Bots vs CRISPYs 2 13
Gloria didn't stop after decontamination. The slip slap recovery operation had almost certainly blown things for Malagasy Eats, needed to get them out now. Fortunately, down los are the definition of street smart and had started moving out of HK to facilitate pick up. Yolanda was willing, happy actually, to have them settle with her; refugees with a welcoming destination, it makes all the difference.
Just back to her bunk box, Ms. Silver fell face down on the floor, implored, poured her heart out to the LORD. The loss of half of the recovery team assigned to me. I feel like a young lieutenant in Vietnam. I thank you for the wise old "gunnery sergeant" Calahan, I tried to listen, but I just don't understand. It was a critical objective and we came up short. And mumbled in a "Jesus name", cause that's what you do.
The debrief was in 2 minutes. Sprightly Gloria didn't want to go, couldn't focus, but she was a PSE team leader, you have to rise to the occasion.
Calahan was, well, Calahan. Gruff, softened a bit by the goes with the territory losses, 6 from the recovery team, 2 team members working undercover as down los, 2 of the rookies.
Not the model speaker, hands hanging on for life on the tactical briefing podium. PSEs, this is why local law enforcement doesn't go in there. Not with people. They do enforcement and clean up with drones, robots. CRISPYs are accomplished at destroying them as well, but over time, there is an uneasy peace, there are rules of engagement; medical, utility, trash disposal those get sent, nobody hits them, in return Met sends recons to monitor the kitchen. This is where most robocop models are field tested.
I thought this was the dumbest mission ever envisioned when I first heard of it. Rescue people that built a biological CPU? That was not my first inclination! Over time, it has started to sink in to this hard head. If the CRISPYs are hard to deal with now, what happens if they have combat rats, if they merge AI and mutations, a slave army that is cheap to build. And while the sisters may try to keep all that knowledge to themselves, information has a way of leaking and that population will try almost anything on themselves.
A couple of you have asked about Darcey, thank you for your concern. Gloria and a couple volunteers facilitated her removal and any down los that wanted to go while we were packing up the mission. Ms. Silver has a connection in Madagascar and Darcey is one of the finest Malasy chefs so that should work out. In fact she left us some mofo gasy for breakfast. The down los that go with her have personal experience with the CRISPYs so that will come in handy. If there is one thing you can take to the bank, the sisters are going to capture some more of those LemRats. That's not our mission though, let's focus on what our team leader, Lieutenant Gloria Silver has to say.
Bang! Gloria remembered Joshua 8, it flashed through her mind electric on her spine, "Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai." She stood up and addressed the remainder of the squad. The zing zang IP is still in those cow's control. If they can capture some more LemRats, Heaven's Kitchen is the man made center of mutation for the planet; one big Cas-26 factory. Military grade drone rats with opposable thumbs is one thing we just don't want to have to deal with. So we are going back in.
The last mission was SSP Goal seeking styled. Our best analysis says we did have surprise, we had speed, but not enough, at +160 seconds things started to go South, and we stayed with our purpose. This time around there is no chance of surprise in terms of neighborhood breach. Heaven's Kitchen knows we are here, our Hybrid Cougar MRAPs are parked and fueled. There is a chance of surprise in them not knowing what else we can bring to the table. But SSP would be an exercise in futility.
This time we are going with a goal of relative superiority with two teams, us, team Alexa with some reinforcements that are inbound as the recovery team. Team Siri is an entirely new isolated team, no history of interagency coordination, that will be located in HK itself. If you have ever seen those old WWII movies, this is our French Underground.
At least one of them is also IDF, I've asked to meet face to face.
Over the next 4 hours we will be bringing in containers with our new Alexa teammates, we will brief you in a minute but the CRISPYs have never seen these. Gloria noticed a couple quick looks. Yes, some of you realize that also means they have not been tested in the worst possible conditions, the plan is to test them prior to the actual operation. If they have massive failures that will constitute a NO GO.
On command, 2 Charlie Bears, entered the room, squat heavily armored drones, weapons packs off for now. Bunch of these will be cleaning up anything the kaluptropic field doesn't neutralize.
If we are beefing up, then naturally so are they. Robusts and related gangs are in motion and headed this way. As always, the sooner the better, suns already up, but we need a few hours to fire up the other team. A hand belonging to a squad leader went up, Gloria looked and nodded, what about sniper drones, they did both get taken out, but they kept things from being worse.
Gloria smiled, JDJs do pack a punch, 6 sniper drones have been provisioned. Feel like being the drone herder?
Gloria motioned Calahan to come up. I realize some of you do not know the Lord. Feel free to stay or go. But we are going into the meat grinder, a completely unknown team, field testing our calvary, what could possibly go wrong. But some of us know that if the Lord is for us, who can be against us? Let's pray.
Calahan wasn't a particularly religious man, didn't go to church or anything like that, but they say there are no atheist's in the line up when it's going off; he prayed.
= = = Kaluptopic field
Alex squad rolled up looking like King Kamehameha buses on their way to football game, new stuff, infantry with no dents does not inspire confidence. Their number 1 was Lieutenant Know, Gloria would meet him alone, in the command center.
Know, entered CIC with leopard like movements, turned to see a gobsmacked Gloria, nothing, nothing in her past prepared her to face Wonks . . . twin, clone, brother, doppleganger, simulation, whatever! A little bigger, more muscular cut, but it was Know in a Wonk suit. Recover!
Gloria smiled, walked towards her fellow lieutenant with her hand of friendship opened. They shook, she looked into his eyes and it was like sucking on high voltage, wow. No love story coming, when she really felt Wonk, he was warm, considerate, Know was cold, calculating. And he clearly had a back story.
Time is always the enemy, the two independent teams needed SOWs. AIs did most of the work and their rigs were 95% similar. Alex squad had some wierd electronics and everything was first class. Whoever they were, they had to be funded by one of the Bs.
FILO, Alex squad would go in first, come out last. These electronics were some kind of fuzz-your-enemy transmissions. Worst case Know had the latest model hybrid Cougar, lot's of firepower. This might actually work Gloria thought to herself, Know looked at her directly, Gloria said with authority, mind your lanes, keep it tight, if you see something, say somthing, let's get er done.
Know nodded and replied. Relative superiority will go to zero if people lose focus. Listen up, we will be projecting a kaluptoic formed beam field around us. Our goal is to target the broadcast's strongest manifestation about 1 - 200m in the direction we are going. If anyone goofs up and breaks formation, there is a block wide kaluptopic field around the target, kind of a mess with your mind moat, even a minute feels like a side effect of Ambien.
Kaluptoic, Gloria thought skeptically. Kalupto, I know I've heard it, yeah that Greek word for darkness overshadowing meh. Well, this will be just like any other wiz bang gadget, this made it all the way to field test and anyone willing to commit that kind of funding, I mean this is Batman cave superhero grade hardware that someone was betting on success, (or willing to bet large and learn from failure), all that mental processing resulted in Gloria saying, How does it work?
Know shrugged, zero point energy goes all the way back to Nikolai Tesla. Scientists back then were baffled by what it is, but they could see it was increasing. The thump smack seemed to be a rate of change about equal to rising seas, but, Know said, shaking his head, it was obvious that was just some weird correlation, not attributable to causation.
And just what does this, Gloria paused ... field, finished Know, field do?
Know nodded, the impact on humans is partly sensory, partly cognitive, Know answered, covers, cloaks, makes invisible, think of it as a BlendIT for the mind. Since CRISPYs are always mutating themselves, we are always working on devices that can take assessments and record them, after all, you can't mutate what you can't measure. This wasn't considered very useful till someone observed a police officer try to walk down a street being irradiated by the field generator. Dude was lucky to get out alive.
And you expect me to believe this, asked Gloria?
Whether you believe in kaluptopic fields or not, you are going to have to pass through one to extract the cows and whatever they have. We have a small one, enough to kalupto you and your team before you hit the real thing. Remember your gas mask class and the banana oil test? This will be a lot like that, but the oil was less unpleasant.
Gloria's VR flashed a message. Know's order was approved. Gloria and her team were to report for kaluptropic experience certification, one more block on the chain. That bounded the mission start time till tomorrow. It takes several hours to recover and for sure they wanted to go in daylight.
First experience is always the most extreme briefed the NBC technician, that's why you are doing it now. Think of it as a partially effective vaccination, sort of like Nipah. Backslapper is, this guy's day job is high end sales and they say he is pretty good at it, must just delight in torturing his own team.
Synchronize your wrist bands on my count, directed the technician, normally we synchonize on port 37, but this is Plan B for when that don't work and you are going to try in in a kaluptopic field.
Stand by to field exposure, on my count, five, four, three, two, one. fire
You always wear your wrist band on your left hand because it is either closer for farther away from the heart, but it was protocol now. Synchorize is a fairly big deal operation, you essentially reset the box to a known secure operating system and the inserted blockiamond chip, by running your thumb and forefinger underneath the lower control pack and squinching them together twice. How hard could that be?
In a kaluptic field, very, nothing makes sense, everything is fuzzy, and best of all, you can't remember. Only two team members of Gloria's team accomplished the reset, her and a guy they called Loroupe after Tegla, compact, incredibly quick.
OK said Gloria, we know who scout leader is for this mission. Loroupe, you have the forward team. Going in stay tight with Alex, I don't know how much the field will help us but it sure does pack a whallop. Get some sleep team.
As she lay down in her bunk box fatiques and boots on, and calmed herself, getting ready for evening prayer and a thought, unbidden came into her brain I want another hit of kalupto, now that's amusing she thought to herself, its very addictive, people want to be blinded. Dear God, please grant that I can say, "And you should imitate me just as I imitate Christ", to my squad tomorrow.
Not all WPS squads are Christian, not by a long shot, one in particular seemed to have an Oakland Raider's crossed by professional wrestling approach to life. They were very good at gigs where they needed to be corrupt cops, or enforce law and order for the benefit of organized crime. They were Wonk's diciest squad, living on the red line in the sand. But, you have to have someone that can talk the talk on the border where the rule of law ends.
The Oh Dark Thirty alarm sounded, on your feet, let's get the party started. Shit, shower and shave, this could be your last chance for a while. 45 minute to saddle up. Silence was the word, move to the op tempo.
+ 0s Mission Go Command
Locked and loaded, it finally comes, move out.
Alexa's in the front of formation, 2 cars abreast. All of the cars have a field projector, but only the first 2 are illuminating, minimum power right now. Once you've gotten high, you can sense it when its close, you could see that as an undercurrent in the nervous systems of the troops. Five minutes to the kitchen.
Calahan's voice came over the radio, the wise old coach knew to take their minds off the mission until they engaged, fear is the mind killer. Do you know why they call this a kitchen. cause its the neighbohood, small city really, that is most like a kitchen. You have sinks for cleaning, knives for cutting, stoves or heating, fridges for cooling, so over time this morphed into the DIY DNA capital of the world.
+1s Sniper Drones α, β, and γ launch and move towards sortie area
And heaven, Gloria thought to herself as the engines started screaming as the convoy reached full speed ahead, heaven because they think to make themselves as God. We see that daily in Israel, we shall put that to the test in the kitchen. First flight of sniper drones passed overhead in surveillance mode.
+603s border to Heaven's Kitchen crossed
Alexa squad hits the border, fields at full intensity, not that anyone is really sure exactly where the line that must not be crossed is. The kaluptopic virgins are having their eggs scrambled, repeat offenders inhale deep, smile, flip the sign to closed, break. Does anyone have any brownies?
Alexa radio, did you see that?
Down lo just rode his bike in front of the formation right across the field.
Roger that, did he seem disoriented?
No sir, I think his brain metastasized the field as strength, energy and coordination.
Every PSE, man or woman, silently gave a little groan. The doctor strange o'scope the mission bankroller wanted to test made at least some portion of the bad guys, badder.
+ 660s Gloria's crosses the border
Charlie Bears from Alexa squad were already on site at ground zero. As the MRAPS surrounded the expected hostile area and maxed their projectors for about a minute. Then they shutdown and the PSEs entered the area working in tandem with the robots.
Clear, clear, clear, kept coming over the com system. Yes, it was the lab, yes its a digital forensicator's playground, but we have to slurp up what's here and get out. Any clues on the cows?
Fat lady's not ready to sing, Know replied. Suck up the bits, we'll rocket the digital and ducks off to herd some heifers.
The cows had a residence a couple blocks deeper into the kitchen. Now that they had come blazing into the neighborhood, no surprise and every step towards the cows was going to have to be earned. Alexa squad, move into penetration formation, we're going in. Forensicators had sucked as much data as possible dry, write it to a blockcrystal, loaded it onto a small transport rocket and fired it off. They had the original copy with them, but God bless off site backups.
+ 976s Going after the cows
Kaluptopic shields projecting, all of Alexa's Charlie Bears were assembled in lane of fire formation at the front, Gloria responsible for covering both their and her rear. Gotta do it.
Silver bullets everywhere, the recycled, reused Coors bottles, wham, a new barrage of silver bullet bottles, the skylark variety with lift and control surfaces suddenly filled the sky. When they dropped to about 10m they ripped open and dropped their payload to the ground. It was some sort of snake or worm, biologic. Gloria used her bodycam to send pictures to Controller. Mr. Wizard, what is it?
+ 1,000s, Controller replied, flatworms, they call them hammer heads, poison, use the flame throwers to clear a path, their heads are coated with sticky stuff so they can attach to your shoes and legs, then secrete toxic acid to burn your shoes or clothes and poison you when they get to the skin.
+ 1,033s, Smart, Gloria shot back, if they disable people on the way in. And we can't very well shoot them with tacticals.
+ 1,112s, breach, breach, breach, the forward team was into the building. One of the PSEs had rigged up one of the flamethrows to an MRAP fuel tank and was working to keep the flatworms outside of the perimeter. Controller found a sitrep from a Met incursion in the kitchen where the team had some success with the worms using wire cutters at the tip of the head. Apparently the pinchers release when the parasite is dead, smell of acid rising up from the pavement, try not to breath it.
+1, 146s Lt. Know leads his team into the breach, there are 3 cows, they find 1, got her wrapped like a Christmas turkey. Where are the other 2?
+1,157s Advance team found a lipstick note in the bathroom, "On safari, see you soon".
+1, 234s Gunfire increasing including heavies, time to take the cow and go. Another volley of the worms just as they needed to exit the building and board the egress craft. They don't pay me enough for this.
+1, 297s Gloria's team with the package is on the move. Turns out the Charlie Bears can step on flatworms, dancing robots with guns is dark humor at its most mediocre.
+1, 316s Alexa squad in motion, two MRAPs are platooning backwards keeping the field between the locals and the incursion team. Sniper drones are making life hell for the heavy operators, they are the most targeted combatants, another one bites the dust.
+1, 756s, as they roll into the park Calahan and Gloria high five, We've got the tools, Calahan says, and we've got the talent, Gloria finishes, Miller time.
Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints, time to blow this joint before they come with the check. The E in PSE stands for expert and you could see it in action as they shut down the camp and started to move out. The debrief would be in geography we control.
All in all, pretty smooth Gloria thought. Got 1 of the cows, the other 2 were certainly headed for Madagascar and Yolanda would be certain to try to welcome them appropriately. Couple PSEs in sick bay for worm wounds, but they would die; oh boy, another scar. Turns out the Charlie Bears were collecting DNA samples when they weren't needed on the firing line. Always use, nature doesn't favor mutations, so the chance of a malevolent superhero emerging from Heaven's Kitchen was low, but not zero, never hurts to have an update to the baseline, share it with the Met who, all in all, had worked out pretty well. And they had the IP from the factory, analysts and experts would go through it trying to understand how far they had progressed at being able to put a biologic AI CPU into a lemrat.
Gloria's bunk box was clean roomed and loaded on a transport, she had over 10 hours till debrief. She wasn't sure anything had ever felt as good as the decontamination shower scrubbing. Time for a little shuteye. As she started to drift her mind wondered, who was Know and what was the relationship to Wonk? But that would have to wait for the next duty cycle.
+ 0s Mission Go Command
+1s Sniper Drones α, β, and γ launch and move towards sortie area
+603s border to Heaven's Kitchen crossed
+ 15s Rescue and recovery team began to roll. Charlie Bears first, Cougar MRAPs following, Charlie Bears bringing up the rear.
+ 660s Gloria's crosses the border
+ 976s Going after the cows
Just back to her bunk box, Ms. Silver fell face down on the floor, implored, poured her heart out to the LORD. The loss of half of the recovery team assigned to me. I feel like a young lieutenant in Vietnam. I thank you for the wise old "gunnery sergeant" Calahan, I tried to listen, but I just don't understand. It was a critical objective and we came up short. And mumbled in a "Jesus name", cause that's what you do.
The debrief was in 2 minutes. Sprightly Gloria didn't want to go, couldn't focus, but she was a PSE team leader, you have to rise to the occasion.
Calahan was, well, Calahan. Gruff, softened a bit by the goes with the territory losses, 6 from the recovery team, 2 team members working undercover as down los, 2 of the rookies.
Not the model speaker, hands hanging on for life on the tactical briefing podium. PSEs, this is why local law enforcement doesn't go in there. Not with people. They do enforcement and clean up with drones, robots. CRISPYs are accomplished at destroying them as well, but over time, there is an uneasy peace, there are rules of engagement; medical, utility, trash disposal those get sent, nobody hits them, in return Met sends recons to monitor the kitchen. This is where most robocop models are field tested.
I thought this was the dumbest mission ever envisioned when I first heard of it. Rescue people that built a biological CPU? That was not my first inclination! Over time, it has started to sink in to this hard head. If the CRISPYs are hard to deal with now, what happens if they have combat rats, if they merge AI and mutations, a slave army that is cheap to build. And while the sisters may try to keep all that knowledge to themselves, information has a way of leaking and that population will try almost anything on themselves.
A couple of you have asked about Darcey, thank you for your concern. Gloria and a couple volunteers facilitated her removal and any down los that wanted to go while we were packing up the mission. Ms. Silver has a connection in Madagascar and Darcey is one of the finest Malasy chefs so that should work out. In fact she left us some mofo gasy for breakfast. The down los that go with her have personal experience with the CRISPYs so that will come in handy. If there is one thing you can take to the bank, the sisters are going to capture some more of those LemRats. That's not our mission though, let's focus on what our team leader, Lieutenant Gloria Silver has to say.
Bang! Gloria remembered Joshua 8, it flashed through her mind electric on her spine, "Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai." She stood up and addressed the remainder of the squad. The zing zang IP is still in those cow's control. If they can capture some more LemRats, Heaven's Kitchen is the man made center of mutation for the planet; one big Cas-26 factory. Military grade drone rats with opposable thumbs is one thing we just don't want to have to deal with. So we are going back in.
The last mission was SSP Goal seeking styled. Our best analysis says we did have surprise, we had speed, but not enough, at +160 seconds things started to go South, and we stayed with our purpose. This time around there is no chance of surprise in terms of neighborhood breach. Heaven's Kitchen knows we are here, our Hybrid Cougar MRAPs are parked and fueled. There is a chance of surprise in them not knowing what else we can bring to the table. But SSP would be an exercise in futility.
This time we are going with a goal of relative superiority with two teams, us, team Alexa with some reinforcements that are inbound as the recovery team. Team Siri is an entirely new isolated team, no history of interagency coordination, that will be located in HK itself. If you have ever seen those old WWII movies, this is our French Underground.
At least one of them is also IDF, I've asked to meet face to face.
Over the next 4 hours we will be bringing in containers with our new Alexa teammates, we will brief you in a minute but the CRISPYs have never seen these. Gloria noticed a couple quick looks. Yes, some of you realize that also means they have not been tested in the worst possible conditions, the plan is to test them prior to the actual operation. If they have massive failures that will constitute a NO GO.
On command, 2 Charlie Bears, entered the room, squat heavily armored drones, weapons packs off for now. Bunch of these will be cleaning up anything the kaluptropic field doesn't neutralize.
If we are beefing up, then naturally so are they. Robusts and related gangs are in motion and headed this way. As always, the sooner the better, suns already up, but we need a few hours to fire up the other team. A hand belonging to a squad leader went up, Gloria looked and nodded, what about sniper drones, they did both get taken out, but they kept things from being worse.
Gloria smiled, JDJs do pack a punch, 6 sniper drones have been provisioned. Feel like being the drone herder?
Gloria motioned Calahan to come up. I realize some of you do not know the Lord. Feel free to stay or go. But we are going into the meat grinder, a completely unknown team, field testing our calvary, what could possibly go wrong. But some of us know that if the Lord is for us, who can be against us? Let's pray.
Calahan wasn't a particularly religious man, didn't go to church or anything like that, but they say there are no atheist's in the line up when it's going off; he prayed.
= = = Kaluptopic field
Alex squad rolled up looking like King Kamehameha buses on their way to football game, new stuff, infantry with no dents does not inspire confidence. Their number 1 was Lieutenant Know, Gloria would meet him alone, in the command center.
Know, entered CIC with leopard like movements, turned to see a gobsmacked Gloria, nothing, nothing in her past prepared her to face Wonks . . . twin, clone, brother, doppleganger, simulation, whatever! A little bigger, more muscular cut, but it was Know in a Wonk suit. Recover!
Gloria smiled, walked towards her fellow lieutenant with her hand of friendship opened. They shook, she looked into his eyes and it was like sucking on high voltage, wow. No love story coming, when she really felt Wonk, he was warm, considerate, Know was cold, calculating. And he clearly had a back story.
Time is always the enemy, the two independent teams needed SOWs. AIs did most of the work and their rigs were 95% similar. Alex squad had some wierd electronics and everything was first class. Whoever they were, they had to be funded by one of the Bs.
FILO, Alex squad would go in first, come out last. These electronics were some kind of fuzz-your-enemy transmissions. Worst case Know had the latest model hybrid Cougar, lot's of firepower. This might actually work Gloria thought to herself, Know looked at her directly, Gloria said with authority, mind your lanes, keep it tight, if you see something, say somthing, let's get er done.
Know nodded and replied. Relative superiority will go to zero if people lose focus. Listen up, we will be projecting a kaluptoic formed beam field around us. Our goal is to target the broadcast's strongest manifestation about 1 - 200m in the direction we are going. If anyone goofs up and breaks formation, there is a block wide kaluptopic field around the target, kind of a mess with your mind moat, even a minute feels like a side effect of Ambien.
Kaluptoic, Gloria thought skeptically. Kalupto, I know I've heard it, yeah that Greek word for darkness overshadowing meh. Well, this will be just like any other wiz bang gadget, this made it all the way to field test and anyone willing to commit that kind of funding, I mean this is Batman cave superhero grade hardware that someone was betting on success, (or willing to bet large and learn from failure), all that mental processing resulted in Gloria saying, How does it work?
Know shrugged, zero point energy goes all the way back to Nikolai Tesla. Scientists back then were baffled by what it is, but they could see it was increasing. The thump smack seemed to be a rate of change about equal to rising seas, but, Know said, shaking his head, it was obvious that was just some weird correlation, not attributable to causation.
And just what does this, Gloria paused ... field, finished Know, field do?
Know nodded, the impact on humans is partly sensory, partly cognitive, Know answered, covers, cloaks, makes invisible, think of it as a BlendIT for the mind. Since CRISPYs are always mutating themselves, we are always working on devices that can take assessments and record them, after all, you can't mutate what you can't measure. This wasn't considered very useful till someone observed a police officer try to walk down a street being irradiated by the field generator. Dude was lucky to get out alive.
And you expect me to believe this, asked Gloria?
Whether you believe in kaluptopic fields or not, you are going to have to pass through one to extract the cows and whatever they have. We have a small one, enough to kalupto you and your team before you hit the real thing. Remember your gas mask class and the banana oil test? This will be a lot like that, but the oil was less unpleasant.
Gloria's VR flashed a message. Know's order was approved. Gloria and her team were to report for kaluptropic experience certification, one more block on the chain. That bounded the mission start time till tomorrow. It takes several hours to recover and for sure they wanted to go in daylight.
First experience is always the most extreme briefed the NBC technician, that's why you are doing it now. Think of it as a partially effective vaccination, sort of like Nipah. Backslapper is, this guy's day job is high end sales and they say he is pretty good at it, must just delight in torturing his own team.
Synchronize your wrist bands on my count, directed the technician, normally we synchonize on port 37, but this is Plan B for when that don't work and you are going to try in in a kaluptopic field.
Stand by to field exposure, on my count, five, four, three, two, one. fire
You always wear your wrist band on your left hand because it is either closer for farther away from the heart, but it was protocol now. Synchorize is a fairly big deal operation, you essentially reset the box to a known secure operating system and the inserted blockiamond chip, by running your thumb and forefinger underneath the lower control pack and squinching them together twice. How hard could that be?
In a kaluptic field, very, nothing makes sense, everything is fuzzy, and best of all, you can't remember. Only two team members of Gloria's team accomplished the reset, her and a guy they called Loroupe after Tegla, compact, incredibly quick.
OK said Gloria, we know who scout leader is for this mission. Loroupe, you have the forward team. Going in stay tight with Alex, I don't know how much the field will help us but it sure does pack a whallop. Get some sleep team.
As she lay down in her bunk box fatiques and boots on, and calmed herself, getting ready for evening prayer and a thought, unbidden came into her brain I want another hit of kalupto, now that's amusing she thought to herself, its very addictive, people want to be blinded. Dear God, please grant that I can say, "And you should imitate me just as I imitate Christ", to my squad tomorrow.
Not all WPS squads are Christian, not by a long shot, one in particular seemed to have an Oakland Raider's crossed by professional wrestling approach to life. They were very good at gigs where they needed to be corrupt cops, or enforce law and order for the benefit of organized crime. They were Wonk's diciest squad, living on the red line in the sand. But, you have to have someone that can talk the talk on the border where the rule of law ends.
The Oh Dark Thirty alarm sounded, on your feet, let's get the party started. Shit, shower and shave, this could be your last chance for a while. 45 minute to saddle up. Silence was the word, move to the op tempo.
+ 0s Mission Go Command
Locked and loaded, it finally comes, move out.
Alexa's in the front of formation, 2 cars abreast. All of the cars have a field projector, but only the first 2 are illuminating, minimum power right now. Once you've gotten high, you can sense it when its close, you could see that as an undercurrent in the nervous systems of the troops. Five minutes to the kitchen.
Calahan's voice came over the radio, the wise old coach knew to take their minds off the mission until they engaged, fear is the mind killer. Do you know why they call this a kitchen. cause its the neighbohood, small city really, that is most like a kitchen. You have sinks for cleaning, knives for cutting, stoves or heating, fridges for cooling, so over time this morphed into the DIY DNA capital of the world.
+1s Sniper Drones α, β, and γ launch and move towards sortie area
And heaven, Gloria thought to herself as the engines started screaming as the convoy reached full speed ahead, heaven because they think to make themselves as God. We see that daily in Israel, we shall put that to the test in the kitchen. First flight of sniper drones passed overhead in surveillance mode.
+603s border to Heaven's Kitchen crossed
Alexa squad hits the border, fields at full intensity, not that anyone is really sure exactly where the line that must not be crossed is. The kaluptopic virgins are having their eggs scrambled, repeat offenders inhale deep, smile, flip the sign to closed, break. Does anyone have any brownies?
Alexa radio, did you see that?
Down lo just rode his bike in front of the formation right across the field.
Roger that, did he seem disoriented?
No sir, I think his brain metastasized the field as strength, energy and coordination.
Every PSE, man or woman, silently gave a little groan. The doctor strange o'scope the mission bankroller wanted to test made at least some portion of the bad guys, badder.
+ 660s Gloria's crosses the border
Charlie Bears from Alexa squad were already on site at ground zero. As the MRAPS surrounded the expected hostile area and maxed their projectors for about a minute. Then they shutdown and the PSEs entered the area working in tandem with the robots.
Clear, clear, clear, kept coming over the com system. Yes, it was the lab, yes its a digital forensicator's playground, but we have to slurp up what's here and get out. Any clues on the cows?
Fat lady's not ready to sing, Know replied. Suck up the bits, we'll rocket the digital and ducks off to herd some heifers.
The cows had a residence a couple blocks deeper into the kitchen. Now that they had come blazing into the neighborhood, no surprise and every step towards the cows was going to have to be earned. Alexa squad, move into penetration formation, we're going in. Forensicators had sucked as much data as possible dry, write it to a blockcrystal, loaded it onto a small transport rocket and fired it off. They had the original copy with them, but God bless off site backups.
+ 976s Going after the cows
Kaluptopic shields projecting, all of Alexa's Charlie Bears were assembled in lane of fire formation at the front, Gloria responsible for covering both their and her rear. Gotta do it.
Silver bullets everywhere, the recycled, reused Coors bottles, wham, a new barrage of silver bullet bottles, the skylark variety with lift and control surfaces suddenly filled the sky. When they dropped to about 10m they ripped open and dropped their payload to the ground. It was some sort of snake or worm, biologic. Gloria used her bodycam to send pictures to Controller. Mr. Wizard, what is it?
+ 1,000s, Controller replied, flatworms, they call them hammer heads, poison, use the flame throwers to clear a path, their heads are coated with sticky stuff so they can attach to your shoes and legs, then secrete toxic acid to burn your shoes or clothes and poison you when they get to the skin.
+ 1,033s, Smart, Gloria shot back, if they disable people on the way in. And we can't very well shoot them with tacticals.
+ 1,112s, breach, breach, breach, the forward team was into the building. One of the PSEs had rigged up one of the flamethrows to an MRAP fuel tank and was working to keep the flatworms outside of the perimeter. Controller found a sitrep from a Met incursion in the kitchen where the team had some success with the worms using wire cutters at the tip of the head. Apparently the pinchers release when the parasite is dead, smell of acid rising up from the pavement, try not to breath it.
+1, 146s Lt. Know leads his team into the breach, there are 3 cows, they find 1, got her wrapped like a Christmas turkey. Where are the other 2?
+1,157s Advance team found a lipstick note in the bathroom, "On safari, see you soon".
+1, 234s Gunfire increasing including heavies, time to take the cow and go. Another volley of the worms just as they needed to exit the building and board the egress craft. They don't pay me enough for this.
+1, 297s Gloria's team with the package is on the move. Turns out the Charlie Bears can step on flatworms, dancing robots with guns is dark humor at its most mediocre.
+1, 316s Alexa squad in motion, two MRAPs are platooning backwards keeping the field between the locals and the incursion team. Sniper drones are making life hell for the heavy operators, they are the most targeted combatants, another one bites the dust.
+1, 756s, as they roll into the park Calahan and Gloria high five, We've got the tools, Calahan says, and we've got the talent, Gloria finishes, Miller time.
Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints, time to blow this joint before they come with the check. The E in PSE stands for expert and you could see it in action as they shut down the camp and started to move out. The debrief would be in geography we control.
All in all, pretty smooth Gloria thought. Got 1 of the cows, the other 2 were certainly headed for Madagascar and Yolanda would be certain to try to welcome them appropriately. Couple PSEs in sick bay for worm wounds, but they would die; oh boy, another scar. Turns out the Charlie Bears were collecting DNA samples when they weren't needed on the firing line. Always use, nature doesn't favor mutations, so the chance of a malevolent superhero emerging from Heaven's Kitchen was low, but not zero, never hurts to have an update to the baseline, share it with the Met who, all in all, had worked out pretty well. And they had the IP from the factory, analysts and experts would go through it trying to understand how far they had progressed at being able to put a biologic AI CPU into a lemrat.
Gloria's bunk box was clean roomed and loaded on a transport, she had over 10 hours till debrief. She wasn't sure anything had ever felt as good as the decontamination shower scrubbing. Time for a little shuteye. As she started to drift her mind wondered, who was Know and what was the relationship to Wonk? But that would have to wait for the next duty cycle.
+ 0s Mission Go Command
+1s Sniper Drones α, β, and γ launch and move towards sortie area
+603s border to Heaven's Kitchen crossed
+ 15s Rescue and recovery team began to roll. Charlie Bears first, Cougar MRAPs following, Charlie Bears bringing up the rear.
+ 660s Gloria's crosses the border
+ 976s Going after the cows
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