensors or alarms in the woods as well."
"We can look for that kind of stuff on the approach, Aswon. It'll slow us down, but we can do it."
"I have a suggestion, then – your thing in your head Hunter. It'll let you walk in a straight line, right? Like you helped with the tunnel in the Crimea? Even over rough terrain like this?"
"Yeah – either the laser, or the GPS – or a combo of both, Tads. Why?"
"I can use a couple of the spirits, and if we find a spot you're heading for, I can ask them to check the path up to that spot. Search for… I don't know – ten metres to either side of the line? Is that enough? But they can clear a small corridor of anything like mines or sensors. Well, not actually clear them, but they can report if they find any of them, for you to deal with. And if we're only doing a small section of the forest, that'll go much faster."
They looked up the ridge, and found a tree, slightly taller than the rest to use as a reference mark, and Tads detailed some of the spirits to search on a direct line to the tree, while Hunter locked in the GPS co-ordinates and his mapping software, linked it to his spatial recogniser and started to work on a route that would keep them as close as possible to the centre of the searched area. A few minutes later, he and Aswon set off towards the ridge, following on in the trail of the searching spirits.
The spirits didn't report in on anything, much to their surprise, and they made it to the top of the hill a short while later – finding that the tall tree they'd used as an aiming point would also make a superb observation lookout, allowing them to spy on the facility below them to the east. They quickly sent the 'ok' signal to the team, climbed the tree and settled in with binoculars and datapads to start their survey. Every fifteen minutes they sent a tiny data packet back to the team indicating they were ok and without contact, but otherwise limiting communications to prevent possible detection.
Just before dusk and the expiry of their guarding spirits, they climbed back down and returned to the rest of the team, meeting them back at the Broadsword, joining them in the passenger cabin. Tads cast her spell, linking her mind to Hunter and Aswon and then building up a three-dimensional illusion of the factory from their thoughts, letting her zoom in and enhance details or create images from their minds based on what they'd found.
"Ok, so the place is nearly a kilometre square, though one quarter of that, in the north-east quadrant, hasn't been developed yet and is still wild. But we have a massive car park or storage area to the south, then a big set of railway sidings, presumably for freight carriages – the line ends here, and disappears off to the east. There's another small section of car park to the north of the rail lines, then we get to the actual factory area." Hunter started, with Tads helpfully emphasising features as he got to the appropriate part of his description.
"There are eight buildings, in two sets of four. The four closest to us, on the western side, are oriented with the long sides north and south, and are about a hundred and thirty metres long and just under seventy wide, set in a row of four. Fairly standard looking industrial units, metal shuttering used to make the walls and rooves, probably three stories high against a standard house, though I suspect they are just a big open box inside, with room for overhead cranes and things like that. Lots of roller-shutter doors around the perimeters on the sides we can see, and no reason to believe that doesn't apply on the other facings – though we can get some shots from Marius and his recon drone to confirm that maybe. But there's also smaller doors for people, quite often next to or nearby the larger cargo doors. They appear to have readers for proximity badges or tags on them at a guess – we're somewhat at the limit of what we can make out from the ridgeline – but looks like fairly standard security."
"The other four buildings have their long sides east and west, and are set up in a two by two grid. These are a bit larger – about a hundred and thirty metres long again, but a hundred metres wide, though constructed with the same materials, and with the same kind of doors and external arrangements. Most of the units have got photo-voltaic panels all over the roof, so I'm guessing the facility is fairly power-hungry and they're trying to be as self-sufficient as possible."
"The site is enclosed in a pretty decent fence," Aswon took over the narration, sending his thoughts to Tads and the illusion seemed to swoop down and closer to a section of the fence. "It's got a fairly standard layout – the fence is outside the perimeter road, giving the onsite team reasonable access all the way around. The outer fence appears to be about four metres high, a chain-link construction made out of fairly heavy-gauge material. It's well maintained with no sag that we could see anywhere, held between posts that are about five metres apart. The top of the fence has a roll of razor wire, pretty densely packed, adding at least another quarter metre of height to it. But also, there's a couple of places where the ground undulates, and we can see that there's a bit of the fence that is buried – I'd estimate at least a quarter metre, maybe as much as half a metre, under the ground."
"There's a five metre gap between inner and outer fences, but the inner fence appears to be a little shorter, and not buried, instead just running parallel to the ground. It also doesn't have razor wire along the top, and there's no indications of anything else – no posts that could hold monowire up there." He glanced over at Shimazu who just returned his gaze, giving no indications of his feelings.
"On the outer fence, there are sensor pods about every twenty metres, unsure at this point what those sensors are, and what they're tuned for. The inner fence has cameras, again about every twenty metres, but they're offset from the sensors on the outer fence, being in the middle of each run. They also are weirdly set up – each one points clockwise, so a camera on a post has a twenty metre distance to cover – and if you were standing right next to a post, you're probably a low-detail image on the camera previous. It's not a configuration I've seen recently, and I'm not sure why they've done it that way."
"Tell 'em about the critters."
"I'm getting there, Hunter. But yeah, we also saw critters. Specifically, bunnies. Loads of 'em. In the gap between the two fences. They're pretty big for rabbits, with long floppy ears – I'm not familiar with the specific breed, but they don't appear inherently magical – though there is something a little bit weird about them. Couldn't put my finger on it, but their aura is a tiny bit…off."
"Vorpal bunnies, I bet you."
"Thank you, Hunter." Aswon sighed. "Someone thinks they're monsters, with retractable fangs and a jump that will clear the fence – but someone was letting their imagination get the better of them." The trid-phantasm shifted to show a medieval knight charging across a rocky landscape, before a rabbit launched itself across a five-metre gap, savaging him and decapitating the knight with only a few gnaws from ridiculously large fangs, as Hunter sent a very strong image over the mind-link, grinning all the time. The image faded away quickly as Aswon tried to regain control over the briefing, instead showing a small electric buggy driving down the gap between the fences, with a single man sitting in the open cab. As he got near a cluster of the rabbits he stopped and dismounted, pulling out a tub and then starting to distribute food with sweeps of his arm. The rabbits approached him without fear – or signs of vicious attack – consuming the vegetables that had been thrown out, and didn't appear to mind as the man approached some of them, bending down to stroke them, and in one case pick one up and cuddle it to his shoulder. After spending a few minutes feeding one small pack or cluster of animals, he drove down another few hundred metres, and repeated the same actions, with another group of rabbits converging on him to be fed and handled.
"We're not sure if they're a type of guard critter we've not seen before, or some protected species, or just a weird foible of the company or the facility. But they certainly keep the grass short between the two fences, and they don't seem to show any signs of wanting to escape. No signs of burrows either – I'm not sure where they sleep or hide out from predators."
"Oh, I forgot to mention the gates!" Hunter exclaimed, sending fresh images to Tads. "We've got what looks like the main gate to the north west corner, actually closest to us. Again looks pretty standard corporate fare. Bunch of huts, flanking a road. Double fences, anti-ram bollards. Lots of cameras and sensors. One-way glass in the booths. The same as we saw down with the Novatech facility in Port Harcourt, or a bunch of other places. And right on the far side, there's the same things but on a much larger scale, covering the rail line. The gates there are massive, and they don't have the anti-ram bollards that I can see – nobody wants to risk a train derailment, I guess. But they've got booths down there just the same, and decent security coverage."
"And while we were watching, we did see one of the security vehicles. Damm near shat myself when I first saw it." The image of the site faded away, replaced with a truck. It had reasonable ground clearance and knobbly off-road tyres, a fair size double cab up at the front with two pairs of doors, and then a large covered cargo area, slab-sided and topped off with a turret, mounting an enormous cannon.
"What is that?" Marius leant in with concern on his face. "That is a mistake, yes? That is far too big."
"No, mate. That's why I nearly pooped my pants. That's a 50mm cannon in the turret. I double and triple checked, because I didn't believe it either. Ridiculous size! I mean, what are they shooting at – tanks?"
"That will defeat the armour on the Broadsword with ease." Marius didn't look at all happy at the concept.
"Well, if it was a canon, I would agree. But I'm pretty sure it's not." Aswon butted in. "I'm actually convinced it's a fire-fighting rig. Ok, ok, so technically it is a canon – but it's a foam-canon. I reckon most of the back of the truck is filled with pumps and a large tank. I mean – think about it. This place is way out of town, and the local town isn't that big. They're going to have limited fire-fighting capacity. The nearest big place is the city of Gwangju, and that's twenty kilometres. If this place manufactures cars and does conversions to vehicles, or makes stuff for the military, there's no end of stuff that will catch fire or explode here. They have to have a local response force, and have to be able to respond quickly. And the design on that barrel, the front end of that cannon is EXACTLY the same as the ones I saw on the Maersk ship we jumped on to cross the Atlantic."
"That does make sense. Those security vehicles would be able to respond quickly all over site, and if they can stop a fire quickly, before it spreads – that would be the most efficient way to handle things. If nothing else, they can probably contain a fire while additional units are bought up. But those trucks will handle like absolute pigs with all that weight in them – especially with how high up it is. They will not corner well, at all." Marius thought for a moment. "Even with a high performance engine, they might be able to accelerate quickly and get up to speed, but they will have to brake, sharply, to corner. If you go at high speed, even a gentle turn could risk tipping one of those. Something to bear in mind if we come up against them."
"Anyway – we saw them on a patrol, just mooching around the site, nice and slow. No sign of the crew, but we reckon there's between four and six in there, based on the size of the vehicle. And we've watched for a couple of hours, and see a fair bit of movement between buildings, and have some good guesses as to what each one does."
Building in the north-west corner, closest to the main gate and us appears to handle military vehicle customisation, but something internal. They look pretty much the same going out as they do going in. That's building one. Next one down is number two, and that also appears to be military, we've seen vehicles coming out of the first building and then doing a u-turn to enter this one, so its some process that happens after first-fit. Next one down we've assigned as number three, and that does vans. We saw basic chassis designs going in, just a cab on top of a frame and wheels, and they add all sorts of custom bodies onto the back – turning them into ambulances, box vans, rubbish collectors, glass carriers, that kind of stuff. One common design but with a modular cargo arrangement."
"Bottom of that set is number four, and that looks like one we need to be in – we've seen the sedan cars going in, and coming out with spotlights and mesh window covers, whip aerials and all sorts, so it looks like that's where they convert to police use. And they come from building number five, which is the first of the bigger buildings on the far side. Number five looks like where they actually make the sedans, from start to finish. Number six is below that, and that looks like a similar kind of thing, but that's making jeeps or light strike vehicles, the recon type of stuff."
"And on the very far side at the north is number seven, which is the paint shop – that's for certain. We see plain vehicles come in, and painted stuff come out. Lots of white vans, sedans with the police livery, cammo patterns on the strike vehicles. That one is for sure. And last of all is building 8, furthest away from us, and that appears to be the raw materials warehouse. We see components and raw materials coming out – metals and tyres, wires and all kinds of stuff, disappearing off towards buildings five and six mostly, with some stuff going to the four smaller conversion facilities."
"When the vehicles have finished being converted or assembled, and gone through the paint shop, they get driven down to the parking area. Military vehicles on the north side of the train tracks, civilian stuff to the south – that includes the police vehicles. So there's a lot of constant movement around the place, with vehicles and drivers coming and going, freight movement, parts, all kinds of stuff. We've got a pretty good idea of the basic uniform – blue boiler suits and yellow hard hats for most of the workers we've seen, with a smattering of white and green hats. We're guessing those are supervisors and maybe first aiders or fire marshals, or maybe some kind of management. But that's about what we've got so far." Aswon finished, and the trid-phantasm pulled back to a higher viewpoint, showing the whole site in one go, slowly rotating around as if they were watching from a circling drone.
"Right! Good work, guys." Kai smiled. "Let's work out how we're going to get in there and rob them blind…"