"High noon" still has a resonating historical significance not lost on the people of New Amsterdam. Old cowboy movies, complete with John Wayne standing in a dusty, old street are imprinted upon people's memories, helping them recall a simpler past where grudges could be settled with guns. By 2511, these movies have been remade countless times over with different set pieces, but nostalgia continues to be an ever-present factor. It's not nostalgia that drives the UNA soldiers and Morningstar agents into position during this hour, but the time itself serves as a reminder. A call to a different time and a different past.
Outside, the sun burns bright, but people sleep soundly, shades drawn securely over their windows to create a false darkness. This is why the UNA strikes at noon: their targets will be vulnerable, comforted by the presence of daylight only a drawn shade away,
Across town, Morningstar's agents are preparing for their own strike. One of them makes a joke about the non hour. He's told to shut it. They have fifteen minutes. Is everyone ready? Their uniforms are black, tightly fitting. Each of them pulls their mask over their faces. Up ahead, there's a wall to scale.
Fifteen minutes and the plan goes into motion. Each agent knows the costs of this mission. Their last one ended up with numerous dead – lost – with no reward. UNA soldiers are far more threatening than the armed guards Morningstar faced on that day, but the reward is more sure. Worth the risk. They're secure in what they need to do.
Then it's time. Across the city, the UNA soldiers descend in perfect unison. Separate but thinking with one mind, one goal. Eliminate a festering problem, one that only stands to grow in a world haunted by chaos and trauma. It's their job to set things right. To restore order to a world that is currently without.
About forty five minutes in to the widespread assault, El sends out a message to everyone in the safehouse. This time, zeir communication is immediate, without the steady scrolling of text. Prepared in advance:
Hey, so. Emergency everyone. Come to the safehouse ASAP. Morningstar agents are in trouble, including a number who have helped you behind the scenes. Gaby will tell you more once you get there.
Once everyone shows up, crowded inside the part of the safehouse with the cots, Gaby gives everyone the rundown. The risk. The place where the rest of the agents are – this last bit of information being shared with an uneasy edge, arms crossed and body language giving off her discomfort. There are other people at risk, people who can't fight, who try to undermine the corporations with their regular lives, doing their best to keep the people they care about safe from their rebellious activity.
After she hands out the gear, she insists that it must be returned. But Gaby isn't stupid. Her desperation is inherent in her decisions, in the information that follows: exposing most of the inactive safehouses, giving away the addresses of the people likely in danger. Every Morningstar contact in New Amsterdam is likely at risk. So far, agents in other megacities aren't being targeted – yet. But this operation could be a model for future UNA efforts to eliminate the Morningstar threat.
The safehouses are spread across the city. Typically present in disheveled and forgotten pieces of real estate, there will be squatters and homeless alike taking up space as they move inside with the agents. This may prove a risk, and they may need to be bribed to go elsewhere, offered food and supplies. Other safehouses will be beneath bars, convenience stores, and through the storage room in less expensive apartment buildings – businesses and buildings owned by long-time Morningstar agents, kept ready in the case of an emergency like this one.
None of the safehouses will be prepared for living with the exception of cots and communal restrooms ready for use. This is a problem, but not a priority. She'll ask that everyone get out there and save the lives of the agents. Bring them and their families in safely – the rest can be figured out after that.
> RESTORING ORDER
Given the limitations over real estate and space even in a city as large as New Amsterdam, every citizen lives in an apartment building. The great majority of them were meant to be built quickly, similar layouts and designs behind them. A quick bit of research will get anyone the floor plans for these places – they're publicly available, ready for potential tenants. Most of these places are no dreamhouse, however: small and contained, they show the lifestyle of the typical Morningstar agent.
Any of the agents with a child – and there will only ever be one per agent, with the restrictions on childbirth – will have a roomier place, with better furnishing and more space for a child to run and grow up. These places will afford the family within better privacy, and many of them have drones and advanced robotics to help maintain the household, even caring for their child and keeping the door locked as the UNA soldiers move inside.
Where it's viable, the majority of UNA soldiers will move through the front door of these buildings. Never numbered over five, these soldiers will take the endless staircase up, erasing what little chances there are to run into anyone along the way. The knocks are just a cover to soothe the close-packed neighbors. Not all are fooled, and that's where the calls to the NAPD come in – though the UNA is prepared for this, too. Ready to assert their jurisdiction. Rather: their bosses are prepared. These soldiers have their orders and beyond that, only follow their orders with their formidable physicality and swift training.
But they are physically assertive: most of them are tall, seemingly without gender within thick black, metal armor. Despite their size and their robotic carapace, they are human underneath. Their extensive armor doesn't slow them down, instead seeming to propel them forward in a fight, letting them predict their enemies' moves as the mask they wear provides diagnostics and likely attacks on the fly. They carry extensive weapons and supplies, all to wear down any opponents. When they fight together, their actions are perfectly complementary.
They won't start a fight, but as soldiers, they are prepared. Though they enter through the front door, they intend to leave through a window, into a large flying vehicle outside, ready to hold the targets and bring them to a temporary dropsite. They don't expect any assailants, anyone to provide trouble – but they wouldn't be very well-trained, well designed if they couldn't expect or deal with the unexpected. They won't shoot unless someone forces the matter. Their training means their stature should be enough to put down most threats.
> A WELL-LAID TRAP
Confident and well-trained, the Morningstar agents have the plan ahead of them all mapped out. They know the shifts, the patrol patterns, especially at hours like this one. Fewer, right now, but they aren't nonexistent. Several strike teams spread out, ready to move to dismantle the UNA soldiers on site as needed. These are combat-trained agents, but five versus three UNA soldiers, or two, or even one still leads to odds where they don't win. Morningstar knows these soldiers intimately, has studied and discerned their few weaknesses. But these UNA soldiers are formidable opponents.
UNA Soldiers en route to Morningstar's goal will be handled with an eerie lack of follow-up. No reports of reinforcements incoming. The swift-moving Morningstar agents are too focused on their goal, which is close now, to worry about the implications. Besides, their information told them most agents would be away on training exercises. Reinforcements being delayed is no surprise.
Each agent has their own reason for being here, for believing that Morningstar needs to be more proactive, more forceful in fighting back. They aren't career soldiers, but people who thought that they could wield a gun and change a world that hides its problems under false promises and shimmering gloss. Many are impatient, frustrated: they were given a lead on weapons in June. They weren't mislead then, at least not intentionally, but what they got instead was a bus full of disoriented people. This cache is real, verified, and vulnerable, housed here temporarily before being moved for some unknown operation.
Once the Morningstar agents are all inside, the concealed UNA soldiers left at the base line up in formation. Perfectly tailored for the fight ahead, they move onto the site. Any agents on lookout duty will see the UNA moving in, ready to lay waste to anyone in there. This is a trap, they message frantically. The very real weapons inside are meant to mock with false hope.
The UNA aren't worried about Morningstar making off with their toys. After all, this is just as planned.
> INTERLUDE
Numerous officers pass by the holding cells in the NAPD's twelfth precinct, talking softly about what can they even do, muttering to themselves. Others pop a squat nearby and call it a well-earned day off. Let those soldiers take care of whatever mess they're cleaning up. That's not their job.
It's around this time that a third, unidentified group, takes advantage of the chaos. Well-dressed despite what is a late hours right now, they head into the precinct to take care of a dangling loose end. They show credentials that link them to New Beijing's governing body and personal security, they claim the men temporarily known as Tak and Alexei. As they're brought out of their cells, they're injected with the same compulsory drug as always, leaving them veritable walking zombies at first, leaving them unable to speak or act as they're given orders that tell them to do otherwise.
The records of these men will disappear with this action, the two of them swept away into the back of an expensive four-door sedan. The whole incident erased. Two somehow anonymous men didn't kill semi-innocent bystanders during the festival. As long as the records can be trusted, that was a fantasy. A whimsy.
Morningstar cameras will see this sedan stop near the current safehouse, near the typical entrance, and order Hei and Jake out. "Stay here. Sit down. Don't do or say anything until someone comes to retrieve you. It'll be a bit – they're tied up right now."
The man in the passenger seat in the front rolls down his window, leaning forward on his arm. His face is concealed, utilizing technology that's not the same but not dissimilar to what Morningstar has at their disposal. "Try not to do anything else too stupid, will you? The cops are gonna have a bug up their asses about you idiots."
And then the sedan rolls away, lifting up and passing through the city. Morningstar cameras will spot a specific – or perhaps the more apt word is "suspicious" – lack of license plate.
> MEDI-UNITS
Each of the safehouses were designed for the worst case scenario. There is a medi-unit in all of the safehouses, a large and complex machine that can heal most ills, but given the expensive nature of their design and the risk of using them, they're not used lightly.
The medi-units are reserved for the direst of needs. come into play. Dependent on a person's time of death to bring them back to the living, they need the exact time so that someone can clock it in and prepare the restoration process correctly. There are many risks in lacking that information – someone may come back damaged, unhealed, hurt in some way. They may not live for long. Assuming that a body is brought in with a time of death, they'll be directed to a safehouse with a free unit.
The person is kept in a medically induced coma while the machine repairs their body. What dreams someone experiences will be at the end point – which can be between 48 and 60 hours – as they slowly surface, starting to return to the world of the living. As they surface, their mind will be encumbered by images of bright blue lights glowing, swirling, communicating – but language seems thoroughly out of reach.
Once the medi-unit opens, the person inside will be thirsty. Desperate for water. But there will be no other signs of the wear and tear on their bodies.
> FINAL OOC NOTES
Please refer to the OOC EVENT POST for this event for all OOC info, including suggestions for directions on how to engage with the event and the questions thread for any questions regarding this event. The outcome for this event will depend upon character plans and actions developed in both this OOC post, and any additional plots brought to the moderators. Please feel free to submit any game-changing plans to us under the questions thread – but we will be reading all comments on the post!
The Operation will continue until September 11, IC time. An aftermath wrap up post will be made on January 26 which will detail the resolution and fallout of the event.
As a reminder, there is one power level up available for this event. This will be granted for a thread of at least 5 action/log comments containing your character utilizing their power in some way. They will need to reach the 5 comments required by FEBRUARY 23 to be eligible. Submission will be handled on the wrap up post.
Our Activity Check will be posted tomorrow, January 20, at 9 PM UTC. It will run for seven days and close on January 27. We will not post a warning list.
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meadowlarklogs2019-01-19 09:58 pm
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Mmm.
[ an uncomfortable conversation to say the least. ]
Perhaps we should think about moving the child out of here before you start making plans on how to best tell them what has happened. There are still soldiers in the streets.
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[ Correction: kid. Well, they is still appropriate. Rey isn't really sure what gender they are anyway. But she realizes there's only one, at least, when they wake up, a groggy fearful noise chirping out from behind her. Rey whips around and her gaze softens. ]
We're not here to hurt you. I promise.
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Do not take too long. [ he tries -- really, he does -- to not sound as stern as usual. ] We need to move soon.
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We're not here to hurt you. [ She says it again. ] We work with your parents. They went away somewhere. We ... We need to take you somewhere else, somewhere safe. It's what they would have wanted for you.
[ The child doesn't look particularly convinced. Rey looks back at Illya and frowns. He does look imposing back there. ]
He's going to help me keep you safe until we get there. He's ... He's a superhero. Do you know what that is? [ The child nods. ] Right. So you see, you don't have to be afraid of anything.
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You should carry her.
[ it would be faster if the child was not tasked with walking. between her size and her fear, it would make things slower. ]
We'll be able to move faster and quieter.
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[ he shakes his head but the child is unrelenting. with a grumble of displeasure, illya reaches down to scoop up the child and maneuver her onto his back so he has his arms free. ]
Do not let go.
[ he eyes rey accusingly like this is somehow her fault. ]
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And keep quiet. [ Her voice is modulated, faintly. ] We're playing a game. [ She moves around Illya and takes the lead to exit the apartment, since he has the precious cargo. ]
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Let's go.
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They already came and went. They shouldn't need anything else.
She casts a panicked look at Illya, trying to parse it. Does this mean that the family could still be rescued? Could still be saved? The child's parents. Rey has that look on her face like "I'm about to make a bad decision." ]
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Don't. You'll get yourself killed.
[ and he doesn't want the child on his back to see that. ]
Be smart about this.
[ his voice is a low, heated whisper that no soldier will hear. but, rey will. ]
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[ Rey says it tightly. ]
Take her to the safehouse. Leave this to me.
[ If she dies, she dies. But it's worth it, in pursuit of this child's family. Who will miss her? But there is someone who would miss these Morningstar agents. ]
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Don't be ridiculous!
[ he can't help the way his tone turns hot, snappish. she's putting herself in unnecessary danger.]
You have no idea what you're going to face. Do you want to die?
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[ He doesn't. She doesn't. No one does. That's the point -- Rey's nobody, a lot less to lose than two parents of a child they're maybe about to orphan. And every minute she spends arguing here with Illya is a minute that the UNA can be getting away, spiriting them away to some cell somewhere or some shallow grave. ]
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The child is safe. That should be a priority. [ but if rey went out there, she could be hurt or killed. and then he'd be alone with only this child and while he's confident in his skills, he knows the target on his back would be huge. ]
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But she'd kept herself alive on Jakku for fifteen years, hoping her parents would come back. Kept herself safe, knowing that there was no point if she just got hurt or lost and her parents couldn't find her.
Just because her parents had been monsters, had never wanted her, didn't mean these would be the same. They might love their child. They might fight. And for now, it seems, they've been taken -- not killed. There's still hope.
With great effort she breaks away from the stairs and rejoins Illya and the child. ]
Where to?
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Go. We'll get there quickly and then you can come back. [ look at that, he'd tried to compromise. it was more than he usually tried to do when it came to working with others. ]
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[ She taps on her head. ]
We can't go back to ours.
[ That's not the order, at least. One of the other ones Morningstar had given them information about. But she's trusting Illya to navigate because Rey and cities have been having a bad time together. It's huge. ]
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There's...one nearby, I think. I don't know, I hate this device. Come on, I'll get us to where we need to be.
[ he starts down, finally, hoping the directions and information that he's picked up from the link is both correct and easily followed. he pulls a gun from the back of his pants, keeping it low and tells the child still clinging to him to not let go. ]
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It's alright. We're friends. We won't let anything happen to you.
[ At the very least, she seems to trust Rey's word. And then Rey pulls her gun out as well. She's less discrete with it, but for the time being, convenience is more important to her. The UNA is still swarming. ]
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Go.
[ he jerks his head, letting rey lead since he was weighted down with the child and then moves to follow her out. ]
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She grinds her teeth a little, and frustrated, says, ]
I don't know the way. I can't navigate here very well, and I've never been to this part of the city before. [ These Morningstar agents sure are fancy. ]
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Go. When we're out on the street, go left and keep close to the buildings.
[ see, he's got you. ]
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She nods and moves ahead of him, leading the way through a fire escape at the side of the building to avoid encountering the UNA soldiers who are still here. They drop out onto the street somewhat precariously as a result, and Rey's consistently glancing back to check on the kid, but she follows the instructions to a tee. ]
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There's a turn ahead. Go right. We're going to be in the open after that alley so be ready.
[ just in case. ]
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