Participants:
| Scene Title | Prelude to Armageddon, Part II |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Most of the covert operations unit deploy to set up the final stages of Kazimir's grand design. |
| Date | January 3, 2009 |
Queens - Consolidated Edison Power Plant, Subterranean Rail Access
«Seven, seven, eight, six.»
A static voice crackles over an earpiece, and gloved hands receiving the numbers quickly punch in the corresponding numbers to a keypad recessed into a water-staineed concrete wall. A moment later, the hissing sound of moving hydraulics and scraping metal pushes a pair of reinforced steel doors open, revealing a continuation of a dark concrete-lined tunnel featuring old railway tracks.
«Доступ подтвердил. Мы двигаем внутри.»
Thickly accented Russian comes over the earpiece as the leather-gloved hand falls away. Sidestepping to face the door, bringing up a shoulder-strapped AR-15 to aim down the tunnel, the muscular form of Hans stands silently for a moment, before motioning ahead with two fingers. He turns his back to the tunnel after giving the orders, looking back down further lengths of the old subterranean subway access. He drops to a crouch, one knee touching the gravel at his feet, watching as other figures in black BDUs and body armor move quickly through the opened doorway.
«Ellinka, один мельчайший комплекс предпусковых операций.»
Two of Hans' fingers press on his earpiece as the soldiers move in, scanning the tunnel ahead of them with the faint glow of circular night-vision lenses turning their world a muted shade of green and black. When the last soldier moves in, Hans steps over to the doors backwards, then turns on his heels and rushes to catch up with the quickly moving group.
«Подтвержено.»
Queens - Consolidated Edison Power Plant, Rail Yard
"Hans is inside." Turning the microphone of her earpiece away from her mouth, Ellinka rises up from a crouch behind a freight car, looking back to a pair of black-masked soldiers in urban camouflage standing behind her. They nod with a muffled recognition of her intel, and watch as the blonde sniper lifts the enormous rifle off of her shoulder and moves down the rail yard amidst the many parked train cars.
«Ellinka, nós estamos no local da reunião. Que é o temporizador?»
She pauses as the voices comes over her comm, switching the microphone back in place as she leans up against the rail car. Hr eyes scan upwards, spotting a pair of figures moving across catwalks towards a lighted portion of the enormous power plant looming close by, the towering stacks billowing with white-gray smoke into the dark night's sky.
«Um minuto. O rei contatou-o ainda?»
Ellinka's Portugese is nowhere near as flunt as her Russian, and her words come off as halting and unnatural. When the men on the catwalk above make it to the scaffolding they walk crouched beneath the rows of lighted windows, disappearing out of sight beyond Ellinka's field of view. Once they've moved on, she looks down towards the above-ground rail entrance to the facility.
«Confirmado. Os túneis do acesso do vapor eram unguarded, apenas como você disse. Plantando as cargas agora, chica.»
Were Rico capable of sending a wink along with his voice, he most certainly would have there. Ellinka closes her eyes, straining an expression that for a moment belies her discomfort as she slings her large rifle over her shoulder by its strap, and climbs up the ladder attached to one side of the train car she'd been backed up against. Climbing up onto the roof, she lays flat and flips the tripod pegs for the gun out, racheting a bolt to extend the barrel to its full length with a heavy click.
«Eu alcancei a posição. Você é desobstruído para mover-se.»
Ellinka's voice, whispered into the microphone, is the last thing she need say to Rico. One eye presses up against the scope of her rifle, and she peers through the cross-haires to begin scanning through the lit windows, observing the security center, then the men in black uniforms crouched along the walls beneath the windows. "Sixteen seconds left…"
Queens - Consolidated Edison Power Plant, Security Center
Glass shatters, a sound breaking the silence of night as metal canisters come clattering down to the floor. "Wh—Holy shit!" Security officers in white collared shirts rise from their seats around a mainframe of computer terminals, keyboards and security screens. "Jesus christ!" One of the men rushes towards an alarm switch as the canisters begin spinning, spraying a white-gray gas through the room.
Luching for the switch, the security guard's legs begin to give way as the gas takes quick and immediate effect. He stumbles, trips, and falls forward to crash to the ground in a heavy thump. The other members of the security dtail begin to waveer and collapse one by one as the gas fills the room, billowing out through the one blown-out window.
As the last writhing guard struggles to retain consciousness, black-clas men with gas masks storm th room, quickly taking control of the security consoles. One man in the lead passes by the others, reaching up to press two fingers to the sie of an earpiece communicaton unit.
«Wir sind innen. Timer stellte auf sechs Minuten ein. Es ist Ihr Erscheinen jetzt.»
Rico's German isn't trribly good, but he gets the point across as best as he can to the man on the other line. Pausing by the end of the row of computer terminals, the gas-masked officer reaches out to open a door, moving inside slowly as he raises his AR-15 up to brace against his shoulder. The dark and cold room is filled with rows and racks of servers, flickering green and red lights almost looking like a christmas display from the traffic and activity of the security cluster.
«Bestätigend»
The booming voice on the other end is unmistakable as King's, and Rico gives a crooked smile behind the faceplate of his gas mask at the succinct way in which his accomplice manages to sum up things. "Affirmative.' Rico echoes the word in English with a laugh as he raises the rifle up just a bit more, and un opens fire on the server consoles in a sloppy and uncontrolled spray of bullets. The loud and unsilenced rifle rattles off a full clip of rounds int the servers, sending sparks and smoke rising up to the ceiling, where the smoke from the ruptured power supplies and demolished hard drives sets off the fire alarms, dropping the room into red-hued emergency lighting.
«Erhalten Sie, großer Mann gehend.»
Queens - Consolidated Edison Power Plant, Front Office
The loud roar of automatic gunfire fills the air, shattering windows, sending security guards splaying back to the ground with gurgling scrams as bullets rip through their bodies. The front doors are kicked in, followed by an enormous man in a long black leather jacket trimmed with a fur collar. His dark shin shines with beads of sweat across his brow as he aims his AK-47, opening fire on a security guard rushing to protect the women at the front desk.
Bullets rip through his chest, spraying the wall behind him with red. Immediately following behind King, a pair of young men in flannel hoodies come storming in, one holding his hands out with flames rising up off of his hands, laughing loudly. "Aw fuckin' right! About time for some goddamned pay back!"
The other young man rushes in and stoops down over the security guard on the floor, reaching down to grab him by the air and yank his head up, pressing the barrel of his Glock to his forehead. "Man, where the hell you keepin our brothers! Where they at!?" Bleary from the pain of a gunshot to his leg, the security guard chokes out the only answer he can imagine at the nonsensical words.
"W-what are— what are you talking about!? I don't know anything! Please!" The gun is pressed harder to his brow at his denial, and the young thug steps on his chest, forcing him to the ground again.
"Don't you fuckin' lie to me! Don't fuckin' lie! I know you got PARIAH here, I know this ain't just no power plant, bitch!" The thug spits down on the guard, sneering as he looms over him, and his pyrokinetic friend steps past, moving over to stand at King's side, then up to one of the active security cameras. He raises both hands, launching a volley of flames up towards it, turning it to so much molten slag fused to the concrete wall.
"Yo man, which way we gotta go to get to that HomeSec holding facility here?" The former member of PARIAH looks up to King, to which the enormous man only smiles, looking around to the others cameras in the room, raising his rifle to fire short burts at them individually. Then, once all of them are demolished, he turns his focus down to the young man at his side, rifle held at waist level.
"You can go see 'dem now." King mutters, and as confusion dawns on the pyrokinetic's face, King squeezes the trigger and unloads two controlled burstsa of gunfire into his chest, sending the young man flying back through a glass wall and info an office where several secretaries crouch, huddled in fear.
At the sound of the glass wall shattering, the othr young man who was interrogating the security guard looks up with confusion in his eyes, "W-what the— What the //fuck did you — //" His protests are silence by a flash of gunfire, the AK-47 perforating his body with a hail of bullets, sending him down to the side of the security guard, who's whimpering and fearful protests only grow to confused panic as King's heavy bootfalls come thumping over.
There is a loud clicking clack as King ejects one magazine, reaching into his jacket for another, slapping it into place on the underside of the gun. "W-who are you!? W-what are you — " A renewed hail of gunfire aimed at the man on the floor rips across his chest, spraying the air with a fin red mist. The secretaries cowerng in the office continu to scream, and as King turns around, raising the rifle to his shoulder, his eyes narrow.
Soon, they're quiet too.
Queens - Consolidated Edison Power Plant, Direct Steam Control Tunnel
"The alarm has been triggered," Marching past a small group of men in black body armor, Hans directs his focus to a cluster of discolored piping and cabling fastened to one of the nearby concrete walls. One of the men reaches within the cluster, opening up a maintenance box to settle inside a small electronic device, snipping with a wire cutter to splice in the device to whatever the spaghetti-mess of colored wires inside connects to. "We have six minutes before first response get to the facility, sixteen minutes to get to the rendezvous point."
"All set, sir. This is the last one." The lid is slapped close and the locking meechanism re-armed with a series of button punches on a small keypad. Hans turns to the soldier, nodding his head befor turning to the sounds of rushing bootfalls as another trio of black-clad soldiers make their way around the corner to the pipe junction.
"Charges at the landline terminals have been set, sir. Routing devices are connected and armed on the Manhattan outbound lines." At the young soldier's report, Hans gives a nod, waiting expectantly for one last piece of information. "Zero-presence profile maintained, sir."
"We're out." Hans calls out, waving one hand in the air as he readies his assault rifle, making his way down the hall past the other soldiers.
Queens - Consolidated Edison Power Plant, Above-Ground Rail Yard
Rolling over the side of the rail car, Ellinka drops down into a crouch on the ground. The pair of osldiers waiting for her give silent nods as she waves one hand to move away from the power plant. The three set off running, gravel cruching undr heavy boots under the cover of night. They only come to a stop at the head of one of the cars, sliding open a door to an empty boxcar, one soldier climbing up and in first, followed by another, then Ellinka.
The sniper crouches in the shadow of the doorway, listening for the sound that will confirm her escape. When the rumbling roar and hiss of the train's engine starting breaks the silence of night, Ellinka's tension bleeds away like the pressure from the train's brakes. Unknowing of the situation going on inside of the power plant, the scheduled departure of the empty train continues like clockwork, and as the engine begins to pull away from the facility, Ellinka slides the door closed to bathe the car in darkness.
Queens - Consolidated Edison Power Plant, Security Center
"Time's up, we're clocking out." Rico's voice comes out muffled through his gas mask as he gives the order to his squad, moving thorugh the security control room, stepping over the bodies of the unconscious guards. He stops, looking back over his shoulder to the server room, then nods once more to his men before making his way out onto the walkway outside.
As he steps out onto the walkway, Rico's eyes settle on the train pulling out from the power plant. He turns to look to the river beyond, then to the gas-masked men that step out onto the walkway with him. "Set the detonator." Rico notes moving down a flight of metal stairs, pulling off his gas mask to tuck under his arm, free hand moving to retrieve a rolled cigarette from a pocket on his flak jacket and a lighter.
His gloved fingers pinch the end of the cigarette, another hand rising up to flick the lighter open, that dancing flame setting the end of the cigarette alight, smoke drawn back in the first luxurious breath, soon exhaled out through his nose. The clanking sounds of his fellow soldiers making their way down the stairs disrupts the peace of a victory cigarette, and Rico's dark eyes peer side-long at one of them, head tilting to the side.
"We're…" Their commander's casual nature seems to cause some concern, "Still meeting at the Zodiac Raft, sir?" Rico nods, wordlessly, and draws in one more breath of smoke before plucking the cigarette from his lips, making his way down the stairs as he places his lighter in his pocket, retrieving a small handheld device in the other.
"Si." He says casually, pressing a button as the improvised explosives in the security room detonate, sending a ball of fire rising up high enough into the air that it can be seen from across the river, showering glass raining down on the ground around them as they walk. While both soldiers jump at the sound of the sudden explosion, Rico merely strolls non-challantly across the walkway down towards the shoreline, "Si, we are going to the raft." Business as usual.
Queens - Consolidated Edison Power Plant, Front Office
Strolling out of the front of the ConEdison Power Plant, King can already see the spotlight of a distant helicopter approaching the penninsula the facility is built upon. He smiles, wryly, moving over to an open sewer access hatch as he shoulders. his rifle. The flames rising up from the southwest corner of the building, and the plume of rising smoke will help to draw attention to this operation, but attention in all of the wrong places.
He turns his head, looking back through the front doors, to the bodies strewn across the floor, giving a nod of his head in silence. "Pray be to th' worl'." King says in a hushed voice, "For now it is time for th' end t'come, an' all its people t'be judged." He looks down into the access tunnel, crouching down to swing his legs around and climb partway inside.
"But it is my time, t'hunt once more." His free hand moves up to pull the manhole cover acros the pavement with a grinding sound. "I have t'fine me a lost bird." The lid slams shut as King pulls his fingers away, and leaving the world to wonder about what truly happened here.
QUEENS — Just after 10:00pm Eastern Daylight Time, New York Police and Rescue were alerted by means of networked alarms to an emergency situation at the Consolidated Edison Power Plant. When police arrived, they discovered the bodies of Juan Carlos Rivieria, 26, Evolved, and Michael Garland, 24, Non-Evolved inside along with the bodies of seven on-duty security guards and eight members of the Consolidated Edison night staff.
Further damage was seen at the security office of the power plant where, according to initial reports, an improvised explosive was detonated, taking the lives of six security workers maintaining the plant overnight.
Police and Homeland Security were dispatched to the scene. It is believed that two of the perpetrators, scene on surviving video surveillance footage, were former members of thee now defunct Pro-Evolved terrorist organization PARIAH, which was taken down by a joint NYPD effort earlier last month.
A third un-named accomplice to the two, who was not found at th scene is described to be an african american male in his mid to late 30s, roughly seven feet tall and 300 to 350 pounds. The Department of Homeland Security will be releasing portion of the video footage later today.
Anyone with information to the nature of this attack is encouraged to report directly to the NYPD information hotline featured at the end of this article.
 January 3rd: Nothing Fancy |
Previously in this storyline… Next in this storyline… |
 January 3rd: Of Course Velvet Elvis is Art |