The Dark Above And Below Muted gray skin tone, white eyes, thinning hair and chemical burns around the eyes and mouths, the people that once inhabited the port city of Jaffa had become something altogether inhuman. They were now a ravenous, unthinking and seemingly endless mob of corpses. They poured out of every tunnel, their screaming and yelling creating a cacophony of echoes that drowned out all thought. Faced with ghouls on all sides, everyone proceeded to put their backs together and began shooting their way out. Edgar and his drone were the first to make a break for the ladder that led back up to the surface. Next was Catelyn, who shot a few of the ghouls on her way there. Killeroo covered the pair's escape while MC began slicing and dicing through the crowd of ravenous ghouls--coating the cyborg in blackish blood. The pair managed to successfully thin the numbers of the horde and managed to keep their suits from being torn. Checking for the coast to be clear of hostiles, Catelyn gave the go ahead for the rest of the group to head up to the surface. One by one they ascended back into the apocalyptic vision waiting for them above. Streets were littered with long decayed corpses, debris, abandoned cars and buildings. The slight haze, a fingerprint of the chemical attack residue, filled the night air. In the old city of Jaffa, the team came to find that it was as dark above as it was below its streets. Guerrillas and Ghosts As they made their way towards Hersch's old residence in the port city, the group spotted a trio of automated drone mechs in the distance that were heading their way. Their attempt to stealthily make their way to a blown out building for cover failed and were forced to split up at the intersection as anti-personnel missiles began to fly. Two of the three mechs converged on the group's position and began firing at them relentlessly. Catelyn and Edgar ran to a nearby building and began climbing to the roof to establish a sniper position. MC and Killeroo dove for cover in the derelict building and sought to buy the rest of their team some time by keeping the drones busy. Roo wove into and out of adjacent buildings, continuously shooting at the one mech's legs whilst luckily avoiding any returning fire. MC became aware of the third mech having circled around the block the team had occupied before being fired upon. The runner took note of the heavy artillery style cannons the mech sported and began to move quickly once it was apparent that it was positioning itself to fire on MC's position. Treads on the artillery mech stopped and gave way to extended spidery robotic legs which began an automated process of firing large steel pins into the ground, reducing the possibility of misfire due to recoil. The cybernetic assassin narrowly sidestepped heavy machine gun fire after whistling to gain notice of the other mech from the second floor of the half destroyed building MC was occupying. Floors collapsed as the barrage ate through the foundation of the old tenement building, forcing MC to make a daring leap from the second floor landing to the barely-standing fire escape on the adjacent building. Large blasts rang out around the area as the third mech's cannons fired, one after the other, and blasted the tenement into dust. Setting up their position, Catelyn began changing out her ammunition for something that could actually pierce the mech's exterior chasis. Spotting for the mercenary sniper, Edgar continued to run his movement scans and checking for signs of movement. Seeing as the mech pursuing MC was currently standing still, the former military tech specialist used a launcher to fire a set of magnetized bolas through the large dust cloud to snare the mech and keep it from moving any further. Though successful with his shot, the now immobilized drone mech, was still standing and now was aware of the pair's position. "What the hell?!" Catelyn yelled over the din. "You're supposed to be spotting me, not giving away our position!" The sniper fired several shots into what she rightly believed to the housing of the drone's core computer. The tracer shots pierced through the chasis and resulted in a subdued explosion. The mech convulsed, attempted to move and collapsed onto the already broken pavement. Killeroo continued playing his cat and mouse game with the other drone mech, taking cover and firing back at the monstrosity's already damaged leg. After another few well placed shots, the mech's leg ceased to function. As it attempted to give chase once more, the mechanized hulk stumbled to the ground but continued to fire. The hybrid hid under a raised slab of concrete, then hopped to cover behind an abandoned van on the side of the road. As Catelyn and Edgar began their descent from the rooftop in order to get a clear shot at the drone that had Roo pinned down, MC began flitting through the shadows and moved to flank the large artillery mech that had slowly begun to readjust its firing arc to target the block containing Killeroo and the disabled mech. The cybernetic assassin notified the team of the mech's imminent threat, spurring everyone to move clear of the blast radius. Killeroo used his powerful hybrid legs to bridge the open gap in the street with a leap, hopping from one obstruction to the next, seeking cover from the one legged mech that was still determined to rip him to pieces. The resulting explosion from the shelling leveled much of the city block and knocked Killeroo insensate for a few minutes, his hybrid ears ringing from the noise. Catelyn and Edgar reached the runner and managed to get him to his feet and moving before the next barrage arrived. With eyes on the target, MC leaped through a window in a tenement next to the artillery drone, rolled into a standing dead run and used all the strength contained inside the cybernetic arms Shidao corporation had installed on the hatch containing the drone's central computer network. The hatch snapped and broke away, revealing a darkened maze of wires and ware inside. The cybernetic assassin wasted no time reaching in and pulling cord after cord--shutting down the mech instantly. Before the subsequent shutdown, however, MC's cybernetic eyes saw something else inside the hatch; a face. The projection of a human female face with white hair. MC blinked and the face was gone. As the team began to regroup, Edgar made his way to the artillery mech to inspect its potential salvage. Digging through the remnants of its computer core, he found what amounted to the drone's central drive. The technical specialist produced an old netrunning deck and began re-writing the drone's core programming. As he proceeded, however, Edgar noticed quickly that the lines he had just re-written had reverted back to their original state. The drive, it seemed, was pushing back against his efforts to change it's coding. Seeing this as seemingly impossible, Edgar continued to erase and re-write the drone's programming. Before he realized it, the old cyberdeck locked up and froze. Puzzled, Edgar disconnected the wires and instead opted to just make a copy of the programming and download it into a spare drive. As the team neared Hersch's old residence, Catelyn sought a high perch from where she could inform the rest of the team of any potential incoming threats. Edgar ran his movement scans, revealing only vermin crawling around inside the surrounding tenements. Once it was certain there were no hostiles present, the team moved into the building from the second floor fire escape. Inside they found clothes and other items strewn along the floors, long decayed breakfasts sitting on kitchen tables, layers of dust and spider webs lining the interiors of these apartments from floor to ceiling. Locating Max's old apartment in the hallway beyond, the team had little trouble getting inside; in light of the chemical weapon attacks, the tenants seemed to have abandoned their homes in quite a hurry. The team immediately took notice of a worktable littered with various hand written notes, old cybernetic prosthesis and a half finished cybernetic head. In the corner across from the worktable stood a decades computer terminal that, along with everything else in Jaffa, was devoid of any electricity. Edgar immediately moved to the terminal and began digging about for its hard drive. Killeroo and MC examined the notes and the early cybernetics on the worktable. The cybernetic head resembled that of a small child's. The same was true of the prosthesis. Among the work notes Max had written was a faded photograph of a smiling young girl tacked to the wall above the worktable. The girl was clearly the recipient of Max's robotics work, as the photo showed her having replacement limbs for her arms and legs. The back of the photo read "Ada, 2054." Quickly retrieving the data on the terminal drive, Edgar poured over the abundant amount of information and searched for any relevant keywords. In addition to finding schematics for some of Babylon's early robotics work, he found traces of electronic correspondence between Max, Ada and others before and after the attack on Jaffa. "You guys want to have a look at this," Edgar said as he scrolled through the information. The Queen of Babylon MC and the others began to pour over the information. What they found were records--Max's journal--concerning Ada Adler between 2055 and 2076. In the earliest entries its revealed that Ada, at eight years old, was the victim of a vicious bombing attack that claimed the lives of both her parents. When Max discovered her through his work with Babylon, he wasted no effort in ensuring that she had a chance at a normal life by replacing her lost limbs with prosthetics. He also grew attached to the young girl and raised her, unofficially, as his own daughter. In 2055, an image of a reconstructed Ada showed the young girl's hair had changed from black to white. The records ten years later showed that Ada and Max were no longer on speaking terms. Ada had joined a nationalist militia called "The Scorpions," which were waging an unsanctioned warfare against the "enemies of Israel". With war looming on the horizon, Max's family urged him to flee Jaffa and settle in neighboring Neve Tzedek so that he could be closer to them. The image of Ada in the attached image, taken from a member of her unit, showed an adult Ada disfigured by some new explosion or fire and sporting new cybertechnology. Three years later there's an entry that speaks of Ada having died in a crash and its resulting explosion. Max talked about not wanting to look at her corpse and wanting to stay away from it, seeking to remember the Ada that was. In an entry dated May 2nd, 2075 a hairless and naked body of a young woman appearing to be in her twenties is shown with wires and tubes connecting to various parts of her anatomy. Max talks about how "her mannerisms are nearly identical to how they were before the crash." He speaks about a fresh start for both himself and the new Ada--the one he created. "I saw that woman's face," MC said. "When I opened the hatch to the drone's interior systems, I saw this woman's face staring back at me. Only difference is that she had white hair." A little over a year later, an entry showing a reply to an email exchange between Hersch, a Doctor Amin at Chemwerks Global and a Doctor Stein at Babylon revealed an angry and outraged Ada Adler railing against Max for some kind of betrayal. "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS? YOU LIED TO ME! WHY DID YOU TRY TO KEEP THIS PART OF MY PAST FROM ME? YOU LET ME DIE?! I DON'T EVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN! YOU'RE NOT MY DAD. YOU NEVER WERE AND YOU NEVER WILL BE." The body of the email revealed how Max used the young woman's memories prior to the crash and edited the portions of it that contained anything about the Scorpions and the war. He went further to admit that though all three men were silently agreed that Ada should have been left to expire on the operating table, post crash, he believed that with sufficient guidance they could re-create an innocent life that was robbed of a chance to live a normal life. "God help us all, I think we made the right decision in going forward with this project." Max wrote in closing. Killeroo felt a pang of emotion surge through him as some of the parallels of Max and Ada's story hit a little close home. He knew what it felt like for an adopted child to resent their parent--he experienced this with Spade for years. He quickly began packing all of the evidence the team found of Ada and Max's past into an empty suitcase. Before Edgar or MC could fill Catelyn in on what they found, the sniper's voice came in loud and clear over their comms; "Guys, we need to move now," she said in an elevated tone. "There are six drone mechs converging on your position--three westbound and another three coming in northbound. We have incoming..."