"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
no subject
So Prompto agrees and that's that. ]
Appreciated.
[ And she sucks in a breath — her side flares dully in protest and again when she hauls herself upright — pulls her mask taut, and dives in. The apartment layout is identical to the one she just left which is to her advantage; she works her way to the front slowly, from behind the kitchen counter to behind an armchair, inching closer. The armour is impossible to penetrate but she knows, now, that hers is too.
Which is why she makes the rash choice of standing and shooting at the UNA dead on, stunning one soldier with a well-aimed shot to the neck. He drops and lands on the one carrying the Morningstar agent who whirls around and shoots back — the bullets ricochet off her shoulder as she turns and fails to avoid them, the force sending her staggering back; from Prompto's angle it may look like the vest saves her, but she knows better now. Her clothes don't just obscure the blue glow of her newly activated ability; they hide the fact that her skin can turn into pure titanium. ]
no subject
[prompto whispers to himself, stopping for a short second to marvel at this honest to the gods badassery he is witnessing with his own two eyes. he's quick to recover, though, aiming again at the hands of the soldier in an attempt to have it drop its weapon.]
[it's clear now to the soldiers that there's more than one person attempting rescue, and so prompto moves closer to the front, keeping behind a wall to keep himself from getting shot. they've got to get the agent safe, that's their mission right now.]
[peering around, he's about to keep shooting a couple more rounds, when he notices another soldier walking in through the side door--peggy's blind spot.]
Check your right!
[he shoots at the newcomer instead, leaving his hiding spot and rushing the soldier to make himself a difficult target to focus on. but the main reason is for him to collect the weapon from the fallen soldier, amidst a flurry of jumps and rolls, using the automatic gun to belt out a nonstop round of bullets towards the new soldier.]
Buzz off! [another jump, and he's switching to his initial gun, shooting it thrice in the helmet, stunning it back for a bit.] Boom!
[he's into theatrics, forgive him miss peggy...]
no subject
The disarmed soldier doesn't seem like he's been taken out, stirring on the ground and pushing himself up. He hasn't seen her behind the furniture but he does make for Prompto — not a chance. She gets his attention with a stun shot to the back: it doesn't penetrate the armour but it does get his attention and he turns on her and advances. Good. The unconscious Morningstar agent lies on the ground and she doesn't want to lose them now.
The soldier rushes at her and she fires off one more shot before they collide and she's sent barreling into the wall with a grunt of pain, gun clattering to the ground. She narrows her focus, feels the shift in her gloved hand as flesh and bone becomes metal, and slams a mean right hook into the soldier's side and again, again, until the armour yields or he releases her. ]
no subject
[through peggy watching his back, prompto's managed to disarm the una soldier he has been investing his attention to. however, too close of an approach leads the soldier to grab hold of him by the collar of his clothes--plucking him off the ground with seeming ease before slamming him back down onto the nearby dining room table. his guns are lost to him, somewhere among the splintered wood and shattered glass.]
[it steals the air from prompto, but he can still hear the distinct sound of metal against whatever-crazy-strong-material-their-armor-is-made-from in the background. it rings sharp against his ears, making prompto all that more aware that this is not the time to be snoozing--no matter if he's wheezing half a lung out.]
[he uses his legs, kicks at the soldier that intends to crush or strangle him before it manages to, sluggish in his movements as he pulls himself up and reaches for one of the sturdy, metal stools, jumping on one foot as he manages to slam it against the soldier. it stumbles back into the kitchenette, but he knows it won't stay down for long.]
Shit, how about a break!
[even though he says this, prompto picks at the gun on his thigh holster (always keep an extra one) and finds a weak spot in the soldier peggy's fending off with rightful punches. the armor seems to be vulnerable to the constant heavy contact of her fist. he raises his arm, locks on the target, counts the rhythm of her punches, and shoots a proper bullet through the crack in the armor.]
[it should be enough for it to let go of peggy and give her some breathing room.]
[things aren't looking good, though. there's three soldiers they're going up against, and who is to say more won't come in, like mister kitchenette, who is raising itself up to counter prompto again?]
Man! These guys are relentless!
[he ducks out of the way just in time, kicking the soldier off its feet to earn them a few precious seconds of strategy and consideration for escape. no imminent threat in sight, he picks up his once discarded guns and heads on over to stand closer by peggy and where the agent is at.]
We need to get outta here pretty soon!
no subject
We can't leave her, [ she says, of the dead agent not three feet from their position. They can still bring her back at one of the safehouses. Death doesn't have to be permanent and she can't have been down longer than a minute or two before they arrived on the scene. ] You take one, I'll take the other.
[ Not the first time she's had to haul a body off a battlefield under fire. God, just like the war. ]
Go, I'll cover you.
[ She lets off a barrage of shots at the remaining UNA, aiming for the joints, vulnerable cracks in the armour left by the hail of fire. Hopefully it'll buy enough time for Prompto to grab one agent or the other, and once she's confident he's making his way out, she'll follow.
She promises. ]
no subject
[immediately, he messages her, worried that they might be overheard by these monsters.]
the building next door is pretty close to this one
if we can jump into it on way or another we can head to the safehouse right underneath it
a sewer leads into it i just checked the map
[but with that much, he's adjusting the weight he's carrying and rushing past the bullets she commands towards the una soldiers, exiting the apartment through the door.]
coast clear over here! broken window on the hallway two floors down
take the stairs
no soldiers in sight yet
heading down!
this is so late i'm sorry
Fairly confident.
So she ducks behind cover as Prompto's messages scroll across her vision then she takes a deep breath and dives for the other Morningstar agent, hauling them behind an overturned table and then heaving them into her arms with an almighty effort, ribs protesting all the way. ]
Right behind you.
[ She focuses, feeling the ripple of — something — across her back (turning into titanium from nape of the neck to tailbone), and then she runs. The bullets deflect off her, the force of them only serving to propel her forward, stumbling only once. She adjusts the agent in her arms into a fireman's carry once they're clear of danger and she reunites with Prompto in the alley between buildings. ]
Hurry, [ she says breathlessly, wincing — a stitch in her side or her injured ribs, what's the difference? ] They're right behind us. You all right?
no worries!!
[they can bust their way inside and head down into what he presumes is the basement.]
Still managing so I can't complain.
[there is no time to complain, anyway.]
[at the back door, prompto wastes no time in trying to decipher the code or pick at the system--he simply shoots at it, causing a malfunctioning and forcing the door to give way.]
There should be a door leading to the basement. There's a sewer grill that will lead to the safehouse, according to Gaby's info!
no subject
Careful, [ she murmurs, ears straining to listen for heavy boots and cocked weapons. But they make it below and she exhales slowly. ] I'll flag this safehouse with a warning for anyone near it. I doubt it's compromised but with the UNA so close, it's best we wait for the heat to die down.
After you.
no subject
[inside, he finds the door to the basement, which opens without much need to be unlocked. it's a quiet and and slow descent -- what with the bodies they're carrying additional to their own weight -- but prompto's setting his own down carefully on the floor before he rummages through the stacked boxes and other trash in the general location of sewer grill.]
[one which he finds, and he works quickly and dutifully into opening it up. it is, luckily, in respectable condition, and opens up the way once he finds the right side up.]
--there's a ladder leading down.
[which will suck trying to get the bodies down. it's dark, and so prompto grabs at the flashlight he had gathered from gaby's supply box, flicks it on and--]
It doesn't go too far down. Should we just climb down with the extra weight?
[...or throw them down? which he realizes sounds kind of... demeaning?]