Incoming Faced with the very real possibility of being shelled by a group of automated drone mechs heading in their direction, the team quickly ran through a litany of options to escape the doomed city of Jaffa. Suddenly a familiar voice cut off Catelyn's on the comm. Eveveryone, but particularly MC, recognized the voice as belonging to Ada Adler. "This is what they send to deal with me? I normally don't make these sort of offers, but I will allow you to walk away with your lives if you hand over the names of the people who hired you to take this job. You have thirty seconds to comply." A moment of ominous silence filled the air as the runners struggled with how to react. "Sorry lady, I don't negotiate with terrorists," Killeroo said. Inside MC's head's up display, a holographic image of Ada Adler materialized and offered the cybernetic assassin a slightly different alternative to being blown to bits. "You," she began. "I freed you from your masters. Why do you resist me? You search for your past and are willing to kill for it. I know your situation quite well. Kill these fools--eliminate anyone connected to this run and I will reward you with the answers you've been seeking." "How do you know...?" MC asked. Edgar and Killeroo silently regarded MC as he carried on a conversation with someone who wasn't there. "Shidao knows, of course. What they did to you was monstrous. They kept these memories from you. Why else if not to control you? But I stole their files on you when I...borrowed you for my own purposes. I know who you are. So you have a decision to make; you can help me dispose of a few people and get your life back or you can stay with them and die." "We need to get out of here, now," MC explained flatly to Roo and Edgar. "Yeah, no shit." Roo replied flatly. The drones then did the unexpected and stopped in their tracks. Everyone then picked up on a subsonic sound that the mechs began to emmit. Though annoying to listen to, Edgar found through analysis that it wasn't jamming their communications. Catelyn then realized what was happening when she spotted hundreds of ghouls fleeing the abandoned buildings near to the mechs and began heading in the opposite direction of the sounds. The team began making their way to the roof in an attempt to avoid the roving mobs of ghouls on the streets and the subsequent bombardment the tenement buildings were likely to experience. To their surprise, the dark night around them became illuminated with a flashing red light. Everyone looked up into the night sky to see flares, dozens of them, being launched into the neighborhood by the mechs. "They're painting the area for a strike," Catelyn said, panic rising in her voice. "Get the hell out of there now Jake!" Edgar made contact with Khalil, briefly, and instructed him to pick them up at the port with a boat. Upon hearing a confirmation, the team prepared to run. As the group began jumping from one rooftop to another, the subsonic sounds stopped and were instead replaced by a subtle humming sound coming from a drone gunship descending into the area and preparing to fire. MC and Roo cleared most of their leaps from one rooftop to the next. Despite his light exo-frame, however, Edgar fell short of one ledge and almost fell off. Roo backtracked and pulled the mercenary into safety, though the slip-up caught the attention of some of the ghouls down below. Screaming and yelling, the mutant under dwellers rushed the rooftop of the next building over and emerged between MC and the rest of the team. Sliding to a stop, the cyborg assassin leaned into a dead run and leaped back onto the previous rooftop. With MC's help, Roo and Edgar were able to slip through the mob and proceed to jump the next building. The drone descended sufficiently for its turrets to rotate into place and fire high impact rounds--leveling most of the buildings in the area. The team barely managed to make it outside of the blast area in time to watch the remnant of Max Hersch's old life fall to the earth in a tumble of concrete, fire and death. A massive dust cloud from the destruction swept through the area, obscuring the team's view temporarily. They used it as cover to move further west towards the large hill that overlooked Jaffa's port. A Short Respite As they neared the hill, they found a large recess in the landscape ahead cradling what seemed like an untouched portion of the port city. As they approached, they saw that the abandoned town was a military training site for terrorist attacks--a fake town. Resembling the nuclear testing sites from the 50's, the team saw mannequins in the windows of empty houses with paint peeling from their walls, rusted over cars, etc. Stopping to rest inside one of these empty homes, Edgar checked their comm's transmission traffic and found that they were being pinged information and their communicators were sending back information to an unknown location. Tracking the source to be some satellite in orbit, Edgar switched off his comms and everyone else followed suit. Taking a moment to think aloud, MC began to explain what happened back at Max's tenement before it was shelled into dust. How Adler had contacted MCprivately through an internalized com and made the cyborg an offer to get MC's full memories back if MC killed off everyone who hired the team for this job. Edgar patted MC, saying that the decision to snub her offer was sound. He also managed to sneak a gps tracking device onto the cyborg's back without anyone but Roo being the wiser. The hybrid, curiously, did not say anything. Insisting that they remove MC's internal transmittor, Edgar began trying to undo different parts of MC's cyborg body while Roo kept a look out. Successfully finding and removing the transmitter, Edgar switched it off and pocketed it. Hearing noises down the block, Roo and Edgar looked through the blinds to see two mechs taking positions on either end of the block--scanning for movement and any signs of life. The team snuck out of the faux house through the backyard, jumping the picket fence there and moved through to the next neighborhood and beyond without causing any further alarm. Adler's drones had managed to track them this far but with their comms switched off, they would be free to proceed to the port unimpeded. Cresting the hill that overlooked the port side of the city, the team spotted Khalil's boat a few miles from shore and began to make their way down to the dockside. The drone aircraft having flown away during their rest period, the team felt relief for the first time since their run began. As the dark of night gave way to a rising dawn, Killeroo began to worry about Catelyn's whereabouts. The last time the team had checked comm statuses they found that Catelyn's had gone dead. Breaking radio silence for the first time since leaving the abandoned town, Edgar contacted Khalil on the boat and asked him to bring the vessel around. The older man refused, saying that he could only bring it within a certain range without incurring incoming fire from the drones. The technician reminded the team that Babylon's mech drones patrolled every border around Jaffa--including the coastline. The team would have to find a way to come out to Khalil from the harbor. Reaching the docks, Edgar located an old sailboat tethered to the harbor that they could use to reach Khalil's boat. With no sign of Catelyn, Killeroo decided he was going to return to the city behind them in order to find her. The group rested briefly with the idea of who was going to take the suitcase that contained all the information about Adler and board Khalil's boat and who was going to go back to retrieve Catelyn. Ultimately, Roo and MC headed back to the city while Edgar operated the sailboat and made his way to Khalil's ship, suitcase in hand. Back to the Fire As the duo began setting out to find Catelyn's projected trajectory from her minaret perch to the dockside, they saw something fall from the sky and impact the fake town behind the hill. A bright flash illuminated the area behind the hill, throwing shadows on them and the rest of the port for scant seconds. A large explosion rocked the area and the pair knew that whatever satellite Adler had to track their movements, she also made use of a orbital bombardment system. Judging by the ash in the air, the concussive wave and the scrambling of electronic signals after the explosion and the destruction laid to the empty town, the group surmised that Adler had just tried to kill them using a localized nuclear explosion launched from orbit. Unimpeded, MC and Killeroo made their way around the city. They became lost for hours, searching for a possible corpse in a city littered with them. Following a trail of freshly killed ghouls from her previous position, they found a bombed out building with Catelyn's bloodied hazmat outfit slumped against the wall. Roo checked her for wounds and found his ex-wife barely breathing and fully exposed to the effects of the chemical attack that had infected thousands of others before her. Black veins were beginning to show around her face and arms, along with a clammy paleness as well as skin burns and blisters reminiscent of heavy radiation exposure. Her breathing shallow, Catelyn opened her eyes and looked into Roo's eyes before shaking her head and squeezed his hand feebly. On the side of her neck, Roo saw a gaping wound caused by some of the ghouls. Both runners knew that Catelyn had very little time left. "Oh stop being so dramatic," Killeroo began, trying to blunt the seriousness of her injuries with humor. "We're getting you out of here." Seeing that her protective outfit was torn to shreds, MC shed his own suit and, with Roo's help, placed her into a new suit to protect her from chemical exposure. Placing her body over his shoulder, Killeroo and MC began running back to the port as fast as they could. Not realizing that their search for the woman had garnered the attention of the local ghoul population, both runners were cut off from one another by a throng of them as they navigated an alleyway between tenement buildings. Roo dropped Lil' Betty and drew his sidearm as the ghouls began tearing at his suit and what was left of Catelyn's. MC dismembered one ghoul, skewered another--providing an opportunity to further arm Killeroo--and tossed the hybrid Catelyn's pistol. Roo shot and jumped his way past the mob and moved as fast as he could towards the port. With the sun being out, the two runners made use of the major thoroughfares, losing the ghouls altogether. En route to Khalil's boat, which risked moving close into Jaffa's territorial waters, both Roo and MC caught sight of two drone mechs patrolling the port side. Before the mechs could notice and fire on the two runners, Edgar fired his single fire rocket launcher and delivered a solid hit to the first. MC and Roo scampered for cover as the remaining mech turned and immediately returned fire at Khalil's vessel. Navigating the ship, Khalil made a sharp turn away from the port as the incoming anti-personnel missiles only pockmarked the port side of the ship. Lining up for another shot, Edgar loaded up another missile, fired and scored another direct hit against the second mech--scattering its chassis into the ash laden streets of Jaffa. Wasting no time, Killeroo and MC waded into the bay and waited to be hoisted up to the ship's deck. The hybrid carried a semi-unconscious Catelyn in his arms to the medtech, desperation in his eyes, and asked for her to be stabilized. Escape Khalil took Catelyn below deck to a small medical lab where he could work. As the hybrid and Edgar watched, MC wandered off to another room down the hall and began wrecking everything in sight. Finally, after years of forced servitude to Shidao corporation, the cybernetic assassin was able to feel emotions that were his own and act on them. Hearing the commotion, Khalil angrily insisted that the runners keep their own under control and keep things quiet while he worked. Killeroo stormed into the room in time to watch MC put a cybernetic fist through a bookcase. When asked what the outburst was about, MC said little other than "It's nothing." "Well, keep it down or I'm going to throw you overboard," the hybrid growled. "Khalil needs to concentrate on saving Catelyn, alright?" Sometime later, as the ship neared Khalil's hanger near the coast, the medtech emerged from the small lab drenched in sweat. "She's stable, for now." he began. "I gave her some dermals that will normalize her life signs temporarily, but I need to get her into the decontamination chamber I have in the hangar. And even then, I can't guarantee you anything. She's sustained heavy chemical and radioactive exposure..." "Just do everything you can to help her," Killeroo said. "I will," Khalil promised. Addressing the other runners gathered outside the medlab, he continued. "Naama and one of Babylon's corpsec teams are already at the safehouse and will have the rest of your payment as well." De-briefing and Ending Negotiations As the team began to disembark with Catelyn and the suitcase, they saw Naama standing alongside corporate security types and a black helicopter. Roo and Khalil discussed the possibility of Naama's people airlifting Catelyn to an advanced medical facility where she might be able to be cured of what ails her. Khalil said that this is something that Roo would have to negotiate with Naama privately. Realizing that the team were likely contaminated by their exposure to the port city, Naama and Babylon's security team gave the runners a large swath of space so that they could move freely into Khalil's de-contamination chamber. Ditching their protective gear, the team spent several hours in de-contamination. Afterwards, Khalil moved Catelyn into his main lab and proceeded to begin working on continuing to monitor her vitals and ensure her survival. Eventually the team moved to the break room inside the hangar where Naama was presented with the suitcase. Once the information on Ada Adler was produced, Naama provided the team with the rest of their promised payments for the run. Killeroo abstained, however, asking that his cut of the money go towards providing Catelyn with sufficient medical care that he knows is readily available to those who have the means to pay for it. "Look, I know you rich people can get the best medical care money can buy. Just make sure she survives whatever's going on with her." Naama, not a completely heartless person, agreed to Roo's terms and told her men to take Catelyn with them after was finished with his initial treatment. "I know someone in Washington that may have what she needs, she said. "It's costly, but you and her share of the run credits should more than cover it. Khalil will be my connection to you. If you want to contact me, do so through him." Before preparing to depart, Edgar spoke with Khalil and attempted to know more about Naama and her connection with the old medtech. Without giving too much away, Khalil only established that the two of them had worked together in the past and that they maintained a purely professional relationship. Because of the nature of their past work, it seemed, Khalil either decided or was forced to take to the life of a runner. Killeroo phoned Big Bob and Spade at the Foundry and told them that he was heading back home. Silently contemplating the thought of betraying the others in return for the memories that the cyborg had searched all this time for, MC followed Roo and Edgar in their long trip back to the Spawl. The recurring thought that filled the cyborg assassin's head throughout the trip being the fact that the only people, besides Ada Adler, who might still have the information on MC's past were the very people who created MC in the first place; Shidao Corporation. Epilogue Returning to old digs that once served as a base of operations for himself and a group of resistance fighters, Edgar spent a few days establishing a "quiet room" where he set up two dummy servers connected to the drive he pulled out of the artillery drone mech in Jaffa. The quiet room worked as a Faraday Cage, essentially keeping any and all transmissions inside the room from getting outside and vice versa. Monitoring the data, Edgar watched as Ada Adler's programming first proceeded to create a copy of itself and then transfer that copy into the fake server. Almost immediately, Adler's programming began re-writing the programming in the server. A monitor that was hooked into the server sprang to life with Ada Adler's face prominently being displayed on it. Seeing that she was trapped inside the fake server and that there was no way to broadcast herself outside the premises, she congratulated Edgar on his cleverness. "Well done. Very well done. But do you think what you're doing here today matters at all? I exist inside every one of those mechs and beyond. My war will never end, so long as the enemies of Israel still draw breath and continue to undermine my people. I will ensure that they meet an appropriate end. An end that you and your friends will share soon enough."
