Kingville Forest Carrier Camp, Evening, Couple Weeks After the Last Issue
"Looks like we got the beginning of our battle plan set, then. Good work, boys." I commend my inner circle in the headquarters. "I'd like to give special thanks to Major Conrad Hauss for stepping up after so recently arriving here and helping us out as much as he did." Blaze and Nemesis pat him on the back.
"No problem, Colonel. It feels great strategizing with you again, sir." Hauss responds.
"You should've come sooner. I could've really used another military man at the beginning." I comment. Nemesis steps up to object. "Oh, right. I meant marine man, Nemesis. Sorry about that." Nemesis and I chuckle. "Alright, everyone get out. Except Hauss."
"You leavin' tomahow mornin' then?" Nemesis asks me. I nod a yes. Blaze and Nemesis nod in agreement and head out.
"I would've come sooner, sir. But this place is damn hard to find, yet alone know it exists in the first place." Hauss remarks with a smile.
"Well we wouldn't last very long if it was easy to find." I respond, laughing. There is something troubling me, however. I'm not sure I have Hauss' full commitment yet. I need to guarantee I have that before I take him out in the field. "It really is nice to have you around, Hauss, but I just want to make sure that you're, well, fully on board with this thing." I pause for a moment. "Cuz I know at the beginning it was extremely hard for me to do this, to openly fight against the nation I was putting my life on the line for not long ago." I glance at him to see him staring at the ground.
"I understand your concern, sir. Like I told you when I first got here, I was in the camps. I saw what they did. It's easy to help plan this stuff out, it's just, y'know, I don't if I'll be able to fight to win when the time comes," Hauss responds.
I sigh, and pull out my old combat knife. "I wasn't able to truly fight them until I had a realization. That realization was that the nation I fought for, that we fought for, all those times was gone, and people like the CBTF were the cause of its fall..." I turn towards him and look him right in the eyes. "That nation we fought for is dead, and they killed it." I point down towards the direction of the city. "You say you were in the camps, so you should be able to understand. The way I see it, we're still fighting for our country by fighting against those that took it away."
"Semper Fidelis, Colonel." He responds with a slight smile. I think he's convinced.
I grin. "Oorah."
Indigo City, Business Sector, The Next Day
The first step of our plan is to gather all the intel we possibly can on the CBTF. We need to know who we're fighting in order to fight them. I figured the best, most reliable way to do that is to take it from them directly. Only problem is no one in our camp is good enough with tech to get inside the CBTF system, but lucky for me, I think I know a guy that can help.
It's midday. Lunch hour. In the middle of a busy intersection. Lots of people. I push through the herds moving against me, and make my way to the corner, near a public phone. A wolf among sheep. I glance up to see the street camera across the street from me. I look around to make sure no CBTF or ICPD are around, then I stare at the camera.
"I need your help," I pause to check again for any police forces, then look back at the camera and continue, "And I need it now. I know you're watching, and we both know I wouldn't be doing this unless I needed to." I wait for a response. After about a minute I can see he's not going to help me willingly. "So you don't want to help me? That's alright. I planned for that. Tell you what, you help me or I'll snap one of these innocent, working people's necks." I wait a few seconds. The public phone rings. "Smart man." I walk over and pick up the phone. "Usually this is the other way around."
"How exactly did you know I would respond, Alexander? And what is it with you and snapping people's necks?"A warped voice responds, the same mysterious warped voice from all those months ago.
"I didn't know if it would work for sure, but I was pretty confident." I respond. "And oh, I uh, I didn't know you knew about the other times. Guess now that you point it out I do-"
"Doesn't matter. What is it you need me for and why on earth do you think I would be willing to help a terrorist?" The voice retorts.
"I'll tell you the specifics at a more secure location, but the just of it is I need you to do some hacking and gather some intel for me from CBTF headquarters. Figured you seem pretty good with tech." I answer back to him. "And ouch. You know about that too, huh? Well, I assume you'll help me for the same reason you haven't alerted any of the authorities about me, then. You're curious and you know I'll do whatever I have to do anyway, so you see no point in trying to stop me." A moment of silence ensues.
"The CBTF headquarters isn't on the open grid. They have a closed circuit mainframe run on private generators. You will have to actually enter the building and plug in there if you want to get anything of real value." The voice informs me.
"Not a problem. If you can ensure I get the intel I need once I'm in, I can get in." I respond. Another pause follows before I get a response.
"Do you have a writing utensil and something to write on nearby?"The distorted voice asks.
"I'll remember whatever you have to say." I respond and grin. He's in.
"You will need to get several, new, large memory space flash drives, a cell phone, and meet me at the following location..."
Indigo City, Better Buy, Later that Day
No, this isn't the location the warped voice told me to meet him at. I just remember Better Buy being the place to go to for everything tech wise, so here I am, getting the phone and flash drives. The greeter at the door threw me off a little. Kind of sad that man's job is to just say hello to people. It would've been really awkward if I didn't do something back, so I tell him it's wonderful weather we're having, he looks confused, then I remember it started raining outside, so I walk away shyly. But I bet some people don't even do anything, and that's just gotta be even more sad for the greeter considering that's his only job. Anyway, I got the cellphone and a handful of very, very expensive flash drives. Only problem is I don't have any money. Instead of trying to steal it though, which I don't think I'll be able to pull of with the greeter/guardian at the door, I'm going to try something different. I'm going to try to use my telepathy to force the cashier to pay for my things. The cashier has a huge smile on her face as I approach, seems excessively happy to be at work, and enjoys every moment she spends ringing up my items. It's concerning.
"Do you have a membership card, sir?" She says with a slaphappy smile. I shake my head no. "That'll be $397.89. Will you be paying with cash, sir?"
Here we go. I close me eyes, entering into full concentration. "You will pay for my items." I mutter under my breath and unknowingly make a gesture with my hand.
"Haha, how funny, sir! 'These aren't the flash drives we're looking for'! Are you going to see the movie next week?" The cashier asks me.
I don't understand it at all, I look at her with a dumbfounded expression for a moment, ignore it, close my eyes, and enter back into concentration and try again. "You will pay for my items." I mutter again with a wave of my hand.
The cashier laughs again. "That's right, sir! 'I don't want to sell you flash drives. I want to go home and rethink my life'!" Her face has a huge smile that slowly fades as I don't understand or respond yet again.
Now I'm getting frustrated. I look her dead in the eyes, she seems taken back by the stare and starts to back away. Sternly and coldly I say clearly, "You will pay for my things... Now." The cashier stares blankly, nods, pulls out her own credit card, walks to my side, pays for my things, then pockets her card. "You will get out of my way, get back to your position, and carry on your daily life." She moves out of my way. As I stroll out a large smile takes over my face. This, this is good t-
"Enjoy the rest of your day!" The greeter shouts.
"Damn you!" I jump back, scared again by the guardian of the door. Ah, hell. Almost made it all the way through without making a scene.
A Little While Later
So I went to the meeting place the mysterious voice told me to go to. He wasn't there, but a computer was. The computer had very simple instructions on it: I have to plug the cell phone into the adapter already in the computer, take the phone, which is still connected to the adapter, plug the adapter into either the CBTF Director's personal computer or at least a computer on that floor, plug the flash drives in at the same time, then wait for a progress bar to fill and a message saying complete to pull everything out, and that's it. That part seems easy enough. The main problem now is that I'll have to sneak into CBTF headquarters somehow. Fortunately for me, I think I have just the guy to set me up with that...
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