Jericho Blake’s phone buzzes with a text. She’s been checked in for a couple of hours now. Watching the building. Refinery Hotel in NYC.
Cassandra Havelock is dressed for a Toolbox op, perched on a rooftop and frowning down through a pair of binoculars.
“You’re taking a liking to rooftops, lately.” The deep voice whispers beside her, as if he’d always been there. Jericho’s also in his black coat and fatigues.
“Jesus Christ one day I am going to see you coming.” Cass says, clearly flustered. “How is someone your size so GOD DAMN QUIET?”
“Practice.” He looks across at the building. “What do you have?”
“Not as much as I’d like. She checked in.” Cass clenches her fists until her knuckles turned white. “Have her room number. She hasn’t left yet. But guests have been coming in. Real shady lookin’ sorts, not the usual clientele for this place. What the hell is she up to?”
“Does it matter? You have a big decision to make.” He says quietly, his voice carefully neutral.
“That decision being...?” Cass frowns through the binoculars again.
“We don’t have a CoV mandate. We’re choosing to take them down. Do we execute her? And any who take her place?”
“What’s the alternative, turning them in? Fuck that.” Cass’s lips thin into a line. “If the consequence for leading the Dawnbreak is Venetian hospitality, we’ll be dealing with a hell of a lot more of these assholes.”
“Just wanted you to be sure,” he nods. “How do you wanna do this? Right there in the hotel room?”
“Yeah.” Cass suddenly grins a manic grin. “If she’s hosting company, we’ll make this something that hits tons of headlines. Gets lots of eyeballs on this. So for now, I’m not a Knight-Captain. This is a Toolbox style job. Take the lead, Blake.”
Jericho raises an eyebrow at her reaction, but remains silent. “What floor is it?”
“She’s up on the top floor, in the penthouse.”
“OK. Let’s get on the roof over there. I’ll blow the window with a grenade, then we go in hard. I try to keep them off your back until you kill her.” He purses his lips in thought. “Simplest plans are usually the best.” As usual, the hilt of his tachi just above his right shoulder. He opens his coat, revealing the .45 pistols on his hips. He draws each in turn, replacing the regular magazine with extended capacity ones. “I didn’t bring any of the Atenist grenades. If she’s a bee we can try and capture her instead, I guess. But we won’t know unless she vanishes.”
Cass nods. “I’ve just the Chaos focus. Should be fine. Think I should pop some... Nah, you know what? I should be sharp. I assume you’ll zipline us in or some shit?”
“Nah. Just pop us across to the roof, and we’ll swing down once I break the window.”
“Nice. Less spy style, but more efficient. Alright, hold on to -”
There’s a shifting, reality changing around you... And you’re on the roof of The Refinery.
Jericho reaches inside his coat, and produces the high explosive grenade. “You ready?”
He approaches the window from above.
Let’s do this.” Cass shifts from foot to foot, bristling with nervous energy waiting for a release.
“You follow me in. Be careful.” Interesting choice of words. He activates the grenade, and hurls it down to smack the window. It detonates on contact, shattering the panes in a huge explosion. As smoke fills the air, Blake is moving. He swings down from the edge into the room below, landing in a shoulder roll. He then stands smoothly, drawing his pistols, and begins cooly firing as targets appear.
No Dawnbreakers, at least, not at first - instead, your bullets rip through men with piercings and tattoos, clad in only leather vests and torn t-shirts to protect them. Cass is in after you, and as you clean up the living space in what is easy - trivially so - the Templar sprints to the bedroom. She kicks the door down... and then screams in rage.
Keeping an eye out for any other threats, Jericho follows Cassandra to the bedroom door.
Inside the bedroom are the Malleus Maleficarum agents who worked to get you this intel.
There are also a couple of Illuminati agents you recognize - gofers. They disappeared on coffee runs a while ago. Geary figured they ran and activated the chips, as you can tell from their badly damaged bodies. But their foreheads all have the Dawnbreak symbol carved into them.
You remember, back in West Virginia, carving Templar symbols into Dawnbreak heads as a message. It seems the Dawnbreak remembered.
On the bed is a laptop with Google Hangouts open. A window is open, with Ruth Fleming’s face smiling serenely at you.
Jericho calmly replaces the magazines on his pistols and holsters them as he looks at the monitor.
“Mister Blake.” Fleming says. “Pleasure to have the chance to talk to you. We so rarely have the opportunity to talk.”
“First time, actually. And hopefully the last.” His voice is casual, emotionless.
“Mm. I wouldn’t be so quick to say so. The Dawnbreak are going to be around for a long, long time.”
Cass rounds on the laptop. “WHERE ARE YOU? I KNOW YOU’RE IN THE BUILDING, YOU FUCKING -”
Jericho raises a hand briefly to Cassandra in a pacifying gesture. “So what do you want to talk about?”
“You have to realizing you’re playing a losing game. Your superiors don’t want you pursuing this, Venice doesn’t want you pursuing this, we certainly don’t... And you don’t have the resources, or the knowledge, or the will to wipe us off the map. Why not a truce, instead?”
“You seem to want us to realize a great many things. Most of which you’re completely wrong about. I have to thank you, though.”
She pauses. “Thank me?”
“Your little petty handiwork here just gave us the backing to hunt you down, at least from New York and London. The Templars are big on honor. No injury unpunished. And us…” For the first time he smiles. It’s not a pleasant one. “You may have heard. This is the 21st Century. Fuck or get fucked.” He enunciates slowly and clearly. “We’re the Illuminati. And we don’t get fucked. So you better be ready.” The tone remains chillingly casual… and it may the the first time Cassandra has heard him drop f-bombs.
Fleming flinches, for just a second, and then stares back at you. “You can’t fuck what you can’t catch, Mr. Blake. I’m sure we’ll have the opportunity to speak again. Clean out your mouth before then.”
The line goes dead.
Cassandra sits down on the end of the bed and just puts her head in her hands.
“I’m sorry.”
Blake raises an eyebrow as he goes to gather up the laptop. “What for?”
She silently waves an arm at the corpses surrounding you.
Blake quickly snaps pictures. “Excuse me a second.” He taps the headset. “Operator. We need a cleanup team at the Refinery Hotel penthouse suite. We have dead Templars here, Dawnbreak. Also those gofers Ms. G was complaining about.”
He listens at the answer. “No, Red will know it wasn’t us. Once processed we can hand them over via usual channels. Understood. Iwo Jima out.”
He then turns back to Cass. “Why should you be sorry? It wasn’t you.”
“I trusted the MM intel on the matter. Didn’t expect them to fuck up, get caught. Got prideful. Got stupid.”
He shrugs. “It was the intel you had. Biggest problem for field ops is bad intel. And these men and women died in the line of duty.” His voice softens as he says that. She can tell duty means something to him. “And in dying, they served.”
She nods. “Thank you for helping me anyways. And... you were right. We really did catch them off guard. Now it’ll be open war.”
“They just pissed off Red and Blue in one moment of arrogance and pettiness. We have to take the initiative, though. But I don’t want a price on her head. That never works. It will be a job. A mission objective.”
Cass just nods once. “They were good men. Good hunters. Fuck.” And then she stands, weary. “I guess we should go. One thing. Maybe we should check the guys in the living room. Maybe they’ll have something for us.”
“Agreed. Cleaners sometimes are overzealous. Let’s go.” He leads her out to the room and helps her search the bullet riddled punks.
You find two things of note:
The first is that the criminals in the living area are wearing pins that note their allegiance.
Gold skulls.
The second is that one of them, presumably their leader from the golden skull tattooed on his face, has a letter, handwritten by Fleming.
Give the Witch Hunters a surprise. Pay the Illuminati back for what they did to our people.
“This is no surprise. They’re officially part of Dawnbreak. Damn, but Grant screwed the poo… errr screwed up this time.” He shakes his head in disgust.
Despite her dour mood, Cass snickers. “And you’re sure I can’t murder him?”
“If you kill him, he won’t learn nothing,” Blake deadpans. “He’ll see this report. But I have to send it to Kir… Ms. Geary and to Mr. Webster, since it shows he made a deal with our enemy before letting me interview her. So murder would be merciful.”
“Ooh, he’s going back to Q&A, isn’t he?” Cass tries to smile, but her shoulders are slumped. “Looks like Blue team is going to be all over here soon. I should skedaddle. ...Thanks again.”
Blake seems to think about something. “Hey, that burger place of yours still open?”
“Yeah, open all night, ‘cause people who sleep are quitters.”
“Is that the slogan?”
“Nah, there’s a marketing guy who’s supposed to come up with one.”
“Join me for one? Unless you have someone to errr… smash..” he deadpans.
The Knight-Captain turns scarlet and her voice goes slightly higher. “I, uh, no, I can eat. Food. Food is good. Let’s go.”
Cassandra Havelock is dressed for a Toolbox op, perched on a rooftop and frowning down through a pair of binoculars.
“You’re taking a liking to rooftops, lately.” The deep voice whispers beside her, as if he’d always been there. Jericho’s also in his black coat and fatigues.
“Jesus Christ one day I am going to see you coming.” Cass says, clearly flustered. “How is someone your size so GOD DAMN QUIET?”
“Practice.” He looks across at the building. “What do you have?”
“Not as much as I’d like. She checked in.” Cass clenches her fists until her knuckles turned white. “Have her room number. She hasn’t left yet. But guests have been coming in. Real shady lookin’ sorts, not the usual clientele for this place. What the hell is she up to?”
“Does it matter? You have a big decision to make.” He says quietly, his voice carefully neutral.
“That decision being...?” Cass frowns through the binoculars again.
“We don’t have a CoV mandate. We’re choosing to take them down. Do we execute her? And any who take her place?”
“What’s the alternative, turning them in? Fuck that.” Cass’s lips thin into a line. “If the consequence for leading the Dawnbreak is Venetian hospitality, we’ll be dealing with a hell of a lot more of these assholes.”
“Just wanted you to be sure,” he nods. “How do you wanna do this? Right there in the hotel room?”
“Yeah.” Cass suddenly grins a manic grin. “If she’s hosting company, we’ll make this something that hits tons of headlines. Gets lots of eyeballs on this. So for now, I’m not a Knight-Captain. This is a Toolbox style job. Take the lead, Blake.”
Jericho raises an eyebrow at her reaction, but remains silent. “What floor is it?”
“She’s up on the top floor, in the penthouse.”
“OK. Let’s get on the roof over there. I’ll blow the window with a grenade, then we go in hard. I try to keep them off your back until you kill her.” He purses his lips in thought. “Simplest plans are usually the best.” As usual, the hilt of his tachi just above his right shoulder. He opens his coat, revealing the .45 pistols on his hips. He draws each in turn, replacing the regular magazine with extended capacity ones. “I didn’t bring any of the Atenist grenades. If she’s a bee we can try and capture her instead, I guess. But we won’t know unless she vanishes.”
Cass nods. “I’ve just the Chaos focus. Should be fine. Think I should pop some... Nah, you know what? I should be sharp. I assume you’ll zipline us in or some shit?”
“Nah. Just pop us across to the roof, and we’ll swing down once I break the window.”
“Nice. Less spy style, but more efficient. Alright, hold on to -”
There’s a shifting, reality changing around you... And you’re on the roof of The Refinery.
Jericho reaches inside his coat, and produces the high explosive grenade. “You ready?”
He approaches the window from above.
Let’s do this.” Cass shifts from foot to foot, bristling with nervous energy waiting for a release.
“You follow me in. Be careful.” Interesting choice of words. He activates the grenade, and hurls it down to smack the window. It detonates on contact, shattering the panes in a huge explosion. As smoke fills the air, Blake is moving. He swings down from the edge into the room below, landing in a shoulder roll. He then stands smoothly, drawing his pistols, and begins cooly firing as targets appear.
No Dawnbreakers, at least, not at first - instead, your bullets rip through men with piercings and tattoos, clad in only leather vests and torn t-shirts to protect them. Cass is in after you, and as you clean up the living space in what is easy - trivially so - the Templar sprints to the bedroom. She kicks the door down... and then screams in rage.
Keeping an eye out for any other threats, Jericho follows Cassandra to the bedroom door.
Inside the bedroom are the Malleus Maleficarum agents who worked to get you this intel.
There are also a couple of Illuminati agents you recognize - gofers. They disappeared on coffee runs a while ago. Geary figured they ran and activated the chips, as you can tell from their badly damaged bodies. But their foreheads all have the Dawnbreak symbol carved into them.
You remember, back in West Virginia, carving Templar symbols into Dawnbreak heads as a message. It seems the Dawnbreak remembered.
On the bed is a laptop with Google Hangouts open. A window is open, with Ruth Fleming’s face smiling serenely at you.
Jericho calmly replaces the magazines on his pistols and holsters them as he looks at the monitor.
“Mister Blake.” Fleming says. “Pleasure to have the chance to talk to you. We so rarely have the opportunity to talk.”
“First time, actually. And hopefully the last.” His voice is casual, emotionless.
“Mm. I wouldn’t be so quick to say so. The Dawnbreak are going to be around for a long, long time.”
Cass rounds on the laptop. “WHERE ARE YOU? I KNOW YOU’RE IN THE BUILDING, YOU FUCKING -”
Jericho raises a hand briefly to Cassandra in a pacifying gesture. “So what do you want to talk about?”
“You have to realizing you’re playing a losing game. Your superiors don’t want you pursuing this, Venice doesn’t want you pursuing this, we certainly don’t... And you don’t have the resources, or the knowledge, or the will to wipe us off the map. Why not a truce, instead?”
“You seem to want us to realize a great many things. Most of which you’re completely wrong about. I have to thank you, though.”
She pauses. “Thank me?”
“Your little petty handiwork here just gave us the backing to hunt you down, at least from New York and London. The Templars are big on honor. No injury unpunished. And us…” For the first time he smiles. It’s not a pleasant one. “You may have heard. This is the 21st Century. Fuck or get fucked.” He enunciates slowly and clearly. “We’re the Illuminati. And we don’t get fucked. So you better be ready.” The tone remains chillingly casual… and it may the the first time Cassandra has heard him drop f-bombs.
Fleming flinches, for just a second, and then stares back at you. “You can’t fuck what you can’t catch, Mr. Blake. I’m sure we’ll have the opportunity to speak again. Clean out your mouth before then.”
The line goes dead.
Cassandra sits down on the end of the bed and just puts her head in her hands.
“I’m sorry.”
Blake raises an eyebrow as he goes to gather up the laptop. “What for?”
She silently waves an arm at the corpses surrounding you.
Blake quickly snaps pictures. “Excuse me a second.” He taps the headset. “Operator. We need a cleanup team at the Refinery Hotel penthouse suite. We have dead Templars here, Dawnbreak. Also those gofers Ms. G was complaining about.”
He listens at the answer. “No, Red will know it wasn’t us. Once processed we can hand them over via usual channels. Understood. Iwo Jima out.”
He then turns back to Cass. “Why should you be sorry? It wasn’t you.”
“I trusted the MM intel on the matter. Didn’t expect them to fuck up, get caught. Got prideful. Got stupid.”
He shrugs. “It was the intel you had. Biggest problem for field ops is bad intel. And these men and women died in the line of duty.” His voice softens as he says that. She can tell duty means something to him. “And in dying, they served.”
She nods. “Thank you for helping me anyways. And... you were right. We really did catch them off guard. Now it’ll be open war.”
“They just pissed off Red and Blue in one moment of arrogance and pettiness. We have to take the initiative, though. But I don’t want a price on her head. That never works. It will be a job. A mission objective.”
Cass just nods once. “They were good men. Good hunters. Fuck.” And then she stands, weary. “I guess we should go. One thing. Maybe we should check the guys in the living room. Maybe they’ll have something for us.”
“Agreed. Cleaners sometimes are overzealous. Let’s go.” He leads her out to the room and helps her search the bullet riddled punks.
You find two things of note:
The first is that the criminals in the living area are wearing pins that note their allegiance.
Gold skulls.
The second is that one of them, presumably their leader from the golden skull tattooed on his face, has a letter, handwritten by Fleming.
Give the Witch Hunters a surprise. Pay the Illuminati back for what they did to our people.
“This is no surprise. They’re officially part of Dawnbreak. Damn, but Grant screwed the poo… errr screwed up this time.” He shakes his head in disgust.
Despite her dour mood, Cass snickers. “And you’re sure I can’t murder him?”
“If you kill him, he won’t learn nothing,” Blake deadpans. “He’ll see this report. But I have to send it to Kir… Ms. Geary and to Mr. Webster, since it shows he made a deal with our enemy before letting me interview her. So murder would be merciful.”
“Ooh, he’s going back to Q&A, isn’t he?” Cass tries to smile, but her shoulders are slumped. “Looks like Blue team is going to be all over here soon. I should skedaddle. ...Thanks again.”
Blake seems to think about something. “Hey, that burger place of yours still open?”
“Yeah, open all night, ‘cause people who sleep are quitters.”
“Is that the slogan?”
“Nah, there’s a marketing guy who’s supposed to come up with one.”
“Join me for one? Unless you have someone to errr… smash..” he deadpans.
The Knight-Captain turns scarlet and her voice goes slightly higher. “I, uh, no, I can eat. Food. Food is good. Let’s go.”