The Planning Room
As Dante requested Tonya pick up supplies for the pair, the Asian girl nodded and vanished, reappearing half a minute later with a pair of flak jackets, two frag grenades and a belt consisting of flashbangs and smoke grenades. She handed Dante one of the frags and the belt along with the flak jacket, before vanishing and reappearing with the assault rifle. Ashley watched, letting the pair do their thing. She needed Tonya to get them in (otherwise the whole thing would be a lot riskier doing multiple trips with Killian and Trixie) so she was willing to put up with Dante, for now at least. For their part, Liu and Trixie seemed good with the plan, which was nice. Once the pair were ready to go, Ashley merely stepped forwards from the front of the room, grabbed her assault rifle from the desk and slid it into the holster on her back, and pulled a photo from her suit pockets. “This is the safe distance zone for the building. We can’t find any signs of communication monitoring but at the same time I’d rather not risk anything. You three will drop here and keep radio silence. Once you’re in, you can come back and that’ll be that. Oh, and we’ll have towels waiting for you once you’re back.” Taking a look at the photo, Tonya nodded and took Trixie’s hand in her left, stroking the back of it with her thumb as the invis shivered slightly at the contact. “I’m not him Trixie. And if you’re free then you can move on.” Tonya’s words seeming to calm the girl down slightly, she took Killian’s hand in her right and winked at Dante. “See you later big guy”. With that, she was gone and so began a fifteen-minute wait for Dante, Liu, and Ashley. Ashley didn’t bother trying to make conversation, instead checking an underground news site on her phone, keeping up to date on what was the latest news from other cells in the Resistance.
After a nervous fifteen minutes, Tonya and Killian reappeared in the room, with Tonya slightly damp and shivering. “You weren’t lying about it being wet.” The Asian girl didn’t sound upset, mostly just slightly cold. Ashley handed the girl a hot towel and Tonya began to dry off. Killian looked slightly awkward and Ashley placed a hand on his shoulder. “You did good Killian. We’ll be back shortly so try and stick out of trouble. Also, if you’re still up for it, I’d like to keep up with those classes this evening, so maybe you should have a think about what to do when we get back.” Ashley took Tonya’s hand before the girl then also took Dante’s, waiting for his assent before jumping. A second later the pair were standing in a girl’s bathroom, distinguishable by the lack of urinals, with Trixie who was also a bit wet. Ashley handed the girl a towel and she dried herself off quickly before handing it to Tonya who vanished again, reappearing with Liu. From there Ashley took point with Liu keeping the rear. Dante was behind Ashley (he had enough reason to not shoot her in the back for her to take it for this mission) with Tonya in between him and Trixie. They exited the bathroom and came out into a corridor, just as Ashley’s plans had said they would. The corridor was bare, a blue office carpet lining the floor and beige walls with the only break being the wooden doors at both ends as well as the door which had no sign on it. Ashley led them down the corridor, opening the door with a slight creak and the woman gave out an impressed whistle.
As the group filtered into the room, the cause for Ashley’s whistle became clear. Suspended in a tank in the middle of the room was Kasumi. Her face was hooked up to a breathing mask and it was clear that the woman’s body was alive. Needles stuck into her in various points through which nutrition was being pumped, answering the question of how she was still alive. The most striking feature, however, was the large cable that was connected to the back of her skull. Where before there had been her short-cropped hair, Kasumi’s head was shaved bald and a large data cable was connected to her skull which, flowing from her, split off into multiple cables that snaked into the ceiling. In front of Kasumi there was a control panel with a monitor and input keyboard. Ashley approached the desk and stared at it for a second. “Well, Dante, you’ve got experience with computers and hacking, so I’m going to defer to you to get Kasumi out.” Dante would find the computer had merely a terminal window, allowing him to enter shell commands to navigate the system. Once he had accessed the machine, he found he had two options, Release and Setup. Setup was password protected. “AUTHORISED RELEASE” required a verified code or (as a warning screen bluntly informed him) the machine would enter lockdown. To the side of the machine, however, sat a lever labelled “EMERGENCY LOCAL OVERRIDE”. EMERGENCY LOCAL OVERRIDE (as the sign next to it stated) would trigger offsite alarms and enter the building into lockdown. As the others combed over the room, finding little of particular relevance or use, the choice lay before Dante. All he had to do now was decide.