Issue 1 Downtime

In downtown Maldon, an ice cream truck pulled into an alleyway. It parked and two guys in blue jumpsuits stepped out. A small and thin guy and a guy built like an ugly stack of bricks.

"All I'm saying is that people don't understand guys like us," the smaller guy says, carrying a toolbox, "Organizations wouldn't run without henchmen. That's just a fact."

The bigger guy grunts.

"Well, I think we should consider it," the smaller guy says, "I mean, could organizing really hurt? I heard some dudes working for Electro got a 20% increase in their percentages by joining up with 723."

Another grunt.

"Exactly. Especially with our specialized skills. Guys should be paying a premium for our talents," he replies, setting the toolbox down next to a building, "Christ, I'm getting sick of this shit."

Meanwhile, a mechanical eye peeked around the corner into the alley. More specifically, it rolled idly around the corner of the building, settling against the building to peer at the ice cream truck.

Code: Select all

Audio/visual transmission received

Good. Fucking finally...

The smaller man stretches up like he's made of rubber and begins installing something into the side of the building. It looks like a security camera.

"Hey, hand me some cable, will ya?"

The big guy goes to the truck and comes back with a length of cable. The small guy stretches his hand down and takes it.

"Thanks, mate."

Perfect, Cal thought as he studied the feed. Now... let's just wait for them to get the hell out of there.

Not much later, the two finished up, packed up there gear and drove away. All their efforts amounted to a brand new security camera in the alleyway.

There was a delay of about a half hour. Then a person in concealing trenchcoat, with a fedora obscuring his face, entered the alley, walking down until he was out of the camera's view. All right... something to climb on... Cal thought, looking around.

In the alleyway there was a few rickety boxes, a dumpster on wheels, and a fire escape on the building opposite the security camera.

Cal looked around, then started trying to shove the dumpster over to where the camera was. This, of course, was hampered by the fact that Cal wasn't a powerhouse. So it took a lot of convincing, and few hits from a can of WD40, to get the wheels turning.

The upshot was, he ended up standing on the dumpster to examine the camera.

It definitely looked like a security camera form the outside. There were only a couple of things wrong. First, it was set up to receive data but not transmit it if Cal was looking at the cables right.

Also, it was letting off a crazy amount of radiation for a little security camera. Not enough to be dangerous, but it was weird.

Cal frowned, getting out tools from his coat pocket and starting to unhook the camera as he tried to analyze the radiation.

It wouldn't take long to match the radiation signature.

The "camera" wasn't a camera at all.

It was a Danger Room projector.

"Oh what the FUCK," Cal muttered. He looked at it, then started searching for anything resembling a wireless antenna.

He'd find one easily enough. Someone had set the thing up to be set off remotely.

Cal did a quick job opening it up enough to disconnect the antenna. "Time to see what we've got going on here," he said.