OPERATION: Hidden Dragon

[Requine]

As Conway heads down the stark halls of the Illuminati center, he can hear hoarse, angry yelling.

“THIS IS BULLSHITE!” a woman is yelling at the top of her lungs (which, granted, aren’t working too well at the moment) in an Irish brogue “an’ you CAN’T do this - I want a Venetian on the feckin’ line, an’ Temple Hall, an’ I want someone to PACK ME A GOD DAMN BAG cause I’m GOIN’ HOME.”

Conway strolled up to Cassandra Arbuthnot bearing a get well basket that was so boring it looked like it had been focus tested, and patting back his greasy hair. “Knight-Captain, I assure you as soon as you’re medically cleared, all the respective agencies will be given observer status during your detention. We’d like to get that matter over as quickly as you would.”

The Knight-Captain is not restrained or cuffed - but she may as well be. She’s in a hospital bed, surrounded by medical equipment both mundane and magical, hooked up to IVs, heart rate monitors, anima alarms, and various other pieces of technology. “No, no, no! Look, I don’t know who you are - I just spent a week getting tortured, if you think I’m going to sit here in - where the HELL am I even?!” She tries to pull herself to a sitting position and falls back against the pillows.

“Ah, if I told you, there’s a man waiting outside who will come in here and shoot me in the head.” Conway offered, his attempt at a joke.

She doesn’t laugh. “What the feck does medically cleared mean? And - you know what else is open to all agencies? My apartment. At home. Which is where I want to be.”

“Yeah, unfortunately we can’t let you go until some question have been answered to our satisfaction. Given recent templar activity that just...wouldn’t be safe.” He says, as diplomatically as he can manage.

“Okay. Okay. First of all - are you feckin’ Illuminati? Am I being detained by the Illuminati?!” Cass’s eyes widen in shock and anger. “And - what feckin’ questions! Just ask me!”

“Why didn’t you seek clearance from The Powers That Be before operating on U.S. Soil?” He launched right into it.

“I - I was just watching them, it wasn’t in my orders to interact with anyone or, or step on anyone’s toes, I was just watching something and taking notes and then heading home, that was the plan. That’s not illegal.”

“Who ordered you to do that?”

“Knight...” She hesitates, here, and slumps down in a defeated stance. “Knight-Commander Liam Truss, but I’m not sure - the Malleus Maleficarum was the source of the orders, he might have just been parlaying them, I don’t know. I don’t know, okay?”

“That’s fine, Knight-Captain, no one is accusing you of any particular crimes, or intention to commit crimes. We are concerned for the safety of everyone involved until this matter can be straightened out. Have you been ordered, or have you ever been ordered to kidnap, torture, assassinate or in any other other way harm, a member of the Illuminati?”

“No! No, for fuck’s sakes, I don’t - I’m a member of Toolbox, I work for Alice Glenisle, talk to Alice Glenisle, she’ll tell you I work with the Illuminati, I’ve risked the Inquisition - I wouldn’t...” Cass’s eyes narrow. “What the fuck do you mean safety? You don’t - do you... you think I’m fucking brainwashed?”

"Nnnnno.” Conway said after a moment’s thought. “That wasn’t really a concern of mine. Have you known, or ever associated with a woman named Kate Burnet?”

“...I have.” Cass says, guarded. “And - I better not be accused of any traitor shit against Temple Hall - I did everything I fuckin’ could.”

Conway looks shocked and surprised by that. “The possibility that you might need protecting from Temple Hall at this time, did cross my mind, yes.”

“They had my phone! All of those feckin’ Tweets and messages - I didn’t do any of that! You saw the video! You saw that I got the state I was in out!” Cass tries to pull herself out of the bed. “No, this is bullshit, I need to go to Temple Hall now I - I need to talk to Truss. Richard Sonnac.” She starts weakly tugging at one of the IV’s on her hand, which is held in place by tape. “I - I need to go home.”

“Woah, woah, woah.” Conway tries to calm her, looking around for a nurse desperately. “We’re well aware of what happened with your phone. But the situation has changed since you left and Temple Hall has been behaving...erratically.” He explains.

“That’s just - that’s more reason for me to go home - I need to help, I am a lion of the Templars -”

One of the machines hisses and clicks and a dosage of sedative begins to go down the line. Within seconds, Cass’s eyelids are drooping and she stops pulling at the equipment, slumping back. “I need...”

“Easy Simba.” He teases, letting her drift off to sleep. “I know what you need. Don’t worry about it.”

 

[Requine]

((PLAYERS ARE NOW FREE TO TAKE ACTIONS.

HERE ARE SOME PROMPTS THAT CAN GET YOU STARTED:

KNIGHT-CAPTAIN ARBUTHNOT IS BEING HELD ON AMERICAN SOIL. SHE CAN BE QUESTIONED ABOUT THE EVENTS OF THE LAST WEEK BY ALL FACTIONS.

MORE INFORMATION HAS COME TO LIGHT ON EZEKIEL KING - CAN THE MAN BE FOUND?

THE WEST VIRGINIA DAWNBREAK HQ IS AVAILABLE TO BE SEARCHED AND ANALYZED.

ASHLEIGH DEFLEMSEY IS DISCOVERING FACTS FROM THE DAWNBREAK'S DATA - INCLUDING AN OROCHI LEAD

FIVE MORE DAWNBREAK CELLS - MUCH SMALLER, BUT STILL ACTIVE AND DANGEROUS - HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED

PLAYERS CAN TAKE WHATEVER ACTION THEY FEEL IS APPROPRIATE OR NECESSARY - WRITE WHAT YOU INTEND TO DO IN THIS THREAD. FOR IN CHARACTER LOGISTICS, FEEL FREE TO MESSAGE @WORKHARDSQUARED ON TWITTER. FOR OUT OF CHARACTER COMMUNICATION, TALK TO @REQUINERP

THANKS FRIENDS!))​

 

[Marli Anderson]

Stepping into the charred clearing surrounding what remains of the Dawnbreak facility, Marli dressed in a more conservative armor. The blue Illuminati uniform hugging her petite frame. She walks forward past several other Illuminati agents that are busily shifting through rubble.

The stripes of an Illuminated agent are clearly apparent on her uniform. Easily making her way through the rank and file she stands at the shattered front entrance "What was the true nature of this blast?" she asked to one of the junior agents nearby "I want a full report in how this was accomplished."

 

[Jericho Blake]

Jericho Blake will review all the data that has been gathered on Ezekiel King and more importantly Kevin Fowler. He will then follow what leads he can to find them.

 

[Russell K. Kobayashi]

Russell's first order of business would be to touch base with Ashleigh and start following the Orochi lead. Following that, he would visit the convalescent Cass with a gift basket (the one mentioned over DM).

 

[Velvet Silk]

Genocidal rage had been quashed, for a time, with Cass' return, the need for immediate extinction replaced with the need for eventual extinction. Hunt-down replaced with kill-on-sight, at least in her mind. If anyone needed killing it was inept fucks in the pit in-front of her. Inept, or bloody brilliant, the two bastards had been hunting each other through the crate-stacks for the last half-hour. Still, a training day was a blessing after half a week watching over autopsies. The less wasp she saw from here on out, the better.

The pit had a remarkable level of silence to it - not like the illicit ones, where laws don't apply. Loud, rambunctious R&B or rock was replaced with soft, soothing viola and piano. And the occasional gunshot. Blank stone walls and whatever the days' environment was on the pit floor, but velvet-lined railings and puff leather couches around the top. Nice, relaxing. Calming. Whilst she waited for one of them to inevitably fuck-up and her name to be called, she pulled a card from her bag, unwrapping it, and taking a pen. Writing stuff in things other than blood was weird...

'Dear Cassandra, I hope that you manage a swift and thorough recovery from any wounds sustained. I would assure you that my prayers were with you, but I fear that you would rather take offense to the idea of whatever gods I do indeed worship being informed of your name. So I offer to a-thiestic wishes of good health.

Yours, Elisha, the source of all evil in the world.'

She folded the card closed - a lovely little novelty card with an image of the Morninglight's logo, with the stained glass smashed, and tucked it away into an envelope as a series of three gunshots rung out through the room.

"ROUND - VICTOR, KNIGHT-CHAMPION DAVIES."

"KNIGHT WRIGHT, KNIGHT MADROFF, LONG ARMS." With that, she pushed up to her feet and moved over to the staircase down to the pit. Last round of the day, then she'd head over to see Cass. And likely get bollocked for stuff that she -totally hadn't done.- Totally.

 

[Leastwise]

Another day, another assassination team, another sleepless night. This one had gotten remarkably close. Either they were getting better, or just more desperate.

One was still alive, trying to crawl away. Was it the Morninglight or Q&A? It was hard to read the insignias in the dim light. Alric ambled over and kicked the assassin over onto his stomach.

"Know anythin' about Dawnbreak?" It was really more of a formality at this point, but you never know.

"Fffffffuck. You!" the assassin swore, spitting blood onto Barringer's dirty canvas sneakers.

"Yeah. Didn't think so. Finish 'em up, Midge. Gotta long day ahead of us."

There was still at least five more Dawnbreak compounds, and who knows how many agents, recruiters, or officers? No civilians, no kids. Medrina had beaten that into him.

...But that still left him with a lot of leeway.

 

[Cleretic]

Ash took a deep breath as she looked over the raw machine code in front of her again. Then at her analysis so far; sent to Venice, and certainly incomplete, but she's already uncovered some important facts.

The computer itself is old. Ridiculously so, as far as computers go. The president of IBM once said there was only room for six computers in the world when they were all this big and cumbersome... and indeed, there can't have been much more than six when this thing was new, surely? She made a note, scrawled on a post-it stuck to her monitor; "Determine timeline of supercomputer". The Illuminati should have kept track of their machines, even obsolete ones, so at least one dropped off the radar. And perhaps, finding out which one, what it did and where it went will help figure things out.

The clear attempt at brainwashing by Dawnbreak made her realize the timeline of the programming quirks she capitalized on. This programming was probably active during MK-ULTRA, which means the computer might have been, too, which would have helped them, and would mean... She shook her head, stopping that line of thought as best she could. Unpleasant and unlikely, and she had to make sure not to get too focused on maybes. Still, it was something to pursue, and she needed to find out what it was originally used for.

Then there was Orochi. Their insignias and serial numbers turning up where they definitely shouldn't have... far more modern technology than should be anywhere near this thing. She suspected that to be how the computer was still active, was connecting to the internet. But that still left a lot of questions... what exactly did the upgrades do? How strong it is now? And why upgrade a decrepit supercomputer, at immense expense, when it would be both far cheaper and far more effective to just buy a modern machine? It wouldn't even have to be a supercomputer.

She wrote down another note, sticking it opposite the other: "Trace Orochi products". She'd given Russell what little she'd gleaned of their involvement from the data dump, encouraging him to look into them in person if at all possible, and keep in contact with her. Meanwhile, she would look into the items online.Find out what all this is, how much it's used... and if possible, where it came from and went.

 

[The Mereland]

After putting together everything that had come to light, it occurred to her that last night wasn't the end.. She vaguely recalled saying something about razing Dawnbreak to the last man, once or twice. They had messed with far too many people to be left alone. She didn't like morninglight to begin with. She certainly wasn't going to let the Morninglight even the rest looked at and cringed get off without what could be loosely described as horrible vincidation.


So after doing some digging, taking some notes, she set plugged five sets of coordinates into her phone, packed her nastiest explosives, and set off. If last night taught her anything, it was probably that she could do this one alone. It would be horrible, to be wrong, but hey.

 

[Sarah Willis]

(( My money is on cute Grace/Alric meetup/teamup. Heee. ))

Now that words like 'religious genocide' are no longer being thrown around the secret world, Sarah decides to turn her efforts again toward the Morninglight, and sorting out precisely the circumstances that caused the Dawnbreak schism. Being the high-minded investigator that she is, this starts approaching Morninglight pamphleteers, and asking her way up the chain of command. Nicely-ish.

 

[Gillian Zhuge]

Ms. Zhuge carefully and properly arranges to visit with Cassandra. While waiting for a positive response, she sets herself to investigating the 'closing ranks' situation within Temple Hall, as well as checking Cass's information for anything potentially suspicious.

 

[Jericho Blake]

"Ward and Nord construction..." Jericho Blake ponders as he reviews the data he's obtained. He begins searching the Eye's database as well as internet sources for info on this firm.

 

[Ian Glenisle-Rothcraft]

Ian is tracking down Olivia Bass, the Dawnbreak personal assistant and accountant. He wants to know just how loyal she is, and how she's handing the the fall out of the attack on the Dawnbreak compound.

 

[Russell K. Kobayashi]

Russell eyes the elevator control panel dubiously. This is the first time he's ever been in a Lumie base (as far as they know, anyway, he thinks with faint amusement). And, despite the office-style decor, he feels like he's in a short story by Poe.

"For the love of God, Montressor," he mutters to himself, a sour smile crossing his lips. The elevator makes a soft dinging sound, and he steps through the open doors.

A stern-looking guard in Illuminati blue and black is waiting there, MP-5 slung over one shoulder. He stops Russell, grabbing for Cass's care package without asking. After a minute of rustling through it, he shoves the large paper sack back at him. He looks almost disappointed not to have found a weapon or bomb. "She's down the hall, first door on your left."

Russell nods at him (because an annoyed snort would be undiplomatic), and walks up to that door. He pauses at it, looking through at the woman in the hospital bed, a guilty lump rising into his throat. I should have been there.

Well, no time for self-recrimination. He paints on a gently sardonic smile, something that's become sadly easy since entering the secret world. Two loud raps at the door, to get her attention, and he holds up the bag with Black Camel logo on it. "Can I come in?"